I don't want a nanny government, but I do think that certain activities that are, in my (and others') opinion, harmful to society, should be penalized.
The government doesn't force you to do anything - but it imposes penalties if you break laws. Don't equate the existence of laws with reduced freedom. You are still free to go on a mass-murder spree if you'd like, but you'll have to deal with the consequences.
a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency: a victim of misplaced confidence (Emphasis mine.) That's the definition of "victim" from your dictionary entry that directly applies to the families of addicted gamblers, alcoholics, drug users, adulterers, and so on, if no other definition fits. Looks like you didn't even read the dictionary entry.
So why would a criminal need to smuggle one from a different country when he can simply steal one from his neighbor? Because likely his neighbor doesn't have one, and if he does it's often unlikely the criminal knows about it, plus he'd have to go to the trouble of breaking in and taking it without getting caught. It's probably easier to get a gun on the black market.
You have no constitutional right to car ownership, nor driving. This is true.. however I believe my point still stands. Feel free to disagree.
You asked "why not?" regarding why gambling isn't illegal in many states. It's because the people in that state either a) did not vote for such a law, or b) voted to have such a law removed. This is a "rule by consensus" country, regardless of how well it actually works, and such things do happen. That's how Prohibition was instated, and that's how Prohibition was repealed.
That's the most pathetic excuse for restricting my rights I've ever heard. Yes, it would be a pathetic excuse for restricting rights, if it were the only reason. It is not, however. We could argue whether we should allow partial gambling laws (like some of the ones in existence now), but I personally think gambling is a waste of people's resources and it should be banned completely. If people used the time they used gambling for more productive purposes (including, but not limited to, spending quality time with family and friends) society would be a lot better off.
So why isn't there a law against my giving money away? I don't see how this would "protect others from your weakness". It seems that giving your money away benefits those who receive it (though whether they use the money for a beneficial purpose is another issue).
Oh, so you want to restrict my freedom because it's easier? It still doesn't solve the problem you want to solve, if the actual problem is adultery. The problem is the ease with which married people can commit adultery because of prostitution. Yes, you could make adultery illegal, but that won't stop prostitutes from continuing with a "no questions asked" policy. If they don't ask, then they don't know the guy is married, and they'd be blameless. It wouldn't change anything.
How about making it illegal to knowingly have sex with a married person, for a married person to have sex with anyone except their spouse, and to withhold marital status for purposes of having sex? As I mentioned earlier, I think we should. However I don't think this would change anything with the current prostitution situation, as I mentioned above.
I don't think prostitution is good for society. I offer no evidence for this position, it is largely opinion influenced by religion. Fair or not, I won't support a law legalizing prostitution, for that reason.
I think you disagree with me largely because you're one of the "unwilling populace" in my "we shouldn't impose things on an unwilling populace" comment. It's fine for us to have different opinions.
No. Although is she depends on a gambler for her living she should divorve the idiot and get a job! It occurs to me that most of this comes down to one simple fact - people are stupid. The wife of an addicted gambler may not leave him because she loves him and, whether or not she's right, she believes he'll change. Perhaps she doesn't leave him because she literally does depend on him to eat. Perhaps she feels like her friends and family would be ashamed of her for leaving him. I could go on... there are many possibilities.
I am confused, however, by your claim that people who depend on a gambler for their living are not victims of his habit. Could you clarify that?
I completely and fully agree that it is primarily the responsibility of the parents to teach their children to avoid things like drugs and alcohol (not just say "that's bad" but explain why; kids can understand, they're not dumb), but failing that I think the government needs to step in and make some rules (which it has done to some degree).
Maybe we should focus on educating parents so they can educate their kids?
I agree that the way we handle drug abuse isn't necessarily the best choice - however making it legal would not solve the problem. The solution would be some sort of mandatory rehabilitation in an actual clinic, rather than a conviction and imprisonment in a jail of your description. I would venture to guess that people imprisoned for such a crime usually go back to their drug use habits.
If you "cure" people of their addictions, rather than imprison them and then release them without curing their addiction, then fewer people will be buying illegal drugs, and the market for them will diminish, and it will no longer be profitable to import them from other countries. I believe that to be a workable solution.
Guns are legal. Why should a legal item need to be smuggled?
Yes, guns are legal - however, "legal" is not a synonym of "unrestricted". We do not allow people with violent criminal records to have guns; violent crimes cause the loss of that particular freedom. That's the whole foundation of the justice system - break the law, and you lose freedom. Contraband guns are almost exclusively sold for one of two types of people - those who broke the law and can't get one legally, or those who are planning to break the law and don't want to be traced by the gun's serial number if they have to ditch the weapon. Virtually everyone else can get one legally with relatively little hassle.
Yay! Car analogy time! It is legal both to own a car and to drive a car - but you must be licensed. Why must we be licensed? Because we have to show two things - first, that we know how to drive without killing other people; and second, that we do not have a record of reckless driving (which can cause your license to be revoked). We restrict guns for the same two reasons.
Why is it legal for me to have sex with your wife so long as I don't pay her?
I don't think it should be.
I live alone. I'm no gambler but if I were, why should I be deprived of it because YOU are too weak and stupid to control yourself?
It's not illegal in many states. Move somewhere where it isn't illegal, or get the law in your state changed, if you want to gamble. If you're unwilling to do either, then stop complaining.
As to gambling, well, here in Illinois I can go to a horsetrack and gamble, I can go to a riverboat and gamble, why is it illegal to sit down in my back yard and play poker with my buds? Why is it illegal for me to bet on sports? Government already said gambling is ok - but only under their rules. It's a damned hypocritical law!
