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Paul's Call To Abolish the TSA, One Year Later
A year ago today, we noted that Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky called for the abolition of the Transportation Security Administration. It's now nearly 12 years since the hijacked-plane terror attacks of 2001; the TSA was created barely two months later, and has been (with various rules, procedures, and equipment, all of it controversial for reasons of privacy, safety, and efficacy) a major presence ever since at American commercial airports. "The American people shouldn't be subjected to harassment, groping, and other public humiliation simply to board an airplane," wrote Paul last year, and in June of 2012, he followed up by introducing two bills on the topic; the first calling for a "bill of rights" for air travelers, the other for privatizing airport screening practices. Neither bill went far. Should they have? Libertarian-leaning Paul did not succeed in knocking back the TSA, never mind privatizing its functions (currently funded at nearly $8 billion annually), though some of the things called for in his bill of rights are manifest now at least in muted form. (Very young passengers, as well as elderly passengers, face less stringent security requirements, for instance, and TSA has ended its prohibition of certain items aboard planes.) Whether you're from the U.S. or not, what practical changes would you like to see implemented? What shouldn't be on the bill of rights for airplane passengers?
Every time some disaster hits the US, we're going to see a big growth in the size and reach of government. In fact, I believe there are many politicians who salivate at the thought of catastrophe so they can go cry about the children on camera and create a new 3-letter tumor on our already unconstitutional government.
I mean, come on, this is a government that still administers polygraph examinations for its employees, eight decades after the guy who sold it to the government admitted he made the device up to support his other lifelong work, the Wonder Woman comic book.
The TSA isn't going anywhere folks. Look all the fighting it took to force sequestration, and then take a step back and view it from a different perspective.
Rand Paul is the worst thing to happen to libertarians. Just as Communism became conflated with Stalinism, Libertarianism runs the risk of becoming known through the lens of Paulism, which is a horrible bastardization of their ideals. He opposes same sex marriage, opposes the right to choose and supports foreign intervention by the US military.
Please don't let him claim the libertarian mantle or hold him up as an embodiment of your ideals - he's more destructive to the libertarian movement than all the political opponents there are. His position on the TSA is one of populist convenience, not one of principle.
He made no call to abolish the TSA. He made a call to privatize it. There is a world of difference. There would be even less oversight of the TSA if it were out of government hands. It's bad enough as it is. Privatizing it would just remove all accountability, not that there is that much now. If it really were a call to abolish the TSA, that is something that many freedom lovers could get behind.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
I would like to keep my shoes on and be able to take a 2L through the checkpoint.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Why do we even need screening anymore? No one will ever be allowed into the cockpit again, even if they start murdering passengers. Bomb sniffers are still useful, but at this point, an attack on a football stadium during a game would be far more detrimental, both in terms of casualties and psychologically.
What shouldn't be on the bill of rights for airplane passengers?
- nonsense question.
There shouldn't even be such a legal document as 'bill of rights', because it is completely misunderstood probably by all to mean that those are your rights and nothing else. Not true, the government has no authority to limit any of your rights, by default you have all of your rights intact.
Government can strip you of your rights temporarily or permanently depending on whether the Constitution authorises that power to government for certain situations (like taxing your transactions, it's loss of a right, but at least it's Constitutional).
Saying that there should be an "airplane passenger bill of rights" is like saying that there should be a "bill of rights for blacks" or "bill of rights for gays" or "bill of rights for women" or "bill of rights for employees", none of it makes any sense, you have all of your rights regardless of your group and association, you shouldn't lose your rights for reasons that are outside of the power authorised to the government by the Constitution, yet here we are.
MY OTHER COMMENTS
Ironically how would armed drones have been sane to use in a busy metropolitan city to catch TWO people on foot. Maybe if they had hijacked a passenger less bus or vehicle and were on a stretch of the interstate by themselves, but then your still blowing up civil infrastructure for something a good o'le fashioned barricade would have made much more sense for.
Drones are a military technology for war fighting with limited use in the civil arena. The problems were having as a nation is conflating terrorism with military action.
In a world where people aren't encouraged from a young age to compete, but instead to cooperate, you'll have neither the warmongers who encourage relaliatory action, nor the sort of petty dictators who staff the TSA.
