There is a poll here on slashdot right now that shows that the readers are hardcore liberals.
First of all, the poll doesn't mean shit. You get a much better idea of the composition of slashdot readers by actually reading their comments - and looking at the articles that make the front page.
Second, hardcore liberals are nearly universally disappointed with Hillary. Hardcore liberals either supported Bernie and will hold their nose while voting for Hillary, or are supporting Jill Stein. There is nothing hardcore liberal about Hillary.
The GOP will ensure that no matter the composition of the house and senate after this week, nothing will be allowed to progress under President Clinton. No supreme court vacancies will be filled, and no bills that have the least bit of "liberalism" in them will ever make it to the white house. There is a growing number of elected GOP politicians promising to start impeachment on her ASAP as well.
It appears we would have been better off electing a Ficus Tree instead, it would have operated on a much smaller budget.
You are clearly reading a different slashdot than I am, in order to come to that conclusion. Slashdot has leaned hard-right for years (often under the pretend claim of "libertarianism"). More slashdot users will vote for Trump than Hillary, and quite likely more will abstain from voting altogether (due to Trump being not conservative enough) than will vote for her as well.
This thread will have lots, and lots, and lots, of flaming going on soon. The slashdot editor who let this through with that summary would have been wiser to post an article discrediting emacs as a useful and relevant editor.
jesus you're just another commie peddling failed ideologies.
No, I am trying to teach you something about Communism, as you are sorely lacking in knowledge on the topic. If you would stop insulting me and start reading you would realize where your many deficiencies are. You keep applying your favorite lies in the place of facts, and then you use them to build an attack against me.
I don't need to "prove" a connection between organized crime and communism; every single communist country has it.
I can prove that every single capitalist society has murderers in it. Does that mean that a capitalist society brings about murder? Your claim is - at best - non sequitur.
From the Red Mafia in the Soviet Union, to the graft and corruption in Cuba, to the hundreds of people in China executed every year for corruption.....everywhere communism takes root
Of those three, Cuba is the closest to an actual Communist state. By the time Stalin took power in the USSR it was no longer a reasonable approximation of a Communist state. What Mao did in China was hardly ever a good approximation of one. Indeed, if you were to take the time to read The Communist Manifesto (which is available freely on line and is not a long read should you ever care to educate yourself) you would find that Marx never intended for Communism to be applied to a large country (he actually had Germany in mind when he wrote it).
And since communism is literally based on the theft of people's labor en masse
You could not be further from the truth on that statement. Communism is about people being fairly compensated for their labor. Why are you attempting to lecture me on this topic when you literally don't know the first thing about it?
I'm done talking to you.
I wish you would have started using facts at some point in this thread. If you would ever like to have a discussion based on facts, feel free to come back. What you presented looks more like a parody of a discussion than an actual one.
You're obviously so brainwashed by leftism
You have absolutely no grounds from which to support any part of that statement.
how about you move to Venezuela and leave us alone?
Why should I need to leave? I thought this was supposed to be the land of the free, yet you are trying to tell me I need to go. I pay my taxes, I follow the law. Why are you entitled to live here but not me?
It is, after all, the end-product of all that you desire.
If you want to surprise me, try giving us a sentence that is supported by facts. You didn't have a single one in this comment. Not a single one.
What you're missing is that you earlier claimed that CPUSA endorsed Clinton, which is an outright lie. CPUSA members are free to do as they wish, the party did not give an endorsement at all this year. Because the chairman gave an almost-endorsement to Clinton does not in any way equate to the party itself endorsing her.
In other words, your earlier claim of CPUSA endorsing Clinton is just as counter to reality as your simultaneous claim that the Socialist Party - which very much has its own candidate for POTUS - endorsed her.
DiscoverTheNetworks is NOT a blog
It does no reporting of its own. It carries a deep political agenda that ignores facts that are counter to its agenda. It is far more a blog than a news source, and you are pretending it to be the latter.
"about organizing workers in a revolution against the controllers of industry so that workers get a fare shake."
yeah, that's what has happened [eyeroll]
Workers do vastly better in socialist economies than they do in ours, that is a fact. Just as in any other system of governance though to make it work you need to keep self-serving politicians from the reigns of power - and the best known Soviet-style governments failed miserably to do that and quickly became a parody of Communism rather than an application of it.
which explains every organized crime movie, ever.
Care to explain what you think the connection is between organized crime and actual communism? I suspect in doing so you will only end up demonstrating how hilariously uninformed you are about the latter (although to have less of an understanding of it than what you have already shown would be a feat).
Thank you for "giving me the chance" to repost the link to my research that you never bothered to look for, and was sitting right there, out in the open for you to find, simply by looking at my original post.
You just tried to support the argument of one blog by... linking to another blog. One was partisan on one particular issue, the other is simply partisan in its all-encompassing goal of defeating anyone with the wrong letter after their name.
Yet neither provides any factual information to support your earlier claim about global warming data.
Man, when you lefties don't want to understand something, you really go all out pretending not to see it.
I'd love to know how you can possibly imagine this conversation to somehow be supporting that claim. I have now multiple times asked you for factual information to back up your arguments and the best you have done - which is not in any reasonable approximation a qualifying reply to what I asked for - is to link to more partisan blogs.
Besides...communists being associated with unions is hardly a surprise at all, on any level; they are fundamentally communist organizations to begin with.
No, although that is the closest to a factual statement I have seen from you in this entire discussion. Actual Communism - as opposed to whatever strange nonfactual version of communism exists in your nightmares - indeed is about organizing workers in a revolution against the controllers of industry so that workers get a fare shake. The closest we have to that in this country is the labor unions, but they have very little power remaining in this country.
The Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party USA have both endorsed her.
The first half of your statement Is wrong and exists only in the conservative blogosphere. Intelligent people who actually read up on what happened here know that the CPUSA chairman gave a statement that he will vote for her, but never gave an endorsement of her on behalf of the CPUSA.
