Of course they would get away with it. If someone decided to have their militia actually attempt a political coup, like, an armed 2nd amendment powered civilian attack on the government with guns and bombs, EVERYONE would tolerate them calling in the military to do something about it and nobody would bat an eyelash when the thing they do about it is shoot back at the people who are shooting them. People can gather arms and whip themselves into a frenzy and protest all they want. But if anyone actually tries to bring arms against the government they will be gunned down and the people will cheer.
I chose wiretapping as my hypothetical because it was an infringement on the right to privacy. Every time the government chips away at a right they aren't going to piss EVERYONE off. People will get angry in group based on what THEY value the most, so when the violence comes, it will not be the whole country, it will be the group that's most upset and everyone else who felt the last infraction did NOT warrant an armed assault will be fine with the government defending themselves.
How about the unabomber? He was trying to start a revolution against the effects of modern society's "industrial-technological system. Not at all religious in nature.
Actually it's believed to be an evolutionary throwback from male primates liking big asses because the meant wide hips and therefore good breeding. When we started walking upright our perception changed and there were two new large fatty lumps slightly below eye level.
Yes, thank god we outlawed prostitution and STDs ceased to exist entirely. And there's certainly no longer any deadly epidemics of them going around... Oh wait.
But that's not my argument. HIS argument is that religion is the number one cause of evil and that religion is the only cause of terrorism.
I'm not arguing that Religion is never bad. It often is. I'm arguing that religion is not the only source of anything bad in which case my atheist argument is not only logical but basically a complete checkmate to the grandiose statements about religion he made.
And had he said "want to reduce the rate of terrorism some what? remove religion because it is generally more harmful than helpful" then your argument would be correct.
But he said "want to permanently fix terrorism? remove religion (entirely, from everyone)." and "religion has to be the #1 worst trait of mankind, above all else. it truly is the root of all evil"
So my point that lots of terrible stuff was done by people who weren't religious is an entirely valid counter argument. I'm not saying atheism is bad, I'm a atheist myself. I'm saying that we atheists need to stop pretending we're some magical supergroup who are immune from moral wrong and perfectly flawless and logical and that all religious people are crazy flawed and stupid and that were they to just give up the god they'd stop doing anyting bad ever because all evil comes from religion. It just aint so.
And America has issues with prison overcrowding and dealers using the relation they form with their clientele over pot to segue them into hard drugs in a way that wouldn't happen if the stuff was legal. So saying they have issues is a bit of a "pick your poison" type of argument.
It's unhygenic and smells bad. Both are objectively legitimate reasons that have nothing to do with morality or values. Citation on the well documented effects of pot and marijuana? Because last I checked Amsterdam was doing alright.
Don't be ridiculous. Pol Pot and Stalin were atheist and they were right cunts too. People do bad things because we're stupid animals, not because some people believe in deities.
In Vietnam orders were things like "napalm innocent children" and THOSE took a while to get acted against.
Are you honestly telling me that if some group decided that the wiretapping laws Bush made were "going too far" and the decided to start an armed uprising against the president the military would have trouble finding people willing to go and shoot every last one of them dead?
First off, replace "bomber" with "tanks" or "armed troops" or whatever and your bombing point is gone. Second off, you're assuming the government would just be like "boom! no more human rights for you!" overnight and EVERYONE would rebel.
But if they slowly took away rights by making provisions and exceptions for certain conditions and certain groups (like, let's say, not allowing a mosque at ground zero for example) the MAJORITY of the people would be either happy, or not upset enough to revolt with it that it wouldn't cause a mass uprising. Of course then they would have a precedent with which they could slowly chip away at other rights. Play on fear and hatemongering. Label groups "terrorists" and "the enemy".
"We need to force everyone to carry ID badges to stop those damn illegals from stealing our jobs". "We need to violate privacy law to allow more invasive wiretapping because we just got word of a major terrorist attack being planned". etc.
The people who DID decide to take some liberty with the second amendment wouldn't have the firepower or backing to stand up to the military. Defectors? Clearly dangerous traitors. There wouldn't be many. Hell, look at gays, they're willing to die for a country that won't let them come out on fear of losing their jobs. People will put up with a lot of shit. It could be done EASILLY.
