Slashdot Mirror
Bruce Schneier vs. the TSA
An anonymous reader writes "Bruce Schneier has posted a huge recap of the controversy over TSA body scanners, including more information about the lawsuit he joined to ban them. There's too much news to summarize, but it covers everything from Penn Jillette's and Dave Barry's grope stories, to Israeli experts who say this isn't needed and hasn't ever stopped a bomb, to the three-year-old girl who was traumatized by being groped and much, much more."
Another reader passed along a related article, which says, "Congressman Ron Paul lashed out at the TSA yesterday and introduced a bill aimed at stopping federal abuse of passengers. Paul’s proposed legislation would pave the way for TSA employees to be sued for feeling up Americans and putting them through unsafe naked body scanners."
Ron Paul is a Republican by convenience. In reality, he mainly belongs to the Deluded Insane Libertarian Party For The Deluded And Insane. Ron Paul's chief good point is that he's smarter than that chromosomally-damaged offspring of his, Rand Paul.
Go ahead all you retarded Randite mods, mod this down. I've got more karma than you braindead halfwits have neurons.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
how is scanning teenagers not considered manufacturing CP?
we all know the images will be saved, they have to be. After all, what kind of security outfit would not want the capability to go back and look at the images after a future terror attempt happens? Of course they'll want to go back and review surveillance footage and these images, to see if they need to change thresholds or procedures, to see if/what they missed.
So given that it's a given they are saving them for forensics purposes (and perhaps for evidenciary purposes if a terrorist was brough to trial), isn't this the outright manufacture of child porn?
Why is that a country founded on the ideological rejection of tyranny is creeping ever closer to the text book example of abuses of power?
Ron Paul stood for nomination as Republican presidential candidate. This got a lot of attention on Slashdot. If there's anyone here who doesn't know that he's a Republican, they must have been asleep for the past few years. No one puts a (D) after Obama or Pelosi - it's assumed that everyone already knows their affiliation.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Oh, to the slashbots, Ron Paul is far WORSE than being a Republican: He is a Republican who actually BELIEVES in smaller government, who has consistently acted on those grounds, and campaigns for it. He is a Libertarian in disguise! He must be reviled at every turn, and any time he does good, it must be drowned out! slashbots cannot let the idea of personal responsibility and small government take hold - while they are quite happy to see the government prevented from interfering with their vices, the idea that the government won't give them free stuff and that they might actually be held accountable for their own actions and the consequences thereof - that's just crazy talk.
www.eFax.com are spammers
It's been a while since the 9/11 attacks, and maybe later updated information was hidden back in the classified ads of my newspaper - but I thought that the consensus was the 9/11 hijackers did not bring their boxcutters onto the plane with them. So these increasingly intrusive TSA make-work tactics would have had zero effect on the worst terrorist attack in US history.
Not to mention that, post 9/11, passengers and crew realize now that modern-day hijackers are mainly interested in killing everyone on the plane. So in the attempts that have followed, passengers and/or the crew have successfully thwarted those attempts. That's the real solution - an aware public.
These silly "solutions" the TSA keeps rolling out don't seem to be accomplishing anything other than annoying air travelers. If any of these measures had actually demonstrably stopped even one attempted attack, don't you think the TSA would be crowing it from the rooftops?
#DeleteChrome
I think there should be a criminal investigation into Chertoff and his company that sells them
how he has the audacity to recommend them as part of his goverment job, then go work for the company that makes them just shows you the standards of his ethics, makes you wonder how he came by those millions in his bank account
Dignity, honour and shame are words that are sorely missing in Washington
I think you're being a bit paranoid.
First, I think slashdotters are fairly familiar with who Ron Paul is and what party he belongs to. Second, that's a direct quote from the news article, which doesn't note his party affiliation either. So, unless you think slashdot editors have the power to manipulate other journalists to leave off Ron Paul's party affiliation to conform to your perceived bias, I can't see any sort of basis for your belief.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Torture, okay. Wiretapping, ok. Touching my daughter....woah, slow down, Tex.
It all started on 9/11, when instead of reacting to the attacks as a matter for coordinated worldwide policing, we elevated those fuckers to the same status as a nation-state and decided to declare war on anyone and everyone who didn't instantly get in line behind us. We stoked our own fear to an insane degree, and it's already boomeranged back on us in so many ways. This is just one more self-inflicted wound in a long line of idiotic mistakes we've made over the last nine years.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Of course you have just presented yourself as a person who cares more about someone's party affiliation than the actual content of whatever they are saying. Did you even bother to read - never mind, I know the answer. Just keep voting for your party and hope that things will get better. They won't. What the hell is the point of giving someone a vote when they don't even understand or care what they're voting for? /rant
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I would feel safer if we got rid of the TSA and just had one or two fully decked out marines on board each flight. Would be cheaper too...
Every passenger deserves the right to request to have their enhanced patdown conducted in private, by the agents mom.
They also failed to include the party affiliation of Bruce Schneier, Penn and Dave Barry. And I bet they didn't even think to talk to Teller about this.
... aaand the fact that he is, amongst other things, also a religious loon who wants to remove the separation of state and religion and that he wants the US government to establish an Official Religion (it would be one of those few very critical remaining functions his much-much-smaller government would perform) has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it ... its just all us lazy slouches here trying to avoid "responsibility!" Its a conspiracy of the hippies, I tell you!
Did you just miss the story about the Oregon senator blocking COICA? I had to consult Wikipedia to find out that the guy was a democrat. Every time I've ever seen a story regarding specific politicians I don't recall seeing party affiliation. And Ron Paul is high profile enough that if you don't know his affiliation then you're not paying attention and not interested in these kinds of stories anyway.
I tend to find that Slashdot's readership is left-leaning, but you're really grasping at straws here and it's embarrassing.
If there's anyone here who doesn't know that he's a Republican, they must have been asleep for the past few years.
Or like me, they just don't care. Not my country - not my problem*.
*Ron Paul's political affiliation.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
A few weeks ago, I flew out of Lihue, Kauai. They have one 'scanner'. I guess thats what it is. A fancier version of booth then the usual metal detector that they optionally put people through. As I waited in line, the only person they subjected to the extra scan was one hot looking blonde lady wearing a flimsy blouse, cutoff shorts and flip-flops.
Where do I sign up for one of these TSA jobs?
Have gnu, will travel.
In the wake of Transport Security Administration staff forcing a "full pat-down" on a three-year-old child, Catholic priests have been clamouring to work for the government department.
The TSA, which has apprehended only slightly less than one terrorist in its nine years of operation, welcomed the new recruits to the fold. "We need people with experience in dealing with young people," said TSA head John Pistole, "in telling people what to do and in making the innocent feel guilty. And the enthusiasm! They're not your typical bored minimum-wager, no way! Also, they have better uniforms."
Mr Pistole reiterated the patriotic duty that drives the TSA in their work. "Fondling little girls' genitals is vital to protecting America from TERRORISTS. Remember: if TSA staff can't finger your daughter, the TERRORISTS have won!" He then strangled a kitten for our photographer.
Cardinal Bernard Law returned to America from the Vatican especially for the opportunity to create government-funded child pornography with the new "naked" scanners. "It's top quality stuff, too. The tears, the pain — the things that make this sort of thing really worthwhile."
"They were nasty men," said three-year-old TSA molestee Mandy Simon. "But it clearly demonstrates the iron necessity of the holy Jihadic destruction of the West. Allahu akbar! Daddy? I done a boo-boo."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Is it just me, or do libertarians seem to believe that it's better to be abused by a corporation than by the government. Maybe they thing they'll be the one in the corporation that gets to do the abusing... I dunno
"Are they made from real Girl Scouts?" ~Wednesday Addams
Only because the terrorists are Muslims do we pretend not to notice who keeps trying to blow up our planes.
If you don't like how a corporation does business, you're free not to do business with them.
Or start your own company that does thing "right". If the corporation you don't like is doing things so "wrong", surely you'd have no trouble beating them in the marketplace.
You mean the way that "Democrat" was plastered prominently all over the article immediately preceding this one, "Your Rights Online: Oregon Senator Seeks To Block COICA"?
You're an whining idiot who apparently needs to feel repressed in order to feel any self-worth.
You do know there's no bias to slashdot other than the preponderance of its readers, right?
Take your ritalin, Garth.
Our rights are being stripped. This is but the tip of the ice berg. The government Borg are forcing through S.510 to take away our control over our own food, NAIS and other things. The Patriot Act was just one example of this occulsion of freedom.
bet they didn't even think to talk to Teller about this.
I'm pretty sure he wouldn't say anything.
citation needed
> If you don't like how a corporation does business, you're free not to do business with them.
That's such a funny thing for someone to say on a tech forum.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
My employer has a lab in Haifa, and I know a number of folks who have traveled to Israel on business. They have also traveled to the US, post 9/11. They all state that the Israeli security folks are really detectives, who are very intelligent, ask misleading questions and evaluate the responses. All very "human / personal based." They all felt safe when entering the plane.
The US security seems to be base on technology. You have security folks, who are only capable of identifying a terrorist if the machine beeps.
This reminds me of how despite all the high tech satellite surveillance of Iraq, the wrong conclusions came out of the US intelligence agencies. Allen Dulles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles ) was much better at recognizing the higher value of "human intellegence" (HUMINT).
So what am I ranting about? I would rather be grilled a Inspector Columbo at a security check, than scanned by a machine operated by some doofus.
That would make me feel much safer.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
As a TSA employee its the only time I get to touch breasts.
link
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commissioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Oh please! Ron Paul is a rat. He just wants to privatize the system to get people to look away from the government. And his "show" bill to put congress people through the same process is just that, a show, something that would never pass, and he knows it.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
"The COICA copyright bill may have sailed through committee, but that doesn't mean it's a done deal. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, calling it the 'wrong medicine' to block copyright violations, is threatening to put a hold on the bill, which would block its adoption through at least the end of the year."
Senator Ron Wyden is a Democrat.
What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
Only thing Ron Paul has said or done that I agree with.
I don't agree that they skipped out on his party affiliation, just down the page they mention Ron Wyden's blocking COICA and don't mention party.
look him up. He has abused and manipulated his relationships with Homeland Security to try and make billions for him and his friends with the naked scanners. Part of the groping is to try and force people to use the scanners so they can sell more of them. Chertoff and Rapiscan Systems need to be indicted.
Your linked article is satire. But I didn't really know if it was satire until I read it through.
The terrorists have won.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
And he champions an old, scientifically discredited theory of economics.
I just saw a headline that they may be increasing the security fees. How high do the fees need to go before the TSA can be charged with prostitution for giving me that oh so thorough massage?
The TSA searches are causing greater loss of useable lifetime than terrorists ever could. Each year, about 800 million people have to arrive one hour earlier at the airport to wait in lines and now suffer increased humiliation. Human beings only live for 700,000 hours. The TSA is wasting over 1000 lifetimes each year.
Oops, put a space in that link.
I need to fly out west later this year. Would I get in any kind of trouble if I just showed up in a speedo and flip flops?
Amusingly, even Charles Krauthammer has written a column in the Washington Post about how it's a waste of time.
Probably because he's stuck in a wheelchair and nobody likes him.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why? What corporation are you FORCED to do business with, or else you'd die?
Yeah, but you need to keep in mind the number of airports israel has. Its easier to have good security when you only have a few airports to worry about. The US has hundreds.
haha, the only differense if Israeli method is just a different for of specious logic. Using people instead of machines.
And Columbo only works because the criminal confess for no logical reason.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I guess in the spirit of getting the public all jacked up over this, "anonymous reader" failed to notice that the linked article describes a single Israeli expert, not experts.
Honestly, I'm not sure why this is such a big deal -- it's as if we (Americans) think we have a God-given right to fly. Yet in everyday life, we must give up certain liberties; when I'm driving on public roads, I don't have the right to slam my foot to the floor and keep it there. But that's OK, because I voluntarily put myself in a car, on a public road.
In a similar fashion, I honestly don't mind a full-body scan (or whatever) at the airport, so long as I'm informed of this prior to buying my ticket. I see no reason why it's a violation of my rights, in the same way that I don't feel it's a violation of my rights to show a librarian the contents of my backpack when exiting the library. Knowingly putting yourself in a situation where your "normal" liberties must be compromised is your choice. You're welcome to take a bus, train, car or boat to your destination instead.