I'll say to you what I have said to other fact-lacking slashdot conservatives - there is plenty wrong with Hillary Clinton, why do you feel the need to spread lies about her? You could take a much more sound path by sticking to actual facts about her.
Considering all the varied things that rumor sites have predicted it would do, a french fry maker would be right in line. The first combination console / portable / kitchen appliance!
I asserted that Stern was an international communist,
Indeed you made that claim.
and produced research proving such.
No, you provided no such research. Perhaps you meant to and forgot to include a link? I'll give you a chance to provide one now.
You haven't offered one fact throughout any of this.
Then apparently you are not reading what I write. I can't fix that for you, you will choose to read what you choose to read.
.You just show up and wag your finger and lecture me about my "behavior"
Show up? I started this thread. I have pointed out many times before how hard to the right slashdot leans. You can pretend otherwise if you want. As for your behavior, you haven't provided any facts - while launching into one baseless attack against me after another - so it is about all you give me to reply to. If you would care to provide an actual fact, we can discuss it.
and pretend that your delicate sensibilities have been violated somehow by my "tone".
I never once claimed to be "violated", for whatever you think that means. You have, however, claimed more than once that I or others did that to you.
Try and add the FACT that temp data is being manipulated and corrupted to a conversation on global warming; see how that goes. http://realclimatescience.com/...
Where does the data come from? The blog claims it exists but offers no source whatsoever. Why should I believe them when they have a very obvious agenda?
Try to contradict a Black Lives Matter activist by giving proof that there is no such thing as "Driving while black" (at least in New Jersey) http://www.city-journal.org/ht... and see how that goes
First of all, that is from 2002 - it's well over a decade old. Second, it is discussing speeding on a stretch of freeway and it is discussing the rates at which drivers are pulled over for it - it is impossible to actually say how many people are speeding over a course of time as it is impossible to examine every one of them. Third, the "driving while black" pertains as much to driving through the city as anything, and more specifically is about being pulled over for a trivial - or even wholly fabricated - reason.
How in the world would you know if Slashdot was leftwing, if you've never offer a rightwing opinion?
That makes no sense whatsoever. Slashdot routinely shows itself to be hard-right. Why would I want to offer up a voice to the choir - especially when it contradicts my own beliefs?
For virtually every article on Slashdot where there is a leftwing opinion, try adding a rightwing one.
I don't have time to wait for "leftwing" articles, they show up extremely rarely here. I comment on generally 1-2 a week and I'm not going to hold my breath for the needle to fall into the haystack.
That's how lefties roll; they "moderate away" anything they don't want to hear.
You've shown repeatedly how you earn the poor karma score you have. Try discussing matters in a mature fashion, using actual facts, and we'll see what happens. Sitting around crying about your imagined conspiracy does not help you at all.
That's how they oppress.
In other words, it doesn't happen. I thought maybe you'd be able to provide facts to the contrary, but you have so far completely and utterly failed to do so. Care to try yet?
I've seen more and more people saying that they believe that it's going to have to happen, not just that it is going to happen.
That is not an endorsement of it as an idea. Most climate change scientists agree that climate change is occurring, but that doesn't not mean they think it is good.
Economics is a technology (and so is currency)
No, economics - at least in the context of the vast overwhelming majority of people who think they understand it - is pseudoscience. It almost without fail has more to do with how groups of people feel about things than anything else, it's sociology without the impediment of the scientific method.
and the issue is being driven by technology,
No, it is being driven by human greed. More jobs are lost to places where people will accept lower wages than are lost to technological advancements. Sure fewer people shoe horses and make buggy whips now but that was not an industry with a huge number of employees in it before the automobile reached a point where people could afford it.
As per usual.
I will not challenge your right to have an opinion. However if you present it here I will exercise my right to show where your opinion is not connected to reality.
You lefties simply have no tolerance for people who are being oppressed by you.
That is a very strange accusation, there. How are you being "oppressed" by "lefties"? You are posting angry, fact-free, offensive rants on a conservative-dominated board and you are likely being moderated down for being a trolling flamer. If you don't want to be moderated down for being a trolling flamer, try trolling and flaming less.
The entire look-down-the-nose attitude of your post is very revealing
You seem to be trying to see things that are simply not there.
And all of that vitriol is aimed at me,
I see vitriol coming from you. I responded by showing where you were completely disconnected from reality. I'd be interested in knowing where you think I directed vitriol at you. The closest I came to vitriol in my previous reply to you was directed at your nonsensical rant about the SEIU, yet anyone who viewed both what you said and what I replied with would certainly agree the anger came from your side.
Despite the fact that I see opinions I disagree with, I don't immediately harass the posters
You are attacking me in your reply. You haven't presented anything in your comments yet that is the least bit supported by facts.
or moderate them at all.
Perhaps you are an exception but I have never before heard of someone who had sufficiently terrible karma to post at 0 and yet was granted moderator points. I have excellent karma and almost never see moderation points.
I guess it's just you approach people in a way that shows that you don't give a shit what they think
Another strange assumption there. You have quite simply shown that you have no respect whatsoever for other opinions, or any facts that counter your opinions. I would be willing to have a discussion on these matters with you but you have not shown the slightest bit of interest in such a discussion.
and you post and moderate
I post because I have something to say. I do not force anyone to read what I say, they are free to ignore it if they so choose. As I already mentioned, I almost never see moderator points here. And if you know how moderator points work here you would know that you cannot moderate in a discussion where you have posted.
because you feel the need to exercise your authority over everyone
In what way does posting exercise authority? You are free to post just as much as I am.
it's what lefties do, sadly.
Wait a minute, didn't you just say before that someone else was spewing vitriol and wanted only to harass others? Didn't you accuse someone else of not giving a shit about what others think?
