During the Revolutionary War, we didn't go to Britain and murder British citizens.
And???
What you describe is a pre-emptive war, which is really no different than me saying "I think you're going to hit me, so I'll just kill you now".
Pearl Harbor? Come on, I know you saw that Ben Afleck movie. In case you didn't know, it was based on a real event.
As for WWII, that was made a certainty by the way we handled the ending of WWI ("the war to end all wars").
True, but hindsight is 20/20. That mistake is best not repeated.
Finally, WWI -- and all wars, indeed -- are only possible due to the centralized power constituting a territorial monopoly on the initiation of violence known as The State.
"The State" is what makes currency possible. It also has to power to regulate water quality, consumer product safety, pave roads, and make sure that some tyrant doesn't come and take your property or your life without repercussions.
Given my choice, I'll accept the possible problems that come with the existance of "the state" over those certain problems what come without it.
Well it was good, until the current government started to disassemble it, and is currently in the process of converting the Australian medical system to be more like the American one... from all accounts, the old way (socialist) was much better.
Compare the US to Canada. For the poor, the Canadian system works much better. For the middle class and up, the American system is the way to go. Middle and upper income Canadians routinely come to the states for medical treatment. For example, some reports state that New York and California have more MRI machines than the entire country of Canada. I'm not saying that our system is perfect, Americans organize bus trip to Canada to purchase prescription drugs, because they are more affordable there. I think that the ideal system lies somewhere in between.
PS: Does anyone else think the commercial for MS' game, Rainbow Six, is fucked up? "Freedom isn't free". Iow, to be free, we need to murder lots of people in other countries. What abhorrent bullshit.
I'm sure that you'd also hate to see what it looks like when they make sausage.
War is ugly business. War is an abomination to God and man. War is also unfortunately sometimes necessary. Some of the people in this world are BAD people. Some of the people in this world think nothing of killing innocents. The only way to stop people like that is with force. Monsters we are, lest monsters we become.
To be honest, I was against the war in Iraq, but Saddam is/was a monster and the world as well as the people of Iraq are better off without him.
Linux is based on socialist concepts. Not only Linux, but public schools and hospitals... and to decry these things as 'evil', simply because they are socialist in theory, is to overlook their true worth.
I don't know about where YOU come from, but where I am, hospitals send you a bill. Either you pay it, your insurance pays it, or nobody pays it. In the last case, the hospital needs to make up for that loss somehow, so the people that do pay get higher bills.
The problem that many of us have with socialism isn't with the theory, it's with the practice. From each according to his means, and to each according to his needs is fair, in theory. In practice it's from each according to his means and to each according to his political connections. For example, the people of Cuba are starving, but Fidel never misses a meal.
Why this human obsession with stuff from the ground? I'm more into digital rarities, like the newest game or software. That's what I value... not dirt, or minerals. But to each, their own, I guess, eh?
How much is the lastest game from a decade ago worth? How much is a diamond or a pound of gold from a decade ago worth?
As was explained to me by a Lawyer who worked for Congress at one time, most laws are the result of knee-jerk reactions to public/corporate demand. Unfortunately, not much thought goes into the consequences of these laws. They just want to keep their jobs.
Notice how things got worse after campaign finance reform limited "hard money" donations?
Imagine how much worse things would be if McCain-Feingold became law.
I'm not trying to be a karma whore here, but wouldn't it be a fairly silly idea to try to rob a place where self defense and hand/foot to head combat is taught?
When I was a kid, our karate instructor had one of his assistants dress up like a 1970's TV burglar and sneak into the backdoor. We had no idea who it was, but when he told us to "get him" we did.
At the end of the day, I had to apologize to Mr. Castro for kicking him in the nuts, twice. Believe me, I did it as hard as I could.
When I worked for a certain Satellite TV Company that I will not name, they opened a call center in the philippines. I couldn't tell you how many customers that I talked to who hung up on the agents who could barely speak english and called back only to get me and bitch about it.
"Where in the fuck are you people getting employees who can't speak English?!?!"
We were not permitted to tell them that one of our call centers was overseas.
So instead of saving costs, they were incurring costs because instead of having one incoming call to handle, they had two.
Differences in dialect between different parts of one country are often hard enough to deal with. How can someone who learned english is a 2nd or 3rd language be expected to understand the idioms your customers are going to use and nuances that are a part of their speaking patters?
I did exactly that, until I got divorced. Instead of having all of my extra geek shit strewn about one of our extra bedrooms, I had to pack it all up into big ass plastic bins and put it in storage.
Remember people, extra bedrooms and keep your woman out of it.
