Face it, it's the goal of every administration to gather up more power; in fact I can't think of any that have given up any significant powers it had. Lincoln and FDR at least had the excuse of a major war and depression to gather their powers.
You're quite right, and not just the goal of every administration, but pretty much every beaurocrat as well. Witness the TSA's huge resistance to arming pilots and all the roadblocks they put in the way. (Some of those roadblocks may have since been lifted) If you don't have armed pilots, you need more air marshals. Armed pilots aren't in the TSA, but more air marshals would mean a bigger TSA and more power for Mineta and his cronies. Thankfully Mineta's gone and IIRC, things have gotten better.
My entire point was that everyone treats the Constitution as relevent only when it's convienent for their goals, and act suprised & outraged when someone else's constitutional convienence doesn't align with theirs.
Personally I'm not terribly worried about what the current administration is doing to fight the war on terror. It's ground we've covered before and come back from- Alien & Sedition acts, Habeus Corpus in the civil war, WW2 Japanese internment, etc. We've shown as a country we can wether and recover from this.
What does concern me is an ever expanding federal government, consuming more and more of our livelyhood supposedly for our own good and grabbing more power over our daily lives. Once grown beaucracies never dissappear.
As Reagan said, a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away.
Yes, because pinochet implemented free market reforms and then gave up power more or less voluntarily. This makes Chile quite rare in the history of coup d' etats.
Given the overall 'success' rate I'll still pass on the option.
Looks like fourteen reasons that can be summed up pretty quick: The legislature is too damn lazy to try to get the populous to assign them new powers, so they just take them and let the lawyers make excuses for it.
The constitution has a mechanism for change. It is not government by the dead, it's government by standards. We no longer have any.
Is a favorite pastime of both parties. The feds have been ignoring the constitution since at least FDR's new deal, and some would say the civil war.
If you shout and cheer for the limitless power given by g readings of the interstate commerce clause and the 'general welfare' clause (quip), you're part of the problem. If you think that the constitution wasn't designed to cuff the federal government into a very limited role it's now outgrown, you're part of the problem.
If you have no clue what the 9th and 10th amendments are, and you think the 2nd amendment is outdated or a 'states right' (*snicker), YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
The constitution isn't a salad bar. You don't get to pick and choose. You either respect it, or you don't. If you don't you'll get some programs you like (SS, medicare, HUD, etc) and you'll get some you hate, losing your freedoms all the way.
The government pisses all over the constitution every day because we let it and we elect people who make and deliver on promises that are not within the assigned powers of the federal government.
The constitution isn't a living document. It means what it says, with the meaning that the orginal writers intended. If it's a living document then it can mean anything, and so it basically means nothing. The original intent of the founding fathers is not an arcane secret difficult to divine- they were quite prolific writers and record keepers- go find what else they wrote and their intent will be clear.
You can blame Gonzalez, you can blame Bush, but you really should blame FDR, blame Lincoln, and most of all blame yourself.
If you really want to get picky on the constitution, then the following goes away:
Every state and local gun ban
The department of education, the Department of the Interior, HUD, Social Security, Medicare, and a whole lot of others I don't remember.
You can argue that some of those functions are proper for the federal government to have and in some cases I might agree with you. The fact remains that all of them exist only because 'interstate commerce' now means anything that can conceivably happen in more than one state, and 'general welfare' now means 'welfare for the individual.' We can change the constitution if we think the feds should have more power. We just don't bother.
You bought and paid for this administration's abuses with a million other trespasses you let slide because they made you feel good.
Not really. The internet, while not an absolute necessity, is becoming increasingly important in everyday life. It is not just the broadcast of entertainment as is sattelite radio.Moreover, sirius and xm still have broadcast radio and cd/mp3 players as competition.
If there was a monopoly in sattelite radio.... so what?
It's an optional service. No one, by any stretch of the imagination, needs to buy sattelite radio service.
If they piss off their customers, what are the customers gonna do?
STOP PAYING THEM.
