"Specifically, their children are going to grow up to be as ignorant as their parents;"
What does faith have to do with ignorance? Who is more ignorant the person who doesn't believe in God, but accepts everything teachers say without any regard, or the person of Faith who challenges everything, INCLUDING "theories"???
Excuse me, but I'd put my kids (faith) against your "average" atheist's in just about anything (except sports). They are not "ignorant" by a long shot. And yes, they can spew Evolution back at the teacher's who require it. Just because someone doesn't have faith in the "scientific theory" doesn't make them ignorant.
I'm really sick of the "holier then thou" science crowd.
"Stephen Hawking mopping floors."
Stephen Hawking, brilliant as he thinks he is, hasn't been proven right much. Just because he has all sorts of fanciful theories doesn't make him god. He's just a smart man, just like many others. And there just might be someone much smarter than Stephen Hawking who does sweep floors. You ever think of that? Perhaps such a person LIKES to sweep floors rather than seeking self glory based upon making shit up (albeit very deep shit).
"And if we don't get enough of them thinking critically"
You mean like challenging conventional wisdom? I remember that Gorillas were thought to be the fancy of crazy "wild men" (Negros). Of course no white man had ever seen them, and therefore they couldn't possibly exist. Gorillas were made fun of, exactly as the FSM makes fun of what you cannot understand because you cannot see it. Just because YOU can't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
"The issue as I see it, even these things which you claim you run, and probably most of the things you don't mention, are all "driving" performance issues within the PC market."
"To touch on what ended up being the rest of your baseless rant, I have an ATI Radeon x1600 PCIe video card, 1 GB of DDR2 ram, and an AMD x2 5000+ (came as a combo deal with mainboard, with a far better price than buying the two separate)."
Most of the parts you listed, aren't really required for 99% of people using computers. You need these things because of the GAMES you run. Which is and was my point.
Most currency has FIAT value, meaning its value is based upon what people can purchase for it, rather than intrinsic value. In the case of US dollars, a dollar can buy a certain amount of products or services and the FIAT value is what is generally agreed upon by both parties. The dollar has no "real" value or its real value is less than the FIAT value. The piece of paper that represents the value of the dollar is not worth what the paper represents in FIAT.
Virtual Value is very similar, but in the case of the QQ it is a currency that itself doesn't really exist, as there are no coins or bills that exist in reality. As soon as the QQ bank issues a certificate that represents a certain amount of QQ and that certificate can buy real items (eg a soda or a burger), it moves from the realm of virtual to Fiat currency.
The distinction is that FIAT currency has standard values based upon real products/services. A virtual currency only exists in virtual worlds.
"I have Age of Empires (the first, through AOE3), Rise of Nations (the base game and the add-ons), Rise of Legends, City of Heroes/Villains, etc."
The issue as I see it, even these things which you claim you run, and probably most of the things you don't mention, are all "driving" performance issues within the PC market. I just picked up a PC GAMER type mag the other day and the entire Magazine was about increasing FPS and other performance issues (cooling, cases etc).
I can hardly believe that people are willing to spend $1000 + on video cards to increase FPS in a FPS, but then again, I don't play games, and I certainly don't care to eek out the last of the performance out of my system. That sounds more like the Hod Rodders of the 40s and 50s. I don't care if my GTO can go 0-60 in 4.5 sec or tops out at 168 mph. I don't care that you have a 4.11 back end or a 3.65.
Most people want a Honda Accord that gets 32 mpg and lasts forever. If your game requires $5000 in equipment every six months, you can keep it. I'll sit back and watch Nascar and let the REAL pros play with the real Top of the Line.
In other words, I just want my car to get me to and from work, safely and efficiently as possible. I want the same from my Computer. And MOST people want the same thing.
Okay, We all know that 2001 version of XP, totally unpatched is vulnerable. Duh
I update all my WinXP installs OFFLINE, making sure that they are FULLY patched and running the latest AV before putting them on the wire. The issue is that Microsoft doesn't make it easy to do this, and I have to use third party products to properly secure their systems before they go online. (90+ Patches from SP2?????)
These companies want Borg Drones. They want the equivalent of script kiddies, no thinking outside the box, no clever solutions, no dynamics that have the potential of lawsuits. They want "Go to the freezer, get the box" pizza makers.
