Noone ever read it. So this time I'm trying something different, using a bit of Knuthiness.
While Knuth is a genius and all, I don't think Knuthiness is Chinese for readable. He might want to look to a different model if his goal is to get people to read his documentation.
While I agree with the initial comment, the reality is that the process for formulating regulations gives businesses a great deal of input and effectively makes most regulations custom-fit for the industries involved. The only real difference here is that Google is challenging the existing custom fit model with another - one that is more congruent with the public interest.
Sure, it would be better if the regulations were primarily concerned with the public interest, but if we don't have that, this is certainly a better alternative than how it would have played out had Google not gotten involved.
Some "tools" are inherently immoral. Chemical weapons such as nerve agents strke me as a unambigious example since there is no legitimate use of these kind of weapons. A weapons grade ebola virus would be another example. If you can't do anything "right" with a so-called "tool" then the creation, use and even the existance of said "tool" are all "wrong".
My wife knows next to nothing about Sci-Fi, and we watched the entire Farscape series on DVD - watching a few episodes a night for a few months. We almost never watch TV, and we have never before or since stayed in to watch a show (much less on DVD) rather than do something else. I eventually also talked her into watching Firefly - partly because of the good Farscape experience - but I think she had more trouble with it because it was too familiar. I think it is much more difficult to conceptualize cowboys in space than it is to think about astronauts navigating very different cultures and science so advanced it seems like magic.
However, I think another element that makes it interesting for her is that Farscape had longer story arcs that made it so that everything didn't have to get sewn up by the end of a particular episode, interesting characters that developed or had episodic mood swings (yes, I'm thinking of you Zan and D'Argo), and an element of the unexpected. It's rare for television fare to offer any of these things.
Banter aside, I'll make the argument simple for you.
1. A leader of a country conducting a war of aggression against another has committed a crime against humanity.
2. George Bush has conducted a war of aggression against another country.
C. George Bush has committed a crime against humanity.
We are looking at 600,000 dead between 2002-2006 as the result. Not to mention the thousands of maimed and dead U.S. soldiers. If the 600,000 people that died were people that lived in the U.S., would you be talking about bicycle chains then?
Can you explain to me how "a government to create a framework where individuals can make decisions on their own, but not to act redistributively"? It seems to me that any framework the government creates will redistribute income and wealth. For example, if you imagine the perfect libertarian model, then people that already have income and wealth will have a distinct advantage of those that don't in the so called "level playing field". Any formulation you come up with, the government is helping someone rather than someone else under another conceptual framework.
So, there is no way to create a level playing field. Still, it can be equitable, which means the government has to get involved in the redistributive element. In fact, I think it is obvious that you can have no government without redistribution - the only question is who benefits? I personally value frameworks that widely distribute the benefits because freedom that doesn't include economic freedom from concentrated wealth and powerful individuals - isn't freedom.
Impeaching Nixon was also "unwinnable" when the House Judiciary Committee opened formal and public impeachment hearings against Nixon on May 9, 1974. Impeachment is for offenses against the American people - whether the investigations result in impeachment is only part of the point. The other part is that politicans need to be held accountable, and we first need to know what happened before we can know what we should do about it.
Cheney richy needs investigation. He has a shady history - just look at his previous role at Halliburton and the acceptance of bribes, "deferred compensation" that certainly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest, no bid contracts, habitually lying in speeches (including his insistence that Iraq and Bin Laden are connected, a claim that has long since been debunked), the operation of his office in coordinating the executive branch of government, etc.
I also find it interesting that "unwinnable battles" are attributed to Democrats. In light of all the nonsense that Republicans pulled during Clinton's presidency, it seems strange that you describe this as a Democratic problem.
Finally, you can't talk about third parties until you talk about completely reforming how government is elected. You have to have a conversation about multiple winners such as proportional representation, or different ways of accounting under a single winner such as ranked voting.
If you don't have these changes, then you have third parties that work the way the do now - which is basically, splitting the vote of candidates that are close together and giving the election to those that are furthest away politically. In the current scenario, third parties are basically a tool to threaten to vote for a third party to move the position of major parties - see Nader or Perot as illustrations of this point - and they don't even do that unless the third party in question can tip an election to the other side.
The seven members of the Board of Governors are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to serve 14-year terms of office.