That's all. Folks will listen to free broadcast radio or cd's instead. They won't starve, they won't have to dig up a precious resource themselves, and they won't have to kill someone in the streets to get their fix.
But hey, the FCC got to flex their muscle. They must be proud.
If leftist point permeates TV so thoroughly, then how come it doesn't count as a left POV enough to balance out the right under the fairness doctrine? It is not permeating thoroughly enough? So, it's there-- but it's not there according to the fairness doctrine?
If it was possible for the legions of FCC agents who would enforce this doctrine to be perfectly just, then yes it would balance out. You can't, however, and the likely scenario (and this was the case the first time around) is that the rule is enforced on a station by station basis. Each station that decided to cover politics would have to pander to both sides of the isle or risk enforcement action. Since only one side is profitable a business can't do it.
If that's the case, then shouldn't it be possible to accept the fairness doctrine and still keep Rush because there are vast swathes of broadcast lefties out there? Ideally yes but you can't count on it to work in practice that way. Further, if that's the case- and it is- there is no need for this doctrine in the first place. And who wants to expand government power 'just because'?
Which is why democrats love it so much. The talk radio explosion came after the fairness doctrine ended. Before that if a radio station offered a right leaning talk show, they'd have to offer time to a left leaning one as well.
The trouble is that left wing talk radio doesn't sell ads, because no one listens to it. So radio station operators had to chose between a few hours of right wing talk radio that was profitable, balanced by a few hours of left talk that wasn't, or just filling the airwaves with silly pop songs that generated decent revenue consistently.
You don't have to believe me, you can go check for yourself the respective popularity & profitability of Air America vs Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Rielly, Mike Savage, etc.
Left wing talk radio doesn't sell. So forcing radio stations to carry equal amounts of right wing and left wing radio makes them lose money, so they drop it altogether.
Now like most internet forums, Slashdot is teeming with lefties. I imagine most of you will be fine with this cause talk radio is just a bunch of right-wing hate mongers, right? Eh? No harm in silencing that, huh?
Unless, of course, you happen to think freedom of speech and property rights stands for something.
The obvious counter is that the airwaves are public property, and you're right. You're also ignoring that the leftist point of view permeates most broadcast TV quite thoroughly (Yes, except for Fox). If you don't realize it, it's for the same reason fish don't realize they're wet.
Truth is the elimination of the fairness doctrine made the airwaves more fair, because presenting a right wing point of view became profitable when you weren't burdened with the left wing. It wasn't be the first government policy that had the precise opposite of it's intended effect, and it won't be the last.
If you support the return of the fairness doctrine after actually paying attention to the history of it, you might as well say "Free speech for me, but not for thee."
To know both systems of measurement. I do, and yes, I'm under thirty.
I know metric, and I know the conversions between imperial and metric. I use metric myself if I'm doing calculations on my own because it is easier.
But you know what? Screw you measurement snobs. I like my gallons, miles and pounds.
I want my power plant measurements in PSI not KPA, Farenheit not Celsius, and gallons per minute are fine by me. The engineers seem to keep everything humming along just fine with imperial units, and I operate it all the same.
By all means teach the metric system alongside imperial units. People can learn multiple languages, so a few conversion factors aren't that hard.
Now that we've established that, we can take a look at the educational system. Competent schools already teach both, and incompetent schools suck on so many levels the metric system should be your least concern.
Go find something worthwhile to do. A crusade to impose the metric system universally is pretty high up one the list of worthless endevours.
I don't disagree with anything you say, except your condescending tone.
The point is it's a statistical fact that people spend more when using a credit card then they would otherwise. Maybe you don't, but most of the people around you do. This is the case so often that the claim 'credit cards are harmless' isn't true.
Hell, try it yourself if you're so confident that you don't spend more on a CC than you would if you had cash. Go all cash for a month or two and see if the psychological impact of handing over the paper is bigger than swiping the card, thus causing you to be more careful. The spending more trend applies wether or not you pay it off in full at the end of the month.
Maybe you'll spend the same, maybe you won't. Interesting test to your cocky position though, eh?