Wow, that just substitutes the past 9000 years of history for pop psychology that wouldn't survive a 101-level course. Since I can't say it better:
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Although effectually the TSA serves little to no purpose in actual deterrence, it may be left just to make people feel comfortable / safe. Tho I disagree with both having the TSA and theatrical aspects.
-Ultimate Stickman Game Developer Infinite World Puzzler
Thats a beautiful sentiment, but is it really true? =)
With the total inability of government to do anything that benefits the people, I often wonder if it's possible to crowd-source activism.
Suppose we had a web site where people could register discontent with selected issues. Something like "Fix It Or Else.com".
In the manner of We The People, people could find or create petitions which demand actions from politicians on specific issues, and promise to vote against the incumbent if the issues are not resolved.
For example, you could petition your senators to abolish the TSA, and if that doesn't happen you promise to vote against them at the next election. Similar for other issues - end the war on drugs, legalize gay marriage, increase NASA's budget, and so on.
Many elections are decided by a thin margin - a couple of thousand votes is usually enough to swing the election. Frequently a couple of hundred will do. You wouldn't have to give up the belief that your party is better than the other party; just resolve to punish them for inaction this one time.
Would this have an effect? Could crowd-sourcing bring accountability to the rulers of government?
Some details:
.) Issues would be addressed to specific politicians. Petitions could be addressed to the president, your senators, your governor, and so on - depending on the scope of the issue.
.) If a petition reaches a registration goal, a copy is sent to the addressed people.
.) Six weeks before the election, the system invites petition registrants to vote whether the issue was resolved
.) One week before the election, the system sends the voting results back. You would get an E-mail "95% of respondents feel this issue was not addressed, and will be voting against Senator Jack Johnson at the upcoming election".
.) The system will close petition registrations some months before the election (at the party convention?) to prevent paid shills from swaying the results.
A lot of the stuff discouraging tourism isn't from the TSA, but from other agencies under the Department of Homeland Security. For example, Customs and Border Patrol are the ones who run the ridiculous entry process, where non-U.S.-nationals typically have to wait in a line for 1-2 hours before they can be interrogated about their visit and eventually make it out of the airport. And the Office of Biometric Identity Management (formerly US-VISIT), another agency, requires all non-nationals to be biometrically recorded upon entry. And that's only for people in the visa-waiver program: if you're not from a visa-waiver country, there's a whole other set of hassles and delays to get a tourist visa. This process operates poorly enough that a number of academic conferences have started avoiding the U.S., because the delay is so long that speakers from countries like China and Egypt can't get a visa in time to attend and present their paper.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Also the wealthiest. Coincidence?
Not even close.
Success in capitalism is directly correlated with a distinct lack of morals, self-centeredness, sociopathic behavior, and of course inherited dynastic wealth. None of those serve anybody. Yes, there are edge case examples of successful people who don't exhibit these traits, but for the most part successful capitalists do exhibit them, and the most successful ones manage to hide that fact from a lot of people.
Now, if you want to tell me you can get relatively wealthy running your own business, employing people, and selling stuff that people want to buy to people who want to buy it, more power to you. That's free enterprise, but it's not modern capitalism. In the modern capitalism version of that story, you start a business, employ a bunch of people, then sell the business quickly to get a bunch of cash while the purchaser either moves the business to China and/or tries to eliminate as many of the employees as possible in order ot pay off the leveraged debt that was used to buy the business in the first place. That's the "captial" part.
Modern capitalism also makes looting, pillaging, and economic slavery legal. It even turns a blind eye to actual slavery, as long as the customers don't find out about it and as long as it takes place in some country with people of a different skin color and all. Actual looting and plundering? You outsource that to purchased government leaders. Financial looting and plundering? That's still a bit of a DIY operation, primarily handled by Wall Street investment banking firms.
LOL. Seriously. If your believe that you are quite mad or seriously gullible.
Bush caused two wars and conquered, the Halliburton Corporation, owned by him and Chaney, made 50 billion with this wars.
The Banks are serving no one except themselves and when they royally fucked up, society was needed to save them.
No one can nowadays become really wealthy by "serving your fellow man". Do nurses get rich? Or police officers? Or the sanitation worker? No. never. The only getting rich (I mean rich) are either already rich, criminals or both. Or win the lottery. Ordinary people starting their business and getting rich are a rare exception not the rule. And they don't serve. They just make money. Many people have two or more jobs. Not to get rich, but to survive.
