Did you stop to consider that doctors also have among the most challenging (an expensive) educations? Then they get to deal day in and day out with insurance, malpractice, parents who think they're experts because they googled "the sniffles" and found an article on webMD convincing them their kid has smallpox. If you feel the need to whine about income inequality, whine about those who don't work their asses off to earn their way. Or hell, work your ass off yourself and join them.
Yes, I do. There is nothing which requires a nation to have a manned presence in space. Sure, there are great scientific benefits, but ultimately no core reason for the government to be responsible for putting people there. That said, I am not opposed to NASA or Mission Control or government spending on manned space exploration. Yes, it's pork, but it's pork that I like and think is beneficial to the nation.
Look at this another perspective, I don't like farm subsidies. I think it's a waste of government money and ultimately causing harm to commercial growers (and crop diversity). It's pork, and it's pork I don't like. Now, look at Mission Control from the farmer's perspective. It's a waste of government money ultimately causing harm to commercial efforts and rocket diversity. It's pork and it's pork they don't like.
When it comes down to it, a huge amount of government spending is on pork. Medical pork, military pork, farming pork, space pork, oil pork. As long as money is being spent in some districts and not in others, there will be government pork and congresscritters whose primary job is to bring that pork home. We need to accept that our favorite projects are pork as well in order to have an objective discussion about what we really need to spend our money on. We're in a spiraling debt situation. Everybody knows it, everybody knows we need to fix it, and everybody points fingers at everybody else's projects to get the axe.
You referred to Republican and Conservative like they're the same thing. Conservatives have a perfectly valid view of how government should work (small, local, and out of the way). Republicans want the same thing as Democrats do: a big powerful government that they can use to funnel money and business to their buddies. It's too bad that the conservative and liberal political philosophies have been aligned with the major political parties who have very little interest in following what they've co-opted.
I could "hear" when the headlights were turned on in a car.
This is interesting... Most headlights in cars have no oscillating anything that would be audible, except possibly some of the fancy pants Xenon whatevermajigs. I wonder if you were hearing it through the car speakers. Most car stereos don't do much to isolate the output to the speakers from noise on the 12 volt power source. That, and an alternator doesn't give a perfect output, there will be electrical noise that will vary depending on the load.
Or more accurately, a surface will appear black if it absorbs all the wavelengths that *your* eyes are sensitive to. GP is being... inaccurately pedantic?
"By nature" is exactly how I come to my conclusions. In the absence of any sort of structure to protect somebody's right to live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you are entirely stuck with your own means to keep those rights. If somebody bigger comes along and wants to kill or enslave you and you don't have the power to stop them, how can that be an inalienable natural right? The very term "inalienable" means absolute or inviolate, and we see time and again that that is simply not the case.
All this said, I honestly feel the greatest achievement of our modern civilizations is that together can say we are entitled to these rights by virtue of being people. This goes back to the original point arguing that society has declared basic rights and protects them. Not a Creator, not a monarch.
How bout we just assume the original AC said "Did you just compare a Corvette to a large and tall four door family vehicle of indeterminate class?" The point still stands. The original post was a ludicrous "I'd rather have a corvette." Well sure, he may rather have a corvette, but a two door sports car is not something that shoppers will be comparing against a *seven passenger* vehicle.
I like this change of tone. Just leave the religion out of it because it's not what we're about. You can believe that your liberties are granted by a creator and while I'd be happy to discuss, I certainly can't disprove that. Fundamentally we agree on liberties, there is no sense drawing battle lines over where they come from when there are those who want to take them away.
Slavery wasn't wrong at the time. It was a God given right (and a society given right). Slavery had been perfectly justified for the vast majority of Human existence. Thankfully society decided to make it wrong.
Let's get down to the brass tacks. If somebody has more power than you, what rights do you truly possess? They can force you to work, force you to starve, force you to die. At some point in our history though, we decided that wasn't acceptable. We collectively decided it's wrong to deny certain rights and we use the might of our society to attempt to protect those rights.
You can't out of context say "a person has these inalienable rights" because it isn't always true. You can say "In the US, a person has these inalienable rights" because we as a society have decided to protect them. Replace US with Darfur or North Korea and you see it isn't true - because society doesn't have the strength to protect those rights.
Rather than mod troll (your last sentence is obviously trying to goad arguments), I will bite.