It's not hypocritical - they just want to have some measure of control over it, so forms of gambling which they can't control are illegal. Governments rake in good amounts of money from gambling. Allowing it in people's homes would have no effect other than reducing the government's money intake, which would lead to raised taxes, which no one wants.
If goverment is going to protect me for my own weakness, then it first should give me health care, particularly MENTAL health care.
There are a lot of things the government could do to help people, not the least of which would be completely revamping how it handles health care. But it's not the government's job to protect you from your own weakness, it's the government's job to protect other people from your weakness (which is the things we're talking about are (or should be) illegal). It's much easier for the government to say "No prostitution" than to say "Only unmarried people can see prostitutes" because while the first is possible to enforce, the second is not.
If you're against drug prohibition then you MUST be for outlawing alcohol and tobacco, the two most destructive drugs there are.
You mean "if you're for drug prohibition". Yes, I think tobacco and alcohol should be as illegal as any other drug, since they cause harm to others around the person who uses such substances.
I say these things that I think should be illegal, however I don't think a country should impose laws on an unwilling populace. A people who does not want to be protected should not be protected by force. Most, if not all, of our current laws were enacted by lawmakers elected by popular vote. If you don't like a law, elect someone who will change it. If no one wants to change it, run for office yourself, and see how much support you can get.
Liberty is conservative. You should apologize for being a liberal, not a conservative.
Now who's changing word meanings? I used conservative in the standard manner - as a synonym for "Republican" conservative. If you think that's
Even if you do consider those to be crimes with victims, they can only be made worse with law enforcement, not better. It's not addiction or Prohibition and all the problems that come with it. It's addiction and Prohibition, and all the problems that come with it. So preventing people from legally doing seriously harmful things affecting others is bad? What evidence do you have that prohibiting drug use makes the problem worse? I know several people who have told me that would do drugs if they were legal. That is not be a good thing.
They might not be at the level of the KGB or the Stazi, but that hasn't stopped them from trying. That second link has nothing to do with undercover or plainclothes cops. Yes, something bad happened, and it might have involved corrupt cops, but it's off-topic.
As for the first link... a cop that gets corrupted by his undercover work does not mean the whole system is broken. And this particular case isn't even relevant to our discussion - the undercover cop in question was participating voluntarily in illegal activities outside of the scope of his undercover assignment. If an undercover cop is doing his job, the group he is infiltrating will end up in jail - but in the case you link to, this officer's illegal activities resulted in the LAPD losing credibility and another gang gaining a firm base of power in the area. I believe that is not the general result of undercover work.
Politicians get corrupt far more often than undercover cops (by my own informal observation); should we ban our whole political system too?
Maybe next time you can provide evidence that is actually relevant to the discussion.
I'm not sure why I'm responding since it's pretty obvious you only scanned the text, at most. Actually I read it thoroughly, twice. Don't equate disregard for one or two of your comments to mean I must have simply scanned through it. My post was quite long enough without responding to your post point-for-point - though I nearly did.
Why should anyone have to get permission to bear arms when it is supposed to be your 2nd amendment right? Besides, we don't have concealed carry in Illinois, although they're trying to pass it. I agree that we shouldn't need permits to carry concealed weapons; I was simply making an observation of a possibility.
You also missed the part where I said victimless crimes shouldn't be crimes at all. Without drug, gambling, and prostitution laws there's no need for the secret police. Right, because all the mafia does is traffic in drugs and prostitution. [/sarcasm] I was also talking about other contraband - weapon smuggling and such. While I agree that we should all have the right to bear arms, I don't think criminals convicted of violent crimes should necessarily have that right - and illegal weapon smuggling gives them those weapons. So, we'd still need undercover cops to infiltrate and take down those operations.
While you might consider drug use to be a victimless crime, I do not - both the person taking drugs and that person's family usually suffer. Prostitution? The families of men who use them suffer. Gambling? If I lose all my money, if I take out a second mortgage on my house and gamble it away, where will my wife and kids live when the debt comes due? Gambling is quite addictive, to the point where I can place myself on a addiction blacklist, and if a casino lets me place a bet I can sue them for letting me. Any addictive behavior is destructive, both to the addict and to those around him. None of these things are victimless. We are better off with them illegal. Sorry if I'm too conservative for your tastes.
You don't have to agree with me on this if you prefer to remain blinded by your fears - but there's some pretty good evidence out there that I'm right. No, I'm not going to provide any here, I'll leave it as an exercise for your Google muscle.
They're police and their identities as police offiucers is secret. Doublespeak is a term from "1984" as well. You apparently didn't read my clarification of what I thought you meant by "Secret Police" - cops who are not identifiable as such with virtually unlimited authority, like the Russian Secret Police. Again, neither undercover cops nor plainclothes cops (there is a difference!) have nothing approaching unlimited authority. A distinction in terms is not doublespeak. That's like you calling all ellipses circles, and when I point out the difference, you call my explanation doublespeak. Again, a distinction in terms is not doublespeak.
As long as there are secret organizations that break the law, there will be a need for undercover police officers to bring them down. That is the role of an undercover police officer. Don't try to claim that lawbreaking secret organizations will go away if we relax laws or something - they will not, history has shown that quite vividly. (Again, Google for examples if you wish.)
