Sony v. Universal, more commonly known as the Betamax decision. The key points of the Betamax decision are:
[The] noncommercial home use recording of material broadcast over the public airwaves [is] fair use of copyrighted works and [does] not constitute copyright infringement
[The law] does not support [...] theory that supplying the "means" to accomplish an infringing activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement
The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes, or, indeed, is merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
[U]nauthorized home time-shifting of [television] programs is legitimate fair use
The last point is the key one here: EVEN IF the copyright holder does not authorize you to make a copy for your personal use, you are STILL legally entitled to do so.
Copyright is NOT an absolute monopoly on the duplication of a published work -- no matter how they whine, the copyright cartels cannot deny you your LEGAL fair use rights.
A violent response is the ONLY correct response in the face of unwarranted aggression taken against you, someone you care about, or any innocent person. You can try to avoid situations where you won't come in contact with violent people, but sometimes, regardless of what precautions you take, bad things happen. When they do you have to be mentally and physically prepared to act. If the situation has reached the point where an innocent person is in mortal peril, you're past the point where any utopian pacifistic touchee-feelie tree-hugging hippie crap is going to work.
Someone is trying to kidnap your child RIGHT NOW in front of you. What do you do? Think enlightened thoughts at him? Try and reason with him? Get in touch with his inner child and identify the root cause of his anti-social behavior? Beg for mercy? Piss your pants and do nothing?
No, you kill the motherfucking bastard without hesitation or remorse, or you die trying. There is no other acceptable answer. Only a gutless hypocritcal coward expects someone else (EG, a police officer) to do violence on his behalf without being willing to do the same in return.
Consider yourself very fortunate that there are people who ARE willing, if the need arises, to risk their lives to protect your worthless ass, so that you can go on living in your little utopian dreamworld.
Always, the first thing to do is to try to evacuate the house without confrontation.
If, and only if, it is safe to do so. You probably won't know whether it is or not until you've assessed the situation. You don't want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Never yell out "I have a gun!" until you have the thing pointed at the intruder,
You got the first half right.
and have made sure that this is indeed an intruder.
100% correct. Always identify your target as well as what is downrange.
Then you follow that statement with, "and it is pointed right at you. Do not move at all, put both hands in the air, NOW! If you balk, I will shoot you."
Wrong. Too wordy. "FREEZE!" (or similar single word command shouted at the top of your lungs) is sufficient to get his attention if you aren't sure if he poses an immediate threat or not, and too much if you *are* sure that he *IS* an immediate threat.
Then fire the gun into something close by the intruder to show you mean business.
100% WRONG and *incredibly* stupid for a number of reasons. You *never* fire a warning shot. If you *HAVE* to shoot, you shoot to kill without hesitation. And you keep shooting until he stops moving or you run out of ammo.
And never keep a loaded gun in a place that is accessable.
That kind of defeats the purpose of having it in the first place. A gun that's not readibly accessable in an emergency situation might as well still be in the gun store.
The problem is how to keep it safe but easy to get to
That's more like it. If there are only adults in the house (including mature, responsable young adults, AKA [some] teenagers), "keeping it safe" means making 100% sure everyone in the house is well-versed in gun safety and knows where it is and how (and *when*) to use it. If you have young children or irresponsible teenagers (or irresponsible adults, for that matter) in the house, it means using some kind of quick-release access control device. Fortunately, this is a trivially solved problem.
[A warrior is]
someone trained and disciplined enough to apply necessary and appropriate violence when necessary
Exactly. It is a man's DUTY to protect those weaker than himself, and part of that duty is posessing both the skills and the means to do so should the necessity arise. Call it Bushido, call it Chivalry, call it whatever you will -- there is an ancient, universal, and supremely honorable code that commands us to place our bodies between those we love and those who would do them harm. If you are not willing to kill, or to die trying, in defense of the people you love, then you are unfit to be called a human being.
I'm not the baddest, I'm not the best, and I don't care if my ass gets kicked, I can kill you before you kill me and I will kill you before you touch my family.
Amen, brother.
"We sleep safe in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm." -- George Orwell
Veteran's Day is next Thursday. Remember to say "thank you" to any vets you may know.
You don't go looking for the bad guy; you call 911 and then secure your family in a room and point your gun at the door. Almost no way to get shot and if the bad guy comes you can shoot him.
