There's nothing wrong with teaching the Christian creation myth in a literature, social studies, or history class along with the other creation myths. It doesn't belong anywhere near a biology class, though.
Yeah, but the "Compact Disc" logo is a trademark. They shortly won't be able to keep BMG from manufacturing Crippled Discs, but they CAN keep them from applying the "Compact Disc" logo or using the term in any advertising.
The patent expiration also assumes that Phillips hasn't taken out other modified CD-based patents more recently. If so, they might still be able to keep BMG from manufacturing CDs. Look at the games drug companies play with the patent system to keep generics off the market, I don't see any reason Phillips couldn't do the same thing with CDs.
This is plain ludicrous. The 85th percentile speed (i.e., the speed 85% of people go less than) will rise if you raise the speed limit, as has been tested repeatedly.
This is a myth. See the US DOT study. This study determined that changing speed limits did not significantly affect the speed of the average driver or the fastest drivers, only the slowest drivers. It also determined that the effect of raising speed limits was inconclusive but tended to lower accidents, while the effect of lowering speed limits was likewise inconclusive but tended to raise the accident rate. Even if your scheme actually caused people to drive slower, the odds are that all that would accomplish is to make the roads less safe. It is also a fact that the fastest drivers have significantly fewer accidents per mile than the slowest drivers.
Speeding does not cause accidents. It makes accidents caused by other behaviors more severe. Given this, it is those other behaviors (including, but not limited to: alcohol, weaving through traffic, tailgating, and refusing to move right for faster traffic) which should be ticketed. But what are the majority of tickets given out for? Speeding.
Repeat offenders never do, for any crime.
Neither do people who violate unjust laws. Speeders fall into the second category. Why should I feel guilty? You never bothered to explain that. As to your crack-brained schemes, how about we just set the speed limits to levels which are reasonable, rather than turning the majority of the country into criminals for the sake of funding the police departments?
Your entire post is based on the premise that travelling faster than the speed limit is inherently unsafe and should be prevented. You have not proved this premise. Please do so if you expect anyone to treat you seriously.
Really? There are pro-choice sites that encourage women to go out and get pregnant just so they can have an abortion? Perhaps you'd care to point me to one? Advocating that abortion remain legal is completely different from advocating abortion, and pro-choicers believe in the first, no matter how badly anti-choice types want to pretend otherwise.
Oh, and there's a consensus that the murder of adult human beings is wrong. There's no such consensus about the removal of a blob of barely differentiated cells.
You can't. Now exactly WHAT the fuck did that have to do with the post yoe were responding to? Oh, and it was six million people. Romani, homosexuals, communists, and the disabled are people too.
Imagine if Newsweek sent you that mail about your Time subscription, making it look like a Time bill, in order to get you to change your newsweekly subscription to Newsweek instead of Time. That's basically what Domain Registry of [your country/continent here] is doing. It's borderline fraudulent, they've got an extensive history of doing it in multiple countries, and IMO they should have been hit a lot harder than with just a reprimand.
1. Yes he does. His identity, in order to avoid illegal retribution, which is more the rule than the exception for whistleblowers who have been identified.
2. What gave you the idea that doctor-patient privilege was Constitutionally based? It's based on tradition and human rights, the same as a reporter refusing to identify his source. It's just that it doesn't have the same protection in law.
3. Reread the Fifth Amendment. And insert an overused but nonetheless appropriate Ben Franklin quote for the rest.
5. Yes, governments need secrets. But not very often, and unless there's a clear and present danger to US citizens or agent, the government doesn't have the right to keep something secret. The US government is responsible to the US citizenry, not the other way around.
4. Depends on which agencies you're talking about. If you're talking about the police and the justice system, then yes, they were the reason for the US rank.
Uh, I suggest YOU read it before you post. The article supports ending copyright completely. Barring that, it expresses opposition to continually increasing copyright terms, and it can be assumed that the author would like copyright terms returned to sane lengths of time, rather than potentially two average lifetimes.
Legal rights do not make up the entirity of "rights," that term also includes moral and philosophical rights. You're talking about the former, I'm talking about the latter. Had you bothered to read the dictionary entry yourself, you would have noticed that that entry refers to concepts like "tradition" and "morality." Furthermore, "justice" is not a synonym for "law"; if this were not true, an unjust law would be impossible by definition. As an illustration, blacks had no legal right to sit at the front of the bus through the first half of this century. They had every moral right to do so. Similarly, I have no legal right to break an unjust law. I have every moral right to do so. You appear to be claiming that there is no legal right to break the law, which is rather redundant.
