It's no secret that prosecutors usually throw every charge they can at an alleged criminal
They wouldn't be doing it, if they — the prosecuting agency(ies) — faced non-trivial monetary loss for every charge, that did not hold up in court...
To keep it harder for entities — both private and governmental — with large legal budgets to initiate frivolous proceedings, the loser must pay winner. There is no such thing currently and even winning a suit can leave one with thousands of dollars in debt. It must become automatic and not require a separate lawsuit by the winner to recoup his legal costs.
people from Mexico are always going to try and flock from there to the US to work
Yes, and I don't blame them...
keeping them all out is an effort doomed to failure
Not at all. It is perfectly possible to a) block (most of) them from entering on the border; b) discourage all of them from entering by swiftly deporting those, who get through.
Catching them is easy — they don't exactly hide. We have done such deportations before — and they worked.
because Intel workers lose something like $35,000 worth of tools every year.
That sounds a lot cheaper than even a single one full-time engineer busy developing and maintaining this cool product. There must be some other motive...
Open source? You bet!
Yeah, because all of Intel's other software has been open source.
What's not to love about the company — and its careful PR campaign preparing the market for the demise of AMD? What a lovable corporation — I think, I have a thrill up my leg again.
I agree that for the time being, large-scale centralized communism is doomed to failure
Whether it will some day be "successful" or not, I would not accept an idea, that Collective ought to trump the Individual.
Because that's the inevitable endpoint of capitalism, even without regulatory capture: wealth catalyzes the accumulation of wealth.
Gibberish and nonsense. Bill Gates was from a lower end middle-class family. Soros was a poor immigrant. Joe Biden's grandfather was an uber-rich magnate, but Joe owes more than he owns.
institutionalized theft - in the wild you own only what you can keep
Are you saying, that whatever does not occur in the wild is automatically "theft"? I think, we are done here...
wealth redistribution happens as a matter of course as the strong and sneaky reappropriate it from the transiently wealthy.
That the weak can have rights was — for centuries — considered a major advancement of humanity. I guess, your school of thought would — given a chance — do away with such advancements, the way others would — given a chance — abolish flush toilets and air-conditioning. To not give your kind such a chance is worth a lot — including some public hangings.
no, I don't imagine theocrats have the slightest interest in a viable democracy
can illegals still get food stamps with no proof of residency?
Yes — in many cases they can. For example, a child born in the US is automatically a citizen, unlike some European countries. Not only does that entitle his parents to stay here, if they happen to be poor, they'll be helped by the taxpayers.
illegal immigrants will work for less than legal immigrants as they are more desperate
The United States does not have a labor shortage. Bringing in cheap foreign labor means, the less desperate poor Americans will have fewer jobs — requiring more taxes to support them. So the immigration tends to increase "safety net" expenditures, even when the immigrants themselves aren't the immediate recipients.
parties like the republicans that represent the richest
Not true. Though exceptions abound, Republicans tend to represent the middle-class to upper middle class bourgeois. Democrats represent the uber-reach and the proletariat.
The Amendment applies to elections of the Executive — President and Vice President. We were talking — it seemed to me — about legislatures — where in the US two parties dominate, but in other countries there is a wonderful tapestry of multi-partyism.
So, if 3 candidates are in the running, one gets 10%, one gets 45% and the other gets 45%, no one wins.
I don't believe, this ever happened. Somebody would usually get at list slightly more votes than the other. Ross Perot — the most recent remotely-viable 3rd-party candidate lost not because Congress didn't like him, but simply because he came a distant 3rd.
I have not voted for a party, ever, in my life
I meant legally. Though many people (not you, Ok) vote on straight party-tickets, legally they all vote for people, not parties. Yes, it may be, that all a voter knows about a particular candidate is his (likely) party-affiliation, but the vote — in the US — is still for the candidate, not his party.
In many other countries it is the opposite — people might know, who the party is likely to appoint upon winning, but they vote for the parties, not individuals. The parties then allocate seats (in the legislature) according to their own whims and preferences.
You wish to murder people simply because they do not agree with you
No, you idiot. I wish to kill — not "murder" — them, because they plan to confiscate my property and enslave me. That's what Communists do — the selfish Individual is sacrificed to the needs of the glorious Collective.
Yes, an economic system in which the workers own the means of production
Whatever it sounds like in theory.
an evil concept that promotes mass-murder
Yes. Wherever attempted in earnest, Communism resulted in exactly that: mass-murder. And to what end? The survivors were left in dire economic misery and without most basic rights.
Compare the North and South Koreas. Eastern and Western Germany (before reunification). Soviet Estonia and Finland. The three examples compare identical countries with identical peoples...