Good general advice, but there are no hard and fast rules in self-defense other than "do it to him before he does it to you".
You don't know the layout or construction of my house, what kind of training & background my wife & I have, or what the average police response time is for our location. All of these are factors in deciding whether to adopt a defensive or an offensive posture. It's presumptious of you to blindly suggest a one-size-fits-all solution when you don't have all the facts.
I'll agree that *in* *general* it's better to set up a defensive position and wait for them to come to you, but there are situations when that's just not a valid option. You have to adjust your response based on the tactical situation at the time. If you're smart, you'll have thought out your responses out ahead of time; if you're really smart, you'll have practiced them.
What does your argument say about legalizing drugs?
Well, that's a totally different issue, but the answer is that prohibition doesn't work, except to give lots of money to very unsavory people. We proved that in the 1920s with alcohol and we've been proving it all over again for the last 30 years with pot and coke. Legalization removed the violence associated with the alcohol trade; there's no reason to suspect the same would not be true if drug prohibition were repealed.
An early childhood memory of mine involved my uncle (a MD State Trooper) taking me out to the range with a pistol and a gallon bottle full of artificial blood. The bottle was then shot with the explanation that this is what happens when you shoot someone, and that this is why you never point a gun at anything unless you intend to destroy it. This is a graphic demonstration which will impress on a youngster the fact that guns are NOT toys and that using them is serious business. It's a lesson I've never forgotten and one I intend to teach my own son once he's old enough to understand.
Well I certainly wouldn't idiotically whip out a gun and wave it in my attackers face
The two rules of self-defense:
1 - Never draw a weapon unless you are prepared to use it.
2 - Never use a weapon unless you are prepared to kill.
This applies equally to a gun, a knife, or a club.
For your enlightenment, you do not draw a weapon at all unless someone is ALREADY in mortal jeopardy. If the situation IS serious enough for you to consider the use of deadly force, it is probable that it is serious enough that you will have to take action within a second or two. "Stop or I'll shoot" is for cops and TV shows; a private citizen in a legitimate deadly-force situation does not have to issue a warning -- you're not trying to arrest the agressor, you're trying to protect a life WHICH IS *ALREADY* IN EMINANT DANGER. If drawing and aiming isn't enough of a warning for them to get a clue and IMMEDIATELY back down, then you shoot to kill.
It should be noted that a weapon is never your first line of defense -- it's always an option of last resort. Your first line of defense is situational awareness: you pay attention to what's going on around you and identify potential threats, allowing you to avoid them if possible, and to give yourself that critical extra second or two of reaction time if you can't. If you've allowed yourself to be put in a situation where your only option is to use deadly force, you've already lost half the battle. To quote my old sensei, the only fight you truly win is the one you avoid. Unfortunatly you can't avoid every fight, so a wise man is prepared for that eventuality.
Owning a gun (or any weapon, for that matter) is a serious responsibility. If you don't want to (or can't handle) that responsibility, by all means do the world a favor and remain unarmed and rely on someone else to protect you. If you REALLY feel so strongly that guns are bad, I suggest putting a big sign on your front lawn that proudly proclaims "This is a Gun-Free Home".
As to your half-remembered statistics, look into the (flawed) methodology of the anti-gun "research". Every such study I know of has been discredited due to faulty methodology or fabricated data.
The simple fact is that most gun homicides are one criminal killing another criminal over some crime-related disagreement. The real statictic is that if you are an inner-city male involved in the drug trade (either as a customer or dealer), you are a lot more likely to get shot than someone who isn't.
Drug dealers tend to carry guns. Drug dealers also tend to shoot each other. Connect the dots. Who's at a greater risk of getting shot: an armed soccer mom or an unarmed drug dealer?
Are you a parent?
Do you own a gun?
Have you ever been the victim of a violent crime?
Judging from your rhetoric, I'd say the answer to all three is no. STFU until you know what you're talking about.
OK Mr. Genius, here's a scenario for you: someone breaks into your house. They are downstairs, you are upstairs. How do you get yourself, your spouse, and two small children out of the house when the only way out is to go past the intruder? The answer is, you don't. You either call 911 and cower in a corner and pray that he doesn't hurt you or your kids before the police get there, or you take direct action and neutralize the threat.
