It is true that good policies and procedures are absolutely vital to projects like these. However, there seems to be this myth that with the right set of procedures, you can have retards for programmers and still produce solid, reliable systems. There's also a flip-side to this myth, which is that smart programmers are just a bunch of cowboys that are too clever for their own good, and are somehow incapable of writing reliable code because they refuse to follow procedures. Both are completely false, and I actually find them offensive.
All else being equal, smarter is always better.
Knowing what the hell you're doing is always better than blindly following a procedure.
Yes, it's true that all programmers (even the smartest ones) make mistakes, and a good procedure and lots of testing can help reduce those mistakes.
However, this does not mean that the procedure is the only thing that matters and that programmers are therefore interchangeable.
Reliability means more than not crashing. Procedures can weed out common mistakes such as endless loops, but I challenge you to write a procedure that will guarantee fast, efficient, readable, scalable, maintainable code. For that, you need a good programmer. End of story.
Try as you might to remove the programmer from the equation, you will invariably fail to do so. The whole idea that it's possible to do so is a fallacy that was (IMO) cooked up by a bunch of dullards (software engineering types, bean counters, etc) who are resentful and envious of others who are smarter and more talented than themselves. It's every dullard's wet dream to somehow prove themselves to be more important than those of superior ability.
No offense, but I don't think avionics are your run of the mill programmers
I assume you meant "avionics programmers" aren't run of the mill.
I hate to burst your bubble, but for the most part that's not true. I've been a programmer in the aerospace industry for 10 years. Seven of those years were at Boeing, doing (among other things) avionics programming.
Unfortunately, from what I saw, avionics programmers for the most part are no smarter than your average programmer. There are a handful of really smart guys who do all the really hard (and high risk) parts of the code, and the remaining 99% of the programmers do the kind of simple, tedious code that you could (almost) train monkeys to do. Not surprisingly, most of them really aren't all that smart.
I understand how you might have that misconception though. I used to have that misconception too. I remember when I got my first aerospace job, and I was really intimidated by the fact that I was going to be working with the "big dogs", the hardcore programmers who all had 180 IQ's, etc. I also remember the total shock and disappointment when it turned out to be just the opposite.
You're right, I'm not an atheist. I'm actually more of an agnostic. I just used the word atheist because it was simpler in the context of a debate on human rights.
But that doesn't mean that atheists don't exist. An atheist is someone who believes that there is no god. Your argument that atheists don't really believe what they say they believe is rather weak and unconvincing. It's a hand-waving argument based on a feeble attempt to redefine the word "god" to include any and all possible causes or explanations about how we got here. Nice try.
Your comment about atheists "clothing" their beliefs "in a white lab coat and call[ing] it science" is extremely ignorant, not to mention arrogant. I can only infer that by "science" you are taking a jab at the theory of evolution. If you'd ever bothered to understand the actual scientific argument behind evolution theory, you'd realize it's not merely an attempt by atheists to cloak their beliefs in the mantle of science. There is hard evidence and a couple hundred years of intense research. That doesn't necessarily mean the theory is correct. But what it does mean is that if you're going to attempt to dismiss it as nonsense, you'd better have more than just the naked assertion that it's really just a bunch of atheists trying to prop up their belief system.
Your comment about reading the whole Gettysburg address also reeks of arrogance. You don't know me from Adam (no pun intended). For all you know I've read it hundreds of times and written entire books about it. In actuality, I've read it, all the way through, at least 4 or 5 times since grade school. The same goes for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
One final comment. You say that it is your God (i.e., the God of the Bible) who Lincoln and the writers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind. There is considerable debate about that, as many of the so-called Founding Fathers were self-proclaimed deists (look it up - I don't feel like adding a link). However, I'm not an authority on the religious beliefs of the founding fathers. So for the sake of this argument, I'll concede your point. Let's just assume you're right and it was indeed the God of the Bible they had in mind. That begs the question: So What? I don't really see how that's at all relevant to this argument. Just because I agree with the founding fathers that human rights are inherent in being human doesn't mean I have to swallow the whole pill and also believe in their God. Even if their God was, as you suggest, the whole foundation of their beliefs about human rights, the two concepts are not inseparable. You can shout all you want about how we all have God to thank for our unalienable rights, yet no matter how much it offends your religious sensibilities for people to discuss human rights in a purely secular context, there really is nothing incorrect or illogical about doing so. There's nothing worse than an incessant Bible-thumper constantly trying to steer every single discussion into a debate about religion.
