Nonsense. Used hatefully, that word reflects negatively on the person who used it. Main stream society strongly disapproves of racist garbage. As a Jew, I just smile and nod if I hear the word Kike. I don't suddenly feel "disenfranchised", or feel the weight of six million deaths in Europe on my head. I just know the speaker is a either a thoughtless youth or a jackass. I certainly don't feel like I owe a black person living today for nasty history two hundred years ago, and I don't feel like todays germans should be sending me checks for what their grandfathers did to my grandfathers. I reject the sins of my father as my own.
I disagree. The electoral college was part of the compromise between population vs. states when the constitution was signed. Small states, if you will recall, wanted representation in the federal government to be based on statehood, while populous states wanted it to be on population. Thus the senate and the house.
The college is an extension of this compromise. the number of electors a state has is equal to the number of representatives it has, plus two for the senators. While the population of a state has the greates influence in determining the presidency, in certain very narrow elections, like we just had, the extra two votes per state begin to matter.
This forces a candidate to travel around the country and gain support from a wide variety of regions, not just New York city and California. We witnessed this effect in this election, and the result was right and proper. Bush got support from most of the states, while Gore got it from a few large population centers. The constitutional compromise has favored population vs. region in most elections--this time it was the regional concerns that won out.
You are right about the right wing dolts. They do love their censorship, and it is very tiresome. When they are elected, you trade them for left wing dolts, who love to tax and ban guns. Both are authoritarians with different agendas, and both are equally obnoxious. As Jefferson put it "It is the natural order of things for government to gain ground, and liberty to lose it."
The international community is a pack of socialists. The rights you are describing there are "positive" rights, like a "right" to housing and medical care. These are NOT fundamental human rights, in spite of what a bunch of commies at the UN think.
Negative rights are fundamental. They basically include the right to be left alone, and the right to be secure in your property. Negative rights are the true rights. A posititve right that takes away a negative right (government taxes to give universal health care coverage, taxes to give a job to someone else, etc.) is a true rights violation, because it had to violate my right to be left alone and be secure in my property in order to satisfy someone else's needs.
No one else loses when I keep my negative rights intact. If I just sit on my property and keep to myself, you lose nothing because I do that. Even if I'm obnoxious and type the word Nigger here a lot, you suffer nothing but momentary irritation. When my local government feels the need to knock on my door and collect taxes from me to pay Billy Jo Jim Bob in Louisiana to build a road through the swamp that goes nowhere just to give him a job, then my rights are violated.
Taxes are legitimate, but only just barely. Obviously we need some taxes to handle government affairs that secure our negative rights. But when the governement starts collecting taxes, they get addicted to it. Taxes are the source of their power, and it's very hard for them to stop spending your money. The temptation to create, say a national endowment for the arts, or buy expensive aircraft that doesn't work, or spend on any other kind of boondoggle, becomes irresistable in the kinds of political atmospheres these people operate in. This is what drives congressmen to call tax cuts "spending". They have become so used to spending your money on anything they like, they consider it their own.
So the UHDR may say housing and medical care are rights, but they are not. My neighbor does not have the "right" to force me to pick up a hammer and build his house for him, nor to take care of him when he's sick. I may feel sympathy, I may donate to charity or help my neighbor willingly, but there is no right there to force me or to pay for his troubles.
But there is a right to own a gun. Owning it helps you shoot your neighbor when he comes over with a gun to demand universal health coverage;)
Kids will always cause trouble. Most of it isn't too serious. The real lesson here is in what happens when you get involved with the expensive, crap shoot legal system. Everyone walks away poorer and unsatisfied. A man's life will be happier if it doesn't involve doctors or lawyers!
I agree with Yekrats. IANAL either, but journalism class went over the libel thing exhaustively, and the perfect defense against libel is truth. As long as you haven't signed a contract to keep silent, you can speak the truth.
However, there are practical considerations. If the company asks Yahoo to disclose your identity, Yahoo can do so if they feel like it, even if they don't have a court order. It's easier to comply with such a request than get lawyers involved and deny it.
Secondly, if the company chooses to sue you, regardless if they are correct, you are in a world of shit (provided you have something to lose--never sue the poor!). Defending yourself is costly, and given the uncertainty of victory in court (damn near 50-50 in my experience)you could still lose.