Racial profiling, on the other hand, is a completely different matter, IMHO.
If I don't like how a government conducts its business, I can always vote for a different one... Funny how everything is alike
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
but I don't let my dislike for him cloud my judgement of his individual ideas.
This is a good one; even though his wording in trollish and flamebait worthy.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The key difference is that Israeli security looks for terrorists, whereas American security looks for weapons*. If the security is done by the lowest paid employees that can only look at red vs green lights, it's never going to work.
* I'm quoting someone who deserves credit, but don't remember whom.
hey all state that the Israeli security folks are really detectives, who are very intelligent, ask misleading questions and evaluate the responses. All very "human / personal based." They all felt safe when entering the plane.
Every time I've been to Israel, these 'detectives' have spent a long time searching all my stuff. Since I was doing nothing wrong, clearly their Secret Detective Sense isn't working too good.
Needless to say, I have no desire ever to go back there, and I'm guessing the blonde German girl who was in the aisle alongside me last time crying her eyes out after her 'interview' won't be either.
Still don't like him. Hardcore libertarianism has its perks over neoconservatism when it comes to individual rights (as seen here), but he's also against any form of social care not provided by corporations. Being dominated by rich guys sucks regardless of whether they're private stockholders or politicians.
("Unemployed? Sucks to be you, doesn't it?")
Quoting from TFS of the previous story on /.
"The COICA copyright bill may have sailed through committee, but that doesn't mean it's a done deal. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, calling it the 'wrong medicine' to block copyright violations, is threatening to put a hold on the bill, which would block its adoption through at least the end of the year."
Ron Wyden is a Democrat and yet no (D) in that title either. Grow up and quit whining.
It is just you.
Libertarians believe that abuse is real crime, as opposed to thought (aka "hate") crimes of the left.
We also realize that do to the nature of corporatism corporations come and go, but government is for ever (more or less). It is easier to remove and demolish a corporation that it is to remove one bad law. So in a way, I'd rather have a corporation abusing me, than the government, one I have some recourse the other I have none.
Go, fly the airlines and try to get around the security theater (government) and out of the Porno Scans or Sexual Battery. You try to set up either of those for your "private" business and see how well that goes.
Or are you so dense that you think the answer is MORE government even when it is Government which is the problem? We just need more regulation (that doesn't work) don't we?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I'd rather Inspector Columbo also have scanning technology.
I'm smart enough to pass casual interrogation, there are MANY other people smarter than I, and that makes for a security hole.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
And no mater how often we vote for a different one ... it's always the same.
So the majority should be free to abuse the minority any way they want, since the majority controls the government? So slavery and genocide would be okay, as long as the majority supports it?
Why? What corporation are you FORCED to do business with, or else you'd die?
Pharmaceutical companies? That's one of them.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
wants to remove the separation of state and religion and that he wants the US government to establish an Official Religion
[citation needed]
Your brain is not a computer.
Supposedly corporations are limited in what they can do, for example in the video Ron Paul stated that if we did that the TSA did, we would be arrested (well, corporations cannot be arrested but they can be sued). The TSA, being fully backed by the government, apparently can legally molest us and save naked pictures of us, where a corporation would probably not have carte blanche, and would have legal ramifications for doing so.
I have not seen a report of any terrorist plot being foiled by a TSA screening. I have heard of federal employees being caught saving thousands of images that the public has been told that these machines cannot save or that the capability has been disabled. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. Ben Franklin said it before 9/11 "Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both"
JoeR
I hope that you at least feel better now :P
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
The way the Israeli's have handled the airport security issue sounds fantastic compare to our solution (US,Can,GB,...)
Any chance we can all push to use their methods??
If an employer requires you to travel as part of your job, and it can be argued that the TSA is taking nude photos and utilizing inappropriate touching during pat downs, what liability is an employer exposed to for making regular 'sexual assault' part of your job description?
You seem quite misinformed regarding Libertarians. Most libertarians do believe in government, regulations, police, fire departments etc. Their complaint regarding government is often that the wrong level is addressing an issue, that state or local levels should be handling a particular issue rather than the federal (national) level; that the causes of various problems vary from region to region and are better addressed at a more local level. They often believe in regulation to the extent that it creates a level playing field and ensures safe products and services. Their complaint regarding regulations is often targeted against overregulation where the goal is societal engineering (for example: more people should own houses rather than rent) or political grandstanding (violent video games for example). They believe law enforcement should prevent one person from harming another (smoking pot while driving ?), but if a person is engaging in some activity that harms no one else they should be left alone (smoking pot at home ?). They also believe that some things are best handled at the national level. For example national defense and interstate regulation and infrastructure. The typical libertarian doesn't seem very deluded.
Keep in mind that the folks you see on TV are not there because they represent the typical. They are usually there because they represent the most entertaining, or if you prefer the cynical then because they represent the stereotype the producer wishes to portray.
It is better to be abused by a corporation than a government. Outraged citizens can punish a corporation through their wallets and through public outcry. The government makes the laws and therefore is above the law, and they can't be punished with your wallet because you're required by law to pay taxes or go to jail. It's a lot harder to punish a government than a corporation, and it's even harder to change governments completely.
You mean there are people who actually think otherwise?
Upon what do you base claiming that the Austrian School of Economics is "scientifically" discredited?
Personally, I find using the term "scientific" with regard to any economic theory suspect.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Oh, to the slashbots, Ron Paul is far WORSE than being a Republican:
What the hell are you talking about? Ron Paul is idolized on slashdot by the vast majority of its posters (myself definitely excluded). Stop following the crowd but pretending you're a rebel. The "slashbots" are the ones who shriek RON PAUL 2012 every time a politics article is posted.
"Congressman Ron Paul lashed out at the TSA yesterday and introduced a bill aimed at stopping federal abuse of passengers. Paul’s proposed legislation would pave the way for TSA employees to be sued for feeling up Americans and putting them through unsafe naked body scanners."
Get that man a Klondike bar!
Bullshit.
Train people to conduct good security, and have them stationed at the airports. Make it a well-paying career and people might actually consider it as a career who might otherwise have avoided it. We may have more airports, but we also have more people who can be trained for the job, or are already trained.
That's because you're not voting for a different one. 98% of you vote for same thing, and the same people, the same party over and over. You've handed the government over to bureaucrats with 40 year careers. Check how far back some of the more famous ones go. Look at the actual numbers. The machine is your creation.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
The only reason why a corporation would be kept from abusing you is justice, which depends on laws, which are made by the government.
Remove the government and there will be no laws, hence no justice.
In such a setting, the strongest win. Good luck fighting the corporations then.
Please do call me dense. From you that seems to be a compliment.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
I just had this discussion with a friend earlier today. The millimeter wave scanners don't even USE x-ray radiation, and the backscatter uses about 1/100ththe radiation of a dental x-ray. I asked my friend if she was going to stop getting dental x-rays, she said no because they only do that once a year. can't really argue with that level of logic.
Doesn't the Austrian School say that consumer spending increases during recessions?
The electoral system in the United States is rigged; it makes it virtually impossible for anything other than two unpopular, nearly-identical parties to dominate. 90% of the population will hate these two parties but any attempts to change the system will result be shot down with "lol u threough ur votez awayz herp derp".
We need Condorcet voting.
You guys do know that these things do NOT produce nude photos right? I mean when you say it does, that's just hyperbole and exaggeration, right? The pictures from these things look barely human, no less some sexually erotic nude photo spread. Child pornography, really?
It does the privacy cause very, very little good when you sound this unmedicated paranoid delusional.
Yeah an exact replica of Israelie security may not be possible (The Ben Gurion handles about 10 million passengers an year, while US airports like JFK handle 45 million). But its the attitude that matters. You can use electronics to help trained humans handle the security, but no way can any advanced electronics operated by dumb and untrained humans handle security well.
Duh. Evil corporations might bring lawsuits against you, but evil governments will make it so you're never heard from again (and maybe your family too).
Look at the TSA bullshit. As a one-size-fits-all government entity with no free market competition, it doesn't give a shit about making you happy. They've flat-out stated that the "extended" patdowns will continue regardless of the massive backlash taking place, and that you must either let the government see you naked or let them grope your genitals. If you leave the security area, you can be fined $10,000 and hit with a lawsuit.
Private security agencies would be forced to listen to the complaints of airline customers or risk getting replaced by the airline with another agency that would care more about its customers. With the government, you can pretty much just fuck off, because they have no incentive to give a shit. They've already gotten their paychecks through your mandatory taxes.
How's this?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html
Ron Paul may have some decent ideas about smaller government, but he's a religious loon, creationist who doesn't believe in evolution.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
The only valid function of government is to prevent human rights from being violated and to to punish those who attempt to do so.
Unfortunately we don't have governments that do that, we have governments that become an active participant in the violation of human rights.
Throughout history, government has almost always been a tool of oppression. The only thing that changes is who the oppressor is; sometimes it's a single tyrant, sometimes it's "the majority".
The United States was the first government founded on the concept of protecting rather than suppressing freedom. It was a government with limited, clearly defined powers. Unfortunately it's slowly been turning into just another tool of oppression.
Some TSA works are people who used to be rent a cops and now they have some federal powers.
Really? Then why didn't he introduce a bill forbidding the molestation of passengers and exposure to harmful and ineffective scans? Or better yet, if he really believes in smaller governement he would introduce a bill eliminating the TSA all together since they are a wasteful ineffective agency that has done nothing to make anyone safer.
Instead he proposes a bill which says, in effect, "if you don't like how you are treated by the TSA you can spend a few hundred thousand dollars trying to sue the Federal Government. This is nothing more than political grandstanding and pretending to be "against big government".
The local power company? They're a regulated monopoly, yes. Only because they would do much worse damage as an unregulated natural monopoly.
After all, I am strangely colored.
You can't make millions of dollars of profit from security dogs and extra staff trained to interview people. No one will get rich by having an Air Marshal on every fight.
We have a system that would rather purchase 1000s of scanners that cost $150,000 each, and justify their use by forcing people to use them or be physically molested. This is not real security. This is justification for some people to get rich.
I was never a Paul fan but after reading his little essay on why the electoral college is needed (because red staters are simply better than blue staters and deserve to have their votes counted more) I lost what little use I had for the man.
We need Condorcet voting.
And that is different from open primaries how?
The electoral system in the United States is rigged...
*sigh* Please.. just stop... It's amazing how, when confronted with a problem, a person will always face everything but himself.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Maybe you (and I, I might add) would rather have an Inspector Columbo, but in the US of A...ain't gonna happen.
People would complain about being "profiled", based on race, etc. People would get asked those "misleading" questions, and claim they were being harrased due to (race|gender|sexual orientation|you name it). A few law suits into the matter, the approach would have to be abandoned. You see, *that* approach only works if it is applied *discriminantly*. You can't ask every person in the airport 15 minutes of questions...some you have to look at, and just say "safe", others, you think "possibly dangerous" and have to drill a little bit.
In the US, security theater will be buffet style, not made to order.
So what if a corporation dumps waste in the river, exposes workers to a toxic environment, over harvests the ocean or destroys entire species, abuses monopoly powers to destroy competition, or any number of negative externalities?
Cutting corners and not getting caught (or getting caught but the penalty being less than the gain) can be very profitable. Sometimes the damage being done is hidden long enough that a corporation flourishes. It's not hard for permanent damage to be be done on either a personal or a very large scale. Suing the corporation doesn't really fix the problem.
Also, corporations have no conscience, no remorse, and basically act like a sociopath.
Corporations don't have the rights of an individual, they have the privilege of acting as in individual in very specific ways.
"Are they made from real Girl Scouts?" ~Wednesday Addams
I just joined the Society for Steam-enabled Don't-touch-my-junk Flyers.
Be careful, those gears are sharp!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yes, but only on cheap beer.
How's this?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul148.html
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Exactly right. The excuse that Israel is smaller and has less to protect is bogus, considering that the US has 1/3 of a billion people, which means a larger pool of trainable people than Israel has.
The people who are so paranoid that they demand everyone on the plane they ride in be scoped and groped before they fly, those people need to stay home, because no one else around them is assaulted by the government looking for weapons.
The types of people who want to run your life, want you to be so terrified of your fellow citizen that you won't look to one another for help, you'll run to the nearest government agent first. That gives them the power they crave.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Some of us live in the True West.
