No, I presume that we learn things by trying, and it's better to know than not know. If we make a mistake, the liberals will be the first to suggest change, while the conservatives will want things to stay the same.
In favor of Tsarism. Great principled stand there guys.
Nazism
Hitler was a liberal? Yeah, he did confiscate guns, but nothing characterizes Nazism better than extreme nationalism, a conservative trait.
eugenics
Eugenics was supported by both sides. Progressives who thought they could make humanity better, and conservatives who wanted to use genetics to enforce the class structure. Notice how it was always the lower classes who got sterilized.
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single opinion. See, it's the progress of society that moves, it's not people flipflopping. If you thought gays should be able to serve in the military 10 years ago, you were a flaming liberal. In 10 years from now that same flaming liberal position will be the standard position of the establishment, i.e. a conservative position.
Really? Who started the War on Drug Users(Nixon), and who made it a cause celebre (Reagan)? How can government get any bigger than telling you what you can and can't put in your bloodstream?
Now I'm not about to say that liberals have done that much to protect our freedom either. But it's completely obvious that you cannot be for freedom and at the same time advocate the jailing of people who like to have fun in a way you disapprove of. Since Barney Frank (a liberal) is the only person to yet introduce legislation that would legalize marijuana at a national level I have to conclude that liberals care more about freedom than conservatives.
It's a nice idea to think that conservatives and liberals are flip sides of the coin, and we need both. Yadda yadda. But it just doesn't work out that way. Conservatives are on the wrong side of history. Consider Afghanistan for instance. There are liberals there, and there are conservatives there. Do they really need those conservatives holding them back? What good does it do them? From our modern perspective we can see just how wrong-headed they are. But left and right over there is the same thing as left and right over here, just centered around a different origin. There's no reason to believe our conservatives are any better than theirs, and in the future we'll look back and see just how wrong-headed they are today. The people calling for the persecution of homosexuals and drug users and mexicans today are no different from the people calling for the persecution of women, blacks, and catholics 100 years ago.
Now of course liberals aren't perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. But at least liberals make new mistakes, instead of glorifying the same old mistakes. At least liberals look to a future where everyone is better off instead of conservatives who simply try to maintain a power structure that is favorable to them alone.
Actually, it looks like this is just a crazy old lady with a blog. Here's what Encyclopedia Dramatica says:
June Maxam (b. 1948) is a troll in the classical sense that she's a miserable old hag who lives under a bridge. As co-publisher of the failed Empire Journal, publisher of the failed "Twisted Web" book, publisher of the failed free community newspaper (est. 1981), and now the always failing pay-per-click infested blog North Country Gazette, her expertise in Internet Lawl as resulted in her issuing several baseless cease and desist orders to anyone who dares give her blog free publicity, claiming her site is exempt from all Fair Use laws.
Maxam swipes news from legitimate sources, rewords them, posts them on her blog, and claims each as her own. She expects people to pay to visit her blog, recently stating that she will sue non-paying website visitors who read more than one post.
Maxam previously filed a string of failed state and federal lawsuits, and was labeled a "frequent filer" by a Warren County court employee.
Maxam resides in Chesterbrook, New York, has no friends, is hated and despised by her neighbors, and is known locally as the "Queen Of Foster Flats Road." Maxam feels the need to surround her home in the tiny village with "No Trespassing" signs.
A Warren County New York law enforcement officer described Maxam to Bad Cop News:
"Look, that woman says a lot of things, yeah she's a real talker, but it comes down to a lonely old lady with something screwy upstairs sitting in front of a computer, with few friends, making enemies."
The real shocker here is that Encylcopedia Dramatica actually has useful content.
No, society is for the rich. It's hard to stay rich when you're paying for your own security. Society lets you offload that cost onto the lower classes through taxes. Maintaining the appearance of influence makes it a lot less likely that you'll need that security too.
If you agree with Obama effectively heckling the Supreme Court during the State of the Union you should equally be OK with Joe Wilson calling Obama a liar.
When Obama has the floor, he can criticize anyone he wants. When Joe Wilson has the floor, he can criticize anyone he wants. See how that works?
Both break decorum and insult the offices of the respective individuals.
Nothing breaks decorum and insults the office more than the absolutely appalling standard of work coming out of the Supreme Court. If you don't want the Supreme Court criticized during the State of the Union, then stop the Supreme Court from damaging the state of our union.
Corporate funding of candidates is an equally bad conflict of interest, especially in a limited constitutional government like the US. Corporations are so powerful, they form a de facto government on their own, with our elected government the only brakes. Letting corporations influence elections is just like letting the fox guard the henhouse.
I see, so you think it's OK to limit someone's freedoms because they have more wealth than you?
If you have a problem with it, I'd gladly trade you those rights for that wealth. Oh, what? No deal? Maybe it's not so bad being a rich bastard after all.
