That would throw out the entire section on tort law in our legal system. Actually it would fly in the face of Western legal theory going back to before Roman law came to northern Europe. Taking someones money is wrong, but for over 1500 years we've considered payment for violations of rights morally correct.
I can't reconcile your position with Western legal theory or history.
It's in the Constitution, the part about foriegn treaties. Background is in the Federalist papers. Can't remember section and article at the moment, but a keyword search on Senate and treaty should find it.
It's not just a legal concept. That's all it is as far as the law is concerned. If it were then Christians wouldn't care. And if this weren't a secular state, the law might care.
That is why us Jesus-freak, Bible-thumpin' intolerants have such an issue with "gay marriage". It represents biblical principles that are sacred to us. Allowing gays to be "married" goes against those principles. Well, my Bible-thumpin' principles say you should forgive all debt after 7 years and not stick your nose in other people's private lives. Since when did we start writing law using your idea of what Jesus-freak's believe and not mine?
You can't have religious freedom without a secular state. It's logically impossible.
Radical gays that have a political agenda are pushing this as a social deconstruction device. This country was founded on biblical principles. Anti-God types want to undo that so they have to deconstruct our current way of life so they can reconstruct it based on their way.
So you're not a US citizen? Cause the US wasn't founded on biblical principles. It was founded on Liberal principles of a secular state. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying to really freaking ignorant about the history of this country. I can supply quotes, analysis and documentation till pigs fly that prove this. You can't produce shit to support your assertion, trust me, I've been through this so many times over so many years, I'm really surprised people keep trying to make this claim. Also, what's with the manufactured paranoia? What part of the secular state forces someone else's beliefs on you? Unlike what you and your fanatic friends are trying to do to the rest of us. Don't you realize you've got the same agenda as Bin Laden - theocracy?
Currently our civil, human rights that are assigned to us by God are enumerated in our founding documents as a legal concept. That means the government can't touch them for any reason. As soon as God is removed from every aspect of our goverment and way of life then our rights will have to default to be granted to us by the government and therefore changeable. Your civil rights come from Hume's contract theory, the ancient (pre-Christian) rights of the English and Roman law, not God. There are no proclamations from God in any of our founding documents and to claim otherwise is blasphemy, the one sin Jesus doesn't forgive. You've got a poor grasp of Christian (Catholic and Protestant) theology to go with your lack of historical knowledge.
It's not just about homophobia (which I do not suffer from)... Oh... but it is, and your paranoid assertions about radical gays shows that you do. No empirical evidence to support your assertions, all assumptions based on faulty knowledge and/or reasoning. that is just a convenient, emotional label used when the folks with the deconstruction agenda are presented with the facts I stated above. You might have a point if you had stated some facts, but you haven't. Come back when you've got some facts to state.
Murder is a violation of the right to life. Giving money to relieve AIDS is also part of a foriegn policy which does not rely on moral proclamations, although both of these actions may be considered moral by some, they have valid reasons which are not. Your assertion that because the government makes decisions which you evaluate with a moral component, means that it does as well is ignorant and illogical. The Supreme Court of Mass. struck down the no-gay marriage law because there was only a moral (religious) interest and not any state interest served by the law.
The government makes decisions based on law and rights. We are a secular state, so the morality or lack thereof doesn't enter the equation. Where it does, we have judges to point out that the legislature isn't doing their job.
You're "sour grapes" assertion simply shows your ignorance about the legal and political theories that led to the founding of our nation. One would think that someone who loved their country would take the time to figure out why it has the laws it does and just what those "original meanings" are.
The Founding Fathers discussed this very issue, what happens when you have a government that isn't concerned about morals? They decided that if society couldn't produce moral enough people to run a government, there were bigger problems than the design of the Federal government. You really should go read the Federalist and anti-Federalist papers sometime, they debate this very subject in detail.
I hate to break the news to you, but George Washington is the least important character in the formation of the US legal system and said a lot of dumb things, you'd be much better off ignoring anything the man said with regard to our laws or the Constitution. The two quotes from Adams do not support the view you think they support. I'm familiar with both. The first is in regard to the moral government point in the previous paragraph. His point there was that the Federal government could not be depended upon to enforce that only moral men served or that those who served would remain moral. If you'd read it IN CONTEXT, you'd see that it supports my position and undermines your own.
The second quote by Adams has no bearing. It's self-congratulatory and was simply stating that the actions and ideology of the Founding Fathers was in line with Christian principles. Not that they were made because of Christian principles, there's a large difference there.
Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Pulitzer prize + Bancroft prize) supports these views and provides the context your posts have so desperately missed.
While we're pulling out 200 year old quotes, I notice that you don't have any Jefferson. I wonder why that would be? Oh, and where's mention of the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified unanimously by the Senate in 1796 and signed by John Adams:
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
It is discrimination and my opining on your word games stand. Given how badly you understand legal theory or US history, I can't take your claim that it's not discrimination seriously. In the examples given, the courts would see otherwise.
You'll have to explain that one. Where has the Federal court gotten into the business of "righting social wrongs"? Are you saying the Federal government is not liable for tort? That would seem to contradict precedent, we've always (since the 1790's) allowed anyone in the world standing in the Federal courts to sue the Federal government. The Founding Fathers believed that this would keep us from acting like jerks in foriegn policy and thus jepordizing their "more perfect Union".
And if judges were allowing their personal politics to get involved, wouldn't they be overturned on appeal?
I believe AA was allowed under tort theory as restitution for past offenses.
You are correct that it is technically discrimination, but given the context, I'd say it's the least we could have done. We still owe a lot of black folks a decent education in this country. As a white Southerner, I'm not complaining about the technical discrimination of AA until black folks are statistically equal (Census numbers) in terms of wealth and opportunity as white folks. And for the non-Southerners, you've profited as much as anyone in the South born after AA kicked in. How that is so might not be obvious, but an empirical study of infrastructure and census numbers will tell you just how much.