It did not establish a constitutionally protected right to have an abortion. It found that some anti-abortion laws violate a woman's constitutionally protected right to privacy.
Now, if it can be unconstitutional to enforce an anti-abortion law because it violates someone's right to privacy, HOW IN THE FUCK can it be constitutional for law enforcement to spy on people who are not breaking any law?
But our government is no stranger to contradiction. For example, Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug, meaning that it has "no medicinal purpose", but they provide some terminally ill people with it. Heroin is also schedule 1, but in the UK Diamorphine (heroin) is perfectly legal and used as a pain reliever for people in extreme pain.
What's wrong with the world when a right wing republican, like myself, is arguing against providing law enforcement with more power and against the insanity of US drug policy?
Our Subway ads in Australia have the same old yank talking. Their advertising pitch also says how many pounds some fat prick lost..... we use metric buddy, NFI what a pound is.
What do you expect from a country made up of the descendants of criminals. Civilized people still measure weight (outside of the laboratory) in pounds.
You can't beat an army with a stronger will and with greater numbers. It's why the US lost in Vietnam and why things will always be cracked. You can't beat an army of pirates (some perhaps academics) willing to crack for free.
Stop it. I know this article isn't about this, and sure this may be offtopic, but the bullshit has to stop.
The US pulled out of Vietnam because eventually most of the country realized that we shouldn't have been there in the first place. Second, our politicians kept the military leaders in shackles; "You can bomb here, but don't bomb there", as a result the NVA moved their valuable hardware to "there"; "engage these guys, but not those guys" as a result "these guys" made themselves look like "those guys".
We had a better trained, better equipped Army, as evidenced by the fact that the North Vietnamese lost many, MANY more soldiers in combat than the US did. There is no question that the US Army could have and in fact should have won the day, they just weren't allowed to do their job.
And that's a bad thing? Sorry, but if you break into my wireless network (even if you are just "mapping" how many open networks there are), you've just committed a crime.
If you leave a wireless AP up with no security, it can be inferred that you intent it to be used by anyone who can access it.
If someone drives up to a busy intersection, and dumps out a duffel bag full of $100 dollar bills and then proceeds to drive away, it can be inferred that s/he is giving the money away.
If someone is on a public street, and your router is broadcasting to them, you have willingly shared with them.
I'm not a Canadian, I have no idea about Canadian jurisprudence, but this guy apparently broke several other laws. Child Porn, traffic violation, possibly even a public nudity charge might apply, but unless he cracked into the network, he didn't steal any communications.
Linus pays the people who contribute to the kernel, and GNU, and most other OSS projects by managing the kernel.
If I write a kernel patch that imroves speed by a factor of at least 2% on every CPU, and I submit it, I will benefit because every server that I access will be more responsive.
We can download at least 2% more pr0n on a daily basis. We all win!
One time (no not at band camp) I was taking abuse in front of a girl that I really liked. I snapped. Without time to give it a second thought I swung and connected. The guy bent over grabbing his nose and I full on place kicked him in the face. Breaking his nose and knocking out teeth.
Yes!
In the next 3 and a half years, no one said or did shit to me. Today I am married to that girl.
Fuck Yes!!!!
Things are a little different today. if my son was being bullied I'm not sure I'd give him the same advice.
I concede that they're not "mine" per se, but I love my GF's kids as much as I would my own. I tell them all of the time that they have to stand up for themselves.
Your mother and I can't fight your battles for you. Walk away if you can, if you can't give it your best.
If you're talking about being literally attacked, as in someone attempting to do you grievous bodily harm, then yes I agree. At that point you have no choice. We were talking about bullying, though. Bullying doesn't have to end with that kind of violence.
Bullying often does include violence. Punching. Slapping. Kicking. Even if I lost, any one of those was enough to earn a bully a good fight.
Once, on the school bus, round about 4th grade a bully kept slapping the back of my head. I put up with it for two or three days. I walked to his seat and proceeded to kick him in the face. He beat me in that fight, but he never slapped my head again. That was all I wanted. If I had to lose a fight to get it, fine. To this day, (about 20 years later) he always makes a point to say hello to me.
Oh yeah, and tell your kids if they're defending themselves to do whatever it takes to win, fighting fair doesn't work with bullies. You get a chance to kick them in the groin, do it!
Kick in the groin. Gouge the eyes. A still punch to the solar plexus. Hell, even biting someone's face are all acceptable ways to prevent serious bodily harm to yourself.
There is one potential negative, if the school won't support you in the aftermath, you may end up dead.
Doing nothing is more likely to get you beat to death or sexually assaulted.