This is what I call the McDonalding of America. McDonald's hamburgers are, if anything, consistent. What you get at one McD's is the same just about any other McD's. I wouldn't call them good by any standard, but they are consistent, albeit consistently bad.
Additionally, there is an old axiom that you can pick two of any of the following three items: Quality, Service, Price. However many places are trying to compete on Price Only and consumers often chase "Price Only". Yet I see the very same people complaining about "higher prices" and price shopping places that provide better Quality or Service.
When I was in Retail Sales, I saw this all the time. People would drive 90 miles to save $5 on a $450 printer. It was insane!
So, when I see Circus Shitty (tm) and others trying to compete on price only, I laugh, as all the places that end up doing so, end up being McDonald's, consistently crappy. And people are not happy eating their crap.
It doesn't take a genius to run a company on Price Only, so why not fire all the brilliant people at the top, and replace them with cheaper alternatives?
When you included the likes of someone like Alec Baldwin with the likes of someone like Ann Coulter then I'll agree.
The problem is that when Left Wing Wackos like Baldwin say inflamatory stuff like suggesting that a congressman ought to be killed and wife and kids raped and beaten on Broadcast TV the left thinks it is funny. When Ann Coulter says something similar it is "hate speech".
The correct answer is that BOTH are equally bombastic Wingnuts. Neither are funny and both scare the crap out of me. I don't recall seeing HIS quotes on HIS Bio page either. So, lets be fair about this, M-KAY?
YES, they are in DIRE STRAIGHTS, They need to RUSH, and abandon CHEAP TRICKs and keep their DOORS open to a new GENESIS, or get a SMASH MOUTH from the ROLLING STONES of progress. One day, after the CONTROLLED BLEEDING has DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, and we're left with nothing but BODY BAGS your BUDDY HOLLY will respond, "The Who?", because 10,000 MANIACS were TRAGICALLY HIP. Their SPIN DOCTORS cannot tell us PIGS ARE CUTE, and screw us like a FOUR DOG NIGHT.
It is either too late at night or too many beers. Or both.
I don't play MMOGs mainly because early game play sucks, and to have any fun one must progress to a certain level. My suggestion is to compartmentalize the game play, so that as players progress, they don't see those either far ahead, or far behind their current status. This way, they only deal with people near their own time / skill investment.
That way, newbies can play against and with newbies, and not get shafted by playing people who've been playing the game since dinosaurs roamed the planet. And more importantly the Dinosaurs can play with each other without having to deal with newbies.
"If these rights are self evident, and not man made, could you explain to me why the slaves of your fore-fathers didn't have these rights?"
Yes I can. As all humans, they were flawed and hypocritical. However, they aspired to an ideal that was beyond their own reach, something I think even you can agree that it a quality we need more of.
"Of course there are several non-theistic theories of rights, based on ideas of human nature and our minimum needs to have the ability to achieve happiness."
Who says you have a right to be happy?
"What are the maintenance requirements of the human being? Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and food, clothing, shelter and medical care."
First off, I would disagree with the premise here, because some of those things require the "taking" from another, under penalty of force. Namely, if you are all by yourself, and are sick or injured, you don't have a "right" to medical care, except for the care you can provide yourself. By adding "Medical Care" to the list of items you necissarily have to create a mechanism to provide it in a greater society.
Now take that a step further, I would suggest that forcing medical care upon people who don't desire or require it is a violation of human right or liberty. Remember a while ago the shooting of the Amish School House, the parents of the victims refused all forms of Modern Medical Care, something that is considered a "right" by the thesis presented above.
"Keeping us confused and divided against one another about these rights, the multinational power elite teaches us in America that only life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are rights."
Not understanding what "Libery" is, is a fatal flaw of modern socialism and socialistic beliefs. Liberty is PERSONAL freedom. It is what you are born with, requires no intervention by government or society to grant.
I agree with your sentiment that multinational power (and corporations) have skewed what is viewed as liberty. Some of the same rights you probably don't agree with are also enumerated in the Bill of Rights, right to be secure in person, freedom of speech, right to bear arms etc all have been severely curtailed, and most often not by the political "right" but rather the political "left", though the right seems to be holding its own in this regard lately.