"The Creator"? Stop giving credit to your imaginary friend for things which other people accomplished.
I'm an atheist too, but I think in this case you are over-reacting to the "creator" reference. You're throwing out the baby with the bath water. The distinction between rights being inherent and being given to us by other men is a very important one. If rights are things that other people can truly "give" you as they see fit, then other people can take them away as they see fit.
Of course, that distinction isn't some all-powerful magical shield that will prevent people from abusing or flat-out ignoring our rights. That's not the point. The point is that if we stop upholding that distinction and insisting that our rights are inherent in our being human (e.g., "god given"), it will be WAY too easy for other people (especially our own government) to justify eliminating those rights. All they'll have to do is say "Hey, WE gave you those rights in the first place. OF COURSE we can take them away whenever we feel like it. Quit whining."
If you really believe that the concept of rights does not transcend man's authority, then you have no reason to complain if your rights are taken away. The mere fact that you would be outraged if your rights were abused or ignored means you DO think that your rights supersede the government's decisions that affect those rights.
So personally, even though I'm an atheist, I don't give a rat's ass about the fact that the Declaration of Independence used the word "Creator" to frame the concept that human rights transcend any human authority. As long as that concept doesn't fall by the wayside.
Your reaction to the word Creator reminds me of an old The Far Side cartoon, where there are nukes going off in the distance, people are running through the streets madly trying to escape, etc, and in the foreground there's a dog staring intently at something trivial (a cat or some such thing). The caption says something to the effect of "And then, suddenly, Rex noticed something really important!"
The point is, you just casually dismissed what is perhaps the most important sentence of the whole Declaration of Independence, and a cornerstone of our whole concept of freedom. Why? Because you were offended by the a reference to God. That's just lame.
James Burke's Connections was a great series. I saw every episode and even bought a couple of the books and went to see him speak.
However, I eventually got annoyed because his "connections" were becoming less like actual connections and more like coincidences. If you've watched all the episodes, you know what I mean. He really started grasping at straws towards the end. Maybe he was just running out of material. Who knows? He should have changed the name from Connections to Pure F**king Coincidence. The connection between the Jacquard Loom and the census computer was, however, not one of the coincidences I'm referring to. That particular episode actually made a lot of sense.
Don't take this as an insult, but your kids (or anybody else's for that matter - including all of us when we were kids) are hardly the standard by which art/music/movies/literature/etc should be measured.
It will, I imagine, be interesting to hear what your kids have to say once they're all grown up and have seen all 6 (or possibly 10 by that time) episodes.
Not sure what your point was there, but you seem to be making the argument that the chaotic battle scenes are actually more realistic. At least that's what I thought you were saying until your comment devolved into a tirade against Bush. Don't get me wrong, I think Bush is a moron, but I just don't see how Bush has anything to do with the Star Wars films.
So, assuming your point was that the chaotic battle scenes are a better reflection of the reality of war...I knew someone would make that point, but it's completely moot. That level of realism doesn't make for a good battle scene. This is the movies, after all. Even movies like Saving Private Ryan that have "ultra-realistic" battle scenes still slow it down enough for the audience to be able to figure out what's going on. Besides which, Star Wars is a space opera, which is especially not the place for ultra-realism.
