Britons United against Greator Govermental Executive Reform Ostensibly From Fear
B.U.G.G.E.R.O.F.F. stands with the government! We cannot allow the morons from The Society Of dissenting Organisms For Freedom to undermine the war on terra! Please write your representative and tell him your views. S.O.D.O.F.F is an extremely dangerous organization which threatens our Purity of essence. Being an american I can only lend moral support. On that note I wish to let all Britons know that the American Society for a Secure Homeland Over Liberty and Equality is here to help!
Together A.S.S.H.O.L.E. and B.U.G.G.E.R.O.F.F are a perfect match.
And finally, if we want to continue this, may I suggest that one or the other of us make a journal entry? I am having a lot of fun with this debate, and I hope you are too.
No, you can do what you will with your time. No one owns you.
Yet, according to your interpretation all other property is public. It follows that the constituent elements from which I am made were once public property. Thus either I am public property, or through possession of the elements of which I am made they become mine and thus not all property is theft.
You just can't take from the publicly held resource, or even unheld resources without some recompense.
To whom do I owe recompense for claiming unheld property? Why?
How did the "public" gain claim to public property? By what right did they do so?
A patently absurd example. Does my right to sightseeing for lions on "public" land in africa trump the right of someone there for subsistance farming? If not then how are his rights more important than mine? I would have to say by reason of being located upon the land in question.
there are no such things as natural rights. Rights only exist in relation to society.
I disagree. Natural rights are everything it is within my power to do to assure my survival. Society is an attempt to voluntarily abridge some natural rights to better secure others. I.E. I give up the right to try and kill you, under the understanding that you will not kill me.
We use the term rights when perhaps ability would be a better description. Natural rights would then be the unabriged natural abilities which do not conflict between individuals.
For instance, I could contract with you to dump my toxic waste in your river. What of the people downstream? This was exactly the point I was making, by signing such a contract I am clearly taking property from the downstream owner, which was not mine to sign away.
There should have been some regulation, carried out and enforced by some body somewhere that kept you from doing that.
If you do not believe that the individual is capable of making intelligent choices on his own, how then can another individual with authority be any better? Inevitably this authority will act in the same greedy and selfish manner. He/She would take payoffs to ignore the pollution etc. How then does this improve the situation?
It would seem to me that you must come to one of two conclusions. Either:
A) Individuals are capable of governing themselves. (which precludes the need for authority except to mitigate violence)
B) Some individuals are better able to govern themselves and thus others as well. (Thus why have a democratic process at all?)
This is in no way different from the social contract that says you will pay your taxes for the benefits derived from them.
I would agree with you if the contract was voluntary. If I could opt out then I would be fine. On the local level I can. I have less ability to do so upon the state and federal level. This is why I believe that there is a moral justification and necessity for the greatest concentration of power to be located closest to the individual.
Let's try dropping the antagonisytic tone and try to learn from one another.
Agreed...
What could you possibly labor on or with that wasn't public to begin with?
The ultimate conclusion to this line of reasoning is that I myself am public property. Which leads to a whole set of justifications for power over what I do with my finite time here on earth.
Who gave you the right to take what had been freely shared by all and make it your own?
This IMO is a fallacy. Look to the animal kingdom. Territory, and its defense is a natural and ingrained instinct. Accordingly by my natural rights I have the right to "take" property owned by no one and improve it so I may survive.
Society and reciprocity come into play when there is a conflict between myself and you over who owns said property. Society is there to allow us to come to an acceptable outcome to the dispute without resorting to violence.
I do not wish to sheild anyone from ALL the consequences of their actions, yet it occurs to me that having a shield from consequences is precisely the reason we humans form groups. If I am sick, or made a mistake in hunting and have no food I do not need to die for my mistakes
I fully agree here. That is why I say my moral obligation is the support of my family, (and my friends). This is based in part on mutual self-interest. However this is a VOLUNTARY arrangement.
People who have a lot tend to think they can do without that kind of insurance, but being part of society, gaining the benefits of society, they should help pay, or be outcast. Think of it as a membership fee.
To some extent I can agree. Yet there is a contradiction to your arguments. If I do not agree to the terms of your society, how then do you reconcile my rights to public land? Surely there can be no moral basis for claiming that the majority has a greater right to sightseeing than the outcast has in attempting to farm for survival.