I seriously doubt I could have won a fight against 7-8 bullies by myself though.
Probably not, but break one or two of their noses and you'll have a chance to run away.
Physical revenge may be emotionally satisfying, at least initially. However, I don't think anyone would agree that it is worth it when the bully comes back and makes his own justice with a gun.
If this is the case, why is it that all of the school shooters that we hear about are kids who were on the receiving end of bullying?
The philosophy of answering violence with violence is the same lame answer that governments use to start wars they can't exit.
What do you propose they do? Give consessions to scum like Saddam Hussein? BS. If someone is determined to cause trouble, the best way to deter them is to let them know that you can give it back just as well.
If someone slugged me, I'd slug them back just as hard, but no harder. If they hit me in the chest or stomach I wouldn't aim for their face or crotch.
I bet you had to put up with more shit than I did.
If someone assaults me, I'm not going to try to match his force so that he has a change to come at me harder. I'm going to try to incapacitate him. End of story.
Another benefit of my method: it doesn't require you to be able to out-escalate your opponent. If I had let my fights go that way, I would have ended up with a severely kicked ass in most cases.
You have to do what works for you. I did what worked for me. I have no interest in playing tit for tat games with someone who is attacking me.
Yell at me. Scream at me. Call me names. That's fine. You'll be looking at my back as I walk away. Attempt to harm me, and you will get everything that I can throw at you.
Uh...no. That MLK and Ghandi should have slung a AK-47 with armor piercing bullets instead of an open hand?
AP is only good if you're trying to get to someone who is inside of a vehicle, or a building or behind some sort of cover. MLK and Ghandi would have been better served if they had soft point hunting ammunition.:D
Slashdot Mirror
During the Revolutionary War, we didn't go to Britain and murder British citizens.
And???
What you describe is a pre-emptive war, which is really no different than me saying "I think you're going to hit me, so I'll just kill you now".
Pearl Harbor? Come on, I know you saw that Ben Afleck movie. In case you didn't know, it was based on a real event.
As for WWII, that was made a certainty by the way we handled the ending of WWI ("the war to end all wars").
True, but hindsight is 20/20. That mistake is best not repeated.
Finally, WWI -- and all wars, indeed -- are only possible due to the centralized power constituting a territorial monopoly on the initiation of violence known as The State.
"The State" is what makes currency possible. It also has to power to regulate water quality, consumer product safety, pave roads, and make sure that some tyrant doesn't come and take your property or your life without repercussions.
Given my choice, I'll accept the possible problems that come with the existance of "the state" over those certain problems what come without it.
LK
Well it was good, until the current government started to disassemble it, and is currently in the process of converting the Australian medical system to be more like the American one... from all accounts, the old way (socialist) was much better.
Compare the US to Canada. For the poor, the Canadian system works much better. For the middle class and up, the American system is the way to go. Middle and upper income Canadians routinely come to the states for medical treatment. For example, some reports state that New York and California have more MRI machines than the entire country of Canada. I'm not saying that our system is perfect, Americans organize bus trip to Canada to purchase prescription drugs, because they are more affordable there. I think that the ideal system lies somewhere in between.
LK
FYI, you stupid shit, the US hasn't fought a defensive war -- a war to defend our freedom -- since the Revolutionary War.
WWII?
Did you know that the Japanese printed money that they were going to use as the official currency of the US after they took it over?
Where the fuck do you think that the axis powers would have turned their attention after conquering Europe, Asia and Africa?
LK
PS: Does anyone else think the commercial for MS' game, Rainbow Six, is fucked up? "Freedom isn't free". Iow, to be free, we need to murder lots of people in other countries. What abhorrent bullshit.
I'm sure that you'd also hate to see what it looks like when they make sausage.
War is ugly business. War is an abomination to God and man. War is also unfortunately sometimes necessary. Some of the people in this world are BAD people. Some of the people in this world think nothing of killing innocents. The only way to stop people like that is with force. Monsters we are, lest monsters we become.
To be honest, I was against the war in Iraq, but Saddam is/was a monster and the world as well as the people of Iraq are better off without him.
LK
Linux is based on socialist concepts. Not only Linux, but public schools and hospitals... and to decry these things as 'evil', simply because they are socialist in theory, is to overlook their true worth.
I don't know about where YOU come from, but where I am, hospitals send you a bill. Either you pay it, your insurance pays it, or nobody pays it. In the last case, the hospital needs to make up for that loss somehow, so the people that do pay get higher bills.
The problem that many of us have with socialism isn't with the theory, it's with the practice. From each according to his means, and to each according to his needs is fair, in theory. In practice it's from each according to his means and to each according to his political connections. For example, the people of Cuba are starving, but Fidel never misses a meal.
