In enlightenment philosophy, rights were those self-evident truths that all men had the same freedoms to life, to liberty, to self-determination. Governments don't have such "rights". Democratic governments have responsibilities. Other governments have force and caprice.
As to "the right to tax you", If we were to read the original constitution we'd see that congress was delegated the power to tax imports, exports, and the states themselves. It provided a formula for how to share taxes among the states, which was based on the state population, broken down by indians, slaves, and everybody else. But nowhere was Congress delegated authority to tax individuals, until the 19th amendment.
That new power to tax individuals was (and is) considered unconstitutional by many, because they believe the 19th amendment was not properly ratified - snuck through the system with The People largely unaware, with dubious and incomplete records of many of the requisite elections.
Even if we accept the 19th amendment as legitimate, that tax regime is not a self-evident truth, it's a human invention, an arbitrary method of funding the government.
Our government is just a glorified home owners' association that the home owners themselves formed and chartered, and can also revise, re-charter or (with some difficulty) disband.
The federal government has the job of doing exactly what the States (via Senators and Representatives) tell it to do, nothing less, nothing more.
I am pleased to support it when it provides me services, because I feel I share a duty. Not because the US government has a "right" to my labor and property.
You're absolutely right. Put another way, it's too complicated for most people to remember. And that is why we should scrap it in favor of the intuitive Y.
"have you really met many people in the street cursing the system they've used and are used to for all their lives?"
Yes. I have, countless times. Try it yourself. Get up, and ask the first person you see how many tablespoons are in a fluid ounce, how many ounces are in a cup, how many cups are in a pint, and how many pints are in a quart Ask them how many feet are in 3 miles. If they get those, ask them how many cubic inches are in a pound of water at STP..
Similar conversions are trivial in the metric system.
And even if there were no international interactions, the metric system is far easier to understand and use. Clinging to the more difficult and arcane is pointless.
You're being sarcastic I think, but Congressional responsibilities include the big and the mundane, just as it is for the rest of us.
And often our big problems were created by Congress: the so-called "fiscal cliff", debt limits, the debts themselves, banking deregulation, Fannie and Freddie Mae...
A legitimate question that is never asked - why should anybody standardize anything? Who cares if you want a pint of liquor and this particular bartender sells it by the fistful? Or if the speed limit is 65 mph and a cop stops you for going 278 yakaplutz per solarity?
In the cases of the tooth fairy and Santa Claus there is not only no supporting evidence, there is verifiable and reproducible counter-evidence.
In the case of marijuana, to my knowledge there's little clinical data to support any interesting medical or scientific conclusions one way or the other. Hence the absence of evidence, which tells us nothing.
Inhabited by solar-powered life-forms who consume and create finite resources.
Where individual species' populations evolve and thrive and grow when their needs are abundantly met, and shrink when resources grow scarce, and adapt or die when their habitat can no longer support their lifestyle.
GP wants to know why environmentalists aren't working on more technological solutions to climate change. The answer is that, fundamentally, it's not a technological problem.
It's a problem of a population that consumes resources faster than their habitat renews them, and just for kicks throws sand into the gears of their life-support systems.
This population could choose to adapt and either voluntarily scale back consumption, or voluntarily scale back their breeding, or persist on the same track until nature forces change.
It's really not about economics or politics, it's just the physics of life on a satellite.
Our future boils down to a choice between two kinds of pain; the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.
Pain sucks. But planning our own misery might work out better than smashing full-speed into a brick wall.
"More likely a permanent state of drugged obedience via constant virtual escapism while being constantly controlled and monitored by the omniscient security apparatus."
What's likely I don't know, but another possibility is that, just as with other species, where imbalance occurs nature will impose a new equilibrium that leaves us with a smaller population.
Our economic system is clearly unsustainable in ways environmental and mathematical. That means our current way of life won't last forever. Since we don't seem to be doing much to fundamentally change, we are leaving the coming transition entirely in the hands of nature.
Automation is shifting repetitive, uncreative, brutish work to repetitive, uncreative, brutish machines, thus freeing humans to pursue nobler interests.
No consolation to the workers who can't find new jobs, I know. But for the larger society, the benefits outweigh the costs.
In every change some prosper, some lose. But the same happens in every status quo. We may as well choose technological progress.
If we are compassionate, we can give the displaced workers opportunities to learn new skills.
Appeals to scientific textbooks are fallacious, but unsupported conjecture about a vast international pan-professional conspiracy corrupting every venerable scientific institution on the planet is not?
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In enlightenment philosophy, rights were those self-evident truths that all men had the same freedoms to life, to liberty, to self-determination. Governments don't have such "rights". Democratic governments have responsibilities. Other governments have force and caprice.
As to "the right to tax you", If we were to read the original constitution we'd see that congress was delegated the power to tax imports, exports, and the states themselves. It provided a formula for how to share taxes among the states, which was based on the state population, broken down by indians, slaves, and everybody else. But nowhere was Congress delegated authority to tax individuals, until the 19th amendment.
That new power to tax individuals was (and is) considered unconstitutional by many, because they believe the 19th amendment was not properly ratified - snuck through the system with The People largely unaware, with dubious and incomplete records of many of the requisite elections.
Even if we accept the 19th amendment as legitimate, that tax regime is not a self-evident truth, it's a human invention, an arbitrary method of funding the government.
Our government is just a glorified home owners' association that the home owners themselves formed and chartered, and can also revise, re-charter or (with some difficulty) disband.