By the way, I don't envy the rich, I don't pity the poor, my fuckups are my fault and my place in life is my responsibility. I expect the same from others.
Al Gore can die in a fire for all I care.
And I generally vote Republican.
I don't give a shit if I get modded down, so man up nancy!:P
Using credit cards is not harmless, because you are apt to spend more when using a CC. There's plenty of research to back this up- I think the average is that someone spends 15% more when using a CC as compared to cash.
Even on my setup (720p native projector onto a 102" glass-beaded screen) which makes most people's "huge" HDTVs look positively tiny. I have *yet* to hear someone complain about DVDs on my setup, they're blown away by how theatre-like the setup is.
I'd just like to point out that no good guest will come over to your house, see something you obviously put a lot of money and effort into, and then complain about it.
Your larger point still stands and your theater set up probably does indeed rock.
There were differences from the beginning about how that government should evolve and grow. But plain common sense said that you cannot govern from the grave.
The Founders deepest faith was in Checks and Balances. The world changes. Structure endures.
Interstate Commerce took on the meaning it had to a commercial and industrial civilization that stretched across a continent, that drew on the resources of every race and kind. It could not be otherwise.
Of course you can't govern from the grave. That's why we have a method to change the constitution, one that we've used 26 times.
The point is that the constitution either means what it originally meant, or it means nothing. When a document that was originally supposed to shackle the federal government is re-interpreted as desired or necessary then the function isn't being fulfilled.
There are a few things that the federal government does that I think it proper for it to do, but are still unconstitutional. The right and honest thing to do would be to change the constitution to put such things legitimately under federal power. Sure, it's hard, but it's supposed to be.
"You can't govern from the grave" is exactly the sort of rationalization that makes the constitution worthless. It's not governing from the grave, it's the standing supreme law of the United States of America.
Every time you let a branch of the federal government ignore it for something you support, you make it all that much easier for them to toss the Constitution aside for things you hate. You can't pick and choose from it like the dollar menu at McDonald's. You either take it seriously or you don't.
Given the behavoir and expansion of the government since FDR's "New Deal" (some would say the civil war) and the War on Drugs, this is hardly an attitude uique to the current Administration.
Our elected officials in all three of the branches of the government have been disregarding the original intent and meaning of the constitution for decades.
Congress abuses the "interstate commerce" and "general welfare" parts of the constitution such that nothing is outside their power.
The executive does whatever the hell it can get away with, and it's alot considering how the lazy legislature unconstitionally delegates lawmaking to various departments (EPA, FCC, etc). Further, Congress hasn't officially declared war since WW2 (Gulf War 1 might be an exception)- which is their duty- but has been happy to authorize the President to do what he likes and pay for things that look like Wars countless times.
Finally, the Judicial Branch was cowed by FDR and has countless times written tomes of rationalization justifying how the constitution doesn't mean what it says.
The federal government has been out of line at all levels for generations.
And you know what?
We let it.
Don't cry how the current Administration is so evil because it's been doing what government officials have done for eons. With a little bit of reflection and some serious study of the constitution and it's original meanings you could find several programs you probably support of dubious constitionality.
But I doubt you'll do that because you have already rationalized the abuses you support and re-examing them would hurt.
A professor at the University of Edinborough (circa 1787) named Alexander Tyler figured it out. Here's the eight stages of democracy he observed:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage.
He figured this cycle would take 200 years or so. You can argue where along the line we (USA) are but you can see the man has a point. It's pretty clear that a few European countries are solidly at step 7.
It's your link, you go look it up. Some of them are violent- mugging for one, I think assaults was another one.
Aside from that, are you saying lawlessness is A-OK as long as you don't have to get into a physical confrontation over it? Is that really a path you want to advocate?
Keep clicking. The UK beats the US in several other areas of crime.
Also I know how to cut my risk of being a murder victim in half over here in the US- don't be a criminal. Half of all murder victims have prior felony convictions. (3/4 of murderers have priors as well) The same may hold true in the UK, I don't know.
It seems odd to me that a society the US sprung from would have diverged so far from us in dealing with crime.