The Federal Reserve is designed to be resistent to political changes. Also, Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman and he served through 1987. If it about picking the right Federal Reserve Chairman, perhaps Carter deserves more credit - as Carter's Wikipedia article would have it:
With the markets for U.S. government debt coming under pressure, Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board; Volcker replaced G. William Miller who left to become Secretary of the Treasury. Volcker pursued a tight monetary policy to bring down inflation, which he considered his mandate. He succeeded, but only by first going through an unpleasant phase during which the economy slowed and unemployment rose, prior to any relief from inflation.
I know it is a fine distinction, but there is a difference between committing acts of torture and denying you are doing it, as opposed to committing acts of torture as an accepted, above board policy. In the first case, you are merely adding being a hypocrite to the crime against humanity. In the second, you are asserting that it is "right" to do it, and it is not a crime against humanity. To me, the second position is a big change and a big problem - despite the fact that torture being committed is the same (although the volume is likely not).
As an aside, the ECHELON program - to the extent that is known about it - tried to maintain within the law and not spy on U.S. citizens. It may have violated the spirit of that law - but Bush violates both letter and spirit with his current (probably illegal) authorization. Again, it's a fine distinction - but then again, fine distinctions do matter.
We take a lot of our technology for-granted. Bringing modern technology to a war-torn, outdated country could be both a dream and a nightmare.
Mostly a nightmare...and the universe of people that would be willing to sign-up for the headache is miniscule. When they get done they can move on to Afghanistan, Sudan, East Timor and all the other places where human life is cheaper than any randomly selected piece of "modern technology" - and "human life" includes the lives of the people that work on "modern technology".
It is the guys with the poorest social skills who are least likely to talk to adults and find out what the salary and working conditions are like in different occupations.
Quick! Everyone in a science department send a mass email to everyone you know telling them about this amazing old resource called the Occupational Outlook Handbook - where they can find out the differences of pay and working conditions not only in science - say biological scientists vs. chemists - but also how they match up to other lines of work such as floral design. And you don't even need to talk to anyone!
I guess my point here is that you don't necessarily need social skills to find out about alternatives. You also don't need social skills to be effective at life planning - which is a different skill set, one that women get socialized into early. You can even be a physician with poor social skills, just when you decide to try your budding life planning skills, pick the right sub-speciality like pathology.
You have a good point. One that needs to be carefully illustrated because people like to make this confusing. As a starting point, look for official government sources rather than Nader.org and make a clear distinction between wealth and income.
So, if you want to talk about money income, you can look at Table 676 or 678 of the 2007 U.S. Statistical Abstract. It presents a good trend line. If you want more detail, you could use the Money Income of Households.
The main point from this source is that from 1980-2004, if you use constant dollars, the only group making more money are those making $100,000 or more. Everyone else is earning less.
For changes in wealth, the Federal Reserve has a good piece linked from the Wikipedia article on the topic of Welath Distrubtion in the United States, but it undermines your argument somewhat because I think you have overstated the case a bit:
A key stylized fact is that during this period, the division of wealth
observed in the SCF attributes roughly a third each to the wealthiest 1 percent, the next
wealthiest 9 percent, and the remainder of the population.
Although the wealth distribution generally rose over the 1989 to 2001 period, simple
measures of wealth concentration fail to show consistent patterns. Moreover, few changes in
groups' shares are statistically significant. For example, the wealth share of the top 1 percent
of the wealth distribution moved from about 30 percent in both 1989 and 1992 to about 35
percent in 1995 and it tapered down to 33 percent by 2001; none of the changes are statistically
significant according to the estimation methodology used to compute standard errors for the
SCF.
I think the Federal Reserve is probably biased a bit downward...but I don't think you can claim the top 1% controls 95% of wealth. Still, I think your point is a good one. You just need to use a more accurate statistical formulation - say that the bottom 50% only has 3% of all wealth.
...do address those issues, though only to a very shallow extent...
Exactly - because it isn't their function. Unfortunately, schools have to provide some basic social services in order to educate children. However, it is appropriate that they refer people elsewhere when the problems extend beyond that scope - which is most of them.
It is one thing to get children to "speak up" about the problems they face. It is quite another to think schools can solve those problems or that they should be centers for social, police or other services rather than of education.
My argument is simple: The purpose of school is educating students, not policing them. Sure, 10 year olds are impacted by the behavior of others - bullies, abusive parents/siblings, gangs, and a whole host of other problems. These are not problems the school can solve nor should be trying to do so.
According to your argument, we would also have the school addressing these other problems to "maintain an environment conducive to learning". It's not feasible or appropriate, and it carries many negative implications that fundamentally undermine your intentions - good though they may be.