First - You're right about police and the military. They have their roles and we need to ask very serious questions when their roles get muddies. Unfortunately the military has resources that the police can't field and will occasionally be necessary for domestic deployment (ie: for support during a major disaster). Also keep in mind that the military's missions abroad are becoming increasingly humanitarian.
Second, spend more time with soldiers. A soldier who doesn't think is going to get himself and others killed. This isn't the Napoleonic times where the ideal soldier was a mindless automoton who would march shoulder to shoulder across an open field while his companions get mowed down by cannon fire.
Third, I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time studying history - or at least studying history from multiple points of view. Yes, this nation was settled by deeply religious people. There were many groups and they all had differing beliefs (and many didn't get along). That's why the *founding* of this nation was deliberately secular. The founders may have had their beliefs, but they knew that the only way to make it work with so many different religious was keep religion out of the government. Modern American religions are working hard to reinterpret history to try to make America their God-given land. That was and never will be the intention. The intention is that this chunk here is the Catholics god-given land. That chunk over there is the Quakers god given land. That chunk? Oh that's some crazy cult, but we like their silverware so we don't bug them either.
America was not founded as a Christian nation and you know what? Historically it has worked well for most people that live here. Stop trying to ruin it.
OKOK, I've been thoroughly chastized for saying Apple stuff is cheap. I give in. Cheap to build, expensive to buy - though in the case of cell phones, they hare almost entirely subsidized by the expensive data plans. So still, cheap to buy!
Already posted here, but as an extremely amateur builder I find this absolutely hilarious. I'm using it next time my sister complains about her shed walls not being straight.
And cheaper still to just stick with a decent midrange speaker. Look at it this way - How much benefit would you see out of that high performance sports car when you've only got dirt roads to drive on.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't eat that steak in front of me! I don't want to have to order one too.... mmmm.... steak....
Don't know about that, we *are* after all a self-replicating organism. Screwed up your kid? Just make another!
You think that's scary? You should read into the research on dihydrogen monoxide. That shit is lethal and is EVERYWHERE!
My research shoes an extremely strong correlation between autism rates and the career of the rock band 3 Doors Down.
Did you stop to consider that doctors also have among the most challenging (an expensive) educations? Then they get to deal day in and day out with insurance, malpractice, parents who think they're experts because they googled "the sniffles" and found an article on webMD convincing them their kid has smallpox. If you feel the need to whine about income inequality, whine about those who don't work their asses off to earn their way. Or hell, work your ass off yourself and join them.
Do you think Mission Control is pork?
Yes, I do. There is nothing which requires a nation to have a manned presence in space. Sure, there are great scientific benefits, but ultimately no core reason for the government to be responsible for putting people there. That said, I am not opposed to NASA or Mission Control or government spending on manned space exploration. Yes, it's pork, but it's pork that I like and think is beneficial to the nation.
Look at this another perspective, I don't like farm subsidies. I think it's a waste of government money and ultimately causing harm to commercial growers (and crop diversity). It's pork, and it's pork I don't like. Now, look at Mission Control from the farmer's perspective. It's a waste of government money ultimately causing harm to commercial efforts and rocket diversity. It's pork and it's pork they don't like.
When it comes down to it, a huge amount of government spending is on pork. Medical pork, military pork, farming pork, space pork, oil pork. As long as money is being spent in some districts and not in others, there will be government pork and congresscritters whose primary job is to bring that pork home. We need to accept that our favorite projects are pork as well in order to have an objective discussion about what we really need to spend our money on. We're in a spiraling debt situation. Everybody knows it, everybody knows we need to fix it, and everybody points fingers at everybody else's projects to get the axe.
D'oh! Classic mistake.
You referred to Republican and Conservative like they're the same thing. Conservatives have a perfectly valid view of how government should work (small, local, and out of the way). Republicans want the same thing as Democrats do: a big powerful government that they can use to funnel money and business to their buddies. It's too bad that the conservative and liberal political philosophies have been aligned with the major political parties who have very little interest in following what they've co-opted.
I could "hear" when the headlights were turned on in a car.
This is interesting... Most headlights in cars have no oscillating anything that would be audible, except possibly some of the fancy pants Xenon whatevermajigs. I wonder if you were hearing it through the car speakers. Most car stereos don't do much to isolate the output to the speakers from noise on the 12 volt power source. That, and an alternator doesn't give a perfect output, there will be electrical noise that will vary depending on the load.
And yet when your wife asks you to take out the trash, you never hear it. Fascinating how our senses work!