Is this a likely scenario? No. But it's possible, as are many others which would require the use of deadly force. Having a gun no more makes you rambo@home than having a fire extinguisher makes you fireman@home. Both are tools for dealing with a specific kind of emergency. If you're smart you hope you never have to use either one.
Ring lock -- brilliant. Just hope you never have to fire your gun with your OTHER hand. Or that your spouse/so/friend never has to pick up your weapon to carry on the fight after you are incapacitated.
Owning a gun is like having an insurance policy -- you have it just in case, and hope you never need to use it. But, if and when that time comes, you DAMN well want it to do the job you bought it for.
A gun which won't work reliably in a life-threatening situation is like an insurance policy that won't pay off because of some loophole in the fine print -- they're both worse than useless.
Guns don't kill people, people *with* guns kill people
People with knives kill people
People with bows kill people
People with fists kill people
People with baseball bats kill people
People with plastic bags kill people
People with rocks and pointy sticks kill people
So what's your point?
<kneejerk type=bleeding-heart-liberal>We need better rock and pointy stick control laws! Think of the children!</kneejerk>
The ONLY dangerous weapon is a person intent on doing harm. ANYTHING can be a weapon in the hands of someone who wants to harm you. The advantage to a gun is it gives a 98 pound woman the ability to defend herself against a 250 pound attacker.
Without guns, people who are small, weak, or passive are totally at the mercy of those who are larger, stronger, and more agressive then they are. As long as there are people who are willing to kill you to take your possessions or to satisfy their sexual urges on you against your will, you need some effective means of defending yourself against them.
I keep a pair of trainers for self defense. When threated I am able to use them to run away
That's fine for you. Now suppose you are responsible for several small children. What do you do now, genius?
You can elect libertarian-minded judges, but you can't help the (capital-L) Libertarian Party this way
I'm not interested in helping the Libertarian Party. I'm interested in preserving freedom and opposing tyrrany, and making sure the world my children grow in as at least as good as the one I grew up in.
More CONCENTRATED, perhaps, but not more POTENT. It's still the exact same chemicals, just in a less concentrated dose. However, for someone like a bartender who works in a smoke-filled enviornment, they're getting that less-concentrated dose constantly.
Which would you rather drink, a 6-pack of beer where one bottle is full of piss, or one where all 6 bottles have 2 oz of piss? Either way, you're getting the same amount of piss.
Just because I'm getting less smoke in my lungs per breath than you are doesn't mean I want it there. Don't make me breathe your smoke and I won't piss in your beer.
I see... the smoke is only bad for your lungs if it comes out of the BACK end of the cigarette. Or is it that all of the bad stuff gets filtered out by the smoker's lungs, so what they breathe out is perfectly safe for everyone else? Either way, it's pretty amazing!
This thread aptly illustrates another of my problems with the Libertarian party: libertarians can't even seem to agree on what Libertarian philosophy actually IS. Sigh.
No. Sorry, but you're just wrong and won't admit it.
Qualification and Eligibility are entirely seperate things. One can be eligible for a job but not be qualified to perform it, or vice-versa. To get the job you must be BOTH eligible AND qualified.
Eligibility is an objective, measurable set of binary exclusionary criteria -- you are either eligible for something or you are not; it is nonsensical to say that person A is more eligible for something than person B.
Qualification is a subjective assessment of the degree to which a person possesses the skills, knowledge, experience, and natural abilities required to perform a job to a greater or lesser degree.
Winston Churchill, were he alive today, would unquestionably be QUALIFIED (IE: having demonstrated the necessary skills and experience) to preform the job of President; however, he would not be ELIGIBLE to hold the office because he was not a native US Citizen. As I stated before, I am ELIGIBLE to hold the office of President. However, I don't play political games well, nor am I a statesman, nor am I an effective negotiator; since these are essential skills for the President to have, I therefore consider myself unqualified to effectively carry out the duties of the office.
According to the Constitution, Badnarik meets all the qualifications necessary:
No, meets all of the ELEGIBLITY requirements imposed by the Constitution. Eligible != Qualified.