With the exception of the front-page articles, the staff, and the readers who comment on stories, perhaps. What would that leave that would represent slashdot, I'm not sure. Maybe the server itself has a Hillary sticker on it (which was likely placed there as a joke in response to the email controversy?)
I reliably lose points for expressing rightwing opinions of any kind
For some reason you post at zero. I'm not going to dig into your comment history to figure out why, that is for you to do. If you think you have been moderated unfairly, you can always take it up with the slashdot staff and they will almost certainly correct it. The conservatives I have seen who comment at less than +1 are all in that situation for being offensive trolls, not for sharing conservative opinion.
articles such as this that espouse leftwing dogma are regularly in the news feeds here
Regularly as in once every 6-8 weeks? I don't recall a single such "leftwing dogma" article on the front page more recently than late August. By comparison, we have pro-rightwing articles at least once a week - generally much more often than that.
and the SEIU can only be charitably called a leftwing brownshirt factory.
Here's a tip for you; that kind of blatant trolling does deserve down-moderation. When you approach people that way you are showing that you don't give a shit what they have to say and that you are posting only because you feel the need to be heard.
There's no excuse for anyone on Slashdot, presumably in the well-paying tech field, to be living month-to-month.
Well-paying tech field? Tell that legend to the people who have jobs in the Bay Area but cannot afford to live there. Or tell it to the recent CSci grads all around the country who find the jobs they expected have vanished and there is no longer a way in to programming for most people with only a 4 year degree. Tell that to admins who are seeing their jobs rapidly outsourced. Tell that to techs finding their entry level jobs simply don't exist any more.
It is well known that the majority voice - both in staff and readers - at slashdot has leaned conservative for over a decade now. UBI is a deeply unpopular idea here, and the fact that it is in this article being promoted by a (former) union leader means that it will be get about as warm of a welcoming here as ebola. I expect one of the next comments in here will either contain or be followed in signature with the usual bit about two wolves and a sheep deciding dinner.
The bigger problem with this article though is that it really doesn't belong here. This is not a technology issue, or even a science issue. This is an economics issue, and a monetary issue. The jobs aren't going away because people here are being replaced by better technology, the jobs are going away here because people are being replaced by workers in other countries who can work for less. These actions are of course being rewarded by the boards of the companies who are doing this.
It is, of course, a fact that careers are a foreign concept to most workers now in this country. Few people who are in the labor force now will stay with one employer more than a decade at a time. Retirement is quickly becoming a passing dream for the majority of workers as well.
I've never heard anyone else say that the "K" in KDE was for "Kool". In fact in a previous install I had of KDE there was a splash screen that rotated through that claimed the K did not stand for anything.
The majority of their customers aren't watching Citizen Kane and other cinematic masterpieces. Far more want to binge watch the entire Fast and Furious series in between runs of Jackass. The top movies are generally already owned on DVD by the people who want to watch them, as few of them came out in the past 5-10 years (which is generally the period of time that Netflix focuses on).
They acknowledged that the reply came from the Senator's office - rather than the Senator herself - but what makes them so sure it was a form letter? The underling who sent it might not have realized what exactly they were replying to and may have mistaken it for another letter about lost manufacturing jobs.
I didn't rtfa but why does it have to be NASA? Seems we have a few private companies that are working towards that goal independent of NASA.
The headline tells us this voyage to Mars is something that the POTUS just told us will happen. If the government is involved why would it be anything other than NASA?
Beyond that, the supposed new goal of NASA - since cancelling the space shuttle - is to develop the technology to get us to places further than the moon. If SpaceX and the rest want to get money from the government for their work they need to therefore focus on getting stuff up to the space station at a price below what we pay Moscow for the same.
We haven't seen a meaningful increase in the NASA budget in how long? It certainly isn't going to happen any time soon, either. Even after Drumpf takes a beating next month in the general election we still won't see congress pass a budget for expansion of space exploration.
My argument is that the overwhelming majority of people arrested for pot-related offenses were caught doing something else illegal. If you are driving with a busted taillight (which is a citable offense in every state I have lived in) and the cop found reason to search your vehicle and found pot, the charge would be for possession.
I don't see how that follows. If nearly half of all federal prisoners were convicted solely for drug offenses, how can the overwhelming majority of drug offenders be convicted of other crimes? That would require every single prisoner to be a drug offender. Or are you saying they were caught doing something illegal, but those charges weren't pursued once drugs were discovered? That seems unlikely.
I may just be missing your point. Please explain if I am.
I might not have articulated the point well. I thought the example I gave of the busted taillight - which could ordinarily get you a fix-it ticket but not jail time on its own - was pretty fair but I might not have fleshed it out. From my understanding if a cop pulls you over for a non-criminal offense such as that, and then smells weed in the car or has a reason to search the car (I personally do not see the smell of unburned weed as something that should justify a search), then drug charges could be brought for possession if weed is found. Hence the person with the busted taillight was not pulled over because the cop thought they had weed, but they were charged with it because they had it.
This isn't far from my own experience in New York years ago. They had passed a law requiring that you use hands-free devices to make cell phone calls from your car, and made it an offense you could be pulled over for. I happened to be driving through a shitty part of town (ie, lots of drug dealers in that area) and had out-of-state plates at the time. The cop pulled me over and gave me a stern talking too while sniffing and hoping to smell contraband (or to see it through my windows). I had none and he had no justification to search for any, but had I had any the criminal charge would have been drugs while the citation - and reason for being pulled over - would have been the cell phone law.
There are also trivial criminal offenses that could be used similarly - say jawywalking (or even spitting, in places where it is still banned on the sidewalk and street) - to try to warrant a search for drugs.
Make no mistake I do not support using the law that way. I do support stopping people who are clearly behaving as though under the influence of any drug and treating them the same way we handle people who are drunk in public. Possession while sober, however, I don't give a shit about.
