Ah, memories of Desqview
on
Who Needs XFree86?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
At least visually, Twin is reminiscent of Desqview.
Ah, the distant memories....Desqview on a DOS machine with a few megs of "Expanded Memeory" : Brief in one window, a Borland compiler in another, Lotus Magellan in a third window, and maybe a debugger somewhere.
This troll has elements of a reasonable idea, but tries to support them with mistakes and misinterpretations:
>> the ISS (which is an utter joke compared to Skylab or Mir) was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit...
"Utter joke"? It's reasonable to ask what ISS can do that Skylab or Mir couldn't, but making unbuttressed assertions isn't reasonable.
ISS is not in a "rapidly-decaying orbit". As a satellite in low-Earth-orbit, ISS requires occasional use of onboard thrusters to maintain the correct orbit. This is common.
>> Most of the satellites that are "launched" by the shuttle suffer from the design constraint that they have to fit into the friggin' bay AND have room for the accompanying boosters that will put them into their real orbit once the shuttle lets them out. Again, the shuttle can't go high enough for real deployment.
Height has nothing to do with it. Orbit is achieved by virtue of velocity. While it can be argued that some satellites didn't need to be launched via the shuttle, it is silly to argue that satellites have been compromised by being ddiesinged to fit in the shuttle's cargo bay. All satellites must be designed to fit in the craft that launches them, whether a shuttle or an expendable booster.
>> The safety record sucks.
It is naive to expect spacce travel to have a safety record that even approaches that of commercial air travel. This is risky and experimental work, and we should accept that. A safety record that approximates that of the X-series of manned experimental aircraft would be more than acceptable.
>> Scrap the silly "space-plane"...
The purpose of putting wings on a spacecraft is recovery and reuse. Otherwise, they're more trouble than they are worth.
The real problem with the U.S. space effort is that it has lacked a clearly defined mission since the Nixon administration told NASA it had to cut its funding, following the initial lunar missions, from about 3% to 1% of GDP. That played havoc with NASA'a scheduled remaining lunar missions, with its plans to return to the moon for long durations and possible permanent basing, and for logical and incremental increase of low-Earth-orbit and trans-lunar infrastrcture. Hence, the space station and the shuttle, and none of the rest happened.
Here's what we need:
1. A clearly defined mission -- the President needs to direct NASA and the nation to reach a specific target within a specific timeframe. E.g, permanent manned Lunar presence, manned asteroid flyby and return, a manned Mars mission. The target is less important than the fact that it exists, thereby providing reason to build and use the infrastructure needed to get there.
2. Recognize that the purpose of getting to orbit is to buld and construct equiment to accomplish the assigned mission. (Yes, you can do scientific research there, but that is only incidentakl to the primary purpose. Trying to justify manned presence in Earth orbit as "reasearch" is tantamount to justifying the 747 as an airborne laboratory.
3. Build boosters than get the most stuff to orbit at the least cost. Don't fixate on reuse. If that's cheaper, fine, but don't build over-complex hardware simply to ahere to the mantra of reuse. If that means building contemporay versions of the Saturn and Nova booster, so be it.
4. Ditto for hauling people to low-Earth orbit. Once you're there, how you got there is not important. Use big, cheap capsules.
Re:Why you gottat go and do a stupid thing like th
on
SCO DOS'ed
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· Score: 1
..if the boxes had been broken into, it would have tarnished the reputation of SCO...
Nuts. It would only have tarnished the reputation of the who did the hacking.
All this gloating about DOS'ing SCO only makes the Linux crowd look like a bunch of adolescent boys.
Do you think the hostility toward Lindows that characterizes some members of the Linux "community" can be attributed to their desire that Linux remain a "geeks only" cult object?
Re:USSR Responsible for Cold War, Krawtchouk Abuse
on
Krawtchouk's Mind
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· Score: 1
The Iran-Iraq war wasn't inevitable. Saddam simply attacked Iran.
It would be nice if you and all the other democracy loathing brats who seem compelled to stand against anything that the U.S. stands for would actually suggest doing something to improve things, rather than just work to maintain the status quo.
What would you have done about Saddam? Wait for the Iraqis to rise up and overthrow him? That'd be a long wait. Viable totalitarian regimes cannot be removed by internal revlot.