I consider AA a sacrifice my country asks me to make. Given the fact that South East Asian immigrants outnumber black software engineers in all the places I've worked in the South, I'd say it's not much of a sacrifice on my part.
So, what's a foreign law? Do international treaties, like the Geneva Convention count? As I remember, the US Constitution explicitly states that international treaties approved by the Senate are Federal law.
Secondly, in Mass., it was the state Supreme Court that ruled that the bans against gay-marriage violated the state constitution. Are you claiming that the Mass. state Supreme Court is packed with activist judges?
Also, isn't it the Federal Courts job to determine the original meaning the written law? Isn't that the job description of a judge, or are they merly administrative assistants who oversee trials in your "alternate-reality legal system"?
Dear Lord, you're dense. Keep your moral judgments to yourself. If your faith has you believe homosexuality is a sin, I don't care. Don't bring it into my workplace or into my laws. You share that space with everyone, and your supposed moral superiority doesn't mean shit. After all, whose to say I'm not morally superior to you. This is a secular country, the state has NO OPINION on moral issues. The definition of marriage or the acceptability of homosexuality are moral questions. I could debate the idiocy of your theology here on/. and walk away, not caring if you maintain a brain-damaged world-view. However, if you intend to step on my liberty of conscience through law or economic discrimination, prepare for a fight.
No workplace has a rule about "no pictures of gay lovers" and that's the problem. The discrimination isn't codified so one can make a rational choice about where to work, if it were, very few people would work there and the business would likely face boycotts by consumers and shareholders. The "bad attitude" excuse is really just blaming the victim. Because the employer allows a predetory and descriminatory environment, a perfectly normal adverse reaction is conveinently labled a "bad attitude".
Your word games here are the same tripe trotted about by the White Citizen's Councils back in the 60's. Your attempt to pervert US law to allow for legal descrimination based on religious views is treason. And I do mean treason. Being a Southerner, I've heard this crap muttered under the breath of rednecks all my life. I usually don't care what idiots mutter, but if you fools actually manage to codify your sectarian views into law, expect me to be duty bound by the Constitution and as an American to resist by any means necessary.
Activist Judges? Please explain to me what an activist judge is. As far as my study of law is concerned, judges evaluate laws and determine their legitimacy as a balance against over-reaching legislatures. Are you claiming that these judges are ignoring precedent or US legal theory like the SCOTUS did in Bush vs. Gore?
I really enjoy this. The GOP had nothing of substance against Dean. No attack actually was based on his record as Governor of Vermont, only on word games of rhetoric. The Dems would have that problem with anyone, so having someone with Dean's record is a plus. He is a fiscally restrained populist and while he may not make a great candidate, now he doesn't have to.
So to all the GOP supporters jumping for joy, I'm jumping with you. If you're going to be this easy to distract, it will make it a lot easier to combat the intellectual disease coming from the right. Between this and all the cycles GOP supporters burn thinking about Hillary Clinton, I can't wait to see the pathetic defense of the GOP's record in the 2006 elections.
Yes, keep thinking these moves are this dumb. It will be nice to see the GOP fall prey to the complacency that lost the Dems the 2000 election.
Your logic is flawed because it ignores the reasoning given by the CIO in the article. You automatically equate WiFi with a luxury item when the CIO from Philly argued that it was a vital part of their infrastructure needed for development and not available from the private sector currently. Your argument does not even address the points made by the CIO.
Using the logic you've outlined, we should use private police forces and militaries to ensure laws are enforced. After all, if government provides prosecution and apprehension services, what's to keep people from abusing that?
If people get their garbage taken out by the city at a subsidized rate, what's to keep people from producing more garbage?
Not everything works in the Free Market, Infrastructure must be publicly funded. Why do you want to leave Philly citizens' future economic opportunities up to chance? Perhaps they don't and that's why they are using their duly elected government to be self-reliant. If you claim that this is not self-reliance, then your definition of self-reliance is equally applicable to a customer trying to negotiate a better price from a corporation. With your view, such a customer is only self-reliant when he is able to meet any demand levied by the corp, rather than being able to find a better way.
As far as ROI on tax dollars go, I can guarantee you (and the CIO noted this in the FA) that this will have an ROI higher than the crap incentives that have become a slush fund for telcos. Besides, if an ILEC does manage to provide the service with the same ROI as the city, why wouldn't the city just contract them to do the work. I really don't understand where these neo-Liberal ideologies turned into special rights for corporations and limited rights for democratic institutions. Without our democratic institutions, these corporations wouldn't have a pot to piss in.
I didn't speak of the brain as a neural network, I didn't speak of it being anything but logical in nature. The differences between processing for the sexes can be explained by hormonal and other chemical effects on cell behavior. I also contend that if the basic building blocks of the brain are logical, they may be so numerous and complexly wired that we may not have the ability to reproduce it in silicon and code. By that explanation, lust is a simple reward system and you are a very complex lusting robot on a biological level.
There were no religious beliefs asserted in my post. Nothing I said declared absolute truth or asked for the argument to be taken on faith. You may have assumed a religious motivation, but that's your mistake. I have asserted a falsifiable statement. I made the statement in questioning the falsifiability of the parents assertion. You have not provided any evidence to claim it is false, only that it is so. I explained why I believed the parent's statement was not reasonable, if you wish to claim that mine isn't either, then give me some reason as to why.
Then what makes you enjoy anything? Isn't experience the sum total of chemical reactions in your brain? If you mimic those reactions in silicon, then why wouldn't a computer 'experience' something just as well as you would? Lust is a simple reward system. What scientific evidence do you have that you are not simply a very complex form of a lusting robot?
From the fine article: There's something so pristine and nonthreatening about "Myst." I'm worried that it will resensitize me to violence.
