When I decided I liked the USA enough to stay, even with its warts.
I want to address this answer to my question specifically because you didn't address it. You cannot have it both ways. Either you have to cede control over decisions regarding your life, liberty, and property (in this case, tax money) or you determine they are best resolved by yourself.
So, let me ask you again. This time I'll rephrase as I once did to someone on K5 (who never answered the question directly, and skirted the issue like I imagine you will):
Who is most qualified to make decisions affecting your life, liberty, and property?
What this ends up boiling down to is that republicans agree to the "life and property" and democrats agree to the "life and liberty" but neither actually ends up conceding that they think a government entity is best able to determine the odd point out.
After all, it would sound ridiculous for a replican to say the government should control our liberty.
And most democrats (save a few hardened socialists) will never go so far as to say government should control property.
Should we leave decisions up to the majority and kill off those that disagree? Excellent plan, go hive-mind.
I would question your arguments, as I have numerous others. You do realize that the poles "melt" on a regular basis, right? Or do I have to pull out the picture of the submarine in 1970 at the northpole, which at the time, debunked the theory that the globe was "cooling"?
You ever heard of UHIE? How about junk science? Leave your shell.
The only "positive right" I know of that requires someone to act on your behalf supported by the US is right to trial by jury. Personally, I have never used this right and don't ever plan to.
Okay, so now you are falling back on the one and only issue that you think the federal government was justified in tackling. Do you even understand how it started? Nothing would indicate it was the federal government's responsibility to fix anything.
And all you basically said was "I disagree, -1, Troll".
That's not sufficient. Argure your point.
Farmers were producing, but they were able to make things cheaper with better equipment so the prices fell, and fell hard. The market inflation alone wasn't the problem, either.
What I'm saying is, who was being exploited here? And who was benefitting? Was it the stockbrokers that fell to their deaths following Black Tuesday? Was it the managers of the companies that lost all their investments that same day?
Nothing would indicate that any one person was responsible for what happened, yet here comes the federal government and FDR to fix the problem.
You do realize that because of his work, we are bound to have another depression when people realize just how worthless their years of retirement spending were, right?
Okay, suppose you fire a building saftey inspector. Like my uncle. My uncle has been in the business now for 20 years. He knows all the people that own buildings, and he knows what the laws are to meet saftey requirements. There's a few items that he doesn't agree with and a few place where he thinks the government has been too lax. So he lists what he checks for on a new website that I set up for him (he pays maybe a $500 bucks for my work and yearly hosting) and sets out to "certify" the buildings he once covered before.
So sure enough, 3 months roll around and not only is he covering safety inspections for his previous buildings, but the government is now contracting out for him to inspect covered bridges in the county, outhouses, and other public structures. He's now got a team of 3 teenagers that go out and provide more than just certifications, but also ratings.
Fast forward again to a year later. His team now includes one full-time secretary, a full-time teen that graduated from high school and joined his staff, and 4 teenage helpers. They have expanded into other counties where funding was low and are also working on school and tenant certifications. He has an interactive website (cause he gave me a lot of $$) and is offering virtual checklists for tenants to view. The demand to get certified by him is so high that he has a waiting list of 31 complexes from 13 landlords, all of them are waiting to pay their 50 dollar yearly building certification fee. In his spare time, he trains kids from counties that are funded by the government.
And just so you know, this is not a true story. Almost sounded believable there for a bit, though, didn't it? Kind of made you feel good. John Stossel covered a lot of these kinds of success stories in his book and even talked about several in his TV special "Greed". The workers who were once subsidized all said they worked harder, but they had access to state of the art equipment and enjoyed their jobs more.
There's some myth going around in the heads of the public that government inspectors are fair whereas public inspectors would not be. I disagree, the fire inspector in my town says that he wishes he could do more, but feels tied down, small budget, etc. All the complaints you'd usually expect. Privatization is good.
The incredible problem with crime and slum/tenemant housing in turn of the century New York
Okay. And these problems, of one city, were fixed by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT? Name a problem in the time period before FDR that legitimized all the federal programs he ushered in. The Great Depression gave him a blank check to do whatever he wanted. And indeed he did.
1. To engage in "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness", one must have, above all, Life.
I actually think of it as a tree, with life splitting into the other two. I'm already beginning to enjoy this "logic" game you're playing as it seems to attribute that it is the government's responsibility to keep the citizen's alive.
Think of the word "responsible". Would you give up your freedom to do whatever you like as long as it didn't harm the rights of others in exchange for never having to be "responsible" for keeping yourself alive? Sounds like a pretty poor tradeoff for me. I'd rather taking on the grueling (pardon my pun) task of keeping myself alive and be able to do what I'd like.
GOOGLE TERM: "government accountability"
To adequately sustain one's Life in the modern age, one must visit the doctor, hospital, emergency room, etc. regardless of whether one can afford it, regardless of whether the problems were self-initiated or happened through no fault of one's own, and regardless of one's age
Couldn't be any more incorrect. I don't go to the doctor every time I cut myself, but you can be rest assured that if I had the time and was a worry-wart, like so many in this "modern age" are, then I'd be going. Hell, I'd go every time after sex to make sure I wasn't infected with something. If it's free, why not?