Here's my claim, nice and simple: I believe that I have both a moral right and a moral obligation to violate unjust laws. Contrary to your claim, I am not using the terms as synonyms, I am claiming that both apply. I further believe that the speed laws in the United States are unjust for the following reasons: They are set far lower than a safe speed for a competent driver on almost every single road in the country. They are set this low not in order to improve driver saftey, since it has been demonstrated that the safety effect is neutral to actually reducing safety, but in order to guarantee employment for police and to provide police with the ability to search any vehicle regardless of the Fourth Amendment. I believe that forcing people to make the choice between their own safety and becoming criminals for these purposes is unjust. I believe that the speed laws in the US force people to make that choice and are, therefore, unjust. As the laws are unjust, I claim I have both a moral right and a moral obligation to disobey them where I can do so without endangering others.
Will you admit to improper use of the term "right?"
A "Right" implies that there are no consequences to said action, no? Semantically, you are incorrect in saying that you have the Right to pick-and-choose which laws you obey.
No, I won't, because I didn't. No consequences? Umm... The American civil rights movement. Ghandi. McCarthyism. Tienanmen Square. Would you like me to go on? There is no such implication in the term "right." In fact, it's quite regularly the case that excercising rights such as free speech, free assembly, freedom of the press, or privacy have serious negative consequences, legal and otherwise.
Having the Right to do something is not the same as having "no moral responsibility" to obey an unjust legislation.
Really? What's the difference? I believe I have the right to disobey unjust legislation, and several centuries of western philosophy happens to agree with me. On what basis do you assert a moral or philosophical, rather than simply a legal, obligation to obey an unjust law?
Not at all. I simply suggest that if people believe cameras will catch them when they speed, extremely reckless behaviour will decrease over time. Maybe not with red-light cameras, but how about speed enforcement cameras?
Might want to pick a better example next time, then. The one you gave is actually a counterexample.
Also, I tend to disagree with you. Extremely reckless behavior is most often comitted by people who are under the influence, or "emotionally disturbed." Either way, if they don't care about that minor death drawback, I don't think tickets will deter them.
If red-light cameras are introduced into a system, they are done so obstensibly at our (the citizenry) request. If the cameras cause an increase in accidents, THAT is the flaw in the system. Determine why (besides existing) they cause that accident increase. It's probably human behaviour, right? Can't we build slack into a system, maybe a number of warnings per year before the tickets start showing up in the mail? I don't have the answer, but I believe the idea that "It's broken, throw it away" is not the solution.
First off, if you believe that's how governments work, I've got a few thousand shares in a major energy corporation to sell you. Second, if you introduce a change to a generally-working system, and the change makes the system operate less efficiently, the logical thing to do is to undo the change, not to try to find a band-aid fix for it.
It's not our right as citizens to pick and choose which laws we obey simply based on our beliefs.
Yes it damn well is, if I'm willing to accept the consequences. Small injustices, large injustices: it doesn't matter. I have no moral responsibility to obey an unjust law.
Oh, but this is/. and anything that even implies that some authority can see what you're doing is WRONG, Police are corrupt, and our rights are constantly stripped away with no recourse. Seriously, It's not as if we live in Iraq and we can't elect lawmakers to change problematic legislation. If you believe that's impossible and you won't bother to try, then I can't sympathize. Sorry.
Decided to end your post with an ad hominem strawman instead of a red herring this time, I see. Well, at least you're branching out.
Hmm... Coulda sworn I saw more than that one. OK, I was wrong on that one.
Now, since you're the one making the positive claim, would you care to post evidence that cameras do deter crime? And no, people being in jail isn't deterrence.
You gloss over that by understating it as
No, I didn't. You're twisting the meaning of the word in order to make it support your conclusion.
Firstly, cameras are a highly controversial measure that hardly wins majority support whenever they are proposed: Claiming that it's a big political move rings a little (err...a lot) false.
It wins big-time with the soccer mom crowd, the old-people crowd, and the law-and-order crowd. All of these are large blocks of active voters. The "if you're not doing anything illegal.." idiots gain more ground in the US every day. Furthermore, it's not just London-style surveillance cameras that the story applies to, it also applies to things like red-light cameras which are pretty much guaranteed support. The only people opposed to measures like these are civil libertarians, who are, unfortunately, a vocal minority. Sorry man, cameras are vote-getters in most urban areas.
Nope, I wasn't aware that accidents and fatal accidents decreased when speed limits increased. Statistics can prove anything, 40% of all people know that. But seriously, I would appreciate a link to the factual data that you quote above.
Can't get to Google, so I can't find any links.
However, check out an NHTSA study indicating that indicates that traffic finds a safe speed at which it flows regardless of speed limits, and that speed limits are 5-15 MPH below this safe speed. In addition, it determined that raising speed limits caused accidents to decrease slightly and lowering them caused them to increase slightly. While it doesn't claim that the accident rate changes are conclusive, it does conclude that raising speed limits doesn't increase accident rates.
Your claims of traffic flow rates and red-light camera accidents--if true, I'll assume for now that they are--are at most flaws in a system we agree are necessary in our society. We should address these problems in the system instead of criticising the errors as inherent.