Very few people are arrested only because there was reason to suspect they had pot on them.
Possibly, but I would bet a lot of people got locked up for possession during stop-and-frisk where it was pretty clear the "reason to suspect" was often having dark skin.
I do not support stop-and-frisk. You very likely hit the nail on the head regarding how it was abused. There are better ways to handle suspected criminals, ways that do not require the blatant violation of their civil rights.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was used to crack down on street dealers as well.
I have mixed feelings about street dealers. If they are selling what they claim - and only what they claim - then for the most part I don't care. The biggest problem I have is when they are selling something other than what they claim it to be. One particular challenge in that situation though is figuring out who along the chain knew the product to be something other than what it was being sold as. Which is generally a good call for legalization, although the recreational drug industry being what it is right now I don't see it going away just because we would end up with Philip-Morris brand pot and Anheuser-Busch brand heroin.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons says that number was just under eighty-four thousand last month, 46.4% of all prisoners
That is a helpful link, and it deserves some thought. Thank you for posting it.
I will start by pointing out that the category BOP is using there is simply "drug offenses". Yeah, this includes some people who were ultimately charged only with having pot on them. However this also includes people who were dealing heroin, crack, etc. In other words it isn't a very reasonable picture of how many people are in jail for pot offenses.
I don't know exactly how they build the graph, but I assume someone arrested for murder while high would be counted as homocide rather than a drug offense.
Most likely true. IANAL but I would interpret "drug offenses" to mean something along the lines of "there was no steeper category to charge them under".
That said, I was previously questioning the line we hear about people serving massive terms "only for pot". My argument is that the overwhelming majority of people arrested for pot-related offenses were caught doing something else illegal. If you are driving with a busted taillight (which is a citable offense in every state I have lived in) and the cop found reason to search your vehicle and found pot, the charge would be for possession.
Basically I state that my earlier claim stands. Very few people are arrested only because there was reason to suspect they had pot on them. They did something else to attract the attention of the law, and the pot charge was what stuck. Would it really reduce prison population significantly to fully legalize it? I'm not convinced. Yes, it would lead to some prisoners not being there but many would still be there and go back in.
The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard.
Just look at the Netherlands. People buy it legally, it's a very big business despite it also being available on the street. Best thing is when you buy it legally you also know exactly what you get.
I don't disagree with the value of buying it retail - though I am not a pot user myself. I think the bigger question here though is if a pot user in the US spends $5 on retail-sold pot to make a joint versus $3 on enough pot to make a joint when he buys it off a guy on the street corner, will that person really want to spend the extra $2? I don't have the answer to that though I can tell you that I've never had a wealthy friend who was in to pot.
What about all the tax money we're saving by not locking them up now?
That is another argument that is generally lacking in honesty. Are there a lot of people in jail for possessing or using pot? Unquestionably, yes there are. The question though is how did they get arrested? They did something that attracted the attention of law enforcement. They did something that warranted a search or somehow gave away the fact that they had or used contraband. I have never heard of anyone getting arrested for smoking pot at home so long as they committed no other offense that caused someone to call 911.
I even agree that sentences for non-violent drug offenses are absolutely too long for a great number of cases. What I haven't seen though is any support whatsoever for the notion of a huge number of people thrown in jail only for having or using pot. The propagandists tell us this is true but not once have I seen them support this.
Frankly I don't give a shit if you want to buy pot, walk around with pot, and go smoke it in someone's house or on someone's private property. That would be treating it the same as alcohol. I can't drink a beer in a public park, and many places don't allow smoking tobacco in a public park either. But I can stop at a park on my way home form the liquor store with a case of beer in the back and that is no problem as long as I'm not drinking it - or under the influence of it - while there. I'm fine with doing the same for pot.
Those numbers are not even in the least bit close to what the pot propagandists claimed would be instantly and eternally realized in tax revenue. Sure, it is greater than zero but it is not the huge numbers they promised.
Okay, so some of them were wrong. Cities and towns are still getting more tax revenue, so what's the problem?
The problem is that a standard refrain from the propaganda pushers was that we would instantaneously - and for all eternity - see such an overwhelming influx of tax revenue that we would immediately be able to balance the budget, bring about world peace, colonize Mars, and cure all human diseases. We have clearly fallen far short of that, and will never reach it. As I said before, neither side is fully honest with their claims.
I really, truly, don't give a shit how much pot someone wants to smoke at home or in other private places. I don't care if they want to campaign for legalization of it. I would, however, very much prefer if they kept their argument to one based on truth instead of fantasy. I would also like to see the prohibitionists use a fact-based argument.
Sure, some people will grow it for themselves. But that's not preventing the governments from reaping more tax revenue.
Yes, some people are buying it at retail, and paying taxes on it. That's not a bad thing. But some will grow it and some will buy it through alternative - non-retail - channels. The amount of tax revenue that is actually coming in is many orders of magnitude less than what the people who were pushing for legalization were claiming we would see.
He's putting his money where his mouth is. However I would be more sympathetic to the pot movement in general if they were at least demonstrably more honest than the people who want to keep it outlawed. The notion that schools will benefit immensely seems to be a slightly more realistic version of the old claim that legalized sale of pot would generate $599 godzillion in tax revenue per picosecond to the end of eternity. The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard. (there are other dishonest claims from the pro-pot camp but this one directly ties to the summary)
Those numbers are not even in the least bit close to what the pot propagandists claimed would be instantly and eternally realized in tax revenue. Sure, it is greater than zero but it is not the huge numbers they promised.
People buy beer even though they can brew it at home.
That isn't even close to the same thing. Marijuana needs almost nothing to grow beyond what dandelions or any other plant need. I've seen plenty of places where it has grown by accident. You can't make beer by accident, you have to set out to make it. There are other spirits that can be made by accident but beer isn't one of them.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a poll here on slashdot right now that shows that the readers are hardcore liberals.