Re:USSR Responsible for Cold War, Krawtchouk Abuse
on
Krawtchouk's Mind
·
· Score: 1
The UN allows Iraq and all the others to sit in the General Assembly and be treated with the dignity and respect that should be reserved for legitimate regimes.
But then, what else should we expect from an unelected and undemocractic organization?
As for your assertions about U.S. manipulation of Saddam, prove it.
>>...otherwise, you just have the rule of the strongest on the international scene.
This applies only if you believe that individual the soverieignty of individual nation is inviolate, and that the international community has no right to police itself.
What is needed is an elected extra-national international body with the means and the authority to police the globe.
Re:Similar things continue...
on
Krawtchouk's Mind
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
>> What if the totalitarian government was voted in by the majority of the population in a free and fair election, with full knowledge that the party was totalitarian?.
Doesn't change a thing. Totalitarian regimes threaten the well-being of the people they rule, and block the spread of true democracy. Failing to eliminate an elected totalitarian regime is an analog to failing to treat someone who has inflicted himself with plague.
And, yes, so long as people who profess to support so-called international law (show me the elected legislature that creates international law, ok?) and the UN thinks it is more important to respect borders and sovereignty than it is to eliminate totalitarian regimes protected by those borders, I'll call it lack of courage and will.
The world needs to understand that viable totalitarian regimes cannot be overthrown by internal revolt. They must be eliminated by external forces and pressure. That's the lesson of Iraq. Saddam's WMD is a symptom of totalitarianism, but not the disease itself.
Re:USSR Responsible for Cold War, Krawtchouk Abuse
on
Krawtchouk's Mind
·
· Score: 1
>> Some revisionist historians will disagree, but can they truthfully imagine the invasion of Iraq happening if the United States had been a free and democratic nation with no expansionist aims?
Sure thing, because international law and the UN work to sustain and support regimes liike Saddam's. Until that changes -- and we can rely on international law and the UN to actually do something to eliminate dictatorships -- the U.S. must go it alone.
And, as far as I can see, the only things the U.S. wants to expand is democracy, not empire. Empire is a racist concept, and a central element of Asian and European history. Both continents have spawned fools who believed they should rule the world. Today, this anti-democractic racist ideology has morphed into the anti-globalization movement, which is characterized by a desire to "preserve" the culture of non-Western people, thereby keeping them "in their place".
The greatest failing of international law, the UN and the entire current international structure is its demonstrated willingness to respect sovereignity more than the welfare of individuals. The world decries the evils of people like Stalin, Kim, Castro, Saddam, Mugabe, etc., but lacks the courage and will to remove them. It's excuse: We Cannot Violate The Sovereignty of Any Member of the International Community.
This is nonsense. All totalitarians regimes are illegitimate, have no right to exist, and should be eliminated. Instead, the UN gives them seats in the General Assembly, treats them as peers of legitimate states, and serves to sustain and encourage their behavior.
Thes people pose a threat to everyone, and the world needs to get rid of them.
USSR Responsible for Cold War, Krawtchouk Abuse
on
Krawtchouk's Mind
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Krawtchouk's woes can't be attributed to "the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain...".
His obscurity, yes. But not his abuse by the Soviet Union. Hemos' casual paraphrasing of one line in the Reviews' piece serves to apportion responsibility for the Cold War equally among the Soviets and the U.S. This is wrong. Soviet totalitarianism was responsible for both Krawtchouk's abuse and his obscurity, while Soviet military occupation of one-half of Europe, the imposition of Soviet totalitarianism there and an expressed intent to eliminate democratic governments elsewhere were the causes of the Cold War.
Some revisionist historians -- who always seem to me to be embarrassed by democracy -- will disagree, but can they truthfully imagine the Cold War happening if the Soviet Union had been a free and democratic nation with no expansionist aims?
Verizon isn't being asked to destroy anyone's privacy. They are being asked to deliver the identity of an individual that the state has sufficient reason to believe has commited illegal acts using Verizon's network.
The same logic applies apart from the network-centric world of Slashdot. Suppose someone broke into a Walmart and stole a rifle. If he then shot three people with that rifle, would Walmart be threatening anyone's prviacy by handing over a surveillance tape to the police? No, they wouldn't.