People have intrinsic motivations besides greed. In fact, modern economic research shows that fairness end reciprocity are two concepts with more motivational power than pure self interest
I would disagree. Fairness and reciprocity are there because of self interest. It is an aquired survival skill, thus very strongly tied to self interest.
but since everything was orginally public, who gets paid when things go private? I think is the primary point of contention. Even if we take the claim of public ownership at face value, you are still in essence making a claim for ownership. Instead of individual ownership you are merely muddying the waters by claiming ownership, but by a nebulous group...
Besides, a group of people acting democratically can manage a resource at least as well as a single private owner can. Many times however the democratic group has no clear vested interest in ownership and thus do not do the job as well as if they were the solitary owner.
And it still does not answer the question of externalities, those things beneficial or detrimental to parties other than those involved in a transaction
My answer is that in such a case I would be either exchanging property that was not mine, or possibly have an invalid claim on said property. However there are instances where the above does not hold.
Example, you are hungry yet have nothing I wish to trade for. You neighbor is not starving, and has something I need. The question is would you be harmed if I traded with your neighbor and not you? I would have to answer no. I have not DONE harm to you. Admittedly I have not helped you, but neither have I directly made your situation worse. I also have conflicting interests though. By living in close proximity to you, I have a very vested self-interest in making sure you can survive. If I do not, you may become desperate enough to steal my property, or you may leave and when I need help there will be noone there to help me
A man goes out and buys five computers and connects them to each other. "Hey, cool" say his neighbors. "Why don't you join me," says the first guy. So everybody buys computers and network cables and they're all connected. And everybody fiddles with the network and tests and develops cool stuff. In the end the first guy has twenty computers and his neighbors have eighty. So some of them come up with a proposal: "Suppose we cooperate and administer the network together, rather than only one of us administering everything."
Here's and even more accurate version
His neighbors say, "we use your twenty computers more than you do, so give all of us admin rights to all your boxen."
response: um no.... go set up your own network, then we'll talk.
All ownership at the social level originates from theft. What was once a public good, owned by no one, is through the power of some authority declared private, and all others are kept by force from using that previously public good.
Bull. If I make anything, i.e. invest my time and my skills to produce something it is mine. Example: I go out to an area of unused land and through my own effort I put in irrigation, plant crops, and tend the crops, I would end up with a food source.
According to your line of thought I would then OWE others that food? WHY? I was the one who spent a portion of my life growing them..... Society only comes into play when I wish to VOLUNTARILY TRADE the items I have produced to others for items they have produced. As for social obligations, I feel we are morally obligated to help and support only our family.
poor and hungry will just conveniently die or suddenly become rich
No, I do not wish the poor nor the hungry any ill will. However neither you nor they have the moral right to DEMAND the fruits of my labor. That said, I do donate to food banks, and some other programs I deem as worthwhile.
If I pay to get rid of a pack of wolves stalking the town, you benefit from it as much as I. Why shouldn't you be forced to help pay for it?
Because killing the wolves may help you to a much greater extent than it helps me. Indeed your threat to FORCE me to pay may make you a bigger threat than the wolves themselves.
Poor, sick and hungry humans are desperate humans, who will kill cheat and steal. Killing or jailing them all is not as economical as making sure all humans have a basic level of food and housing that will keep them from turning into dangerous animals.
Your ideal is TURNING them into dangerous animals. By insulating them from the consequences of their choices. The message they learn is there are no consequences. Soon they will come to expect something for nothing. The next step is they will compare their "basic" standard of living to everyone else, and demand more.
but the noble smoke screen of personal responsibility hides a selfish streak a mile wide in most of them.
Talk about hypocrisy! You claim a man is selfish for advocating personal responsibility. Yet you then have the temerity to TAKE my labor to advance YOUR moral code? Not only are you selfishly claiming that your set of morals is better than mine, but you are advocating the use of violence if I dare to disagree.
Hobbesian Philosophy which posits that all things good come from a strong central authority
I am always amused by the following line of thinking: Individualism is bad because it creates "chaos" (this infers a worldview that people are either incapable of governing themselves or will take advantage of the situation).
Yet the proposed solution is to centralize power into the hands of fewer people??? The net result is either a few people taking advantage of tremendous power, or trusting a few people to govern everyone, when by the afforementioned worldview they are incapable of governing themselves.....
If you buy an airplane ticket from point A to B, do you then expect to own the Airplane?
So why do you expect to own the internet?
Simple solutions: 1) The UN starts their OWN root service. (If people are truly interested, the major providers would then link and resolve from it)
2) The UN starts its own internet.
3) The EU and whomever else is interested can set up their own and mandate that Euro ISPs use it.
