Jon Stewart does a much better parody of Beck anyway, with his leaping around and nonsensical chalkboards and crazy pauses where he acts like he's going to cry.
Colbert is a parody of the more serious right-wing shows, not the histrionic and absurd Beck, which didn't really exist when he created that persona.
A better thing to do would be to point out that she presumably paid her lawyer quite a lot of money, and that incredibly expensive lawyer couldn't even been bothered to look at the end result before sending the documents out. Oh, no, some low-paid clerk did that...but I bet the lawyer billed as if he did.
She's the person who got scammed. I guess according to everyone else she should have paid for another absurdly expensive meeting with her lawyer to make sure he was actually doing his damn job? Or maybe only technically savoy people who can do whois lookups and whatnot can sue for libel on the internet, people who hire lawyers to figure that out when they run across a defamatory website just deserve to lose?
The real problem is the automatic assumption that her lawsuit was bogus, thanks to big business constantly painting lawsuits as such in an attempt to corrupt the only process that people can be made whole after corporations destroy them. She's a teacher who was falsely claimed to be sleeping with football players and having caught a venereal disease...it's entirely plausibly that her employment was actually harmed. Teachers are held to pretty strict moral standards, even previous cheerleaders.
But a more important problem is the fact that you can apparently file lawsuits against anyone in court and get a default judgment against them if they don't show up even if the facts are total nonsense. Not even 'imaginary' nonsense, where the case has no merit but the plaintiff pretends it does, but accidental nonsense, where everyone involved would agree the case has no merit if they bothered to look at it.
I understand that, if people don't respond to the court at all, they should lose any sort of logical case, but there should actually be some sort of sanity check on that case having some legal grounds.
For an example here, evidence is presented they are actually the person who owned the domain the stuff was posted on. 'Here is a printout of this URL, here is a whois of the domain'. Yes, if they don't show up, they couldn't challenge this 'evidence', but still there should actually be some evidence required.
The entire court system is more and more tilted to the large guy, who can hire lawyers and actually spend the time and money to operate within it. Here, of course, it was a 'little guy' who sued with a lawsuit that went wrong, so of course it's trumpeted far and wide to show of the 'system is broken' so the next time a little guy sues for being poisoned by a large company or defamed by a site publishing nonsense that ruins their reputation, it's just one of those 'crazy lawsuits'...but the whole 'default judgment' thing is a problem only against individuals, so no one ever talks about reforming that.
There needs to be an easier way to respond to the court, especially for people far away. There needs to be legal counsel available, for free, to people who are sued. Maybe not 'a lawyer', but at least some sort of collection of easy-to-understand printouts of the actual definitions of what they're being sued over, a diagram of the process, and what various options are, along with some templates of motions of dismissal and stuff.
Nice how you ignored a whole other section to what I said.
You mean your stupid fantasy about how the government providing for the citizenry will result in facism.
Yeah, here's a shock for you: No one but you believes that, and it's just your damn opinion, and not very well supported by facts.
You're living in your own little universe where government is the problem, and you know what? Fuck that. This is America, we are very smart, and we can solve problems, using the government as a tool.
Also, I never aligned myself with the left or the right
Yeah, idiots on the far right always say that.
and I am certainly not anti-american.
Yes, you are. You think our system of government cannot function if it provides slightly more services. You have no faith in our system of government, you have no faith in our people, you have no faith in America. You are anti-American.
I am anti-socialism.
In other words, you don't know what socialism is.
Hint: Socialism is the government operating the means of production of goods. It is not the government providing services. Socialism is the government making goods, and selling them. (And communism is giving them away.)
The government is supposed to operate services. That is the point of the government. To provide services for our safety and happiness, within the restrictions we've laid out for it in the constitution.
So basically you made all too known that you don't mind if the government forces you to buy healthcare or not cause it's "essential". Granted, it may be, but that still does NOT justify it being forced down our throats.
A much better plan would have been for the government to just pay for health care, but your side, and, yes, you're on the far right even if you refuse to admit it, your side refused to even allow them to come forward. (With the, I will admit, complicity of Democrats.)
You clearly only watch CNN, which btw is just as unreliable a news source as Fox News. The two are identical to each other except for the obvious fact that they stand on either side of the two-party spectrum.
Yes, because I have no health insurance and can't purchase it, I clearly watch CNN. Of course, I don't watch CNN, as I just have basic cable, but whatever.
If we continue to grant the federal government more power, the closer we will get to a totalitarian state. Sad to see that someone who appears to be so intelligent could be so easily fooled and brainwashed into believing the rhetoric simply because it satisfies your needs.
That is not how totalitarian states work, and that's not how 'government power' works either.
The idea that the government can pass laws requiring people to 'do things' is not some slippery slope to totalitarianism, because totalitarianism does not lay in that direction. The direction of totalitarianism is silencing voices, it is creating larger barriers to dissent, it is removing rights from people, not requiring them to wake up each morning and dance a jig.
You cannot get to totalitarianism via 'rules' because people won't go along with it, and will instead elect dissents.
Asserting 'new taxes' leads to totalitarianism is akin to asserting that carrying a microwave around in your trunk leads to your car overheating. A does not lead to B! That is not why cars overheat!
It is not some slippery slope to overheating, even if you imagine we'll start carrying elephants around. Yes, that would cause overheating, but that is not actually the way overheating happens in the actual world people live in.
You also imply that you support American ideals, well, forcing your citizens to do something against their will is not an American ideal. So congratulations you are your own contradiction.
Sure it is an American ideal. 'He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unles
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The libertarians are selfish, mildly-dishonest or somewhat duped wealth people who don't actually understand what it means to be poor...
...but they've got an actual honest-to-God political philosophy.
And every time Democrats end up in power, half the Republican base 'becomes' libertarians, or sorta-half (economic, not social) libertarians, and it's really disgusting to see the libertarians dragged through the mud. It's a blatant attempt to just complain about whatever the Democrats do.
Although this guy sounds like he cribbed the entire libertarian philosophy and assigned it to the tea party, aka, the Republican base, even stuff that the 'half-way libertarians' they become don't believe in.
No one is at the tea parties protesting the war. No one is at the tea parties protesting how Obama is handling terrorism. No one is at the tea parties demanding the government get out of marriage. The tea parties are the republican base, not some magical new group.
And I'm getting sick and fucking tired of 'tea party supporters' being able to claim the tea party is whatever the hell they want it to be, because it 'has no leader'. Well, no, it has no leader because it has no political aims other than to stir up anger. Actual political movements have political goals, and, hence, leadership to guide the people to that goal. Different groups in the movement have slightly different goals and different leaders, but they should stand together and actually make some sort of joint statement of joint goals.
The lack of 'leadership' and very vague 'goals' should be a really strong sign something is wrong. A sign that no one actually wants anything done...they just want anger at the Democrats to win elections and to pump up ratings.