No, I'm not arguing for moral relativism, or moral absolutism either. Just stating that a lot of people seem to translate respect for the opinions of others into complete rejection of their own standards. Just because you respect another opinion doesn't mean it's correct and yours is wrong, but we seem to have a lot of people who behave that way.
>> However, when compared to Hitler and Stalin, Saddam Hussein is the diet coke of evil..
As far as I'm concerned, the number of people a ruler kills is irrelevant. Hitler would have been just as evil for gassing one Jew as for gassing 6 million. The evil lies in the nature of the act. Repetitive evil simply increases the scale of the act, but not it's fundamental nature. By that token, Saddam merits association with Hitler and Stalin. (Even if the U.S. did try to manipulate him during the Iran-Iraq War; also see the U.S. alliancewith Stalin dduring WWII), and even if Saddam did think the Kurds he killed were treasonous. There was honor in being treasonous to Saddam.)
There is no reason to believe that any moral concept must be accepted by all in order to be accepted by any one individual. To believe that requires a belief that some sort of extra-human authority exists which has created the one, true, moral standard, and then hidden it from most of humanity. (Else why are there competing standards of ethics and morality?)
An individual can, and probably should, have absolute moral standards. But the fact that others will hold different, sometimes contradictory standards, shouldn't lead to an assumption that all moral standards are equivalent. Believe in what ever you believe in, but don't roll over just because you're supposed to be tolerant.
The only difference I can see between Saddam and Hitler and Stalin is in the number of people each murdered. A difference of scope, not nature. Saddam appears to have killed in the low seven figures, consideably less than Hitler and Stalin, Had the situation in Iraq more closely paralleled that of Germany or the Soviet Union, I'm sure that Saddam would have killed just as many.
Orr, are you denying that Ghandi and King would have been murdered by any one of those three barbarians?
I don't see any value in quibbling about intent or semantics. Lie, untruth, falsehood, whatever. The poster asserted something that is untrue. Accepting your definition of "lie", he must either know that his statement is untrue, be so deceived as to actually think the U.S. is a police state, or to have, in effect, redefined the meaning of "police state" to meet his own agenda.
You seem to be arguing that majority opinion is, by definition, oppressive of those who hold other opinions. That is not the case. But, even if it was, where has the American pro-war majority actually acted to oppress the anti-war minority? And what acts of legislation have been approved to support or mandate that oppression?
The Constitution exists to protect the right to free speech. It does not exist to give someone the courage to speak. If someone has an unjustified fear of speaking, or is indifferent, or too shy, that's an emotional issue, not a political issue.
No one is "coming" for anyone in the U.S. who has simply exercised their right to speak. Join al-Qaeda, exchange bomb-making plans, raise money for organzations pledged to kill Americans, threaten and conspire to kill Americans -- those are criminal actions, not speech, and are not protected by the Constitution.
The U.S. has detained people who have declared war on America, who considere it sacred duty to kill Americans, and who have taken up arms against Americans in pursuit of those aims. The overwhelming majority are not U.S. citizens and should not expect to be treated as such.
The U.S. has also detained a very, very few U.S. citizens who have also declared war on America and taken up arms against it. Most countries call that treason.
Whether or not the rights of these few U.S. nationals have been abused is debatable, but I see nothing going on in the U.S. that justifies a claim that this is a police state.
To the contrary, there are many moral and ethical absolutes. Everyone decides what they are for themselves. That, however, has little to do with how people actually behave. People are obviously unable to adhere completely to their own moral beliefs. Add to that the fact that many people actually don't feel any remorse in killing, espcially if they benefit by the deaths. How is a firm moral conviction in the sanctity of life, absent a willingness to act to defend lives from those who don't share that belief, actually going to change anything? For every Ghandi and King, there is a Hitler, Stalin or Saddam. Anyone of those three would have shot Ghandi and King early on.
Finally, there should not be a connection between tolerance and holding firm individual opinions. Sadly, though, many people seem so driven to recognize the right of everyone to speak for themselves that they lack the courage to open their mouths and disagree. This gives sanction and support to many undeserving and/or loathsome notions.