You think you have free speech? Go on National TV and say the N word. Political Correctness is by definition chilling "Free Speech". Yet I don't hear the left crying "censorship" like they do when people try to restrict Porn. Hypocritical in my opinion.
"We are further encouraged to argue about whether rights must be earned or whether it is the duty of the government to guarantee them."
Rights are never earned. Those things often cited as "rights" are actually privileges. It isn't the duty of the government to guarantee rights, that places the "creator" status upon government. Only the creator of a thing can guarantee anything. Government's proper role is defined in the Preamble of the US government.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Most people think that government should "promote common defense" and "provide general welfare". Which is why you have the nanny state we have now, where EVERY little detail of life is becoming codified into law.
"Invoking theism, as usual, explains nothing. We have no signed statement from any god or group of gods laying out rights;"
Right! Because you reject the Creator, you necissarily reject the "self evident" nature of these rights. Which is why you think government is the granter and guaranteer of rights. Which is why you seem to think that forcibly taking something is a right, in the case of Medical Care. The only way this "right" can be assured is by FORCE of governemnt and "provided" by said government to the individual.
"Why not take the view that these "self evident" rights appear to be self evident because they are somehow beneficial to the social organization of humans? Or at least that they are consistent with the nature of human intelligence."
Why? Why are they beneficial to social organization of humans? I don't care about other people, so why should I subscribe to your "morals"? I don't agree that "life" is a right, because I believe the weak should perish, and when we don't kill off the weak and deformed, humans are weakened, as a society. Why spend resources on people who aren't productive?
"That aside, there are many, many societies around the world that have really not found these rights to be so self evident"
Exactly my point.
"I'd say that the vast majority of people in the world do not live with those rights and, in fact, many of them may not be able to fathom why we would want all of them."
Exactly. Most of those places don't have any governance or are at the other end, too much governance. Which direction do you think we in Western Cultures are moving to?
A limited and restricted governing system is what the USA was founded upon, one where the rights (see self evident) are procured and protected even when they seem silly or superfluous. With rights comes responsibility, something that no government school teaches as part of its lesson plan. For every stupid law there is, is an act of irresponsibility or gross negligence, or placing blame on the wrong party.
"So I would argue that these "self evident" rights are not really self evident at all."
They aren't self evident if you're an atheist, because they require the notion of something "bigger" than a puny human blip on the clock of history. Again, I suggest that they are only "self evident" to those that understand that there is a "Creator".
The scariest thought there is, is that there is no creator, which allows godless government based not upon ideals that none of us can reach, but rather upon the wisdom of foolish men, who think they know better than everyone else.
"I do not think the US rights model is perfect"
Agreed. But then again, no other system ever devised by men is either. I do believe that it was once one of the best ever, but it was ultimately flawed because it forgot where it came from. The founding document is "unconstitutional" according to ACLU, because it contains a reference to "Creator". I find that quite amazing.
"What you say is is not what I believe really is just because you say it is."
The same can be said of any other philosophical argument. Which leaves us holding an empty bag. There has to be a basis for understanding of where "rights" come from. If there is no agreement, then there can be no further discussion. Our founding document established that basis, and until you change the foundation of this country, I'll start there.
If there is no god, then there are no "rights" other than what man creates for himself. If he can create it, then he can destroy it, and thus, they aren't "rights".
The idea that rights are "self evident" are also tagged with "endowed by their creator" and thus they are "inalienable". Our ancestors (who fought and died) were much smarter than you think they were, which is why that line is so important in the US Declaration of Independence.
See the problem with Atheists (I assume your one of them), is that they want the benefits of the wisdom of our fathers, without the reason they were so wise. You see, in the US of A, our essential founding doctrine says that certain rights are indeed endowed by our Creator, and that these rights are SELF EVIDENT namely because they are derived from a higher source. If you take away the higher source, you are left holding an empty bag.
But of course the average atheist teacher can't articulate why they have any rights what so ever. Just ask them "why?" they have rights. See if they can actually articulate it without self reference (Circular Logic).
"I think about dragging my wife and daughter through this kind of thing and my skin crawls."
Does the thought that the government is increasing its unrestricted powers make your skin crawl more or less? If less, I suggest you review the previous states of USSR and Nazi Germany, where the police had unrestricted powers unchecked by independent parties.