Now, maybe this guy is honest and he's started his own tea party and they actually think that, and are indeed a mix of liberals and conservatives and whatnot. Well, then, he's started a libertarian group with the wrong name.
You will be forced to buy healthcare whether you can afford it or not.
FORCED: Noun, compelled by necessity or force.
Yup. I'm forced to buy healthcare. Right now I am, and I will still be later. It is a necessity.
Good job pointing that out, but I think we all understood that heathcare was a necessity. it's like food. People must have it, or they die.
Playing devil's advocate, say come 2014 you can't afford to get insurance?
Then I will use the subsidies that the new health care law provides. Um, duh.
Do you not know about this? Have you been listening only to Fox News?
Or, let's now say that it works. Flawlessly. Great, right? Still don't have a choice in it. Which you may not care about. Certainly doesn't seem like you do.
No one has a choice in healthcare. It's not an either/or option. You can't live without it.
What will happen is everybody will have all this faith and belief in the government again. They don't have to worry about healthcare.
Yes, instead of the government succeeds, the government should fail and people should die. That'll show people who think the government can solve problems!
You America-hating conservative, get the hell away from me and go live in Somalia.
But wait, we still have terrorism, global warming, the war, crime, the economy. And they have convinced us that these are "national security" risks.
What will happen is the people will easily turn over the solution to the government on those issues as well.
I'd like you to explain how exactly terrorism and the war have non-government solutions. In fact,I'd like to you explain what sort of non-government options exist with the war at all. Or crime, for that matter.
Oh, wait, all your rants just got mixed together and you sounded even dumber than you meant. 'My god, the government is trying to run the war! Oh noes!'
But, basically, pretending you were just really stupid, it basically comes down to two kinds of people. The people who believe that America can solve problems, and the people who don't.
The people who don't think America can solve problems as well as, say, France, don't even have any sort of solution to the health care problem.
I want people to read this guy's posts carefully, and see what he actually says I should do. His 'solution' to the problem is that everyone should work at jobs that provide health insurance, which is a) in stark contrast to the 'small business' encouragement the right is claiming, and b) clinically insane, as only about 70% of businesses offer such insurance, meaning he just functionally created an unemployment rate of higher than 50% as, presumable, jobs without health insurance aren't 'real' jobs. There's nowhere near enough jobs with insurance to actually get everyone coverage.
Oh, oh. All the uninsurable people can work at jobs that come with insurance, and all the insurable people can work at jobs that don't, and buy their own. I'm sure insurance companies won't start raising rates when that happens, and I'm sure all the moderately-healthy people with those benefits will quit so us uninsurable people can get in.
Let me guess. In your universe, everyone has whatever job they want. And when Republicans say that unemployment benefits are encouraging people not to work, what they actually mean is that people can just magically find not only a job, but one with benefits?
It is also foolish and naive to assume that no small business is able to provide health care for their employees. There most certainly are small businesses that can; and quite a large number of them.
If by 'quite a large number', you mean 'about a third', sure.
Of course, they're paying 15% more or so for said insurance compared to large companies.
My sister was diagnosed with cervical and uterine cancer at 29. She had to have a hysterectomy and had to do 4 months of chemotherapy. This happened while she was studying to get her Masters Degree in psychology.
So let's break this down. Did she have insurance at the time?
Was it employee based, or did she have her own insurance.
Or was she uninsurable because of some heart defect?
You've apparently mistaken my statement I can't get insurance for some sort of sob story, and thus think you should top it with some other sob story. I am not asking for sympathy, or a handout, I'm POINTING OUT I CAN'T GET INSURANCE.
I am a web designer. There is no such thing as a 'large' web design company anywhere around me, and none of them offer insurance. To find an job in my actual career that offered health insurance, I'd have to move, and take a job with a large corporation, and constantly stay on my toes to make sure I was employed until I was 65 and can get medicare.
No startups for me. No saving up money and striking out on my own. The only way I'll ever have insurance is if I find some company that will have me, and then do whatever they say for the rest of my life, or hope I can find another company before COBRA runs out.
This is the 'pro-small business' perspective of the Republicans. Americans must innovate...at least, if they're rich enough to cover ever possible medical expense. Everyone else, fuck off. Or, better yet, work without health insurance...don't worry, I'm sure money will magical appear if you get sick.
Or, at least, that was the story. Luckily, now, in 2014, I'll be able to buy insurance myself, thanks to the mostly teethless 'reform' that was just passed.
If anything, most of us believe government should get out of the business of marriage entirely.
Please point to any tea party event where anyone said that.
And I'll bet you money that most tea party people do not think 'government should get out of the business of marriage'.
But 'get out of the business of marriage' is a nonsensical claim, (Often pushed by libertarians, which you're claiming the tea party is.), as it's unlikely to every happen and never gets polled. Support for homosexual marriage is 20% lower among the Tea Party than the nation at large.
But, hey, let's check something that does get polled...should the government be deciding that gay couples can't adopt?
80% of white people who oppose the tea party think gay people should be allowed to adopt. 36% of white people who support the tea party think they should be barred from doing so.
See, the libertarians, while jerks, actually don't have anything against gay people, and I, while I loathe them, don't appreciate you Tea Partiers attempting to assert you're actually them.
So, if the Tea Party Movement seems disjointed to you, it's because it is... precisely because it's a real grassroots movement and not some sham astroturf like the "Coffee Party" groups. We're entirely bottom up, not top down, despite the consternation of those that want to call themselves leaders... only the left hasn't quite seemed to figure that out yet since they're too busy listening to people spouting sexual innuendo, cropping pictures of black people holding guns accusing them of being white, etc.
No, it seems disjointed because the Republican base is shattered into pieces and has been for more than two decades.
It's certainly not because it's 'really' grassroots, being funded by FreedomWorks and create by Americans for Prosperity.
At the core of our tea parties, is economic freedom and freedom from government encroachment on our liberty.
I need a macro on my keyboard to type this:
Just saying things does not make them true.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good - Presidents, governors, Congressmen, police, etc don't consider themselves above the law?
Ah, yes, the magical vague 'they consider themselves above the law' which has suddenly started happening, which you provide no evidence for.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. - The federal government issues mandates outside its jurisdiction, like drinking laws, seat belt laws, schooling issues, etc... and unless those jurisdictions surrender their control, the federal government denies them funding and access.
Yes, all that spat of seat belt and drinking and schooling laws the government just passed in the 1980s pisses me off too.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. - 16,000 new IRS agents in the Health Care bill alone... not to mention dozens of new bureaucracies to support it... and that's just ONE law from one recent President. How about the TSA and everything that happened under Bush too?
16,000 new IRS agents: Here's where we start getting into the 'absurd beliefs in objectively wrong facts'.