If what my grandparents tole me about alcohol prohibition was any indication, the police were considered a joke by most everybody then, and maybe it's just because I'm a geezer but I think lack of respect fo rth epolice is a bad thing. I'd be willing to bet that the reason cops were a joke back then was because some of them were drinking in the hidden bars along with everyone else who hated prohibition. Any cop who flagrantly breaks the laws (s)he is supposed to uphold will not be respected, and if enough of them do it, the whole group will suffer.
What if it was just some guy with a concealed weapons permit that wanted lunch? Or maybe it was an off-duty police officer. Last I checked, off-duty cops carry their weapons.
Off-duty cops are a valuable resource to the police force. In an emergency, they can call off-duty cops for backup - and forcing them to run to the station to change and get a weapon could waste a vital half an hour that gets someone killed. That is a horribly bad idea.
All on-duty police officers should be in uniform, with their badge displayed proudly, not hiding their real identity in shame like some Nazi brown shirt. So any undercover cop, whether he's on an undercover assignment or just in plainclothes, is by default hiding their identity in shame? I doubt it's ever done out of shame. Every cop I know of is proud to be a cop. Sometimes it's for the safety of the people around them, and/or to keep the wrong people (read: criminals) from knowing they're cops. It's not far-fetched to imagine a gang that wouldn't care about firing through a group of innocent bystanders in an effort to kill a nearby cop.
Your comparison to a "Nazi brown shirt" is not simply ridiculous but it comes across as alarmist propaganda designed to incite the negative feelings associated with Nazis. It contributes nothing to the point you're trying to make.
Cops do not have to be wearing a uniform to still be cops. Forcing all cops to wear uniforms while on-duty could perhaps be the worst possible idea. It's easy to avoid cops if they're easily identifiable, meaning it would be easier to hide crimes simply be checking for cops. It's the same with concealed weapons - if they outlaw concealed weapons, only outlaws will have concealed weapons, and the crime rate will increase, since armed criminals could be much more certain that no one would or could resist them. Uncertainty about who might have a concealed weapon likely deters quite a few potential crimes. Uncertainty about who could be a cop likely deters quite a few potential crimes.
Without undercover cops it'd be hard to infiltrate illegal smuggling operations, gangs, and so on, in order to obtain actual solid evidence. I'd guess there are many criminals now in jail that would still be running free if not for undercover operations. Are you saying this is a bad thing? How do you propose these things be stopped?
You make a mistake if you believe that "undercover" == "Secret Police". Secret Police are, in the sense you use them (comparing them to Russian Secret Police and so on), full-time plainclothes cops with virtually unlimited authority. Undercover cops aren't anything like that. They are not full-time, as others have pointed out, instead they don their uniforms most of the time like most cops. They do not have unlimited authority, they must instead (generally) act within their jurisdiction. Traffic cops don't generally get involved with murder investigations, even if they're the ones that found the body in the trunk.
Also recall that not all cops have uniforms as we conventionally think of them. Detectives and other officers often wear normal clothes as they go about their duties. They are not undercover, they simply do not wear the same uniforms as (for example) traffic cops.
Mistakes that happen; whoever killed that cop at that game should not have shot on sight, but at the same time, that plainclothes cop that shot into the air could have come up with a better way to break up the fight. Sometimes people die when people make mistakes - this is true in any field, not just the police force.
Your "but I had a nagging worry" reminds me of an article some time ago by a lady who wrote an article entitled something along the lines of "My Flight with Terror" wherein she details her "harrowing" experience on an uneventful flight with a group of Arabic passengers (a group of musicians, if I recall correctly) who were, by all accounts, minding their own business.
Basically you were letting your imagination run wild, and it got the best of you.
Ads (for the bank's services) on my bank's website say my name. Obviously my bank is allowed to have my name, but I think it's kind of annoying. I don't particularly want google ads or anything else not as trustworthy as my bank to have my name.
I had a program for either my TI-89 or TI-83+ which could send signals through the TI-Link port that AM radios could pick up. It was supposed to be a piano program... there were about seven distinct tones it could send to a nearby radio. Range was short (maybe three feet) but if you're a suicide bomber and it's in your backpack, that might be far enough.
I don't doubt you. I tried Vista twice and couldn't stand some glaring issues - I replaced it with Gentoo (this is actually the first slashdot post I've made with this Gentoo installation) - so I'm unfamiliar with how, if at all, IE is integrated with Vista (I've read pre-SP1 Vista uses IE, ignoring your browser preference setting, for certain things), but if memory serves, with XP MS tried to make IE6 more part of the OS (so Explorer and IE use the same stuff) but I might be way off here.
What 'browser' does linux use for its 'internet downloads'? Why exactly can't windows work like that? I didn't mean to imply that a browser is necessary for any downloading; what I meant was that MS would have to completely change the way they've designed their OS (not that that would be a bad thing) and that this requirement would be (read: is) a huge deterrent against MS actually doing it.
And my proposed solution would not be 'download links', but rather to create an apt-get type of tool for windows, and install that by default. Then on first run users can select whatever 'free' software they want from the repositories, including browsers, email clients, etc. Ah, but that wouldn't be in MS's best interests either, barring fines and such by governmental bodies for noncompliance. Recall that MS has other programs as well - Outlook for e-mail, Office for documents, etc., and a software repository (of the free variety) would not really be in MS's best interests.
Perhaps if a Steam-like system were adopted for applications other than games, things would be better - both free and non-free things could be provided, and it'd be tied to your account so it wouldn't matter what computer you're on as long as you're logged in (with an appropriate offline mode), etc. This would be best provided by a non-Microsoft entity, to avoid antitrust accusations, and such a system could provide side-by-side feature comparisons that include versions, prices, features, screenshots, reviews, and so on, along with links to either download or purchase the given programs. Then they'd actually have to justify the prices they charge, yes?