You try flying thousands of miles and then compare that to the 2 day train ride or the 2 day car ride to get there.
Maybe for you people back East it might be easy to use high speed rail, but we don't HAVE any here.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Damned straight.
Just because some sheep want to live in Fear, doesn't mean you get to tread all over my Fourth Amendment Constitutional RIGHTS!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I need to fly out west later this year. Would I get in any kind of trouble if I just showed up in a speedo and flip flops?
Nah, not from my viewpoint.
Toss your overcoat on the scanner and away you go.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
And this: http://atheism.about.com/b/2007/08/06/authoritarian-or-libertarian-ron-paul-on-churchstate-separation-secularism.htm
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Is a guy with two first names.
So I can tell you don't even know what Condorcet voting is.
The current election system is the worst possible. Say (just as an example, not trying to imply that one is better than the other) that the country is 60% liberal, 40% conservative. Or vice versa, whatever your prejudices happen to be.
The election has two liberal candidates and one conservative candidate. The liberals split that vote 30%/30%, so the conservative wins with 40%. The 60% would have been happier if the other liberal candidate had won, so the election has not fairly captured the will of the people.
Primaries have the exact same problem, just pushed back a further step. Say in the primary, 60% of voters want a male candidate and 40% want female candidate, but there are two male candidates so they split the vote and the female wins -- again the election has failed.
Condorcet voting is the most elegant solution to this problem. Google it.
I have a solution! Old-school chastity belts!
They're made of nice thick iron, so they're going to block those nasty high-frequency rays that would otherwise scramble your chromosones in your junk. No worries of vacation nookie leading to mutant flipper babies!
Additionally, with the use of a nice thick lock, your junk remains safe from the molestation of nasty TSA agents.
For the ladies, a Leia-style bra may be in order. Hot grits optional.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
They don't know what they want.
They say they're against regulation, but then they say they want some government interference.
Make up your mind already.
The grown-ups have already decided that more government intervention is better than less government intervention.
Uh .. .what? The "grown-ups" (who I assume you do not number yourself among) have decided that more government intervention is better? Are you nuts? The question is not whether or not we need to reduce the size of Federal Government ... but what parts to cut.
Don't presume to speak for your betters.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The reference to Inspector Columbo was just a metaphor :) It doesn't have to be him. Just people with a certain training.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Because the airline screens are Government and nolonger private, I thin there is a First Amendment argument here.
The pat downs obviously would violate the fourth Amendment there is no probably cause to suspect you of a crime just because you are in an airport and wish to board a plane. The procedure also takes in excess of 10min in some cases so even if there was cause it may exceed the bounds of a Terry stop; finally people have attempted to turn around and leave the airport rather than submit and been denied which makes everyone feel that we are not free to leave; which than becomes false imprisonment.
Now the knee jerk response is going to be "but you don't have to go to the airport and get on a plane" its not a right; and therefore you cannot evoke the fourth. What if I live in New York and want to assemble with others in California later that afternoon? I could do so but for the fact the government is not letting my on a privately owned aircraft, that I purchased a ticket to get onto from a private carrier. By demanding I submit to my fourth amendment rights being violated they are infringing on my first amendment rights.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Debtor's Prisons were outlawed in the US in 1833
Being a spelling & grammar Nazi is a sign you do not poses the intelligence to contribute to the conversation
You are smart enough to pass casual interrogation, but not smart enough to smuggle a weapon past a backscatter scanner or a pat down?
Just how smart are you really?
Sadly, the only people left to do these jobs are doofuses. TSA could be seen as a welfare-ish jobs program in addition to a fear machine.
(Doofi? How would you pluralize that word?)
RON PAUL 2012!
-signed
a slashbot
Actually he is right about the scale... Israel's major airports (that can be counted in one hand) handle about 10 million passengers an year. Major airports in the US (easily >10) handle about 50 million each. So you easily need about 25 times the trained interrogators that Israel has (if you were to guard only the 10 major airports in the US). It would be impossible to train enough interrogators to handle all of the airports in the US. You may have to shutdown the small regional airports and make air transport less lucrative, even in larger airports, for this to work.
What you linked to was a common-sense statement about how some people feel about being pushed so hard to be "tolerant" that they can no longer exercise their own religion because those who have none might be offended by it. He doesn't come close to calling for an "Official Religion", only a tolerance from those who are the loudest in calling for tolerance for their own beliefs. As in "OMG, someone has put a copy of the Ten Commandments somewhere they can be seen from 'public land'. "
Perhaps because the machines really do use x-rays, which are 'ionizing radiation', rather than microwaves like cell phones and wifi gear.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
I just had this discussion with a friend earlier today. The millimeter wave scanners don't even USE x-ray radiation, and the backscatter uses about 1/100ththe radiation of a dental x-ray. I asked my friend if she was going to stop getting dental x-rays, she said no because they only do that once a year. can't really argue with that level of logic.
Well yeah because radiation exposure is cumulative. You don't see the dentist or the hygienist in the room when they take the x-ray, do you? They're always behind a lead screen. And there was a case a few years ago - some flight crews were suing over the constant radiation from flying at high altitudes - don't know what happened.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
Why cut government when you can expand it and make it a bigger socialist organization?
The vast majority of the public does not care about freedom. They just want services.
Did you reply to the wrong post or something? I'm not implying those are currently viable alternatives for everyone. I'm saying that resorting to alternatives does nothing to ultimately protect your freedom.
So what you're saying is that under current law scanning ceases to be legal as soon as teens start posing suggestively?
Scale doesn't matter. There's no shortage of proven interrogation techniques that work, and they're very easy to learn. I learned the Reid Technique in the span of about a month. Saying it's impossible to train people is a plain copout, and excuse making.
Om, nomnomnom...
to invest in a good pair of tinfoil shorts to go along with my tinfoil hat.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Some of us would rather be abused by *neither.* Some of us aren't deluded enough to think that multinational corporations will be affected by the boycotts of the few people who pay enough attention to what's going on to know what they're boycotting about.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
They often believe in regulation to the extent that it creates a level playing field and ensures safe products and services. Their complaint regarding regulations is often targeted against overregulation where the goal is societal engineering (for example: more people should own houses rather than rent) or political grandstanding (violent video games for example).
They say they're against regulation, but then they say they want some government interference.
No, they are against overregulation. From a libertarian perspective desired regulation would be something like transparency in banking and finance. Undesired regulation and interference might be regulations engineering a greater level of home ownership rather than renting.
The grown-ups have already decided that more government intervention is better than less government intervention.
Really, how did that intervention to increase home ownership and decrease renting work out?
the conclusion had nothing to do with he tech. Information was filtered so the President only heard what he wanted.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
My point is that some of us don't even HAVE those alternatives available to us.
The argument might appear, on the surface, to make sense to someone who lives in the NorthEast where they can take a fast train from NYC to DC, but to many of us, these are not realistic options.
If I lived in Europe, it wouldn't be much of an inconvenience, as there are fast trains, so flying is not as important.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
So what am I ranting about? I would rather be grilled a Inspector Columbo at a security check, than scanned by a machine operated by some doofus.
So you're now grilled by Inspector Gadget, so they're meeting you half-way :-)
MichaelKrispeit12512 = too stupid to remember the password he used this morning.
The primary value of catching the "perpetrators" is deterrence for others.
The primary value is stopping further activity by the perpetrators. The secondary value is deterring others. By treating this as a war, we have not only failed to take out the perpetrators (remember that guy, what's his name.. oh yes, I remember now: Osama bin Laden), we have recruited many thousands of fighters for al-Qaeda and related groups. When you engage in police activity, you target the perpetrator. When you invade two countries and engage in military operations in several others, you turn people who would otherwise be bystanders into combatants.
Putting terrorists in jail will not deter those in the future - they are already willing to die for their cause, no threat of punishment will prevent them from going ahead.
What cause? Initially they had a small cause. Now we have made it a much larger one. As for threat of punishment as a deterrent, you are assuming that all terrorists are suicide bombers, which is definitely not the case. Suicide bombers make up a third of the people who engage in terrorist acts across the globe.
So the idea that you are going to identify the "criminals" and put them in jail/execute them presumes that you will just take the hit, no matter the cost, and deal with the aftermath. That's why the "policing" concept has utterly failed.
You seem to be basing your entire argument on the belief that police activity does not deter criminal activity. That is simply untrue. It also presumes that the alternative the US has used, engaging the enemy with primarily military means, somehow is a more effective deterrent, when study after study has shown that it has turned many otherwise politically ambivalent people into combatants.
Further, you state that policing has failed. The United States hasn't even tried that approach.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
How did Separate But Equal work out?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Funny how your citation quotes Paul as saying:
"The establishment clause of the First Amendment was simply intended to forbid the creation of an official state church like the Church of England, not to drive religion out of public life."
But you read, "he wants the US government to establish an Official Religion."
I'll take a government that has the power to spend money on harmless nativity scenes over the one we have now. There isn't a single politician that I agree with on every issue, but I can't think of a single congressman that does more to fight for our civil rights than Ron Paul.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2003-04-17/news/1-hour-arrest/ ... oh wait, that last couple wasn't arrested, just had their kids taken away for a month while they decided whether or not to arrest them.
http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?t=14089
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32904451/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Hate crimes aren't thought crimes. Hate crimes are changing the penalties for current crimes based on motive (something that has been coded into law for almost as long as there have been laws).
Learn to love Alaska
Not interested. You still just have people voting party lines and coalitions of parties. We get the same thing with "conservative democrats" or "moderate republicans". No different from any other kind of alliance, only in wording. But when comes time to count the money, everybody falls into line and stays within the role assigned to them, and eagerly await their cut.
The most elegant solution involves studying the role we play. Because the "problem" is us. Take that first step, and the rest will fall like dominoes.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
That example may be over the top, but stuff like this does happen. Teenage girls over the age of consent (in many states this is less than 18) have been charged with *manufacturing* child porn because they voluntarily took pictures of themselves. The legal system is completely screwed up on this subject, much like it is on airline security. While I'd prefer to resolve both screwups in a sane way, barring that I'd accept using the one to stop the other.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
(Doofi? How would you pluralize that word?)
Centurion: What's this, then? "Romanes eunt domus"? People called Romanes, they go, the house?
Brian: It says, "Romans go home. "
Centurion: No it doesn't ! What's the latin for "Roman"? Come on, come on !
Brian: Er, "Romanus" !
Centurion: Vocative plural of "Romanus" is?
Brian: Er, er, "Romani" !
Centurion: [Writes "Romani" over Brian's graffiti] "Eunt"? What is "eunt"? Conjugate the verb, "to go" !
Brian: Er, "Ire". Er, "eo", "is", "it", "imus", "itis", "eunt".
Centurion: So, "eunt" is...?
Brian: Third person plural present indicative, "they go".
Centurion: But, "Romans, go home" is an order. So you must use...? [He twists Brian's ear]
Brian: Aaagh ! The imperative !
Centurion: Which is...?
Brian: Aaaagh ! Er, er, "i" !
Centurion: How many Romans? Centurion: [Writes "ite"] "Domus"? Nominative? "Go home" is motion towards, isn't it? Brian: Dative ! [the Centurion holds a sword to his throat]
Brian: Aaagh ! Not the dative, not the dative ! Er, er, accusative, "Domum" !
Centurion: But "Domus" takes the locative, which is...?
Brian: Er, "Domum" !
Centurion: [Writes "Domum"] Understand? Now, write it out a hundred time
Brian: Yes sir. Thank you, sir. Hail Caesar, sir.
Centurion: Hail Caesar ! And if it's not done by sunrise, I'll cut your balls off.
If you learned Latin in high school, this is very funny . . . otherwise, most folks would say, "what the Hell is a dative!", despite the fact that it is used in the English language. Whatever . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
It worked out great as another example of government overregulation.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Hey, better the Paulites blow their mod points on an intentionally provocative post than on a sensible, insightful one.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Shouldn't people be free to decide who they let into their businesses? I mean, being a bigot and using economic clout to keep them niggers down, why that's as Libertarian as it gets!
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sure, if anybody at all in this thread were talking about having no government. Libertarians are not anarchists.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Cynthia Stewart of Ohio would beg to disagree. There is even a BOOK about it called "Framing Innocence" which is available on Amazon.
Google for Cynthia Stewart Child Porn.