The point is not only moot though, it's also wrong. Just because real war is chaotic and confusing doesn't mean that anything equally chaotic and confusing is necessarily realistic. I guarantee you no veteran ever experienced a battle from 900 different viewpoints all at once.
Saving Private Ryan was much more realistic in that sense, because it actually followed individual characters long enough to give the audience an idea of what each character was going through. Like the opening scene where Tom Hanks drags himself onto the beach, for instance. They didn't show Hanks for 0.5 seconds blowing a German's head off, then switch to the medic patching a wound for 0.3 seconds, then over to Sergeant So-And-So throwing a grenade for 0.5 seconds, then back to Hanks again, but wait, now he's 500 yards from where he was last time we saw him (0.8 seconds ago) and now he's climbing a rope up the cliff for 0.2 seconds, then some random scenes of stuff blowing up, etc, etc.
There's no way that the grown-up fans are ever going to be satisfied the way they were when they were 11 years old.
That's partially true, but the prequels *DO* objectively SUCK waayyyyyy more than the originals. Remember the original 3 movies were re-released a couple years *before* any of the prequels came out? I went back and saw the re-released originals as an adult, and yeah, you're right...they really weren't the same watching them as an adult.
However, they were still FAR FAR FAR FAR BETTER than any of the prequels, with their wooden acting. As far as the special effects, the technology of the special effects used on the prequels may be better than that of the originals, but the actual use of the technology (you know, imagination, etc) was way inferior. The special effects in the prequels was just shamelessly piled on, without any art to it. Take the battle scenes for instance. It's all just a bunch of random chaos, with lasers shooting every which way, and stuff blowing up all over the place, and the camera doesn't stay on one shot for more than 50 milliseconds until it switches over to some other scene, making it impossible to really follow the flow of the battle. You basically just sit there, completely overwhelmed, and it's only after the battle is done that you finally figure out what the hell just happened. There's no tension, just confusion. Special effects just for the sake of special effects is crap. You can't just pile it on endlessly and hope it will automagically coalesce into something wonderful. More is not always better.
Lucas helped kill my vision of the star wars universe with the prequals...
What? The Ewoks weren't enough to kill your vision? That's what did it for me, and I was only 9 years old at the time. Even as a kid, I thought those stupid little cutesy furry creatures were just unbearably lame.
The Ewoks should've been a sign that the prequels were gonna suck, if you ask me.
I'm not making any blanket statements about small companies, but my worst job ever was with a small company. The company was just about as small as you can get: me and 2 bosses. That's it. Both bosses were pushy, abusive, unethical weasels with hugely overinflated egos, who didn't mind stepping on people in order to get ahead. As a result, I was the 3rd or 4th programmer they'd had in as many years, and there were several more that followed when I quit abruptly after 8 months on the job. I know several of the others who worked there, and they all unanimously agree it was the worst job ever. Even the minimum wage jobs I had before starting my programming career were better than that job.
Like I said, I'm not making any blanket statements. I'm just pointing out that smaller is not always better (yes, I understand that that's not what the parent comment said, so don't flame me). For one thing, it's a helluva lot harder to distance yourself from the jerks when there are only 20 people in the whole company. Big companies have many drawbacks as well, but it's fairly easy to just transfer to another department when/if things get bad.
I thought of several very similar variations of this technique years ago, and I'm sure that lots of other people have considered it as well. In my case, my goal was to effectively unblock all the stuff my company's firewall blocked us from doing (like POP3 mail, FTP sites, not to mention seemingly half of all the world's websites). I came up with numerous ways to get around the company firewall, most of which involved routing things through my home computer (which is also firewalled) with a little help from my personal website, which is hosted by a third party. I'm not patting myself on the back either. This is a fairly obvious idea if you've ever spent more than 5 minutes trying to solve this problem.
Have you taken your own advice and invited some disabled and/or homeless people into your home?