Just for clarification, in places like the U.S., making insulting & deriding statements would be alright if the statements were true. There are also other circumstances - such as posting a video of inappropriate remarks made by said person in a public forum, such as a school assembly - were it might also be alright.
The issue here doesn't seem to be about libel though. The mission of schools to educate may give it some reasonable justification for policing behavior. However, there does seem to be a fine line where you have moved from maintaining an environment conducive to learning to policing for its own sake. When you cross that line, you are no longer a school; you are an arm of law enforcement. Schools should not be an arm of law enforcement. I think that line has been crossed here.
It changes the situation because if one side allows the other to win a small victory then it tips the balanced scales ever so slightly in their favor...
So, Soviets take Afghanistan, then they take over the world and destroy American cilivation. I believe they call that a slippery slope.
I agree with you that the world court is meaningless.
I didn't say the World Court is meaningless. I said that "When sovereignty of nations is held up as an excuse for war criminals to hide behind," then the World Court is meaningless. So, I might also say that if you are going to argue from the position of the sovereignty of nations, then that means you respect the sovereignty of other nations - like Nicaragua.
The real position that is often behind the sovereignty of nations argument is typically only applied to U.S. sovereignty - never about the U.S. respecting the sovereignty of other nations. This is the problem - one that you are trying to brush aside.
Not to mention the "straw man" of misrepresenting what I have said. I mention this only because you complain about my "straw man" - without specifics I'll point out - while this is the second time I have pointed out specific instances where you have misrepresented what I have said because it's easier than actually addressing what I said.
What the South Africans do is entirely their own affair it really doesn't bother me in the least.
The significance of South African and Chilean mercenaries is that they have been involved in documented human right abuses. I think you simply aren't aware of this issue, but now that you do, I don't think you can maintain the position. Take a look at documents related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. People involved now work as mercenaries worldwide.
The article that you link has no corroborating sources cited for their figures. In the news world that is the equivalent of hearsay and no respectable news outlet would print hearsay without corroboration or citing sources.
Ok, I'll do the work for you. I'll even pick out the relevant quotes so you don't even have to bother clicking on the links if you don't wish to do so.
The Soviets that Reagan faced had thousands of nuclear warheads targeting the entire continental United States and all of our allies...
Can you explain how proxy wars in Afghanistan or in other places around the world changes this situation? I'm failing to see your logic.
Of course, and all methods prior to war should be employed since violence should be reserved for the court of very last appeal...
The simple fact is that all methods prior to war is not how it happens. Under the lesser of two evils mentality, force is actually one of the first options considered. Iraq is just one of many examples going back to World War II.
The world court is useful for the prosecution of war criminals...
Not even that, see Nicaragua v. United States. I am leery of any government, including ours, that thinks is can conduct wars of aggression with impunity. When sovereignty of nations is held up as an excuse for war criminals to hide behind, then international law and the World Court have no meaning.
The military contractors employed by the United States government in Iraq are not mercenaries because they are nationals (i.e. US Citizens) of party to the conflict or residents of territory (Iraqis) controlled by a Party to the conflict.
DOD estimates that it has more than 50,000 contractor employees in support of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.1 Depending on the types of services being provided [which include combat operations] contractor employees may be U.S. citizens or third country nationals from countries such as the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, or Pakistan [we won't mention South Africa or Chile - not good politics]...Additionally, contractor employees have been responsible for additional illegal activities, including acts of theft and black market activities [not to mention murder, sexual assault and other villianry]...Contractors may find it difficult to complete background screenings of their Iraqi and third country national employees because of a lack of reliable information...As GAO reported in July 2005,11 screening for human rights violators is problematic, and others we have spoken with agree that screening individuals for human rights abuses or convictions is very difficult.
According to this article: "There are more than 1,500 South Africans in Iraq today, most of whom are former members of the South African Defense Force and South African Police."
I think you'll have to work a little harder to "prove" that it doesn't meet the criteria under the definition that you have supplied. Clearly, it does - do a little more research if you don't like the "liberal" news source.
As for civilians not having any business making that choice for other people...
My argument is not that citizens shouldn't be involved. My argument is that if citizens are going to decide on military operations, they should be part of them. You support the war? You should have the courage of your convictions and join it or be able to explain why someone else - someone that is probably poorer, less educated, and with a darker skin color than you - should die in your place.
Your excuse seems to be that those in the military "volunteered" to do it. So many people "volunteering" in fact, that the U.S. needs to hire mercenaries to do the fighting. So many people that they are offering sign-up bonuses and other incentives in the neighborhood of $16,000 dollars per recruit to entice people from lower income strata to join. And you have the gall to sit here and claim mercenaries aren'
Is it immoral to defend one's family and home against those who seek our destruction?