We (the USA) owe you NOTHING. The only thing we as a country need to do is to respect your right to self-determination, and you OURS. (Frankly I am distressed that the US has forgotten this and is now caught up in playing empire...)
I am not interested in paying taxes to an unelected, non-representative body, that I have no say in either. I have no interest in globalization. If you do fine, as long as it is voluntary be my guest.
The Nazis did have a rocket factory. That was just a historical aside. So I don't understand your point. But if you think I'm trolling, so be it. I assumed you used it for trolling. If not, the nazis did have a rocket factory so clearly mass production should be a viable option. I would suggest that mass production using a voluntary and willing production force would produce a much higher quality product as well.
Besides, what's wrong with handcrafting? Nothing except it is more time and labor intensive hence more expensive.
The only way we are going to get cheap,quick and reliable space transportation is mass production. It's like comparing a ferrari to a fleet of minivans. The ferrari looks nice, but if I had alot of cargo or people to move from point A to B 10 minivans would do it quicker. I don't think they are looking at the best return on investment.
Perhaps Nasa should take a lesson from Henry Ford.... build a freaking factory to mass produce a SIMPLE, STANDARDIZED rocket.
Try taking your lesson from Wehrner von Braun. He built just such a rocket factory and did mass produce rockets. Of course, he used slave labor and it was built for the Nazis. Probably not what you had in mind
Really? So according to your theory, cars, medical devices and every other thing should be produced BY HAND to ensure their safety?
Or did you just through the Nazi's in there to Troll?
Risk-taking is a part of life. If airplanes had been invented under the current regulatory climate noone would get off the ground.
NASA cowboyed the Challenger launch over the heads of the engineers who BUILT the damn SRBs
If the engineers who built the things say "its not safe" and you ignore them that is pointless risk.
However what is acceptable risk? Assume they had 12 fuel sensors, needed 2, but only 11 worked. I bet they'd STILL delay the launch...
Another thing to think about, how is it that we can have a couple thousand ICBM's ready to launch hot molten death on a few minutes notice, but don't have a space program capable of launching humans every few days?
The Russians do that - and their safety record is no better than NASA's
The question is if their safety record is comparable, are mass produced rockets a cheaper alternative?
I seem to remember the russians can loft ALOT more payload into space than the shuttle can. The thing that gets me is the lack of mass production....
The shuttle was supposed to be an easy,cheap and reliable way to launch stuff. It was also supposed to have a short turnaround time between launches. It seems fairly obvious that Nasa is going to launch stuff into space for years to come. That being the case it would seem to be cheaper to build a production line capable of cranking out a heavy lifting rocket just like model T's.
Regarding the mission scrubs, there are risks and unneccessary risks. I think at the time of apollo the nation accepted that while safety was a major consideration we would lose people.
BTW How much redundant hardware did the apollo's have for most systems? Triple systems, quadruple systems?
1. Life expands to fill available niches-territory. (also harder to become extinct as a speices if we colonize space)
2. Untapped resources.
helium-3 mining on the moon for fusion, rare earth minerals from asteroids, etc.
3. New frontier. With the ability to colonize the moon/mars, we have a new frontier which would allow the more independent and/or persecuted somewhere to go.
I am not saying Nasa is the answer, just that there are viable reasons to send people...
I guess that's the price they pay for "the ability to take risks"--loose three of your best men in a test.
Yes it is! deal with it....
Whenever someone invents something or explores the unexplored, there is the potential for injury or death.
Example, Columbus. Instead of one ship with triple hulls etc, three ships. Result? Loss of ship, "discovery" of new world.
Remember, as sad as Apollo 1 was they VOLUNTEERED. They understood there were risks, being test pilots many astronauts at the time were accustomed to taking risks.
Apollo 13 is an interesting example. The had a major problem, but managed to improvise and come up with a fix.
I really think we are becoming neurotic about safety. It seems as though people have come to expect that life owes them a comepletely risk-free experience.
Are we becoming so risk averse that we will significantly slow or stop the tide of exploration?
How the heck did NASA put men on the moon in a decade? They did not have a bunch of high tech crap that they have now, it was the ability to take risks.
Perhaps Nasa should take a lesson from Henry Ford. Forget multi-billion dollar boondoggles (with quadruple backups out the wazzoo) like the shuttle. build a freaking factory to mass produce a SIMPLE, STANDARDIZED rocket.
Personally I would like to see an amendment to change the way the court is appointed. I believe the SCOTUS should be made up entirely of sitting STATE chief justices. Either each chief justice from every state, or perhaps a set of 9, choosing different states each year.