So express your support, verbal and material as an individual. If you want to cooperate with a bunch of buddies to do the same, you can do that too. Just don't incorporate. It's not that free speech isn't a right, it's that incorporation isn't a right. Incorporation is a tool the government created for specific purposes, it's not a natural right. Since it's an artificial construct, they get to define the scope, and if it's in the best interest of society for them to be apolitical that's fine. They can do that without infringing on any natural or constitutional rights. Same goes for Unions.
The only thing that makes it believable is the rash of other outrageous -- I will go so far as to say stupid -- Supreme Court decisions recently.
No, Hanlon's razor states "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence". But I simply cannot believe that these highly educated men and women at the top of their field are either stupid or incompetent. Malice is the only possible explanation.
Introducing random error would be better than biasing the poll towards any specific candidate, unless you're going to mathematically handicap that candidate to counter the bias.
But really, saying that you didn't vote then complaining is just as silly as saying you are hungry but you didn't even make an effort to find food.
It's more like saying that you're hungry, and didn't even try to catch any fish, when you're in the middle of the sahara. Even if you could find a fishing pole, it wouldn't do you any good.
This is exactly wrong. If you vote, you have no right to complain. By voting you have had your say. By participating you legitimize the contest and are bound by its results. Complaining only makes you a sore loser.
On the other hand, if you realize the contest is entirely unfair to begin with the only logical course of action is to refuse participation. Then you are entirely justified in complaining about the unfairness. It won't do any good of course, but at least it's not unsportsmanlike.
The only real rational course of action is to keep your head down and live the best life you can without wasting it tilting at windmills. As Thoreau said, "I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad."
I love boss battles, properly executed. Look at Shadow of the Colossus, the whole thing was boss battles and it was never mind-numbing. Figuring out how to beat a boss can be at least as mentally engaging as figuring out how to get through the level.
These are the core of people we need laws to address since that is the only way to stop them doing what they like.
That's a big assumption there. What makes you think that laws can actually stop people from pirating? If laws can't keep drugs out of a locked down maximum security prison, what chance do they have of keeping pirated mp3s out of every teenagers bedroom in the country?
Or we can simply resign ourselves to buying these people their music since it is too much effort to get the to cough up.
That's pretty much the only option. I am willing to pay a certain amount for entertainment I like, whether or not I have to. Millions of other people are also willing to do that. All that adds up, so music and movies would still be made in a copyright free society. That the music I bought is available to everyone else in the world for free isn't an issue, because I pay what the music is worth to me. If that's not enough to keep production going, that's the free market at work.
Not everything in this world is politically motivated. Most of the people I know don't vote, and it generally isn't a form of protest. Its just apathy. They don't care.
Apathy is a form of political motivation in itself. If they are so apathetic that they can't show up to vote, they shouldn't care when the government shuts down due to the lack of a mandate. On the other hand, if they don't show up and services they need shut down then they will learn pretty quickly not to be so apathetic.
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No, I presume that we learn things by trying, and it's better to know than not know. If we make a mistake, the liberals will be the first to suggest change, while the conservatives will want things to stay the same.
I'm not so sure about that. There's still plenty of time for us to end up back in caves.
Conservatives opposed communism
In favor of Tsarism. Great principled stand there guys.
Nazism
Hitler was a liberal? Yeah, he did confiscate guns, but nothing characterizes Nazism better than extreme nationalism, a conservative trait.
eugenics
Eugenics was supported by both sides. Progressives who thought they could make humanity better, and conservatives who wanted to use genetics to enforce the class structure. Notice how it was always the lower classes who got sterilized.
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single opinion. See, it's the progress of society that moves, it's not people flipflopping. If you thought gays should be able to serve in the military 10 years ago, you were a flaming liberal. In 10 years from now that same flaming liberal position will be the standard position of the establishment, i.e. a conservative position.
Really? Who started the War on Drug Users(Nixon), and who made it a cause celebre (Reagan)? How can government get any bigger than telling you what you can and can't put in your bloodstream?
Now I'm not about to say that liberals have done that much to protect our freedom either. But it's completely obvious that you cannot be for freedom and at the same time advocate the jailing of people who like to have fun in a way you disapprove of. Since Barney Frank (a liberal) is the only person to yet introduce legislation that would legalize marijuana at a national level I have to conclude that liberals care more about freedom than conservatives.
It's a nice idea to think that conservatives and liberals are flip sides of the coin, and we need both. Yadda yadda. But it just doesn't work out that way. Conservatives are on the wrong side of history. Consider Afghanistan for instance. There are liberals there, and there are conservatives there. Do they really need those conservatives holding them back? What good does it do them? From our modern perspective we can see just how wrong-headed they are. But left and right over there is the same thing as left and right over here, just centered around a different origin. There's no reason to believe our conservatives are any better than theirs, and in the future we'll look back and see just how wrong-headed they are today. The people calling for the persecution of homosexuals and drug users and mexicans today are no different from the people calling for the persecution of women, blacks, and catholics 100 years ago.