If Microsoft limited their free giveaways to software that had to be downloaded from their website and installed manually, their competitors would have a lot less to bitch about. This would be true even if those manually-installed applications integrated themselves into the OS the way they do now - because they're manually installed, the user chose to do it - but only if they did so using publicly available APIs. The chances that Microsoft would allow Firefox to integrate itself with the OS in the same way IE is integrated are... well, it's not going to happen.
Even if they did do this, the problem would be, what browser should Microsoft provide? They can't very well ship an OS without a browser. They could, I suppose, ship Windows with a few download links (one for IE, Firefox, Opera, etc) and let the user decide, but then Windows would have to use something besides IE for its internet downloads, and then IE would use that internal API for file downloads... you see where this goes.
The simple truth is that all slashdot-nerd-types will hate Microsoft until Linux (or anyone else) wins, no matter what Microsoft does. People are assigning ulterior motives even to MS's recent change of plans regarding IE8's standards-adherence - why can't they just want to be more compliant? This attitude by MS's critics will not change in the forseeable future.
Let's face it -/.ers are prejudiced against Microsoft, and there's nothing Microsoft can do to change it, short of giving away their OS (and its source code) for free. Not that that would be a bad thing;)
You're right; however foo.com (and account A) doesn't (didn't) belong to me. The Real WTF(tm) is that I recommended 1&1 to my friend, so he bought his domain through them, but they made it impossible for me to host the site for him. I ended up transferring his domain to my account.
It used to be the case that if you used Firefox, you also had to use IE for some sites. now, hardly at all. I came across one site, which was for a UK TV company that wouldn't work properly in Firefox, but it worked fine in sea monkey. The only site I use semi-regularly that doesn't work properly in Firefox is the MSDNAA site... but that's a Microsoft site, so I guess I shouldn't expect anything else.
I switched to 1&1 from GoDaddy. Their prices are pretty good, from what I've seen. The only problem I've come across with their hosting is that if I have two 1&1 accounts (A and B) and I have a domain (foo.com) on account A and a hosting package on account B, I can't point foo.com to my 1&1 hosted server... more accurately, I can't set my 1&1-hosted server (on account B) to direct incoming connections for foo.com to a specific folder on the server as I would if the domain were on the same account as the hosting package or on an external registrar. It appears to be something they overlooked when they set up their system.
I don't think you deserve an axe to the neck at all; I think you understand the problem very well. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever be able to convince the powers that be (the devs in charge of things like this) that it's worth someone's time to go through and optimize the UI code (and the rest of it!)... but I guess it's open source for a reason? It's just not worth it to fork just to optimize, and something in my gut tells me that a huge optimization patch wouldn't be looked upon too friendly-like by the Gnome or KDE developers. (Too many changes to test for regressions, I would guess.)
I get "yelled at" by my boss at work for daring to "waste" time optimizing our UI code. "That code doesn't need to be optimized; it's UI code. It's not time-critical." As you pointed out, though, every second of wasted user time adds up. I wish more people thought like you and I:(
which is even more strange than LDS disowning people who follow Joseph Smith's teachings. You're forgetting one very important thing that Joseph Smith taught that these people are not following - that God reveals his will through modern prophets. In other words, if God reveals through a prophet that the practice of polygamy is to stop, then the members of the Church had better obey - and in the case of those who still practice polygamy, they do not obey that revelation, and therefore they are not following what Joseph Smith taught.
Joseph Smith, were he alive today, would not consider these polygamists Mormons - for the very reason that they ignore the revelations received by modern prophets. You cannot profess to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet but in the same breath not believe that his successors were and are prophets. This is not a church where you can choose to believe some doctrines but not others - either you believe it all or you may as well believe none of it.
what do you call Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, et al? Were they not real Mormons? Yes, they were - but they were following the commandments at the time. I'll give you a short history lesson:
Wilford Woodruff was the prophet who announced the end of the practice of polygamy. This decision was not reached lightly. If it had been purely a political move, it would have been done years earlier - church leaders were being imprisoned, many were in hiding, the government had disbanded the church as an legally legitimate religion, the church was threatened with confiscation of church property, etc. President Woodruff was willing to let the church lose everything rather than disobey the commandments of God, by his own admission.
Official Declaration 1 in the Doctrine and Covenants is where you'll find the complete declaration and the comments by President Woodruff at the time this was announced. I'll quote two relevant bits here:
The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for . . . any of the men in this temple at Logan; for all ordinances would be stopped throughout the land of Zion. Confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice. Now, the question is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the Lord has manifested to us, and leave our Prophets and Apostles and fathers free men, and the temples in the hands of the people, so that the dead may be redeemed.
I saw exactly what would come to pass if there was not something done. I have had this spirit upon me for a long time. But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write... So the choices were clear: abandon the practice by force, losing the leadership of the church to prison and the property of the church to the government in the process, or abandon the practice and be able to continue the work God has for man to do. President Woodruff said he would not have ended the practice of polygamy without a direct command from God - and he did not until he received it.
If you don't believe in revelation, fine, but you can't tell me I should follow one prophet and ignore another. Man may not not change God's commandments, but God can, if He deems it necessary to preserve His church.
God can give commandments specific to a people's circumstances. If you don't believe God can do so (but believe in God) then your god is no god. If you don't believe in God, then you don't care anyway:P
I get the feeling I missed something in my editing, however my battery is about to die so I must submit.