LK
Why this human obsession with stuff from the ground? I'm more into digital rarities, like the newest game or software. That's what I value... not dirt, or minerals. But to each, their own, I guess, eh?
How much is the lastest game from a decade ago worth? How much is a diamond or a pound of gold from a decade ago worth?
Get it now?
$89!!!! I need to start getting the sunday paper.
As was explained to me by a Lawyer who worked for Congress at one time, most laws are the result of knee-jerk reactions to public/corporate demand. Unfortunately, not much thought goes into the consequences of these laws. They just want to keep their jobs.
Notice how things got worse after campaign finance reform limited "hard money" donations?
Imagine how much worse things would be if McCain-Feingold became law.
LK
I'm not trying to be a karma whore here, but wouldn't it be a fairly silly idea to try to rob a place where self defense and hand/foot to head combat is taught?
When I was a kid, our karate instructor had one of his assistants dress up like a 1970's TV burglar and sneak into the backdoor. We had no idea who it was, but when he told us to "get him" we did.
At the end of the day, I had to apologize to Mr. Castro for kicking him in the nuts, twice. Believe me, I did it as hard as I could.
LK
and I'd NEVER get one of these.
Sure, I believe that the Christians got that whole "son of God" thing wrong, but I'm not taking any chances. They might have gotten THIS ONE right.
I'll stick to cash, check, and credit cards.
LK
When I worked for a certain Satellite TV Company that I will not name, they opened a call center in the philippines. I couldn't tell you how many customers that I talked to who hung up on the agents who could barely speak english and called back only to get me and bitch about it.
"Where in the fuck are you people getting employees who can't speak English?!?!"
We were not permitted to tell them that one of our call centers was overseas.
So instead of saving costs, they were incurring costs because instead of having one incoming call to handle, they had two.
Differences in dialect between different parts of one country are often hard enough to deal with. How can someone who learned english is a 2nd or 3rd language be expected to understand the idioms your customers are going to use and nuances that are a part of their speaking patters?
LK
I did exactly that, until I got divorced. Instead of having all of my extra geek shit strewn about one of our extra bedrooms, I had to pack it all up into big ass plastic bins and put it in storage.
Remember people, extra bedrooms and keep your woman out of it.
LK
Roe V. Wade.
It did not establish a constitutionally protected right to have an abortion. It found that some anti-abortion laws violate a woman's constitutionally protected right to privacy.
Now, if it can be unconstitutional to enforce an anti-abortion law because it violates someone's right to privacy, HOW IN THE FUCK can it be constitutional for law enforcement to spy on people who are not breaking any law?
But our government is no stranger to contradiction. For example, Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug, meaning that it has "no medicinal purpose", but they provide some terminally ill people with it. Heroin is also schedule 1, but in the UK Diamorphine (heroin) is perfectly legal and used as a pain reliever for people in extreme pain.
What's wrong with the world when a right wing republican, like myself, is arguing against providing law enforcement with more power and against the insanity of US drug policy?
LK
Our Subway ads in Australia have the same old yank talking. Their advertising pitch also says how many pounds some fat prick lost..... we use metric buddy, NFI what a pound is.
What do you expect from a country made up of the descendants of criminals. Civilized people still measure weight (outside of the laboratory) in pounds.
LK
You can't beat an army with a stronger will and with greater numbers. It's why the US lost in Vietnam and why things will always be cracked. You can't beat an army of pirates (some perhaps academics) willing to crack for free.
Stop it. I know this article isn't about this, and sure this may be offtopic, but the bullshit has to stop.
The US pulled out of Vietnam because eventually most of the country realized that we shouldn't have been there in the first place. Second, our politicians kept the military leaders in shackles; "You can bomb here, but don't bomb there", as a result the NVA moved their valuable hardware to "there"; "engage these guys, but not those guys" as a result "these guys" made themselves look like "those guys".
We had a better trained, better equipped Army, as evidenced by the fact that the North Vietnamese lost many, MANY more soldiers in combat than the US did. There is no question that the US Army could have and in fact should have won the day, they just weren't allowed to do their job.
LK
And that's a bad thing? Sorry, but if you break into my wireless network (even if you are just "mapping" how many open networks there are), you've just committed a crime.
If you leave a wireless AP up with no security, it can be inferred that you intent it to be used by anyone who can access it.
If someone drives up to a busy intersection, and dumps out a duffel bag full of $100 dollar bills and then proceeds to drive away, it can be inferred that s/he is giving the money away.
If someone is on a public street, and your router is broadcasting to them, you have willingly shared with them.