I'll grant you that every large-scale attempt at communism so far has had horrible fascist overtones
That's because Fascism is not so very different. It is slightly better in that the economy runs more efficiently — thanks to the (relatively) free markets. But the whole idea, that the (Glorious) Collective ought to trump the silly and cantankerous Individual — shared by Communism, Socialism (a.k.a. Communism-lite), and Fascism — is what leads to the above mentioned mass-murders and deprivations.
so let's all of us, communists, capitalists, socialists, anarchists, etc. work together
Theocrats curiously omitted, he-heh... You seem to suggest, that all ideas have merit and are equally valid — the "wonderful tapestry of diversity" concept. That is demonstrably not true. Communists in particular belong on lamp-posts — allowing them to "try again" is simply suicidal.
Marches — yes. But protests? Protests are (supposed to be) spontaneous one-offs, triggered by an acute problem or a flare-up of a chronic one — not something happening every year on schedule...
You're a bit of a shithead yourself
Ah, an ad-hominem... How do I know, you have a Che Guevara T-shirt? This is how.
Commie bastards — anybody with a Che Guevara T-shirt or a red flag — deserves to be hung from a lamp post until their feet stop kicking.
Followers of the single most murderous school of thought known to humanity — even Hitler's peculiar branch of Fascism being but a distant second — have their minds infected and their demonstrations and protests help spread and perpetuate the infection.
They should be quarantined and culled — to let the healing begin. Please, don't hate.
taking part in a large peaceful protest that occurs annually there
What sort of "large protest" occurs annually on schedule? Do they sacrifice a minority teenager once a year over there — to properly inspire the participants?
The previous year, some shitheads had started rioting
Something is telling me, all participants have excrement in their cranial cavities — even if not all of them riot...
My claim was not, that the government was not engaged in surveillance, but that no innocent American has been harmed by it. Your examples enumerate the cases of such surveillance, but do not list anybody being harmed by it.
This is the war on drugs.. Reagan declares war
Drugs are illegal — criminals are prosecuted. That's not evidence of innocent Americans being harmed.
This is parellel construction
Yes, I know about the parallel construction and did mention it my post. It has not, however, been used against an innocent party. Some day it may be abused that way, but it has not happened yet — whereas Obama's use of IRS and DoJ power to silence critics has happened and continues to happen.
This is civil foreiture
Yes, such forfeitures are a travesty, but they have nothing to do with NSA or DEA surveillance.
So, to counter my statement, that NSA's surveillance has not harmed innocent Americans (unlike the IRS abuse), you gave examples of criminals prosecuted or of confiscations, that had nothing to do with the NSA... I think, we are done here.
What is tripping you up, is the fact that in reality we DO vote for parties, almost exlcusively, with mabey handfuls of exceptions.
There are no parties in the Constitution. So, no, we do not. We do know the candidates' (claimed) affiliations and this knowledge does affect our voting. But there is no codified "system", that gives "parties" any legal meaning — not in the US.
57.9% of (black|black-hispanic) people who were stopped were arrested.
Seems like a pretty good hit-ratio — if one is not bothered by the whole thing being against Constitution to begin with, that is.
65.7% of the people whose race was recorded [emphasis mine -mi] and it wasn't black or black-hispanic who were stopped were arrested.
The "whose race was recorded" is a caveat you can drive a truck through...
So they stop the people who are less likely to be arrested more often.
Arrest is not the only possible outcome of frisking finding something illegal. Small amounts of marijuana, for example, will not result in arrest — the stuff is still illegal (for better or worse).
So where are your stats?
I made no claims — for all I know, NYPD might be racist — I'm simply scrutinizing the unsubstantiated claims by others. So far, no proof was presented...
all the stuff that also happened under a "conservative" president.
Some of it was, indeed, happening under a Conservative President. We were then told, it must be ended — "before liberty is destroyed" — and that electing an Illiberal President is the way. We got such a President, and all of the government abuses became worse.
For example, whereas Bush was using drones to kill suspects, who could not be captured, Obama uses them to kill all suspects (because he does not want to get stuck with "inconvenient" detainees).
This "EINSTEIN" is the same — the program was instituted under Bush, but it took Obama Administration for them to begin destroying their records — just as the public started wondering about them overstepping legal bounds.
Scream all we want about Bush-era NSA surveillance, but such surveillance has not hurt an innocent American yet — the worst we've heard was the Feds "leaking" info to local police departments, who are then "reconstructing" events to make it appear, they got evidence on their own. But the crimes are still real! Now contrast this with Obama's use of the IRS audits to suppress opposition.
As I said, electing Illiberals causes the materialization of the worst fears...
And people wonder why I feel we need to amend the Constitution to stop favoring the 2 party system...
There is no such "favoring" anywhere in the Constitution. We have multiple parties and, in fact, one of them was — the Whigs — once strong enough to gain major chunks in Congress and the Presidency.