It is immoral to attack other people out of fear. There is a reason some version of "turn the other cheek" is part of most major religions. The whole notion of preemptive attack or being forced to create death squads because of the actions of the "other side". It is a convenient excuse - nothing more.
Is it reasonable to suggest that the terrorists or the Soviets during the Cold War were or are no threat at all?
There is a difference between a "threat" and a "threat to our long term survival". It is disingenuous to confuse the two.
How would you respond then?
You do realize there are options beyond military adventurism and isolationism? Diplomacy for instance? As a starting point would be to apply the same rules to ourselves that are applied to the rest of the world - start with fully supporting the U.N., the World Court, ratified treaties, and international law. Find areas of agreement with people and find ways to work with them? Stop bombing other countries? I can think of no better way to create enemies than to bomb people.
How can you be sure that past interventions have not saved America from a terrible fate?
How can you be sure that past interventions have not created or will create the environment that will result in America experiencing a terrible fate? The question is not particularly useful since it cuts both ways. If you look at the fact Bin Laden was trained by the U.S. and that he has said that Israeli attacks (made possible courtesy of the U.S. government) on Lebanon gave him the idea for 9/11. I can make a very convincing argument around the second question.
...thus they are not mercenaries under the official United Nations definition of mercenary.
Nice logical gymnastics there. Let's break it down shall we: "During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary. The number had climbed up to one in ten during the Bosnian conflict. Currently there are thousands of Bosnian, Filipino and American soldiers under contract with private companies serving in Iraq" - not to mention South Africans and Chileans.
All this aside, the question I have for you is this: Are they subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)? The answer to that is no - which means they are not in the armed forces and are mercenaries.
It is interesting that you mention the Roman Empire, which fell due to internal squabbling and weakness...I did not serve in the first Gulf War and it would not be my first choice of profession to be a soldier...
You either need to visit or revisit your Gibbon. From Wikipedia - "According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions because of a loss of civic virtue among its citizens.[3] They had become lazy and soft, outsourcing their duties to defend their Empire to barbarian mercenaries, who then became so numerous and ingrained that they were able to take over the Empire."
My reason for bringing up my service was in response to your Hobbesian quote and your conjecture of what I would have seen had I been there. Most people that talk tough on security have never been in the military, never been in the field during combat operations and have never killed anyone. I don't think you need to be in the military to talk about foreign policy. I do think that if you are going to advocate for military operations, then you should be the first one signing up, be willing to send your children and have family members die for it. If you aren't willing to do that because "it's not your first choice" then you have no business making that choice for other people.
Either get some skin in the game or shut-up. I'm tired of hearing "bring it on" from people that have never been there, d
It is amazing to me the lengths people will go to justify their support for the immoral actions of the United States. The worst lie that is told is that "terrorism", "communism" or any other "ism" is a threat to our long term survival. I don't buy your initial premise nor do a adhere to the mentality of supporting the lesser evil.
One obvious problem is that "evil" and its quantity is often determined by what is expedient to someone's interest. At one time it is Honduras, Afghanistan (supporting people like the Taliban) and the next admistration it becomes Iraq and fighting the Taliban.
Anyone who actually pays attention to history knows that fighting proxy wars and using mercenary armies is more of a threat to a republic than any outside threat. The history of the Roman empire illustrates this problem quite nicely. So, I'm sorry - I'm not giving these people the free pass on this one. The consequences of fighting proxy wars and why the were fought (not to fight communism by the way) is wrong. The school of the Americas is wrong. Torturing people is wrong, and violence begets more violence. The outcomes of these policies is just as obvious at the time as they are now.
Another issue is the facts, there is some evidence that the U.S. actually sold the chemical precursors to Saddam. Based on your reasoning, this would make sense. Iran is evil. Iraq is the lesser of two evils, and we might be warranted in giving chemical weapons to Iraq for "the greater good". So long as the U.S. isn't using them, it might be alright to do, right? How do you draw the line on how far you go to "fight evil" however you define it?
The reason you want to dissociate from chemical weapons is because they are unambiguously morally wrong. But, are they that much more morally wrong the cluster munitions? Or using white phosphorus in mortar rounds (which U.S. troops did in Fallujah and elsewhere)?