Instead of punishing the offender, they're trying to shut down the method they use to brag about it.
That's pretty ass-backwards. If they actually enforced the law over there from time to time then maybe yobs would have to weigh the punishment against the bragging rights from a youtube video.
Pretty common over there from what I understand. They'll install CCTV on every block, ban guns, then knives (outside the home), then anything that might be used as a weapon- hell, it seems like they'll do everything over there in the name of fighting crime short of.... (gasp) actually punishing criminals!
Now I hear they issue 'warnings' for everything from theft to arson and basically let the crooks go.
Why do I get the feeling that anyone with the werewithal in great britain to fight this stupidity has already emigrated to the US? Every single day it's more nonsense like this from across the pond.
I'll toss in the obligatory disclaimer that everything isn't peaches and cream here in the US, but England is galloping full speed towards a police state and they're using '1984' as a blueprint, not a warning.
(Don't bother me with the differences between GB, UK and England. They're good enough synonyms for this discussion. Thanks.)
You're wrong. Go read up on heat engines and the various thermodynamic cycles you can use. There are power plants in operation that achieve 59% thermal efficiency.
Suffice it to say, it is a very well established science, and all quite provable both theoretically and in practice.
Slashdot Mirror
Face it, it's the goal of every administration to gather up more power; in fact I can't think of any that have given up any significant powers it had. Lincoln and FDR at least had the excuse of a major war and depression to gather their powers.
You're quite right, and not just the goal of every administration, but pretty much every beaurocrat as well. Witness the TSA's huge resistance to arming pilots and all the roadblocks they put in the way. (Some of those roadblocks may have since been lifted) If you don't have armed pilots, you need more air marshals. Armed pilots aren't in the TSA, but more air marshals would mean a bigger TSA and more power for Mineta and his cronies. Thankfully Mineta's gone and IIRC, things have gotten better.
My entire point was that everyone treats the Constitution as relevent only when it's convienent for their goals, and act suprised & outraged when someone else's constitutional convienence doesn't align with theirs.
Personally I'm not terribly worried about what the current administration is doing to fight the war on terror. It's ground we've covered before and come back from- Alien & Sedition acts, Habeus Corpus in the civil war, WW2 Japanese internment, etc. We've shown as a country we can wether and recover from this.
What does concern me is an ever expanding federal government, consuming more and more of our livelyhood supposedly for our own good and grabbing more power over our daily lives. Once grown beaucracies never dissappear.
As Reagan said, a government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it all away.
Yes, because pinochet implemented free market reforms and then gave up power more or less voluntarily. This makes Chile quite rare in the history of coup d' etats.
Given the overall 'success' rate I'll still pass on the option.
Looks like fourteen reasons that can be summed up pretty quick: The legislature is too damn lazy to try to get the populous to assign them new powers, so they just take them and let the lawyers make excuses for it.
The constitution has a mechanism for change. It is not government by the dead, it's government by standards. We no longer have any.
Yes, because military coups always work out so well....
Is a favorite pastime of both parties. The feds have been ignoring the constitution since at least FDR's new deal, and some would say the civil war.
If you shout and cheer for the limitless power given by g readings of the interstate commerce clause and the 'general welfare' clause (quip), you're part of the problem. If you think that the constitution wasn't designed to cuff the federal government into a very limited role it's now outgrown, you're part of the problem.
If you have no clue what the 9th and 10th amendments are, and you think the 2nd amendment is outdated or a 'states right' (*snicker), YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.
The constitution isn't a salad bar. You don't get to pick and choose. You either respect it, or you don't. If you don't you'll get some programs you like (SS, medicare, HUD, etc) and you'll get some you hate, losing your freedoms all the way.
The government pisses all over the constitution every day because we let it and we elect people who make and deliver on promises that are not within the assigned powers of the federal government.
The constitution isn't a living document. It means what it says, with the meaning that the orginal writers intended. If it's a living document then it can mean anything, and so it basically means nothing. The original intent of the founding fathers is not an arcane secret difficult to divine- they were quite prolific writers and record keepers- go find what else they wrote and their intent will be clear.