As long as they manage to only stomp on the rights of a few small groups at a time then they deal with each group one by one while they're small and public opinion is against them. If a Michigan militia type felt their rights were being violated and marched on Washington the military would label them dangerous traitors and destroy them.
Yes if the government went fascist overnight and was like "hey guys. No rights for you lol gg no re" then yeah, the military couldn't (and likely wouldn't) do shit against 300 million armed angry people. but my original point is that if they government wanted to take away your rights, and did it in an even mildy intelligent way, they could, and they have enough firepower that whatever arm the second amendment gives you the right to bear wouldn't help.
Well technically the people from any world with magic could study and document all magic via the scientific method so it's a world with different, fictional, scientific laws.
Yes, thank you, we all know how self defense law works. Last I checked though, cops tend to use tasers when people are just being loud and disruptive (don't tase me bro)
in terms of killing civilians? I recall it's going swimmingly. Also, it takes boots on the ground with rifles to try to forcefully stop government insurrection, and they have to fire on fellow citizens first.
And lets not forget those Nazis who ran the ovens were just citizens too.
People do what they're told when someone in charge tells them to. It's human nature. Sure, we SAY we won't, but studies show that 4 out of 5 people were willing to electrocute a puppy to death because the person in charge of the experiment told them to. Sure, saying "go kill some innocent civilians" might be easy to oppose, but "Oh no, a band of terrorists is charging the capital and trying to over throw the government! We have it on good authority that they're being supplied weapons and support by the North Koreans!" and we'll see how many compunctions the man in the bomber has about firing on them. For the good of the nation and it's good people of course.
Slashdot Mirror
We have to boil unprocessed water. That on its own makes fire essential.
if you are running a scam using that phone and get your number reported? yes.
...perhaps we'd start to see an Internet funded by people willing to pay for (or share) quality content...
Ask the games and music industry how that's working out for them...
Of course they would get away with it. If someone decided to have their militia actually attempt a political coup, like, an armed 2nd amendment powered civilian attack on the government with guns and bombs, EVERYONE would tolerate them calling in the military to do something about it and nobody would bat an eyelash when the thing they do about it is shoot back at the people who are shooting them. People can gather arms and whip themselves into a frenzy and protest all they want. But if anyone actually tries to bring arms against the government they will be gunned down and the people will cheer.
I chose wiretapping as my hypothetical because it was an infringement on the right to privacy. Every time the government chips away at a right they aren't going to piss EVERYONE off. People will get angry in group based on what THEY value the most, so when the violence comes, it will not be the whole country, it will be the group that's most upset and everyone else who felt the last infraction did NOT warrant an armed assault will be fine with the government defending themselves.
How about the unabomber? He was trying to start a revolution against the effects of modern society's "industrial-technological system. Not at all religious in nature.
Did you have a point or were you just praising the man who flew a plane into a building trying to kill the people inside?
best way to make cars safer is to hire people to randomly sabotage people's cars
Actually it's believed to be an evolutionary throwback from male primates liking big asses because the meant wide hips and therefore good breeding. When we started walking upright our perception changed and there were two new large fatty lumps slightly below eye level.
that guy who flew a plane into an IRS building earlier this year because he hated taxes
Yes, thank god we outlawed prostitution and STDs ceased to exist entirely. And there's certainly no longer any deadly epidemics of them going around... Oh wait.
since my premise was that the statement:
want to permanently fix terrorism? remove religion (entirely, from everyone).
is wrong. It completely agrees with my premise since all I have to show is that removing religion would not magically fix all terrorism forever.
But that's not my argument. HIS argument is that religion is the number one cause of evil and that religion is the only cause of terrorism.
I'm not arguing that Religion is never bad. It often is. I'm arguing that religion is not the only source of anything bad in which case my atheist argument is not only logical but basically a complete checkmate to the grandiose statements about religion he made.
And had he said "want to reduce the rate of terrorism some what? remove religion because it is generally more harmful than helpful" then your argument would be correct.