I know what you mean. There's that one-of-a-kind "Grand Theft Auto" moment when you've beaten a hooker senseless with a golf club, dragged a tourist from his station wagon, and sped off down a crowded sidewalk, only to realize your sole regret is that you jacked a car with such crummy acceleration. Meanwhile, one of "Myst's" strengths is the way it attunes you to your environment -- not the state of mind for a proper rampage. If you don't have preexisting grudges you can channel into mayhem, just let all the synthesizer music seep into the more reptilian parts of your brain for a few hours. Trust me, you'll be ready for a drive-by.
Read em. Why do you think I'm stating that there is no historical evidence that counters the linking of the FA with the concept of 'separation of church and state'? Unless you have some specific passage or quote from those papers that claims otherwise, posting those documents only backs up my assertion. Were you agreeing, disagreeing or trying to make some other point? I honestly can't tell.
There is no way to protect one faith from dominance by the other if the state has an opinion. Therefore the state cannot have an opinion on faith. This means that state functions cannot give a platform to anyone's faith or lack thereof. The idea that this would somehow put issues of faith 'out of the public eye' is false. As private citizens, we are able to exercise whatever we want, provided we do not violate someone else's rights in the process, i.e. human sacrifice or using tax dollars for faith-based purposes.
The recognition of Federal Holidays is for Federal Employees and is a practical decision, not one based on official promotion of those holidays. The Government still has people who work on those holidays.
Secondly, the rights protected by the Federal Government are not reserved to the states. Florida cannot legally violate anyone's First Amendment rights anymore than the Federal Government can. If that were the case, the Communists Party could take over a single state and make all property in that state the property of the state without violating the Constitution.
The First Amendment enshrines the principle of the 'separation of church and state'. That's the way it's historically been interpreted, because that's what the Founding Fathers meant. I have yet to see any evidence that says otherwise except for unfounded speculation by people who can't accept this fact.
No, the bottom two sentences were flippant. The assertion you allude to was a rephrasing of the logic the parent poster had used. The idea was that the poor logic would be obvious, thus showing the lack of reasoning behind the parent's post.
Actually, you're debating something I haven't asserted, you're debating an illustration of poor logic, that is all.
Please ignore the flippant statements and stick to the assertions. I really don't want to try and defend statements that have no meaning outside of the context they were in reply to.
Yup, government property is taxpayer property. That means you, the taxpayer, share it with me, the taxpayer. How does that change anything I said in my previous post? Call it taxpayer property if you want, it still has to adhere to the same rules I laid out.
I don't have objection to immanent domain, when it's reviewed by judges. Do you have a problem with immanent domain? How does that relate to the topic?
Your final statement makes no sense. The Constitution was created to replace the Articles of Confederation. It was written as a contract between the people of the US and it defines those rights (guidelines? what are you joking?). Rights don't inherently exist, you must either create your own with force or negotiate recognition of them with other people. We, as a people, decided to sidestep a lot of the mess that goes along with that by defining some basics about rights. There was never an intention to arrest change and create some sort of prototype "natural rights" environment, which it sounds like your getting at. The Constitution did not give us rights, it was a recognition and definition of rights.
Also, how do you square the fact that the copyright clauses were in the Constitution before the Amendments? It would seem that copyright actually precluded the 'freedom of speech'.
I just got this visual of our Geek Manager here ordering his minions to decapitate everyone in marketing. Was that the formidable force you thinking of?;-P
I'm also not sure how this would work. According to Douglas Adams, Mongolian imperial tendencies are hereditary. I didn't see any mention of a fondness for furry hats in the writeup.
Do you really think that the language of the Constitution in modern terms is the only way to find it's meaning? Even using the language of the Constitution, what part of "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" don't you understand? How is this anything but, "you have the right to say anything you want"?
The second part is nonsensical, no Constitutional scholar has ever claimed that the government has the right to remove religious symbols from public. The government may not establish any religion, therefore it may also not endorse or use government property to endorse a religion. This means that government property and funds cannot be used to place specific expressions of faith. As a private group, you have access to public lands like parks, just as anyone else, regardless of religious belief. You have the same rights to meet there as any other group. On the other hand, no government official may use his office or government property to say, display the 10 commandments. That is a violation of the establishment clause. I pay taxes, if I think the 10 commandments are blasphemy, then how would this not violate my liberty of conscience to have my tax dollars going to maintain such a monument? Do you honestly think the Constitution allows us to violate the rights of people who hold minority religious views?
Your claim that the 'separation of church and state' doesn't appear in the Constitution is nothing but pedantry. The phrase was used since the English Revolution. It was proposed by numerous Europeans and rejected there. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist writings concerning the 'separation of church and state' make it quite clear that the first Amendment was intended to mean a 'separation of church and state'. Your attack over this is nothing but the blind leading the naked. You seem to think you've found some linguistic gotcha, but in order for it to work, you have to disregard the writings of the Founding Fathers. This sort of trickery is a tactic of totalitarians, not people who fight for freedom. Don't worry though, you've got fans in Hegel and Plato.
And no, copyright is not a restriction on freedom of speech. When have you spontaneously come up with the lyrics to a song or the script of a movie that has already been written? Copyright covers the act of duplication, not the original creation of thoughts or expression thereof.
The removal of this material has yet to be resolved as a government action or a contractual dispute. Someone already mentioned the DMCA, which makes it unlikely that The Planet would raise any sort of objection to content, unless their lawyers, as someone else mentioned, were worried about violating the Patriot Act. Either way, The Planet is probably in a legal quagmire and this was the safest move. Does such a move stifle the free flow of information? Yes. Is it somehow sinister? No idea, still not enough info.
Again, you've assumed that you must contribute to reducing poverty as a method of charity. The argument here isn't over the moral argument of 'should I help my neighbor', but the cost effectiveness of 'I'm paying for my neighbor's visits to the emergency room, since they can't turn him away by law; wouldn't it have been cheaper to just buy the guy a dose of antibiotics before his flu turned into pneumonia?'