TL;DR it was modded informative because it IS informative. Poster was right and you are wrong.
Companies have the conscience, remorse and morals of those people who control them.
Companies are not autonomous entities. To perpetuate such a preposterous idea is to absolve those who run companies of any responsibility for their decisions and actions.
The US also has 50 times the population of Israel; that might go towards filling up the positions. :)
Chu vi parolas Vikipedion?
Do read my other comment - What I said was that exact replica of Israeli security is not possible, because of the scale. My point is also that, we do not need an exact replica of their security, only a replica of their attitude (real security instead of security theater, human centered approach instead of electronics centered approach)
East India Trading Company
Ron Paul is a Republican by convenience. In reality, he mainly belongs to the Deluded Insane Libertarian Party For The Deluded And Insane. Ron Paul's chief good point is that he's smarter than that chromosomally-damaged offspring of his, Rand Paul.
Go ahead all you retarded Randite mods, mod this down. I've got more karma than you braindead halfwits have neurons.
Even a blind pig, etc. etc. I guess I'm glad to see a "Libertarian" actually acting libertarian. I'm sorry to see Ron Paul on my side, but I'm glad to see someone on my side, I guess, is what I'm saying.
I am not a crackpot.
Quality > Quantity
If you don't like how a corporation does business, you're free not to do business with them.
And if they're dumping toxic waste in the stream that passes through my back yard, I'm free to move.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
First is because it is not sexual in nature. I realize this may be hard to believe for some people but nudity and sex are separate issues. A nude picture of a child is not illegal. Most people would avoid such things because of the hysteria, fueled by posts like yours, over child porn but there is nothing wrong. You take a nude picture of your kid in the bath, 100% legal. Same reason why nudist colonies/beaches are legal. Yes, children do go there and get nude. Get over it. Part of nudism is the idea of disassociating sex from nudity. Our body uncovered is natural, and does not at all have to be sexual.
Another reason would be the nature of the images. They are not at all clear representations with easy to identify anatomy. They are strange ghostly pictures that are recognizable as a human form but little else. I know, I know you saw the article of the attractive girl who was easily visible naked when the colours were inverted... That's because that isn't a real scanner image, it is a stock model who'd picture was doctored (http://www.fotosearch.com/PHT246/paa246000018/ NSFW). The real images are far less distinct.
Now please note, that does not mean I think this is a good idea. It is a waste of time and money, and could possibly be a health risk to some high risk individuals. I'm not saying we should be doing it but the child porn thing is STUPID. It is just another attempt to create hysteria and to use a boogie man to shut down something you don't like. This is the same shit as when the various media industries or government agencies try to claim they need to crack down on a free web because of "child porn." They are actually talking about REAL child porn, but just like you are attempting to use it as an excuse to shut down something else they don't like.
Please take these comments as a joke, and not seriously :-)
Every time I've been to Israel, these 'detectives' have spent a long time searching all my stuff. Since I was doing nothing wrong, clearly their Secret Detective Sense isn't working too good.
Actually, considering the tone of your response, I guess that the 'detectives' picked the right stuff to check.
Needless to say, I have no desire ever to go back there,
I can't speak Hebrew or Yiddish, but I am sure that they have an expression for, "Bye! And don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!"
and I'm guessing the blonde German girl who was in the aisle alongside me last time crying her eyes out after her 'interview' won't be either.
Actually, one of colleagues was, blonde, German, blue-eyed and in her 20's when she went on a business trip to Haifa, and then did a bit of vacation there. She got the full grill through security, because the former East German Secret Service (Stasi) were very "chummy" with Palestinian folks, and the Israeli folks knew that. She didn't cry, though.
On the other hand, when I visited the Jewish Quarter, with my blonde, green-eyed German girlfriend, it was right before Sukkot. She asked me what all the fuss was about, with folks buying funny looking leaves and lemon/limes. I explained that it was kinda sorta a Jewish Thanksgiving, and it was probably practiced in Germany until . . . well, you know. Then she looked around at all those folks haggling over the prices of leaves and limes, and started to cry.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
They are a good feature because it is something undercover, unknown, and thus unable to be planned for. You know that some flights have one or more armed, trained, agents on board. You do not know which flights, or who those people are. That kind of security is extremely problematic to deal with because how do you plan for it? You can't avoid it, you don't know what to avoid.
Things like that improve security. The silly theater that happens in the airports does not.
How did Separate But Equal work out?
FYI, that was government policy...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
The full body scans are silly because Al Qaeda has ALREADY used suicide bombers with explosives in their BODY CAVITIES. These are not exposed by full-body scanners that stop at the skin surface.
From the linked article "Asieri had a pound of high explosives, plus a detonator inserted in his rectum." That was 2009.
. From a libertarian perspective desired regulation would be something like transparency in banking and finance.
The canonical example would be enforcement of contracts.
The general minarchist libertarian position is that government has some legitimate purposes, such as national defense (which does not mean keeping our troops stationed in foreign countries for decades on end), criminal justice (which does not include prosecuting anyone for "crimes" that have no victim, like smoking marijuana), and civil courts to administer tort law and resolve other disputes.
Personally, I'd say that Frederic Bastiat covered it very well in his book, The Law. In this book, he makes the case that all legitimate government power is a delegation of rights of the people, and that there is nothing that is wrong for an individual to do, that becomes right when a group (or government) does it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I would rather be grilled a Inspector Columbo at a security check, than scanned by a machine operated by some doofus.
I feel the opposite, I don't think flying justifies people being interrogated. It might also not be that effective, there are many reasons for taking a trip that people would be reluctant to discuss with a stranger and it would be hard to distinguish between these secrets and those which did relate to airline security.
He is a Republican who actually BELIEVES in smaller government,
The way I usually put it is, he's the conscience of the Republican party; the only one who votes consistently in accord with their own platform, and who by his example continuously reminds the Lindsey Grahams and John McCains of the world what appalling hypocrites they are.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
i am michael kristopeit.
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
You bet I want services in exchange for my taxes and I want enough of them to build and maintain an entire civilization! I want a military service to defend the nation not one that extends the nation, I want transport services to build bridges to somewhere rather than nowhere, I want sewers and levees maintained not left to fall apart, I want pot holes filled in, I want someone to collect my garbage, I want a heath care system where I don't have to worry about bankruptcy.
It's not how big the government is, it's how effective they are at providing the infrastructure and services that underpin modern life. Truth be told I already have most of the things in the above list because I don't live in a superpower that spends half it's tax revenue on military dick swinging and the other half on narcarsistic corporate welfare.
As for freedom; it's is a state of mind and what I really don't need or want is a government service to provide my state of mind.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"Scientifically discredited", my ass.
Watch and learn.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
A picture of a naked child that is literally just standing there is not porn.
Such pictures exist in magazines, educational texts, works of art, and even some commercial advertisements.
In order to be porn the child must be engaged in a sexually explicit activity.
While it is true that the judgments about what qualifies have been pretty liberally interpreted in specific cases of people accused of collecting child porn, it is clear that images taken in this context (security practices in an airport, by government officials) will never be considered "pornographic."
do libertarians seem to believe that it's better to be abused by a corporation than by the government.
It's better not to be abused at all. If you believe that government protects us from corporations, then avoid bridge salesmen and offers to join poker games.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Where are my mod points when I need them. >
This, a million times this.
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
The only valid function of government is to prevent human rights from being violated and to to punish those who attempt to do so.
Unfortunately we don't have governments that do that, we have governments that become an active participant in the violation of human rights.
Throughout history, government has almost always been a tool of oppression. The only thing that changes is who the oppressor is; sometimes it's a single tyrant, sometimes it's "the majority".
The United States was the first government founded on the concept of protecting rather than suppressing freedom. It was a government with limited, clearly defined powers. Unfortunately it's slowly been turning into just another tool of oppression.
This.
That is precisely the case with governments in general, and why the US government was an entirely unique experiment in governance unprecedented in the entire history of humanity. This is what made the US and it's citizens the freest, most generous, least militarily/territorially aggressive, most prosperous nation in the history of man. Nearly the entirety of the problems the US now faces is a result of the federal government departing from it's Constitutionally-limited role and engaging in the expansion of it's scope and powers.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Again it's not impossible. You only need to train people properly and have each set to their own specializations. Which is how Israeli security works. If you're going to go with a replica of their security, you're going to be going with the same methods they use.
Om, nomnomnom...
The best way (long-term) to deal with terrorists is to make them irrelevant, by not responding to them. Once you make it clear you'll make arbitrarily large changes to your policies and practices in response to a terrorist event, you have given them the lever they want; all they need now is to find the right event for the effect they want.
From a game theory perspective, if you pre-declare a response policy, then you grant the instigator the power to dictate that response. It had better be a response you're willing to live with. This holds whether the policy is to over-respond or under-respond.
There was a faction within American power that wanted to do most of this stuff anyway, and just needed a good pretext. The cleverest attack is to trigger your adversary's latent self-destructive impulse.
I'm in favour of a more freedom and a little less safety. America seems to have the idea that a successful terrorist act on American soil damages the global image of American might more than the American crack-down on freedom damages the global image of American right.
My First Cavity Search
Proposed subtitle: "Helping your child understand why he is a threat to National Security"
I suppose that was offered in jest. The problem is that young children are often completely under the sway of their evolution-denying forebears. We'd have to explain the dangers of ideology, and that fact that many children are born to complete wing nuts, and the risk of growing up to become an independent voter, among other things.
These are all good lessons, but not lessons most parents wish to teach. Either the parent doesn't want to pass this knowledge along, or regrets having to paint trust in parental love in such a poor light.
And that's really the picture this paints: in a nation of family values, that parental love can't be trusted.
Seems like the wrong square in the game theory matrix to me.
So, the airport machines are 100% safe to, say, a first trimester fetus.
What's the peer-reviewed evidence to support that conjecture? If the machine does cause harm to a fetus, does the operator himself face the risk of life in prison? If not, why not?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I can see that you haven't read the bill.
Here's the text of H.R. 6416:
Since this bill explicitly forbids any kind of immunity for the TSA goons, if one of them grabs your crotch, you call a real cop, and file a criminal charge just like you would against anyone else who committed a sexual assault.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
If you are not obviously a Jew, or super white, you may be subjected to attempts to humiliate you, detention, and confiscation of your property without it ever being returned to you, or returned in pieces.
Personal experience. Detained for 24 hours repeatedly questioned both with my traveling partner and separately. All we wanted to do was get the hell out of the ugliest country (people make the place) that we had ever visited. Bags ripped apart, and every item thrown on the floor (underwear etc.). Camera and a couple other electronics seized. Luggage held for days by Israeli security after we flew out to Rome (our entire trip from N. Europe to N. Africa was overland/overwater except for this escape flight, but Israel really was that bad), so we ended up stuck in an airport in Rome waiting to see if we would ever get our bags. Camera returned 5 months later, destroyed. Other electronics were just stolen.
Our crime? Not being Jews or super white, and having guide books in French. They were really hung up on the French guide books-- kept questioning us about those for hours.
I suppose if we were Palestinian, it would probably have been at least a hundred times worse.
So, you can keep your racist Israeli thug tactics. The TSA is stupid, and while their actions are far from harmless, Israeli tactics are worse.
Only thing Ron Paul has said or done that I agree with.
That's a rather shocking admission on your part. So, do you want the USA to continue to dig a financial hole by fighting endless undeclared wars? How about continuing to imprison people for non-crimes like smoking pot? Or did you mean that you're in favor of holding people in prison without trial, or even keeping them in prison after an acquittal on the president's command alone?
These are all things that Ron Paul does his best to work against.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Hey pal, how dare you argue against unfounded hyperbole with the truth! Take your facts somewhere else. They have no place here!
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
According to an article Schneier references, the one religious/ethnic group getting a pass on the full body molestation is.... wait for it.... Muslims!
Woohoo! That is just the cherry on top of the sundae.
Osama, you rascal, you really fucked us good.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
A threat is a police matter when it can be outnumbered, outspent, and outgunned by a barely trained and reasonably small civilian force.