Capitalism ensures that a few have as much as possible to rule above the rest and keep them dependent. Slaves with wages. Nothing else
BTW : WHY should one amass great wealth? Why should one have more than his fellow man?
Since someone else already responded to the second sentence, decisively, I'll do the first sentence:
In a world where people aren't encouraged from a young age to compete, but instead to cooperate, you'll have neither the warmongers who encourage relaliatory action, nor the sort of petty dictators who staff the TSA.
I'm not a libertarian, nor GOP, nor male. I can tell you this, though: It is contrary to human nature not to be competitive. Some competition, starting from a young age, is good! It increases self-esteem, pride in family, school and country. Yes, cooperation is necessary too, e.g. a group of people aligned to achieve a common goal, which (usually) can be accomplished only through competition with those whose goals are different. Regarding "warmongers who encourage relaliatory [retaliatory?] action": Retaliatory action doesn't mean you are a warmonger. There are many ways to retaliate such as tariffs, embargoes, intermarriage. The latter is even a form of cooperation!
The TSA is a pathological bureaucracy. We had security and screening prior to boarding flights at airports for 20 (30?) years before 9/11. Those people didn't behave like the TSA. They searched and screened, but not in the TSA's rude, distasteful manner. They weren't privatized, and they didn't cost $8 billion per year to fund.
tempus fugit
Ignoring the millions given to charities around the world by nearly all wealthy individuals and organizations it sounds.to me like you may have a case of sour grapes. Yes, it would be great if you could come up with a great idea and profit from it, but you can't, so you want to throw the baby out with the bath water and let the state take care of everyone. Like it's never been tried before.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Yes it is true that it is possible. But there is no -ism that can overcome human nature in the long run.
At least what I know from my father, who was a POW during WWII, the US resembled the requested state to quite some degree back then.
Anecdotal evidence is that the American guards in his prisoner camp (Roswell, 14 miles SE of Roswell, New Mexico) were replaced by German officers due to the fact that things were too loosely handled.
I also was very impressed by the stories that conveyed that people left their keys in their cars without fear of theft.
I suggest that your arrogant statement regarding "pop psychology" on a sub 101 level may be questioned.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
The tsa needs to be abolished. US Citizens should not be treated like prisoners in their own country. And visitors should not be treated this poorly either, it is embarrassing. And more importantly, it does not make anyone safer, distracts from focusing on actual security.
The wealthy donate to museums and cultural causes that have acquired the same tax exempt status as humanitarian aid causes. They're also the only ones benefiting from their own causes. They also donate less as a percentage of income than the poor. That on top of being able to exploit capital gains tax rates to pay a lower percentage of income on taxes than the middle and working classes.
Millions is peanuts. As middle class wage earners, you'll "contribute" that in mandatory taxes, some of which may actually be used for something you care about (school, roads, social safety nets, wars, ...) A single hospital is billions of dollars. Countries cost trillions to run.
Capitalism is working and generating wealth in society, but it's not something that works faithfully or evenly. It's very easy to have the winners in the "free market" capture your government too, and then where are you?
People like you forget that the same man who wrote _The Wealth of Nations_ also wrote _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_.
Actually I was questioning the quote and not dictating a particular political policy or cultural methodology or social dogma. I rather like the idea of Star Trek, but we can't try that out until we can beam people we dislike to far away places and give them whatever tools they need to create their planet of tropes.
I think in many cases capitalism has been benificial, but by a means in itself I question it. Because on one hand you have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes . And then you have Bell... *cough* vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Meucci
Innovation isn't even consistently rewarded by capitalism. No matter how much stock you may want to put into a free market. There are lots of historical events that can point this out.
Why is it we are still so reliant on oil. When there are a myriad different ways to produce energy now? Because we have an oil industry. And its that simple.
Yes, it's true. It is possible to become wealthy in a capitalist society by providing a product or service that is a strong net benefit to society. Unfortunately, it's easier to become more wealthy by exploiting others.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Passengers now know they have to save themselves from terrorists in the air. It has been shown repeatedly that anyone threatening the safety of a flight is quickly brought under control by the passengers themselves. This keeps planes safer than any amount of screening will ever do.