>> Are you expressing the belief then that anything that is not 100% correct and accurate to be, by definition a lie?
Yep. The poster said the U.S. is a police state. That's untrue.
The poster based this untrue assertion largely on a friend's detention for failure to pay a traffic ticket and driving with a suspended license. Those are crimes. He might have made a plausible case that the punishment didn't fit the crime (although he gave us few details) but, even, then, it's ludicrous to extrapolate that one incident into a claim that the U.S. is a police state.
Re: Mills -- I see no evidence that the pro-war majority has legistated unfair restictions of the antiwar minority. Other posters have asserted that their free speeh is inhibited by Presidential speeches and majority opinion. If that's tue, that's a personal emotional issue, not a Constitutional issue. The right to free speech won't do you much good if you lack the courage to open your mouth.
And, I got the point about the Gandalf quote. It's just another sophomoric rephrasing of "Life is good, killing is bad". That's all well and good, but does nothing to stop a world full of people that are quite willing to kill for their own benefit. Thumping your chest about your own purported moral superiority is a particularly useless activity.
"Rational debate" is no one's obligation. Some things are absolute and not subjectt to debate. (Unless, of course, you believe that having tolerance for other views equates to holding no opinions yourself.)
The original poster claims the U.S. is a police state. He is demonstrably wrong. This is a matter of fact, not opinion. Either he knows he is wrong, and insists on willfully lieing, or he doesn't know he is wrong, and is lieing because he is ignorant. In either case, I have no interest or eithical interest in debating this.
Well, the guy's post was clumsy, but I read it to say his friend hadn't paid a traffic ticket, was pulled over for that, and was found to be driving with a suspended license.
Even if the failure to pay the ticket was the cause of the suspension, I r-e-a-l-l-y doubt he had not received some kind of warning that failure to pay could, eventually, cause his license to be suspended. I've only had a few tickets, and remember that the paperwork was full of all kinds of warnings about failure to pay or to appear in court.
Finally, even if some jurisdiction was stupid enough to suspend this guy's license without warning, that in no way jusifies the poster's claim that the U.S. is a police state.
Slashdot Mirror
At least visually, Twin is reminiscent of Desqview.
Ah, the distant memories....Desqview on a DOS machine with a few megs of "Expanded Memeory" : Brief in one window, a Borland compiler in another, Lotus Magellan in a third window, and maybe a debugger somewhere.
Good stuff, all of 'em.
...I'll sell you tickets to look at mine.
Beats a couple hundred bucks spent for that hardware.
This troll has elements of a reasonable idea, but tries to support them with mistakes and misinterpretations:
>> the ISS (which is an utter joke compared to Skylab or Mir) was placed into a rapidly-decaying orbit...
"Utter joke"? It's reasonable to ask what ISS can do that Skylab or Mir couldn't, but making unbuttressed assertions isn't reasonable.
ISS is not in a "rapidly-decaying orbit". As a satellite in low-Earth-orbit, ISS requires occasional use of onboard thrusters to maintain the correct orbit. This is common.
>> Most of the satellites that are "launched" by the shuttle suffer from the design constraint that they have to fit into the friggin' bay AND have room for the accompanying boosters that will put them into their real orbit once the shuttle lets them out. Again, the shuttle can't go high enough for real deployment.
Height has nothing to do with it. Orbit is achieved by virtue of velocity. While it can be argued that some satellites didn't need to be launched via the shuttle, it is silly to argue that satellites have been compromised by being ddiesinged to fit in the shuttle's cargo bay. All satellites must be designed to fit in the craft that launches them, whether a shuttle or an expendable booster.
>> The safety record sucks.
It is naive to expect spacce travel to have a safety record that even approaches that of commercial air travel. This is risky and experimental work, and we should accept that. A safety record that approximates that of the X-series of manned experimental aircraft would be more than acceptable.
>> Scrap the silly "space-plane"...
The purpose of putting wings on a spacecraft is recovery and reuse. Otherwise, they're more trouble than they are worth.
The real problem with the U.S. space effort is that it has lacked a clearly defined mission since the Nixon administration told NASA it had to cut its funding, following the initial lunar missions, from about 3% to 1% of GDP. That played havoc with NASA'a scheduled remaining lunar missions, with its plans to return to the moon for long durations and possible permanent basing, and for logical and incremental increase of low-Earth-orbit and trans-lunar infrastrcture. Hence, the space station and the shuttle, and none of the rest happened.