For you're argument to be valid, one would have to stop forcing emergency rooms to take patients who need care. This isn't a debate of whether or not you should pay, I have argued that you already do pay. This is a matter of cost-effectiveness.
You've managed to assume that 'Nature's' goals and our own society's somehow correspond, they don't. Nature doesn't care about democracy, principles of equality or freedom. Nature's logic is the cold logic of power. You can no more define a positivist legal system as 'natural' as one can claim an omnipotent being has given them political authority.
Society is an attempt to mitigate the arbitrariness of both nature and man. We came up with law to free ourselves from arbitrary fate, which is why European tribal legal systems were abandoned for Romano-Canonist legal systems. By claiming the moral authority of nature, you lose the force behind you're argument and tread dangerously near Spencer's 'Social Darwinism'.
Now you have a degree in macro economics? It's cheaper to create incentives for people to do the right thing, and let them choose. Then pick up the straglers in the end. At least in my opinion. Which is the current proposel in the senate.
The incentive to do the right thing already exists; if it didn't, 401k's would hardly be popular. The system, as it currently exists, does exactly what you claim this new proposal to do. You still haven't explained how a new system would handle those 'straglers' other than to wisp them all away to the magical black box of private charity.
Investment in the market creats jobs and economic development, LONG TERM investment helps to stabalize the market (as opposed to a mad rush to pull your money out and bursting the bubble). Spending it in a ponzie scheme just spreading it all too thin.
Social Security is already invested in money markets. The receipts from the fund are used to issue TBills at a percentage rate, which the Federal Government buys to finance its debt. The Federal Government's debt must be financed somehow, that money will come out of the market someway. US Federal debt is one of the safest and most reliably money market investments available and has been since WWII. You won't see any net appreciation in dollars going into the market until you've reduced the debt. If SS funds go into the stock market, rather than TBills, other money will go to TBills that might have gone to other investments. Simply not putting money in the SS Fund won't have the results you're claiming unless the Federal deficit is reduced, which can be done without touching SS. SS is no more a ponzie scheme than any government borrowing; it's even less of one since it currently has positive cash flow.
I'm perplexed at how you've managed to associate the Bush Administration's economic policies with incentives to mitigate boom-bust cycles. Increasing the Federal deficit and giving away tax cuts to the rich during wartime are not policies which spur LONG TERM investment.
10-15% represent the number of childess elderly. Not the number of childess elderly with no plans for retirement. And that was also a maximalist estimate by you, that I left unchalenged. Try to keep it in perspective. I'm also not advocating the complete removal of the system. Just shrinking it to encorage a more natrual flow, without totaly abandoning the straglers.
I said that one would have to apply a standard income distribution model to that figure to achieve an actual guesstimate of how many would not be able rely on family support. I didn't claim it to be an accurate estimate, I
That's all we used when I was a kid. It worked great for me, but skeeters always seem to prefer someone else to myself, so I may not be the best spokesperson.
You still haven't defined how you calculate a minimum government interference. Your entire attack assumes that some people want more government interference for the sake of government interference. The real question is whether you want government or private interference, which is appropriate for the situation and which can do the least damage. Both will utilize institutions, set up jurisdictions and create rules. The issue here is determining the most efficient and least intrusive method.
You're issue with punishment only makes sense by confusing two issues. You assume that everyone who does not have the resources to retire with dignity or who has nothing to eat is suffering do to their own bad decisions. Even if one was pedantic about what constituted a bad decision and found some minor thing that that person could have done better, how would that justify starvation or begging for a living? Whom do you suggest be the arbitrator of who has screwed up enough to be worthy of compassion and who is simply a drain on society? How do you insure impartiality and fairness?
It is simply cheaper to give everyone a monthly check after retirement than it is deal with all the issues your ideas raise. In order to remain competitive as a nation, we must invest in human capital. It is not a child's fault that their parents were not prepared to bring them into this world and cannot afford the resources necessary to allow the child to be competitive in the global economy. If we want to deal with that child winding up a victim of poverty, rather than being a productive member of society, then we will need to pay for it. If not we will pay for all the problems created by another American in poverty.
Given the expense of raising a child in this day and age, asking said parents to also care for their parents in retirement is a bit of a stretch.
I never said that childless people weren't in a minority, I just said they were a larger group than private charity could handle. You're talking about a minority on the size of the black population of the US. Using a standard income distribution on that 10-15% should produce a reasonable number of people who will be in poverty at retirement age and without family.
The fascism you promote is not that of living with your parents as a child, it's the destruction of choices that those on the bottom end of the income distribution chart will face. If someone makes a mistake and has a kid while they are a teenager, we still think it's a good idea to insure that the young parent has assistance to finish school, so they can provide for their child, regardless of what you think the morality of the situation is. It is simply cheaper to do this than to do nothing and watch the parent and child sink into poverty and repeat the cycle. Under you're plan, that mother and child will have to give up their liberties, much in the way a cash-advance place works. People go there because they've got no where else to turn and need to make ends meet. Because people hope in the future, they are willing to do this. The problem lies in a quick loan that must be paid back at several hundred percent interest. Few state regulate the upper bounds of interest that these places may charge. Now the poor mother and child are indebted to this company, have poor credit, which makes it hard to get transportation, increases insurance costs and creates difficulty renting an apartment. And trying to take care of all this on a minimum wage job is insane.
We used to have situations like this in America, they were called company towns. People gave up their liberties and many lives were lost to break this cycle, you propose recreating the environment that let these institutions exist in the first place. Secondly, if you think S. America is a paragon of government non-involvement, then perhaps you should study it more. While I won't disagree that we throw away our history, I fail to see how your solution would preserve it.