Being ELIGIBLE for something does not automatically mean you are QUALIFIED to do it. I have a BS in Computer Engineering, therefore I'm ELIGIBLE for any job which requires that degree. However, there are a lot of jobs for which I'm ELIGIBLE that I'm not QUALIFIED to perform because my experience is in a different specialty.
If the candidate's degree of Constitutional scholarship is the only quality that matters when chosing a President, then I submit that Lawrence Lessig is an infinately more qualified choice for President than Badnarik.
There are probably over 100M US citizens who are eligible to hold the presidency, so by your argument ANY of them is qualified to do the job. I'm sure you could find a homeless illiterate paranoid schizophrenic with multiple felony convictions and substance abuse problems who still meets all the Constitutional eligiblity requirements for the Presidency. Would this person be qualified for the job? I think not.
Hell, *I* am over 35, have lived in the US all my life, and have never been charged with any crime more serious than driving 20mph over the speed limit. I'll wager a week's pay that my knowledge of the Constitution is at least as good as Badnarik's. Therefore, by your standards, I'm as qualified to be President as he is. Vote for Me!
Re:Badnarik is not qualified to be President
on
Election Day Discussion
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Are you supposed to vote for who you think will do a better overall job or who best represents your beliefs and opinions?
Heh. I've given up hope on either. I'm just voting for the one who'll do the least amount of damage, which is Kerry.
A third party President would likely unite the other two parties against him, allowing Congress to pass veto-proof legislation. It might be interesting, but since there's no viable 3rd party candidate, this isn't a serious option.
A Republican President will keep the House, Senate, and Presidency in the hands of one party. The Republican-controlled Congress has already proven itself to be Bush's lap-dog, giving him anything he asks for. [I'd be just as opposed to the Democrats controlling everything, BTW]. Another 4 years of total Republican control will kill the last vestiges of freedom we have left.
A Democratic president will unite the Democratic minority in Congress behind him. He'll have to struggle and COMPROMISE to get anything done, however, because the Republicans will likely retain control of both houses. This should cancel out the more extreme partisan agendas coming from either party. This will at least keep the far-right fundimentalist Christian wing of the Republican party in check, and they're the ones who really scare me.
The most important issue for me is the fact that potentially 3 supreme court justices are going to die or retire in the next 4 years. Right now the court is balanced between an arch-conservitive wing and a moderate liberal wing, with one swing justice who leans to the left. Another Bush presidency combined with a Republican-controlled House and Senate will allow them to stack the deck with more hard-right, anti-freedom justices like Scalia and Thomas. However, any Kerry appointee will still have to be confirmed by the same Republican Congress; therefore Kerry would have to chose someone moderate in order to get them past the Republicans. Scant as it is, this is the best hope we have to retain at least some of our freedoms and undo some of the worst excesses of the last 4 years.
Badnarik is not qualified to be President
on
Election Day Discussion
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Sorry, I'm not going to vote for anyone who doesn't have the experience to do the job. Bush was unqualified when he took office, and he had at least served in elected office. The only elected position Badnarik has held was Executive Vice-President of his dormitory at Indiana University. Whoop-de-fucking-do.
Badnarik has good credentials as a geek, and I'd probably hire him for a programming or systems administration job, but he has no political experience whatsoever. Hell, he wasn't even able to get himself elected to the TEXAS House of Representives. If he (and the Libertarian party in general) are serious about getting into the White House, they need to set their sights a little lower at first:
GET PEOPLE INTO OFFICE. *ANY* OFFICE. Local level, state level, whatever. School boards, town/county council, state legislatures, judgeships, etc. This serves two purposes: it shows people that Libertarians actually *can* work with the system and it gives the office-holders actual EXPERIENCE to run for higher office.
Even more importantly, if and when they are actually able run a serious Gubenatorial or Presidential candidate, that person when elected will actually have a BASE OF SUPPORT in the legislative and judicial branches. You can't change the system from the top-down; you have to work from the bottom up.
IMHO the most effective place for the LP to start is getting some Libertarian Judges elected. Judgeships are usually not as highly disputed as Legislative or Executive offices, but they hold a LOT of power. A Libertarian-controlled judiciary would be in the position to check the worst execesses perpetrated by the Democrats and Republicans.
I wouldn't say he *EARNED* them. "Purchased" is a more appropriate description. Bush hasn't earned a single thing on personal merit in his life -- it's all been handed to him on a silver platter by his Daddy or Daddy's cronies.