First of all, the poll doesn't mean shit. You get a much better idea of the composition of slashdot readers by actually reading their comments - and looking at the articles that make the front page.
Second, hardcore liberals are nearly universally disappointed with Hillary. Hardcore liberals either supported Bernie and will hold their nose while voting for Hillary, or are supporting Jill Stein. There is nothing hardcore liberal about Hillary.
The GOP will ensure that no matter the composition of the house and senate after this week, nothing will be allowed to progress under President Clinton. No supreme court vacancies will be filled, and no bills that have the least bit of "liberalism" in them will ever make it to the white house. There is a growing number of elected GOP politicians promising to start impeachment on her ASAP as well.
It appears we would have been better off electing a Ficus Tree instead, it would have operated on a much smaller budget.
Rock it on Tuesday, Hill! Slashdot is with You!
You are clearly reading a different slashdot than I am, in order to come to that conclusion. Slashdot has leaned hard-right for years (often under the pretend claim of "libertarianism"). More slashdot users will vote for Trump than Hillary, and quite likely more will abstain from voting altogether (due to Trump being not conservative enough) than will vote for her as well.
This thread will have lots, and lots, and lots, of flaming going on soon. The slashdot editor who let this through with that summary would have been wiser to post an article discrediting emacs as a useful and relevant editor.
jesus you're just another commie peddling failed ideologies.
No, I am trying to teach you something about Communism, as you are sorely lacking in knowledge on the topic. If you would stop insulting me and start reading you would realize where your many deficiencies are. You keep applying your favorite lies in the place of facts, and then you use them to build an attack against me.
I don't need to "prove" a connection between organized crime and communism; every single communist country has it.
I can prove that every single capitalist society has murderers in it. Does that mean that a capitalist society brings about murder? Your claim is - at best - non sequitur.
From the Red Mafia in the Soviet Union, to the graft and corruption in Cuba, to the hundreds of people in China executed every year for corruption.....everywhere communism takes root
Of those three, Cuba is the closest to an actual Communist state. By the time Stalin took power in the USSR it was no longer a reasonable approximation of a Communist state. What Mao did in China was hardly ever a good approximation of one. Indeed, if you were to take the time to read The Communist Manifesto (which is available freely on line and is not a long read should you ever care to educate yourself) you would find that Marx never intended for Communism to be applied to a large country (he actually had Germany in mind when he wrote it).
And since communism is literally based on the theft of people's labor en masse
You could not be further from the truth on that statement. Communism is about people being fairly compensated for their labor. Why are you attempting to lecture me on this topic when you literally don't know the first thing about it?
I'm done talking to you.
I wish you would have started using facts at some point in this thread. If you would ever like to have a discussion based on facts, feel free to come back. What you presented looks more like a parody of a discussion than an actual one.
You're obviously so brainwashed by leftism
You have absolutely no grounds from which to support any part of that statement.
how about you move to Venezuela and leave us alone?
Why should I need to leave? I thought this was supposed to be the land of the free, yet you are trying to tell me I need to go. I pay my taxes, I follow the law. Why are you entitled to live here but not me?
It is, after all, the end-product of all that you desire.
If you want to surprise me, try giving us a sentence that is supported by facts. You didn't have a single one in this comment. Not a single one.
In other words, your earlier claim of CPUSA endorsing Clinton is just as counter to reality as your simultaneous claim that the Socialist Party - which very much has its own candidate for POTUS - endorsed her.
DiscoverTheNetworks is NOT a blog
It does no reporting of its own. It carries a deep political agenda that ignores facts that are counter to its agenda. It is far more a blog than a news source, and you are pretending it to be the latter.
"about organizing workers in a revolution against the controllers of industry so that workers get a fare shake."
yeah, that's what has happened [eyeroll]
Workers do vastly better in socialist economies than they do in ours, that is a fact. Just as in any other system of governance though to make it work you need to keep self-serving politicians from the reigns of power - and the best known Soviet-style governments failed miserably to do that and quickly became a parody of Communism rather than an application of it.
which explains every organized crime movie, ever.
Care to explain what you think the connection is between organized crime and actual communism? I suspect in doing so you will only end up demonstrating how hilariously uninformed you are about the latter (although to have less of an understanding of it than what you have already shown would be a feat).
Thank you for "giving me the chance" to repost the link to my research that you never bothered to look for, and was sitting right there, out in the open for you to find, simply by looking at my original post.
You just tried to support the argument of one blog by ... linking to another blog. One was partisan on one particular issue, the other is simply partisan in its all-encompassing goal of defeating anyone with the wrong letter after their name.
Yet neither provides any factual information to support your earlier claim about global warming data.
Man, when you lefties don't want to understand something, you really go all out pretending not to see it.
I'd love to know how you can possibly imagine this conversation to somehow be supporting that claim. I have now multiple times asked you for factual information to back up your arguments and the best you have done - which is not in any reasonable approximation a qualifying reply to what I asked for - is to link to more partisan blogs.
Besides...communists being associated with unions is hardly a surprise at all, on any level; they are fundamentally communist organizations to begin with.
No, although that is the closest to a factual statement I have seen from you in this entire discussion. Actual Communism - as opposed to whatever strange nonfactual version of communism exists in your nightmares - indeed is about organizing workers in a revolution against the controllers of industry so that workers get a fare shake. The closest we have to that in this country is the labor unions, but they have very little power remaining in this country.
The Communist Party USA and the Socialist Party USA have both endorsed her.
The first half of your statement Is wrong and exists only in the conservative blogosphere. Intelligent people who actually read up on what happened here know that the CPUSA chairman gave a statement that he will vote for her, but never gave an endorsement of her on behalf of the CPUSA.
The second half of your statement is an outright lie, as Socialist Party USA has their own presidential / vice presidential candidates.