Or more accurately, a surface will appear black if it absorbs all the wavelengths that *your* eyes are sensitive to. GP is being... inaccurately pedantic?
Not a good analogy. This would be something like a note at say 25KHz - it's there, but most people can't hear it.
Most folks use pans to fry things, not pots... That said, doesn't aluminum typically have better heat distribution than steel or iron?
In one case, you at least have to put up with the smell.
"By nature" is exactly how I come to my conclusions. In the absence of any sort of structure to protect somebody's right to live, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you are entirely stuck with your own means to keep those rights. If somebody bigger comes along and wants to kill or enslave you and you don't have the power to stop them, how can that be an inalienable natural right? The very term "inalienable" means absolute or inviolate, and we see time and again that that is simply not the case.
All this said, I honestly feel the greatest achievement of our modern civilizations is that together can say we are entitled to these rights by virtue of being people. This goes back to the original point arguing that society has declared basic rights and protects them. Not a Creator, not a monarch.
Oh my god pedantic schmucks!
How bout we just assume the original AC said "Did you just compare a Corvette to a large and tall four door family vehicle of indeterminate class?" The point still stands. The original post was a ludicrous "I'd rather have a corvette." Well sure, he may rather have a corvette, but a two door sports car is not something that shoppers will be comparing against a *seven passenger* vehicle.
I like this change of tone. Just leave the religion out of it because it's not what we're about. You can believe that your liberties are granted by a creator and while I'd be happy to discuss, I certainly can't disprove that. Fundamentally we agree on liberties, there is no sense drawing battle lines over where they come from when there are those who want to take them away.
How grand of a victory was it if you tweet in celebration?
Slavery wasn't wrong at the time. It was a God given right (and a society given right). Slavery had been perfectly justified for the vast majority of Human existence. Thankfully society decided to make it wrong.
Let's get down to the brass tacks. If somebody has more power than you, what rights do you truly possess? They can force you to work, force you to starve, force you to die. At some point in our history though, we decided that wasn't acceptable. We collectively decided it's wrong to deny certain rights and we use the might of our society to attempt to protect those rights.
You can't out of context say "a person has these inalienable rights" because it isn't always true. You can say "In the US, a person has these inalienable rights" because we as a society have decided to protect them. Replace US with Darfur or North Korea and you see it isn't true - because society doesn't have the strength to protect those rights.
Rather than mod troll (your last sentence is obviously trying to goad arguments), I will bite.
First - You're right about police and the military. They have their roles and we need to ask very serious questions when their roles get muddies. Unfortunately the military has resources that the police can't field and will occasionally be necessary for domestic deployment (ie: for support during a major disaster). Also keep in mind that the military's missions abroad are becoming increasingly humanitarian.
Second, spend more time with soldiers. A soldier who doesn't think is going to get himself and others killed. This isn't the Napoleonic times where the ideal soldier was a mindless automoton who would march shoulder to shoulder across an open field while his companions get mowed down by cannon fire.
Third, I'm guessing you don't spend a lot of time studying history - or at least studying history from multiple points of view. Yes, this nation was settled by deeply religious people. There were many groups and they all had differing beliefs (and many didn't get along). That's why the *founding* of this nation was deliberately secular. The founders may have had their beliefs, but they knew that the only way to make it work with so many different religious was keep religion out of the government. Modern American religions are working hard to reinterpret history to try to make America their God-given land. That was and never will be the intention. The intention is that this chunk here is the Catholics god-given land. That chunk over there is the Quakers god given land. That chunk? Oh that's some crazy cult, but we like their silverware so we don't bug them either.
America was not founded as a Christian nation and you know what? Historically it has worked well for most people that live here. Stop trying to ruin it.
Prior art only matters if somebody is trying to make a patent claim...
/pedant
I prefer
BWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
But I can't use it often on slashdot, it's too much like yelling.
Jot those down - I think you may have just created the lyrics to Justin Beiber's next hit single!
OKOK, I've been thoroughly chastized for saying Apple stuff is cheap. I give in. Cheap to build, expensive to buy - though in the case of cell phones, they hare almost entirely subsidized by the expensive data plans. So still, cheap to buy!
Already posted here, but as an extremely amateur builder I find this absolutely hilarious. I'm using it next time my sister complains about her shed walls not being straight.
And cheaper still to just stick with a decent midrange speaker. Look at it this way - How much benefit would you see out of that high performance sports car when you've only got dirt roads to drive on.