The so-called terrorists are in fact an ideological organization that has the resources of a typical nation state and friends in high positions among a number of nation states. The fact that the ideology has a religious backing makes it even more powerful. No 'coordinated worldwide policing' is possible against a movement with such resources. For example, the Saudis sure don't like the challenge the militant Islamic ideology poses to their power at home, but are perfectly fine with building up its base as long as it is directed against the US and Europe, with most generous financing of militant-leaning mosques in Germany and the UK. The stated goal of Islamic militants, global Islamic state, is shared by "peaceful" global organizations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir and appeals to broad multitudes in Islamic countries. How do you propose to obtain their genuine cooperation in "global policing", against a goal they share?
Before Communists (who loved terror as a method, and offered a religion-like earthly utopia to these who needed that sort of thing) took over a country, they already commanded large resources and a lot of ideological sympathies, among influential Socialist-leaning Europeans in particular. A lot did coordinated policing help against them. Then they took over a country, and Eurasia was fscked for decades to come. If anything, militant Islamists have a better position than Communists these days.
He would like the federal government to teach NOTHING AT ALL. He wants education to be done at the state level. He has repeatedly said that even though he is religious himself, he does feel he has the right to force his religious believes on anyone. Even on abortion, he has clearly stated that he wants the states to regulate it (like the constitution mandates), and that he at the federal government would not.
I have no idea where you get the "establish Official Religion" stuff from. That is more of a Christine O'Donnell or Sarah Palin thing
Perhaps you missed the whole "Socially Liberal" part, since you keep trying HARD to force libertarians into the tired grooves of either "neocon republican" or "limp wristed spend thrift liberal". Libertarians are not either.
The libertarian would be FOR government regulation for such things as equal rights. What they are against is regulations saying which kinds of house you can own, or what kind of shirt you can wear on the subway (or what kinds of games you can buy for your kids.)
It's simple-- Libertarian comes from "Liberty"-- for the most part, anything that increases the liberty of citizens is considered good; Biggotry is not a liberty that is good for the general citizen, because it de-facto implies obstructionism and lack of liberty to a portion of those citizens. Same with Gay marriage (concerning obstructionism being bad).
If anything, the Libertarian is more likely to suffer the bias AGAINST big business, BECAUSE big business tries to keep people down in general (to prevent competition). Your assertion that Libertarians would support racial biggotry is horribly unfounded, and serves only to highlight your own ignorance of that ideology.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
I've always loved that quote, and I must admit it was all the more poignant because it applied directly to me, negotiating with other factions and refusing to give them access to my technology, because I was going to use it to crush them, because I most definitely dreamed myself their master.
The enemies of Democracy are
I have always wondered at those who dismiss Austrian economics. How's that Keynesianism and 13+ TRILLION debt working out for you? Enjoying the slide into economic self-immolation?
Though I would agree with the poster that is supicious of any who attribute scientific method to the arcane realm of economic knowledge. The only way to be sure of economic theory is real world experience. The Keynesian crap we have been trying is now failing completely.
No
This has been used for everything from 20 MPH speed limits near school zones, to car seats with expiration dates, to all traffic stopping for a school bus.
This is as powerful as "Your picking on me because I'm black" race card.
To get it done quickly, "Think of the Children". They are using any and all tools that work to get this insanity stopped. It may be our ace in the hole.
The truth shall set you free!
The town that I live in requires every house to have a gun - with a few exceptions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennesaw,_Georgia#Gun_law
When the law was enacted, home burglaries dropped from 65, to 26. Only stupid people break into a home where there is nearly 100% chance of being shot.
Firearms on aircraft are a bad idea, but giving everyone that wants an 8" blade would be acceptable to me.
"Really, how did that intervention to increase home ownership and decrease renting work out?"
The first home buyers grant has worked out pretty well here in Oz, it helped me get my first house and did the same for both my adult children. OTOH here in Oz in addition to the first homeowners grant you also need a sizable deposit from personal savings and a regular income to get a home loan. The last two requirements (plus the tax incentive of negative gearing) is what keeps the rental market strong.
The last time there was serious trouble in the OZ residential market was in the early 90's when interest rates jumped from 7% to 17% in a couple of years (due mainly to the '87 stock market crash). The government actually helped out somewhat by mandating that banks could not lift the interest rate above 13% on existing loans but even 5% is a big jump in repayments and a lot of people still lost their homes.
Moderate assistance to get people (who want to) in their own home and/or protect them from interest rate gouging helps to keep the economy ticking over, piling them up in trailer parks does not. Worst of all is providing dodgy loans to people who have neither a deposit nor the means to meet the repayments, that is a recipie for the housing industry disaster the US is currently struggling with.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
It's an interesting question. Law can only go so far, because after all the lawmakers are the ones that brought this heinous bullshit in. The motives don't matter, but its probably a combination of fear, paranoia, megalomania, stupidity and making money. Most things are.
One possible answer is to reverse the trend that is making the vast, bloated security industry (I include the state in that umbrella term) so profitable. Tricky, since all of the TSA/DHS etc. funding will come from government.
One solution would be to reverse the desperate, baying need for governments to constantly spend ridiculous amounts of money on security. Since that probably will never happen (as it not only makes them money directly but also it would require a massive evolution in thought), what else?
Personally, I have no idea what would work, but someone else might. Taking away the profitability of this industry and its benefactors is the way to get this reversed. Arguments about ethics don't work, since the state is really just a tyrant.
Its the only way to really reverse this trend. 9/11 was an excuse, and led to a million small and large idiocies and vicious thinking, but its really the fault of whoever keyed in to the possibility of a draconian and ever growing security industry (and the authoritarianism that come of that) as a massive profit center.
Until the security industry stops fueling economic growth in the US, you'll get this sort of shit all the time.
This reminds me of how despite all the high tech satellite surveillance of Iraq, the wrong conclusions came out of the US intelligence agencies.
The "wrong" conclusion?? They gave the conclusion that their boss wanted, and that was the right enough conclusion for them.
Oliver.
The facts are that bad things happen, and we should be minimizing risk using background checks, personal interviews and smarter policy. We should be changing times and procedures to minimize timing attacks. Breaking federal law should not be standard policy.
We should also be brave enough to understand that we take a risk when we walk, drive, swim, surf, eat, drink and fly. The horrible, ugly truth is that bad things happen no matter how much we do to avoid it.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Nothing in that article says that he wants a state religion or that he does not believe in evolution.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
And if the one you voted for doesn't get in, you still have to deal with it. I've never had a corporation poll my neighbors and decide that I had to work with them...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
No, they're doing harm to your property. You're perfectly free to sue them for damages; I don't know a single big-or-little L Libertarian who would disagree...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Fine. So we can't scale for an intensive search to every airport in the U.S. We can, however, scale for random screenings and/or reasonable suspects rather than every frigging person who wants to fly on an airplane. Seriously, in the history of the United States, how many U.S. flag airplanes have been hijacked? How many people have died due to terrorism? This attitude that we must invasively search every flyer is rather like wearing a Faraday cage every time we step outside during the summer because we're afraid of getting hit by lightning.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
But has been modded up by ostriches.
I'm beginning to think this whole homeland security fad is just a way for those supposedly responsible trying to blame the historical faults on others such as the lowly security guards and the old speechless security system. Thus, seemingly making themselves innocent, while everyone else either suffers or become more obtuse:
Directors: Terrorists? Then go do more searches, buy more scanners, get more guards. Not our faults, don't look at us. More problems, then do more of the above and everyone must wear a tracking device at all times, more problems, sure we'll come up with something, but don't ever blame on us.
free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny
Ah, back when the Internet was supposed to fix everything, and all information was true.
We have free flowing water and people are perpetually dehydrated. Aside from non-authoritative information being hard to digest even for very intelligent people, you can't make others learn or comprehend the "truth" any better than a tyrant can.
Which religion is true? Will freer flow of information bring the world to agreement on that? Now those are run by _nice_ people. How does free flow of information stop a tyrant, if the cruelty and oppression doesn't?
I have a new quote for you. A transparent tyrant is still a tyrant.
Bruce Schneier has posted a huge recap of the controversy over TSA body scanners, including more information about the lawsuit he joined to ban them
In related news, a small nation in Northern Europe sues Schneier over a suspected sexual assault. Schneier denies ever being in that country.
Saying it's impossible to train people is a plain copout, and excuse making.
You misunderstand the claim slightly: it's not that it's impossible to train people, it's that it's impossible to train people for what we're willing to pay them as quickly as we're willing to tolerate. TSA screeners earn about $12/hour or $24k/year, around half of the median income, and they've generally not been able to get even the 40 hours of training their procedures specify. A whole month of training? You've got to be joking.
I haven't seen this story posted yet, and it's far too good to pass up.
http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/11/18/another-tsa-outrage/
To summarize: 330 soldiers coming back from Afghanistan were flying back to the US. They were carrying (all unloaded) M4 assault rifles, some carrying M9 pistols, and some carrying M-240B machine guns. After flying part of the way back and dropping off 100 soldiers, the TSA decide the rest need to deplane and all need to go through screening again. They find a pair of nail clippers on a soldier, and confiscate them, saying they are a potential weapon.
The soldiers continue on with their unloaded guns and fly on to their destination.
Now really, are the TSA so moronic, that they don't understand the ASSAULT RIFLES could be used as a bludgeon weapon far more effectively then a pair of toenail clippers? I mean, come on, these guys just got back from fighting in the terrorist's safe haven. About the last thing they're going to do is to help the psycho idiots, and yet they confiscate their toenail clippers, and let them continue on with the rifles?
Really?
No, REALLY?
One of these days i'm going to find this 'peer' guy and reset HIS connection!
Uh .. .what? The "grown-ups" (who I assume you do not number yourself among) have decided that more government intervention is better? Are you nuts? The question is not whether or not we need to reduce the size of Federal Government ... but what parts to cut.
Don't presume to speak for your betters.
Must...not...feed...the...trolls... Ah, hell, why not.
Don't you presume to speak for those of us who have actually thought about things, pal. Yes, we're right; you're wrong.
Congress will not stop the TSA because the TSA makes it look like the government is doing something about terrorism (even though TSA travel restrictions have never stopped a terrorist). A more pragmatic way to stop the TSA is through the airlines. Everyone who can do so should avoid using air travel. Drive, take the train, video conference,etc. instead. Tell anyone who will listen that you are not flying because of the TSA. Then the airlines will complain to Congress and the TSA will be changed because Congress listens to money (from airlines or other big industries) even when they do not listen to voters.
True, "Year of our Lord" does not constitute "replete with references to God". That'd be a stretch. However, the U.S. Constitution wouldn't exist if the Declaration of Independence hadn't been successful. That document does mention God, and even more frightening, it mentions a "Creator" quite explicitly.
And, I'm just curious, how is it that there could be an Office of the Chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives. I hope you didn't miss the Jummah (at the Capitol) or the Torah study (in the Senate Office building) this week. And what's worse, prayer has been a fixture of congress since the Continental Congress first gathered.
"Really, how did that intervention to increase home ownership and decrease renting work out?" The first home buyers grant has worked out pretty well here in Oz, it helped me get my first house and did the same for both my adult children. OTOH here in Oz in addition to the first homeowners grant you also need a sizable deposit from personal savings and a regular income to get a home loan ...
The problem with the US government intervention was that it lead to reducing deposit and income requirements. In addition to the expected risk associated with buyers who would not normally qualify there was also the unexpected risk from buyers who would normally qualify and used the reduced standards to buy larger and more expensive homes than they normally would have.
... Moderate assistance to get people (who want to) in their own home and/or protect them from interest rate gouging helps to keep the economy ticking over, piling them up in trailer parks does not ...
Trailer parks were not the typical alternative. Renting a nice place or buying a smaller place were.
... Worst of all is providing dodgy loans to people who have neither a deposit nor the means to meet the repayments, that is a recipie for the housing industry disaster the US is currently struggling with.
However this is what resulted in part due to well meaning government intervention and unintended consequence and unanticipated "gaming" of the system by banks *and* consumers.
Do the corporations poll your neighbors when they decide to dump their garbage into the river? Or do they have to have the government come and regulate them? Just because you don't stand up to the government, doesn't mean you can't. It just means you won't. You have all the same powers over government and corporation alike. You can make your votes just as valuable as you make the dollar, but it will take more than the two percent of you that are currently making the effort.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
What do you call this then ?
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog.php?view=39468
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwsdq69AHnw&feature=player_embedded
No, what matters is they wouldn't be willing to pay them enough money to keep them at the airports where as what they have now they can hire convicts and otherwise unemployable idiots because it doesn't take training to fondle someone. Thus they can pay them minimum wage and can expect similar quality. The American Way!