And why such disdain for the need for a little privacy? I don't know about you, but I don't want to live like a sardine just because it's the most energy efficient way. I'm not saying I need a 100 acre ranch or anything, but damn man, don't begrudge me a little space.
There are lots of things we could do, theoretically, to improve efficiency and/or solve the world's problems. We could all live like ants in a big colony, and all be focused on one goal, with no thought or concern for the needs or desires of the individual. What's the point of that? We'd all be totally miserable.
It's a tricky balance, and I agree that many people tend to err on the wrong side of it. The thing I personally hate the most is those gargantuan SUVs, especially when I see people commuting to work alone in them. The oft-used excuse of "I'm not going to trade my family's safety for a few extra MPG!" particularly offends me. That's just out of control.
But having your own apartment and not wanting to share it with strangers? That's just basic. People need their space. Otherwise we'd all be on edge, all the time. At least, I know *I* would.
You miss the point entirely. So what if the Chinese army could, hypothetically, wipe out a couple thousand guys with handguns. No duh! The point is that the Chinese people had guns, and the will to use them, there's absolutely no way the Chinese government would ever dare attack their own people. You're so wrapped up in the "our guns are bigger than your guns" aspect of it, that you completely fail to grasp the concept of an armed, vigilant citizenry keeping their government in check. People who think that government can be held in check by an unarmed populace (or that the government is benevolent and doesn't need to be held in check) are fools.
What really angers me about the 'need firearms to protect us from the government' people is that they don't understand what they are really saying.
It's not that they don't understand what they are saying. You don't (really) understand what they're saying.
Case in Point:
That's saying that you don't have to comply with the will over the democratically elected government. It's saying that if you don't like the law, yu're going to become a terrorist.
What??? I've never heard any gun rights advocates say it's okay to just disobey laws you don't agree with, except for a few fringe wackos.
As for the "gun nuts" being the same people who elected Bush...well yes and no. Certainly, there are quite a few hard-core Republicans in this country who vote for people like Bush, not realizing that he's a bigger threat to freedom than Gore or Kerry.
However, there are two things to note about this.
Firstly, "gun rights advocates" is not synonymous with "Bush voters". Not everyone that you disagree with is stupid, you know. I for one am both a gun owner and a Bush-hater, and there are MANY like me.
Secondly, even with regard to gun owners who did vote for Bush, you shouldn't interpret their myopia as an explicit show of support for the Patriot Act, etc.
To suggest that gun rights advocates don't really care about rights because some of them voted for Bush is asinine.
You're wrong on all counts.
The second amendment *isn't* written in a way that limits gun ownership to militias. It's only people like you who misread it that think it says that.
It says:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
But somehow, you managed to read:
"A well regulated militia blah blah blah bear arms blah blah blah"
Secondly, you think the government doesn't fear handguns and rifles? Don't you remember watching the Tiennemen Square bloodbath? Now imagine you can rewind that tape, and put a handgun in the hands of each and every one of those protesters. You seriously think it would have just turned out the same? I think not.
Slashdot Mirror
haha. good one. =)
All else being equal, smarter is always better.
Knowing what the hell you're doing is always better than blindly following a procedure.
Yes, it's true that all programmers (even the smartest ones) make mistakes, and a good procedure and lots of testing can help reduce those mistakes.
However, this does not mean that the procedure is the only thing that matters and that programmers are therefore interchangeable.
Reliability means more than not crashing. Procedures can weed out common mistakes such as endless loops, but I challenge you to write a procedure that will guarantee fast, efficient, readable, scalable, maintainable code. For that, you need a good programmer. End of story.
Try as you might to remove the programmer from the equation, you will invariably fail to do so. The whole idea that it's possible to do so is a fallacy that was (IMO) cooked up by a bunch of dullards (software engineering types, bean counters, etc) who are resentful and envious of others who are smarter and more talented than themselves. It's every dullard's wet dream to somehow prove themselves to be more important than those of superior ability.