I'll say to you what I have said to other fact-lacking slashdot conservatives - there is plenty wrong with Hillary Clinton, why do you feel the need to spread lies about her? You could take a much more sound path by sticking to actual facts about her.
Considering all the varied things that rumor sites have predicted it would do, a french fry maker would be right in line. The first combination console / portable / kitchen appliance!
I asserted that Stern was an international communist,
Indeed you made that claim.
and produced research proving such.
No, you provided no such research. Perhaps you meant to and forgot to include a link? I'll give you a chance to provide one now.
You haven't offered one fact throughout any of this.
Then apparently you are not reading what I write. I can't fix that for you, you will choose to read what you choose to read.
.You just show up and wag your finger and lecture me about my "behavior"
Show up? I started this thread. I have pointed out many times before how hard to the right slashdot leans. You can pretend otherwise if you want. As for your behavior, you haven't provided any facts - while launching into one baseless attack against me after another - so it is about all you give me to reply to. If you would care to provide an actual fact, we can discuss it.
and pretend that your delicate sensibilities have been violated somehow by my "tone".
I never once claimed to be "violated", for whatever you think that means. You have, however, claimed more than once that I or others did that to you.
Try and add the FACT that temp data is being manipulated and corrupted to a conversation on global warming; see how that goes. http://realclimatescience.com/...
Where does the data come from? The blog claims it exists but offers no source whatsoever. Why should I believe them when they have a very obvious agenda?
Try to contradict a Black Lives Matter activist by giving proof that there is no such thing as "Driving while black" (at least in New Jersey) http://www.city-journal.org/ht... and see how that goes
First of all, that is from 2002 - it's well over a decade old. Second, it is discussing speeding on a stretch of freeway and it is discussing the rates at which drivers are pulled over for it - it is impossible to actually say how many people are speeding over a course of time as it is impossible to examine every one of them. Third, the "driving while black" pertains as much to driving through the city as anything, and more specifically is about being pulled over for a trivial - or even wholly fabricated - reason.
How in the world would you know if Slashdot was leftwing, if you've never offer a rightwing opinion?
That makes no sense whatsoever. Slashdot routinely shows itself to be hard-right. Why would I want to offer up a voice to the choir - especially when it contradicts my own beliefs?
For virtually every article on Slashdot where there is a leftwing opinion, try adding a rightwing one.
I don't have time to wait for "leftwing" articles, they show up extremely rarely here. I comment on generally 1-2 a week and I'm not going to hold my breath for the needle to fall into the haystack.
That's how lefties roll; they "moderate away" anything they don't want to hear.
You've shown repeatedly how you earn the poor karma score you have. Try discussing matters in a mature fashion, using actual facts, and we'll see what happens. Sitting around crying about your imagined conspiracy does not help you at all.
That's how they oppress.
In other words, it doesn't happen. I thought maybe you'd be able to provide facts to the contrary, but you have so far completely and utterly failed to do so. Care to try yet?
I've seen more and more people saying that they believe that it's going to have to happen, not just that it is going to happen.
That is not an endorsement of it as an idea. Most climate change scientists agree that climate change is occurring, but that doesn't not mean they think it is good.
Economics is a technology (and so is currency)
No, economics - at least in the context of the vast overwhelming majority of people who think they understand it - is pseudoscience. It almost without fail has more to do with how groups of people feel about things than anything else, it's sociology without the impediment of the scientific method.
and the issue is being driven by technology,
No, it is being driven by human greed. More jobs are lost to places where people will accept lower wages than are lost to technological advancements. Sure fewer people shoe horses and make buggy whips now but that was not an industry with a huge number of employees in it before the automobile reached a point where people could afford it.
As per usual.
I will not challenge your right to have an opinion. However if you present it here I will exercise my right to show where your opinion is not connected to reality.
You lefties simply have no tolerance for people who are being oppressed by you.
That is a very strange accusation, there. How are you being "oppressed" by "lefties"? You are posting angry, fact-free, offensive rants on a conservative-dominated board and you are likely being moderated down for being a trolling flamer. If you don't want to be moderated down for being a trolling flamer, try trolling and flaming less.
The entire look-down-the-nose attitude of your post is very revealing
You seem to be trying to see things that are simply not there.
And all of that vitriol is aimed at me,
I see vitriol coming from you. I responded by showing where you were completely disconnected from reality. I'd be interested in knowing where you think I directed vitriol at you. The closest I came to vitriol in my previous reply to you was directed at your nonsensical rant about the SEIU, yet anyone who viewed both what you said and what I replied with would certainly agree the anger came from your side.
Despite the fact that I see opinions I disagree with, I don't immediately harass the posters
You are attacking me in your reply. You haven't presented anything in your comments yet that is the least bit supported by facts.
or moderate them at all.
Perhaps you are an exception but I have never before heard of someone who had sufficiently terrible karma to post at 0 and yet was granted moderator points. I have excellent karma and almost never see moderation points.
I guess it's just you approach people in a way that shows that you don't give a shit what they think
Another strange assumption there. You have quite simply shown that you have no respect whatsoever for other opinions, or any facts that counter your opinions. I would be willing to have a discussion on these matters with you but you have not shown the slightest bit of interest in such a discussion.
and you post and moderate
I post because I have something to say. I do not force anyone to read what I say, they are free to ignore it if they so choose. As I already mentioned, I almost never see moderator points here. And if you know how moderator points work here you would know that you cannot moderate in a discussion where you have posted.
because you feel the need to exercise your authority over everyone
In what way does posting exercise authority? You are free to post just as much as I am.
it's what lefties do, sadly.
Wait a minute, didn't you just say before that someone else was spewing vitriol and wanted only to harass others? Didn't you accuse someone else of not giving a shit about what others think?
Slashdot has always leaned Left.