Indeed, and before the creation and repeatedly increased power of the Corporation to shield people from the consequences of their actions, when businesses were primarily local affairs, and communities were close-knit enough to be a strong motivator to most people, that theory held reasonably well. In the modern world though we've drifted into a situation where psychopathic behaviour is encouraged and rewarded within large corporations, especially within the financial sector. Andthe massive increase in population and ease of transportation has degraded community to the point where it tends to be restricted to your co-workers and chosen social network rather than being heavily determined by geography. The result being that you get groups of people who are encouraged to ever more psycopathic behaviour and are surrounded primarily by others who are likewise encouraged, resulting in something of a social echo-chamber effect that tends to spiral out of control.
This perception is backed by many psychology experiments that show, among other things, that ethics tend to be heavily dependent on peer pressure - if an aparent member of your social group blatantly cheats and gets away with it, you become far more likely to do the same.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Ironically how would armed drones have been sane to use in a busy metropolitan city to catch TWO people on foot. Maybe if they had hijacked a passenger less bus or vehicle and were on a stretch of the interstate by themselves, but then your still blowing up civil infrastructure for something a good o'le fashioned barricade would have made much more sense for.
Drones are a military technology for war fighting with limited use in the civil arena. The problems were having as a nation is conflating terrorism with military action.
Boston proved the when the chips are down, americans are a bunch of pussies.
Imagine what would happen if you didn't have a second amendment and a population who love their guns
"Please declare marshal law and put heavilly armed soldiers and tanks on the streets, I'm scared of a couple of guys on the run, please come into my house, don't mind the 4th amendment"
Oh wait.
It is contrary to human nature not to be competitive.
I'd modify that to "It is contrary to human nature not to be playful." Play is simultaneously competitive and cooperative. Importantly, "winning" in play isn't "for keeps" --- "I'm stronger and faster than you" doesn't translate into "you're my slave bitch for life," or accumulation and leveraging of power over others. In fact, when participants in play are badly mismatched in raw ability, the stronger will typically voluntarily and spontaneously hobble themselves --- not by stopping trying, but in some manner that requires them to do more than their opponents to "win." Opposite to "competition-for-keeps" where the winners get more at the expense of the losers, playfulness tilts the field so everyone can stay in the game, uplifting one another and improving themselves (from whatever level of ability).
Indeed, and before the creation and repeatedly increased power of the Corporation to shield people from the consequences of their actions, when businesses were primarily local affairs, and communities were close-knit enough to be a strong motivator to most people, that theory held reasonably well.
Yet who supports small business owners? I often see a false dichotomy that power must go either to big business or big government, not many want to empower the individual. I'd relax taxation and record keeping on non-incorporated individuals. I'd like it to be a lot easier for an employee to make the transition to self-employment.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
"Since it isn't politically correct to profile, and it's nearly impossible to kill a government agency, my vote is to change the name of the TSA to the Transportation Groping agency."
They profile all the time. Hell, half their job is profiling. The problem is that they don't profile over the right things... precisely because it's not "politically correct". So they profile other things. Things they know are worthless.
The phrase "security theater" is no joke. It's all a big act, at your expense. And it isn't entertaining. Or even funny.
Capitalism certainly does do that - I'm guessing you're well fed, with a roof over your head, sitting in front of a computer with internet access, wearing decent clothes, perhaps in good health with decent dental care, maybe glasses... all things provided to you by capitalists through a mutual exchange that both parties found satisfactory.
You're also most likey employed (or will be) by a capitalist.
Gordon Gecko said it in Wall Street... yes, fictional, but a good point- "Greed is good." No, I don't particularly care for people I consider "too" greedy, but even going back to all those "robber barons" in the days of yore, they built this country (yes, I'm being US-centric), creating millions of jobs, making goods accessible nationwide in a way that simply wasn't possible before, benefitting nearly everybody along the way... and people can only seem to focus on the part that they got rich doing it.
It's true that sometimes people go to far, Enron being a prime example, but the fact is that cases like that are few and far between in the grand scheme of things - put it in perspective, ask how many capitalist businesses there are out there, all run by people mostly who just want to make money, that are all run honestly, within the bounds of the law, and employing millions and providing goods and services to millions more... where, exactly, is the problem? Has there ever been a system that has done more for the common person than capitalism?
Stupid sexy Flanders.