Libertarians I know (myself included) are all for punishing companies which pollute. If the company can find a way to pollute only the air above their factory, fine with me. But the moment it wafts into my airspace, it affects me. That whole right to swing your fist ends at my nose thing? The right to pollute ends at the edge of your property. There are no logical inconsistencies there.
What is funny is that people who scream the loudest about how we need regulation lest the free market run amok fail to notice how the US government has done basically NOTHING to punish BP for their recent oil spill.
Apparently libertarians care more about dealing with externalities than do liberals or conservatives.
First off, economics isn't science, so saying that any school of economics can be discredited scientifically is absurd.
Second, the central tenant of the Austrian School is "central banks bad, money based on commodities good"; I can't see how that's been proven incorrect, given the drubbing the central banks have given to the world economy over the last century. Or are you one of those people who thinks we've actually grown wealthier as our currency is consistently debased? Here's a factoid: my wife and I make a combined income of over $200,000 per year, and yet have a harder time providing for our family than my dad did when he was my age, making $20,000 per year (with a full-time housewife, I might add). So explain to me how a given amount of money today is somehow worth less than 10x that amount was 30 years ago is a good thing?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
It was a social institution that was enforced by the law which derives it's authority from the democratic process that reflected that social institution.
I'm not a fan of Ron Paul, but you're being very dishonest. Every time RP introduces a bill as drastic as that (and he does!), the bill either gets gutted, voted down, or lost in committee. He's starting at a realistic point. If he goes to far it gets ignored.
Really? Then why didn't he introduce a bill forbidding the molestation of passengers and exposure to harmful and ineffective scans? Or better yet, if he really believes in smaller governement he would introduce a bill eliminating the TSA all together since they are a wasteful ineffective agency that has done nothing to make anyone safer.
Maybe ... just maybe ... because the rest of the establishment wouldn't vote for a bill like that?
Reminder: in 2008 a bunch of Democrats who claimed to be against the PATRIOT Act during the campaign turned around and renewed it with expanded powers. Obama, who also decried the PATRIOT Act, willingly signed it into law.
Ron Paul's just trying to do something positive with the rabble (on both sides of the aisle) that wouldn't outright vote for it.
Though I did read somewhere that the TSA's original creation was only for 2 years, at which point the airport could choose their own private security firm to continue whatever security proceedings they found relevant to keep their passengers safe.
Seems the gray matter of TSA chief John Pistole and DHS Janet "Planet" are in serious question.
Each can be found and identified using Google Earth/Maps.
What a wounderful targeting program ... to help target the Perps so that the 45 caliber slug hits the mark.
French advise: "Kill the Head."
Oh ... before that happens I expect to watch several mobs confronting the "pitiful" TSA Perverts and not just at a few airports in the US. :)
Toodles
Ridiculous protest, now not ridiculous in the sense the protest itself doesn't make any sense, but putting the subject of the protest under ridiculous circumstances.
When approaching the airport, be prepared to pictured naked, and possibly have a speculum up your rectum.
So for the first part of the invasion of my person, I plan on being naked. I mean, why make their job hard? Stripper pants help immensely with this, as do thong underwear. If you're adverse to making the quick movement (that will probably get you detained) when you are asked to remove your belt and shoes, just continue the undressing ritual and pile your pants, your socks your shirt all in a pile and walk through the machine. Now you noticed I mentioned nothing of underwear, well, that's where the real ridiculousness comes in. Before entering the terminal make sure you take your complimentary depends undergarment (with a quarter embedded somewhere in the lining) and shit yourself heavily. Once you've done this, and make sure you do it right about the time you're going to be getting undressed for your complimentary, private citizen run, security screening.
I can tell you, they do not pay TSA screeners enough to have to do that once on a daily basis, if a hundred people did it a day in a hundred airports, the TSA wouldn't be able to pay people enough to dig their hands in that shit and all those passenger's shit stained asses and they'd have to find a new security model that didn't involve molesting their passengers and violating their 4th amendment rights.
How's this?
How's what? He doesn't advocate against the seperation of church and state in that article.
Ron Paul may have some decent ideas about smaller government, but he's a religious loon, creationist who doesn't believe in evolution.
So, by your definition anyone who belives in religion is a loon? Or scientist's theorys (keyword) about evolution 100%? Do you have any idea how much scientists have "known" but later were wrong?
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Thank you for the FUD. Oh sorry, I mean no thanks.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
personalty cut it all off and start over. as they said they are not anti government but when you got mass corruption and to much in the governments hands its time to cut those people out of power. but unfortunately its going to take the economy to totally crash before people lose faith in are current governments no matter what side you play. but will it be with votes or arms to take these fat cats out is to be seen.
there was nothing wrong with the concept of increasing home ownership. however like anything the government has there hands in corruption eventually takes over.when they started handing out loans to people they knew dam well couldn't pay them off and short selling them for a quick profit thats when it all went to hell. rather then being transparent and offering lower interest loan the people with limited money could afford. and not keep handing to one very corrupt company that got a government bailout mind you.
oh and lets not forget the kept rates artificially lower for all also helping screw over everyone.
Seriously, I'm not sure I've seen any issue lately which has had such broad based political support.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
tsa is just a big wast of are money. if the terrest what a air craft they can get one it doesn't need to be commercial. they just used commercial being it did the most amount of terror at the time and it worked perfectly. never work again tsa or no. whats to stop them from blowing up in those long line before boarding not a dammed thing. whats stopping a surfice to air missle attack knothing i knoe of. whats stopping them from getting a privet craft and doing it all over again not a dammed thing i knoe of. its inpossable to cover all your bases when it comes to terrest attacks they will always find a way thats what they are best at. and i root for this guy to get this law passed to remove there outright immunity for the constitution that way they have no more power then your police officer. hell using cops probably would be frigging cheaper and there better trained.
I am not sure about that, cause I remember reading that a Nobel laureate had criticisms of it for just that reason.
That is because nobody in America feels threatened by any foreign entity, because Canada, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean provide plenty of defense needed to protect a population of 300 million from any existential threat.
I agree with the libertarians on this issue, in that we should finally cut government spending by getting rid of the military.
Americans don't even care about terrorism, and feel it should be a civilian problem, not a military one.
Let private individuals defend the country, not the government.
Defense is not an intrinsic function of government. Switzerland relies on private citizens to defend it, for example. ("Here. Have a machine gun. Go at it. Good luck.")
On this issue, the libertarians are absolutely correct. Defense is an unnecessary waste of tax dollars, designed to take away personal freedom and give it to the benefit of military corporations.
We need to get rid of this wasteful section of government.
Interestingly, the text specifies airports and aircraft. Wonder if anyone with the TSA will try to capitalize on what it doesn't list...?
"What's the use in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes?" --Fourth Doctor, "Robot"
I am totally taking away all the Libertads mod points.
Easy peasy, Japaneasy.
Americans want more socialism in this country, since it is a better economic system.
If the libertarians ruled this country, we would end up like Somalia.
Nobody wants to be a libertarian hell like Somalia.
I'm probably being too harsh, but Ron Paul always struck me as someone who was in love with the drama of the stand he was taking, rather than someone who looked to see what action would actually be most productive.
the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber prove otherwise
Except, even if they were successful, they still wouldn't have brought down those planes... which makes you wonder what the qualification for "success" is - if you're a terrorist and you blow up a plane over the middle of the Atlantic, all people hear is that a plane went down. Maybe in several months a black box gets found, but maybe it doesn't, or maybe it's inconclusive. And people go on with their lives, with no additional fear. That's not really a "success" as far as terror is concerned...
But send some guy with 20ccs of plastique shoved up his rectum who jumps up in the middle of the flight, rips off his velcro-stripper pants, and starts trying to light a fuse sticking out of his ass, and of course several dozen passengers are going to jump him. His "attempt" was unsuccessful, but suddenly the TSA starts implementing "nightstick in the ass" screenings on you, or your three year old daughter, and that "unsuccessful" attempt looks like it managed to cause a lot of terror.
In short - a successful attack isn't actually all that good, terror-wise, unless it's very visible. A more visible, unsuccessful attack can much more efficiently achieve their purposes.
Everyone is against overregulation. They just disagree about what the right amount is.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I learned the Reid Technique in the span of about a month.
Ha! I think I mostly learned Reid from Law & Order reruns. I just had no idea I'd learned it until I actually got some formal training in it.
Seriously though, a problem that we would face with the Isrealification of our airport security model is that there is not a great deal of empirical evidence indicating which techniques are better than others. There is (unfortunately) a lot of research indicating that even experienced LEO's have deception detection rates at slightly better than chance levels; support from the community is mainly anecdotal without a lot of hard data.
Reid for example is a wonderful tool for information eduction and eliciting a confession, but really works best as part of a full investigation and when the interviewer/interrogator has a reasonable belief that the subject is probably guilty. Reid might not be so great in an airport security setting with such low target rates (ratio of bad guys to good guys). The question becomes, which techniques do we deploy?
Fortunately, TSA seems not to require any substantial evidence supporting a methodology before they deploy it. I think this is going to lead to the Isrealification of our airports long before we have the empirical evidence to justify it.
Everyone is against overregulation. They just disagree about what the right amount is.
I have to disagree. You have a point with respect to regulations that create a level playing field or ensure safe products and services. However some embrace regulation to make social change that goes beyond safety and fairness, regulations to promote a political ideology or agenda. And of course there are also regulations that are political paybacks to supporters.
People with joint replacements set off metal detectors.
People who set off metal detectors get the "enhanced patdown".
So, people are subjected to unwanted touches on parts of the body normally covered by underwear because they have been through a medical procedure.
I wonder if there's potential for a lawsuit there.
1.5 million people have died as a result of our attack on Iraq. White ones, brown ones, Americans, Iraqis, mostly civilians and many of them not from bombs but from starvation after the infrastructure needed for their water, food, and medical care was destroyed.
You will be relieved to know that those figures are almost certainly not true.
ORB's "million Iraqi deaths" survey seriously flawed, new study shows. More here.
Leftist billionaire George Soros underwrote the widely quoted Lancet study written by an anti-war professor. As time goes by it keeps looking worse, and worse.
The Wikileaks contents tend to undermine them as well:
Iraqi news site in english.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The TSA can pat me down in the crotch or scan it until they're blue in the face: they'll never find anything.
This article is a joke. The writer twists Ron Paul's words around. Ron Paul has never supported government imposed religion. He recognizes that the First Amendment is an injunction against the government. Show me a quote where Ron Paul says, "I want the government to impose religion on people." You can't because it does not exist.
Fortunately, TSA seems not to require any substantial evidence supporting a methodology before they deploy it. I think this is going to lead to the Isrealification of our airports long before we have the empirical evidence to justify it.
I agree with that 100%. My point on the reid technique is just that, it was fast, easy and simple to learn. While not the most optimal for an airport setting, there are other. I do know that the Israelis also rely on Kinesics, so do police services world wide to determine if someone is lying. That plus statement, counter statement, non-statement, random statements foul people up because if they're lying, they've already practiced a script.
Good liars are rare. Good bullshitters are very rare. The majority of people are both bad liars, and bad bullshitters.
Om, nomnomnom...
Yeah well Americans pay their cops on average around $30k a year too. The average canadian cop makes $80k, you get what you're willing to pay.
Om, nomnomnom...
Sorry, if you are making north of 200k and "have a harder time providing for our family", you ain't doing it right. Cell phones, every cable channel, the new lex in the 3 car garage. If you adjust for inflation that 20k is nice. I make less than half of what you make, and I am living high on the hog. I honestly don't know what you are doing wrong, but you are doing it.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
The Government is immune from many actions you can take against other persons and corporations.
BTW, I have stood up to the Government (in particular, the IRS) and actually won. And when I was denied satisfaction (basically proved that the IRS committed negligence in their baseless charges of tax evasion and wrongful levy and liens) because I could not prove they acted in malice (a level not required for private/civil lawsuits).
Too bad too many people like yourself value "getting along" more than keeping your essential liberties...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Why? That's an easy question to answer: because we're human.
But... That's true for all countries.
On the ABC Evening News they ran a story about how now, women that wear skirts will be taken aside and physically STRIPPED.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4GP_qlJAIA&hd=1 (pay attention starting at about the 2min mark)
Women with large chests get "special attention" too. I know this as fact from friends.