As the IRS pointed out, the way it works is that your insurance company sends you a form. You send it in with your taxes, just like your W2. It doesn't require any new IRS agents, as the IRS isn't in charge of what plans are okay anyway. The 16,000 was literally just made up on the spot.
Made up on the spot. You know, like half the 'facts' the tea party sprouts.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. - While they aren't quarte
Hey, dumbass, Social Security isn't 'social uplift', it's a damn insurance program. That's right, folks, on the right 'social uplift' is getting paid back the money you paid the government.
So when you loan someone five dollars, and they pay it back, the person who paid it back just donated to charity. Or if you make an a health insurance claim because you got cancer, your insurance company just 'helped out cancer sufferers'. They 'uplifted' you.
In non crazy-world, of course, social uplift is when you actively try to make the poor non-poor, not when you pay out on insurance.
We don't functionally spend any money on social uplift at least not at the national level. Possibly the HOPE grant and the FHA to some extent and some other things like that, but it's very small.
This is because the right insists on making all social programs exist solely in the form of insurance. You have to pay into Social Security to get any out, you have to pay into unemployment to get any back, you have to pay into Medicare to get any out (Except a tiny part which you can get anyway.) None of those actually help the very poor, who haven't 'banked' any benefits to start with.
Most of the stuff aimed at the very poor is simply to keep them alive. It's stuff like free food in the form of food stamps and free school lunches. (Which, um, we just cut.) And Medicaid, which is funded by the Federal government.
There is no national 'uplift' program designed to get people out of total poverty. At all.
Secondly, we do spend more on the DoD than Social Security. We like to keep adding to the DoD budget during the year, whereas we don't add to Social Security. The original 2010 budget had $678 billion for social security and $664 billion for the DoD. But then, tada, a war supplemental provided another $37 billion, although 'only' about $33 billion of that is for the DoD.
Look at that. The DoD 'wins'. And that happens every year.
Hey, I thought I was supposed to disagree with you.
Yes, King figured out that racism, in this country, as just a way for the lower class to be pitted against each other.
Which is why they killed him in 1968.
Speaking of assassinations, I'm still of the opinion that the most plausible Kennedy assassination theory is that James Jesus Angleton had him killed because of Golitsyn crazed lies about the KGB. I think Angleton thought Kennedy was a Soviet mole.
Pretty much any reputable company provides some level of health insurance.
Did you just call 40% of all companies in this country disreputable?
Here, at last, we see the right's actual face. They have essentially told me I can never start a small business, I can't work as a contractor, I can never even work for a small business. I must find some large company offering some sort of health insurance, and stay there until I can get on medicare, because if I don't I'll lose my insurance, and the magical free market won't sell to me. (And I mean won't sell, not 'won't sell at a price I like'. I am uninsurable.)
Pro-small business my ass. They want us to be goddamn wage slaves our entire life for the fewer and fewer corporations that are large enough to actually negotiate a reasonable rate with insurance companies.
But perhaps instead of using it as a crutch or an excuse to get other people to take care of you, you should use it as motivation to better yourself and your situation.
I'm not using it as 'crutch', I'm paying for my health care costs just fine. (And I'm paying five times as much as the health insurance companies are, so I'm subsidizing you.)
...at least, until I get hit by a car or get cancer or something, at which point I'll be unable to pay for things and die.
David Garrow, a civil rights movement historian at the University of Cambridge, said that Martin Luther King Jr. was unambiguously progressive.
I wanted to show up at Beck's rally holding a big banner saying:
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching
spiritual death.
I'd leave it unattributed, although I'd suspect they'd guess. I want to see what the tea party would make of that quote.
"King was not only not a Republican, he was well to the left of the Democratic Party of the 1960s," he said. "One could make a very strong case that King thought of himself as a democratic socialist. It's also well-documented that Dr. King was a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood, and it's well-documented that one of his five or six closest advisers, Bayard Rustin, was gay."
The worst thing the right has managed to do over the last four decade is make King's message entirely about race. He was also incredibly anti-poverty and incredibly anti-war. (Hence the quote above.)
We've made a lot of progress on race over the decades. We've made almost no progress on not having pointless wars, and we've gone backwards on poverty.
If the decisions an individual makes over the course of their lives leads them to a state where they are poor, unemployed and without health insurance
Yeah, us crazy people with congenital heart defects, who cannot buy insurance on the market at all, should have to find some company that provides health insurance (Assuming any of those still exist) and work for them the rest of our lives.
And lastly, you're kidding yourself if you think anybody is "afraid" of what the Tea Party stands for, other than the rise of domestic terrorism it portends (we've already seen too much of this, sadly). From a political standpoint, it's the best gift liberals ever got. A schism right down the middle of the conservative backbone of America. It's amazing! Republican politicians are in an impossible situation.
It's actually rather hilarious that Republicans think the Democrats keep talking about the Tea Party because us on the left are scared of it.
Guys? GOP? Newsflash: You don't keep talking about movement you're scared of. You totally ignore them. You know, like the right did with the anti-war movement. Made that almost entirely disappear. (The Democrats elected to stop the war, OTOH, did the more clever move of making the war itself disappear.)
Yeah, the left is talking about it because it makes some Republicans look insane, and it makes other Republicans either side with the insane ones, and risk the votes of the sane, or vis versa.
Fox News, OTOH, is talking about it because it invented it, for ratings. Fox News is, at this point, quite possibly the worse enemy of the Republican party. They're the loyal prime minster of the Republicans who just launched a coup, and not even a coup to end up in charge, but a coup to sell everything in Republidonia and retire to the Bahamas.
Also, the left is talking about it because it's really really funny.
While I can understand how you got that impression from his comments, I don't think Tea Party activists in general are the same as libertarians. It's more than an ordering of priorities from what I've seen. The libertarian party is about personal freedoms for everyone even people they didn't like. They wanted to reduce government size to maximize personal freedom.
I think libertarians are selfish fools, but even I will admit they're at least politically consistent and an actual political philosophy. They're classified right next to communists in my book as 'stupid political philosophy', but at least they're in the damn book.
The Tea Party doesn't even reach that level. They're just repeating gibberish sprouted by Beck and Palin.
Actually, from what I've seen the Tea Party seems to be a corporate sponsored movement designed to appeal to people's fear and prejudice and to the previously built "us versus them" political mentality, with the goal of preventing the government from effectively regulating and stopping the worst practices of big businesses, whether that is to poison our land and people for profit, or leverage wealth disparity to bleed the poor and middle class using capital as leverage.
This.
I'm sorry, folks, I gave the Tea Party people as much slack and excuses as I could, but they're totally incoherent and nonsensical, complaining about stuff that doesn't exist or about, um, taxes, while at the same time pretending to be against the deficit. But pro-war, don't forget that.