It is well known the US health care system is the best in the world. World leaders come *here* for their problems. Canada has lines and piss-poor health care and they aren't even radically socialized.
GOOGLE TERM: "countries without universal health care" (Very first link, in fact. If I was puking blood and the nurse brushed me off, I'd be pissed. Thank god I don't live in a country with universal health care.)
More and more healthy people are avoiding expensive health insurance which increases the amount of risk in insurance pools, increasing rates, as well as hospital expenses for more emergency visits by the uninsured
Insurance is mandatory for many things. I'm not just talking sake of your life, I'm talking like, it is illegal to *not* have it. Is it actually surprising that people are paying the minimums? Also, where are your stats on these increased rates? My insurance provider just created a new bracket specifically for a single male(ie, Me).
The Cato Institute said on CSPAN last August that in order for private health insurance to work, we must accept as a society that there will be people who die because they cannot afford the care they need
This just sounds oh, so, horrible until:
GOOGLE TERM: "age thresholds" (Forget "1984", we want "Logan's Run")
By definition, a government risk pool would be far wider than any private, competing insurance company
I'll be honest, I'm not a health care genius. But let me ask you this: At what point in your life did you determine that it was okay for other people to tell you what to do with your property, your body, and your life?
If Libertarians believe in efficient government that allows the rights of people to be expressed -- through Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- why is it that they don't support a right to health care in the form of a single payer system that is demonstrably cheaper and more effective than the current or a deregulated system?
You have a very misguided view of Libertarians. It's not a government that "allows" you to do things, it's what you allow the government to control in your life. When the Declaration of Independence said, "inalienable", it meant they were rights that were inherently there and a government would have to justify any attempts to encroach upon them.
Comments from one of those "wacky" Libertarians who believes private citizens should be able to own nuclear weapons:
I've actually done a lot of work justifying this kind of position in the past. With the help of some fellow Libertarians, we proposed a general Libertarian solution.
(This is never an issue, because no individual owns a nuclear weapon. I can think of many instances where an individual might need to own one, but I'll get to those in a bit.)
Bombs have only one use. To blow sh!t up. It would seem to me that if someone were known to own a device that obviously could blow sh!t up, their neighbors would be able to file a suit questioning the ownership of said item. If the only purpose of an owned item is to destroy 5 square miles of the earth, then your neighbors are direct stakeholders in your sanity. A "mutual contract" would have to be signed for such a purpose. Now, the problem on the Libertarian side is that such a "mutual contract" could be argued for anything (and indeed would be by environmentalists).
I know what you're thinking. Why not just concede the point? What the hell could anyone possibly need nuclear weapons for?
Actually, you'd be surprised:
1) Asteriod Mining - Did you know that it is illegal in many states to drive at night without shooting flares in the sky every 5 minutes? Can you imagine how stupid it'd sound to the asteroid miners of 2350 that a tool they use in their every day operations is illegal?
2) Ice Comet imitation - Suppose we want to habitate an existing planet (like Mars) in the future. We can get the water to the planet, but we can't imitate the dust clouds that get kicked up without producing massive explosions across the planet. Nuclear emissions will still exist, but who's to say we won't find a way to reduce the effects of said emissions in the future?
3) Colonists - Here again, think to the future. Just because such a reason doesn't exist, who knows where we will be in 900 years, let alone 50. What one thing would someone leave Earth for space colonies for? The same reason people go to international waters, to get away from government rules and regulations. It is entirely likely colonists might be at odds in the future with strict earth government laws, and this might be one of them. Just like American colonists probably thought their British rulers were being jerks.
Many of you think that with a lot of private enterprises spreading into Space technology we might not be that far off from some great strides in this area. Also, here's one last really interesting food for thought:
Nowhere in current US law does it say you cannot own nuclear weapons.
In fact, I know of *NO* country that states private citizens cannot own nuclear weapons. Keep that in mind when you next debate a Libertarian over something as seemingly stupid as this. Libertarians believe in nuclear ownership rights because they refuse to break philosophy and regulate the individual. This is a *GOOD THING*.
I have been interested in the past in libertarian ideals and thoughts and did some amount of research.
What sorts of regulations and rules if any do libertarians believe are necessary to prevent the descent into "survival of the fittest"?
These two sentences are in direct conflict with each other. The Libertarian concept is *not* hard to understand. Freedom from federal regulations and rules is exactly what Libertarians propose.
If you are worried about the children, you are worried about the wrong thing. Up until the New Deal, the federal government had very little influence on the entirety of the country. Since no one alive ever really existed before then, it's hard to relate what the country would be like without agencies like the EPA, FDA, and others. Let me assure you, there were little, if any, widespread problems or issues. What exactly does the government provide to your children that you are concerned about? Child-labor laws? Public education? Which of the services that the federal government provides your children are you the most happy with? If a private company were to provide the same thing and you were taxed less, would you use them or would they fundamentally be in err simply because they are "driven by profits"?