With the current system there is no check, and an actual bias towards judges who look favorably upon greater federal consolidation and power. Perhaps drawing from sitting state chief justices would tilt the balance back again.....
The laws of the land here in the usa are supposed to be made by representatives of the citizens of the usa. Just like any other country.
The SCOTUS is appointed by our representatives, not by japan nor russia nor any other nation.
They are there to interpret the laws made by congress according to the constitution. Not to interpret nor justify the law based upon other countries legislative actions.
Which is why I do favor the repeal of the Second Amendment. And its replacement with an Amendment ensuring that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall be protected, provided they regularly prove their competence in their maintenance and use, as well as their allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, the government it defines, and their competence in abiding by its laws".
Which is exactly how the nazis removed the ability of its people to resist. By allowing the government to define who is acceptable, you free it to become tyrannical.
I don't like guns, and I don't trust the government much
You don't trust people to own guns, yet you trust a government (which is made up of people) to own all the guns? Frankly I prefer to trust the people who have no taste for power with weapons over those who do.
If a gun is legal in one state, and illegal in another, interstate commerce of guns into the second state must be regulated by Congress
PRECISELY, the key there is the STATES decide what is legal, NOT the FED. What we have now (especially with the medical marijuana decision) is a situation where something produced and legal inside a state, which was NOT sold nor bartered (thus no commerce) nor transported across state lines (thus no interstate commerce) was upheld as being interstate commerce.
Again, it is within the power of the FED to regulate interstate commerce. If one state outlaws a product the FED can and should help stop that product from entering said state. It is up to the STATES however to decide upon the products legality.
Nobody ruled on the death penalty because of international law, they merely used it as an illustration of broad social (un)acceptability of the practice.
Really? and if freedom of the press was a socially unacceptable practice in the majority of the world does that mean we should lose it?
Or a more historical example, at the time of the revolution most of the world was either tribal or some form of monarchy. Thus going by world standards our form of government would have been unacceptable.
What is required is merely that "cruel and unusual" is defined as being so by large majority of the individual states of the union. Other nations laws should not apply, and should never be used to justify nor condemn any laws of our own.
As for not being elected, it may suprise you but many other countries also hold elections these days. Some of them for hundreds of years. Most of them even count the votes in those elections as well.
Really? Did you get to vote in Germany or France or Spain's last election cycle?
My point is they are not elected by US citizens, nor do they represent US citizens. Thus what they do in their own countries should have no bearing upon our laws. "Unusual" IMO should mean unusual by the majority of these United States period.
The more international law is used as a pretext to find governmental powers, the less representative our government is of its citizens.
With our standing army, such a "well regulated militia" is no longer necessary to the security of a free state
Freedom from a tyrannical state was as much a fear (if not more so) than a foreign invasion. Parse the sentence how you will, but the intent Clearly was to protect against both other nations AND a tyrannical federal government. (not to mention the ability to defend and protect one's natural rights from bandits etc.) If you think the second amendment is no longer valid, fine, just amend the constitution. That is precisely why the amendment process is there.
An example of my own, is the interstate commerce clause. Nowhere was it inferred or implied that the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government the power to PROHIBIT commerce. It was understood that the power was to protect free commerce FROM interference. If this was not the case, then the 18th amendment would not have been needed since the power to prohibit the trade in liquor would have already existed.
This is exactly where their opinions come into play. In order to understand what was agreed to one must take into account the meaning of the language AT THE TIME it was written. You must also take into the account what the people who framed the document understood the document to mean.
Why should some unaccountable private correspondence, or opinions inferred from them centuries later, have any weight? because the documents upon which our government was based and agreed upon was written with the meaning and understanding of the words at the time of adoption.
Unless you're deifying those men
Nope. The problem I have is with the "living" document "interpretation" where new powers are "found". It is very simple, the Constitution provides for change, the amendment process. When new powers or rights are found without going through this process it subverts the letter and spirit of the constitution.
If the American public wishes to ban guns, or have a Drug war, fine. Just amend the constitution. An example, Congress felt it did not have the power to prohibit alcohol. Thus we changed the Constitution.....
Why then is an amendment not required to prohibit drugs?
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Please join
Britons United against Greator Govermental Executive Reform Ostensibly From Fear
B.U.G.G.E.R.O.F.F. stands with the government! We cannot allow the morons from The Society Of dissenting Organisms For Freedom to undermine the war on terra! Please write your representative and tell him your views. S.O.D.O.F.F is an extremely dangerous organization which threatens our Purity of essence. Being an american I can only lend moral support. On that note I wish to let all Britons know that the American Society for a Secure Homeland Over Liberty and Equality is here to help!