You can blame Gonzalez, you can blame Bush, but you really should blame FDR, blame Lincoln, and most of all blame yourself.
If you really want to get picky on the constitution, then the following goes away:
Every state and local gun ban
The department of education, the Department of the Interior, HUD, Social Security, Medicare, and a whole lot of others I don't remember.
You can argue that some of those functions are proper for the federal government to have and in some cases I might agree with you. The fact remains that all of them exist only because 'interstate commerce' now means anything that can conceivably happen in more than one state, and 'general welfare' now means 'welfare for the individual.' We can change the constitution if we think the feds should have more power. We just don't bother.
You bought and paid for this administration's abuses with a million other trespasses you let slide because they made you feel good.
Not really. The internet, while not an absolute necessity, is becoming increasingly important in everyday life. It is not just the broadcast of entertainment as is sattelite radio.Moreover, sirius and xm still have broadcast radio and cd/mp3 players as competition.
If there was a monopoly in sattelite radio.... so what?
It's an optional service. No one, by any stretch of the imagination, needs to buy sattelite radio service.
If they piss off their customers, what are the customers gonna do?
STOP PAYING THEM.
That's all. Folks will listen to free broadcast radio or cd's instead. They won't starve, they won't have to dig up a precious resource themselves, and they won't have to kill someone in the streets to get their fix.
But hey, the FCC got to flex their muscle. They must be proud.
If leftist point permeates TV so thoroughly, then how come it doesn't count as a left POV enough to balance out the right under the fairness doctrine? It is not permeating thoroughly enough? So, it's there-- but it's not there according to the fairness doctrine?
If it was possible for the legions of FCC agents who would enforce this doctrine to be perfectly just, then yes it would balance out. You can't, however, and the likely scenario (and this was the case the first time around) is that the rule is enforced on a station by station basis. Each station that decided to cover politics would have to pander to both sides of the isle or risk enforcement action. Since only one side is profitable a business can't do it.
If that's the case, then shouldn't it be possible to accept the fairness doctrine and still keep Rush because there are vast swathes of broadcast lefties out there? Ideally yes but you can't count on it to work in practice that way. Further, if that's the case- and it is- there is no need for this doctrine in the first place. And who wants to expand government power 'just because'?
Barbara Boxer is a Senator from California.
Northrup Grumman makes this system, and it's a potential multi-billion dollar contract.
Northrup Grumman is headquartered in Los Angelas, CA.
I just wanted to point that out. Every other highly modded comment is pointing out how there are better ideas than this.
Which is why democrats love it so much. The talk radio explosion came after the fairness doctrine ended. Before that if a radio station offered a right leaning talk show, they'd have to offer time to a left leaning one as well.
The trouble is that left wing talk radio doesn't sell ads, because no one listens to it. So radio station operators had to chose between a few hours of right wing talk radio that was profitable, balanced by a few hours of left talk that wasn't, or just filling the airwaves with silly pop songs that generated decent revenue consistently.
You don't have to believe me, you can go check for yourself the respective popularity & profitability of Air America vs Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Rielly, Mike Savage, etc.
Left wing talk radio doesn't sell. So forcing radio stations to carry equal amounts of right wing and left wing radio makes them lose money, so they drop it altogether.
Now like most internet forums, Slashdot is teeming with lefties. I imagine most of you will be fine with this cause talk radio is just a bunch of right-wing hate mongers, right? Eh? No harm in silencing that, huh?
Unless, of course, you happen to think freedom of speech and property rights stands for something.
The obvious counter is that the airwaves are public property, and you're right. You're also ignoring that the leftist point of view permeates most broadcast TV quite thoroughly (Yes, except for Fox). If you don't realize it, it's for the same reason fish don't realize they're wet.
Truth is the elimination of the fairness doctrine made the airwaves more fair, because presenting a right wing point of view became profitable when you weren't burdened with the left wing. It wasn't be the first government policy that had the precise opposite of it's intended effect, and it won't be the last.