Libertarians feel that states will rise up to the challenge of protecting those areas they deem necessary. Or private enterprise will. The federal government need not complicate matters with a broad centralized form of control. When government centralizes, so do corporations. When the laws makes the states more the same, corporations open up franchises without a hitch. If you like localized services, decentralize the government.
Greylisting is the *only* implementation to kill spam. Not surprisingly it is free, easy to setup, and extremely effective. So far, spammer have been slow to catch on. Which is why I am not going to link to a site explaining how to implement it. Iowa State University recently switched to it and had an insane 95% SPAM reduction rate campus wide. It has worked so well that the email filter documentation never gets downloaded by students and staff anymore.
Thanks, good read. The only thing I don't understand is while Clinton and Bush Senior clearly ran the show, Bush's speeches indicate he doesn't know what is going on half the time. If you ever see unedited interviews by the press, you'll see there are some really odd expressions on his face, as if a lot of obvious things are totally unknown to him.
Why would that be the case if it weren't for someone else directing these orders? I don't think it's Condi, but perhaps Cheney has more of a say in CIA and FBI-related matters and doesn't exactly let on to Bush what is going on.
I wouldn't be surprised also if this is an "out" that the Bush presidency will use to pin the blame on someone other than Bush in some future crisis, like after he is reelected. Interesting stuff to think about for me, anyway.
No offense, but Salon is not offering the full story, so I have no fricken clue what the "specific ocurrence" is. My immediate guess is that it's yet another generalization and does not have any proof of a directive from Bush himself to take a specific action.
The problem is, the Republicans played the game of "Clinton is misleading us" and etc, too. They finally caught him in a direct lie, however, and it still wasn't enough to shake him from office. Bush isn't even directly responsible (in fact, it's questionable whether or not he calls *any* shots in the White House) and yet he is blamed for many things.
I'd like to see more stuff from his own internal supporters. I want to see stuff Republicans have to say against him, not Democrats that are about to leave office and have a book deal that they intend to mooch off of for the last decades of their life.
Sorry. I stole it from TheRegister I believe. One word of advice though, when you require a source the majority of the time it is to bash the source as uncredible. You can call the guy who stated that up and he's still going to say the same thing, however.
You can also look up the information he claimed and find out that it was indeed denied a contract with the US military for stated rockets/missles.
questions have been raised as to whether Moore's movie presents truth or propaganda
People are still questioning it?
Moore hopes to air the film prior to the November elections
There's your answer right there.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, but there was a clear opinion expressed. F911 is material disseminated by an opponent to a poltical agenda, thus "propaganda" by definition.
It is entirely possible for something to be both truthful and propaganda. In fact, I'd venture to guess that most politically-biased material is truthfull. At least, efficient propganda is.
The only thing I took issue with was claims about the family ties between Bush and bin Laden. They are actually very weak ties and arguments. Specifically the one with the Carlyle Group. For more information on this, I would suggest checking out the following K5 Diary entry:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/8/2/121046/0201
IMHO, there is only so far you can go with a franchise and ST has been everywhere. Firefly has a better chance of becoming something cool/new. Battlestar Gallatica (spelling?) as well.
What I'd really like to see is a few games that have been out on PC turned into TV shows or movies. Among some of the great games with fantastic plots are Homeworld and Freelancer.
Freelancer is essentially this far-future space shooter/RPG that came out on PC over a year ago. The graphics were dated as it was originally schedule for release in something like 2000 or even earlier, but the game itself is just entralling.
The premise is based on 5 ships that set out from Earth after the war between the colonists (those that inhabited the planets other than earth) and the earth countries warred. The colonists essentially win, and 5 large colony ships take off for some distant system/galaxy never to be seen again. One of the 5 ships is destroyed upon leaving. The remaining 4 establish themselves in systems far away from the colonists.
Fast-forward like four centuries to the previous Earth inhabitants now rebuilding rather well, with some pirate groups having formed to cause trouble with the authorities and all sorts of other issues. The four systems developed into American, European, Britain, and Asian-like systems. They each have their own styles of ships, patrol their own systems, but for the most part, get along with each other.
The unique aspect of the game was the faction system. For example, in the "Rhineland" (German) area, there was a gang called the Corsairs who had decent faction ratings with the Asian system and some mining company in the British system that wasn't the best mining operation in that system, but since the Corsairs protected them, had access to better asteriods and thus minerals.
The whole game had a sort of wild-west in space feel to it. The idea of exploring a frontier where there are ruffians and "unknowns" is what makes space franchises work. They draw a certain crowd, and it would be best if ST would have stuck with that.
And despite what others on here have said, ST:Voyager *was* a return to the final frontier aspects that made Star Trek a good franchise. Their only mistake was that they focused so much on the Borg aspect because it drove ratings.
The whole time in Freelancer I was half expecting the colonists to come back into the game to beat on the four new systems, but it never happened. *That* is what makes a series good. The fact that there is so many directions you can go with it, but you never choose the one that the viewer will anticipate.
Watching Star Trek:Cowboy (or whatever the newest one is) is like painting a pretty picture and then telling those that view it that you created it out of dyed feces. The whole backstory to ST has been ruined, IMHO.