With the exception of the front-page articles, the staff, and the readers who comment on stories, perhaps. What would that leave that would represent slashdot, I'm not sure. Maybe the server itself has a Hillary sticker on it (which was likely placed there as a joke in response to the email controversy?)
I reliably lose points for expressing rightwing opinions of any kind
For some reason you post at zero. I'm not going to dig into your comment history to figure out why, that is for you to do. If you think you have been moderated unfairly, you can always take it up with the slashdot staff and they will almost certainly correct it. The conservatives I have seen who comment at less than +1 are all in that situation for being offensive trolls, not for sharing conservative opinion.
articles such as this that espouse leftwing dogma are regularly in the news feeds here
Regularly as in once every 6-8 weeks? I don't recall a single such "leftwing dogma" article on the front page more recently than late August. By comparison, we have pro-rightwing articles at least once a week - generally much more often than that.
and the SEIU can only be charitably called a leftwing brownshirt factory.
Here's a tip for you; that kind of blatant trolling does deserve down-moderation. When you approach people that way you are showing that you don't give a shit what they have to say and that you are posting only because you feel the need to be heard.
There's no excuse for anyone on Slashdot, presumably in the well-paying tech field, to be living month-to-month.
Well-paying tech field? Tell that legend to the people who have jobs in the Bay Area but cannot afford to live there. Or tell it to the recent CSci grads all around the country who find the jobs they expected have vanished and there is no longer a way in to programming for most people with only a 4 year degree. Tell that to admins who are seeing their jobs rapidly outsourced. Tell that to techs finding their entry level jobs simply don't exist any more.
It is well known that the majority voice - both in staff and readers - at slashdot has leaned conservative for over a decade now. UBI is a deeply unpopular idea here, and the fact that it is in this article being promoted by a (former) union leader means that it will be get about as warm of a welcoming here as ebola. I expect one of the next comments in here will either contain or be followed in signature with the usual bit about two wolves and a sheep deciding dinner.
The bigger problem with this article though is that it really doesn't belong here. This is not a technology issue, or even a science issue. This is an economics issue, and a monetary issue. The jobs aren't going away because people here are being replaced by better technology, the jobs are going away here because people are being replaced by workers in other countries who can work for less. These actions are of course being rewarded by the boards of the companies who are doing this.
It is, of course, a fact that careers are a foreign concept to most workers now in this country. Few people who are in the labor force now will stay with one employer more than a decade at a time. Retirement is quickly becoming a passing dream for the majority of workers as well.
I've never heard anyone else say that the "K" in KDE was for "Kool". In fact in a previous install I had of KDE there was a splash screen that rotated through that claimed the K did not stand for anything.
The majority of their customers aren't watching Citizen Kane and other cinematic masterpieces. Far more want to binge watch the entire Fast and Furious series in between runs of Jackass. The top movies are generally already owned on DVD by the people who want to watch them, as few of them came out in the past 5-10 years (which is generally the period of time that Netflix focuses on).
They acknowledged that the reply came from the Senator's office - rather than the Senator herself - but what makes them so sure it was a form letter? The underling who sent it might not have realized what exactly they were replying to and may have mistaken it for another letter about lost manufacturing jobs.
I didn't rtfa but why does it have to be NASA? Seems we have a few private companies that are working towards that goal independent of NASA.
The headline tells us this voyage to Mars is something that the POTUS just told us will happen. If the government is involved why would it be anything other than NASA?
Beyond that, the supposed new goal of NASA - since cancelling the space shuttle - is to develop the technology to get us to places further than the moon. If SpaceX and the rest want to get money from the government for their work they need to therefore focus on getting stuff up to the space station at a price below what we pay Moscow for the same.
We haven't seen a meaningful increase in the NASA budget in how long? It certainly isn't going to happen any time soon, either. Even after Drumpf takes a beating next month in the general election we still won't see congress pass a budget for expansion of space exploration.
My argument is that the overwhelming majority of people arrested for pot-related offenses were caught doing something else illegal. If you are driving with a busted taillight (which is a citable offense in every state I have lived in) and the cop found reason to search your vehicle and found pot, the charge would be for possession.
I don't see how that follows. If nearly half of all federal prisoners were convicted solely for drug offenses, how can the overwhelming majority of drug offenders be convicted of other crimes? That would require every single prisoner to be a drug offender. Or are you saying they were caught doing something illegal, but those charges weren't pursued once drugs were discovered? That seems unlikely.
I may just be missing your point. Please explain if I am.
I might not have articulated the point well. I thought the example I gave of the busted taillight - which could ordinarily get you a fix-it ticket but not jail time on its own - was pretty fair but I might not have fleshed it out. From my understanding if a cop pulls you over for a non-criminal offense such as that, and then smells weed in the car or has a reason to search the car (I personally do not see the smell of unburned weed as something that should justify a search), then drug charges could be brought for possession if weed is found. Hence the person with the busted taillight was not pulled over because the cop thought they had weed, but they were charged with it because they had it.
This isn't far from my own experience in New York years ago. They had passed a law requiring that you use hands-free devices to make cell phone calls from your car, and made it an offense you could be pulled over for. I happened to be driving through a shitty part of town (ie, lots of drug dealers in that area) and had out-of-state plates at the time. The cop pulled me over and gave me a stern talking too while sniffing and hoping to smell contraband (or to see it through my windows). I had none and he had no justification to search for any, but had I had any the criminal charge would have been drugs while the citation - and reason for being pulled over - would have been the cell phone law.
There are also trivial criminal offenses that could be used similarly - say jawywalking (or even spitting, in places where it is still banned on the sidewalk and street) - to try to warrant a search for drugs.
Make no mistake I do not support using the law that way. I do support stopping people who are clearly behaving as though under the influence of any drug and treating them the same way we handle people who are drunk in public. Possession while sober, however, I don't give a shit about.
Very few people are arrested only because there was reason to suspect they had pot on them.