No, it does not; however using the term "Mormon" to refer to both polygamist sects and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is both misleading and incorrect. It serves only to insinuate that the LDS Church still practices polygamy (which it does not), or that it tolerates polygamy (which it does not), or that these polygamist sects are part of the LDS Church (which they are not). The word Mormon refers to members of the LDS Church, by popular usage.
You don't need to own a trademark on a word to have its popular definition refer to you.
I do not propose legislating that a state only provide edited movies. I would not support such legislation. I do not support the bill proposed by that Utah senator (saying that Utah wants to do it is misleading, since it is simply a senator of Utah that wants to do it); I think it's the parents' job to police their children's internet usage, not the state's and not the ISP's. The ISP's only concern should be getting content to people's homes, regardless of what that content is. If parents want to restrict which parts of the internet are visible to their kids, they can buy any of the various filtering products out there, or they can use any of various DNS services which filter out certain pages (for instance, OpenDNS is capable of this).
All I've said is that we should not *prohibit* the editing of movies in legislation. The only thing that should be illegal is pirating movies and reselling them, whether or not the pirated movies are edited.
Editing movies should be permitted, if the company doing the editing has the permission of the movie studio that owns the movie - the same way it works for network and cable stations right now.
What do you mean by you would have no problem with permitting a minority seeing an "edited" movie? Gee, that's awfully open-minded of you. What if they wanted to see the uncensored version? You tell them just to move out of your "state"? What, Utah isn't a state now?/sarcasm Seriously though, it is open-minded to say "let me watch the movie how I want to watch it, you can watch it however you want", but it is not open-minded to say "either watch it in one particular way or not at all".
More to the point, I did not at any time propose banning unedited movies in any place, nor did I propose only providing edited movies in any place, nor would I support such legislation. Less than half of Utah is LDS, meaning that more than half of Utah is *not* LDS, which means that there would definitely still be a market in Utah for unedited movies. (I only point this out since you seem to be picking on Utah.)
What I have proposed is a far cry from forcing people to drive to the next state to buy an unedited movie.
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The government doesn't force you to do anything - but it imposes penalties if you break laws. Don't equate the existence of laws with reduced freedom. You are still free to go on a mass-murder spree if you'd like, but you'll have to deal with the consequences. a person who is deceived or cheated, as by his or her own emotions or ignorance, by the dishonesty of others, or by some impersonal agency: a victim of misplaced confidence (Emphasis mine.) That's the definition of "victim" from your dictionary entry that directly applies to the families of addicted gamblers, alcoholics, drug users, adulterers, and so on, if no other definition fits. Looks like you didn't even read the dictionary entry.
You asked "why not?" regarding why gambling isn't illegal in many states. It's because the people in that state either a) did not vote for such a law, or b) voted to have such a law removed. This is a "rule by consensus" country, regardless of how well it actually works, and such things do happen. That's how Prohibition was instated, and that's how Prohibition was repealed. That's the most pathetic excuse for restricting my rights I've ever heard. Yes, it would be a pathetic excuse for restricting rights, if it were the only reason. It is not, however. We could argue whether we should allow partial gambling laws (like some of the ones in existence now), but I personally think gambling is a waste of people's resources and it should be banned completely. If people used the time they used gambling for more productive purposes (including, but not limited to, spending quality time with family and friends) society would be a lot better off. So why isn't there a law against my giving money away? I don't see how this would "protect others from your weakness". It seems that giving your money away benefits those who receive it (though whether they use the money for a beneficial purpose is another issue). Oh, so you want to restrict my freedom because it's easier? It still doesn't solve the problem you want to solve, if the actual problem is adultery. The problem is the ease with which married people can commit adultery because of prostitution. Yes, you could make adultery illegal, but that won't stop prostitutes from continuing with a "no questions asked" policy. If they don't ask, then they don't know the guy is married, and they'd be blameless. It wouldn't change anything. How about making it illegal to knowingly have sex with a married person, for a married person to have sex with anyone except their spouse, and to withhold marital status for purposes of having sex? As I mentioned earlier, I think we should. However I don't think this would change anything with the current prostitution situation, as I mentioned above.
I don't think prostitution is good for society. I offer no evidence for this position, it is largely opinion influenced by religion. Fair or not, I won't support a law legalizing prostitution, for that reason.
I think you disagree with me largely because you're one of the "unwilling populace" in my "we shouldn't impose things on an unwilling populace" comment. It's fine for us to have different opinions. No. Although is she depends on a gambler for her living she should divorve the idiot and get a job! It occurs to me that most of this comes down to one simple fact - people are stupid. The wife of an addicted gambler may not leave him because she loves him and, whether or not she's right, she believes he'll change. Perhaps she doesn't leave him because she literally does depend on him to eat. Perhaps she feels like her friends and family would be ashamed of her for leaving him. I could go on... there are many possibilities.
I am confused, however, by your claim that people who depend on a gambler for their living are not victims of his habit. Could you clarify that?
I completely and fully agree that it is primarily the responsibility of the parents to teach their children to avoid things like drugs and alcohol (not just say "that's bad" but explain why; kids can understand, they're not dumb), but failing that I think the government needs to step in and make some rules (which it has done to some degree).
Maybe we should focus on educating parents so they can educate their kids?