My view is that there is nothing that makes my skin crawl but pseudo secret letters that supposedly have gag orders attached. I'm sorry, but First Amendment of the US Constitution says you have a right to speak your mind.
I can't think of anything creepier than secret power hungry government agencies that abuse and restrict GOD GIVEN RIGHTS in the name of security. I sure don't feel more "secure" with them, do you?
Funny, That's not what I remember them saying. More like Perot threw the election. Still the point was that today, fascist liberals love to cry over a few hundred thousand vote difference, while simply ignoring what occurred during Clinton's election.
I'm sick of double standards on both sides. oooh, (D) good, (R) bad. Or is it (R) good (D) bad?
"Given that we are currently living under a president who was never elected by the people, I think that's a pretty specious argument"
Funny, Clinton wasn't even close to 50% of the vote and won, yet nobody said he "stole" anything. I doubt that your view of Clinton is diminished by this little reminder. Would you say that Clinton was "never elected by the people"?? I doubt it.
[quote]Have you considered that your mother saw patterns that were not immediately obvious to you?[/quote]
I'm not sure she has the time to. She is too busy looking for the item that isn't where it is supposed to be, because she used it, set it down and now can't find it, because it isn't where it is supposed to be.
Which is almost always followed up by "How'd that get there"
It happens more often than not.
And while you may be right, there is hardly a "randomness" that arises from everything in its place. The thing that order does create is that one can spot when something changes more easily. Something that having a less tidy approach is actually harder to see.
I'm again reminded of a movie, this time Pirates of the Caribbean, the scene when Will Turner comes back to the shop and notices everything in its place, except one item... "not where I left you"
I'm obviously not making value judgments here, because there is obviously advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.
Slashdot Mirror
"Specifically, their children are going to grow up to be as ignorant as their parents;"
What does faith have to do with ignorance? Who is more ignorant the person who doesn't believe in God, but accepts everything teachers say without any regard, or the person of Faith who challenges everything, INCLUDING "theories"???
Excuse me, but I'd put my kids (faith) against your "average" atheist's in just about anything (except sports). They are not "ignorant" by a long shot. And yes, they can spew Evolution back at the teacher's who require it. Just because someone doesn't have faith in the "scientific theory" doesn't make them ignorant.
I'm really sick of the "holier then thou" science crowd.
"Stephen Hawking mopping floors."
Stephen Hawking, brilliant as he thinks he is, hasn't been proven right much. Just because he has all sorts of fanciful theories doesn't make him god. He's just a smart man, just like many others. And there just might be someone much smarter than Stephen Hawking who does sweep floors. You ever think of that? Perhaps such a person LIKES to sweep floors rather than seeking self glory based upon making shit up (albeit very deep shit).
"And if we don't get enough of them thinking critically"
You mean like challenging conventional wisdom? I remember that Gorillas were thought to be the fancy of crazy "wild men" (Negros). Of course no white man had ever seen them, and therefore they couldn't possibly exist. Gorillas were made fun of, exactly as the FSM makes fun of what you cannot understand because you cannot see it. Just because YOU can't see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
That would be (Score:-2, SecondLifeCreep)
"The issue as I see it, even these things which you claim you run, and probably most of the things you don't mention, are all "driving" performance issues within the PC market."
"To touch on what ended up being the rest of your baseless rant, I have an ATI Radeon x1600 PCIe video card, 1 GB of DDR2 ram, and an AMD x2 5000+ (came as a combo deal with mainboard, with a far better price than buying the two separate)."
Most of the parts you listed, aren't really required for 99% of people using computers. You need these things because of the GAMES you run. Which is and was my point.
Sweet!
Thank YOU!
Most currency has FIAT value, meaning its value is based upon what people can purchase for it, rather than intrinsic value. In the case of US dollars, a dollar can buy a certain amount of products or services and the FIAT value is what is generally agreed upon by both parties. The dollar has no "real" value or its real value is less than the FIAT value. The piece of paper that represents the value of the dollar is not worth what the paper represents in FIAT.