Rumsfield was normalizing relations with Iraq at the time he was using chemical weapons. Rumsfield knew it. Where was his righteous indignation - or anyone in the U.S. government at the time or while he was still a "lesser evil")? Oh, it was because evil is okay so long as it is expedient for U.S. interests. So, when the U.S. supports evil, we're really supporting the greater good? You see the amazing twist of faulty logic that is going on here? I could make similar arguments about death squads, cluster munitions, Iran Contra and the rest, but it would be redundant.
If you had actually been outside of the United States and seen the rest of the world, especially the middle east, then you would know that much of the world outside of the first world nations is nasty, dirty, brutish, and violent.
I served in the first Gulf War. Which war did you serve in? I also happen to know that the countries that are the poorest and that have the greatest problems are those countries where U.S. has had some type of military involvement supporting a right-wing dictator - in all their various stripes - in the interest of U.S. style "democracy".
What Reagan accomplished in office was to increase our debt to fund military adventurism around the world. That kind of interventionism was directly responsible for 9/11 and will continue to have ripple effects like the Gulf War that has and will continue to bring untold suffering to the rest of humanity.
But that's not the story you tell. The story you tell is about the fall of communism. It is a very nice justification so that rich, educated white people in the United States can feel good about "enjoying the prosperity that we [we meaning primarily other rich, white, people] are all enjoying today." Enjoy it! Keep ignoring the facts. Keep justifying evil for the greater good, and you will eventually enjoy the reaping of what you have sown - you and (unfortunately) the rest of humanity.
Slashdot Mirror
Noone ever read it. So this time I'm trying something different, using a bit of Knuthiness.
While Knuth is a genius and all, I don't think Knuthiness is Chinese for readable. He might want to look to a different model if his goal is to get people to read his documentation.
Great post. Thought I'd also point out that I think Lessig has moved on to a bigger problem.
While I agree with the initial comment, the reality is that the process for formulating regulations gives businesses a great deal of input and effectively makes most regulations custom-fit for the industries involved. The only real difference here is that Google is challenging the existing custom fit model with another - one that is more congruent with the public interest.
Sure, it would be better if the regulations were primarily concerned with the public interest, but if we don't have that, this is certainly a better alternative than how it would have played out had Google not gotten involved.
Some "tools" are inherently immoral. Chemical weapons such as nerve agents strke me as a unambigious example since there is no legitimate use of these kind of weapons. A weapons grade ebola virus would be another example. If you can't do anything "right" with a so-called "tool" then the creation, use and even the existance of said "tool" are all "wrong".
I had the exact opposite experience.
My wife knows next to nothing about Sci-Fi, and we watched the entire Farscape series on DVD - watching a few episodes a night for a few months. We almost never watch TV, and we have never before or since stayed in to watch a show (much less on DVD) rather than do something else. I eventually also talked her into watching Firefly - partly because of the good Farscape experience - but I think she had more trouble with it because it was too familiar. I think it is much more difficult to conceptualize cowboys in space than it is to think about astronauts navigating very different cultures and science so advanced it seems like magic.
However, I think another element that makes it interesting for her is that Farscape had longer story arcs that made it so that everything didn't have to get sewn up by the end of a particular episode, interesting characters that developed or had episodic mood swings (yes, I'm thinking of you Zan and D'Argo), and an element of the unexpected. It's rare for television fare to offer any of these things.
Never been a farmer have you? Let's just say your boss is more fickle than any in IT.
Banter aside, I'll make the argument simple for you.
1. A leader of a country conducting a war of aggression against another has committed a crime against humanity.2. George Bush has conducted a war of aggression against another country.
C. George Bush has committed a crime against humanity.
We are looking at 600,000 dead between 2002-2006 as the result. Not to mention the thousands of maimed and dead U.S. soldiers. If the 600,000 people that died were people that lived in the U.S., would you be talking about bicycle chains then?
You mean the Democratic Party is not the party of socialists or communists - much less of the far left? Someone should do something about that.
Can you explain to me how "a government to create a framework where individuals can make decisions on their own, but not to act redistributively"? It seems to me that any framework the government creates will redistribute income and wealth. For example, if you imagine the perfect libertarian model, then people that already have income and wealth will have a distinct advantage of those that don't in the so called "level playing field". Any formulation you come up with, the government is helping someone rather than someone else under another conceptual framework.
So, there is no way to create a level playing field. Still, it can be equitable, which means the government has to get involved in the redistributive element. In fact, I think it is obvious that you can have no government without redistribution - the only question is who benefits? I personally value frameworks that widely distribute the benefits because freedom that doesn't include economic freedom from concentrated wealth and powerful individuals - isn't freedom.