Here's what we need:
1. A clearly defined mission -- the President needs to direct NASA and the nation to reach a specific target within a specific timeframe. E.g, permanent manned Lunar presence, manned asteroid flyby and return, a manned Mars mission. The target is less important than the fact that it exists, thereby providing reason to build and use the infrastructure needed to get there.
2. Recognize that the purpose of getting to orbit is to buld and construct equiment to accomplish the assigned mission. (Yes, you can do scientific research there, but that is only incidentakl to the primary purpose. Trying to justify manned presence in Earth orbit as "reasearch" is tantamount to justifying the 747 as an airborne laboratory.
3. Build boosters than get the most stuff to orbit at the least cost. Don't fixate on reuse. If that's cheaper, fine, but don't build over-complex hardware simply to ahere to the mantra of reuse. If that means building contemporay versions of the Saturn and Nova booster, so be it.
4. Ditto for hauling people to low-Earth orbit. Once you're there, how you got there is not important. Use big, cheap capsules.
..if the boxes had been broken into, it would have tarnished the reputation of SCO...
Nuts. It would only have tarnished the reputation of the who did the hacking.
All this gloating about DOS'ing SCO only makes the Linux crowd look like a bunch of adolescent boys.
>> Give me option number 2 any day.
Option Two would be pricing CD's at $30 and tunes at two bucks each.
Let the market decide. Apple owes nothing to no one.
Thank you for that display of geek bigotry.
Stick to machines, OK?
>> ...But this is an area where many feel the best strategy is to not get ahead at the expense of others
What "expense" has Robertson imposed on anyone else?
"Best strategy" for what? You're assuming a commonality of purpose that may not exist.
Do you think the hostility toward Lindows that characterizes some members of the Linux "community" can be attributed to their desire that Linux remain a "geeks only" cult object?
The Iran-Iraq war wasn't inevitable. Saddam simply attacked Iran.
It would be nice if you and all the other democracy loathing brats who seem compelled to stand against anything that the U.S. stands for would actually suggest doing something to improve things, rather than just work to maintain the status quo.
What would you have done about Saddam? Wait for the Iraqis to rise up and overthrow him? That'd be a long wait. Viable totalitarian regimes cannot be removed by internal revlot.
The UN allows Iraq and all the others to sit in the General Assembly and be treated with the dignity and respect that should be reserved for legitimate regimes.
But then, what else should we expect from an unelected and undemocractic organization?
As for your assertions about U.S. manipulation of Saddam, prove it.
>> ...otherwise, you just have the rule of the strongest on the international scene.
This applies only if you believe that individual the soverieignty of individual nation is inviolate, and that the international community has no right to police itself.
What is needed is an elected extra-national international body with the means and the authority to police the globe.
>> What if the totalitarian government was voted in by the majority of the population in a free and fair election, with full knowledge that the party was totalitarian? .
Doesn't change a thing. Totalitarian regimes threaten the well-being of the people they rule, and block the spread of true democracy. Failing to eliminate an elected totalitarian regime is an analog to failing to treat someone who has inflicted himself with plague.
And, yes, so long as people who profess to support so-called international law (show me the elected legislature that creates international law, ok?) and the UN thinks it is more important to respect borders and sovereignty than it is to eliminate totalitarian regimes protected by those borders, I'll call it lack of courage and will.
The world needs to understand that viable totalitarian regimes cannot be overthrown by internal revolt. They must be eliminated by external forces and pressure. That's the lesson of Iraq. Saddam's WMD is a symptom of totalitarianism, but not the disease itself.
>> Some revisionist historians will disagree, but can they truthfully imagine the invasion of Iraq happening if the United States had been a free and democratic nation with no expansionist aims?
Sure thing, because international law and the UN work to sustain and support regimes liike Saddam's. Until that changes -- and we can rely on international law and the UN to actually do something to eliminate dictatorships -- the U.S. must go it alone.