I agree that the way we handle drug abuse isn't necessarily the best choice - however making it legal would not solve the problem. The solution would be some sort of mandatory rehabilitation in an actual clinic, rather than a conviction and imprisonment in a jail of your description. I would venture to guess that people imprisoned for such a crime usually go back to their drug use habits.
If you "cure" people of their addictions, rather than imprison them and then release them without curing their addiction, then fewer people will be buying illegal drugs, and the market for them will diminish, and it will no longer be profitable to import them from other countries. I believe that to be a workable solution.
Guns are legal. Why should a legal item need to be smuggled?
Yes, guns are legal - however, "legal" is not a synonym of "unrestricted". We do not allow people with violent criminal records to have guns; violent crimes cause the loss of that particular freedom. That's the whole foundation of the justice system - break the law, and you lose freedom. Contraband guns are almost exclusively sold for one of two types of people - those who broke the law and can't get one legally, or those who are planning to break the law and don't want to be traced by the gun's serial number if they have to ditch the weapon. Virtually everyone else can get one legally with relatively little hassle.
Yay! Car analogy time! It is legal both to own a car and to drive a car - but you must be licensed. Why must we be licensed? Because we have to show two things - first, that we know how to drive without killing other people; and second, that we do not have a record of reckless driving (which can cause your license to be revoked). We restrict guns for the same two reasons.
Why is it legal for me to have sex with your wife so long as I don't pay her?
I don't think it should be.
I live alone. I'm no gambler but if I were, why should I be deprived of it because YOU are too weak and stupid to control yourself?
It's not illegal in many states. Move somewhere where it isn't illegal, or get the law in your state changed, if you want to gamble. If you're unwilling to do either, then stop complaining.
As to gambling, well, here in Illinois I can go to a horsetrack and gamble, I can go to a riverboat and gamble, why is it illegal to sit down in my back yard and play poker with my buds? Why is it illegal for me to bet on sports? Government already said gambling is ok - but only under their rules. It's a damned hypocritical law!
It's not hypocritical - they just want to have some measure of control over it, so forms of gambling which they can't control are illegal. Governments rake in good amounts of money from gambling. Allowing it in people's homes would have no effect other than reducing the government's money intake, which would lead to raised taxes, which no one wants.
If goverment is going to protect me for my own weakness, then it first should give me health care, particularly MENTAL health care.
There are a lot of things the government could do to help people, not the least of which would be completely revamping how it handles health care. But it's not the government's job to protect you from your own weakness, it's the government's job to protect other people from your weakness (which is the things we're talking about are (or should be) illegal). It's much easier for the government to say "No prostitution" than to say "Only unmarried people can see prostitutes" because while the first is possible to enforce, the second is not.
If you're against drug prohibition then you MUST be for outlawing alcohol and tobacco, the two most destructive drugs there are.
You mean "if you're for drug prohibition". Yes, I think tobacco and alcohol should be as illegal as any other drug, since they cause harm to others around the person who uses such substances.
I say these things that I think should be illegal, however I don't think a country should impose laws on an unwilling populace. A people who does not want to be protected should not be protected by force. Most, if not all, of our current laws were enacted by lawmakers elected by popular vote. If you don't like a law, elect someone who will change it. If no one wants to change it, run for office yourself, and see how much support you can get.
Liberty is conservative. You should apologize for being a liberal, not a conservative.
Now who's changing word meanings? I used conservative in the standard manner - as a synonym for "Republican" conservative. If you think that's
As for the first link... a cop that gets corrupted by his undercover work does not mean the whole system is broken. And this particular case isn't even relevant to our discussion - the undercover cop in question was participating voluntarily in illegal activities outside of the scope of his undercover assignment. If an undercover cop is doing his job, the group he is infiltrating will end up in jail - but in the case you link to, this officer's illegal activities resulted in the LAPD losing credibility and another gang gaining a firm base of power in the area. I believe that is not the general result of undercover work.
Politicians get corrupt far more often than undercover cops (by my own informal observation); should we ban our whole political system too?
Maybe next time you can provide evidence that is actually relevant to the discussion.
While you might consider drug use to be a victimless crime, I do not - both the person taking drugs and that person's family usually suffer. Prostitution? The families of men who use them suffer. Gambling? If I lose all my money, if I take out a second mortgage on my house and gamble it away, where will my wife and kids live when the debt comes due? Gambling is quite addictive, to the point where I can place myself on a addiction blacklist, and if a casino lets me place a bet I can sue them for letting me. Any addictive behavior is destructive, both to the addict and to those around him. None of these things are victimless. We are better off with them illegal. Sorry if I'm too conservative for your tastes.
You don't have to agree with me on this if you prefer to remain blinded by your fears - but there's some pretty good evidence out there that I'm right. No, I'm not going to provide any here, I'll leave it as an exercise for your Google muscle. They're police and their identities as police offiucers is secret. Doublespeak is a term from "1984" as well. You apparently didn't read my clarification of what I thought you meant by "Secret Police" - cops who are not identifiable as such with virtually unlimited authority, like the Russian Secret Police. Again, neither undercover cops nor plainclothes cops (there is a difference!) have nothing approaching unlimited authority. A distinction in terms is not doublespeak. That's like you calling all ellipses circles, and when I point out the difference, you call my explanation doublespeak. Again, a distinction in terms is not doublespeak.
