Is tech support really that horrible? If you don't know how to handle a problem it can be very frustrating, but the more common problem is controlling one's attitude toward the customers. I've turned into the "computer guy" from SNL too many times with people who deserve my support (esp. when I wrote the app.). Rude customers are far easier for me to handle than stupid ones, but I wish it was the other way around.
Best tech support story: I hooked up a (very intelligent) CPA with a complete system, and showed him all the features of the apps he'd use (using keyboard shortcuts--I hate mice). I didn't show him how to use the mouse, though. So I come back a week later, and he's using it like a trackball--he held it upside down, removed the mouseball enclosure, and was manipulating it with his fingers. He wanted me to speed up the movement. When I put it right-side up on the desk & moved the cursor, he almost stopped breathing.
Thanks for your very civil & thoughtful replies. The "10 Most Underreported stories" article disturbs me because I've read about all 10 stories extensively in the "liberal" media (NYTimes, WashingtonPost), and all of the "underreported" viewpoints had been included in the mainstream articles (along with other viewpoints). If you would like, I'll dig up links to all 10 stories in almost any paper. Does the inclusion of the opposing viewpoint somehow subjugate the conservative viewpoint, therefore making it "underreported"? You see, that scares me.
As for my use of "they," I was using ambiguous grammar to give you a gender-neutral pronoun. I'm worried that you are willing to do anything to defend your viewpoint (and your lifestyle) to the detriment of others. Your attack on the mainstream (which trys to include multiple viewpoints) & your preference on media purporting only one view as legitimate scares me, and I ask you to examine why you do that.
I work in the business-end of the healthcare industry, and the free market forces I see at work already do not portend well for your plan. The consensus that we now need a patient's bill of rights (which will only help patient's take cases to court, not to receive better care) should factor into your ideas. I apologize for my tone of ridicule in regards to your healthcare idea, but I can't see anyway in which it solves any of the problems currently facing healthcare! It seems to be all about the free market.
Do you want to see the free market reign supreme in the USA? Where do you draw the line? In California, for 20 years there has been a practice of having private judges hear the discovery (initial information gathering) phase of trials for tens of thousands of dollars. Can we restrict our legal rights in order to favor a free market? Doesn't our health directly affect our right to life & the pursuit of happiness? Doesn't that justify some level of legal protection in the field of healthcare? There is a dangerous inconsistency & short-sightedness to the current conservative ideology in the US, and one that doesn't need to be. I'm a strong believer in both liberal & libertarian values, although only as far as they do not conflict. I don't see a similar coherency in your views.
TheSHAD0W just plain scares me. TheSHAD0W has developed an entire world view based on their beliefs that doesn't make any sense. Because of this, TheSHAD0W has to be paranoid about everything, especially viewpoints that don't match TheSHAD0W's.
For instance, look at how TheSHAD0W misinterprets the poster's statement. It's not about forcing other people to hear what you have to say. Suppose you're an environmental activist with in depth knowledge of current problems. Fox News Channel runs a series of shows on those problems (hahahahaha!). FNC will most likely not ask you to come on, ignore your offer to discuss the problems, or berate you on television for being an anti-property-rights, anti-business pansy. That's what "If you have something different to say, you're told to go elsewhere" means.
Then TheSHAD0W becomes increasingly incoherent. Just what "Bad News" has been censored by the "liberal" networks & spread on Fox News? What is the difference btw. the info on CNN's website & what they show on TV?
Now here's the best part. Check out TheSHAD0W's idea for fixing healthcare. TheSHAD0W thinks that if we let the HMO's take over worker's compensation & life insurance, they'll have to provide better service. (This is too funny, really, how long did TheSHAD0W think about this?) If a company provided both health care and life insurance, their customers would be royally screwed. Because the company would have to pay the life insurance eventually anyway, why would they want to provide better, more expensive care to keep you alive? Also, if they had to provide worker's compensation, their health care would be integrally tied into making you go back to work. Is there something I'm missing?
TheSHAD0W would be a lot funnier if I didn't think they would do anything and everything to maintain the dominance of their particular slant on life.
If the average American is anywhere near as confused & smug as you, there is no future in the USA.