And, as far as I can see, the only things the U.S. wants to expand is democracy, not empire. Empire is a racist concept, and a central element of Asian and European history. Both continents have spawned fools who believed they should rule the world. Today, this anti-democractic racist ideology has morphed into the anti-globalization movement, which is characterized by a desire to "preserve" the culture of non-Western people, thereby keeping them "in their place".
You are absolutely correct.
The greatest failing of international law, the UN and the entire current international structure is its demonstrated willingness to respect sovereignity more than the welfare of individuals. The world decries the evils of people like Stalin, Kim, Castro, Saddam, Mugabe, etc., but lacks the courage and will to remove them. It's excuse: We Cannot Violate The Sovereignty of Any Member of the International Community.
This is nonsense. All totalitarians regimes are illegitimate, have no right to exist, and should be eliminated. Instead, the UN gives them seats in the General Assembly, treats them as peers of legitimate states, and serves to sustain and encourage their behavior.
Thes people pose a threat to everyone, and the world needs to get rid of them.
Krawtchouk's woes can't be attributed to "the Cold War mentality that infected much of society on both sides of the Iron Curtain...".
His obscurity, yes. But not his abuse by the Soviet Union. Hemos' casual paraphrasing of one line in the Reviews' piece serves to apportion responsibility for the Cold War equally among the Soviets and the U.S. This is wrong. Soviet totalitarianism was responsible for both Krawtchouk's abuse and his obscurity, while Soviet military occupation of one-half of Europe, the imposition of Soviet totalitarianism there and an expressed intent to eliminate democratic governments elsewhere were the causes of the Cold War.
Some revisionist historians -- who always seem to me to be embarrassed by democracy -- will disagree, but can they truthfully imagine the Cold War happening if the Soviet Union had been a free and democratic nation with no expansionist aims?
I read the Wired piece while I was waiting for the SpaceX site to load.
No.
Verizon isn't being asked to destroy anyone's privacy. They are being asked to deliver the identity of an individual that the state has sufficient reason to believe has commited illegal acts using Verizon's network.
The same logic applies apart from the network-centric world of Slashdot. Suppose someone broke into a Walmart and stole a rifle. If he then shot three people with that rifle, would Walmart be threatening anyone's prviacy by handing over a surveillance tape to the police? No, they wouldn't.
No, I'm not arguing for moral relativism, or moral absolutism either. Just stating that a lot of people seem to translate respect for the opinions of others into complete rejection of their own standards. Just because you respect another opinion doesn't mean it's correct and yours is wrong, but we seem to have a lot of people who behave that way.
.
>> However, when compared to Hitler and Stalin, Saddam Hussein is the diet coke of evil.
As far as I'm concerned, the number of people a ruler kills is irrelevant. Hitler would have been just as evil for gassing one Jew as for gassing 6 million. The evil lies in the nature of the act. Repetitive evil simply increases the scale of the act, but not it's fundamental nature. By that token, Saddam merits association with Hitler and Stalin. (Even if the U.S. did try to manipulate him during the Iran-Iraq War; also see the U.S. alliancewith Stalin dduring WWII), and even if Saddam did think the Kurds he killed were treasonous. There was honor in being treasonous to Saddam.)
There is no reason to believe that any moral concept must be accepted by all in order to be accepted by any one individual. To believe that requires a belief that some sort of extra-human authority exists which has created the one, true, moral standard, and then hidden it from most of humanity. (Else why are there competing standards of ethics and morality?)
An individual can, and probably should, have absolute moral standards. But the fact that others will hold different, sometimes contradictory standards, shouldn't lead to an assumption that all moral standards are equivalent. Believe in what ever you believe in, but don't roll over just because you're supposed to be tolerant.
The only difference I can see between Saddam and Hitler and Stalin is in the number of people each murdered. A difference of scope, not nature. Saddam appears to have killed in the low seven figures, consideably less than Hitler and Stalin, Had the situation in Iraq more closely paralleled that of Germany or the Soviet Union, I'm sure that Saddam would have killed just as many.
Orr, are you denying that Ghandi and King would have been murdered by any one of those three barbarians?
I don't see any value in quibbling about intent or semantics. Lie, untruth, falsehood, whatever. The poster asserted something that is untrue. Accepting your definition of "lie", he must either know that his statement is untrue, be so deceived as to actually think the U.S. is a police state, or to have, in effect, redefined the meaning of "police state" to meet his own agenda.
