That may be the purpose of some governments. Other governments were founded with the intention of protecting the liberties of the governed, to create an environment that allows people to work to make their own lives better with minimal interference.
Depriving me of the right to choose how much I give is morally bankrupt. It removes all goodness from the act and encourages resentment.
Imagine two different situations:
In the first, you are walking down the sidewalk and are approached by a homeless child. You dig into your wallet and give the child all you can afford - $20.00.
In the second, you are walking down the sidewalk and a man grabs you and threatens you with a gun. You give him your wallet and he digs out $20.00. He gives you back your wallet and you watch as he hands your $20.00 to a homeless child.
Do you believe that these situations are ethically and morally indistinguishable?
As for ensuring that things are fair and uniform, those are just expressions for the resentment people harbor for those that make different (but equally valid) choices from themselves. When you can learn to stop worrying about what other people do and focus on your own business, everyone will be happier.
First, you seem to think that individual accountability doesn't exist without government. It's entirely possible to enforce accountability with a coercive government. If someone is a bad neighbor, they rapidly find themselves without friends and without anyone willing to do business with them.
Second, people get as much organized crime as they will tolerate. If the immediate response to every lowlife that demanded protection money was an injection of 15,000mg of Pb, the problem would clear up pretty quickly.
Third, assuming that having a government is better than anarchy (not chaos!); I still believe that unless the government has the explicit consent of 100% of the governed, it is unethical and indistinguishable from organized crime.
Why bother ? Without goverment, I can just form a gang and take what I want by force. Or print money for that matter. Or inform you that if you don't pay for "protection", your kneecaps get broken. Not that that matters much, since with no coordination between people and no one maintaining it, the infrastructure which makes modern societies possible is going to collapse. You've precisely described government. I'll take anarchy, at least then I'll get honest thieves - and the freedom to deal with them appropriately.
Seriously; I'd be happy to pay directly out of pocket for the roads I use, fire protection (I'm sure my insurance would demand it), sanitation, and my child's education. I'd probably skip paying for personal security, as I feel pretty comfortable protecting myself. Most other people would do the same if they weren't so indoctrinated in the belief that they're not competent to run their own lives.
There is nothing stopping people from offering charity to help those that can't help themselves. When the government steps in and takes what it thinks you should give, it's not only stealing property - it's stealing the citizen's opportunity to practice genuine morality.
A government that takes what it's citizens won't give willingly is ethically and morally bankrupt.
Okay, how about this: Are you aware that a.50 roundball from a muzzleloader is about 180 grains of projectile moving around 2000fps at the muzzle? That's pretty close to a lot of magnum revolver rounds, none of which have any reputation for causing dismemberment (despite the hyperbole of Harry Callahan).
I have fired powder driven weapons at meat plenty of times. I have around 30 firearms in nearly 20 different chamberings and hunt with quite a few of them.
50 caliber roundball at muzzleloader velocities is not going to remove an entire foot with a hit to a toe, and is not going to remove an entire arm and portion of chest. A pre-20th century battlefield surgeon might do that, but the bullet wouldn't.
Maybe you can explain why most deer hunters (and soldiers) use modern, accurate, centerfire rifles of around.22 -.30 caliber; rather than a.50 caliber muzzleloader that should be (as you claim) lethal with even the worst hits?
Bullets may poke bigger holes and break bones better than arrows, but the mechanisms by which they kill are identical.
If we're talking about rifle rounds, I think I might still prefer the FMJ bullet. If there's not enough velocity, the FMJ stands a chance of not fragmenting; hollow-points expand more reliably over a wider velocity range. Either way a hit to a vital part of my anatomy would likely result in a permanent dirt nap.
For most pistol rounds the available FMJ bullets are commonly of the round-nosed variety and much less effective than modern hollow-points.
In response to AC, my criticism was directed at this sentence:
Arrows/bolts have to pierce critical organs to kill; 50-cal just has to hit anywhere... No doubt bullets can be more lethal than bolts/arrows, but shot placement is still critical. A hit in the toe by a 50 caliber bullet is still unlikely to be lethal.