Virtual Value is very similar, but in the case of the QQ it is a currency that itself doesn't really exist, as there are no coins or bills that exist in reality. As soon as the QQ bank issues a certificate that represents a certain amount of QQ and that certificate can buy real items (eg a soda or a burger), it moves from the realm of virtual to Fiat currency.
The distinction is that FIAT currency has standard values based upon real products/services. A virtual currency only exists in virtual worlds.
"I have Age of Empires (the first, through AOE3), Rise of Nations (the base game and the add-ons), Rise of Legends, City of Heroes/Villains, etc."
The issue as I see it, even these things which you claim you run, and probably most of the things you don't mention, are all "driving" performance issues within the PC market. I just picked up a PC GAMER type mag the other day and the entire Magazine was about increasing FPS and other performance issues (cooling, cases etc).
I can hardly believe that people are willing to spend $1000 + on video cards to increase FPS in a FPS, but then again, I don't play games, and I certainly don't care to eek out the last of the performance out of my system. That sounds more like the Hod Rodders of the 40s and 50s. I don't care if my GTO can go 0-60 in 4.5 sec or tops out at 168 mph. I don't care that you have a 4.11 back end or a 3.65.
Most people want a Honda Accord that gets 32 mpg and lasts forever. If your game requires $5000 in equipment every six months, you can keep it. I'll sit back and watch Nascar and let the REAL pros play with the real Top of the Line.
In other words, I just want my car to get me to and from work, safely and efficiently as possible. I want the same from my Computer. And MOST people want the same thing.
You mean Detroit and DC don't have food on the shelves?
Okay, We all know that 2001 version of XP, totally unpatched is vulnerable. Duh
I update all my WinXP installs OFFLINE, making sure that they are FULLY patched and running the latest AV before putting them on the wire. The issue is that Microsoft doesn't make it easy to do this, and I have to use third party products to properly secure their systems before they go online. (90+ Patches from SP2?????)
To me, that is the greatest of all faults.
Yes, you are right. My bad
These companies want Borg Drones. They want the equivalent of script kiddies, no thinking outside the box, no clever solutions, no dynamics that have the potential of lawsuits. They want "Go to the freezer, get the box" pizza makers.
This is what I call the McDonalding of America. McDonald's hamburgers are, if anything, consistent. What you get at one McD's is the same just about any other McD's. I wouldn't call them good by any standard, but they are consistent, albeit consistently bad.
Additionally, there is an old axiom that you can pick two of any of the following three items: Quality, Service, Price. However many places are trying to compete on Price Only and consumers often chase "Price Only". Yet I see the very same people complaining about "higher prices" and price shopping places that provide better Quality or Service.
When I was in Retail Sales, I saw this all the time. People would drive 90 miles to save $5 on a $450 printer. It was insane!
So, when I see Circus Shitty (tm) and others trying to compete on price only, I laugh, as all the places that end up doing so, end up being McDonald's, consistently crappy. And people are not happy eating their crap.
It doesn't take a genius to run a company on Price Only, so why not fire all the brilliant people at the top, and replace them with cheaper alternatives?
Circus City
When you included the likes of someone like Alec Baldwin with the likes of someone like Ann Coulter then I'll agree.
The problem is that when Left Wing Wackos like Baldwin say inflamatory stuff like suggesting that a congressman ought to be killed and wife and kids raped and beaten on Broadcast TV the left thinks it is funny. When Ann Coulter says something similar it is "hate speech".
The correct answer is that BOTH are equally bombastic Wingnuts. Neither are funny and both scare the crap out of me. I don't recall seeing HIS quotes on HIS Bio page either. So, lets be fair about this, M-KAY?
Okay, You could have really done better.
YES, they are in DIRE STRAIGHTS, They need to RUSH, and abandon CHEAP TRICKs and keep their DOORS open to a new GENESIS, or get a SMASH MOUTH from the ROLLING STONES of progress. One day, after the CONTROLLED BLEEDING has DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, and we're left with nothing but BODY BAGS your BUDDY HOLLY will respond, "The Who?", because 10,000 MANIACS were TRAGICALLY HIP. Their SPIN DOCTORS cannot tell us PIGS ARE CUTE, and screw us like a FOUR DOG NIGHT.
It is either too late at night or too many beers. Or both.
Bingo.
I would further add, that they chose Microsoft because Microsoft promises lower TCO through lowered administrative (geek) needs.