You seem to be arguing that majority opinion is, by definition, oppressive of those who hold other opinions. That is not the case. But, even if it was, where has the American pro-war majority actually acted to oppress the anti-war minority? And what acts of legislation have been approved to support or mandate that oppression?
The Constitution exists to protect the right to free speech. It does not exist to give someone the courage to speak. If someone has an unjustified fear of speaking, or is indifferent, or too shy, that's an emotional issue, not a political issue.
No one is "coming" for anyone in the U.S. who has simply exercised their right to speak. Join al-Qaeda, exchange bomb-making plans, raise money for organzations pledged to kill Americans, threaten and conspire to kill Americans -- those are criminal actions, not speech, and are not protected by the Constitution.
The U.S. has detained people who have declared war on America, who considere it sacred duty to kill Americans, and who have taken up arms against Americans in pursuit of those aims. The overwhelming majority are not U.S. citizens and should not expect to be treated as such.
The U.S. has also detained a very, very few U.S. citizens who have also declared war on America and taken up arms against it. Most countries call that treason.
Whether or not the rights of these few U.S. nationals have been abused is debatable, but I see nothing going on in the U.S. that justifies a claim that this is a police state.
To the contrary, there are many moral and ethical absolutes. Everyone decides what they are for themselves. That, however, has little to do with how people actually behave. People are obviously unable to adhere completely to their own moral beliefs. Add to that the fact that many people actually don't feel any remorse in killing, espcially if they benefit by the deaths. How is a firm moral conviction in the sanctity of life, absent a willingness to act to defend lives from those who don't share that belief, actually going to change anything? For every Ghandi and King, there is a Hitler, Stalin or Saddam. Anyone of those three would have shot Ghandi and King early on.
Finally, there should not be a connection between tolerance and holding firm individual opinions. Sadly, though, many people seem so driven to recognize the right of everyone to speak for themselves that they lack the courage to open their mouths and disagree. This gives sanction and support to many undeserving and/or loathsome notions.
>> Are you expressing the belief then that anything that is not 100% correct and accurate to be, by definition a lie?
Yep. The poster said the U.S. is a police state. That's untrue.
The poster based this untrue assertion largely on a friend's detention for failure to pay a traffic ticket and driving with a suspended license. Those are crimes. He might have made a plausible case that the punishment didn't fit the crime (although he gave us few details) but, even, then, it's ludicrous to extrapolate that one incident into a claim that the U.S. is a police state.
Re: Mills -- I see no evidence that the pro-war majority has legistated unfair restictions of the antiwar minority. Other posters have asserted that their free speeh is inhibited by Presidential speeches and majority opinion. If that's tue, that's a personal emotional issue, not a Constitutional issue. The right to free speech won't do you much good if you lack the courage to open your mouth.
And, I got the point about the Gandalf quote. It's just another sophomoric rephrasing of "Life is good, killing is bad". That's all well and good, but does nothing to stop a world full of people that are quite willing to kill for their own benefit. Thumping your chest about your own purported moral superiority is a particularly useless activity.
"Rational debate" is no one's obligation. Some things are absolute and not subjectt to debate. (Unless, of course, you believe that having tolerance for other views equates to holding no opinions yourself.)
The original poster claims the U.S. is a police state. He is demonstrably wrong. This is a matter of fact, not opinion. Either he knows he is wrong, and insists on willfully lieing, or he doesn't know he is wrong, and is lieing because he is ignorant. In either case, I have no interest or eithical interest in debating this.
Well, the guy's post was clumsy, but I read it to say his friend hadn't paid a traffic ticket, was pulled over for that, and was found to be driving with a suspended license.
Even if the failure to pay the ticket was the cause of the suspension, I r-e-a-l-l-y doubt he had not received some kind of warning that failure to pay could, eventually, cause his license to be suspended. I've only had a few tickets, and remember that the paperwork was full of all kinds of warnings about failure to pay or to appear in court.
Finally, even if some jurisdiction was stupid enough to suspend this guy's license without warning, that in no way jusifies the poster's claim that the U.S. is a police state.