Try making an iPhone out of that!
How about a feature that will allow you to stab another player in the face over the Internet?
You're right, I'm not an atheist. I'm actually more of an agnostic. I just used the word atheist because it was simpler in the context of a debate on human rights.
But that doesn't mean that atheists don't exist. An atheist is someone who believes that there is no god. Your argument that atheists don't really believe what they say they believe is rather weak and unconvincing. It's a hand-waving argument based on a feeble attempt to redefine the word "god" to include any and all possible causes or explanations about how we got here. Nice try.
Your comment about atheists "clothing" their beliefs "in a white lab coat and call[ing] it science" is extremely ignorant, not to mention arrogant. I can only infer that by "science" you are taking a jab at the theory of evolution. If you'd ever bothered to understand the actual scientific argument behind evolution theory, you'd realize it's not merely an attempt by atheists to cloak their beliefs in the mantle of science. There is hard evidence and a couple hundred years of intense research. That doesn't necessarily mean the theory is correct. But what it does mean is that if you're going to attempt to dismiss it as nonsense, you'd better have more than just the naked assertion that it's really just a bunch of atheists trying to prop up their belief system.
Your comment about reading the whole Gettysburg address also reeks of arrogance. You don't know me from Adam (no pun intended). For all you know I've read it hundreds of times and written entire books about it. In actuality, I've read it, all the way through, at least 4 or 5 times since grade school. The same goes for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
One final comment. You say that it is your God (i.e., the God of the Bible) who Lincoln and the writers of the Declaration of Independence had in mind. There is considerable debate about that, as many of the so-called Founding Fathers were self-proclaimed deists (look it up - I don't feel like adding a link). However, I'm not an authority on the religious beliefs of the founding fathers. So for the sake of this argument, I'll concede your point. Let's just assume you're right and it was indeed the God of the Bible they had in mind. That begs the question: So What? I don't really see how that's at all relevant to this argument. Just because I agree with the founding fathers that human rights are inherent in being human doesn't mean I have to swallow the whole pill and also believe in their God. Even if their God was, as you suggest, the whole foundation of their beliefs about human rights, the two concepts are not inseparable. You can shout all you want about how we all have God to thank for our unalienable rights, yet no matter how much it offends your religious sensibilities for people to discuss human rights in a purely secular context, there really is nothing incorrect or illogical about doing so. There's nothing worse than an incessant Bible-thumper constantly trying to steer every single discussion into a debate about religion.
I'm an atheist too, but I think in this case you are over-reacting to the "creator" reference. You're throwing out the baby with the bath water. The distinction between rights being inherent and being given to us by other men is a very important one. If rights are things that other people can truly "give" you as they see fit, then other people can take them away as they see fit.
Of course, that distinction isn't some all-powerful magical shield that will prevent people from abusing or flat-out ignoring our rights. That's not the point. The point is that if we stop upholding that distinction and insisting that our rights are inherent in our being human (e.g., "god given"), it will be WAY too easy for other people (especially our own government) to justify eliminating those rights. All they'll have to do is say "Hey, WE gave you those rights in the first place. OF COURSE we can take them away whenever we feel like it. Quit whining."
If you really believe that the concept of rights does not transcend man's authority, then you have no reason to complain if your rights are taken away. The mere fact that you would be outraged if your rights were abused or ignored means you DO think that your rights supersede the government's decisions that affect those rights.
So personally, even though I'm an atheist, I don't give a rat's ass about the fact that the Declaration of Independence used the word "Creator" to frame the concept that human rights transcend any human authority. As long as that concept doesn't fall by the wayside.
Your reaction to the word Creator reminds me of an old The Far Side cartoon, where there are nukes going off in the distance, people are running through the streets madly trying to escape, etc, and in the foreground there's a dog staring intently at something trivial (a cat or some such thing). The caption says something to the effect of "And then, suddenly, Rex noticed something really important!"