I have to fly next year. I have metal implants in my body, broken bones in an accident.
I set off metal detectors from half a mile away. I also happen to have a large chest.
I prefer to wear skirts. Though I think I would rather not when I do fly next year.
I have been warned that because of the metal in my body I will be made to go through enhanced screening which will likely include a PORNO SCAN and a GROPE UP by a thug with a gun and a badge. When they grope you now, they squeeze and manipulate your breasts and they take time to feel your female parts. Each and every little detail of your girly bits, you know, just in case they are like, a bomb?
With the metal setting off the metal detectors and my chest setting off the, um chest detectors, I know they are going to more or less do the same thing to me a rapist would do, short of penetration.
This has gotten way out of control.
Eh, WTF? I'm not replying to you specifically, but rather this entire thread. Hell, I *live* in Ny I haven't flown since 9/11 and I don't give a fiddler's fuck what happens in Oregon. FWIW I'm Republican too. And the TSA is outta its collective mind.
C|N>K
since the scanners are not able to make us safer, and they expose TSA workers and travellers to unsafe levels of radiation
plus the fact that they're an expensive money gift to republicans who were involved in homeland security
they should be stopped.
but because they're used daily to produce kiddie porn
the manufacturers should be sued by the US government
and all funds reimbursed to the US taxpayers.
anyone from TSA who grabs my junk will be fed a knuckle sandwich.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Humans are made of cells. Thus, by removing bad cells you can make bad person a good one.
You've proved my point exactly: that's the right level of regulation - to them, but it's too much for you. Others might even consider deleting the bit about safe products and levelling the playing field. From their POV you're nothing but a dog-down dawty comyahnast!
Ask people whether they like their bathwater too hot (or too cold). Of course they don't. That doesn't mean everyone agrees on the ideal temperature, or even agrees that there is one.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
He won the Nobel Prize for developing a mathematical model that accurately predicts what economic behavior? As far as I'm aware, no such model exists. The Austrian school is anathema to many economists because they embrace economics as the soft science it is, rather than attempting to make it something it is unlikely to ever become: a hard science.
Economics is even softer than social sciences, because it is nearly impossible to construct adequate control groups and produce actual functional, empirical data. Austrian economists recognize this, and instead study human behavior to predict economic movements rather than attempting to mathematically model them. I've known a couple economists who also held PhDs in actual hard science fields, and they invariably deride non-scientist economists for deluding themselves into thinking economics is anything other than a soft science.
The closest economics gets to a hard science is in MMOs, which are self-contained economies where every single interaction can be accounted for.
Macro-scale human interactions are highly predictable, but hard to model mathematically in a fashion that stands up to the rigor of scientific empiricism. Austrian economists are by-and-large those who have accepted that fact and moved on. The rest are still trying to shoehorn people into one-size-fits-all mathematical models. It's going to be a long time before we have the processing power to come close to doing the latter successfully.
Why would you have to call a cop if a TSA goon grabs your crotch and why do we need a law saying I can call a cop if they do it. I would think your first, reasonable response would be to do a good deal of physical harm to your 'attacker'. Then, sure, call a cop if you want to.
As best I can tell that is exactly what a modern corporation was intended to do. They do not call it a limited liability corporation for no reason.
I would think your first, reasonable response would be to do a good deal of physical harm to your 'attacker'.
I concur, of course. What this bill does though, is put the TSA goons back in exactly the same set of rules that pertain to everyone else. So, if someone grabs your balls, retaliating physically would be justified, uniform or no uniform.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
However, the U.S. Constitution wouldn't exist if the Declaration of Independence hadn't been successful. That document does mention God, and even more frightening, it mentions a "Creator" quite explicitly.
And yet, when drafting the Constitution, they very intentionally left God out of it, and explicitly kept government out of religion. Ron Paul is full of shit when he says the Constitution is replete with references to God.
I learned the Reid Technique [wikipedia.org] in the span of about a month.
A "technique" that, one might add, is not actually all that useful for getting the truth; it IS useful for getting false confessions from people under severe psychological duress, though. To suggest that it's useful for airport screenings is ludicrous - it's not even useful for police work, at least if your definition of successful police work is "separate the innocent from the guilty", rather than "punish 'em all and let God sort 'em out".
wants to let individuals sue *employees* for implementing the policies *our elected representatives* have put in place?
Why not allow individuals to sue politically appointed officials who set the policy, and lawmakers to pass laws the laws behind the policy? Wouldn't that be more fair?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's the real issue here. All those underage terrorists poisoning sippy cups in daycares across the nation.
We can have any kind of screeners we want. We just have to decide on the job specification, post it at a high enough salary to attract a sufficient number of qualified candidates.
We *don't* have the kind of screeners we want simply because we'd rather take the hit in personal safety and dignity than in our wallet.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If you think flying commercial airlines is empowering, I suggest that you haven't flown on one lately. For 99% of human history, people did not fly on airplanes. Even today, many human beings live healthy and rewarding lives without once flying on an airplane. Flying is not breathing.
Is it more libertarian to support regulation promoting fairness, or to support mandatory labeling for full disclosure?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The most common way to disprove an economic theory is to put the policy into place and observe that the predicted result doesn't happen.
For instance, if you try to introduce a 'trickle-down' effect for 30 years and the median wages don't go up, it's safe to say that 'trickle-down' doesn't happen. Or if you think that lowering tax rates will increase tax revenue, you try it for a few decades, and tax revenues go down, you can pretty easily discredit that theory as well.
I am officially gone from
You said the same things I wanted to say, but better. For once, the "Think of the children" mantra is actually reasonable here, and it might actually help to snap people out of their complacency and make them realize how degrading this latest security theatre is. It's one thing to meekly give up all of our privacy and liberty just because the government asks us to, but even BEYOND that, they are now trying to take away our basic dignity. People need to draw the line somewhere and make the TSA realize, enough is enough.
Imagine you have a teenage daughter. Would you rather: (1) have her be irradiated by a medically-unproven scanning device which will show images of her naked body to the sleazy TSA guys behind the counter, any one of whom might capture that image with his cell phone to wank off to later, or: (2) have her be physically molested by a same-sex TSA employee who will touch her breasts and crotch, in public view in front of other passengers, or (3) have her be physically molested by a same-sex TSA employee who will touch her breasts and crotch, in a private room out of sight?
All three of these are grossly invasive and unacceptable options. Of course they're grossly invasive and unacceptable for adults too, but it might be easier to make people realize this if they happen to be a parent and you can explain it to them in terms of what is going to happen to their child. After thinking this through, I think any decent parent would be quite angry at the TSA.
"Harder" is relative. My dad lived a comfortable middle-class life in the early 70s. You'd think that, with us making 10x as much, we'd be in much higher strata now. We're not, we're also in a middle-class life. Which is fine, it just doesn't jibe with making as much as we do.
Besides which, you're living nicely only if you're living just for today. We put a big chunk of our income into retirement savings, just like my father did. We drive late model cars (an '03 and an '06), have a modestily sized house, are putting two kids through college and have two more at home, and pay cash for everything. We do go on better vacations than our friends, but that's only because my wife travels for work and we use her American and Hilton points for vacation. Other than that, it's a very boring and routine middle-class life. Again, not what you'd expect from a $200k household income.
Oh, and we live in Texas. I can't imagine what things would be like in New York or the Bay Area.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Every time I've been to Israel, these 'detectives' have spent a long time searching all my stuff. Since I was doing nothing wrong, clearly their Secret Detective Sense isn't working too good.
You were in Israel, that probably puts you in the "doing something wrong" catagory, especially if you are not an Israeli...
I can sue the corporation for damages...
Because the government permits it. Why do you elect people that grant immunity for the government, and give themselves automatic raises, etc? If you can demand the right to sue a corp, certainly you can demand the same from the government itself. Like in bowling and in golf, it's called "follow through". You keep the pressure up until you accomplish your goal.
Too bad too many people like yourself value "getting along"...
I didn't even imply anything of the kind.. I'm only saying that when you complain about the government, you are complaining about the people you choose to run it. And the bizarre part comes up when you all keep the very same people in power.. by your own free will, which you seem to claim is under the influence of radio waves controlled by alien billionaires. Like so many others, you have learned how to be helpless. A rationalization for apathy. I contend it's a way of deflecting responsibility for your own actions. A small variation of "the dog ate my homework"... The decision to let bureaucrats ru(i)n is yours. And it's up to you and your neighbors.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
You just think your life is harder. Either you haven't asked your Dad, or he is doing the classic, "back in my day" to you.
Cheap storage VM.
Could you expound upon fascism being opposed to federalism? That seems non-intuitive to me. Don't want to argue, just wanted the reasoning. Fascism is so overloaded as a term, and historically encompassed so many ideologies, its probably just that I think of some first and ignore others.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Elicit any false confessions with it yet? Funny example to use to make a point about "proven" interrogation techniques, as Reid as proven to in fact not work (assuming you goal is to learn the truth, and not just to "break" a suspect).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
If I don't like how a government conducts its business, I can always vote for a different one... Funny how everything is alike
True, but you're likely not get a different result, as your voted mitigated by millions of others. Whereas, if I chose not to buy a medicine from a pharmaceutical company, the effect is immediate and isolated. My decisions is forced on no one be me and my immediate family as opposed to the 49.99% of the population that didn't agree with me.
If you don't have anything to hide you don't have anything to worry about.
Former Governor Jesse Ventura doesn't have anything to hide, but because of the metal in his body from various surgeries, he always sets off the scanners and is subjected to additional screening. Yesterday he vowed off public flying as long as this TSA obscenity persists due to their mistreatment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVKmMD-_QuA I love his quote: "I'd rather face the dangers than lose my freedom." http://peswiki.com/index.php/Review:Jesse_Ventura:American_Concentration_Camps_Conspiracy_Theory Don't touch my junk or you're going to jail.
Tomorrow's news yesterday -- the bleeding, visionary edge.
Do the corporations poll your neighbors when they decide to dump their garbage into the river? Or do they have to have the government come and regulate them?
I'm liable to have my Libertarian party membership revoked in saying this, but you do have small point. I've come to recognize that the neighborhood effect (Friedman's use of the term, not the electoral usage) is sufficient reason for government to have a hand in keeping water and the air clean, but the pollution and its effects and the impact of the regulation have to measurable and focused. It is proper for government to keep companies (or individuals for that matter) from polluting our ground water and air, so long as the regulation is clear, predictable and implemented by the governmental body as reasonably close to the polluter as possible. To say that your vote is as valuable as your dollar is simply not true. If I live in an state with a population that is just happy with polluting farmers and ranchers polluting the groundwater, my vote is hardly significant compared to the dollars required to move to a state with cleaner water.
Whereas, if I chose not to buy a medicine from a pharmaceutical company, the effect is immediate and isolated.
What, you their only customer? You actually believe that company has no control over your access to medicine, through price fixing, distribution, etc? Gee, I don't buy products I see on the TV, yet for some reason, they still make huge profits. And the airways, the air, and the water are still poisoned with their trash. I still have to fill their forms, in triplicate, and submit to dehumanizing interrogations and testing for services nobody else offers. If the government put up some competition, you might have a point.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
What, you their only customer? You actually believe that company has no control over your access to medicine, through price fixing, distribution, etc? Gee, I don't buy products I see on the TV, yet for some reason, they still make huge profits. And the airways, the air, and the water are still poisoned with their trash. I still have to fill their forms, in triplicate, and submit to dehumanizing interrogations and testing for services nobody else offers. If the government put up some competition, you might have a point.
There are certainly a lot of real frustrations in that paragraph, some of which I do share and I certainly don't think I'm their only customer. But I also don't believe I have a right to the product they produce. As far as limit, I'm merely saying that my choice and the use of that decision has a very limited immediate and measurable effect, as opposed as the effect of the decision of just over one-half of the populace has on the rest of the country.
By the way, yes, government as a role in keeping each of us and our businesses from polluting our neighbors' air and water.
Here's some big differences:
Really, if you wanted to be in that comfortable middle class like your dad, you would probably have to give up a lot of comforts they just didn't have back then - and it's a lot nicer to have air conditioning instead of a fan.