Together A.S.S.H.O.L.E. and B.U.G.G.E.R.O.F.F are a perfect match.
And finally, if we want to continue this, may I suggest that one or the other of us make a journal entry? I am having a lot of fun with this debate, and I hope you are too.
agreed.
No, you can do what you will with your time. No one owns you.
Yet, according to your interpretation all other property is public. It follows that the constituent elements from which I am made were once public property. Thus either I am public property, or through possession of the elements of which I am made they become mine and thus
not all property is theft.
You just can't take from the publicly held resource, or even unheld resources without some recompense.
To whom do I owe recompense for claiming unheld property? Why?
How did the "public" gain claim to public property? By what right did they do so?
A patently absurd example. Does my right to sightseeing for lions on "public" land in africa trump the right of someone there for subsistance farming? If not then how are his rights more important than mine? I would have to say by reason of being located upon the land in question.
there are no such things as natural rights. Rights only exist in relation to society.
I disagree. Natural rights are everything it is within my power to do to assure my survival. Society is an attempt to voluntarily abridge some natural rights to better secure others. I.E. I give up the right to try and kill you, under the understanding that you will not kill me.
We use the term rights when perhaps ability would be a better description. Natural rights would then be the unabriged natural abilities which do not conflict between individuals.
For instance, I could contract with you to dump my toxic waste in your river. What of the people downstream? This was exactly the point I was making, by signing such a contract I am clearly taking property from the downstream owner, which was not mine to sign away.
There should have been some regulation, carried out and enforced by some body somewhere that kept you from doing that.
If you do not believe that the individual is capable of making intelligent choices on his own, how then can another individual with authority be any better? Inevitably this authority will act in the same greedy and selfish manner. He/She would take payoffs to ignore the pollution etc. How then does this improve the situation?
It would seem to me that you must come to one of two conclusions. Either:
A) Individuals are capable of governing themselves. (which precludes the need for authority except to mitigate violence)
B) Some individuals are better able to govern themselves and thus others as well. (Thus why have a democratic process at all?)
This is in no way different from the social contract that says you will pay your taxes for the benefits derived from them.
I would agree with you if the contract was voluntary. If I could opt out then I would be fine. On the local level I can. I have less ability to do so upon the state and federal level. This is why I believe that there is a moral justification and necessity for the greatest concentration of power to be located closest to the individual.
Let's try dropping the antagonisytic tone and try to learn from one another.
Agreed...
What could you possibly labor on or with that wasn't public to begin with?
The ultimate conclusion to this line of reasoning is that I myself am public property.
Which leads to a whole set of justifications for power over what I do with my finite time here on earth.
Who gave you the right to take what had been freely shared by all and make it your own?
This IMO is a fallacy. Look to the animal kingdom. Territory, and its defense is a natural and ingrained instinct. Accordingly by my natural rights I have the right to "take" property owned by no one and improve it so I may survive.
Society and reciprocity come into play when there is a conflict between myself and you over who owns said property. Society is there to allow us to come to an acceptable outcome to the dispute without resorting to violence.
I do not wish to sheild anyone from ALL the consequences of their actions, yet it occurs to me that having a shield from consequences is precisely the reason we humans form groups. If I am sick, or made a mistake in hunting and have no food I do not need to die for my mistakes
I fully agree here. That is why I say my moral obligation is the support of my family, (and my friends). This is based in part on mutual self-interest. However this is a VOLUNTARY arrangement.
People who have a lot tend to think they can do without that kind of insurance, but being part of society, gaining the benefits of society, they should help pay, or be outcast. Think of it as a membership fee.
To some extent I can agree. Yet there is a contradiction to your arguments. If I do not agree to the terms of your society, how then do you reconcile my rights to public land? Surely there can be no moral basis for claiming that the majority has a greater right to sightseeing than the outcast has in attempting to farm for survival.
People have intrinsic motivations besides greed. In fact, modern economic research shows that fairness end reciprocity are two concepts with more motivational power than pure self interest
I would disagree. Fairness and reciprocity are there because of self interest. It is an aquired survival skill, thus very strongly tied to self interest.
but since everything was orginally public, who gets paid when things go private? I think is the primary point of contention. Even if we take the claim of public ownership at face value, you are still in essence making a claim for ownership. Instead of individual ownership you are merely muddying the waters by claiming ownership, but by a nebulous group...