The problem with all these posts is that none of them question a federalized school system. There don't need to be federal standards for schooling. If anything, the idea of federally funded schooling should scare the living hell out of those of us that went through public schooling.
I would rather that my child never attend public schooling in its current form. Not because of the students, not because of the teachers. Rather, I fear public schooling because of the administration and bureacracy involved. The states do a horrible enough job teaching kids, why isn't everyone vehemently opposed to one federalized system?
My state's department of transportation (DOT) has long lines, bureaucratic idleness, and I still pay 35 bucks for my license, 135 for my vehicle, and 50 for my plates. They recently took away the privilege to register for my DL for up to 8 years too, so they can keep sucking me back every two to four years to pay that fee.
And I'm supposed to let these people teach my kids?
I once had the idea of making counterfeit US money for tourists travelling to other countries. The idea was that when you ran into someone who mugged you, instead of giving them your wallet you'd just pull out your money clip of fake US twenties, tens, and fives and give it to them.
The sheer joy at landing such a great deal of cash will dissuade them from stealing actual valuables like cameras, credit cards, and checks. After all, when you've just been handed say, $400 in cash, why bother trying to hide the other stuff you just stole?
Besides, those new bills look so fake, they are extremely easy to duplicate by appearance anyway. And a look of grief over losing it is so easy to fake. So that is a legitimate form of counterfeiting, but yet is illegal to do.
You were given a -1 Troll rating by me because you responded to a troll. Since I am commenting, you will not have this rating anymore. Wisen up, don't feed the trolls.
You were given a -1 Troll rating by me because you responded to a troll. Since I am commenting, you will not have this rating anymore. Wisen up, don't feed the trolls.
Compare this to the automotive industry. People don't call up Ford and ask what they need to do when their car doesn't start. Well, not usually.
Same goes with computers. They don't call up manufacturer, they either go buy a new one or go pay for a mechanic, err tech geek, to fix it.
And as long as you train your ear to understand Indian English, it's not that hard to comprehend. Most of the guys I've talked to are extremely verbose, they just seem to occasionally put more emphasis on a particular syllable that I wouldn't when they say common words. And they speak very softly in general.
The following is an example of how NOT to keep good karma, but damn it if I don't think it's appropriate to mention.
[RANT] After spending the time to use acronyms and terms to flabbergast Tier 1 so they send you on up, I would constantly get a Tier 2 support individual whose knowledge on the matter was *ALSO* questionable. Yet the Tier 2 guy would be a pompous prick that thought he was the latest and greatest since he played Natural Selection, a mod for Half-Life. And we all know how much skill it takes to install mods for games!
Anyway, I'm glad companies have moved technical support overseas, those that answer the phone are more courteous, less "over"paid, and have incentives to treat the customer like a friggen customer. The rest of you (including some of you who lost your jobs and may think you're an exception) can continue to think that you're some ubergeek that shouldn't have lost your job simply because you read and post to Slashdot. [/RANT]
I have no doubt many people who have lost jobs and post to Slashdot didn't deserve to, I just have this feeling that the guy that didn't know what NAT stood for when answering my call at Qwest is lurking around here somewhere.
I agree entirely. Think back to 1994. In ten years time we are still fighting the government to stay out of regulating the Internet.
So in an industry where the medium is owned soley by the government, how are we going to get these chips implanted into the roads? Let alone account for the transition period between these (for lack of a better term) autobots and current autos?
If I want to go from point A to point B without driving, I'll either take a bus or a train. How exactly does one even begin to account for changes in destination, such as the time when someone calls you up on the phone and says to meet them at the rec center instead of the park.
Going back to the original point, the government owns the roads. Who in their right mind is going to develop these cars that can be automatically driven when the government has been so slow to evolve in the area of road construction. I mean, think about it. For the last 50 years the interstate system and highway systems have been essentially the same.
Doesn't that kind of discount any possible change? I suppose maybe they might do *some* privatization, but I highly doubt they'll do much. Everyone has a knee-jerk response to the libertarian argument that roads should be privatized. It would make sense that the federal and state governments would naturally want to "protect the people" and not privatize.
The question is: why does it matter anymore?
The other question is: Why is Larry Niven the only SF writer to grasp things like this?
Slashdot Mirror
When I decided I liked the USA enough to stay, even with its warts.
I want to address this answer to my question specifically because you didn't address it. You cannot have it both ways. Either you have to cede control over decisions regarding your life, liberty, and property (in this case, tax money) or you determine they are best resolved by yourself.
So, let me ask you again. This time I'll rephrase as I once did to someone on K5 (who never answered the question directly, and skirted the issue like I imagine you will):
Who is most qualified to make decisions affecting your life, liberty, and property?
What this ends up boiling down to is that republicans agree to the "life and property" and democrats agree to the "life and liberty" but neither actually ends up conceding that they think a government entity is best able to determine the odd point out.
After all, it would sound ridiculous for a replican to say the government should control our liberty.
And most democrats (save a few hardened socialists) will never go so far as to say government should control property.
Should we leave decisions up to the majority and kill off those that disagree? Excellent plan, go hive-mind.