The Tea Party isn't a movement, it's a label corporations have slapped on the Republican base and distributed nonsense to. There's no consistency at all except, possibly, xenophobia and absurd beliefs in objectively wrong facts.
The Republicans spent way too much time pandering to their base, building it stronger and stronger and less and less in touch with reality, and Fox News walked in and stole it to pump up ratings, pulling some publicity seeking Republicans along with it. It's somewhat hilarious.
And, pissing me off personally, they've tried to steal the American revolution, was about a government denying civil rights, not about taxes.
Oh, and now the assholes have tried to steal MLK Jr. You know, anti-war anti-poverty MLK Jr. Somehow, they've managed to successfully pretend he was all about stopping racism. I wish I had time to show up at the rally with some MLK Jr quotes on signs...I think 'A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.' would be perfect.
If you get to the Washington or FDR memorial and can't see the numerous signs to the Lincoln memorial or even see the memorial itself, not much is going to help you. They're all within walking distance of each other.
At actual important rallies and whatnot, it doesn't matter, because, duh, you can see the huge crowd. If at a large rally, you could figure out how to get the FDR without going past the Mall and seeing the huge crowd of people, my hat's off to you.
The only logical assumption is that the crowd here was much smaller.
Or, alternately, you can trick the supermutants into attacking Beck. As long as you don't enter the actual area in front of the momument itself, Beck's people won't fire at you, but you can lure supermutants close enough to set up a firefight.
Wait, I've confused the Glenn Beck people with slavers. Silly me...one of those groups aren't racist idiots trying to take advantage of the history of that site.
I warned you, that's two punches in the face to people who say that when I talk about the Declaration of Independence.
And you are, in fact, wrong.
The 'United States of America' came into being with the Constitutional Congress getting together. The second they met and called themselves the 'United States of America', they were.
The Declaration was issued as 'The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America'. The Declaration of Independence was one of the first document issued by the 'United States of America', before they'd even come up with the rules they were operating under. (Which is why it was unanimous, as no state had agreed to follow anything even if everyone else liked it.)
As managing a government, which did, as I pointed out, exist, by that congress was unwieldy, they continued to meet and invent what actual rules they were operating under. This resulted in the Articles of Confederation a year later.
The Articles did not create the US, as history tends to record. The US existed the same way any organization exists...they met as an organization.(Governments, and other organizations, don't have to vote themselves into existence...how could that even work?!)
The Articles merely created the rules of the management of the already existing US, like the House of Representatives exists when it first meets every other year before it votes on the rules it operates under. (Because they can't vote if they don't exist!) Creating the rules of the US did not create the US, it already existed.
Decades later, of course, they met again to update the constitution, and came out with a document intended to do that, which overrode almost all the Articles of Confederation, but is still the same government.
Saying the Declaration of Independence is not 'law' is nonsense promoted by people who don't know what they're talking about. It's not really a 'law' per se because it's, duh, a 'declaration', like declaring last Friday in April to be Arbor Day...it doesn't demand anyone do anything or provide penalties like laws do. But it is still is entirely valid, with legal standing, in the US.
However, you're not making any sense anyway. The right to keep the government from taking your life, liberty of property is fifth amendment, not the preamble.
And, more important, the government not having the right to remove something without due process is not even vaguely related to the idea that the government be oriented to provide something.
A libertarian is someone who thinks government is there to protect you from me rather than protecting you from yourself.
Well, that makes you as dumb as capital L Libertarians, doesn't it? Because that's not what the government is there for either.
The Declaration of Independence, in addition to saying in the third part why we hate the old government, says in the second part what governments are for. I'll quote more than I need so that people can see what 'such principles' are.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, [START READING HERE] laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
To summarize, the government exists to protect the rights of man, which I will charitably assume is sorta what you mean by 'protect you from me', although there's nothing in there saying they should allow men to take away their own rights. It's really just 'protect people'.
But the government is also there to 'organiz[e] its power in such form, as to them seem shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness'.
You know Happiness, right? Does that include starving the street? No? Well, then the government should use its powers to, not let citizens starve in the streets no matter what sort of life choices they made, aka, to 'protect them from themselves'.
It's really right there, people. Stop hallucinating why our country exists or what the purpose of it is. (And it asserts those are, or should be, the rational and goals of all governments.) The Declaration of Independence says those things, pretty clearly.
Instead, when you insert a disc have the OS's package manager look for an installer file in the proper format, and then the package manager asks the user if they want to install the file.
Well, no. I don't want that.
I'm all for package management, but a major problem of the 'prompting' concept is that users just agree to them.
It'd really rather install instructions were 'Put in the CD, then click Start/Install Program'. Make the user have to deliberately initiate an installation. Not be prompted, but actually have to do something, where an inserted CD literally does nothing except maybe make the menu item appear.
Of course, if there's a package manager, 'Install from CD' should be inside that instead, along with 'Install from internet repository' and whatnot. Or even the package manager GUI should check removable media first when launched, and then prompt, but you have to run it yourself.
I actually wrote a post here a while back about how software installs on Window should work, with package management, but can't possibly find it.
But, generally, I though that Windows should come with a dozen or so repositories, and web sites that supply software shouldn't have links to programs, they should have links to XML files or whatever that download that program from a repository, (And possibly add the repository if it's not added yet, after a quick check of some online blacklists.) and that's how people should be used to installing software, not downloading programs and running them. You fire up the package manager and look for software normally, and if you come across software online, you click something and get sent to the package manager where that software now shows up.
Downloading and running stuff should be a crazy weird thing that never happens. And, as you point out, they shouldn't be doing that with CDs either.
Less has always been used in English with counting nouns, you imaginary-prescriptive grammar asshat.
As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on 'less': This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think Fewer would do better. "No Fewer than a Hundred" appears to me, not only more elegant than "No less than a Hundred," but more strictly proper. (Baker 1770). Baker's remarks about 'fewer' express clearly and modestly -- 'I should think,' 'appears to me' -- his own taste and preference....Notice how Baker's preference has been generalized and elevated to an absolute status and his notice of contrary usage has been omitted." -Merriam-Webster, definition of 'less', 1995
You're not just one of those fucktards who not only thinks grammar rules exist independent of grammar as used, but you're one of the superfucktards who've latched onto made up rules, like those asshats who complain about split infinities or ending sentences with prepositions.
Those aren't even actual rules, they're just stylistic choices that got elevated to rules by idiots like you. If you're going to bitch about people breaking 'the rules', at least try to find real grammar rules people are breaking, like saying 'should of' instead of 'should've'..
Um, it's so obviously better I don't know how to explain it.
And the fact you apparently think I said anything about prompting just shows you didn't read what I said. I, in no way, suggested Windows should prompt for anything at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Let's not forget the businesses that just appear to randomly have the TV on Fox News 24/7.
Jon Stewart does a much better parody of Beck anyway, with his leaping around and nonsensical chalkboards and crazy pauses where he acts like he's going to cry.