The idea that FMJ bullets tend to zip straight through people leaving a relatively simple wound developed in the late 19th century when ammunition was commonly loaded with flat-based, round-nosed bullets. These bullets were inherently pretty stable due to their center of gravity being forward of the middle of the bullet.
When the spitzer (pointed) bullet was developed in an effort to improve the bullet's aerodynamics and increase range, a secondary effect was discovered. The longer point of the spitzer bullets caused the center of gravity to be pushed more toward the rear of the bullet. This resulted in bullets that were inherently inclined to travel backwards. The gun's rifling was adequate to stabilize these bullets in a point forward orientation through the air, but when they encountered a denser medium (such as a human body) the bullets would tumble as it tried to reorient it's self. The tumbling bullet caused much more sever wounding than the 'icepick' type wounds seen with the older round-nose bullets. Often the combination of tumbling and centrifugal forces (bullets commonly spin in excess of 100,000 rpm) causes the bullet to break into fragments and cause even more nasty wounds (often far worse than what would be seen with soft-point or hollow-point expanding bullets).
Bullet fragmentation is a critical factor in the wounding characteristics of modern military rifle bullets.
Would you care to share your source for that particular bit of misinformation? Bullets kill by inducing blood loss, organ failure, central nervous system damage, or eventually infection - same as bolts, arrows, or knives.
Forget everything you ever heard about hydrostatic shock or energy transfer, it's 100% bullshit.
After reading the linked chart and brushing up on what v50 means in the field of armor testing(the velocity at which a given projectile will have a 50% chance of penetrating the vest), it becomes clear that they used an S&B 115gr FMJ bullet but fired it from something with much more velocity potential than a typical 9mm pistol.
The S&B website adds some confusion by listing the velocities of their loads at 0 meters, 25 meters, and 50 meters with the abbreviations V0, V25, and V50.
Since the S&B 9mm Para load has a muzzle velocity of 1237fps, it probably stands a very slim chance of penetrating the armor in question.
If you mean assault rifles rather than assault weapons, you're right. Assault rifles, by definition, fire rounds of intermediate power; between handgun rounds and traditional rifle rounds. An assault weapon could fire anything from.22 short to.50BMG.
Either way, assault rifle rounds like 5.56 NATO and 7.62x39mm (along with any rifle round commonly viewed as suitable for deer hunting) don't have too much trouble with the body armor typically worn by police.
Hmmm, I've gotta disagree with both of your definition for "modern ammunition". I can think of several cartridges in common use, loaded with smokeless powder, that very few people would call modern. Do you consider.30 WCF(.30-30),.45-70 Govt,.303 British, 7.62x54R Russian, or.44-40 WCF to be modern? Most of them have been updated to some degree with newer propellants or projectiles and they work at least as well as they ever did but to call them modern is to disregard the advances that have been made in cartridge technology in more recent years.
Your definitions seem kind of like claiming that the Chevrolet small-block OHV V8 is a modern engine, or the Intel x86 is a modern microprocessor architecture.
Agreed. I just wanted to point out that calling the.25ACP "modern" is a bit of a stretch unless you adopt an unusual definition of modern.
There aren't a whole lot of cartridge designs (as opposed to loadings) I would consider modern. I have firearms in 19 different chamberings and the only one I can think of that is less than 40 years old is the.40S&W.
The answer to your question depends on where heaven (or hell) is located in relation to the space-time continuum of our universe. I would suggest that heaven exists (if it exists) in a disconnected continuum from our own and whatever mechanism allows souls to travel from here to there isn't limited to any particular spatial or temporal coordinates in either realm.
I would guess that everybody that dies arrives in heaven (or hell) at the same time, no waiting for anybody.
Quantum entanglement enables the transmission of information instantaneously. No, it doesn't.
Pretty much everything I have ever read about quantum entanglement is careful to point out that it does not enable information to propagate faster than light.
Slashdot Mirror
When that happens they're leveraging the power of bad governments.
By themselves, bad corporations go out of business.
Bad governments on the other hand, get to steal, kidnap, and murder.