What confuses many people — including, it seems, yourself — is that in the US we do not vote for parties. We vote for individuals. The individuals may or may not choose to affiliate with a particular party, but such affiliations are not binding. An elected lawmaker can quit/join any party without any official consequences to his position.
On contrast, many (most?) Democracies do vote for parties, who then appoint party-members to the legislature. That makes party-affiliation binding — by quitting a party, the politician will resign his position (unless another party accepts him).
There is nothing wrong with the Einstein system itself. Deleting its records, however — to destroy evidence of government overstepping legal bounds — try blaming that on W...
Slashdot Mirror
They wouldn't be doing it, if they — the prosecuting agency(ies) — faced non-trivial monetary loss for every charge, that did not hold up in court...
To keep it harder for entities — both private and governmental — with large legal budgets to initiate frivolous proceedings, the loser must pay winner. There is no such thing currently and even winning a suit can leave one with thousands of dollars in debt. It must become automatic and not require a separate lawsuit by the winner to recoup his legal costs.
Joe Biden is a lunatic living in his own world (fun though his world appears to be). Please, do nominate him. Thank you!
Yes, and I don't blame them...
Not at all. It is perfectly possible to a) block (most of) them from entering on the border; b) discourage all of them from entering by swiftly deporting those, who get through.
Catching them is easy — they don't exactly hide. We have done such deportations before — and they worked.
That sounds a lot cheaper than even a single one full-time engineer busy developing and maintaining this cool product. There must be some other motive...
Yeah, because all of Intel's other software has been open source.
What's not to love about the company — and its careful PR campaign preparing the market for the demise of AMD? What a lovable corporation — I think, I have a thrill up my leg again.
Whether it will some day be "successful" or not, I would not accept an idea, that Collective ought to trump the Individual.
Gibberish and nonsense. Bill Gates was from a lower end middle-class family. Soros was a poor immigrant. Joe Biden's grandfather was an uber-rich magnate, but Joe owes more than he owns.
Are you saying, that whatever does not occur in the wild is automatically "theft"? I think, we are done here...
That the weak can have rights was — for centuries — considered a major advancement of humanity. I guess, your school of thought would — given a chance — do away with such advancements, the way others would — given a chance — abolish flush toilets and air-conditioning. To not give your kind such a chance is worth a lot — including some public hangings.
But Communists do, right? Hillarious...
Yes — in many cases they can. For example, a child born in the US is automatically a citizen, unlike some European countries. Not only does that entitle his parents to stay here, if they happen to be poor, they'll be helped by the taxpayers.
The United States does not have a labor shortage. Bringing in cheap foreign labor means, the less desperate poor Americans will have fewer jobs — requiring more taxes to support them. So the immigration tends to increase "safety net" expenditures, even when the immigrants themselves aren't the immediate recipients.
Not true. Though exceptions abound, Republicans tend to represent the middle-class to upper middle class bourgeois. Democrats represent the uber-reach and the proletariat.
Please, explain the success of the Whigs in the 19th century — according to your theory, it simply could not have happened.
Nay, according to your theory, even the 2nd party should not exist...
The Amendment applies to elections of the Executive — President and Vice President. We were talking — it seemed to me — about legislatures — where in the US two parties dominate, but in other countries there is a wonderful tapestry of multi-partyism.
I don't believe, this ever happened. Somebody would usually get at list slightly more votes than the other. Ross Perot — the most recent remotely-viable 3rd-party candidate lost not because Congress didn't like him, but simply because he came a distant 3rd.
I meant legally. Though many people (not you, Ok) vote on straight party-tickets, legally they all vote for people, not parties. Yes, it may be, that all a voter knows about a particular candidate is his (likely) party-affiliation, but the vote — in the US — is still for the candidate, not his party.
In many other countries it is the opposite — people might know, who the party is likely to appoint upon winning, but they vote for the parties, not individuals. The parties then allocate seats (in the legislature) according to their own whims and preferences.
Just because there is no X, doesn't mean X does not exist. Marvelous.
The Y exists, because of Y.
Darling, depending on your age, there may still be hope for you. But I'm not going to cast any more pearls before you — I've done my duty to society.
No, you idiot. I wish to kill — not "murder" — them, because they plan to confiscate my property and enslave me. That's what Communists do — the selfish Individual is sacrificed to the needs of the glorious Collective.
Whatever it sounds like in theory.
Yes. Wherever attempted in earnest, Communism resulted in exactly that: mass-murder. And to what end? The survivors were left in dire economic misery and without most basic rights.
Compare the North and South Koreas. Eastern and Western Germany (before reunification). Soviet Estonia and Finland. The three examples compare identical countries with identical peoples...
That's because Fascism is not so very different. It is slightly better in that the economy runs more efficiently — thanks to the (relatively) free markets. But the whole idea, that the (Glorious) Collective ought to trump the silly and cantankerous Individual — shared by Communism, Socialism (a.k.a. Communism-lite), and Fascism — is what leads to the above mentioned mass-murders and deprivations.