Red light cameras are not an integral part of the traffic light system. There is agreement that the traffic light system needs to exist, there is no such agreement on red light cameras. These aren't flaws in the system. They're unnecessary modifications to the system, intended to profit the police and the camera manufacturers, that are causing an increase in accidents rather than the decrease that was promised.
For clarity, are you arguing that because traffic flows faster than the posted limits, we should abolish speed limits entirely? Or instead, increase the limits themselves
I actually do feel that that's a good idea. Replace speed limits with posted speed guides, and only ticket speeding when it's fast enough to constitute reckless driving. Let's have the police ticket people who are tailgating, weaving through traffic, refusing to move right out of the passing lane, and the other behaviors that, unlike speeding, actually do cause accidents. That's not going to happen, but speed limits badly need to be increased by 10-15 MPH in the US. (See the NHTSA study referenced above.)
Let me ask YOU: when compliance with a law is so rare that it is actually considered probable cause of illegal activity in at least than one state, isn't it pretty damn likely that the law is the problem? (Drug transporters have begun scrupulously obeying traffic laws in order to avoid police having an excuse to pull them over. The cops have, therefore, begun pulling over people who are driving the speed limit. As I recall, the Florida state Supreme Court upheld at least one conviction, which means that obeying the law is now legally considered probable cause of illegal activity in Florida.)
Incidentially, three teens in my community died this summer when the drunk-driver of the car (travelling 80mph in a 35mph zone) ran a red light, slid under a semi-trailer, and ran into a Bank. I believe that if we had red light cameras in our town for the last five years or so, we may have prevented something like this from happening. Wouldn't people be more careful of getting caught?
Are you trolling? The guy was drunk, doing almost triple the speed limit, and you think he would've stopped because of a red light camera? That suggestion is, to be honest with you, utterly absurd.
I guess I care more that peoples lives are saved than worrying if people have to fight unfair speeding or "menial" traffic violations.
And I guess I care more about ensuring that people are allowed to keep their hard earned money instead of funding corrupt police departments, and ensuring that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments still apply to people who choose to drive rather than moving the US even farther toward a police state. Aren't red herrings fun?
Like it or not, cameras are extremely effective criminal deterrence
No, they're not. People have posted links elsewhere in this story pointing out that cameras in public places have little or no deterrence effect. Uniformed policemen have a deterrence effect, cameras do nothing for deterrence. They make it a bit easier to convict someone who's already perpetrated a crime, if the criminal didn't know the camera was there and didn't take precautions. Mostly, however, the purpose of the cameras in London and New York is to make idiots feel that their politicians are trying to protect them, so that the politicians will be reelected.
They publically threatin physical harm to those they disagree with. BTW tree spiking which the ELF proclaims as a great thing has killed several men.
Cite, please, and give in-context quotes. I've seen those claims made with some frequency, but I've never seen anyone able to actually back them up. All I've ever seen is "Well, I heard on TV..."
ALF's fourth principle is "TO take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human." Do you have any real evidence whatsoever that they don't follow that principle?
I'm not fond of tree spiking either, but the fact is it's not really a terrorist act the way ELF does it. They announce that trees in an area are spiked in order to prevent people from being injured. The goal is to prevent logging, not to actually injure someone, or to create political change. If people get hurt, it's because the company sent loggers into an area despite ELF's warnings, or because someone other than ELF spiked the trees. It's stupid, dangerous, and self-destructive, but calling it a terrorist act is misusing the word to further an agenda. And as I said, I have a problem with that.
Are the pro-logging organizations that both frequently threaten and actually inflict violence against environmentalists terrorist organizations? How about the cops? If so, why aren't they being targeted like environmental groups are?
They are Oficially on the terrorist watch list and have been on it long before 9/11.
Yeah, and so is Take Back the Streets (or at least they were). So either A) holding impromptu block parties is a terrorist act, or B) groups are placed on that list due to leftist political views, rather than actual threat of violence. Which do YOU think is more likely?
Tell ya what. When ELF or ALF actually kill someone, then you can call them terrorists. Until then, the proper word is "vandal". Terrorists injure and kill people, vandals injure and destroy property. Calling these groups "terrorists" is fear-mongering, nothing more. Furthermore, it continues the trend of devaluing the word "terrorist" to mean "someone I, personally, disagree with and want to silence," rather than the truly evil person a terrorist is.
You must remember that laws passed by congress do not hold any sway outside the U.S. and in reverse, congress can indeed pass laws that restrict speech outside the U.S
Huh? Because they don't have the power to pass laws that affect other citizens of countries, they have the power to pass laws that affect citizens of other countries?
Oh, and unless I'm mistaken, we're currently discussing a law that restricts the speech of Columbian citizens.