I want to know how your plan reduces suffering. How does it help to inc
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That would throw out the entire section on tort law in our legal system. Actually it would fly in the face of Western legal theory going back to before Roman law came to northern Europe. Taking someones money is wrong, but for over 1500 years we've considered payment for violations of rights morally correct.
I can't reconcile your position with Western legal theory or history.
It's in the Constitution, the part about foriegn treaties. Background is in the Federalist papers. Can't remember section and article at the moment, but a keyword search on Senate and treaty should find it.
It's not just a legal concept.
That's all it is as far as the law is concerned.
If it were then Christians wouldn't care.
And if this weren't a secular state, the law might care.
That is why us Jesus-freak, Bible-thumpin' intolerants have such an issue with "gay marriage". It represents biblical principles that are sacred to us. Allowing gays to be "married" goes against those principles.
Well, my Bible-thumpin' principles say you should forgive all debt after 7 years and not stick your nose in other people's private lives. Since when did we start writing law using your idea of what Jesus-freak's believe and not mine?
You can't have religious freedom without a secular state. It's logically impossible.
Radical gays that have a political agenda are pushing this as a social deconstruction device. This country was founded on biblical principles. Anti-God types want to undo that so they have to deconstruct our current way of life so they can reconstruct it based on their way.
So you're not a US citizen? Cause the US wasn't founded on biblical principles. It was founded on Liberal principles of a secular state. Anyone who claims otherwise is either lying to really freaking ignorant about the history of this country. I can supply quotes, analysis and documentation till pigs fly that prove this. You can't produce shit to support your assertion, trust me, I've been through this so many times over so many years, I'm really surprised people keep trying to make this claim. Also, what's with the manufactured paranoia? What part of the secular state forces someone else's beliefs on you? Unlike what you and your fanatic friends are trying to do to the rest of us. Don't you realize you've got the same agenda as Bin Laden - theocracy?
Currently our civil, human rights that are assigned to us by God are enumerated in our founding documents as a legal concept. That means the government can't touch them for any reason. As soon as God is removed from every aspect of our goverment and way of life then our rights will have to default to be granted to us by the government and therefore changeable.
Your civil rights come from Hume's contract theory, the ancient (pre-Christian) rights of the English and Roman law, not God. There are no proclamations from God in any of our founding documents and to claim otherwise is blasphemy, the one sin Jesus doesn't forgive. You've got a poor grasp of Christian (Catholic and Protestant) theology to go with your lack of historical knowledge.
It's not just about homophobia (which I do not suffer from)...
Oh... but it is, and your paranoid assertions about radical gays shows that you do. No empirical evidence to support your assertions, all assumptions based on faulty knowledge and/or reasoning.
that is just a convenient, emotional label used when the folks with the deconstruction agenda are presented with the facts I stated above.
You might have a point if you had stated some facts, but you haven't. Come back when you've got some facts to state.
The government makes decisions based on law and rights. We are a secular state, so the morality or lack thereof doesn't enter the equation. Where it does, we have judges to point out that the legislature isn't doing their job.
You're "sour grapes" assertion simply shows your ignorance about the legal and political theories that led to the founding of our nation. One would think that someone who loved their country would take the time to figure out why it has the laws it does and just what those "original meanings" are.
The Founding Fathers discussed this very issue, what happens when you have a government that isn't concerned about morals? They decided that if society couldn't produce moral enough people to run a government, there were bigger problems than the design of the Federal government. You really should go read the Federalist and anti-Federalist papers sometime, they debate this very subject in detail.
I hate to break the news to you, but George Washington is the least important character in the formation of the US legal system and said a lot of dumb things, you'd be much better off ignoring anything the man said with regard to our laws or the Constitution. The two quotes from Adams do not support the view you think they support. I'm familiar with both. The first is in regard to the moral government point in the previous paragraph. His point there was that the Federal government could not be depended upon to enforce that only moral men served or that those who served would remain moral. If you'd read it IN CONTEXT, you'd see that it supports my position and undermines your own.
The second quote by Adams has no bearing. It's self-congratulatory and was simply stating that the actions and ideology of the Founding Fathers was in line with Christian principles. Not that they were made because of Christian principles, there's a large difference there.
Bernard Bailyn's Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Pulitzer prize + Bancroft prize) supports these views and provides the context your posts have so desperately missed.
While we're pulling out 200 year old quotes, I notice that you don't have any Jefferson. I wonder why that would be? Oh, and where's mention of the Treaty of Tripoli, ratified unanimously by the Senate in 1796 and signed by John Adams:
It is discrimination and my opining on your word games stand. Given how badly you understand legal theory or US history, I can't take your claim that it's not discrimination seriously. In the examples given, the courts would see otherwise.
You'll have to explain that one. Where has the Federal court gotten into the business of "righting social wrongs"? Are you saying the Federal government is not liable for tort? That would seem to contradict precedent, we've always (since the 1790's) allowed anyone in the world standing in the Federal courts to sue the Federal government. The Founding Fathers believed that this would keep us from acting like jerks in foriegn policy and thus jepordizing their "more perfect Union".
And if judges were allowing their personal politics to get involved, wouldn't they be overturned on appeal?
I believe AA was allowed under tort theory as restitution for past offenses.
You are correct that it is technically discrimination, but given the context, I'd say it's the least we could have done. We still owe a lot of black folks a decent education in this country. As a white Southerner, I'm not complaining about the technical discrimination of AA until black folks are statistically equal (Census numbers) in terms of wealth and opportunity as white folks. And for the non-Southerners, you've profited as much as anyone in the South born after AA kicked in. How that is so might not be obvious, but an empirical study of infrastructure and census numbers will tell you just how much.
I consider AA a sacrifice my country asks me to make. Given the fact that South East Asian immigrants outnumber black software engineers in all the places I've worked in the South, I'd say it's not much of a sacrifice on my part.