I love this line, "we're just tools in a phony holy war of the inconsequential." Brilliant.
Impeaching Nixon was also "unwinnable" when the House Judiciary Committee opened formal and public impeachment hearings against Nixon on May 9, 1974. Impeachment is for offenses against the American people - whether the investigations result in impeachment is only part of the point. The other part is that politicans need to be held accountable, and we first need to know what happened before we can know what we should do about it.
Cheney richy needs investigation. He has a shady history - just look at his previous role at Halliburton and the acceptance of bribes, "deferred compensation" that certainly gives the appearance of a conflict of interest, no bid contracts, habitually lying in speeches (including his insistence that Iraq and Bin Laden are connected, a claim that has long since been debunked), the operation of his office in coordinating the executive branch of government, etc.
I also find it interesting that "unwinnable battles" are attributed to Democrats. In light of all the nonsense that Republicans pulled during Clinton's presidency, it seems strange that you describe this as a Democratic problem.
Finally, you can't talk about third parties until you talk about completely reforming how government is elected. You have to have a conversation about multiple winners such as proportional representation, or different ways of accounting under a single winner such as ranked voting.
If you don't have these changes, then you have third parties that work the way the do now - which is basically, splitting the vote of candidates that are close together and giving the election to those that are furthest away politically. In the current scenario, third parties are basically a tool to threaten to vote for a third party to move the position of major parties - see Nader or Perot as illustrations of this point - and they don't even do that unless the third party in question can tip an election to the other side.
From the Federal Reserve site:
The Federal Reserve is designed to be resistent to political changes. Also, Carter appointed Paul Volcker as Chairman and he served through 1987. If it about picking the right Federal Reserve Chairman, perhaps Carter deserves more credit - as Carter's Wikipedia article would have it:
I know it is a fine distinction, but there is a difference between committing acts of torture and denying you are doing it, as opposed to committing acts of torture as an accepted, above board policy. In the first case, you are merely adding being a hypocrite to the crime against humanity. In the second, you are asserting that it is "right" to do it, and it is not a crime against humanity. To me, the second position is a big change and a big problem - despite the fact that torture being committed is the same (although the volume is likely not).
As an aside, the ECHELON program - to the extent that is known about it - tried to maintain within the law and not spy on U.S. citizens. It may have violated the spirit of that law - but Bush violates both letter and spirit with his current (probably illegal) authorization. Again, it's a fine distinction - but then again, fine distinctions do matter.
Mostly a nightmare...and the universe of people that would be willing to sign-up for the headache is miniscule. When they get done they can move on to Afghanistan, Sudan, East Timor and all the other places where human life is cheaper than any randomly selected piece of "modern technology" - and "human life" includes the lives of the people that work on "modern technology".
Quick! Everyone in a science department send a mass email to everyone you know telling them about this amazing old resource called the Occupational Outlook Handbook - where they can find out the differences of pay and working conditions not only in science - say biological scientists vs. chemists - but also how they match up to other lines of work such as floral design. And you don't even need to talk to anyone!
I guess my point here is that you don't necessarily need social skills to find out about alternatives. You also don't need social skills to be effective at life planning - which is a different skill set, one that women get socialized into early. You can even be a physician with poor social skills, just when you decide to try your budding life planning skills, pick the right sub-speciality like pathology.
You have a good point. One that needs to be carefully illustrated because people like to make this confusing. As a starting point, look for official government sources rather than Nader.org and make a clear distinction between wealth and income.
So, if you want to talk about money income, you can look at Table 676 or 678 of the 2007 U.S. Statistical Abstract. It presents a good trend line. If you want more detail, you could use the Money Income of Households.
The main point from this source is that from 1980-2004, if you use constant dollars, the only group making more money are those making $100,000 or more. Everyone else is earning less.
For changes in wealth, the Federal Reserve has a good piece linked from the Wikipedia article on the topic of Welath Distrubtion in the United States, but it undermines your argument somewhat because I think you have overstated the case a bit:
I think the Federal Reserve is probably biased a bit downward...but I don't think you can claim the top 1% controls 95% of wealth. Still, I think your point is a good one. You just need to use a more accurate statistical formulation - say that the bottom 50% only has 3% of all wealth.
A FPS frame-rate for a glorified chat room....gotta say that I'm still not interested. It's all about the content indeed.
Exactly - because it isn't their function. Unfortunately, schools have to provide some basic social services in order to educate children. However, it is appropriate that they refer people elsewhere when the problems extend beyond that scope - which is most of them.