Anyone lacking his connections who had the same discipline and academic record as The Shrub would likely have been expelled from Yale.
you were advocating a better design not just replacing the database.
Exactly. Replacing the database is an essential first step, because MySQL lacks essential features (EG: Stored Procedures) necessary to implement a better design.
Slashdot Mirror
Here, take ours. We don't seem to be using it anymore.
- [The] noncommercial home use recording of material broadcast over the public airwaves [is] fair use of copyrighted works and [does] not constitute copyright infringement
- [The law] does not support [...] theory that supplying the "means" to accomplish an infringing activity and encouraging that activity through advertisement are sufficient to establish liability for copyright infringement
- The sale of copying equipment, like the sale of other articles of commerce, does not constitute contributory infringement if the product is widely used for legitimate, unobjectionable purposes, or, indeed, is merely capable of substantial noninfringing uses.
- [U]nauthorized home time-shifting of [television] programs is legitimate fair use
The last point is the key one here: EVEN IF the copyright holder does not authorize you to make a copy for your personal use, you are STILL legally entitled to do so.Copyright is NOT an absolute monopoly on the duplication of a published work -- no matter how they whine, the copyright cartels cannot deny you your LEGAL fair use rights.
A violent response is the ONLY correct response in the face of unwarranted aggression taken against you, someone you care about, or any innocent person. You can try to avoid situations where you won't come in contact with violent people, but sometimes, regardless of what precautions you take, bad things happen. When they do you have to be mentally and physically prepared to act. If the situation has reached the point where an innocent person is in mortal peril, you're past the point where any utopian pacifistic touchee-feelie tree-hugging hippie crap is going to work.
Someone is trying to kidnap your child RIGHT NOW in front of you. What do you do? Think enlightened thoughts at him? Try and reason with him? Get in touch with his inner child and identify the root cause of his anti-social behavior? Beg for mercy? Piss your pants and do nothing?
No, you kill the motherfucking bastard without hesitation or remorse, or you die trying. There is no other acceptable answer. Only a gutless hypocritcal coward expects someone else (EG, a police officer) to do violence on his behalf without being willing to do the same in return.
Consider yourself very fortunate that there are people who ARE willing, if the need arises, to risk their lives to protect your worthless ass, so that you can go on living in your little utopian dreamworld.
You don't know the layout or construction of my house, what kind of training & background my wife & I have, or what the average police response time is for our location. All of these are factors in deciding whether to adopt a defensive or an offensive posture. It's presumptious of you to blindly suggest a one-size-fits-all solution when you don't have all the facts.
I'll agree that *in* *general* it's better to set up a defensive position and wait for them to come to you, but there are situations when that's just not a valid option. You have to adjust your response based on the tactical situation at the time. If you're smart, you'll have thought out your responses out ahead of time; if you're really smart, you'll have practiced them.
An early childhood memory of mine involved my uncle (a MD State Trooper) taking me out to the range with a pistol and a gallon bottle full of artificial blood. The bottle was then shot with the explanation that this is what happens when you shoot someone, and that this is why you never point a gun at anything unless you intend to destroy it. This is a graphic demonstration which will impress on a youngster the fact that guns are NOT toys and that using them is serious business. It's a lesson I've never forgotten and one I intend to teach my own son once he's old enough to understand.
2 - Never use a weapon unless you are prepared to kill.
This applies equally to a gun, a knife, or a club.
For your enlightenment, you do not draw a weapon at all unless someone is ALREADY in mortal jeopardy. If the situation IS serious enough for you to consider the use of deadly force, it is probable that it is serious enough that you will have to take action within a second or two. "Stop or I'll shoot" is for cops and TV shows; a private citizen in a legitimate deadly-force situation does not have to issue a warning -- you're not trying to arrest the agressor, you're trying to protect a life WHICH IS *ALREADY* IN EMINANT DANGER. If drawing and aiming isn't enough of a warning for them to get a clue and IMMEDIATELY back down, then you shoot to kill.