And, in turn, it's "perfectly valid" for the candidates to ignore such questions.
I would question your arguments, as I have numerous others. You do realize that the poles "melt" on a regular basis, right? Or do I have to pull out the picture of the submarine in 1970 at the northpole, which at the time, debunked the theory that the globe was "cooling"?
You ever heard of UHIE? How about junk science? Leave your shell.
Google "negative rights".
The only "positive right" I know of that requires someone to act on your behalf supported by the US is right to trial by jury. Personally, I have never used this right and don't ever plan to.
Oh really?
------------------
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Digest::MD5 qw(md5_hex);
# Create a stream of bytes from hex.
my $bytes1 = map {chr(hex($_))} qw(
d1 31 dd 02 c5 e6 ee c4 69 3d 9a 06 98 af f9 5c
2f ca b5 87 12 46 7e ab 40 04 58 3e b8 fb 7f 89
55 ad 34 06 09 f4 b3 02 83 e4 88 83 25 71 41 5a
08 51 25 e8 f7 cd c9 9f d9 1d bd f2 80 37 3c 5b
d8 82 3e 31 56 34 8f 5b ae 6d ac d4 36 c9 19 c6
dd 53 e2 b4 87 da 03 fd 02 39 63 06 d2 48 cd a0
e9 9f 33 42 0f 57 7e e8 ce 54 b6 70 80 a8 0d 1e
c6 98 21 bc b6 a8 83 93 96 f9 65 2b 6f f7 2a 70
);
# Create a second stream of bytes from hex.
my $bytes2 = map {chr(hex($_))} qw(
d1 31 dd 02 c5 e6 ee c4 69 3d 9a 06 98 af f9 5c
2f ca b5 07 12 46 7e ab 40 04 58 3e b8 fb 7f 89
55 ad 34 06 09 f4 b3 02 83 e4 88 83 25 f1 41 5a
08 51 25 e8 f7 cd c9 9f d9 1d bd 72 80 37 3c 5b
d8 82 3e 31 56 34 8f 5b ae 6d ac d4 36 c9 19 c6
dd 53 e2 34 87 da 03 fd 02 39 63 06 d2 48 cd a0
e9 9f 33 42 0f 57 7e e8 ce 54 b6 70 80 28 0d 1e
c6 98 21 bc b6 a8 83 93 96 f9 65 ab 6f f7 2a 70
);
# Print MD5 hashes
print md5_hex($bytes1), "\n";
print md5_hex($bytes2), "\n";
------------------
What do I win?
Okay, so now you are falling back on the one and only issue that you think the federal government was justified in tackling. Do you even understand how it started? Nothing would indicate it was the federal government's responsibility to fix anything.
And all you basically said was "I disagree, -1, Troll".
That's not sufficient. Argure your point.
Farmers were producing, but they were able to make things cheaper with better equipment so the prices fell, and fell hard. The market inflation alone wasn't the problem, either.
What I'm saying is, who was being exploited here? And who was benefitting? Was it the stockbrokers that fell to their deaths following Black Tuesday? Was it the managers of the companies that lost all their investments that same day?
Nothing would indicate that any one person was responsible for what happened, yet here comes the federal government and FDR to fix the problem.
You do realize that because of his work, we are bound to have another depression when people realize just how worthless their years of retirement spending were, right?
So sure enough, 3 months roll around and not only is he covering safety inspections for his previous buildings, but the government is now contracting out for him to inspect covered bridges in the county, outhouses, and other public structures. He's now got a team of 3 teenagers that go out and provide more than just certifications, but also ratings.
Fast forward again to a year later. His team now includes one full-time secretary, a full-time teen that graduated from high school and joined his staff, and 4 teenage helpers. They have expanded into other counties where funding was low and are also working on school and tenant certifications. He has an interactive website (cause he gave me a lot of $$) and is offering virtual checklists for tenants to view. The demand to get certified by him is so high that he has a waiting list of 31 complexes from 13 landlords, all of them are waiting to pay their 50 dollar yearly building certification fee. In his spare time, he trains kids from counties that are funded by the government.
And just so you know, this is not a true story. Almost sounded believable there for a bit, though, didn't it? Kind of made you feel good. John Stossel covered a lot of these kinds of success stories in his book and even talked about several in his TV special "Greed". The workers who were once subsidized all said they worked harder, but they had access to state of the art equipment and enjoyed their jobs more.
There's some myth going around in the heads of the public that government inspectors are fair whereas public inspectors would not be. I disagree, the fire inspector in my town says that he wishes he could do more, but feels tied down, small budget, etc. All the complaints you'd usually expect. Privatization is good.
The incredible problem with crime and slum/tenemant housing in turn of the century New York
Okay. And these problems, of one city, were fixed by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT? Name a problem in the time period before FDR that legitimized all the federal programs he ushered in. The Great Depression gave him a blank check to do whatever he wanted. And indeed he did.
I actually think of it as a tree, with life splitting into the other two. I'm already beginning to enjoy this "logic" game you're playing as it seems to attribute that it is the government's responsibility to keep the citizen's alive.