That's a weird thing to say. My point is that the competitiveness of a society is tied to its growth rate. Any society, no matter how sophisticated or simple, can survive without capitalism or an equivalent if growth is not a priority.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Sitting here in the Amtrak station, waiting for the Empire Builder to start it's journey from PDX to the my prairie home far east of here, I have to give a wry smile to the article. I finally stopped flying a few years ago, after the body and soul crushing lineups during a change of planes in DC coming in from Europe. I don't think I will take a plane again unless Rand Paul gets his way. 2 days travel to Sacramento, 2 days back again. But I just pretend that things are further away, like they used to be, and make travel decisions accordingly. There are wonderful moments of letting time slow down when traveling by train. Now, I am almost glad for the excuse. For overseas there are boats for that. I still have fond memories of booking a spare berth on a tramp freighter first time I crossed the Atlantic. Bye bye, TSA, rot in H....
So don't expect the bombs to stop anytime soon.
Boston is just the start, whether or not who you believe is responsible one thing is for sure, its bigger money and bigger payouts to the banks in the future because they are using each crisis to destroy the constitution and prepare for the economic collapse of the dollar.
By the time that happens, they will be ready to deal with all of you peons reading this that don't like the fact the banks took all your money and you don't like it.
This is just all a ruse. A diversion from the real fact of the matter which is not the fact that we invaded the middle east because they "hate our freedom and liberties"...funny I don't see the Taliban or Al CIAeda passing NDAA legislation.
No, the people who hate our freedom and liberties are the people who you elect to office and above all, that den of vipers called the Federal Reserve.
They, are the ones who hate our freedom and liberties. They are the ones who signed the papers for the NDA acts via proxy of their crony puppets they allow you to pick from and idiots elect.
TSA is a crony federal reserve funded operation, and if they want you to pay more, they have nothing to prove except perhaps setting off another "terrorist act" to get an even bigger budget passed.
Most people have no idea how the money system works in the United States, and in all of its satellite states in Europe.
This entire mischief is all about money, and has nothing to do with keeping you safe.
It is disgusting and it is going to all end very very badly.
-Hack
Aeschylus: only through suffering do we learn
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I disagree. To some degree yes. But I believe oil and coal have a lot of protection while other clean technologies. Thorium salt reactors, solar arrays, desentralized solar, etc... are being stifled by the very same economy that could be using them. And all because of this excuse that without the oil companies modern civilization would collapse.
No you wouldn't be able to run your AC 24/7 and keep your house exactly at 70 degree's cheaply. But there are alternatives and they WILL become just as cheap once we kick off our old dependence on what were using now.
I've seen a myriad of hydrogen fuel cells that work, mostly at universities and parks. Sears developed cheap batteries for stuff like cell phones years ago but didn't market them... the list goes on and on.
Hydro-electric power is underdeveloped because of the fear of "geoengineering" and while I agree that it can be disastrous and greatly change the environment. I think more Hoover damns would be better then supporting the strip mining of the Appalachians. Yeah they toss some soil back into a hill shape and replant tree's but in the meantime it wrecks the environment there just as bad.
Were colonizing Alberta Canada and by we I mean INTERNATIONAL oil companies that we all support, every one of us to go about our lives, and destroying the homeland of many native Americans who are waging a guerrilla war this very moment. Yet there are alternatives that we could bring down in cost if we did the GOVERNMENT group thing and subsized the technology and rolled it out like we did the railroads. I'll tell ya what, you want to keep the same monopolies in place so the "social fucking order" doesn't get disturbed fine. But lets do this we don't have any damn excuses to keep using OBSOLETE tech here.... we are not fighting cylons.
I think that competitiveness is one of those things that you have to take on an individual basis. The conflict comes when you have a very competitive few exploiting a mostly uncompetitive majority. When everyone is being competitive this works out fine and the equation balances itself. The loosers loose, but loose less badly because they made an effort to compete, and usually in a cooperative enough way to not get completely stomped.
The rules are U.S. society are increasingly becoming anticompetitive though. And I think thats what many are railing against, and perhaps, rightly so.
To be more specific there will always be plenty of technological solutions to power generation. We'll see them come into play once oil is no longer a cheap and easy alternative. The oil industry inhibits the actual development of these solutions because, your hospital doesn't need to run a hydrogen fuel cell for its MRI machine yet.
As a species were far from becoming powerless for a long long time yet. A vast majority might have to go without in the next century though if we don't start making a transition. Not to mention the rest of the environmental damage were causing and that impact. I hope this second post is more concise and less inflammatory.
Well, that is a fine description of events, except you've left out any conception of religion, morality, and the golden rule.