It should be noted that a weapon is never your first line of defense -- it's always an option of last resort. Your first line of defense is situational awareness: you pay attention to what's going on around you and identify potential threats, allowing you to avoid them if possible, and to give yourself that critical extra second or two of reaction time if you can't. If you've allowed yourself to be put in a situation where your only option is to use deadly force, you've already lost half the battle. To quote my old sensei, the only fight you truly win is the one you avoid. Unfortunatly you can't avoid every fight, so a wise man is prepared for that eventuality.
Owning a gun (or any weapon, for that matter) is a serious responsibility. If you don't want to (or can't handle) that responsibility, by all means do the world a favor and remain unarmed and rely on someone else to protect you. If you REALLY feel so strongly that guns are bad, I suggest putting a big sign on your front lawn that proudly proclaims "This is a Gun-Free Home".
As to your half-remembered statistics, look into the (flawed) methodology of the anti-gun "research". Every such study I know of has been discredited due to faulty methodology or fabricated data.
The simple fact is that most gun homicides are one criminal killing another criminal over some crime-related disagreement. The real statictic is that if you are an inner-city male involved in the drug trade (either as a customer or dealer), you are a lot more likely to get shot than someone who isn't.
Drug dealers tend to carry guns. Drug dealers also tend to shoot each other. Connect the dots. Who's at a greater risk of getting shot: an armed soccer mom or an unarmed drug dealer?
Do you own a gun?
Have you ever been the victim of a violent crime?
Judging from your rhetoric, I'd say the answer to all three is no. STFU until you know what you're talking about.
OK Mr. Genius, here's a scenario for you: someone breaks into your house. They are downstairs, you are upstairs. How do you get yourself, your spouse, and two small children out of the house when the only way out is to go past the intruder? The answer is, you don't. You either call 911 and cower in a corner and pray that he doesn't hurt you or your kids before the police get there, or you take direct action and neutralize the threat.
Is this a likely scenario? No. But it's possible, as are many others which would require the use of deadly force. Having a gun no more makes you rambo@home than having a fire extinguisher makes you fireman@home. Both are tools for dealing with a specific kind of emergency. If you're smart you hope you never have to use either one.
Owning a gun is like having an insurance policy -- you have it just in case, and hope you never need to use it. But, if and when that time comes, you DAMN well want it to do the job you bought it for.
A gun which won't work reliably in a life-threatening situation is like an insurance policy that won't pay off because of some loophole in the fine print -- they're both worse than useless.
So what's your point?
<kneejerk type=bleeding-heart-liberal>We need better rock and pointy stick control laws! Think of the children!</kneejerk>
The ONLY dangerous weapon is a person intent on doing harm. ANYTHING can be a weapon in the hands of someone who wants to harm you. The advantage to a gun is it gives a 98 pound woman the ability to defend herself against a 250 pound attacker.
Without guns, people who are small, weak, or passive are totally at the mercy of those who are larger, stronger, and more agressive then they are. As long as there are people who are willing to kill you to take your possessions or to satisfy their sexual urges on you against your will, you need some effective means of defending yourself against them.
That's fine for you. Now suppose you are responsible for several small children. What do you do now, genius?One man's "divine inspiration" is another man's hallucination.
Which would you rather drink, a 6-pack of beer where one bottle is full of piss, or one where all 6 bottles have 2 oz of piss? Either way, you're getting the same amount of piss.
Just because I'm getting less smoke in my lungs per breath than you are doesn't mean I want it there. Don't make me breathe your smoke and I won't piss in your beer.
I see... the smoke is only bad for your lungs if it comes out of the BACK end of the cigarette. Or is it that all of the bad stuff gets filtered out by the smoker's lungs, so what they breathe out is perfectly safe for everyone else? Either way, it's pretty amazing!
This thread aptly illustrates another of my problems with the Libertarian party: libertarians can't even seem to agree on what Libertarian philosophy actually IS. Sigh.
Qualification and Eligibility are entirely seperate things. One can be eligible for a job but not be qualified to perform it, or vice-versa. To get the job you must be BOTH eligible AND qualified.
Eligibility is an objective, measurable set of binary exclusionary criteria -- you are either eligible for something or you are not; it is nonsensical to say that person A is more eligible for something than person B.
Qualification is a subjective assessment of the degree to which a person possesses the skills, knowledge, experience, and natural abilities required to perform a job to a greater or lesser degree.