If you support the return of the fairness doctrine after actually paying attention to the history of it, you might as well say "Free speech for me, but not for thee."
To know both systems of measurement. I do, and yes, I'm under thirty.
I know metric, and I know the conversions between imperial and metric. I use metric myself if I'm doing calculations on my own because it is easier.
But you know what? Screw you measurement snobs. I like my gallons, miles and pounds.
I want my power plant measurements in PSI not KPA, Farenheit not Celsius, and gallons per minute are fine by me. The engineers seem to keep everything humming along just fine with imperial units, and I operate it all the same.
By all means teach the metric system alongside imperial units. People can learn multiple languages, so a few conversion factors aren't that hard.
Now that we've established that, we can take a look at the educational system. Competent schools already teach both, and incompetent schools suck on so many levels the metric system should be your least concern.
Go find something worthwhile to do. A crusade to impose the metric system universally is pretty high up one the list of worthless endevours.
I don't disagree with anything you say, except your condescending tone.
:P
The point is it's a statistical fact that people spend more when using a credit card then they would otherwise. Maybe you don't, but most of the people around you do. This is the case so often that the claim 'credit cards are harmless' isn't true.
Hell, try it yourself if you're so confident that you don't spend more on a CC than you would if you had cash. Go all cash for a month or two and see if the psychological impact of handing over the paper is bigger than swiping the card, thus causing you to be more careful. The spending more trend applies wether or not you pay it off in full at the end of the month.
Maybe you'll spend the same, maybe you won't. Interesting test to your cocky position though, eh?
By the way, I don't envy the rich, I don't pity the poor, my fuckups are my fault and my place in life is my responsibility. I expect the same from others.
Al Gore can die in a fire for all I care.
And I generally vote Republican.
I don't give a shit if I get modded down, so man up nancy!
Using credit cards is not harmless, because you are apt to spend more when using a CC. There's plenty of research to back this up- I think the average is that someone spends 15% more when using a CC as compared to cash.
Joking about the state instead of lobbying for it.
Hey, you guys sent the rest of the nation Ted Kennedy and John Kerry.
Don't you think the rest of the country holds that against you (certainly the Republicans who vote in primaries!), Romney knows this, and plays it up?
Further from what I understand the state legislature is overwhelmingly Democrats, so his jokes probably ring a little too close to home, eh?
You folks have some pretty thin skin.
That being said if you live in Western MA, shouldn't you guys have seceeded by now?
Even on my setup (720p native projector onto a 102" glass-beaded screen) which makes most people's "huge" HDTVs look positively tiny. I have *yet* to hear someone complain about DVDs on my setup, they're blown away by how theatre-like the setup is.
I'd just like to point out that no good guest will come over to your house, see something you obviously put a lot of money and effort into, and then complain about it.
Your larger point still stands and your theater set up probably does indeed rock.
There were differences from the beginning about how that government should evolve and grow. But plain common sense said that you cannot govern from the grave.
The Founders deepest faith was in Checks and Balances. The world changes. Structure endures.
Interstate Commerce took on the meaning it had to a commercial and industrial civilization that stretched across a continent, that drew on the resources of every race and kind. It could not be otherwise.
Of course you can't govern from the grave. That's why we have a method to change the constitution, one that we've used 26 times.
The point is that the constitution either means what it originally meant, or it means nothing. When a document that was originally supposed to shackle the federal government is re-interpreted as desired or necessary then the function isn't being fulfilled.
There are a few things that the federal government does that I think it proper for it to do, but are still unconstitutional. The right and honest thing to do would be to change the constitution to put such things legitimately under federal power. Sure, it's hard, but it's supposed to be.
"You can't govern from the grave" is exactly the sort of rationalization that makes the constitution worthless. It's not governing from the grave, it's the standing supreme law of the United States of America.
Every time you let a branch of the federal government ignore it for something you support, you make it all that much easier for them to toss the Constitution aside for things you hate. You can't pick and choose from it like the dollar menu at McDonald's. You either take it seriously or you don't.