Believe it or not, religion and related ethics are the major counterbalance to the "naked greed" that would seem to be the driving force of capitalism. We shall see what ethos derives from the current era, if any.. :P
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
It always amuses me when traveling to the US on business to see the difference between what they display on the nice "welcome" videos in the immigration processing queue, and what the attitude of the uniformed officers are actually like. It's like on the one hand, the marketing people would very much like people to visit the US and spend money, but on the other hand the people that you first meet resent your presence.
-- Cisk for the Cisk God
Capitalism, communism, feudalism, fundamentalism, militarism ... no matter what -ism you use, they all have the same fatal flaw: self-important, power-wielding, psychotic fucks who backstab their way to the top and keep the majority of the resources for themselves.
I'll be frank:
1) Are you in fact right? Could there be a reason why the world at large rejects your views?
2) Are you presenting your ideas in an attractive way? Maybe ask some of these people to provide you with some feedback?
3) Is this more about you than the world? Maybe get some counselling before this "world versus me" mentality becomes intractable.
4) Learn to be less bothered by the mundane and the things out of your control.
You really want to be careful to avoid this "Mr. Nice Guy" thing. The mention of good people being turned bad smells of psychosis or at least only in the last line of a long post did you in any way acknowledge possible faults on your side. Realistically with so many push backs it's probably you, not the world that has a problem. Really, talk to a counsellor or a good friend. Viewing the world as you do is ruinous and ultimately leads to misanthropic fuelled self-isolation.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
I'll be frank:
1) Are you in fact right? Could there be a reason why the world at large rejects your views?
I ask myself this multiple times a day every day. Occam's razor, right? Still, if you are right, then many people on Slashdot are wrong because I agree with a number of regular posters on here.
2) Are you presenting your ideas in an attractive way? Maybe ask some of these people to provide you with some feedback?
This is probably one of the two most relevant things you've mentioned. I probably do have some sort of problem. What's very interesting is that I've taught classes in the past and they love the way I teach. Why can I teach a class but not always help someone see something that I do? I suspect the answer is because I see things in a way others do not and therefore it requires a lengthy explanation. (I've been accused multiple times of taking too long to explain something.) People don't like lengthy. They want short. Is that my problem or theirs? Is this reply lengthy? Or is it thorough? Will anyone read it?
3) Is this more about you than the world? Maybe get some counselling before this "world versus me" mentality becomes intractable.
It's probably because of where I was raised. If I didn't have that attitude growing up, I'd be dead. My neighborhood was not a nice place to be. Remember all those horrible things that happened in New Orleans during Katrina? Looting? Rioting? Murder? None of it surprised me. It was happening before Katrina. It still happens today. One of my many friends who still lives in New Orleans was beaten a couple of weeks ago by a neighbor. She will have months of facial reconstructive surgery. She lost part of her ear in the attack.
What's interesting is that despite the "world versus me" attitude, I also have a huge inner drive to make the world better. A lot of times, though, the world doesn't want to get better. That is frustrating. Very frustrating. Ironically, it feeds the "world versus me" attitude... which then fuels the drive to make the world better. It's a vicious cycle I have a hard time keeping in check. Living in New Orleans was killing me. Literally. It was eating me from the inside out because I could not change a city that bad. It was a good thing I left. It saved my life. I admire those that still live there and are able to do so without it hurting them too badly... although I always wonder how true that is.
4) Learn to be less bothered by the mundane and the things out of your control.
This is the other relevant thing. I've been told this multiple times by multiple people and it makes sense. I also know the day I allow myself to be less bothered by the mundane and things (supposedly) out of my control, that is the day I give up on people and on myself. That is the day I die. I cannot let that happen, my friend. I love life and I love people too much for that happen. It hurts me when I see people make mistakes that I know they could have avoided. I was once told I have a high empathy for others. I think that is true.
You really want to be careful to avoid this "Mr. Nice Guy" thing. The mention of good people being turned bad smells of psychosis or at least only in the last line of a long post did you in any way acknowledge possible faults on your side.
I was merely tying in what I talked about into the quote I had copied and pasted. Is cheating ok? Is it morally acceptable? Sometimes it is. Most of the time, people use excuses so they can cheat. I had a guy copy my homework the other day. It was not for a grade. He didn't have time to do the weekend before. Was that ok or was it cheating? Was it morally acceptable? I let it slide. That's his life. There is truth to my statement