So, what's a foreign law? Do international treaties, like the Geneva Convention count? As I remember, the US Constitution explicitly states that international treaties approved by the Senate are Federal law.
Secondly, in Mass., it was the state Supreme Court that ruled that the bans against gay-marriage violated the state constitution. Are you claiming that the Mass. state Supreme Court is packed with activist judges?
Also, isn't it the Federal Courts job to determine the original meaning the written law? Isn't that the job description of a judge, or are they merly administrative assistants who oversee trials in your "alternate-reality legal system"?
Dear Lord, you're dense. Keep your moral judgments to yourself. If your faith has you believe homosexuality is a sin, I don't care. Don't bring it into my workplace or into my laws. You share that space with everyone, and your supposed moral superiority doesn't mean shit. After all, whose to say I'm not morally superior to you. This is a secular country, the state has NO OPINION on moral issues. The definition of marriage or the acceptability of homosexuality are moral questions. I could debate the idiocy of your theology here on /. and walk away, not caring if you maintain a brain-damaged world-view. However, if you intend to step on my liberty of conscience through law or economic discrimination, prepare for a fight.
No workplace has a rule about "no pictures of gay lovers" and that's the problem. The discrimination isn't codified so one can make a rational choice about where to work, if it were, very few people would work there and the business would likely face boycotts by consumers and shareholders. The "bad attitude" excuse is really just blaming the victim. Because the employer allows a predetory and descriminatory environment, a perfectly normal adverse reaction is conveinently labled a "bad attitude".
Your word games here are the same tripe trotted about by the White Citizen's Councils back in the 60's. Your attempt to pervert US law to allow for legal descrimination based on religious views is treason. And I do mean treason. Being a Southerner, I've heard this crap muttered under the breath of rednecks all my life. I usually don't care what idiots mutter, but if you fools actually manage to codify your sectarian views into law, expect me to be duty bound by the Constitution and as an American to resist by any means necessary.
Activist Judges? Please explain to me what an activist judge is. As far as my study of law is concerned, judges evaluate laws and determine their legitimacy as a balance against over-reaching legislatures. Are you claiming that these judges are ignoring precedent or US legal theory like the SCOTUS did in Bush vs. Gore?
Are you kidding? Half of the Tom Baker Dr. Who episodes take place in a quarry.
I really enjoy this. The GOP had nothing of substance against Dean. No attack actually was based on his record as Governor of Vermont, only on word games of rhetoric. The Dems would have that problem with anyone, so having someone with Dean's record is a plus. He is a fiscally restrained populist and while he may not make a great candidate, now he doesn't have to.
So to all the GOP supporters jumping for joy, I'm jumping with you. If you're going to be this easy to distract, it will make it a lot easier to combat the intellectual disease coming from the right. Between this and all the cycles GOP supporters burn thinking about Hillary Clinton, I can't wait to see the pathetic defense of the GOP's record in the 2006 elections.
Yes, keep thinking these moves are this dumb. It will be nice to see the GOP fall prey to the complacency that lost the Dems the 2000 election.
Can you say False Dichotomy, Straw Man?
Your logic is flawed because it ignores the reasoning given by the CIO in the article. You automatically equate WiFi with a luxury item when the CIO from Philly argued that it was a vital part of their infrastructure needed for development and not available from the private sector currently. Your argument does not even address the points made by the CIO.
Using the logic you've outlined, we should use private police forces and militaries to ensure laws are enforced. After all, if government provides prosecution and apprehension services, what's to keep people from abusing that?
If people get their garbage taken out by the city at a subsidized rate, what's to keep people from producing more garbage?
Not everything works in the Free Market, Infrastructure must be publicly funded. Why do you want to leave Philly citizens' future economic opportunities up to chance? Perhaps they don't and that's why they are using their duly elected government to be self-reliant. If you claim that this is not self-reliance, then your definition of self-reliance is equally applicable to a customer trying to negotiate a better price from a corporation. With your view, such a customer is only self-reliant when he is able to meet any demand levied by the corp, rather than being able to find a better way.
As far as ROI on tax dollars go, I can guarantee you (and the CIO noted this in the FA) that this will have an ROI higher than the crap incentives that have become a slush fund for telcos. Besides, if an ILEC does manage to provide the service with the same ROI as the city, why wouldn't the city just contract them to do the work. I really don't understand where these neo-Liberal ideologies turned into special rights for corporations and limited rights for democratic institutions. Without our democratic institutions, these corporations wouldn't have a pot to piss in.
I didn't speak of the brain as a neural network, I didn't speak of it being anything but logical in nature. The differences between processing for the sexes can be explained by hormonal and other chemical effects on cell behavior. I also contend that if the basic building blocks of the brain are logical, they may be so numerous and complexly wired that we may not have the ability to reproduce it in silicon and code. By that explanation, lust is a simple reward system and you are a very complex lusting robot on a biological level.
There were no religious beliefs asserted in my post. Nothing I said declared absolute truth or asked for the argument to be taken on faith. You may have assumed a religious motivation, but that's your mistake. I have asserted a falsifiable statement. I made the statement in questioning the falsifiability of the parents assertion. You have not provided any evidence to claim it is false, only that it is so. I explained why I believed the parent's statement was not reasonable, if you wish to claim that mine isn't either, then give me some reason as to why.
Then what makes you enjoy anything? Isn't experience the sum total of chemical reactions in your brain? If you mimic those reactions in silicon, then why wouldn't a computer 'experience' something just as well as you would? Lust is a simple reward system. What scientific evidence do you have that you are not simply a very complex form of a lusting robot?
Best Game you will Never play.
From the fine article:
There's something so pristine and nonthreatening about "Myst." I'm worried that it will resensitize me to violence.