But he said "want to permanently fix terrorism? remove religion (entirely, from everyone)." and "religion has to be the #1 worst trait of mankind, above all else. it truly is the root of all evil"
So my point that lots of terrible stuff was done by people who weren't religious is an entirely valid counter argument. I'm not saying atheism is bad, I'm a atheist myself. I'm saying that we atheists need to stop pretending we're some magical supergroup who are immune from moral wrong and perfectly flawless and logical and that all religious people are crazy flawed and stupid and that were they to just give up the god they'd stop doing anyting bad ever because all evil comes from religion. It just aint so.
And America has issues with prison overcrowding and dealers using the relation they form with their clientele over pot to segue them into hard drugs in a way that wouldn't happen if the stuff was legal. So saying they have issues is a bit of a "pick your poison" type of argument.
Why can't you take a shit in public?
It's unhygenic and smells bad. Both are objectively legitimate reasons that have nothing to do with morality or values. Citation on the well documented effects of pot and marijuana? Because last I checked Amsterdam was doing alright.
Don't be ridiculous. Pol Pot and Stalin were atheist and they were right cunts too. People do bad things because we're stupid animals, not because some people believe in deities.
In Vietnam orders were things like "napalm innocent children" and THOSE took a while to get acted against.
Are you honestly telling me that if some group decided that the wiretapping laws Bush made were "going too far" and the decided to start an armed uprising against the president the military would have trouble finding people willing to go and shoot every last one of them dead?
First off, replace "bomber" with "tanks" or "armed troops" or whatever and your bombing point is gone. Second off, you're assuming the government would just be like "boom! no more human rights for you!" overnight and EVERYONE would rebel.
But if they slowly took away rights by making provisions and exceptions for certain conditions and certain groups (like, let's say, not allowing a mosque at ground zero for example) the MAJORITY of the people would be either happy, or not upset enough to revolt with it that it wouldn't cause a mass uprising. Of course then they would have a precedent with which they could slowly chip away at other rights. Play on fear and hatemongering. Label groups "terrorists" and "the enemy".
"We need to force everyone to carry ID badges to stop those damn illegals from stealing our jobs". "We need to violate privacy law to allow more invasive wiretapping because we just got word of a major terrorist attack being planned". etc.
The people who DID decide to take some liberty with the second amendment wouldn't have the firepower or backing to stand up to the military. Defectors? Clearly dangerous traitors. There wouldn't be many. Hell, look at gays, they're willing to die for a country that won't let them come out on fear of losing their jobs. People will put up with a lot of shit. It could be done EASILLY.
As long as they manage to only stomp on the rights of a few small groups at a time then they deal with each group one by one while they're small and public opinion is against them. If a Michigan militia type felt their rights were being violated and marched on Washington the military would label them dangerous traitors and destroy them.
Yes if the government went fascist overnight and was like "hey guys. No rights for you lol gg no re" then yeah, the military couldn't (and likely wouldn't) do shit against 300 million armed angry people. but my original point is that if they government wanted to take away your rights, and did it in an even mildy intelligent way, they could, and they have enough firepower that whatever arm the second amendment gives you the right to bear wouldn't help.
I believe because the person who commit the libel was in the UK at the time.
Well technically the people from any world with magic could study and document all magic via the scientific method so it's a world with different, fictional, scientific laws.
the TARDIS
Yes, thank you, we all know how self defense law works. Last I checked though, cops tend to use tasers when people are just being loud and disruptive (don't tase me bro)
in terms of killing civilians? I recall it's going swimmingly. Also, it takes boots on the ground with rifles to try to forcefully stop government insurrection, and they have to fire on fellow citizens first.
The Asch Conformity Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Milgram Experiment
And lets not forget those Nazis who ran the ovens were just citizens too.
People do what they're told when someone in charge tells them to. It's human nature. Sure, we SAY we won't, but studies show that 4 out of 5 people were willing to electrocute a puppy to death because the person in charge of the experiment told them to. Sure, saying "go kill some innocent civilians" might be easy to oppose, but "Oh no, a band of terrorists is charging the capital and trying to over throw the government! We have it on good authority that they're being supplied weapons and support by the North Koreans!" and we'll see how many compunctions the man in the bomber has about firing on them. For the good of the nation and it's good people of course.