Therefore, statements by FARC members who are Colombian citizens living in Colombia are not affected for better or worse by the U.S. Constitution in any way, and it's not a violation of any Constitutional right (in a legal sense, at least) if the U.S. government restricts it, since the U.S. Constitution cannot grant rights to Colombian citizens.
The thing you keep failing to address is simple. U.S. laws and the Constitution apply only to U.S. citizens/nationals and those residing on U.S. soil.
No, I've addressed it several times. You just don't seem to want to accept it. As I've said before, it's based on the false premise that the government has any power unless it's restricted in the Constitution. That view is the exact opposite of the truth. The federal government has only the powers granted by the Constitution. The Constitution does not grant rights to citizens. We have those rights anyway as humans, and ALL humans have those rights. The Constitution grants powers to government, and any power it doesn't specifically grant is forbidden to the federal government. The Bill of Rights further limits the power of the government by restricting any number of actions. Let me emphasize that: the First Amendment is NOT a grant of rights to US citizens, it is a restriction on the power of the government. The US government does not have the Constitutional authority to pass any law restricting free expression. The Supreme Court has ruled that there are cases where an exemption to this exists (incitement to riot, for example), but these exemptions are very limited and, quite simply, don't apply just because Ashcroft wants to claim that someone is a terrorist.
Ashcroft and Fox News him keep repeating that mantra that the Constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens. Strictly speaking, they're right. But then, it doesn't apply to US citizens either. It doesn't need to, we have human rights, including the right to free speech, regardless of what the Constitution says. What Ashcroft tries so very hard to ignore is that the Constitution damn well does apply to him. The Constitution doesn't say what WE can do, it says what HE can and can't do. And one of the things he can't do is limit the right to free speech.
Nope, that's exactly wrong. The Constitution grants powers to the government, and it's both assumed throughout and stated explicitly in the Tenth Amendment that the federal government doesn't have any power that hasn't been granted in the Constitution. If it's not permitted to the government, it's denied. Since the Constitution doesn't allow the government to restrict the speech of non-US citizens, it's unconstitutional for the government to do so. In addition, the wording of the First Amendment says nothing whatsoever about citizenship. It explicitly forbids Congress from passing a law that restricts freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that other rights take precedence over freedom of speech in certain very limited content-neutral cases, but I doubt this case would fall under one of those exemptions.
Even if this *didn't* restrict freedom of expression for US citizens, it would still be unconstitutional.
Sorry, man, FARC are terrorists just as much as the government. The fact that our media reports FARC's terrorist actions (not to mention the terrorist actions the Columbian government frames FARC for), but not those of the government and the corporations, doesn't mean that FARC's actions don't exist. There really aren't any good sides in the Columbian power struggle these days.
Now, granted, if the US government hadn't decided to support the murdering dictators in office today it might have been a different story, but the fact remains that FARC are, in general, not the kind of people you want to have over for a pizza.
Oh, and it would be more accurate to say that the war on (some) drugs was a convenient excuse for the US government to install and support a Columbian government friendly to US industry.
The US then uses the CIA to overthrow the lawful government of Iraq and installs the butcher Sodamn Insane. This was done to counter the influence of Iran
Actually, that's incorrect. Hussein took the presidency in 1979, the same year as the revolution in Iran, after years of seeking power. He was already easily the second most powerful person in Iraq, due to his own ambition and that of his family. While it was convenient for the US to support him after he did attain the presidency, and US support helped him to maintain it (as well as to escape retribution for the crimes he committed before 1991), his ascension to power was independent of the US.
I agree with you overall, but please, stick to the actual facts. They're damning enough. There's a long enough laundry list of countries where the US actually did help to overthrow democratically elected leaders and replace them with bloody-handed dictators. Adding false ones only lets people who want to believe that the US is solely a force for good, freedom, and liberty in the world like they've been brainwashed to believe ignore the times our government has chosen to act as the enemy of those ideals.
For instance, if the constitution said that Congress can pass laws to protect decency, the 1st amendment would be de facto restricted.
I disagree. In that case, Congress would have the responsibility to pass laws protecting decency that do not restrict freedom of speech, religion, or the press. Somehow. The First Amendment restrictions on Congress don't disappear just because Congress has a responsibility to do something that appears to require restricting speech. Hence, we have fair use rights to copyrighted materials. Congress would be required to obey both Constitutional clauses. The Constitution is one document, and unless an Amendment specifically changes an earlier Amendment or the body (such as the repeal of Prohibition), every part of the Constitution carries equal weight to every other part.
Actually, the question is where does the Constitution grant the US government the power to restrict the speech of the members of a Columbian group? The answer, of course, is that it doesn't, which means any attempt by the US government to do so is unconstitutional.
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There's nothing wrong with teaching the Christian creation myth in a literature, social studies, or history class along with the other creation myths. It doesn't belong anywhere near a biology class, though.