The point is, you just casually dismissed what is perhaps the most important sentence of the whole Declaration of Independence, and a cornerstone of our whole concept of freedom. Why? Because you were offended by the a reference to God. That's just lame.
However, I eventually got annoyed because his "connections" were becoming less like actual connections and more like coincidences. If you've watched all the episodes, you know what I mean. He really started grasping at straws towards the end. Maybe he was just running out of material. Who knows? He should have changed the name from Connections to Pure F**king Coincidence. The connection between the Jacquard Loom and the census computer was, however, not one of the coincidences I'm referring to. That particular episode actually made a lot of sense.
Replace the word "media" in that sentence with "Congress" and it's still a true statement.
Don't take this as an insult, but your kids (or anybody else's for that matter - including all of us when we were kids) are hardly the standard by which art/music/movies/literature/etc should be measured.
It will, I imagine, be interesting to hear what your kids have to say once they're all grown up and have seen all 6 (or possibly 10 by that time) episodes.
Not nearly enough to make it worth it. sigh.
Funny you should say that. That's exactly what my other comment on this topic said.
Not sure what your point was there, but you seem to be making the argument that the chaotic battle scenes are actually more realistic. At least that's what I thought you were saying until your comment devolved into a tirade against Bush. Don't get me wrong, I think Bush is a moron, but I just don't see how Bush has anything to do with the Star Wars films.
So, assuming your point was that the chaotic battle scenes are a better reflection of the reality of war...I knew someone would make that point, but it's completely moot. That level of realism doesn't make for a good battle scene. This is the movies, after all. Even movies like Saving Private Ryan that have "ultra-realistic" battle scenes still slow it down enough for the audience to be able to figure out what's going on. Besides which, Star Wars is a space opera, which is especially not the place for ultra-realism.
The point is not only moot though, it's also wrong. Just because real war is chaotic and confusing doesn't mean that anything equally chaotic and confusing is necessarily realistic. I guarantee you no veteran ever experienced a battle from 900 different viewpoints all at once.
Saving Private Ryan was much more realistic in that sense, because it actually followed individual characters long enough to give the audience an idea of what each character was going through. Like the opening scene where Tom Hanks drags himself onto the beach, for instance. They didn't show Hanks for 0.5 seconds blowing a German's head off, then switch to the medic patching a wound for 0.3 seconds, then over to Sergeant So-And-So throwing a grenade for 0.5 seconds, then back to Hanks again, but wait, now he's 500 yards from where he was last time we saw him (0.8 seconds ago) and now he's climbing a rope up the cliff for 0.2 seconds, then some random scenes of stuff blowing up, etc, etc.
True. None of the originals had any real great acting to speak of. Then again, I never said they did.
My point was that the acting in the prequels was WORSE. Way worse! Horrid, in fact.
That's partially true, but the prequels *DO* objectively SUCK waayyyyyy more than the originals. Remember the original 3 movies were re-released a couple years *before* any of the prequels came out? I went back and saw the re-released originals as an adult, and yeah, you're right...they really weren't the same watching them as an adult.
However, they were still FAR FAR FAR FAR BETTER than any of the prequels, with their wooden acting. As far as the special effects, the technology of the special effects used on the prequels may be better than that of the originals, but the actual use of the technology (you know, imagination, etc) was way inferior. The special effects in the prequels was just shamelessly piled on, without any art to it. Take the battle scenes for instance. It's all just a bunch of random chaos, with lasers shooting every which way, and stuff blowing up all over the place, and the camera doesn't stay on one shot for more than 50 milliseconds until it switches over to some other scene, making it impossible to really follow the flow of the battle. You basically just sit there, completely overwhelmed, and it's only after the battle is done that you finally figure out what the hell just happened. There's no tension, just confusion. Special effects just for the sake of special effects is crap. You can't just pile it on endlessly and hope it will automagically coalesce into something wonderful. More is not always better.