That may be the purpose of some governments. Other governments were founded with the intention of protecting the liberties of the governed, to create an environment that allows people to work to make their own lives better with minimal interference.
Depriving me of the right to choose how much I give is morally bankrupt. It removes all goodness from the act and encourages resentment.
Imagine two different situations:
In the first, you are walking down the sidewalk and are approached by a homeless child. You dig into your wallet and give the child all you can afford - $20.00.
In the second, you are walking down the sidewalk and a man grabs you and threatens you with a gun. You give him your wallet and he digs out $20.00. He gives you back your wallet and you watch as he hands your $20.00 to a homeless child.
Do you believe that these situations are ethically and morally indistinguishable?
As for ensuring that things are fair and uniform, those are just expressions for the resentment people harbor for those that make different (but equally valid) choices from themselves. When you can learn to stop worrying about what other people do and focus on your own business, everyone will be happier.
Three things:
First, you seem to think that individual accountability doesn't exist without government. It's entirely possible to enforce accountability with a coercive government. If someone is a bad neighbor, they rapidly find themselves without friends and without anyone willing to do business with them.
Second, people get as much organized crime as they will tolerate. If the immediate response to every lowlife that demanded protection money was an injection of 15,000mg of Pb, the problem would clear up pretty quickly.
Third, assuming that having a government is better than anarchy (not chaos!); I still believe that unless the government has the explicit consent of 100% of the governed, it is unethical and indistinguishable from organized crime.
Seriously; I'd be happy to pay directly out of pocket for the roads I use, fire protection (I'm sure my insurance would demand it), sanitation, and my child's education. I'd probably skip paying for personal security, as I feel pretty comfortable protecting myself. Most other people would do the same if they weren't so indoctrinated in the belief that they're not competent to run their own lives.
Society != Government
There is nothing stopping people from offering charity to help those that can't help themselves. When the government steps in and takes what it thinks you should give, it's not only stealing property - it's stealing the citizen's opportunity to practice genuine morality.
A government that takes what it's citizens won't give willingly is ethically and morally bankrupt.
I hate the fallacy that if the government didn't keep on providing some things, those things wouldn't exist.
If the government provided shoes with taxpayer money, I swear to God, people like you would claim that without taxes nobody would have shoes.
The fact is that anything the government can pay for, you could pay for straight from your own pocket - and probably get a better deal.
Okay, how about this: Are you aware that a .50 roundball from a muzzleloader is about 180 grains of projectile moving around 2000fps at the muzzle? That's pretty close to a lot of magnum revolver rounds, none of which have any reputation for causing dismemberment (despite the hyperbole of Harry Callahan).
I have fired powder driven weapons at meat plenty of times. I have around 30 firearms in nearly 20 different chamberings and hunt with quite a few of them.
.22 - .30 caliber; rather than a .50 caliber muzzleloader that should be (as you claim) lethal with even the worst hits?
50 caliber roundball at muzzleloader velocities is not going to remove an entire foot with a hit to a toe, and is not going to remove an entire arm and portion of chest. A pre-20th century battlefield surgeon might do that, but the bullet wouldn't.
Maybe you can explain why most deer hunters (and soldiers) use modern, accurate, centerfire rifles of around
Bullets may poke bigger holes and break bones better than arrows, but the mechanisms by which they kill are identical.
If we're talking about rifle rounds, I think I might still prefer the FMJ bullet. If there's not enough velocity, the FMJ stands a chance of not fragmenting; hollow-points expand more reliably over a wider velocity range. Either way a hit to a vital part of my anatomy would likely result in a permanent dirt nap.
For most pistol rounds the available FMJ bullets are commonly of the round-nosed variety and much less effective than modern hollow-points.
The idea that FMJ bullets tend to zip straight through people leaving a relatively simple wound developed in the late 19th century when ammunition was commonly loaded with flat-based, round-nosed bullets. These bullets were inherently pretty stable due to their center of gravity being forward of the middle of the bullet.