Colbert is a parody of the more serious right-wing shows, not the histrionic and absurd Beck, which didn't really exist when he created that persona.
The solution is inherent in the problem.
If the poor keep having too many kids and ending up in a cycle of poverty, perhaps we should attempt to get rid of the poor.
Um, duh. Get people out of poverty. Then, tada, they stop having so many kids.
A better thing to do would be to point out that she presumably paid her lawyer quite a lot of money, and that incredibly expensive lawyer couldn't even been bothered to look at the end result before sending the documents out. Oh, no, some low-paid clerk did that...but I bet the lawyer billed as if he did.
She's the person who got scammed. I guess according to everyone else she should have paid for another absurdly expensive meeting with her lawyer to make sure he was actually doing his damn job? Or maybe only technically savoy people who can do whois lookups and whatnot can sue for libel on the internet, people who hire lawyers to figure that out when they run across a defamatory website just deserve to lose?
The real problem is the automatic assumption that her lawsuit was bogus, thanks to big business constantly painting lawsuits as such in an attempt to corrupt the only process that people can be made whole after corporations destroy them. She's a teacher who was falsely claimed to be sleeping with football players and having caught a venereal disease...it's entirely plausibly that her employment was actually harmed. Teachers are held to pretty strict moral standards, even previous cheerleaders.
But a more important problem is the fact that you can apparently file lawsuits against anyone in court and get a default judgment against them if they don't show up even if the facts are total nonsense. Not even 'imaginary' nonsense, where the case has no merit but the plaintiff pretends it does, but accidental nonsense, where everyone involved would agree the case has no merit if they bothered to look at it.
I understand that, if people don't respond to the court at all, they should lose any sort of logical case, but there should actually be some sort of sanity check on that case having some legal grounds.
For an example here, evidence is presented they are actually the person who owned the domain the stuff was posted on. 'Here is a printout of this URL, here is a whois of the domain'. Yes, if they don't show up, they couldn't challenge this 'evidence', but still there should actually be some evidence required.
The entire court system is more and more tilted to the large guy, who can hire lawyers and actually spend the time and money to operate within it. Here, of course, it was a 'little guy' who sued with a lawsuit that went wrong, so of course it's trumpeted far and wide to show of the 'system is broken' so the next time a little guy sues for being poisoned by a large company or defamed by a site publishing nonsense that ruins their reputation, it's just one of those 'crazy lawsuits'...but the whole 'default judgment' thing is a problem only against individuals, so no one ever talks about reforming that.
There needs to be an easier way to respond to the court, especially for people far away. There needs to be legal counsel available, for free, to people who are sued. Maybe not 'a lawyer', but at least some sort of collection of easy-to-understand printouts of the actual definitions of what they're being sued over, a diagram of the process, and what various options are, along with some templates of motions of dismissal and stuff.
Nice how you ignored a whole other section to what I said.
You mean your stupid fantasy about how the government providing for the citizenry will result in facism.
Yeah, here's a shock for you: No one but you believes that, and it's just your damn opinion, and not very well supported by facts.
You're living in your own little universe where government is the problem, and you know what? Fuck that. This is America, we are very smart, and we can solve problems, using the government as a tool.
Also, I never aligned myself with the left or the right
Yeah, idiots on the far right always say that.
and I am certainly not anti-american.
Yes, you are. You think our system of government cannot function if it provides slightly more services. You have no faith in our system of government, you have no faith in our people, you have no faith in America. You are anti-American.
I am anti-socialism.
In other words, you don't know what socialism is.
Hint: Socialism is the government operating the means of production of goods. It is not the government providing services. Socialism is the government making goods, and selling them. (And communism is giving them away.)
The government is supposed to operate services. That is the point of the government. To provide services for our safety and happiness, within the restrictions we've laid out for it in the constitution.
So basically you made all too known that you don't mind if the government forces you to buy healthcare or not cause it's "essential". Granted, it may be, but that still does NOT justify it being forced down our throats.
A much better plan would have been for the government to just pay for health care, but your side, and, yes, you're on the far right even if you refuse to admit it, your side refused to even allow them to come forward. (With the, I will admit, complicity of Democrats.)
You clearly only watch CNN, which btw is just as unreliable a news source as Fox News. The two are identical to each other except for the obvious fact that they stand on either side of the two-party spectrum.
Yes, because I have no health insurance and can't purchase it, I clearly watch CNN. Of course, I don't watch CNN, as I just have basic cable, but whatever.
If we continue to grant the federal government more power, the closer we will get to a totalitarian state. Sad to see that someone who appears to be so intelligent could be so easily fooled and brainwashed into believing the rhetoric simply because it satisfies your needs.
That is not how totalitarian states work, and that's not how 'government power' works either.
The idea that the government can pass laws requiring people to 'do things' is not some slippery slope to totalitarianism, because totalitarianism does not lay in that direction. The direction of totalitarianism is silencing voices, it is creating larger barriers to dissent, it is removing rights from people, not requiring them to wake up each morning and dance a jig.
You cannot get to totalitarianism via 'rules' because people won't go along with it, and will instead elect dissents. Asserting 'new taxes' leads to totalitarianism is akin to asserting that carrying a microwave around in your trunk leads to your car overheating. A does not lead to B! That is not why cars overheat!
It is not some slippery slope to overheating, even if you imagine we'll start carrying elephants around. Yes, that would cause overheating, but that is not actually the way overheating happens in the actual world people live in.
You also imply that you support American ideals, well, forcing your citizens to do something against their will is not an American ideal. So congratulations you are your own contradiction.
Sure it is an American ideal. 'He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unles
Indeed.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: The libertarians are selfish, mildly-dishonest or somewhat duped wealth people who don't actually understand what it means to be poor...
And every time Democrats end up in power, half the Republican base 'becomes' libertarians, or sorta-half (economic, not social) libertarians, and it's really disgusting to see the libertarians dragged through the mud. It's a blatant attempt to just complain about whatever the Democrats do.
Although this guy sounds like he cribbed the entire libertarian philosophy and assigned it to the tea party, aka, the Republican base, even stuff that the 'half-way libertarians' they become don't believe in.
No one is at the tea parties protesting the war. No one is at the tea parties protesting how Obama is handling terrorism. No one is at the tea parties demanding the government get out of marriage. The tea parties are the republican base, not some magical new group.
And I'm getting sick and fucking tired of 'tea party supporters' being able to claim the tea party is whatever the hell they want it to be, because it 'has no leader'. Well, no, it has no leader because it has no political aims other than to stir up anger. Actual political movements have political goals, and, hence, leadership to guide the people to that goal. Different groups in the movement have slightly different goals and different leaders, but they should stand together and actually make some sort of joint statement of joint goals.