What? The Ewoks weren't enough to kill your vision? That's what did it for me, and I was only 9 years old at the time. Even as a kid, I thought those stupid little cutesy furry creatures were just unbearably lame.
The Ewoks should've been a sign that the prequels were gonna suck, if you ask me.
Like I said, I'm not making any blanket statements. I'm just pointing out that smaller is not always better (yes, I understand that that's not what the parent comment said, so don't flame me). For one thing, it's a helluva lot harder to distance yourself from the jerks when there are only 20 people in the whole company. Big companies have many drawbacks as well, but it's fairly easy to just transfer to another department when/if things get bad.
I thought of several very similar variations of this technique years ago, and I'm sure that lots of other people have considered it as well. In my case, my goal was to effectively unblock all the stuff my company's firewall blocked us from doing (like POP3 mail, FTP sites, not to mention seemingly half of all the world's websites). I came up with numerous ways to get around the company firewall, most of which involved routing things through my home computer (which is also firewalled) with a little help from my personal website, which is hosted by a third party. I'm not patting myself on the back either. This is a fairly obvious idea if you've ever spent more than 5 minutes trying to solve this problem.
Have you taken your own advice and invited some disabled and/or homeless people into your home?
And why such disdain for the need for a little privacy? I don't know about you, but I don't want to live like a sardine just because it's the most energy efficient way. I'm not saying I need a 100 acre ranch or anything, but damn man, don't begrudge me a little space.
There are lots of things we could do, theoretically, to improve efficiency and/or solve the world's problems. We could all live like ants in a big colony, and all be focused on one goal, with no thought or concern for the needs or desires of the individual. What's the point of that? We'd all be totally miserable.
It's a tricky balance, and I agree that many people tend to err on the wrong side of it. The thing I personally hate the most is those gargantuan SUVs, especially when I see people commuting to work alone in them. The oft-used excuse of "I'm not going to trade my family's safety for a few extra MPG!" particularly offends me. That's just out of control.
But having your own apartment and not wanting to share it with strangers? That's just basic. People need their space. Otherwise we'd all be on edge, all the time. At least, I know *I* would.
You miss the point entirely. So what if the Chinese army could, hypothetically, wipe out a couple thousand guys with handguns. No duh! The point is that the Chinese people had guns, and the will to use them, there's absolutely no way the Chinese government would ever dare attack their own people. You're so wrapped up in the "our guns are bigger than your guns" aspect of it, that you completely fail to grasp the concept of an armed, vigilant citizenry keeping their government in check. People who think that government can be held in check by an unarmed populace (or that the government is benevolent and doesn't need to be held in check) are fools.
It's not that they don't understand what they are saying. You don't (really) understand what they're saying. Case in Point:
What??? I've never heard any gun rights advocates say it's okay to just disobey laws you don't agree with, except for a few fringe wackos.
As for the "gun nuts" being the same people who elected Bush...well yes and no. Certainly, there are quite a few hard-core Republicans in this country who vote for people like Bush, not realizing that he's a bigger threat to freedom than Gore or Kerry.
However, there are two things to note about this.
Firstly, "gun rights advocates" is not synonymous with "Bush voters". Not everyone that you disagree with is stupid, you know. I for one am both a gun owner and a Bush-hater, and there are MANY like me.
Secondly, even with regard to gun owners who did vote for Bush, you shouldn't interpret their myopia as an explicit show of support for the Patriot Act, etc. To suggest that gun rights advocates don't really care about rights because some of them voted for Bush is asinine.
It says:
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed".
But somehow, you managed to read:
"A well regulated militia blah blah blah bear arms blah blah blah"
Secondly, you think the government doesn't fear handguns and rifles? Don't you remember watching the Tiennemen Square bloodbath? Now imagine you can rewind that tape, and put a handgun in the hands of each and every one of those protesters. You seriously think it would have just turned out the same? I think not.