Besides, a group of people acting democratically can manage a resource at least as well as a single private owner can. Many times however the democratic group has no clear vested interest in ownership and thus do not do the job as well as if they were the solitary owner.
And it still does not answer the question of externalities, those things beneficial or detrimental to parties other than those involved in a transaction
My answer is that in such a case I would be either exchanging property that was not mine, or
possibly have an invalid claim on said property. However there are instances where the above does not hold.
Example, you are hungry yet have nothing I wish to trade for. You neighbor is not starving, and has something I need. The question is would you be harmed if I traded with your neighbor and not you? I would have to answer no. I have not DONE harm to you. Admittedly I have not helped you, but neither have I directly made your situation worse. I also have conflicting interests though.
By living in close proximity to you, I have a very vested self-interest in making sure you can survive. If I do not, you may become desperate enough to steal my property, or you may leave and when I need help there will be noone there to help me
If you want to take away people's right to vote, you should stop stealing taxes from them. ;-)
Can I give up the right to vote and keep my money?
A man goes out and buys five computers and connects them to each other. "Hey, cool" say his neighbors. "Why don't you join me," says the first guy. So everybody buys computers and network cables and they're all connected. And everybody fiddles with the network and tests and develops cool stuff. In the end the first guy has twenty computers and his neighbors have eighty. So some of them come up with a proposal: "Suppose we cooperate and administer the network together, rather than only one of us administering everything."
Here's and even more accurate version
His neighbors say, "we use your twenty computers more than you do, so give all of us admin rights to all your boxen."
response: um no.... go set up your own network, then we'll talk.
All ownership at the social level originates from theft. What was once a public good, owned by no one, is through the power of some authority declared private, and all others are kept by force from using that previously public good.
Bull. If I make anything, i.e. invest my time and my skills to produce something it is mine. Example: I go out to an area of unused land and through my own effort I put in irrigation, plant crops, and tend the crops, I would end up with a food source.
According to your line of thought I would then OWE others that food? WHY? I was the one who spent a portion of my life growing them.....
Society only comes into play when I wish to VOLUNTARILY TRADE the items I have produced to others for items they have produced. As for social obligations, I feel we are morally obligated to help and support only our family.
poor and hungry will just conveniently die or suddenly become rich
No, I do not wish the poor nor the hungry any ill will. However neither you nor they have the moral right to DEMAND the fruits of my labor.
That said, I do donate to food banks, and some other programs I deem as worthwhile.
If I pay to get rid of a pack of wolves stalking the town, you benefit from it as much as I. Why shouldn't you be forced to help pay for it?
Because killing the wolves may help you to a much greater extent than it helps me. Indeed your threat to FORCE me to pay may make you a bigger threat than the wolves themselves.
Poor, sick and hungry humans are desperate humans, who will kill cheat and steal. Killing or jailing them all is not as economical as making sure all humans have a basic level of food and housing that will keep them from turning into dangerous animals.
Your ideal is TURNING them into dangerous animals. By insulating them from the consequences of their choices. The message they learn is there are no consequences. Soon they will come to expect something for nothing. The next step is they will compare their "basic" standard of living to everyone else, and demand more.
but the noble smoke screen of personal responsibility hides a selfish streak a mile wide in most of them.
Talk about hypocrisy! You claim a man is selfish for advocating personal responsibility. Yet you then have the temerity to TAKE my labor to advance YOUR moral code? Not only are you selfishly claiming that your set of morals is better than mine, but you are advocating the use of violence if I dare to disagree.
Hobbesian Philosophy which posits that all things good come from a strong central authority
I am always amused by the following line of thinking: Individualism is bad because it creates "chaos" (this infers a worldview that people are either incapable of governing themselves or will take advantage of the situation).
Yet the proposed solution is to centralize power into the hands of fewer people??? The net result is either a few people taking advantage of tremendous power, or trusting a few people to govern everyone, when by the afforementioned worldview they are incapable of governing themselves.....
Question for you,
If you buy an airplane ticket from point A to B,
do you then expect to own the Airplane?
So why do you expect to own the internet?
Simple solutions:
1) The UN starts their OWN root service.
(If people are truly interested, the major providers would then link and resolve from it)
2) The UN starts its own internet.
3) The EU and whomever else is interested can set up their own and mandate that Euro ISPs use it.
We (the USA) owe you NOTHING. The only thing we as a country need to do is to respect your right to self-determination, and you OURS. (Frankly I am distressed that the US has forgotten this and is now caught up in playing empire...)