The lack of 'leadership' and very vague 'goals' should be a really strong sign something is wrong. A sign that no one actually wants anything done...they just want anger at the Democrats to win elections and to pump up ratings.
Now, maybe this guy is honest and he's started his own tea party and they actually think that, and are indeed a mix of liberals and conservatives and whatnot. Well, then, he's started a libertarian group with the wrong name.
You will be forced to buy healthcare whether you can afford it or not.
FORCED: Noun, compelled by necessity or force.
Yup. I'm forced to buy healthcare. Right now I am, and I will still be later. It is a necessity.
Good job pointing that out, but I think we all understood that heathcare was a necessity. it's like food. People must have it, or they die.
Playing devil's advocate, say come 2014 you can't afford to get insurance?
Then I will use the subsidies that the new health care law provides. Um, duh.
Do you not know about this? Have you been listening only to Fox News?
Or, let's now say that it works. Flawlessly. Great, right? Still don't have a choice in it. Which you may not care about. Certainly doesn't seem like you do.
No one has a choice in healthcare. It's not an either/or option. You can't live without it.
What will happen is everybody will have all this faith and belief in the government again. They don't have to worry about healthcare.
Yes, instead of the government succeeds, the government should fail and people should die. That'll show people who think the government can solve problems!
You America-hating conservative, get the hell away from me and go live in Somalia.
But wait, we still have terrorism, global warming, the war, crime, the economy. And they have convinced us that these are "national security" risks.
What will happen is the people will easily turn over the solution to the government on those issues as well.
I'd like you to explain how exactly terrorism and the war have non-government solutions. In fact,I'd like to you explain what sort of non-government options exist with the war at all. Or crime, for that matter.
Oh, wait, all your rants just got mixed together and you sounded even dumber than you meant. 'My god, the government is trying to run the war! Oh noes!'
But, basically, pretending you were just really stupid, it basically comes down to two kinds of people. The people who believe that America can solve problems, and the people who don't.
The people who don't think America can solve problems as well as, say, France, don't even have any sort of solution to the health care problem.
I want people to read this guy's posts carefully, and see what he actually says I should do. His 'solution' to the problem is that everyone should work at jobs that provide health insurance, which is a) in stark contrast to the 'small business' encouragement the right is claiming, and b) clinically insane, as only about 70% of businesses offer such insurance, meaning he just functionally created an unemployment rate of higher than 50% as, presumable, jobs without health insurance aren't 'real' jobs. There's nowhere near enough jobs with insurance to actually get everyone coverage.
Oh, oh. All the uninsurable people can work at jobs that come with insurance, and all the insurable people can work at jobs that don't, and buy their own. I'm sure insurance companies won't start raising rates when that happens, and I'm sure all the moderately-healthy people with those benefits will quit so us uninsurable people can get in.
Let me guess. In your universe, everyone has whatever job they want. And when Republicans say that unemployment benefits are encouraging people not to work, what they actually mean is that people can just magically find not only a job, but one with benefits?
It is also foolish and naive to assume that no small business is able to provide health care for their employees. There most certainly are small businesses that can; and quite a large number of them.
If by 'quite a large number', you mean 'about a third', sure.
Of course, they're paying 15% more or so for said insurance compared to large companies.
My sister was diagnosed with cervical and uterine cancer at 29. She had to have a hysterectomy and had to do 4 months of chemotherapy. This happened while she was studying to get her Masters Degree in psychology.
So let's break this down. Did she have insurance at the time?
Was it employee based, or did she have her own insurance.
Or was she uninsurable because of some heart defect?
You've apparently mistaken my statement I can't get insurance for some sort of sob story, and thus think you should top it with some other sob story. I am not asking for sympathy, or a handout, I'm POINTING OUT I CAN'T GET INSURANCE.
I am a web designer. There is no such thing as a 'large' web design company anywhere around me, and none of them offer insurance. To find an job in my actual career that offered health insurance, I'd have to move, and take a job with a large corporation, and constantly stay on my toes to make sure I was employed until I was 65 and can get medicare.
No startups for me. No saving up money and striking out on my own. The only way I'll ever have insurance is if I find some company that will have me, and then do whatever they say for the rest of my life, or hope I can find another company before COBRA runs out.
This is the 'pro-small business' perspective of the Republicans. Americans must innovate...at least, if they're rich enough to cover ever possible medical expense. Everyone else, fuck off. Or, better yet, work without health insurance...don't worry, I'm sure money will magical appear if you get sick.
Or, at least, that was the story. Luckily, now, in 2014, I'll be able to buy insurance myself, thanks to the mostly teethless 'reform' that was just passed.
If anything, most of us believe government should get out of the business of marriage entirely.
Please point to any tea party event where anyone said that.
And I'll bet you money that most tea party people do not think 'government should get out of the business of marriage'.
But 'get out of the business of marriage' is a nonsensical claim, (Often pushed by libertarians, which you're claiming the tea party is.), as it's unlikely to every happen and never gets polled. Support for homosexual marriage is 20% lower among the Tea Party than the nation at large.
But, hey, let's check something that does get polled...should the government be deciding that gay couples can't adopt?
80% of white people who oppose the tea party think gay people should be allowed to adopt. 36% of white people who support the tea party think they should be barred from doing so.
See, the libertarians, while jerks, actually don't have anything against gay people, and I, while I loathe them, don't appreciate you Tea Partiers attempting to assert you're actually them.
So, if the Tea Party Movement seems disjointed to you, it's because it is... precisely because it's a real grassroots movement and not some sham astroturf like the "Coffee Party" groups. We're entirely bottom up, not top down, despite the consternation of those that want to call themselves leaders... only the left hasn't quite seemed to figure that out yet since they're too busy listening to people spouting sexual innuendo, cropping pictures of black people holding guns accusing them of being white, etc.
No, it seems disjointed because the Republican base is shattered into pieces and has been for more than two decades.
It's certainly not because it's 'really' grassroots, being funded by FreedomWorks and create by Americans for Prosperity.
At the core of our tea parties, is economic freedom and freedom from government encroachment on our liberty.
I need a macro on my keyboard to type this:
Just saying things does not make them true.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good - Presidents, governors, Congressmen, police, etc don't consider themselves above the law?
Ah, yes, the magical vague 'they consider themselves above the law' which has suddenly started happening, which you provide no evidence for.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. - The federal government issues mandates outside its jurisdiction, like drinking laws, seat belt laws, schooling issues, etc... and unless those jurisdictions surrender their control, the federal government denies them funding and access.
Yes, all that spat of seat belt and drinking and schooling laws the government just passed in the 1980s pisses me off too.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. - 16,000 new IRS agents in the Health Care bill alone... not to mention dozens of new bureaucracies to support it... and that's just ONE law from one recent President. How about the TSA and everything that happened under Bush too?
16,000 new IRS agents: Here's where we start getting into the 'absurd beliefs in objectively wrong facts'.