When the spitzer (pointed) bullet was developed in an effort to improve the bullet's aerodynamics and increase range, a secondary effect was discovered. The longer point of the spitzer bullets caused the center of gravity to be pushed more toward the rear of the bullet. This resulted in bullets that were inherently inclined to travel backwards. The gun's rifling was adequate to stabilize these bullets in a point forward orientation through the air, but when they encountered a denser medium (such as a human body) the bullets would tumble as it tried to reorient it's self. The tumbling bullet caused much more sever wounding than the 'icepick' type wounds seen with the older round-nose bullets. Often the combination of tumbling and centrifugal forces (bullets commonly spin in excess of 100,000 rpm) causes the bullet to break into fragments and cause even more nasty wounds (often far worse than what would be seen with soft-point or hollow-point expanding bullets).
Bullet fragmentation is a critical factor in the wounding characteristics of modern military rifle bullets.
Would you care to share your source for that particular bit of misinformation? Bullets kill by inducing blood loss, organ failure, central nervous system damage, or eventually infection - same as bolts, arrows, or knives.
Forget everything you ever heard about hydrostatic shock or energy transfer, it's 100% bullshit.
After reading the linked chart and brushing up on what v50 means in the field of armor testing(the velocity at which a given projectile will have a 50% chance of penetrating the vest), it becomes clear that they used an S&B 115gr FMJ bullet but fired it from something with much more velocity potential than a typical 9mm pistol.
The S&B website adds some confusion by listing the velocities of their loads at 0 meters, 25 meters, and 50 meters with the abbreviations V0, V25, and V50.
Since the S&B 9mm Para load has a muzzle velocity of 1237fps, it probably stands a very slim chance of penetrating the armor in question.
There are more 9mm caliber cartridges out there than the 9mm NATO/Parabellum/x19/Luger.
.357 magnum is about 9mm and could reach that velocity from a long barrel. Also there are numerous .35/9mm rifles cartridges on the market.
The
If you mean assault rifles rather than assault weapons, you're right. Assault rifles, by definition, fire rounds of intermediate power; between handgun rounds and traditional rifle rounds. An assault weapon could fire anything from .22 short to .50BMG.
Either way, assault rifle rounds like 5.56 NATO and 7.62x39mm (along with any rifle round commonly viewed as suitable for deer hunting) don't have too much trouble with the body armor typically worn by police.
Hmmm, I've gotta disagree with both of your definition for "modern ammunition". I can think of several cartridges in common use, loaded with smokeless powder, that very few people would call modern. Do you consider .30 WCF(.30-30), .45-70 Govt, .303 British, 7.62x54R Russian, or .44-40 WCF to be modern? Most of them have been updated to some degree with newer propellants or projectiles and they work at least as well as they ever did but to call them modern is to disregard the advances that have been made in cartridge technology in more recent years.
Your definitions seem kind of like claiming that the Chevrolet small-block OHV V8 is a modern engine, or the Intel x86 is a modern microprocessor architecture.
Agreed. I just wanted to point out that calling the .25ACP "modern" is a bit of a stretch unless you adopt an unusual definition of modern.
.40S&W.
There aren't a whole lot of cartridge designs (as opposed to loadings) I would consider modern. I have firearms in 19 different chamberings and the only one I can think of that is less than 40 years old is the
Amen. Sic Semper Tyrannis.
You do know that the 25ACP is nearly 100 years old now, right? (Of course the same goes for 45ACP and 9mm Luger)
2/3 of the article is about the methods spammers use to fool OCR software that might be analyzing the message. RTFA.
Have you seen what cars looked like before the 1970s gas crisis?
If you take the long view, small/fuel efficient cars weren't much more than a passing fad lasting from the mid '70s to the mid '90s.
The answer to your question depends on where heaven (or hell) is located in relation to the space-time continuum of our universe. I would suggest that heaven exists (if it exists) in a disconnected continuum from our own and whatever mechanism allows souls to travel from here to there isn't limited to any particular spatial or temporal coordinates in either realm.
I would guess that everybody that dies arrives in heaven (or hell) at the same time, no waiting for anybody.
Pretty much everything I have ever read about quantum entanglement is careful to point out that it does not enable information to propagate faster than light.
Your post is based on the flawed premise that there exists some kind of objective time.