I suppose that most Microsoft shops wouldn't even know if they were breached, because most breaches don't actually desctroy data, they just steal it.
I don't play MMOGs mainly because early game play sucks, and to have any fun one must progress to a certain level. My suggestion is to compartmentalize the game play, so that as players progress, they don't see those either far ahead, or far behind their current status. This way, they only deal with people near their own time / skill investment.
That way, newbies can play against and with newbies, and not get shafted by playing people who've been playing the game since dinosaurs roamed the planet. And more importantly the Dinosaurs can play with each other without having to deal with newbies.
Just wait till Old McDonald has a farm!
"If these rights are self evident, and not man made, could you explain to me why the slaves of your fore-fathers didn't have these rights?"
Yes I can. As all humans, they were flawed and hypocritical. However, they aspired to an ideal that was beyond their own reach, something I think even you can agree that it a quality we need more of.
Probably not the answer you wanted.
"Of course there are several non-theistic theories of rights, based on ideas of human nature and our minimum needs to have the ability to achieve happiness."
Who says you have a right to be happy?
"What are the maintenance requirements of the human being? Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and food, clothing, shelter and medical care."
First off, I would disagree with the premise here, because some of those things require the "taking" from another, under penalty of force. Namely, if you are all by yourself, and are sick or injured, you don't have a "right" to medical care, except for the care you can provide yourself. By adding "Medical Care" to the list of items you necissarily have to create a mechanism to provide it in a greater society.
Now take that a step further, I would suggest that forcing medical care upon people who don't desire or require it is a violation of human right or liberty. Remember a while ago the shooting of the Amish School House, the parents of the victims refused all forms of Modern Medical Care, something that is considered a "right" by the thesis presented above.
"Keeping us confused and divided against one another about these rights, the multinational power elite teaches us in America that only life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are rights."
Not understanding what "Libery" is, is a fatal flaw of modern socialism and socialistic beliefs. Liberty is PERSONAL freedom. It is what you are born with, requires no intervention by government or society to grant.
I agree with your sentiment that multinational power (and corporations) have skewed what is viewed as liberty. Some of the same rights you probably don't agree with are also enumerated in the Bill of Rights, right to be secure in person, freedom of speech, right to bear arms etc all have been severely curtailed, and most often not by the political "right" but rather the political "left", though the right seems to be holding its own in this regard lately.
You think you have free speech? Go on National TV and say the N word. Political Correctness is by definition chilling "Free Speech". Yet I don't hear the left crying "censorship" like they do when people try to restrict Porn. Hypocritical in my opinion.
"We are further encouraged to argue about whether rights must be earned or whether it is the duty of the government to guarantee them."
Rights are never earned. Those things often cited as "rights" are actually privileges. It isn't the duty of the government to guarantee rights, that places the "creator" status upon government. Only the creator of a thing can guarantee anything. Government's proper role is defined in the Preamble of the US government.
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Most people think that government should "promote common defense" and "provide general welfare". Which is why you have the nanny state we have now, where EVERY little detail of life is becoming codified into law.
"Invoking theism, as usual, explains nothing. We have no signed statement from any god or group of gods laying out rights;"
Right! Because you reject the Creator, you necissarily reject the "self evident" nature of these rights. Which is why you think government is the granter and guaranteer of rights. Which is why you seem to think that forcibly taking something is a right, in the case of Medical Care. The only way this "right" can be assured is by FORCE of governemnt and "provided" by said government to the individual.
Which means you don't understand Liberty.
"Why not take the view that these "self evident" rights appear to be self evident because they are somehow beneficial to the social organization of humans? Or at least that they are consistent with the nature of human intelligence."
Why? Why are they beneficial to social organization of humans? I don't care about other people, so why should I subscribe to your "morals"? I don't agree that "life" is a right, because I believe the weak should perish, and when we don't kill off the weak and deformed, humans are weakened, as a society. Why spend resources on people who aren't productive?
"That aside, there are many, many societies around the world that have really not found these rights to be so self evident"
Exactly my point.
"I'd say that the vast majority of people in the world do not live with those rights and, in fact, many of them may not be able to fathom why we would want all of them."