As the IRS pointed out, the way it works is that your insurance company sends you a form. You send it in with your taxes, just like your W2. It doesn't require any new IRS agents, as the IRS isn't in charge of what plans are okay anyway. The 16,000 was literally just made up on the spot.
Made up on the spot. You know, like half the 'facts' the tea party sprouts.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. - While they aren't quarte
Hey, dumbass, Social Security isn't 'social uplift', it's a damn insurance program. That's right, folks, on the right 'social uplift' is getting paid back the money you paid the government.
So when you loan someone five dollars, and they pay it back, the person who paid it back just donated to charity. Or if you make an a health insurance claim because you got cancer, your insurance company just 'helped out cancer sufferers'. They 'uplifted' you.
In non crazy-world, of course, social uplift is when you actively try to make the poor non-poor, not when you pay out on insurance.
We don't functionally spend any money on social uplift at least not at the national level. Possibly the HOPE grant and the FHA to some extent and some other things like that, but it's very small.
This is because the right insists on making all social programs exist solely in the form of insurance. You have to pay into Social Security to get any out, you have to pay into unemployment to get any back, you have to pay into Medicare to get any out (Except a tiny part which you can get anyway.) None of those actually help the very poor, who haven't 'banked' any benefits to start with.
Most of the stuff aimed at the very poor is simply to keep them alive. It's stuff like free food in the form of food stamps and free school lunches. (Which, um, we just cut.) And Medicaid, which is funded by the Federal government.
There is no national 'uplift' program designed to get people out of total poverty. At all.
Secondly, we do spend more on the DoD than Social Security. We like to keep adding to the DoD budget during the year, whereas we don't add to Social Security. The original 2010 budget had $678 billion for social security and $664 billion for the DoD. But then, tada, a war supplemental provided another $37 billion, although 'only' about $33 billion of that is for the DoD.
Look at that. The DoD 'wins'. And that happens every year.
Hey, I thought I was supposed to disagree with you.
Yes, King figured out that racism, in this country, as just a way for the lower class to be pitted against each other.
Which is why they killed him in 1968.
Speaking of assassinations, I'm still of the opinion that the most plausible Kennedy assassination theory is that James Jesus Angleton had him killed because of Golitsyn crazed lies about the KGB. I think Angleton thought Kennedy was a Soviet mole.
Pretty much any reputable company provides some level of health insurance.
Did you just call 40% of all companies in this country disreputable?
Here, at last, we see the right's actual face. They have essentially told me I can never start a small business, I can't work as a contractor, I can never even work for a small business. I must find some large company offering some sort of health insurance, and stay there until I can get on medicare, because if I don't I'll lose my insurance, and the magical free market won't sell to me. (And I mean won't sell, not 'won't sell at a price I like'. I am uninsurable.)
Pro-small business my ass. They want us to be goddamn wage slaves our entire life for the fewer and fewer corporations that are large enough to actually negotiate a reasonable rate with insurance companies.
But perhaps instead of using it as a crutch or an excuse to get other people to take care of you, you should use it as motivation to better yourself and your situation.
I'm not using it as 'crutch', I'm paying for my health care costs just fine. (And I'm paying five times as much as the health insurance companies are, so I'm subsidizing you.)
David Garrow, a civil rights movement historian at the University of Cambridge, said that Martin Luther King Jr. was unambiguously progressive.
I wanted to show up at Beck's rally holding a big banner saying: A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.
I'd leave it unattributed, although I'd suspect they'd guess. I want to see what the tea party would make of that quote.
"King was not only not a Republican, he was well to the left of the Democratic Party of the 1960s," he said. "One could make a very strong case that King thought of himself as a democratic socialist. It's also well-documented that Dr. King was a strong supporter of Planned Parenthood, and it's well-documented that one of his five or six closest advisers, Bayard Rustin, was gay."
The worst thing the right has managed to do over the last four decade is make King's message entirely about race. He was also incredibly anti-poverty and incredibly anti-war. (Hence the quote above.)
We've made a lot of progress on race over the decades. We've made almost no progress on not having pointless wars, and we've gone backwards on poverty.
If the decisions an individual makes over the course of their lives leads them to a state where they are poor, unemployed and without health insurance
Yeah, us crazy people with congenital heart defects, who cannot buy insurance on the market at all, should have to find some company that provides health insurance (Assuming any of those still exist) and work for them the rest of our lives.
You can see one from the other.
And you could hopefully see the crowd from FDR, or it was a pretty shitty turnout.
And lastly, you're kidding yourself if you think anybody is "afraid" of what the Tea Party stands for, other than the rise of domestic terrorism it portends (we've already seen too much of this, sadly). From a political standpoint, it's the best gift liberals ever got. A schism right down the middle of the conservative backbone of America. It's amazing! Republican politicians are in an impossible situation.
It's actually rather hilarious that Republicans think the Democrats keep talking about the Tea Party because us on the left are scared of it.
Guys? GOP? Newsflash: You don't keep talking about movement you're scared of. You totally ignore them. You know, like the right did with the anti-war movement. Made that almost entirely disappear. (The Democrats elected to stop the war, OTOH, did the more clever move of making the war itself disappear.)
Yeah, the left is talking about it because it makes some Republicans look insane, and it makes other Republicans either side with the insane ones, and risk the votes of the sane, or vis versa.
Fox News, OTOH, is talking about it because it invented it, for ratings. Fox News is, at this point, quite possibly the worse enemy of the Republican party. They're the loyal prime minster of the Republicans who just launched a coup, and not even a coup to end up in charge, but a coup to sell everything in Republidonia and retire to the Bahamas.
Also, the left is talking about it because it's really really funny.
While I can understand how you got that impression from his comments, I don't think Tea Party activists in general are the same as libertarians. It's more than an ordering of priorities from what I've seen. The libertarian party is about personal freedoms for everyone even people they didn't like. They wanted to reduce government size to maximize personal freedom.
I think libertarians are selfish fools, but even I will admit they're at least politically consistent and an actual political philosophy. They're classified right next to communists in my book as 'stupid political philosophy', but at least they're in the damn book.
The Tea Party doesn't even reach that level. They're just repeating gibberish sprouted by Beck and Palin.
Actually, from what I've seen the Tea Party seems to be a corporate sponsored movement designed to appeal to people's fear and prejudice and to the previously built "us versus them" political mentality, with the goal of preventing the government from effectively regulating and stopping the worst practices of big businesses, whether that is to poison our land and people for profit, or leverage wealth disparity to bleed the poor and middle class using capital as leverage.
This.
I'm sorry, folks, I gave the Tea Party people as much slack and excuses as I could, but they're totally incoherent and nonsensical, complaining about stuff that doesn't exist or about, um, taxes, while at the same time pretending to be against the deficit. But pro-war, don't forget that.