Yeah, but the "Compact Disc" logo is a trademark. They shortly won't be able to keep BMG from manufacturing Crippled Discs, but they CAN keep them from applying the "Compact Disc" logo or using the term in any advertising.
The patent expiration also assumes that Phillips hasn't taken out other modified CD-based patents more recently. If so, they might still be able to keep BMG from manufacturing CDs. Look at the games drug companies play with the patent system to keep generics off the market, I don't see any reason Phillips couldn't do the same thing with CDs.
This is plain ludicrous. The 85th percentile speed (i.e., the
speed 85% of people go less than) will rise if you raise the speed
limit, as has been tested repeatedly.
This is a myth. See the US DOT study. This study determined that changing speed limits did not significantly affect the speed of the average driver or the fastest drivers, only the slowest drivers. It also determined that the effect of raising speed limits was inconclusive but tended to lower accidents, while the effect of lowering speed limits was likewise inconclusive but tended to raise the accident rate. Even if your scheme actually caused people to drive slower, the odds are that all that would accomplish is to make the roads less safe. It is also a fact that the fastest drivers have significantly fewer accidents per mile than the slowest drivers.
Speeding does not cause accidents. It makes accidents caused by other behaviors more severe. Given this, it is those other behaviors (including, but not limited to: alcohol, weaving through traffic, tailgating, and refusing to move right for faster traffic) which should be ticketed. But what are the majority of tickets given out for? Speeding.
Repeat offenders never do, for any crime.
Neither do people who violate unjust laws. Speeders fall into the second category. Why should I feel guilty? You never bothered to explain that. As to your crack-brained schemes, how about we just set the speed limits to levels which are reasonable, rather than turning the majority of the country into criminals for the sake of funding the police departments?
Your entire post is based on the premise that travelling faster than the speed limit is inherently unsafe and should be prevented. You have not proved this premise. Please do so if you expect anyone to treat you seriously.
A lot of people have managed to legitimize it in their own minds, which is what the AC you were responding to was saying.
Nope. One of the first things the NSDAP did upon taking power was criminalizing abortion, which had been legal in Germany.
Correcting myself: six million Jews, six million "other".
Really? There are pro-choice sites that encourage women to go out and get pregnant just so they can have an abortion? Perhaps you'd care to point me to one? Advocating that abortion remain legal is completely different from advocating abortion, and pro-choicers believe in the first, no matter how badly anti-choice types want to pretend otherwise.
Oh, and there's a consensus that the murder of adult human beings is wrong. There's no such consensus about the removal of a blob of barely differentiated cells.
You can't. Now exactly WHAT the fuck did that have to do with the post yoe were responding to? Oh, and it was six million people. Romani, homosexuals, communists, and the disabled are people too.
Imagine if Newsweek sent you that mail about your Time subscription, making it look like a Time bill, in order to get you to change your newsweekly subscription to Newsweek instead of Time. That's basically what Domain Registry of [your country/continent here] is doing. It's borderline fraudulent, they've got an extensive history of doing it in multiple countries, and IMO they should have been hit a lot harder than with just a reprimand.
1. Yes he does. His identity, in order to avoid illegal retribution, which is more the rule than the exception for whistleblowers who have been identified.
2. What gave you the idea that doctor-patient privilege was Constitutionally based? It's based on tradition and human rights, the same as a reporter refusing to identify his source. It's just that it doesn't have the same protection in law.
3. Reread the Fifth Amendment. And insert an overused but nonetheless appropriate Ben Franklin quote for the rest.
5. Yes, governments need secrets. But not very often, and unless there's a clear and present danger to US citizens or agent, the government doesn't have the right to keep something secret. The US government is responsible to the US citizenry, not the other way around.
4. Depends on which agencies you're talking about. If you're talking about the police and the justice system, then yes, they were the reason for the US rank.
Uh, I suggest YOU read it before you post. The article supports ending copyright completely. Barring that, it expresses opposition to continually increasing copyright terms, and it can be assumed that the author would like copyright terms returned to sane lengths of time, rather than potentially two average lifetimes.
Legal rights do not make up the entirity of "rights," that term also includes moral and philosophical rights. You're talking about the former, I'm talking about the latter. Had you bothered to read the dictionary entry yourself, you would have noticed that that entry refers to concepts like "tradition" and "morality." Furthermore, "justice" is not a synonym for "law"; if this were not true, an unjust law would be impossible by definition. As an illustration, blacks had no legal right to sit at the front of the bus through the first half of this century. They had every moral right to do so. Similarly, I have no legal right to break an unjust law. I have every moral right to do so. You appear to be claiming that there is no legal right to break the law, which is rather redundant.