Theocrats curiously omitted, he-heh... You seem to suggest, that all ideas have merit and are equally valid — the "wonderful tapestry of diversity" concept. That is demonstrably not true. Communists in particular belong on lamp-posts — allowing them to "try again" is simply suicidal.
Can such festivals even be called protests though? I don't think so...
Marches — yes. But protests? Protests are (supposed to be) spontaneous one-offs, triggered by an acute problem or a flare-up of a chronic one — not something happening every year on schedule...
Ah, an ad-hominem... How do I know, you have a Che Guevara T-shirt? This is how.
Please, don't hate.
Commie bastards — anybody with a Che Guevara T-shirt or a red flag — deserves to be hung from a lamp post until their feet stop kicking.
Followers of the single most murderous school of thought known to humanity — even Hitler's peculiar branch of Fascism being but a distant second — have their minds infected and their demonstrations and protests help spread and perpetuate the infection.
They should be quarantined and culled — to let the healing begin. Please, don't hate.
What sort of "large protest" occurs annually on schedule? Do they sacrifice a minority teenager once a year over there — to properly inspire the participants?
Something is telling me, all participants have excrement in their cranial cavities — even if not all of them riot...
That's the part I would support. People, who would riot and loot really are better off dead. To make the world a better place...
Please, don't hate.
My claim was not, that the government was not engaged in surveillance, but that no innocent American has been harmed by it. Your examples enumerate the cases of such surveillance, but do not list anybody being harmed by it.
Drugs are illegal — criminals are prosecuted. That's not evidence of innocent Americans being harmed.
Yes, I know about the parallel construction and did mention it my post. It has not, however, been used against an innocent party. Some day it may be abused that way, but it has not happened yet — whereas Obama's use of IRS and DoJ power to silence critics has happened and continues to happen.
Yes, such forfeitures are a travesty, but they have nothing to do with NSA or DEA surveillance.
So, to counter my statement, that NSA's surveillance has not harmed innocent Americans (unlike the IRS abuse), you gave examples of criminals prosecuted or of confiscations, that had nothing to do with the NSA... I think, we are done here.
More empty words.
There are no parties in the Constitution. So, no, we do not. We do know the candidates' (claimed) affiliations and this knowledge does affect our voting. But there is no codified "system", that gives "parties" any legal meaning — not in the US.
This is even further off-topic...
I mean, no one — not even you — has any evidence of it.
Empty words.
Citation needed.
This system is not codified anywhere in the Constitution either, as far as I know...
So? Do not consent — that's what the NYCLU is teaching — but do obey their orders anyway.
Huh? Of course, they can not beat you — unless you resist them. So do not resist...
Seems like a pretty good hit-ratio — if one is not bothered by the whole thing being against Constitution to begin with, that is.
The "whose race was recorded" is a caveat you can drive a truck through...
Arrest is not the only possible outcome of frisking finding something illegal. Small amounts of marijuana, for example, will not result in arrest — the stuff is still illegal (for better or worse).
I made no claims — for all I know, NYPD might be racist — I'm simply scrutinizing the unsubstantiated claims by others. So far, no proof was presented...
Some of it was, indeed, happening under a Conservative President. We were then told, it must be ended — "before liberty is destroyed" — and that electing an Illiberal President is the way. We got such a President, and all of the government abuses became worse.
For example, whereas Bush was using drones to kill suspects, who could not be captured, Obama uses them to kill all suspects (because he does not want to get stuck with "inconvenient" detainees).
This "EINSTEIN" is the same — the program was instituted under Bush, but it took Obama Administration for them to begin destroying their records — just as the public started wondering about them overstepping legal bounds.
Scream all we want about Bush-era NSA surveillance, but such surveillance has not hurt an innocent American yet — the worst we've heard was the Feds "leaking" info to local police departments, who are then "reconstructing" events to make it appear, they got evidence on their own. But the crimes are still real! Now contrast this with Obama's use of the IRS audits to suppress opposition.
As I said, electing Illiberals causes the materialization of the worst fears...
There is no such "favoring" anywhere in the Constitution. We have multiple parties and, in fact, one of them was — the Whigs — once strong enough to gain major chunks in Congress and the Presidency.
What confuses many people — including, it seems, yourself — is that in the US we do not vote for parties. We vote for individuals. The individuals may or may not choose to affiliate with a particular party, but such affiliations are not binding. An elected lawmaker can quit/join any party without any official consequences to his position.
On contrast, many (most?) Democracies do vote for parties, who then appoint party-members to the legislature. That makes party-affiliation binding — by quitting a party, the politician will resign his position (unless another party accepts him).
There is nothing wrong with the Einstein system itself. Deleting its records, however — to destroy evidence of government overstepping legal bounds — try blaming that on W...