In short, the best policy is to say negative things with an anonymous service like anonymizer, who keeps no records to subpoena. Best of all, swallow your pride and don't say negative things. Agressive assholes like your previous bosses usually wind up fighting with some other aggressive asshole, and they both go down, screaming and cursing.
The UK should stop screwing around with these slow baby steps to fascism and just get it over with. Establish a Ministry of Truth their citizens seem to want so much, end the waiting.
A democracy is the only kind of government in which the people truly get what they deserve!
They are criminals. They've disabled the limiter on their car.
Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.
on
The Unblinking Eye
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· Score: 1
Grrr. The FBI got bored waiting for them to get out, so they attacked. The people inside were hysterical and exhausted, and things always seem to go wrong when violence starts up. Government action lead to the deaths of the people inside, some of whom were innocent children, for God's sake, regardless of how the fire started.
When Janet Reno said she took responsibility for what happened, she should have followed that logic to its conclusion and resigned.
Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.
on
The Unblinking Eye
·
· Score: 1
Yes, isn't it wonderful? Some of the lowest crime rates in the world are achieved by the most brutal regimes. What little liberty remains in the UK is quickly disappearing. It's bad enough here in America, but the UK's situation is positively shocking. First socialism, then totalitarianism.
I don't know about you, but I am much more afraid of an organized police force than a few lone criminals. Every day fools vote more of their freedom away to catch petty criminals.
And what makes you think you'll get to vote the power abusers out of office? Here in California we passed a law that anyone could read to mean that marijuana was essentially decriminalized, and judges and police went right about their business as though it hadn't happened. Left all of us wondering what a 65% majority means to these people. I'm not so sure the authorities pay attention to voting anymore.
Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.
on
The Unblinking Eye
·
· Score: 1
Bah. We are becoming a nation of cowards. Franklin was right. Actually, I believe he said "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety will soon lose both, and deserve neither".
America has become the land the settlers sought to escape from.
I'm probably responding to a troll, but what the hell. It's heartwarming to see that you appreciate the things that law and order has done for China. In the short period the Communist Chinese government has been around, they have managed to intentionally kill at least 65 million of their own citizens in the name of law and order and social harmony.
Their government is so unpleasant that it has the distinction of being the number one most murderous and evil regime in history. To say that we here in the states should take a lesson from them on how to behave is a slap in the face to the families of their innumerable victims.
Slashdot Mirror
Nonsense. Used hatefully, that word reflects negatively on the person who used it. Main stream society strongly disapproves of racist garbage. As a Jew, I just smile and nod if I hear the word Kike. I don't suddenly feel "disenfranchised", or feel the weight of six million deaths in Europe on my head. I just know the speaker is a either a thoughtless youth or a jackass. I certainly don't feel like I owe a black person living today for nasty history two hundred years ago, and I don't feel like todays germans should be sending me checks for what their grandfathers did to my grandfathers. I reject the sins of my father as my own.
I disagree. The electoral college was part of the compromise between population vs. states when the constitution was signed. Small states, if you will recall, wanted representation in the federal government to be based on statehood, while populous states wanted it to be on population. Thus the senate and the house. The college is an extension of this compromise. the number of electors a state has is equal to the number of representatives it has, plus two for the senators. While the population of a state has the greates influence in determining the presidency, in certain very narrow elections, like we just had, the extra two votes per state begin to matter. This forces a candidate to travel around the country and gain support from a wide variety of regions, not just New York city and California. We witnessed this effect in this election, and the result was right and proper. Bush got support from most of the states, while Gore got it from a few large population centers. The constitutional compromise has favored population vs. region in most elections--this time it was the regional concerns that won out.
You are right about the right wing dolts. They do love their censorship, and it is very tiresome. When they are elected, you trade them for left wing dolts, who love to tax and ban guns. Both are authoritarians with different agendas, and both are equally obnoxious. As Jefferson put it "It is the natural order of things for government to gain ground, and liberty to lose it."
Everyone else are subjects.