Here's my claim, nice and simple: I believe that I have both a moral right and a moral obligation to violate unjust laws. Contrary to your claim, I am not using the terms as synonyms, I am claiming that both apply. I further believe that the speed laws in the United States are unjust for the following reasons: They are set far lower than a safe speed for a competent driver on almost every single road in the country. They are set this low not in order to improve driver saftey, since it has been demonstrated that the safety effect is neutral to actually reducing safety, but in order to guarantee employment for police and to provide police with the ability to search any vehicle regardless of the Fourth Amendment. I believe that forcing people to make the choice between their own safety and becoming criminals for these purposes is unjust. I believe that the speed laws in the US force people to make that choice and are, therefore, unjust. As the laws are unjust, I claim I have both a moral right and a moral obligation to disobey them where I can do so without endangering others.
Will you admit to improper use of the term "right?"
A "Right" implies that there are no consequences to said action, no? Semantically, you are incorrect in saying that you have the Right to pick-and-choose which laws you obey.
No, I won't, because I didn't. No consequences? Umm... The American civil rights movement. Ghandi. McCarthyism. Tienanmen Square. Would you like me to go on? There is no such implication in the term "right." In fact, it's quite regularly the case that excercising rights such as free speech, free assembly, freedom of the press, or privacy have serious negative consequences, legal and otherwise.
Having the Right to do something is not the same as having "no moral responsibility" to obey an unjust legislation.
Really? What's the difference? I believe I have the right to disobey unjust legislation, and several centuries of western philosophy happens to agree with me. On what basis do you assert a moral or philosophical, rather than simply a legal, obligation to obey an unjust law?
Not at all. I simply suggest that if people believe cameras will catch them when they speed, extremely reckless behaviour will decrease over time. Maybe not with red-light cameras, but how about speed enforcement cameras?
/. and anything that even implies that some authority can see what you're doing is WRONG, Police are corrupt, and our rights are constantly stripped away with no recourse. Seriously, It's not as if we live in Iraq and we can't elect lawmakers to change problematic legislation. If you believe that's impossible and you won't bother to try, then I can't sympathize. Sorry.
Might want to pick a better example next time, then. The one you gave is actually a counterexample.
Also, I tend to disagree with you. Extremely reckless behavior is most often comitted by people who are under the influence, or "emotionally disturbed." Either way, if they don't care about that minor death drawback, I don't think tickets will deter them.
If red-light cameras are introduced into a system, they are done so obstensibly at our (the citizenry) request. If the cameras cause an increase in accidents, THAT is the flaw in the system. Determine why (besides existing) they cause that accident increase. It's probably human behaviour, right? Can't we build slack into a system, maybe a number of warnings per year before the tickets start showing up in the mail? I don't have the answer, but I believe the idea that "It's broken, throw it away" is not the solution.
First off, if you believe that's how governments work, I've got a few thousand shares in a major energy corporation to sell you. Second, if you introduce a change to a generally-working system, and the change makes the system operate less efficiently, the logical thing to do is to undo the change, not to try to find a band-aid fix for it.
It's not our right as citizens to pick and choose which laws we obey simply based on our beliefs.
Yes it damn well is, if I'm willing to accept the consequences. Small injustices, large injustices: it doesn't matter. I have no moral responsibility to obey an unjust law.
Oh, but this is
Decided to end your post with an ad hominem strawman instead of a red herring this time, I see. Well, at least you're branching out.
Would you mind pointing out said links?
Hmm... Coulda sworn I saw more than that one. OK, I was wrong on that one.
Now, since you're the one making the positive claim, would you care to post evidence that cameras do deter crime? And no, people being in jail isn't deterrence.
You gloss over that by understating it as
No, I didn't. You're twisting the meaning of the word in order to make it support your conclusion.
Firstly, cameras are a highly controversial measure that hardly wins majority support whenever they are proposed: Claiming that it's a big political move rings a little (err...a lot) false.
It wins big-time with the soccer mom crowd, the old-people crowd, and the law-and-order crowd. All of these are large blocks of active voters. The "if you're not doing anything illegal.." idiots gain more ground in the US every day. Furthermore, it's not just London-style surveillance cameras that the story applies to, it also applies to things like red-light cameras which are pretty much guaranteed support. The only people opposed to measures like these are civil libertarians, who are, unfortunately, a vocal minority. Sorry man, cameras are vote-getters in most urban areas.
Nope, I wasn't aware that accidents and fatal accidents decreased when speed limits increased. Statistics can prove anything, 40% of all people know that. But seriously, I would appreciate a link to the factual data that you quote above.
Can't get to Google, so I can't find any links.
However, check out an NHTSA study indicating that indicates that traffic finds a safe speed at which it flows regardless of speed limits, and that speed limits are 5-15 MPH below this safe speed. In addition, it determined that raising speed limits caused accidents to decrease slightly and lowering them caused them to increase slightly. While it doesn't claim that the accident rate changes are conclusive, it does conclude that raising speed limits doesn't increase accident rates.