I know what you mean. There's that one-of-a-kind "Grand Theft Auto" moment when you've beaten a hooker senseless with a golf club, dragged a tourist from his station wagon, and sped off down a crowded sidewalk, only to realize your sole regret is that you jacked a car with such crummy acceleration. Meanwhile, one of "Myst's" strengths is the way it attunes you to your environment -- not the state of mind for a proper rampage. If you don't have preexisting grudges you can channel into mayhem, just let all the synthesizer music seep into the more reptilian parts of your brain for a few hours. Trust me, you'll be ready for a drive-by.
I really want to see someone make this game.
Read em. Why do you think I'm stating that there is no historical evidence that counters the linking of the FA with the concept of 'separation of church and state'? Unless you have some specific passage or quote from those papers that claims otherwise, posting those documents only backs up my assertion. Were you agreeing, disagreeing or trying to make some other point? I honestly can't tell.
There is no way to protect one faith from dominance by the other if the state has an opinion. Therefore the state cannot have an opinion on faith. This means that state functions cannot give a platform to anyone's faith or lack thereof. The idea that this would somehow put issues of faith 'out of the public eye' is false. As private citizens, we are able to exercise whatever we want, provided we do not violate someone else's rights in the process, i.e. human sacrifice or using tax dollars for faith-based purposes.
The recognition of Federal Holidays is for Federal Employees and is a practical decision, not one based on official promotion of those holidays. The Government still has people who work on those holidays.
Secondly, the rights protected by the Federal Government are not reserved to the states. Florida cannot legally violate anyone's First Amendment rights anymore than the Federal Government can. If that were the case, the Communists Party could take over a single state and make all property in that state the property of the state without violating the Constitution.
The First Amendment enshrines the principle of the 'separation of church and state'. That's the way it's historically been interpreted, because that's what the Founding Fathers meant. I have yet to see any evidence that says otherwise except for unfounded speculation by people who can't accept this fact.
No, the bottom two sentences were flippant. The assertion you allude to was a rephrasing of the logic the parent poster had used. The idea was that the poor logic would be obvious, thus showing the lack of reasoning behind the parent's post.
Actually, you're debating something I haven't asserted, you're debating an illustration of poor logic, that is all.
Please ignore the flippant statements and stick to the assertions. I really don't want to try and defend statements that have no meaning outside of the context they were in reply to.
Yup, government property is taxpayer property. That means you, the taxpayer, share it with me, the taxpayer. How does that change anything I said in my previous post? Call it taxpayer property if you want, it still has to adhere to the same rules I laid out.
I don't have objection to immanent domain, when it's reviewed by judges. Do you have a problem with immanent domain? How does that relate to the topic?
Your final statement makes no sense. The Constitution was created to replace the Articles of Confederation. It was written as a contract between the people of the US and it defines those rights (guidelines? what are you joking?). Rights don't inherently exist, you must either create your own with force or negotiate recognition of them with other people. We, as a people, decided to sidestep a lot of the mess that goes along with that by defining some basics about rights. There was never an intention to arrest change and create some sort of prototype "natural rights" environment, which it sounds like your getting at. The Constitution did not give us rights, it was a recognition and definition of rights.
Also, how do you square the fact that the copyright clauses were in the Constitution before the Amendments? It would seem that copyright actually precluded the 'freedom of speech'.
I just got this visual of our Geek Manager here ordering his minions to decapitate everyone in marketing. ;-P
Was that the formidable force you thinking of?
I'm also not sure how this would work. According to Douglas Adams, Mongolian imperial tendencies are hereditary. I didn't see any mention of a fondness for furry hats in the writeup.
Are you kidding? No seriously, is this a joke?
Do you really think that the language of the Constitution in modern terms is the only way to find it's meaning? Even using the language of the Constitution, what part of "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech" don't you understand? How is this anything but, "you have the right to say anything you want"?
The second part is nonsensical, no Constitutional scholar has ever claimed that the government has the right to remove religious symbols from public. The government may not establish any religion, therefore it may also not endorse or use government property to endorse a religion. This means that government property and funds cannot be used to place specific expressions of faith. As a private group, you have access to public lands like parks, just as anyone else, regardless of religious belief. You have the same rights to meet there as any other group. On the other hand, no government official may use his office or government property to say, display the 10 commandments. That is a violation of the establishment clause. I pay taxes, if I think the 10 commandments are blasphemy, then how would this not violate my liberty of conscience to have my tax dollars going to maintain such a monument? Do you honestly think the Constitution allows us to violate the rights of people who hold minority religious views?
Your claim that the 'separation of church and state' doesn't appear in the Constitution is nothing but pedantry. The phrase was used since the English Revolution. It was proposed by numerous Europeans and rejected there. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist writings concerning the 'separation of church and state' make it quite clear that the first Amendment was intended to mean a 'separation of church and state'. Your attack over this is nothing but the blind leading the naked. You seem to think you've found some linguistic gotcha, but in order for it to work, you have to disregard the writings of the Founding Fathers. This sort of trickery is a tactic of totalitarians, not people who fight for freedom. Don't worry though, you've got fans in Hegel and Plato.
And no, copyright is not a restriction on freedom of speech. When have you spontaneously come up with the lyrics to a song or the script of a movie that has already been written? Copyright covers the act of duplication, not the original creation of thoughts or expression thereof.
The removal of this material has yet to be resolved as a government action or a contractual dispute. Someone already mentioned the DMCA, which makes it unlikely that The Planet would raise any sort of objection to content, unless their lawyers, as someone else mentioned, were worried about violating the Patriot Act. Either way, The Planet is probably in a legal quagmire and this was the safest move. Does such a move stifle the free flow of information? Yes. Is it somehow sinister? No idea, still not enough info.
Again, you've assumed that you must contribute to reducing poverty as a method of charity. The argument here isn't over the moral argument of 'should I help my neighbor', but the cost effectiveness of 'I'm paying for my neighbor's visits to the emergency room, since they can't turn him away by law; wouldn't it have been cheaper to just buy the guy a dose of antibiotics before his flu turned into pneumonia?'