Now of course liberals aren't perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. But at least liberals make new mistakes, instead of glorifying the same old mistakes. At least liberals look to a future where everyone is better off instead of conservatives who simply try to maintain a power structure that is favorable to them alone.
Actually, it looks like this is just a crazy old lady with a blog. Here's what Encyclopedia Dramatica says:
The real shocker here is that Encylcopedia Dramatica actually has useful content.
When it wasn't slashdotted, the stories were still available in the archives.
Actually, go to the archives on the right. Those stories are still served without a password.
It's password protected now. That was going to be fun. :/
It's Americans raised on Budweiser who have heard that imported beer is better but haven't actually developed taste yet.
No, society is for the rich. It's hard to stay rich when you're paying for your own security. Society lets you offload that cost onto the lower classes through taxes. Maintaining the appearance of influence makes it a lot less likely that you'll need that security too.
If you agree with Obama effectively heckling the Supreme Court during the State of the Union you should equally be OK with Joe Wilson calling Obama a liar.
When Obama has the floor, he can criticize anyone he wants. When Joe Wilson has the floor, he can criticize anyone he wants. See how that works?
Both break decorum and insult the offices of the respective individuals.
Nothing breaks decorum and insults the office more than the absolutely appalling standard of work coming out of the Supreme Court. If you don't want the Supreme Court criticized during the State of the Union, then stop the Supreme Court from damaging the state of our union.
Corporate funding of candidates is an equally bad conflict of interest, especially in a limited constitutional government like the US. Corporations are so powerful, they form a de facto government on their own, with our elected government the only brakes. Letting corporations influence elections is just like letting the fox guard the henhouse.
I see, so you think it's OK to limit someone's freedoms because they have more wealth than you?
If you have a problem with it, I'd gladly trade you those rights for that wealth. Oh, what? No deal? Maybe it's not so bad being a rich bastard after all.
So express your support, verbal and material as an individual. If you want to cooperate with a bunch of buddies to do the same, you can do that too. Just don't incorporate. It's not that free speech isn't a right, it's that incorporation isn't a right. Incorporation is a tool the government created for specific purposes, it's not a natural right. Since it's an artificial construct, they get to define the scope, and if it's in the best interest of society for them to be apolitical that's fine. They can do that without infringing on any natural or constitutional rights. Same goes for Unions.
The only thing that makes it believable is the rash of other outrageous -- I will go so far as to say stupid -- Supreme Court decisions recently.
No, Hanlon's razor states "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence". But I simply cannot believe that these highly educated men and women at the top of their field are either stupid or incompetent. Malice is the only possible explanation.
Introducing random error would be better than biasing the poll towards any specific candidate, unless you're going to mathematically handicap that candidate to counter the bias.
The Supreme Court doesn't make mistakes!
To be fair, if you voted Obama you pretty much wasted your vote too.
But really, saying that you didn't vote then complaining is just as silly as saying you are hungry but you didn't even make an effort to find food.
It's more like saying that you're hungry, and didn't even try to catch any fish, when you're in the middle of the sahara. Even if you could find a fishing pole, it wouldn't do you any good.
If you don't vote, you have no right to complain
This is exactly wrong. If you vote, you have no right to complain. By voting you have had your say. By participating you legitimize the contest and are bound by its results. Complaining only makes you a sore loser.
On the other hand, if you realize the contest is entirely unfair to begin with the only logical course of action is to refuse participation. Then you are entirely justified in complaining about the unfairness. It won't do any good of course, but at least it's not unsportsmanlike.
The only real rational course of action is to keep your head down and live the best life you can without wasting it tilting at windmills. As Thoreau said, "I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad."
I love boss battles, properly executed. Look at Shadow of the Colossus, the whole thing was boss battles and it was never mind-numbing. Figuring out how to beat a boss can be at least as mentally engaging as figuring out how to get through the level.
These are the core of people we need laws to address since that is the only way to stop them doing what they like.
That's a big assumption there. What makes you think that laws can actually stop people from pirating? If laws can't keep drugs out of a locked down maximum security prison, what chance do they have of keeping pirated mp3s out of every teenagers bedroom in the country?
Or we can simply resign ourselves to buying these people their music since it is too much effort to get the to cough up.
That's pretty much the only option. I am willing to pay a certain amount for entertainment I like, whether or not I have to. Millions of other people are also willing to do that. All that adds up, so music and movies would still be made in a copyright free society. That the music I bought is available to everyone else in the world for free isn't an issue, because I pay what the music is worth to me. If that's not enough to keep production going, that's the free market at work.
Not everything in this world is politically motivated. Most of the people I know don't vote, and it generally isn't a form of protest. Its just apathy. They don't care.
Apathy is a form of political motivation in itself. If they are so apathetic that they can't show up to vote, they shouldn't care when the government shuts down due to the lack of a mandate. On the other hand, if they don't show up and services they need shut down then they will learn pretty quickly not to be so apathetic.