The Tea Party isn't a movement, it's a label corporations have slapped on the Republican base and distributed nonsense to. There's no consistency at all except, possibly, xenophobia and absurd beliefs in objectively wrong facts.
The Republicans spent way too much time pandering to their base, building it stronger and stronger and less and less in touch with reality, and Fox News walked in and stole it to pump up ratings, pulling some publicity seeking Republicans along with it. It's somewhat hilarious.
And, pissing me off personally, they've tried to steal the American revolution, was about a government denying civil rights, not about taxes.
Oh, and now the assholes have tried to steal MLK Jr. You know, anti-war anti-poverty MLK Jr. Somehow, they've managed to successfully pretend he was all about stopping racism. I wish I had time to show up at the rally with some MLK Jr quotes on signs...I think 'A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.' would be perfect.
If you get to the Washington or FDR memorial and can't see the numerous signs to the Lincoln memorial or even see the memorial itself, not much is going to help you. They're all within walking distance of each other.
At actual important rallies and whatnot, it doesn't matter, because, duh, you can see the huge crowd. If at a large rally, you could figure out how to get the FDR without going past the Mall and seeing the huge crowd of people, my hat's off to you.
The only logical assumption is that the crowd here was much smaller.
Or, alternately, you can trick the supermutants into attacking Beck. As long as you don't enter the actual area in front of the momument itself, Beck's people won't fire at you, but you can lure supermutants close enough to set up a firefight.
Wait, I've confused the Glenn Beck people with slavers. Silly me...one of those groups aren't racist idiots trying to take advantage of the history of that site.
Mod parent +1: Epic Win.
The Declaration of Independence isn't law;
I warned you, that's two punches in the face to people who say that when I talk about the Declaration of Independence.
And you are, in fact, wrong.
The 'United States of America' came into being with the Constitutional Congress getting together. The second they met and called themselves the 'United States of America', they were.
The Declaration was issued as 'The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America'. The Declaration of Independence was one of the first document issued by the 'United States of America', before they'd even come up with the rules they were operating under. (Which is why it was unanimous, as no state had agreed to follow anything even if everyone else liked it.)
As managing a government, which did, as I pointed out, exist, by that congress was unwieldy, they continued to meet and invent what actual rules they were operating under. This resulted in the Articles of Confederation a year later.
The Articles did not create the US, as history tends to record. The US existed the same way any organization exists...they met as an organization.(Governments, and other organizations, don't have to vote themselves into existence...how could that even work?!)
The Articles merely created the rules of the management of the already existing US, like the House of Representatives exists when it first meets every other year before it votes on the rules it operates under. (Because they can't vote if they don't exist!) Creating the rules of the US did not create the US, it already existed.
Decades later, of course, they met again to update the constitution, and came out with a document intended to do that, which overrode almost all the Articles of Confederation, but is still the same government.
Saying the Declaration of Independence is not 'law' is nonsense promoted by people who don't know what they're talking about. It's not really a 'law' per se because it's, duh, a 'declaration', like declaring last Friday in April to be Arbor Day...it doesn't demand anyone do anything or provide penalties like laws do. But it is still is entirely valid, with legal standing, in the US.
However, you're not making any sense anyway. The right to keep the government from taking your life, liberty of property is fifth amendment, not the preamble.
And, more important, the government not having the right to remove something without due process is not even vaguely related to the idea that the government be oriented to provide something.
A libertarian is someone who thinks government is there to protect you from me rather than protecting you from yourself.
Well, that makes you as dumb as capital L Libertarians, doesn't it? Because that's not what the government is there for either.
The Declaration of Independence, in addition to saying in the third part why we hate the old government, says in the second part what governments are for. I'll quote more than I need so that people can see what 'such principles' are.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, [START READING HERE] laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
To summarize, the government exists to protect the rights of man, which I will charitably assume is sorta what you mean by 'protect you from me', although there's nothing in there saying they should allow men to take away their own rights. It's really just 'protect people'.
But the government is also there to 'organiz[e] its power in such form, as to them seem shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness'.
You know Happiness, right? Does that include starving the street? No? Well, then the government should use its powers to, not let citizens starve in the streets no matter what sort of life choices they made, aka, to 'protect them from themselves'.
It's really right there, people. Stop hallucinating why our country exists or what the purpose of it is. (And it asserts those are, or should be, the rational and goals of all governments.) The Declaration of Independence says those things, pretty clearly.
Instead, when you insert a disc have the OS's package manager look for an installer file in the proper format, and then the package manager asks the user if they want to install the file.
Well, no. I don't want that.
I'm all for package management, but a major problem of the 'prompting' concept is that users just agree to them.
It'd really rather install instructions were 'Put in the CD, then click Start/Install Program'. Make the user have to deliberately initiate an installation. Not be prompted, but actually have to do something, where an inserted CD literally does nothing except maybe make the menu item appear.
Of course, if there's a package manager, 'Install from CD' should be inside that instead, along with 'Install from internet repository' and whatnot. Or even the package manager GUI should check removable media first when launched, and then prompt, but you have to run it yourself.
I actually wrote a post here a while back about how software installs on Window should work, with package management, but can't possibly find it.
But, generally, I though that Windows should come with a dozen or so repositories, and web sites that supply software shouldn't have links to programs, they should have links to XML files or whatever that download that program from a repository, (And possibly add the repository if it's not added yet, after a quick check of some online blacklists.) and that's how people should be used to installing software, not downloading programs and running them. You fire up the package manager and look for software normally, and if you come across software online, you click something and get sent to the package manager where that software now shows up.
Downloading and running stuff should be a crazy weird thing that never happens. And, as you point out, they shouldn't be doing that with CDs either.
Less has always been used in English with counting nouns, you imaginary-prescriptive grammar asshat.
As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on 'less': This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think Fewer would do better. "No Fewer than a Hundred" appears to me, not only more elegant than "No less than a Hundred," but more strictly proper. (Baker 1770). Baker's remarks about 'fewer' express clearly and modestly -- 'I should think,' 'appears to me' -- his own taste and preference....Notice how Baker's preference has been generalized and elevated to an absolute status and his notice of contrary usage has been omitted." -Merriam-Webster, definition of 'less', 1995
You're not just one of those fucktards who not only thinks grammar rules exist independent of grammar as used, but you're one of the superfucktards who've latched onto made up rules, like those asshats who complain about split infinities or ending sentences with prepositions.
Those aren't even actual rules, they're just stylistic choices that got elevated to rules by idiots like you. If you're going to bitch about people breaking 'the rules', at least try to find real grammar rules people are breaking, like saying 'should of' instead of 'should've'..
Um, it's so obviously better I don't know how to explain it.
And the fact you apparently think I said anything about prompting just shows you didn't read what I said. I, in no way, suggested Windows should prompt for anything at all.