Also, you might want to recheck your definitions. I'm guessing that you are spending a lot of money that you don't have to if you are only living a "boring" middle-class life. Or, you might not realize what a middle-class life actually is. The middle class doesn't have everything they want, but they do have everything they need - plus a little left over for nice things on occasion.
Middle-class vacations back in the 70s was loading the family in the car and driving to visit relatives and staying with them to save costs. (Although camping was a good alternative.) Flying somewhere and staying in a hotel was definitely a sign of being upper-middle-class at the very least. Plus, do you buy designer clothes or buy "regular" brands? Middle-class is picking up your day-to-day clothes at Target or Walmart, not Macy's or a specialty store. Plus, the middle class does things like clip coupons, wait for sales or other things to stretch their dollar.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
If I live in an state with a population that is just happy with polluting farmers and ranchers polluting the groundwater, my vote is hardly significant compared to the dollars required to move to a state with cleaner water.
And you have the same problem when those same people continue to patronize a polluter. Elimination of the offense will cost the same regardless if the offender is corporate or the state.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Actually the idea of a "trickle-down" effect is that if you lower taxes on the highest income earners, they will higher more people (thus lowering unemployment). Hey and what do you know, unemployment has been lower than what economists called "full employment" for a large portion of the last 30 years.
In other words the theory has been thoroughly proven according to your standards because when tax rates were lowered, tax revenues went up.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Uh .. .what? The "grown-ups" (who I assume you do not number yourself among) have decided that more government intervention is better? Are you nuts? The question is not whether or not we need to reduce the size of Federal Government ... but what parts to cut.
Don't presume to speak for your betters.
Must...not...feed...the...trolls... Ah, hell, why not.
Don't you presume to speak for those of us who have actually thought about things, pal. Yes, we're right; you're wrong.
A cogent argument. Very well, I capitulate. Funny, I was the one who was feeding a troll, now that I think of it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
OK, what strawman are you trying to argue? That Libertarians oppose ALL Government? Is that your point? If so, you're sadly misinformed. We just want limited Government, not zero Government.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
This needs to be condensed to a bumper sticker.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Libertarians? Did I mention anything about Libertarians? No? Whew! I thought I might have blown my cover there for a second.
Strawman? Is there a real strawman in telling you that your government is your creation? Built and sustained with your hands? Is there some strawman in pointing out the less than feeble resistance against it?
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
USA Libertarians are on record saying that while in principal they are for equality they do not see it as the governments job to pass laws forcing someone to let blacks patronize their business. They would hope the weight of public opinion would do the job.
Anarchists never rule
The problem is really that there are economists who actually believe what you just said is true.
It's a common way to attempt to prove or disprove a theory, but it does nothing of the sort. There is no way to provide for a control, or account for most of the countless variables that can grossly skew the results one way or the other. There is nothing to say that a different economic policy implemented at the same time wouldn't have had nearly identical results, or that the same policy implemented at a different time wouldn't have radically different results.
If you have a single policy over hundreds or thousands of years, and then compare it to another policy that stands hundreds or thousands of years, then you might have a good idea of which one does what and when they do that "what." Until then, economics will remain the softest of soft sciences, and the concept of "empirical" economics will result in gales of laughter from real, actual scientists.
While I agree with the points raised in general (and specifically that the idea of economics as a science), I'd have to also agree that you're either doing something wrong or there's some clouding in your perspective. Given that the comparison is about your childhood, I'm inclined to strongly believe the latter is the case. Should neither be the case, there are other things to explain the loss of purchasing power.
In inflation-adjusted terms, you and your wife are only making twice what your father made. There are also probably other differences. Same number of children? That's an enormous factor in your cost of living. Also, the costs of child care increase dramatically when both parents are out of the home. Sometimes that increase is nearly as much as one of the parent's earned income. Those two factors alone could cut your effective income, compared to your father's, in half. Then you're right where he was, despite making 10x the dollar figure. I'll leave it at that, since that's already a good deal of conjecture about a situation only described in the vaguest terms.
For anyone who saw Schneier's link to the video of the Senate hearing but didn't want to spend 90 minute sitting through it, don't. It's disgusting.
The first 30 minutes are nothing more than senator after senator saying the same three things:
1. How much of a threat we all face
2. How thankful they are for the fantastic job the TSA is doing
3. How glad they are for the new screening procedures, because they all have busted knees/hips, which means they can avoid a patdown.
They do say that we need to assess the concerns, but only in the context of understanding why people are complaining. A number of complaints are offended by private screenings for fear of greater molestation, yet the senators think private screenings are a good thing... they're simply out of touch. With one single witness, the hearing was a waste of time; Pistole gives the company line.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
The grown-ups have already decided that more government intervention is better than less government intervention.
Translation: "Because I agree with the government intervention, I will call those who enacted it 'grown ups' to make my point seem stronger and any who disagree with me look like children, in spite of my having provided no basis for the 'adult vs. child' reference nor any evidence that the government intervention was the better choice."
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
BULLSHIT. This issue has *nothing* to do with partisanship. I would definitely classify myself as a Democrat, but this issue trumps it all. If Republicans are only ones willing to stand up for human rights to one's own body, then I would back that Republican. ANY politician backing this invasion of privacy would never receive my backing.
So, I make a comment about how the slashbots will shout down any mention of Ron Paul and Libertarianism, and just as I expected, they prove my point for me.
Read the parent comment, look at the moderations, and read the responses if you doubt me.
That is one of the many reasons I no longer give a Rattus rattus's pink rectal tissue about this place or my "karma", and why I now so rarely comment.
www.eFax.com are spammers
It might interest you to know that the Jim Crow laws were enacted by the state legislatures to prohibit businesses from offering integrated accommodations. The railroads, in particular, didn't want the hassle of maintaining separate cars, for example.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
We need a law saying you can because you currently can't (simplistic and not wholly accurate, but this is /. and to do otherwise is an invitation to an argument on semantics). They are unnecessarily immune from the consequences of their actions, like almost all executive employees during the exercise of the power of their position. I would honestly like to see executive immunity limited much further than this, so that enforcement officers have a damned good case before they do anything to someone else. That the situation is frequently described as a choice between unchecked abuse of power and the fear that any responsible use of power can land an enforcement officer in jail (or at least jobless) shows just how broken the current system is.
Ultimately, doing physical harm to the Crotch-Grabbing Administration employee is definitely more satisfying, if much less practical, than legal action. Legal action also opens you up less to prosecution for your actions in regards to the crotch-grabbers at the TSA, while pummeling said employee tends to be frowned upon as an unnecessary escalation that can lead to legal penalties for the crotch-grabee.
It's a bit more complex than that, and a lot of it has to do with the belief that people will construct institutions using the frameworks available to them.
In the US, we do not have universal healthcare (despite the passage of the "Universal Healthcare" bill, we still do not). There are certain areas, despite that, which do have universal healthcare available. I live in one of the only urban areas in the United States that can be considered nominally conservative, and we have an association of private organizations (charities, doctors, hospitals) that provide healthcare for anyone who is unable to afford it, and do so quite successfully. The largest threat to this association is the government. It is a sustainable model, but once healthcare is nationalized it will no longer be supported. As with other things, people will eventually forget that it is possible, frequently preferable, to control important processes through the local community. If anything happens to the national system, or if there are major disasters in other places which impact it adversely, local communities that could otherwise take care of themselves are adversely affected when they would not otherwise be.
By centralizing things, you create a monoculture which has all the weaknesses of any other monoculture. If there's anything geeks should understand, it is that such monocultures breed nasty weaknesses which can be easily, effectively, and ruthlessly exploited. It's amazing how much the open source movement parallels some of the concepts of libertarianism, and how blind many people are to that fact. It's fine if you want all these government services, but you should be able to pick other platforms for most functions if you so choose. Do you really want complete vendor lock-in for every service you access, or would you like people to be able to innovate and create novel solutions from the ground up?
Libertarians are not anarchists.
Many libertarians are in fact anarchists. (Not all are minarchists.)
For example, Murray N. Rothbard considered himself a libertarian, but he definitely believed in anarchy ('the absence of archy').
He doesn't have too. It already exists and is called the forth amendment. Paul's bill codifies an enforceable recourse for a specific type of violation of such.
you used "it's" as a possessive. ha-ha.
Ah! My disconnect wasn't the word fascism but federalism. I think of federalism as one of the more centralist doctrines. The anti-federalists in the U.S. for instance were for a weaker central government than the federalists.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
A broken (analog) clock will still display the right time twice a day.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Here it is.
And he writes:
Citizens in southern and western states in particular tend to value individual liberty, property rights, gun rights, and religious freedom, values which are abhorrent to the collectivist elites.
Ron Paul can take his paranoid, hypocritical, bigoted viewpoint and go to hell. He would make a lousy president.
Citizens in southern and western states in particular tend to value individual liberty, property rights, gun rights, and religious freedom, values which are abhorrent to the collectivist elites.
Ron Paul can take his paranoid, hypocritical, bigoted viewpoint and go to hell. He would make a lousy president.
You got all that from that one line? Then either you'd make the greatest president, or the best ever. Paranoid? You don't belive in the concept of evil? That there are those that do in fact want to hurt you or willing to in order to gain something? Hypocritical? Please give a citiation. Bigoted? The same... You know, I heard it said the things you hate most about others are the things you hate most about yourself.
He never said red states are more important than blue states either. Either you are buying into the FUD, or being paid to push it.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Just read the damn thing he wrote before you talk. And "FUD" is a semantically empty term on slashdot, people use it when they don't want to think critically.
You know, I heard it said the things you hate most about others are the things you hate most about yourself.
No you didn't, you just made up a vague and nonsensical epigram.
The full passage: Not surprisingly, calls to abolish the Electoral College system are heard most loudly among left elites concentrated largely on the two coasts. Liberals favor a very strong centralized federal government, and have contempt for the concept of states' rights (a contempt now shared, unfortunately, by the Republican Party). They believe in federalizing virtually every area of law, leaving states powerless to challenge directives sent down from Washington. The Electoral College system threatens liberals because it allows states to elect the president, and in many states the majority of voters still believe in limited government and the Constitution. Citizens in southern and western states in particular tend to value individual liberty, property rights, gun rights, and religious freedom, values which are abhorrent to the collectivist elites. The collectivists care about centralized power, not democracy. Their efforts to discredit the Electoral College system are an attempt to limit the voting power of pro-liberty states.
So it's just whining about all those evil commies in the northeast and on the west coast. I.e., the blue states.
I don't support racists.
Ron Paul has written numerous public statements which are anti-semitic, racist, anti-homosexul and sexist.
He i against separation of church and state, anti-environment and pro corporate rights.
He accepts donations from white supremacists and anti-semetic groups as well as being anti-abortion and anti-birth control.
So yea, in Ron Paul's world you can smoke weed, but can't have an abortion or be an atheist or Jew. Nor vote if you are black.
You fool, he is a legend god.
The other politicos are scum thug theives , evil rapist incarnate.
He is an ex-doctor.
99% of the other EVIL senators are ex lawyers.
Let me remind you again, most of the planet thinks usa govt sucks ass and is as evil as soviet era dick wads.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
You have in god we trust on your coins.
Grow up LOONY TUNES, your govt is 100% 1:1 in cahoots with the religious left/right nut bags.
Why do you think BUSH got elected. Not for his intellect or brightness of a 1 watt bulb.
Now go back to your fake Fox News and belief that usa is #1.
Face it, USA is Pro CHRIST, it obviously isnt majority and pro ISLAM is it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Fear = Profit
Around here we have options for electric companies to choose. BGE (Maryland) still maintains the power infrastructure, but you can by the power from a number of suppliers (most, but not all just resellers.)
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It's absurd that Brett's comment was modded down to 0 and flagged as a troll. He wasn't making ad hominem attacks, nor was he goading other Slashdotters. Just because you don't believe in someone's argument doesn't mean they're trolling. Poor moderation.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
And now they're progressed to "rent-a-rapist".
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
While all anarchists may be libertarians, most libertarians are not anarchists.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
Ouch, that sucks. I'd rather deal with a regulated monopoly than a natural monopoly with reselling rights.
Obviously, the natural monopoly will pass its costs to its resellers, who then add another administrative layer (with the associated costs). The natural monopoly gets to raise its prices even more than it naturally would since it is "competing" with firms with an extra layer of administrative overhead.
After all, I am strangely colored.