I'm not a Canadian, I have no idea about Canadian jurisprudence, but this guy apparently broke several other laws. Child Porn, traffic violation, possibly even a public nudity charge might apply, but unless he cracked into the network, he didn't steal any communications.
LK
And this is different in the adult world, how? Do we stop prosecuting adults in similar situations?
In the adult world, the bullies are police officers. We don't prosecute them often.
LK
If I remember correctly part of the reason they got cancelled was they gave it a shitty timeslot so nobody watched it.
Even a shitty timeslot would have been better than the musical timeslot that it got.
I think it was on, when the high tide of the Themes coincided with the low tide in Guam, except on the week of the odd numbered full moon.
Point being, that as soon as I got used to catching it at a certain timeslot, they'd move it.
LK
Linus pays the people who contribute to the kernel, and GNU, and most other OSS projects by managing the kernel.
If I write a kernel patch that imroves speed by a factor of at least 2% on every CPU, and I submit it, I will benefit because every server that I access will be more responsive.
We can download at least 2% more pr0n on a daily basis. We all win!
LK
One time (no not at band camp) I was taking abuse in front of a girl that I really liked. I snapped. Without time to give it a second thought I swung and connected. The guy bent over grabbing his nose and I full on place kicked him in the face. Breaking his nose and knocking out teeth.
Yes!
In the next 3 and a half years, no one said or did shit to me. Today I am married to that girl.
Fuck Yes!!!!
Things are a little different today. if my son was being bullied I'm not sure I'd give him the same advice.
I concede that they're not "mine" per se, but I love my GF's kids as much as I would my own. I tell them all of the time that they have to stand up for themselves.
Your mother and I can't fight your battles for you. Walk away if you can, if you can't give it your best.
It's the best any of us can do.
LK
If you're talking about being literally attacked, as in someone attempting to do you grievous bodily harm, then yes I agree. At that point you have no choice. We were talking about bullying, though. Bullying doesn't have to end with that kind of violence.
Bullying often does include violence. Punching. Slapping. Kicking. Even if I lost, any one of those was enough to earn a bully a good fight.
Once, on the school bus, round about 4th grade a bully kept slapping the back of my head. I put up with it for two or three days. I walked to his seat and proceeded to kick him in the face. He beat me in that fight, but he never slapped my head again. That was all I wanted. If I had to lose a fight to get it, fine. To this day, (about 20 years later) he always makes a point to say hello to me.
Oh yeah, and tell your kids if they're defending themselves to do whatever it takes to win, fighting fair doesn't work with bullies. You get a chance to kick them in the groin, do it!
Kick in the groin. Gouge the eyes. A still punch to the solar plexus. Hell, even biting someone's face are all acceptable ways to prevent serious bodily harm to yourself.
There is one potential negative, if the school won't support you in the aftermath, you may end up dead.
Doing nothing is more likely to get you beat to death or sexually assaulted.
I seriously doubt I could have won a fight against 7-8 bullies by myself though.
Probably not, but break one or two of their noses and you'll have a chance to run away.
LK
Physical revenge may be emotionally satisfying, at least initially. However, I don't think anyone would agree that it is worth it when the bully comes back and makes his own justice with a gun.
If this is the case, why is it that all of the school shooters that we hear about are kids who were on the receiving end of bullying?
The philosophy of answering violence with violence is the same lame answer that governments use to start wars they can't exit.
What do you propose they do? Give consessions to scum like Saddam Hussein? BS. If someone is determined to cause trouble, the best way to deter them is to let them know that you can give it back just as well.
LK
If someone slugged me, I'd slug them back just as hard, but no harder. If they hit me in the chest or stomach I wouldn't aim for their face or crotch.
I bet you had to put up with more shit than I did.
If someone assaults me, I'm not going to try to match his force so that he has a change to come at me harder. I'm going to try to incapacitate him. End of story.
Another benefit of my method: it doesn't require you to be able to out-escalate your opponent. If I had let my fights go that way, I would have ended up with a severely kicked ass in most cases.
You have to do what works for you. I did what worked for me. I have no interest in playing tit for tat games with someone who is attacking me.
Yell at me. Scream at me. Call me names. That's fine. You'll be looking at my back as I walk away. Attempt to harm me, and you will get everything that I can throw at you.
LK
Uh...no. That MLK and Ghandi should have slung a AK-47 with armor piercing bullets instead of an open hand?
:D
AP is only good if you're trying to get to someone who is inside of a vehicle, or a building or behind some sort of cover. MLK and Ghandi would have been better served if they had soft point hunting ammunition.
LK