The international community is a pack of socialists. The rights you are describing there are "positive" rights, like a "right" to housing and medical care. These are NOT fundamental human rights, in spite of what a bunch of commies at the UN think. Negative rights are fundamental. They basically include the right to be left alone, and the right to be secure in your property. Negative rights are the true rights. A posititve right that takes away a negative right (government taxes to give universal health care coverage, taxes to give a job to someone else, etc.) is a true rights violation, because it had to violate my right to be left alone and be secure in my property in order to satisfy someone else's needs. No one else loses when I keep my negative rights intact. If I just sit on my property and keep to myself, you lose nothing because I do that. Even if I'm obnoxious and type the word Nigger here a lot, you suffer nothing but momentary irritation. When my local government feels the need to knock on my door and collect taxes from me to pay Billy Jo Jim Bob in Louisiana to build a road through the swamp that goes nowhere just to give him a job, then my rights are violated. Taxes are legitimate, but only just barely. Obviously we need some taxes to handle government affairs that secure our negative rights. But when the governement starts collecting taxes, they get addicted to it. Taxes are the source of their power, and it's very hard for them to stop spending your money. The temptation to create, say a national endowment for the arts, or buy expensive aircraft that doesn't work, or spend on any other kind of boondoggle, becomes irresistable in the kinds of political atmospheres these people operate in. This is what drives congressmen to call tax cuts "spending". They have become so used to spending your money on anything they like, they consider it their own. So the UHDR may say housing and medical care are rights, but they are not. My neighbor does not have the "right" to force me to pick up a hammer and build his house for him, nor to take care of him when he's sick. I may feel sympathy, I may donate to charity or help my neighbor willingly, but there is no right there to force me or to pay for his troubles. But there is a right to own a gun. Owning it helps you shoot your neighbor when he comes over with a gun to demand universal health coverage ;)
Kids will always cause trouble. Most of it isn't too serious. The real lesson here is in what happens when you get involved with the expensive, crap shoot legal system. Everyone walks away poorer and unsatisfied. A man's life will be happier if it doesn't involve doctors or lawyers!
I agree with Yekrats. IANAL either, but journalism class went over the libel thing exhaustively, and the perfect defense against libel is truth. As long as you haven't signed a contract to keep silent, you can speak the truth. However, there are practical considerations. If the company asks Yahoo to disclose your identity, Yahoo can do so if they feel like it, even if they don't have a court order. It's easier to comply with such a request than get lawyers involved and deny it. Secondly, if the company chooses to sue you, regardless if they are correct, you are in a world of shit (provided you have something to lose--never sue the poor!). Defending yourself is costly, and given the uncertainty of victory in court (damn near 50-50 in my experience)you could still lose. In short, the best policy is to say negative things with an anonymous service like anonymizer, who keeps no records to subpoena. Best of all, swallow your pride and don't say negative things. Agressive assholes like your previous bosses usually wind up fighting with some other aggressive asshole, and they both go down, screaming and cursing.
The UK should stop screwing around with these slow baby steps to fascism and just get it over with. Establish a Ministry of Truth their citizens seem to want so much, end the waiting. A democracy is the only kind of government in which the people truly get what they deserve!
They are criminals. They've disabled the limiter on their car.
Grrr. The FBI got bored waiting for them to get out, so they attacked. The people inside were hysterical and exhausted, and things always seem to go wrong when violence starts up. Government action lead to the deaths of the people inside, some of whom were innocent children, for God's sake, regardless of how the fire started. When Janet Reno said she took responsibility for what happened, she should have followed that logic to its conclusion and resigned.
Yes, isn't it wonderful? Some of the lowest crime rates in the world are achieved by the most brutal regimes. What little liberty remains in the UK is quickly disappearing. It's bad enough here in America, but the UK's situation is positively shocking. First socialism, then totalitarianism. I don't know about you, but I am much more afraid of an organized police force than a few lone criminals. Every day fools vote more of their freedom away to catch petty criminals. And what makes you think you'll get to vote the power abusers out of office? Here in California we passed a law that anyone could read to mean that marijuana was essentially decriminalized, and judges and police went right about their business as though it hadn't happened. Left all of us wondering what a 65% majority means to these people. I'm not so sure the authorities pay attention to voting anymore.
Bah. We are becoming a nation of cowards. Franklin was right. Actually, I believe he said "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety will soon lose both, and deserve neither". America has become the land the settlers sought to escape from.
I'm probably responding to a troll, but what the hell. It's heartwarming to see that you appreciate the things that law and order has done for China. In the short period the Communist Chinese government has been around, they have managed to intentionally kill at least 65 million of their own citizens in the name of law and order and social harmony.
Their government is so unpleasant that it has the distinction of being the number one most murderous and evil regime in history. To say that we here in the states should take a lesson from them on how to behave is a slap in the face to the families of their innumerable victims.