As long as there are secret organizations that break the law, there will be a need for undercover police officers to bring them down. That is the role of an undercover police officer. Don't try to claim that lawbreaking secret organizations will go away if we relax laws or something - they will not, history has shown that quite vividly. (Again, Google for examples if you wish.) If what my grandparents tole me about alcohol prohibition was any indication, the police were considered a joke by most everybody then, and maybe it's just because I'm a geezer but I think lack of respect fo rth epolice is a bad thing. I'd be willing to bet that the reason cops were a joke back then was because some of them were drinking in the hidden bars along with everyone else who hated prohibition. Any cop who flagrantly breaks the laws (s)he is supposed to uphold will not be respected, and if enough of them do it, the whole group will suffer.
Off-duty cops are a valuable resource to the police force. In an emergency, they can call off-duty cops for backup - and forcing them to run to the station to change and get a weapon could waste a vital half an hour that gets someone killed. That is a horribly bad idea. All on-duty police officers should be in uniform, with their badge displayed proudly, not hiding their real identity in shame like some Nazi brown shirt. So any undercover cop, whether he's on an undercover assignment or just in plainclothes, is by default hiding their identity in shame? I doubt it's ever done out of shame. Every cop I know of is proud to be a cop. Sometimes it's for the safety of the people around them, and/or to keep the wrong people (read: criminals) from knowing they're cops. It's not far-fetched to imagine a gang that wouldn't care about firing through a group of innocent bystanders in an effort to kill a nearby cop.
Your comparison to a "Nazi brown shirt" is not simply ridiculous but it comes across as alarmist propaganda designed to incite the negative feelings associated with Nazis. It contributes nothing to the point you're trying to make.
Cops do not have to be wearing a uniform to still be cops. Forcing all cops to wear uniforms while on-duty could perhaps be the worst possible idea. It's easy to avoid cops if they're easily identifiable, meaning it would be easier to hide crimes simply be checking for cops. It's the same with concealed weapons - if they outlaw concealed weapons, only outlaws will have concealed weapons, and the crime rate will increase, since armed criminals could be much more certain that no one would or could resist them. Uncertainty about who might have a concealed weapon likely deters quite a few potential crimes. Uncertainty about who could be a cop likely deters quite a few potential crimes.
Without undercover cops it'd be hard to infiltrate illegal smuggling operations, gangs, and so on, in order to obtain actual solid evidence. I'd guess there are many criminals now in jail that would still be running free if not for undercover operations. Are you saying this is a bad thing? How do you propose these things be stopped?
You make a mistake if you believe that "undercover" == "Secret Police". Secret Police are, in the sense you use them (comparing them to Russian Secret Police and so on), full-time plainclothes cops with virtually unlimited authority. Undercover cops aren't anything like that. They are not full-time, as others have pointed out, instead they don their uniforms most of the time like most cops. They do not have unlimited authority, they must instead (generally) act within their jurisdiction. Traffic cops don't generally get involved with murder investigations, even if they're the ones that found the body in the trunk.
Also recall that not all cops have uniforms as we conventionally think of them. Detectives and other officers often wear normal clothes as they go about their duties. They are not undercover, they simply do not wear the same uniforms as (for example) traffic cops.
Mistakes that happen; whoever killed that cop at that game should not have shot on sight, but at the same time, that plainclothes cop that shot into the air could have come up with a better way to break up the fight. Sometimes people die when people make mistakes - this is true in any field, not just the police force.
Your "but I had a nagging worry" reminds me of an article some time ago by a lady who wrote an article entitled something along the lines of "My Flight with Terror" wherein she details her "harrowing" experience on an uneventful flight with a group of Arabic passengers (a group of musicians, if I recall correctly) who were, by all accounts, minding their own business.
Basically you were letting your imagination run wild, and it got the best of you.
Ads (for the bank's services) on my bank's website say my name. Obviously my bank is allowed to have my name, but I think it's kind of annoying. I don't particularly want google ads or anything else not as trustworthy as my bank to have my name.
But that's less clever :(
That's the first thing I thought when I saw the headline. I thought it was referring to some wireless connection or other provided in the airport.
You probably shouldn't have sent those threatening letters to the president.
What, they couldn't open it to see that it was just two cold cans of coke and a DS charger?
I had a program for either my TI-89 or TI-83+ which could send signals through the TI-Link port that AM radios could pick up. It was supposed to be a piano program... there were about seven distinct tones it could send to a nearby radio. Range was short (maybe three feet) but if you're a suicide bomber and it's in your backpack, that might be far enough.
I think the TSA is aiming even lower - cavemen are already employed by GEICO.
I don't doubt you. I tried Vista twice and couldn't stand some glaring issues - I replaced it with Gentoo (this is actually the first slashdot post I've made with this Gentoo installation) - so I'm unfamiliar with how, if at all, IE is integrated with Vista (I've read pre-SP1 Vista uses IE, ignoring your browser preference setting, for certain things), but if memory serves, with XP MS tried to make IE6 more part of the OS (so Explorer and IE use the same stuff) but I might be way off here.
Perhaps if a Steam-like system were adopted for applications other than games, things would be better - both free and non-free things could be provided, and it'd be tied to your account so it wouldn't matter what computer you're on as long as you're logged in (with an appropriate offline mode), etc. This would be best provided by a non-Microsoft entity, to avoid antitrust accusations, and such a system could provide side-by-side feature comparisons that include versions, prices, features, screenshots, reviews, and so on, along with links to either download or purchase the given programs. Then they'd actually have to justify the prices they charge, yes?
Even if they did do this, the problem would be, what browser should Microsoft provide? They can't very well ship an OS without a browser. They could, I suppose, ship Windows with a few download links (one for IE, Firefox, Opera, etc) and let the user decide, but then Windows would have to use something besides IE for its internet downloads, and then IE would use that internal API for file downloads... you see where this goes.