Think of the word "responsible". Would you give up your freedom to do whatever you like as long as it didn't harm the rights of others in exchange for never having to be "responsible" for keeping yourself alive? Sounds like a pretty poor tradeoff for me. I'd rather taking on the grueling (pardon my pun) task of keeping myself alive and be able to do what I'd like.
GOOGLE TERM: "government accountability"
To adequately sustain one's Life in the modern age, one must visit the doctor, hospital, emergency room, etc. regardless of whether one can afford it, regardless of whether the problems were self-initiated or happened through no fault of one's own, and regardless of one's age
Couldn't be any more incorrect. I don't go to the doctor every time I cut myself, but you can be rest assured that if I had the time and was a worry-wart, like so many in this "modern age" are, then I'd be going. Hell, I'd go every time after sex to make sure I wasn't infected with something. If it's free, why not?
It is well known the US health care system is the best in the world. World leaders come *here* for their problems. Canada has lines and piss-poor health care and they aren't even radically socialized.
GOOGLE TERM: "countries without universal health care" (Very first link, in fact. If I was puking blood and the nurse brushed me off, I'd be pissed. Thank god I don't live in a country with universal health care.)
More and more healthy people are avoiding expensive health insurance which increases the amount of risk in insurance pools, increasing rates, as well as hospital expenses for more emergency visits by the uninsured
Insurance is mandatory for many things. I'm not just talking sake of your life, I'm talking like, it is illegal to *not* have it. Is it actually surprising that people are paying the minimums? Also, where are your stats on these increased rates? My insurance provider just created a new bracket specifically for a single male(ie, Me).
The Cato Institute said on CSPAN last August that in order for private health insurance to work, we must accept as a society that there will be people who die because they cannot afford the care they need
This just sounds oh, so, horrible until:
GOOGLE TERM: "age thresholds" (Forget "1984", we want "Logan's Run")
By definition, a government risk pool would be far wider than any private, competing insurance company
I'll be honest, I'm not a health care genius. But let me ask you this: At what point in your life did you determine that it was okay for other people to tell you what to do with your property, your body, and your life?
If Libertarians believe in efficient government that allows the rights of people to be expressed -- through Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness -- why is it that they don't support a right to health care in the form of a single payer system that is demonstrably cheaper and more effective than the current or a deregulated system?
You have a very misguided view of Libertarians. It's not a government that "allows" you to do things, it's what you allow the government to control in your life. When the Declaration of Independence said, "inalienable", it meant they were rights that were inherently there and a government would have to justify any attempts to encroach upon them.
Sorry, he's not going to answer religious questions. Only political ones.
Comments from one of those "wacky" Libertarians who believes private citizens should be able to own nuclear weapons:
I've actually done a lot of work justifying this kind of position in the past. With the help of some fellow Libertarians, we proposed a general Libertarian solution.
(This is never an issue, because no individual owns a nuclear weapon. I can think of many instances where an individual might need to own one, but I'll get to those in a bit.)
Bombs have only one use. To blow sh!t up. It would seem to me that if someone were known to own a device that obviously could blow sh!t up, their neighbors would be able to file a suit questioning the ownership of said item. If the only purpose of an owned item is to destroy 5 square miles of the earth, then your neighbors are direct stakeholders in your sanity. A "mutual contract" would have to be signed for such a purpose. Now, the problem on the Libertarian side is that such a "mutual contract" could be argued for anything (and indeed would be by environmentalists).
I know what you're thinking. Why not just concede the point? What the hell could anyone possibly need nuclear weapons for?
Actually, you'd be surprised:
1) Asteriod Mining - Did you know that it is illegal in many states to drive at night without shooting flares in the sky every 5 minutes? Can you imagine how stupid it'd sound to the asteroid miners of 2350 that a tool they use in their every day operations is illegal?
2) Ice Comet imitation - Suppose we want to habitate an existing planet (like Mars) in the future. We can get the water to the planet, but we can't imitate the dust clouds that get kicked up without producing massive explosions across the planet. Nuclear emissions will still exist, but who's to say we won't find a way to reduce the effects of said emissions in the future?
3) Colonists - Here again, think to the future. Just because such a reason doesn't exist, who knows where we will be in 900 years, let alone 50. What one thing would someone leave Earth for space colonies for? The same reason people go to international waters, to get away from government rules and regulations. It is entirely likely colonists might be at odds in the future with strict earth government laws, and this might be one of them. Just like American colonists probably thought their British rulers were being jerks.
Many of you think that with a lot of private enterprises spreading into Space technology we might not be that far off from some great strides in this area. Also, here's one last really interesting food for thought:
Nowhere in current US law does it say you cannot own nuclear weapons.
In fact, I know of *NO* country that states private citizens cannot own nuclear weapons. Keep that in mind when you next debate a Libertarian over something as seemingly stupid as this. Libertarians believe in nuclear ownership rights because they refuse to break philosophy and regulate the individual. This is a *GOOD THING*.
What sorts of regulations and rules if any do libertarians believe are necessary to prevent the descent into "survival of the fittest"?