I am not interested in paying taxes to an unelected, non-representative body, that I have no say in either. I have no interest in globalization. If you do fine, as long as it is voluntary be my guest.
Yeh, take back your ARPANET, but say goodbye to European invented HTTP.
Fine, but you can say goodbye to TCP/IP......
The Nazis did have a rocket factory. That was just a historical aside. So I don't understand your point. But if you think I'm trolling, so be it.
I assumed you used it for trolling. If not, the nazis did have a rocket factory so clearly mass production should be a viable option. I would suggest that mass production using a voluntary and willing production force would produce a much higher quality product as well.
Besides, what's wrong with handcrafting?
Nothing except it is more time and labor intensive hence more expensive.
The only way we are going to get cheap,quick and reliable space transportation is mass production. It's like comparing a ferrari to a fleet of minivans. The ferrari looks nice, but if I had alot of cargo or people to move from point A to B 10 minivans would do it quicker. I don't think they are looking at the best return on investment.
Perhaps Nasa should take a lesson from Henry Ford. ... build a freaking factory to mass produce a SIMPLE, STANDARDIZED rocket.
Try taking your lesson from Wehrner von Braun. He built just such a rocket factory and did mass produce rockets. Of course, he used slave labor and it was built for the Nazis. Probably not what you had in mind
Really? So according to your theory, cars, medical devices and every other thing should be produced BY HAND to ensure their safety?
Or did you just through the Nazi's in there to Troll?
Risk-taking is a part of life. If airplanes had been invented under the current regulatory climate noone would get off the ground.
NASA cowboyed the Challenger launch over the heads of the engineers who BUILT the damn SRBs
If the engineers who built the things say "its not safe" and you ignore them that is pointless risk.
However what is acceptable risk? Assume they had 12 fuel sensors, needed 2, but only 11 worked. I bet they'd STILL delay the launch...
Another thing to think about, how is it that we can have a couple thousand ICBM's ready to launch hot molten death on a few minutes notice,
but don't have a space program capable of launching humans every few days?
The Russians do that - and their safety record is no better than NASA's
The question is if their safety record is comparable, are mass produced rockets a cheaper alternative?
I seem to remember the russians can loft ALOT more payload into space than the shuttle can.
The thing that gets me is the lack of mass production....
The shuttle was supposed to be an easy,cheap and reliable way to launch stuff. It was also supposed to have a short turnaround time between launches. It seems fairly obvious that Nasa is going to launch stuff into space for years to come. That being the case it would seem to be cheaper to build a production line capable of cranking out a heavy lifting rocket just like model T's.
Regarding the mission scrubs, there are risks and unneccessary risks. I think at the time of apollo the nation accepted that while safety was a major consideration we would lose people.
BTW How much redundant hardware did the apollo's have for most systems? Triple systems, quadruple systems?
I'll give you three reasons
1. Life expands to fill available niches-territory. (also harder to become extinct as a speices if we colonize space)
2. Untapped resources.
helium-3 mining on the moon for fusion, rare earth minerals from asteroids, etc.
3. New frontier.
With the ability to colonize the moon/mars, we have a new frontier which would allow the more independent and/or persecuted somewhere to go.
I am not saying Nasa is the answer, just that there are viable reasons to send people...
I guess that's the price they pay for "the ability to take risks"--loose three of your best men in a test.
Yes it is! deal with it....
Whenever someone invents something or explores the unexplored, there is the potential for injury or death.
Example, Columbus. Instead of one ship with triple hulls etc, three ships. Result?
Loss of ship, "discovery" of new world.
Remember, as sad as Apollo 1 was they VOLUNTEERED. They understood there were risks,
being test pilots many astronauts at the time were accustomed to taking risks.
Apollo 13 is an interesting example. The had a major problem, but managed to improvise and come up with a fix.
I really think we are becoming neurotic about safety. It seems as though people have come to expect that life owes them a comepletely risk-free experience.
Are we becoming so risk averse that we will significantly slow or stop the tide of exploration?
How the heck did NASA put men on the moon in a decade? They did not have a bunch of high tech crap that they have now, it was the ability to take risks.
Perhaps Nasa should take a lesson from Henry Ford. Forget multi-billion dollar boondoggles (with quadruple backups out the wazzoo) like the shuttle. build a freaking factory to mass produce a SIMPLE, STANDARDIZED rocket.
Either that or let free enterprise take over...
Really? I never thought to check the USC for that....