It is one thing to get children to "speak up" about the problems they face. It is quite another to think schools can solve those problems or that they should be centers for social, police or other services rather than of education.
My argument is simple: The purpose of school is educating students, not policing them. Sure, 10 year olds are impacted by the behavior of others - bullies, abusive parents/siblings, gangs, and a whole host of other problems. These are not problems the school can solve nor should be trying to do so.
According to your argument, we would also have the school addressing these other problems to "maintain an environment conducive to learning". It's not feasible or appropriate, and it carries many negative implications that fundamentally undermine your intentions - good though they may be.
Just for clarification, in places like the U.S., making insulting & deriding statements would be alright if the statements were true. There are also other circumstances - such as posting a video of inappropriate remarks made by said person in a public forum, such as a school assembly - were it might also be alright.
The issue here doesn't seem to be about libel though. The mission of schools to educate may give it some reasonable justification for policing behavior. However, there does seem to be a fine line where you have moved from maintaining an environment conducive to learning to policing for its own sake. When you cross that line, you are no longer a school; you are an arm of law enforcement. Schools should not be an arm of law enforcement. I think that line has been crossed here.
I still call it the 90% rule too but thought it was worth pointing out that the "official name" is Sturgeon's Law.
So, Soviets take Afghanistan, then they take over the world and destroy American cilivation. I believe they call that a slippery slope.
I didn't say the World Court is meaningless. I said that "When sovereignty of nations is held up as an excuse for war criminals to hide behind," then the World Court is meaningless. So, I might also say that if you are going to argue from the position of the sovereignty of nations, then that means you respect the sovereignty of other nations - like Nicaragua.
The real position that is often behind the sovereignty of nations argument is typically only applied to U.S. sovereignty - never about the U.S. respecting the sovereignty of other nations. This is the problem - one that you are trying to brush aside.
Not to mention the "straw man" of misrepresenting what I have said. I mention this only because you complain about my "straw man" - without specifics I'll point out - while this is the second time I have pointed out specific instances where you have misrepresented what I have said because it's easier than actually addressing what I said.
The significance of South African and Chilean mercenaries is that they have been involved in documented human right abuses. I think you simply aren't aware of this issue, but now that you do, I don't think you can maintain the position. Take a look at documents related to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. People involved now work as mercenaries worldwide.
Ok, I'll do the work for you. I'll even pick out the relevant quotes so you don't even have to bother clicking on the links if you don't wish to do so.
Can you explain how proxy wars in Afghanistan or in other places around the world changes this situation? I'm failing to see your logic.
The simple fact is that all methods prior to war is not how it happens. Under the lesser of two evils mentality, force is actually one of the first options considered. Iraq is just one of many examples going back to World War II.
Not even that, see Nicaragua v. United States. I am leery of any government, including ours, that thinks is can conduct wars of aggression with impunity. When sovereignty of nations is held up as an excuse for war criminals to hide behind, then international law and the World Court have no meaning.
I'll quote from the Government Accountability Office since you keep asserting what is false:
According to this article: "There are more than 1,500 South Africans in Iraq today, most of whom are former members of the South African Defense Force and South African Police."
I think you'll have to work a little harder to "prove" that it doesn't meet the criteria under the definition that you have supplied. Clearly, it does - do a little more research if you don't like the "liberal" news source.
My argument is not that citizens shouldn't be involved. My argument is that if citizens are going to decide on military operations, they should be part of them. You support the war? You should have the courage of your convictions and join it or be able to explain why someone else - someone that is probably poorer, less educated, and with a darker skin color than you - should die in your place.
Your excuse seems to be that those in the military "volunteered" to do it. So many people "volunteering" in fact, that the U.S. needs to hire mercenaries to do the fighting. So many people that they are offering sign-up bonuses and other incentives in the neighborhood of $16,000 dollars per recruit to entice people from lower income strata to join. And you have the gall to sit here and claim mercenaries aren'
It is immoral to attack other people out of fear. There is a reason some version of "turn the other cheek" is part of most major religions. The whole notion of preemptive attack or being forced to create death squads because of the actions of the "other side". It is a convenient excuse - nothing more.
There is a difference between a "threat" and a "threat to our long term survival". It is disingenuous to confuse the two.
You do realize there are options beyond military adventurism and isolationism? Diplomacy for instance? As a starting point would be to apply the same rules to ourselves that are applied to the rest of the world - start with fully supporting the U.N., the World Court, ratified treaties, and international law. Find areas of agreement with people and find ways to work with them? Stop bombing other countries? I can think of no better way to create enemies than to bomb people.