The federal government has the job of doing exactly what the States (via Senators and Representatives) tell it to do, nothing less, nothing more.
I am pleased to support it when it provides me services, because I feel I share a duty. Not because the US government has a "right" to my labor and property.
"people are too stupid to remember X"
You're absolutely right. Put another way, it's too complicated for most people to remember. And that is why we should scrap it in favor of the intuitive Y.
"have you really met many people in the street cursing the system they've used and are used to for all their lives?"
Yes. I have, countless times. Try it yourself. Get up, and ask the first person you see how many tablespoons are in a fluid ounce, how many ounces are in a cup, how many cups are in a pint, and how many pints are in a quart Ask them how many feet are in 3 miles. If they get those, ask them how many cubic inches are in a pound of water at STP..
Similar conversions are trivial in the metric system.
In a global economy we want global standards.
And even if there were no international interactions, the metric system is far easier to understand and use. Clinging to the more difficult and arcane is pointless.
You're being sarcastic I think, but Congressional responsibilities include the big and the mundane, just as it is for the rest of us.
And often our big problems were created by Congress: the so-called "fiscal cliff", debt limits, the debts themselves, banking deregulation, Fannie and Freddie Mae...
Every question is ignorant, by definition. Unless (like mine) it's a rhetorical device, or a test.
A legitimate question that is never asked - why should anybody standardize anything? Who cares if you want a pint of liquor and this particular bartender sells it by the fistful? Or if the speed limit is 65 mph and a cop stops you for going 278 yakaplutz per solarity?
Or perhaps certain campaign sponsors have spoken many times...
If they want it to fit in, they'll need to focus on the drug-addled freak market.
For me, I'll take the treads, topped by a miniature refrigerator w/ice dispenser, small bookshelf, gaming console, and a dispenser of toilet paper
Indeed. And shame on Dice Holdings, Inc. Shame on DARPA. Shame on the whole internet.
And most of all, shame on PandaLabs. How could you.
In the cases of the tooth fairy and Santa Claus there is not only no supporting evidence, there is verifiable and reproducible counter-evidence.
In the case of marijuana, to my knowledge there's little clinical data to support any interesting medical or scientific conclusions one way or the other. Hence the absence of evidence, which tells us nothing.
The Nobel Peace Prize is political by definition. Think about it.
Calling the Nobel technocrat prizes political just because the Nobel political prize is political is fallacious.
Sorry for the cliche, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
"humans have been using weed for millennia and it's used recreationally all over the world, surely this means something?"
Yes, it means that so far, marijuana hasn't caused humanity's extinction.
Especially true when the study is conducted in a swing state like the Netherlands.
I think it answers that "criticism" by saying power's not the root problem, population * consumption is.
Working on the symptoms just robs Peter (our kids) to pay Paul ("economic growth" for times quickly gone by).
If we would be kind to our kids, we'd conserve our shared energy reserves and stop increasing our population.
But we don't, and instead assure ourselves that our kids will fix our problems and their own.
"the Earth is not a museum."
The earth is a satellite.
Inhabited by solar-powered life-forms who consume and create finite resources.
Where individual species' populations evolve and thrive and grow when their needs are abundantly met, and shrink when resources grow scarce, and adapt or die when their habitat can no longer support their lifestyle.
GP wants to know why environmentalists aren't working on more technological solutions to climate change. The answer is that, fundamentally, it's not a technological problem.
It's a problem of a population that consumes resources faster than their habitat renews them, and just for kicks throws sand into the gears of their life-support systems.
This population could choose to adapt and either voluntarily scale back consumption, or voluntarily scale back their breeding, or persist on the same track until nature forces change.
It's really not about economics or politics, it's just the physics of life on a satellite.
Our future boils down to a choice between two kinds of pain; the pain of discipline, or the pain of regret.
Pain sucks. But planning our own misery might work out better than smashing full-speed into a brick wall.
"I do not want to live in a sustainable society"
Please momentarily remove your political polaroid eyeglasses, and ponder the *literal* meaning of that phrase..
"More likely a permanent state of drugged obedience via constant virtual escapism while being constantly controlled and monitored by the omniscient security apparatus."
What's likely I don't know, but another possibility is that, just as with other species, where imbalance occurs nature will impose a new equilibrium that leaves us with a smaller population.
Our economic system is clearly unsustainable in ways environmental and mathematical. That means our current way of life won't last forever. Since we don't seem to be doing much to fundamentally change, we are leaving the coming transition entirely in the hands of nature.
Automation is shifting repetitive, uncreative, brutish work to repetitive, uncreative, brutish machines, thus freeing humans to pursue nobler interests.
No consolation to the workers who can't find new jobs, I know. But for the larger society, the benefits outweigh the costs.
In every change some prosper, some lose. But the same happens in every status quo. We may as well choose technological progress.
If we are compassionate, we can give the displaced workers opportunities to learn new skills.
Thanks for the link.
It looks like your claim that "I'd drink the effluent from a waste water treatment plant" was either rash, or missing the fine print * you added here,
* (after it went through a water treatment plant)
That axiom is great advice for adapting to a new culture.
For advancing a culture, it's kind of ineffective.
"learn to deal w shit."
They have. Prison. Damn liberals. In my day we would have severed his mouse.
Got a link for that? I'm aware of no potable effluent from municipal waste water treatment plants.
Appeals to scientific textbooks are fallacious, but unsupported conjecture about a vast international pan-professional conspiracy corrupting every venerable scientific institution on the planet is not?