For you're argument to be valid, one would have to stop forcing emergency rooms to take patients who need care. This isn't a debate of whether or not you should pay, I have argued that you already do pay. This is a matter of cost-effectiveness.
You've managed to assume that 'Nature's' goals and our own society's somehow correspond, they don't. Nature doesn't care about democracy, principles of equality or freedom. Nature's logic is the cold logic of power. You can no more define a positivist legal system as 'natural' as one can claim an omnipotent being has given them political authority.
Society is an attempt to mitigate the arbitrariness of both nature and man. We came up with law to free ourselves from arbitrary fate, which is why European tribal legal systems were abandoned for Romano-Canonist legal systems. By claiming the moral authority of nature, you lose the force behind you're argument and tread dangerously near Spencer's 'Social Darwinism'.
Now you have a degree in macro economics? It's cheaper to create incentives for people to do the right thing, and let them choose. Then pick up the straglers in the end. At least in my opinion. Which is the current proposel in the senate.
The incentive to do the right thing already exists; if it didn't, 401k's would hardly be popular. The system, as it currently exists, does exactly what you claim this new proposal to do. You still haven't explained how a new system would handle those 'straglers' other than to wisp them all away to the magical black box of private charity.
Investment in the market creats jobs and economic development, LONG TERM investment helps to stabalize the market (as opposed to a mad rush to pull your money out and bursting the bubble). Spending it in a ponzie scheme just spreading it all too thin.
Social Security is already invested in money markets. The receipts from the fund are used to issue TBills at a percentage rate, which the Federal Government buys to finance its debt. The Federal Government's debt must be financed somehow, that money will come out of the market someway. US Federal debt is one of the safest and most reliably money market investments available and has been since WWII. You won't see any net appreciation in dollars going into the market until you've reduced the debt. If SS funds go into the stock market, rather than TBills, other money will go to TBills that might have gone to other investments. Simply not putting money in the SS Fund won't have the results you're claiming unless the Federal deficit is reduced, which can be done without touching SS. SS is no more a ponzie scheme than any government borrowing; it's even less of one since it currently has positive cash flow.
I'm perplexed at how you've managed to associate the Bush Administration's economic policies with incentives to mitigate boom-bust cycles. Increasing the Federal deficit and giving away tax cuts to the rich during wartime are not policies which spur LONG TERM investment.
10-15% represent the number of childess elderly. Not the number of childess elderly with no plans for retirement. And that was also a maximalist estimate by you, that I left unchalenged. Try to keep it in perspective. I'm also not advocating the complete removal of the system. Just shrinking it to encorage a more natrual flow, without totaly abandoning the straglers.
I said that one would have to apply a standard income distribution model to that figure to achieve an actual guesstimate of how many would not be able rely on family support. I didn't claim it to be an accurate estimate, I
That's all we used when I was a kid. It worked great for me, but skeeters always seem to prefer someone else to myself, so I may not be the best spokesperson.
You still haven't defined how you calculate a minimum government interference. Your entire attack assumes that some people want more government interference for the sake of government interference. The real question is whether you want government or private interference, which is appropriate for the situation and which can do the least damage. Both will utilize institutions, set up jurisdictions and create rules. The issue here is determining the most efficient and least intrusive method.
You're issue with punishment only makes sense by confusing two issues. You assume that everyone who does not have the resources to retire with dignity or who has nothing to eat is suffering do to their own bad decisions. Even if one was pedantic about what constituted a bad decision and found some minor thing that that person could have done better, how would that justify starvation or begging for a living? Whom do you suggest be the arbitrator of who has screwed up enough to be worthy of compassion and who is simply a drain on society? How do you insure impartiality and fairness?
It is simply cheaper to give everyone a monthly check after retirement than it is deal with all the issues your ideas raise. In order to remain competitive as a nation, we must invest in human capital. It is not a child's fault that their parents were not prepared to bring them into this world and cannot afford the resources necessary to allow the child to be competitive in the global economy. If we want to deal with that child winding up a victim of poverty, rather than being a productive member of society, then we will need to pay for it. If not we will pay for all the problems created by another American in poverty.
Given the expense of raising a child in this day and age, asking said parents to also care for their parents in retirement is a bit of a stretch.
I never said that childless people weren't in a minority, I just said they were a larger group than private charity could handle. You're talking about a minority on the size of the black population of the US. Using a standard income distribution on that 10-15% should produce a reasonable number of people who will be in poverty at retirement age and without family.
The fascism you promote is not that of living with your parents as a child, it's the destruction of choices that those on the bottom end of the income distribution chart will face. If someone makes a mistake and has a kid while they are a teenager, we still think it's a good idea to insure that the young parent has assistance to finish school, so they can provide for their child, regardless of what you think the morality of the situation is. It is simply cheaper to do this than to do nothing and watch the parent and child sink into poverty and repeat the cycle. Under you're plan, that mother and child will have to give up their liberties, much in the way a cash-advance place works. People go there because they've got no where else to turn and need to make ends meet. Because people hope in the future, they are willing to do this. The problem lies in a quick loan that must be paid back at several hundred percent interest. Few state regulate the upper bounds of interest that these places may charge. Now the poor mother and child are indebted to this company, have poor credit, which makes it hard to get transportation, increases insurance costs and creates difficulty renting an apartment. And trying to take care of all this on a minimum wage job is insane.
We used to have situations like this in America, they were called company towns. People gave up their liberties and many lives were lost to break this cycle, you propose recreating the environment that let these institutions exist in the first place. Secondly, if you think S. America is a paragon of government non-involvement, then perhaps you should study it more. While I won't disagree that we throw away our history, I fail to see how your solution would preserve it.
I want to know how your plan reduces suffering. How does it help to inc