Your claims of traffic flow rates and red-light camera accidents--if true, I'll assume for now that they are--are at most flaws in a system we agree are necessary in our society. We should address these problems in the system instead of criticising the errors as inherent.
Linked to in a Slashdot story on red light cameras last week
Red light cameras are not an integral part of the traffic light system. There is agreement that the traffic light system needs to exist, there is no such agreement on red light cameras. These aren't flaws in the system. They're unnecessary modifications to the system, intended to profit the police and the camera manufacturers, that are causing an increase in accidents rather than the decrease that was promised.
For clarity, are you arguing that because traffic flows faster than the posted limits, we should abolish speed limits entirely? Or instead, increase the limits themselves
I actually do feel that that's a good idea. Replace speed limits with posted speed guides, and only ticket speeding when it's fast enough to constitute reckless driving. Let's have the police ticket people who are tailgating, weaving through traffic, refusing to move right out of the passing lane, and the other behaviors that, unlike speeding, actually do cause accidents. That's not going to happen, but speed limits badly need to be increased by 10-15 MPH in the US. (See the NHTSA study referenced above.)
Let me ask YOU: when compliance with a law is so rare that it is actually considered probable cause of illegal activity in at least than one state, isn't it pretty damn likely that the law is the problem? (Drug transporters have begun scrupulously obeying traffic laws in order to avoid police having an excuse to pull them over. The cops have, therefore, begun pulling over people who are driving the speed limit. As I recall, the Florida state Supreme Court upheld at least one conviction, which means that obeying the law is now legally considered probable cause of illegal activity in Florida.)
Incidentially, three teens in my community died this summer when the drunk-driver of the car (travelling 80mph in a 35mph zone) ran a red light, slid under a semi-trailer, and ran into a Bank. I believe that if we had red light cameras in our town for the last five years or so, we may have prevented something like this from happening. Wouldn't people be more careful of getting caught?
Are you trolling? The guy was drunk, doing almost triple the speed limit, and you think he would've stopped because of a red light camera? That suggestion is, to be honest with you, utterly absurd.
I guess I care more that peoples lives are saved than worrying if people have to fight unfair speeding or "menial" traffic violations.
And I guess I care more about ensuring that people are allowed to keep their hard earned money instead of funding corrupt police departments, and ensuring that the Fourth and Fifth Amendments still apply to people who choose to drive rather than moving the US even farther toward a police state. Aren't red herrings fun?
Like it or not, cameras are extremely effective criminal deterrence
No, they're not. People have posted links elsewhere in this story pointing out that cameras in public places have little or no deterrence effect. Uniformed policemen have a deterrence effect, cameras do nothing for deterrence. They make it a bit easier to convict someone who's already perpetrated a crime, if the criminal didn't know the camera was there and didn't take precautions. Mostly, however, the purpose of the cameras in London and New York is to make idiots feel that their politicians are trying to protect them, so that the politicians will be reelected.
They publically threatin physical harm to those they disagree with. BTW tree spiking which the ELF proclaims as a great thing has killed several men.
Cite, please, and give in-context quotes. I've seen those claims made with some frequency, but I've never seen anyone able to actually back them up. All I've ever seen is "Well, I heard on TV..."
ALF's fourth principle is "TO take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human." Do you have any real evidence whatsoever that they don't follow that principle?
I'm not fond of tree spiking either, but the fact is it's not really a terrorist act the way ELF does it. They announce that trees in an area are spiked in order to prevent people from being injured. The goal is to prevent logging, not to actually injure someone, or to create political change. If people get hurt, it's because the company sent loggers into an area despite ELF's warnings, or because someone other than ELF spiked the trees. It's stupid, dangerous, and self-destructive, but calling it a terrorist act is misusing the word to further an agenda. And as I said, I have a problem with that.
Are the pro-logging organizations that both frequently threaten and actually inflict violence against environmentalists terrorist organizations? How about the cops? If so, why aren't they being targeted like environmental groups are?
They are Oficially on the terrorist watch list and have been on it long before 9/11.
Yeah, and so is Take Back the Streets (or at least they were). So either A) holding impromptu block parties is a terrorist act, or B) groups are placed on that list due to leftist political views, rather than actual threat of violence. Which do YOU think is more likely?
Tell ya what. When ELF or ALF actually kill someone, then you can call them terrorists. Until then, the proper word is "vandal". Terrorists injure and kill people, vandals injure and destroy property. Calling these groups "terrorists" is fear-mongering, nothing more. Furthermore, it continues the trend of devaluing the word "terrorist" to mean "someone I, personally, disagree with and want to silence," rather than the truly evil person a terrorist is.
You must remember that laws passed by congress do not hold any sway outside the U.S. and in reverse, congress can indeed pass laws that restrict speech outside the U.S
Huh? Because they don't have the power to pass laws that affect other citizens of countries, they have the power to pass laws that affect citizens of other countries?