These two sentences are in direct conflict with each other. The Libertarian concept is *not* hard to understand. Freedom from federal regulations and rules is exactly what Libertarians propose.
If you are worried about the children, you are worried about the wrong thing. Up until the New Deal, the federal government had very little influence on the entirety of the country. Since no one alive ever really existed before then, it's hard to relate what the country would be like without agencies like the EPA, FDA, and others. Let me assure you, there were little, if any, widespread problems or issues. What exactly does the government provide to your children that you are concerned about? Child-labor laws? Public education? Which of the services that the federal government provides your children are you the most happy with? If a private company were to provide the same thing and you were taxed less, would you use them or would they fundamentally be in err simply because they are "driven by profits"?
Libertarians feel that states will rise up to the challenge of protecting those areas they deem necessary. Or private enterprise will. The federal government need not complicate matters with a broad centralized form of control. When government centralizes, so do corporations. When the laws makes the states more the same, corporations open up franchises without a hitch. If you like localized services, decentralize the government.
Greylisting is the *only* implementation to kill spam. Not surprisingly it is free, easy to setup, and extremely effective. So far, spammer have been slow to catch on. Which is why I am not going to link to a site explaining how to implement it. Iowa State University recently switched to it and had an insane 95% SPAM reduction rate campus wide. It has worked so well that the email filter documentation never gets downloaded by students and staff anymore.
Thanks, good read. The only thing I don't understand is while Clinton and Bush Senior clearly ran the show, Bush's speeches indicate he doesn't know what is going on half the time. If you ever see unedited interviews by the press, you'll see there are some really odd expressions on his face, as if a lot of obvious things are totally unknown to him.
Why would that be the case if it weren't for someone else directing these orders? I don't think it's Condi, but perhaps Cheney has more of a say in CIA and FBI-related matters and doesn't exactly let on to Bush what is going on.
I wouldn't be surprised also if this is an "out" that the Bush presidency will use to pin the blame on someone other than Bush in some future crisis, like after he is reelected. Interesting stuff to think about for me, anyway.
Full text?
No offense, but Salon is not offering the full story, so I have no fricken clue what the "specific ocurrence" is. My immediate guess is that it's yet another generalization and does not have any proof of a directive from Bush himself to take a specific action.
The problem is, the Republicans played the game of "Clinton is misleading us" and etc, too. They finally caught him in a direct lie, however, and it still wasn't enough to shake him from office. Bush isn't even directly responsible (in fact, it's questionable whether or not he calls *any* shots in the White House) and yet he is blamed for many things.
I'd like to see more stuff from his own internal supporters. I want to see stuff Republicans have to say against him, not Democrats that are about to leave office and have a book deal that they intend to mooch off of for the last decades of their life.
Sorry. I stole it from TheRegister I believe. One word of advice though, when you require a source the majority of the time it is to bash the source as uncredible. You can call the guy who stated that up and he's still going to say the same thing, however.
You can also look up the information he claimed and find out that it was indeed denied a contract with the US military for stated rockets/missles.
/agree
"factual" is a better term. Now I wish I hadn't posted so I could mod your reply up.
questions have been raised as to whether Moore's movie presents truth or propaganda
1
People are still questioning it?
Moore hopes to air the film prior to the November elections
There's your answer right there.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, but there was a clear opinion expressed. F911 is material disseminated by an opponent to a poltical agenda, thus "propaganda" by definition.
It is entirely possible for something to be both truthful and propaganda. In fact, I'd venture to guess that most politically-biased material is truthfull. At least, efficient propganda is.
The only thing I took issue with was claims about the family ties between Bush and bin Laden. They are actually very weak ties and arguments. Specifically the one with the Carlyle Group. For more information on this, I would suggest checking out the following K5 Diary entry: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/8/2/121046/020
IMHO, there is only so far you can go with a franchise and ST has been everywhere. Firefly has a better chance of becoming something cool/new. Battlestar Gallatica (spelling?) as well.
What I'd really like to see is a few games that have been out on PC turned into TV shows or movies. Among some of the great games with fantastic plots are Homeworld and Freelancer.
Freelancer is essentially this far-future space shooter/RPG that came out on PC over a year ago. The graphics were dated as it was originally schedule for release in something like 2000 or even earlier, but the game itself is just entralling.
The premise is based on 5 ships that set out from Earth after the war between the colonists (those that inhabited the planets other than earth) and the earth countries warred. The colonists essentially win, and 5 large colony ships take off for some distant system/galaxy never to be seen again. One of the 5 ships is destroyed upon leaving. The remaining 4 establish themselves in systems far away from the colonists.
Fast-forward like four centuries to the previous Earth inhabitants now rebuilding rather well, with some pirate groups having formed to cause trouble with the authorities and all sorts of other issues. The four systems developed into American, European, Britain, and Asian-like systems. They each have their own styles of ships, patrol their own systems, but for the most part, get along with each other.
The unique aspect of the game was the faction system. For example, in the "Rhineland" (German) area, there was a gang called the Corsairs who had decent faction ratings with the Asian system and some mining company in the British system that wasn't the best mining operation in that system, but since the Corsairs protected them, had access to better asteriods and thus minerals.