Winston Churchill, were he alive today, would unquestionably be QUALIFIED (IE: having demonstrated the necessary skills and experience) to preform the job of President; however, he would not be ELIGIBLE to hold the office because he was not a native US Citizen. As I stated before, I am ELIGIBLE to hold the office of President. However, I don't play political games well, nor am I a statesman, nor am I an effective negotiator; since these are essential skills for the President to have, I therefore consider myself unqualified to effectively carry out the duties of the office.
Being ELIGIBLE for something does not automatically mean you are QUALIFIED to do it. I have a BS in Computer Engineering, therefore I'm ELIGIBLE for any job which requires that degree. However, there are a lot of jobs for which I'm ELIGIBLE that I'm not QUALIFIED to perform because my experience is in a different specialty.
If the candidate's degree of Constitutional scholarship is the only quality that matters when chosing a President, then I submit that Lawrence Lessig is an infinately more qualified choice for President than Badnarik.
There are probably over 100M US citizens who are eligible to hold the presidency, so by your argument ANY of them is qualified to do the job. I'm sure you could find a homeless illiterate paranoid schizophrenic with multiple felony convictions and substance abuse problems who still meets all the Constitutional eligiblity requirements for the Presidency. Would this person be qualified for the job? I think not.
Hell, *I* am over 35, have lived in the US all my life, and have never been charged with any crime more serious than driving 20mph over the speed limit. I'll wager a week's pay that my knowledge of the Constitution is at least as good as Badnarik's. Therefore, by your standards, I'm as qualified to be President as he is. Vote for Me!
A third party President would likely unite the other two parties against him, allowing Congress to pass veto-proof legislation. It might be interesting, but since there's no viable 3rd party candidate, this isn't a serious option.
A Republican President will keep the House, Senate, and Presidency in the hands of one party. The Republican-controlled Congress has already proven itself to be Bush's lap-dog, giving him anything he asks for. [I'd be just as opposed to the Democrats controlling everything, BTW]. Another 4 years of total Republican control will kill the last vestiges of freedom we have left.
A Democratic president will unite the Democratic minority in Congress behind him. He'll have to struggle and COMPROMISE to get anything done, however, because the Republicans will likely retain control of both houses. This should cancel out the more extreme partisan agendas coming from either party. This will at least keep the far-right fundimentalist Christian wing of the Republican party in check, and they're the ones who really scare me.
The most important issue for me is the fact that potentially 3 supreme court justices are going to die or retire in the next 4 years. Right now the court is balanced between an arch-conservitive wing and a moderate liberal wing, with one swing justice who leans to the left. Another Bush presidency combined with a Republican-controlled House and Senate will allow them to stack the deck with more hard-right, anti-freedom justices like Scalia and Thomas. However, any Kerry appointee will still have to be confirmed by the same Republican Congress; therefore Kerry would have to chose someone moderate in order to get them past the Republicans. Scant as it is, this is the best hope we have to retain at least some of our freedoms and undo some of the worst excesses of the last 4 years.
Badnarik has good credentials as a geek, and I'd probably hire him for a programming or systems administration job, but he has no political experience whatsoever. Hell, he wasn't even able to get himself elected to the TEXAS House of Representives. If he (and the Libertarian party in general) are serious about getting into the White House, they need to set their sights a little lower at first: GET PEOPLE INTO OFFICE. *ANY* OFFICE. Local level, state level, whatever. School boards, town/county council, state legislatures, judgeships, etc. This serves two purposes: it shows people that Libertarians actually *can* work with the system and it gives the office-holders actual EXPERIENCE to run for higher office.
Even more importantly, if and when they are actually able run a serious Gubenatorial or Presidential candidate, that person when elected will actually have a BASE OF SUPPORT in the legislative and judicial branches. You can't change the system from the top-down; you have to work from the bottom up.
IMHO the most effective place for the LP to start is getting some Libertarian Judges elected. Judgeships are usually not as highly disputed as Legislative or Executive offices, but they hold a LOT of power. A Libertarian-controlled judiciary would be in the position to check the worst execesses perpetrated by the Democrats and Republicans.
Anyone lacking his connections who had the same discipline and academic record as The Shrub would likely have been expelled from Yale.
OH, BTW, I'm sorry for calling you a bonehead. I was grumpy when I wrote my original message. Please accept my appologies for the unwarranted slur.