How can you be sure that past interventions have not created or will create the environment that will result in America experiencing a terrible fate? The question is not particularly useful since it cuts both ways. If you look at the fact Bin Laden was trained by the U.S. and that he has said that Israeli attacks (made possible courtesy of the U.S. government) on Lebanon gave him the idea for 9/11. I can make a very convincing argument around the second question.
Nice logical gymnastics there. Let's break it down shall we: "During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary. The number had climbed up to one in ten during the Bosnian conflict. Currently there are thousands of Bosnian, Filipino and American soldiers under contract with private companies serving in Iraq" - not to mention South Africans and Chileans.
All this aside, the question I have for you is this: Are they subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ)? The answer to that is no - which means they are not in the armed forces and are mercenaries.
You either need to visit or revisit your Gibbon. From Wikipedia - "According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions because of a loss of civic virtue among its citizens.[3] They had become lazy and soft, outsourcing their duties to defend their Empire to barbarian mercenaries, who then became so numerous and ingrained that they were able to take over the Empire."
My reason for bringing up my service was in response to your Hobbesian quote and your conjecture of what I would have seen had I been there. Most people that talk tough on security have never been in the military, never been in the field during combat operations and have never killed anyone. I don't think you need to be in the military to talk about foreign policy. I do think that if you are going to advocate for military operations, then you should be the first one signing up, be willing to send your children and have family members die for it. If you aren't willing to do that because "it's not your first choice" then you have no business making that choice for other people.
Either get some skin in the game or shut-up. I'm tired of hearing "bring it on" from people that have never been there, d
It is amazing to me the lengths people will go to justify their support for the immoral actions of the United States. The worst lie that is told is that "terrorism", "communism" or any other "ism" is a threat to our long term survival. I don't buy your initial premise nor do a adhere to the mentality of supporting the lesser evil.
One obvious problem is that "evil" and its quantity is often determined by what is expedient to someone's interest. At one time it is Honduras, Afghanistan (supporting people like the Taliban) and the next admistration it becomes Iraq and fighting the Taliban.
Anyone who actually pays attention to history knows that fighting proxy wars and using mercenary armies is more of a threat to a republic than any outside threat. The history of the Roman empire illustrates this problem quite nicely. So, I'm sorry - I'm not giving these people the free pass on this one. The consequences of fighting proxy wars and why the were fought (not to fight communism by the way) is wrong. The school of the Americas is wrong. Torturing people is wrong, and violence begets more violence. The outcomes of these policies is just as obvious at the time as they are now.
Another issue is the facts, there is some evidence that the U.S. actually sold the chemical precursors to Saddam. Based on your reasoning, this would make sense. Iran is evil. Iraq is the lesser of two evils, and we might be warranted in giving chemical weapons to Iraq for "the greater good". So long as the U.S. isn't using them, it might be alright to do, right? How do you draw the line on how far you go to "fight evil" however you define it?
The reason you want to dissociate from chemical weapons is because they are unambiguously morally wrong. But, are they that much more morally wrong the cluster munitions? Or using white phosphorus in mortar rounds (which U.S. troops did in Fallujah and elsewhere)?
Rumsfield was normalizing relations with Iraq at the time he was using chemical weapons. Rumsfield knew it. Where was his righteous indignation - or anyone in the U.S. government at the time or while he was still a "lesser evil")? Oh, it was because evil is okay so long as it is expedient for U.S. interests. So, when the U.S. supports evil, we're really supporting the greater good? You see the amazing twist of faulty logic that is going on here? I could make similar arguments about death squads, cluster munitions, Iran Contra and the rest, but it would be redundant.
I served in the first Gulf War. Which war did you serve in? I also happen to know that the countries that are the poorest and that have the greatest problems are those countries where U.S. has had some type of military involvement supporting a right-wing dictator - in all their various stripes - in the interest of U.S. style "democracy".
What Reagan accomplished in office was to increase our debt to fund military adventurism around the world. That kind of interventionism was directly responsible for 9/11 and will continue to have ripple effects like the Gulf War that has and will continue to bring untold suffering to the rest of humanity.
But that's not the story you tell. The story you tell is about the fall of communism. It is a very nice justification so that rich, educated white people in the United States can feel good about "enjoying the prosperity that we [we meaning primarily other rich, white, people] are all enjoying today." Enjoy it! Keep ignoring the facts. Keep justifying evil for the greater good, and you will eventually enjoy the reaping of what you have sown - you and (unfortunately) the rest of humanity.