Exactly. Most of those places don't have any governance or are at the other end, too much governance. Which direction do you think we in Western Cultures are moving to?
A limited and restricted governing system is what the USA was founded upon, one where the rights (see self evident) are procured and protected even when they seem silly or superfluous. With rights comes responsibility, something that no government school teaches as part of its lesson plan. For every stupid law there is, is an act of irresponsibility or gross negligence, or placing blame on the wrong party.
"So I would argue that these "self evident" rights are not really self evident at all."
They aren't self evident if you're an atheist, because they require the notion of something "bigger" than a puny human blip on the clock of history. Again, I suggest that they are only "self evident" to those that understand that there is a "Creator".
The scariest thought there is, is that there is no creator, which allows godless government based not upon ideals that none of us can reach, but rather upon the wisdom of foolish men, who think they know better than everyone else.
"I do not think the US rights model is perfect"
Agreed. But then again, no other system ever devised by men is either. I do believe that it was once one of the best ever, but it was ultimately flawed because it forgot where it came from. The founding document is "unconstitutional" according to ACLU, because it contains a reference to "Creator". I find that quite amazing.
"What you say is is not what I believe really is just because you say it is."
The same can be said of any other philosophical argument. Which leaves us holding an empty bag. There has to be a basis for understanding of where "rights" come from. If there is no agreement, then there can be no further discussion. Our founding document established that basis, and until you change the foundation of this country, I'll start there.
Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead.
If there is no god, then there are no "rights" other than what man creates for himself. If he can create it, then he can destroy it, and thus, they aren't "rights".
The idea that rights are "self evident" are also tagged with "endowed by their creator" and thus they are "inalienable". Our ancestors (who fought and died) were much smarter than you think they were, which is why that line is so important in the US Declaration of Independence.
See the problem with Atheists (I assume your one of them), is that they want the benefits of the wisdom of our fathers, without the reason they were so wise. You see, in the US of A, our essential founding doctrine says that certain rights are indeed endowed by our Creator, and that these rights are SELF EVIDENT namely because they are derived from a higher source. If you take away the higher source, you are left holding an empty bag.
But of course the average atheist teacher can't articulate why they have any rights what so ever. Just ask them "why?" they have rights. See if they can actually articulate it without self reference (Circular Logic).
"I think about dragging my wife and daughter through this kind of thing and my skin crawls."
Does the thought that the government is increasing its unrestricted powers make your skin crawl more or less? If less, I suggest you review the previous states of USSR and Nazi Germany, where the police had unrestricted powers unchecked by independent parties.
My view is that there is nothing that makes my skin crawl but pseudo secret letters that supposedly have gag orders attached. I'm sorry, but First Amendment of the US Constitution says you have a right to speak your mind.
I can't think of anything creepier than secret power hungry government agencies that abuse and restrict GOD GIVEN RIGHTS in the name of security. I sure don't feel more "secure" with them, do you?
Funny, That's not what I remember them saying. More like Perot threw the election. Still the point was that today, fascist liberals love to cry over a few hundred thousand vote difference, while simply ignoring what occurred during Clinton's election.
I'm sick of double standards on both sides. oooh, (D) good, (R) bad. Or is it (R) good (D) bad?
My view (R) bad (D) bad. (L) good.
"Given that we are currently living under a president who was never elected by the people, I think that's a pretty specious argument"
Funny, Clinton wasn't even close to 50% of the vote and won, yet nobody said he "stole" anything. I doubt that your view of Clinton is diminished by this little reminder. Would you say that Clinton was "never elected by the people"?? I doubt it.
[quote]Have you considered that your mother saw patterns that were not immediately obvious to you?[/quote]
... "not where I left you"
I'm not sure she has the time to. She is too busy looking for the item that isn't where it is supposed to be, because she used it, set it down and now can't find it, because it isn't where it is supposed to be.
Which is almost always followed up by "How'd that get there"
It happens more often than not.
And while you may be right, there is hardly a "randomness" that arises from everything in its place. The thing that order does create is that one can spot when something changes more easily. Something that having a less tidy approach is actually harder to see.
I'm again reminded of a movie, this time Pirates of the Caribbean, the scene when Will Turner comes back to the shop and notices everything in its place, except one item
I'm obviously not making value judgments here, because there is obviously advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.