Given the behavoir and expansion of the government since FDR's "New Deal" (some would say the civil war) and the War on Drugs, this is hardly an attitude uique to the current Administration.
Our elected officials in all three of the branches of the government have been disregarding the original intent and meaning of the constitution for decades.
Congress abuses the "interstate commerce" and "general welfare" parts of the constitution such that nothing is outside their power.
The executive does whatever the hell it can get away with, and it's alot considering how the lazy legislature unconstitionally delegates lawmaking to various departments (EPA, FCC, etc). Further, Congress hasn't officially declared war since WW2 (Gulf War 1 might be an exception)- which is their duty- but has been happy to authorize the President to do what he likes and pay for things that look like Wars countless times.
Finally, the Judicial Branch was cowed by FDR and has countless times written tomes of rationalization justifying how the constitution doesn't mean what it says.
The federal government has been out of line at all levels for generations.
And you know what?
We let it.
Don't cry how the current Administration is so evil because it's been doing what government officials have done for eons. With a little bit of reflection and some serious study of the constitution and it's original meanings you could find several programs you probably support of dubious constitionality.
But I doubt you'll do that because you have already rationalized the abuses you support and re-examing them would hurt.
A professor at the University of Edinborough (circa 1787) named Alexander Tyler figured it out. Here's the eight stages of democracy he observed:
1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage.
He figured this cycle would take 200 years or so. You can argue where along the line we (USA) are but you can see the man has a point. It's pretty clear that a few European countries are solidly at step 7.
It's your link, you go look it up. Some of them are violent- mugging for one, I think assaults was another one.
Aside from that, are you saying lawlessness is A-OK as long as you don't have to get into a physical confrontation over it? Is that really a path you want to advocate?
I posted the "US isn't perfect" disclaimer already. Didn't you get that far down in the post?
Keep clicking. The UK beats the US in several other areas of crime.
Also I know how to cut my risk of being a murder victim in half over here in the US- don't be a criminal. Half of all murder victims have prior felony convictions. (3/4 of murderers have priors as well) The same may hold true in the UK, I don't know.
It seems odd to me that a society the US sprung from would have diverged so far from us in dealing with crime.
Instead of punishing the offender, they're trying to shut down the method they use to brag about it.
That's pretty ass-backwards. If they actually enforced the law over there from time to time then maybe yobs would have to weigh the punishment against the bragging rights from a youtube video.
Pretty common over there from what I understand. They'll install CCTV on every block, ban guns, then knives (outside the home), then anything that might be used as a weapon- hell, it seems like they'll do everything over there in the name of fighting crime short of.... (gasp) actually punishing criminals!
Now I hear they issue 'warnings' for everything from theft to arson and basically let the crooks go.
Why do I get the feeling that anyone with the werewithal in great britain to fight this stupidity has already emigrated to the US? Every single day it's more nonsense like this from across the pond.
I'll toss in the obligatory disclaimer that everything isn't peaches and cream here in the US, but England is galloping full speed towards a police state and they're using '1984' as a blueprint, not a warning.
(Don't bother me with the differences between GB, UK and England. They're good enough synonyms for this discussion. Thanks.)
You're wrong. Go read up on heat engines and the various thermodynamic cycles you can use. There are power plants in operation that achieve 59% thermal efficiency.
Suffice it to say, it is a very well established science, and all quite provable both theoretically and in practice.
It's called entrapment, and it's illegal here in the united states, or at least is a valid defense against a 'guilty' verdict.
Like you said, goading or pushing someone into committing a crime they would otherwise not is unlawful.
What is perfectly lawful is presenting them with an opportunity to commit a crime, and then punishing them for it. There is a significant difference.
Further, 'knowing' that a deer was fake would not permit you to shoot it, as you're still discharging your firearm near/on a road.
You could maybe get away with attacking it if you got out of your vehicle and bum rushed it.
Kindly refresh my memory- what exploit did Trinity use in the matrix?
Thanks!
You still pay the $15 a month. It obviously can't be that big of a deal.