The simple truth is that all slashdot-nerd-types will hate Microsoft until Linux (or anyone else) wins, no matter what Microsoft does. People are assigning ulterior motives even to MS's recent change of plans regarding IE8's standards-adherence - why can't they just want to be more compliant? This attitude by MS's critics will not change in the forseeable future.
Let's face it -
You're right; however foo.com (and account A) doesn't (didn't) belong to me. The Real WTF(tm) is that I recommended 1&1 to my friend, so he bought his domain through them, but they made it impossible for me to host the site for him. I ended up transferring his domain to my account.
I switched to 1&1 from GoDaddy. Their prices are pretty good, from what I've seen. The only problem I've come across with their hosting is that if I have two 1&1 accounts (A and B) and I have a domain (foo.com) on account A and a hosting package on account B, I can't point foo.com to my 1&1 hosted server... more accurately, I can't set my 1&1-hosted server (on account B) to direct incoming connections for foo.com to a specific folder on the server as I would if the domain were on the same account as the hosting package or on an external registrar. It appears to be something they overlooked when they set up their system.
+1 Insightful :)
:(
I don't think you deserve an axe to the neck at all; I think you understand the problem very well. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll ever be able to convince the powers that be (the devs in charge of things like this) that it's worth someone's time to go through and optimize the UI code (and the rest of it!)... but I guess it's open source for a reason? It's just not worth it to fork just to optimize, and something in my gut tells me that a huge optimization patch wouldn't be looked upon too friendly-like by the Gnome or KDE developers. (Too many changes to test for regressions, I would guess.)
I get "yelled at" by my boss at work for daring to "waste" time optimizing our UI code. "That code doesn't need to be optimized; it's UI code. It's not time-critical." As you pointed out, though, every second of wasted user time adds up. I wish more people thought like you and I
Joseph Smith, were he alive today, would not consider these polygamists Mormons - for the very reason that they ignore the revelations received by modern prophets. You cannot profess to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet but in the same breath not believe that his successors were and are prophets. This is not a church where you can choose to believe some doctrines but not others - either you believe it all or you may as well believe none of it. what do you call Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, et al? Were they not real Mormons? Yes, they were - but they were following the commandments at the time. I'll give you a short history lesson:
Wilford Woodruff was the prophet who announced the end of the practice of polygamy. This decision was not reached lightly. If it had been purely a political move, it would have been done years earlier - church leaders were being imprisoned, many were in hiding, the government had disbanded the church as an legally legitimate religion, the church was threatened with confiscation of church property, etc. President Woodruff was willing to let the church lose everything rather than disobey the commandments of God, by his own admission.
Official Declaration 1 in the Doctrine and Covenants is where you'll find the complete declaration and the comments by President Woodruff at the time this was announced. I'll quote two relevant bits here: The Lord showed me by vision and revelation exactly what would take place if we did not stop this practice. If we had not stopped it, you would have had no use for . . . any of the men in this temple at Logan; for all ordinances would be stopped throughout the land of Zion. Confusion would reign throughout Israel, and many men would be made prisoners. This trouble would have come upon the whole Church, and we should have been compelled to stop the practice. Now, the question is, whether it should be stopped in this manner, or in the way the Lord has manifested to us, and leave our Prophets and Apostles and fathers free men, and the temples in the hands of the people, so that the dead may be redeemed. I saw exactly what would come to pass if there was not something done. I have had this spirit upon me for a long time. But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me. I went before the Lord, and I wrote what the Lord told me to write... So the choices were clear: abandon the practice by force, losing the leadership of the church to prison and the property of the church to the government in the process, or abandon the practice and be able to continue the work God has for man to do. President Woodruff said he would not have ended the practice of polygamy without a direct command from God - and he did not until he received it.
If you don't believe in revelation, fine, but you can't tell me I should follow one prophet and ignore another. Man may not not change God's commandments, but God can, if He deems it necessary to preserve His church.
God can give commandments specific to a people's circumstances. If you don't believe God can do so (but believe in God) then your god is no god. If you don't believe in God, then you don't care anyway
I get the feeling I missed something in my editing, however my battery is about to die so I must submit.
No, it does not; however using the term "Mormon" to refer to both polygamist sects and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is both misleading and incorrect. It serves only to insinuate that the LDS Church still practices polygamy (which it does not), or that it tolerates polygamy (which it does not), or that these polygamist sects are part of the LDS Church (which they are not). The word Mormon refers to members of the LDS Church, by popular usage.
You don't need to own a trademark on a word to have its popular definition refer to you.
All I've said is that we should not *prohibit* the editing of movies in legislation. The only thing that should be illegal is pirating movies and reselling them, whether or not the pirated movies are edited.
Editing movies should be permitted, if the company doing the editing has the permission of the movie studio that owns the movie - the same way it works for network and cable stations right now. What do you mean by you would have no problem with permitting a minority seeing an "edited" movie? Gee, that's awfully open-minded of you. What if they wanted to see the uncensored version? You tell them just to move out of your "state"? What, Utah isn't a state now?
More to the point, I did not at any time propose banning unedited movies in any place, nor did I propose only providing edited movies in any place, nor would I support such legislation. Less than half of Utah is LDS, meaning that more than half of Utah is *not* LDS, which means that there would definitely still be a market in Utah for unedited movies. (I only point this out since you seem to be picking on Utah.)
What I have proposed is a far cry from forcing people to drive to the next state to buy an unedited movie.