Oh, and unless I'm mistaken, we're currently discussing a law that restricts the speech of Columbian citizens.
Therefore, statements by FARC members who are Colombian citizens living in Colombia are not affected for better or worse by the U.S. Constitution in any way, and it's not a violation of any Constitutional right (in a legal sense, at least) if the U.S. government restricts it, since the U.S. Constitution cannot grant rights to Colombian citizens.
The thing you keep failing to address is simple. U.S. laws and the Constitution apply only to U.S. citizens/nationals and those residing on U.S. soil.
No, I've addressed it several times. You just don't seem to want to accept it. As I've said before, it's based on the false premise that the government has any power unless it's restricted in the Constitution. That view is the exact opposite of the truth. The federal government has only the powers granted by the Constitution. The Constitution does not grant rights to citizens. We have those rights anyway as humans, and ALL humans have those rights. The Constitution grants powers to government, and any power it doesn't specifically grant is forbidden to the federal government. The Bill of Rights further limits the power of the government by restricting any number of actions. Let me emphasize that: the First Amendment is NOT a grant of rights to US citizens, it is a restriction on the power of the government. The US government does not have the Constitutional authority to pass any law restricting free expression. The Supreme Court has ruled that there are cases where an exemption to this exists (incitement to riot, for example), but these exemptions are very limited and, quite simply, don't apply just because Ashcroft wants to claim that someone is a terrorist.
Ashcroft and Fox News him keep repeating that mantra that the Constitution doesn't apply to non-citizens. Strictly speaking, they're right. But then, it doesn't apply to US citizens either. It doesn't need to, we have human rights, including the right to free speech, regardless of what the Constitution says. What Ashcroft tries so very hard to ignore is that the Constitution damn well does apply to him. The Constitution doesn't say what WE can do, it says what HE can and can't do. And one of the things he can't do is limit the right to free speech.
Nope, that's exactly wrong. The Constitution grants powers to the government, and it's both assumed throughout and stated explicitly in the Tenth Amendment that the federal government doesn't have any power that hasn't been granted in the Constitution. If it's not permitted to the government, it's denied. Since the Constitution doesn't allow the government to restrict the speech of non-US citizens, it's unconstitutional for the government to do so. In addition, the wording of the First Amendment says nothing whatsoever about citizenship. It explicitly forbids Congress from passing a law that restricts freedom of speech. The Supreme Court has ruled that other rights take precedence over freedom of speech in certain very limited content-neutral cases, but I doubt this case would fall under one of those exemptions.
Even if this *didn't* restrict freedom of expression for US citizens, it would still be unconstitutional.
Sorry, man, FARC are terrorists just as much as the government. The fact that our media reports FARC's terrorist actions (not to mention the terrorist actions the Columbian government frames FARC for), but not those of the government and the corporations, doesn't mean that FARC's actions don't exist. There really aren't any good sides in the Columbian power struggle these days.
Now, granted, if the US government hadn't decided to support the murdering dictators in office today it might have been a different story, but the fact remains that FARC are, in general, not the kind of people you want to have over for a pizza.
Oh, and it would be more accurate to say that the war on (some) drugs was a convenient excuse for the US government to install and support a Columbian government friendly to US industry.
The US then uses the CIA to overthrow the lawful government of Iraq and installs the butcher Sodamn Insane. This was done to counter the influence of Iran
Actually, that's incorrect. Hussein took the presidency in 1979, the same year as the revolution in Iran, after years of seeking power. He was already easily the second most powerful person in Iraq, due to his own ambition and that of his family. While it was convenient for the US to support him after he did attain the presidency, and US support helped him to maintain it (as well as to escape retribution for the crimes he committed before 1991), his ascension to power was independent of the US.
I agree with you overall, but please, stick to the actual facts. They're damning enough. There's a long enough laundry list of countries where the US actually did help to overthrow democratically elected leaders and replace them with bloody-handed dictators. Adding false ones only lets people who want to believe that the US is solely a force for good, freedom, and liberty in the world like they've been brainwashed to believe ignore the times our government has chosen to act as the enemy of those ideals.
For instance, if the constitution said that Congress can pass laws to protect decency, the 1st amendment would be de facto restricted.
I disagree. In that case, Congress would have the responsibility to pass laws protecting decency that do not restrict freedom of speech, religion, or the press. Somehow. The First Amendment restrictions on Congress don't disappear just because Congress has a responsibility to do something that appears to require restricting speech. Hence, we have fair use rights to copyrighted materials. Congress would be required to obey both Constitutional clauses. The Constitution is one document, and unless an Amendment specifically changes an earlier Amendment or the body (such as the repeal of Prohibition), every part of the Constitution carries equal weight to every other part.
Actually, the question is where does the Constitution grant the US government the power to restrict the speech of the members of a Columbian group? The answer, of course, is that it doesn't, which means any attempt by the US government to do so is unconstitutional.