I'd be interested in reading that law. Link?
Personally I would like to see an amendment to change the way the court is appointed. I believe the SCOTUS should be made up entirely of sitting STATE chief justices. Either each chief justice from every state, or perhaps a set of 9, choosing different states each year.
With the current system there is no check, and an actual bias towards judges who look favorably upon greater federal consolidation and power. Perhaps drawing from sitting state chief justices would tilt the balance back again.....
Your point is?
The laws of the land here in the usa are supposed to be made by representatives of the
citizens of the usa. Just like any other country.
The SCOTUS is appointed by our representatives, not by japan nor russia nor any other nation.
They are there to interpret the laws made by congress according to the constitution. Not to
interpret nor justify the law based upon other countries legislative actions.
Which is why I do favor the repeal of the Second Amendment. And its replacement with an Amendment ensuring that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall be protected, provided they regularly prove their competence in their maintenance and use, as well as their allegiance to the Constitution of the United States, the government it defines, and their competence in abiding by its laws".
Which is exactly how the nazis removed the ability of its people to resist. By allowing the government to define who is acceptable, you free it to become tyrannical.
I don't like guns, and I don't trust the government much
You don't trust people to own guns, yet you trust a government (which is made up of people) to own all the guns?
Frankly I prefer to trust the people who have no taste for power with weapons over those who do.
If a gun is legal in one state, and illegal in another, interstate commerce of guns into the second state must be regulated by Congress
PRECISELY, the key there is the STATES decide what is legal, NOT the FED. What we have now (especially with the medical marijuana decision) is a situation where something produced and legal inside a state, which was NOT sold nor bartered (thus no commerce) nor transported across state lines (thus no interstate commerce)
was upheld as being interstate commerce.
Again, it is within the power of the FED to regulate interstate commerce. If one state outlaws a product the FED can and should help stop that product from entering said state. It is up to the STATES however to decide upon the products legality.
Nobody ruled on the death penalty because of international law, they merely used it as an illustration of broad social (un)acceptability of the practice.
Really? and if freedom of the press was a socially unacceptable practice in the majority of the world does that mean we should lose it?
Or a more historical example, at the time of the revolution most of the world was either tribal or some form of monarchy. Thus going by world standards our form of government would have been unacceptable.
What is required is merely that "cruel and unusual" is defined as being so by large majority of the individual states of the union.
Other nations laws should not apply, and should never be used to justify nor condemn any laws of our own.
As for not being elected, it may suprise you but many other countries also hold elections these days. Some of them for hundreds of years. Most of them even count the votes in those elections as well.
Really? Did you get to vote in Germany or France or Spain's last election cycle?
My point is they are not elected by US citizens, nor do they represent US citizens. Thus what they do in their own countries should have no bearing upon our laws. "Unusual" IMO should mean unusual by the majority of these United States period.
The more international law is used as a pretext to find governmental powers, the less representative our government is of its citizens.
With our standing army, such a "well regulated militia" is no longer necessary to the security of a free state
Freedom from a tyrannical state was as much a fear (if not more so) than a foreign invasion. Parse the sentence how you will, but the intent Clearly was to protect against both other nations AND a tyrannical federal government. (not to mention the ability to defend and protect one's natural rights from bandits etc.) If you think the second amendment is no longer valid, fine, just amend the constitution. That is precisely why the amendment process is there.
An example of my own, is the interstate commerce clause. Nowhere was it inferred or implied that the interstate commerce clause gives the federal government the power to PROHIBIT commerce. It was understood that the power was to protect free commerce FROM interference. If this was not the case, then the 18th amendment would not have been needed since the power to prohibit the trade in liquor would have already existed.
All that matters is the agreed documents
This is exactly where their opinions come into play. In order to understand what was agreed to one must take into account the meaning of the language AT THE TIME it was written. You must also take into the account what the people who framed the document understood the document to mean.
Why should some unaccountable private correspondence, or opinions inferred from them centuries later, have any weight? because the documents upon which our government was based and agreed upon was written with the meaning and understanding of the words at the time of adoption.
Unless you're deifying those men
Nope. The problem I have is with the "living" document "interpretation" where new powers are "found". It is very simple, the Constitution provides for change, the amendment process. When new powers or rights are found without going through this process it subverts the letter and spirit of the constitution.
If the American public wishes to ban guns, or have a Drug war, fine. Just amend the constitution. An example, Congress felt it did not have the power to prohibit alcohol. Thus we changed the Constitution.....
Why then is an amendment not required to prohibit drugs?