The whole game had a sort of wild-west in space feel to it. The idea of exploring a frontier where there are ruffians and "unknowns" is what makes space franchises work. They draw a certain crowd, and it would be best if ST would have stuck with that.
And despite what others on here have said, ST:Voyager *was* a return to the final frontier aspects that made Star Trek a good franchise. Their only mistake was that they focused so much on the Borg aspect because it drove ratings.
The whole time in Freelancer I was half expecting the colonists to come back into the game to beat on the four new systems, but it never happened. *That* is what makes a series good. The fact that there is so many directions you can go with it, but you never choose the one that the viewer will anticipate.
Watching Star Trek:Cowboy (or whatever the newest one is) is like painting a pretty picture and then telling those that view it that you created it out of dyed feces. The whole backstory to ST has been ruined, IMHO.
The problem with all these posts is that none of them question a federalized school system. There don't need to be federal standards for schooling. If anything, the idea of federally funded schooling should scare the living hell out of those of us that went through public schooling.
I would rather that my child never attend public schooling in its current form. Not because of the students, not because of the teachers. Rather, I fear public schooling because of the administration and bureacracy involved. The states do a horrible enough job teaching kids, why isn't everyone vehemently opposed to one federalized system?
My state's department of transportation (DOT) has long lines, bureaucratic idleness, and I still pay 35 bucks for my license, 135 for my vehicle, and 50 for my plates. They recently took away the privilege to register for my DL for up to 8 years too, so they can keep sucking me back every two to four years to pay that fee.
And I'm supposed to let these people teach my kids?
I once had the idea of making counterfeit US money for tourists travelling to other countries. The idea was that when you ran into someone who mugged you, instead of giving them your wallet you'd just pull out your money clip of fake US twenties, tens, and fives and give it to them.
The sheer joy at landing such a great deal of cash will dissuade them from stealing actual valuables like cameras, credit cards, and checks. After all, when you've just been handed say, $400 in cash, why bother trying to hide the other stuff you just stole?
Besides, those new bills look so fake, they are extremely easy to duplicate by appearance anyway. And a look of grief over losing it is so easy to fake. So that is a legitimate form of counterfeiting, but yet is illegal to do.
Wow that was a witty response.
You were given a -1 Troll rating by me because you responded to a troll. Since I am commenting, you will not have this rating anymore. Wisen up, don't feed the trolls.
You were given a -1 Troll rating by me because you responded to a troll. Since I am commenting, you will not have this rating anymore. Wisen up, don't feed the trolls.
Compare this to the automotive industry. People don't call up Ford and ask what they need to do when their car doesn't start. Well, not usually.
Same goes with computers. They don't call up manufacturer, they either go buy a new one or go pay for a mechanic, err tech geek, to fix it.
And as long as you train your ear to understand Indian English, it's not that hard to comprehend. Most of the guys I've talked to are extremely verbose, they just seem to occasionally put more emphasis on a particular syllable that I wouldn't when they say common words. And they speak very softly in general.
The following is an example of how NOT to keep good karma, but damn it if I don't think it's appropriate to mention.
[RANT]
After spending the time to use acronyms and terms to flabbergast Tier 1 so they send you on up, I would constantly get a Tier 2 support individual whose knowledge on the matter was *ALSO* questionable. Yet the Tier 2 guy would be a pompous prick that thought he was the latest and greatest since he played Natural Selection, a mod for Half-Life. And we all know how much skill it takes to install mods for games!
Anyway, I'm glad companies have moved technical support overseas, those that answer the phone are more courteous, less "over"paid, and have incentives to treat the customer like a friggen customer. The rest of you (including some of you who lost your jobs and may think you're an exception) can continue to think that you're some ubergeek that shouldn't have lost your job simply because you read and post to Slashdot.
[/RANT]
I have no doubt many people who have lost jobs and post to Slashdot didn't deserve to, I just have this feeling that the guy that didn't know what NAT stood for when answering my call at Qwest is lurking around here somewhere.
I agree entirely. Think back to 1994. In ten years time we are still fighting the government to stay out of regulating the Internet.
So in an industry where the medium is owned soley by the government, how are we going to get these chips implanted into the roads? Let alone account for the transition period between these (for lack of a better term) autobots and current autos?
If I want to go from point A to point B without driving, I'll either take a bus or a train. How exactly does one even begin to account for changes in destination, such as the time when someone calls you up on the phone and says to meet them at the rec center instead of the park.
Going back to the original point, the government owns the roads. Who in their right mind is going to develop these cars that can be automatically driven when the government has been so slow to evolve in the area of road construction. I mean, think about it. For the last 50 years the interstate system and highway systems have been essentially the same.
Doesn't that kind of discount any possible change? I suppose maybe they might do *some* privatization, but I highly doubt they'll do much. Everyone has a knee-jerk response to the libertarian argument that roads should be privatized. It would make sense that the federal and state governments would naturally want to "protect the people" and not privatize.
The question is: why does it matter anymore?
The other question is: Why is Larry Niven the only SF writer to grasp things like this?