Possibly, but I would bet a lot of people got locked up for possession during stop-and-frisk where it was pretty clear the "reason to suspect" was often having dark skin.
I do not support stop-and-frisk. You very likely hit the nail on the head regarding how it was abused. There are better ways to handle suspected criminals, ways that do not require the blatant violation of their civil rights.
I wouldn't be surprised if it was used to crack down on street dealers as well.
I have mixed feelings about street dealers. If they are selling what they claim - and only what they claim - then for the most part I don't care. The biggest problem I have is when they are selling something other than what they claim it to be. One particular challenge in that situation though is figuring out who along the chain knew the product to be something other than what it was being sold as. Which is generally a good call for legalization, although the recreational drug industry being what it is right now I don't see it going away just because we would end up with Philip-Morris brand pot and Anheuser-Busch brand heroin.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons says that number was just under eighty-four thousand last month, 46.4% of all prisoners
That is a helpful link, and it deserves some thought. Thank you for posting it.
I will start by pointing out that the category BOP is using there is simply "drug offenses". Yeah, this includes some people who were ultimately charged only with having pot on them. However this also includes people who were dealing heroin, crack, etc. In other words it isn't a very reasonable picture of how many people are in jail for pot offenses.
I don't know exactly how they build the graph, but I assume someone arrested for murder while high would be counted as homocide rather than a drug offense.
Most likely true. IANAL but I would interpret "drug offenses" to mean something along the lines of "there was no steeper category to charge them under".
That said, I was previously questioning the line we hear about people serving massive terms "only for pot". My argument is that the overwhelming majority of people arrested for pot-related offenses were caught doing something else illegal. If you are driving with a busted taillight (which is a citable offense in every state I have lived in) and the cop found reason to search your vehicle and found pot, the charge would be for possession.
Basically I state that my earlier claim stands. Very few people are arrested only because there was reason to suspect they had pot on them. They did something else to attract the attention of the law, and the pot charge was what stuck. Would it really reduce prison population significantly to fully legalize it? I'm not convinced. Yes, it would lead to some prisoners not being there but many would still be there and go back in.
The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard.
Just look at the Netherlands. People buy it legally, it's a very big business despite it also being available on the street. Best thing is when you buy it legally you also know exactly what you get.
I don't disagree with the value of buying it retail - though I am not a pot user myself. I think the bigger question here though is if a pot user in the US spends $5 on retail-sold pot to make a joint versus $3 on enough pot to make a joint when he buys it off a guy on the street corner, will that person really want to spend the extra $2? I don't have the answer to that though I can tell you that I've never had a wealthy friend who was in to pot.
What about all the tax money we're saving by not locking them up now?
That is another argument that is generally lacking in honesty. Are there a lot of people in jail for possessing or using pot? Unquestionably, yes there are. The question though is how did they get arrested? They did something that attracted the attention of law enforcement. They did something that warranted a search or somehow gave away the fact that they had or used contraband. I have never heard of anyone getting arrested for smoking pot at home so long as they committed no other offense that caused someone to call 911.
I even agree that sentences for non-violent drug offenses are absolutely too long for a great number of cases. What I haven't seen though is any support whatsoever for the notion of a huge number of people thrown in jail only for having or using pot. The propagandists tell us this is true but not once have I seen them support this.
Frankly I don't give a shit if you want to buy pot, walk around with pot, and go smoke it in someone's house or on someone's private property. That would be treating it the same as alcohol. I can't drink a beer in a public park, and many places don't allow smoking tobacco in a public park either. But I can stop at a park on my way home form the liquor store with a case of beer in the back and that is no problem as long as I'm not drinking it - or under the influence of it - while there. I'm fine with doing the same for pot.
Those numbers are not even in the least bit close to what the pot propagandists claimed would be instantly and eternally realized in tax revenue. Sure, it is greater than zero but it is not the huge numbers they promised.
Okay, so some of them were wrong. Cities and towns are still getting more tax revenue, so what's the problem?
The problem is that a standard refrain from the propaganda pushers was that we would instantaneously - and for all eternity - see such an overwhelming influx of tax revenue that we would immediately be able to balance the budget, bring about world peace, colonize Mars, and cure all human diseases. We have clearly fallen far short of that, and will never reach it. As I said before, neither side is fully honest with their claims.
I really, truly, don't give a shit how much pot someone wants to smoke at home or in other private places. I don't care if they want to campaign for legalization of it. I would, however, very much prefer if they kept their argument to one based on truth instead of fantasy. I would also like to see the prohibitionists use a fact-based argument.
Sure, some people will grow it for themselves. But that's not preventing the governments from reaping more tax revenue.
Yes, some people are buying it at retail, and paying taxes on it. That's not a bad thing. But some will grow it and some will buy it through alternative - non-retail - channels. The amount of tax revenue that is actually coming in is many orders of magnitude less than what the people who were pushing for legalization were claiming we would see.
He's putting his money where his mouth is. However I would be more sympathetic to the pot movement in general if they were at least demonstrably more honest than the people who want to keep it outlawed. The notion that schools will benefit immensely seems to be a slightly more realistic version of the old claim that legalized sale of pot would generate $599 godzillion in tax revenue per picosecond to the end of eternity. The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard. (there are other dishonest claims from the pro-pot camp but this one directly ties to the summary)
It's happening right now:
http://www.denverpost.com/2016...
Those numbers are not even in the least bit close to what the pot propagandists claimed would be instantly and eternally realized in tax revenue. Sure, it is greater than zero but it is not the huge numbers they promised.
People buy beer even though they can brew it at home.
That isn't even close to the same thing. Marijuana needs almost nothing to grow beyond what dandelions or any other plant need. I've seen plenty of places where it has grown by accident. You can't make beer by accident, you have to set out to make it. There are other spirits that can be made by accident but beer isn't one of them.