A right on paper is useless until upheld in practice. (A'la poll taxes, literacy requirements)... with the whole Florida thing..which was extremely retarded(hand counts should be banned)...
So you bring up the ways in which Blacks' rights were denied, and then suggest denying another right (to a fair election).
Do you have the right to have your vote count if you're in a county with inadequate voting equipment and staff?
legally, yes
practically, no
And you even want to change the legality of it!! I'm sure you can rationalize this contradiction to yourself, but in doing so you only become more evil.
That is really what is being proposed in this article, anyway. At least that's the example that was given. This is definitely a moment where we need to make our voices heard, and try to be coherent about it.
WTF, Scantrons are even worse
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
First of all, what are you even doing on Slashdot saying this? Everytime you go to the bank, do want to fill out a deposit/withdrawal slip, wait in line, & then have somebody process it. NO, YOU WANT TO USE THE FUCKING ATM. Scantrons!--You are smoking some good pot there, aren't you?
I've heard that the polls close at the same time all across Florida, but the polling hours are different in the Western part (1 hour earlier). I've been trying to find out if this is correct, although I haven't seen anything official. SO EAT YOUR WORDS IF YOU'RE WRONG, and I'll do the same here.
George Bush did not answer any one of those questions himself. Al Gore may actually have, although even that is unlikely. I have heard both talk about the Internet & WWW and they barely have a grasp of it. Gore understands the big concepts, although he's surprisingly unknowledgeable about the specifics (i.e. encryption). Bush admitted he barely knows how to check e-mail.
Before anyone says I'm gullible for thinking Gore responded, my belief is based on his interest in Internet-related issues and that he writes his own speeches most of the time.
He's too busy writing this crap. And he's so in love with Gibson that he can't admit Stephenson writes better, more current cyberpunk. Witness his overly-stylized writing, a la Gibson, compared to Stephenson's plainer, more drawn out style. Gibson would never have written "In the beginning there was the command line." Too boring, too didactic, and too reality-based.
Greedy Guy trying to fight his conscience
on
Should You Vote?
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· Score: 1
Slashdot has really suprised me with its progressive (liberal!) bent when it comes to politics because I'm much more used to views like this guy's coming from the tech world. I know a lot of smart people who just spend all day thinking about functions or servers, so when it comes to politics (or anything else) their narrow-mindedness reveals itself--classic Libertarians.
PackMan97 misses my point on each of the issues, and instead steers it toward his socioeconomic argument about the importance of making money. I really don't understand the soullessness of Libertarians and their ilk, but I won't let you muddle this up.
So, once again:
On your response to Taxes: The mention of Gore/Occidental is simply a recrimination & has nothing to do with taxes that I can see? PackMan then twists the point to try to say that nobody should pay taxes because of people like George W. Bush. He's right about most taxes not enough of our taxes making it back to us in meaningful ways, but the solution to that lies in taking the government on more forcefully. Good government requires citizens to be involved, which is why we don't have good government in the USA.
On Social Security, PackMan does the same damn thing. I have no idea what the point about his father means? My friends probably think they'll make money all that money, too. Only misery will come to these people. They live in $600/month apartments & recycle their razorblades even though they earn $50,000+. They're single and have little hope of attracting women when they're so cheap, or they're married & making their home life miserable. Oh, BTW my father-in-law died at 67 with over $1M in the bank and he lived a miserably shabby existence. He only collected SS for 2 years, too! WTF are you complaining about here?
No real argument on abortion. OH, except he's against all that money going to low-income health care. Yes, he'd be against all money going to low-income health care if he didn't think it would make him look like an a-hole.
Gun Control: Wow, what a shock, a constructionist reading of the constitution from a Libertarian! The founding fathers where sort of Libertarian in their desire to evade taxes & social tyranny. Modern Libertarians just exploit that legacy, but this brings up my main argument against Libertarians. That form of goverment might have worked for the 13 original colonies, as separate & self-contained as they were, BUT THERE IS NO CHANCE A LIBERTARIAN GOVERNMENT COULD WORK IN THE USA TODAY.
What's sad is that Libertarians are often upper-middle class people who think they could become much more wealthy if they were just unfettered from taxes & (most) laws. What's funny is that they would be crushed without all of the (governmental) infrastructure that has supported them all their lives. Republicans have the same goals, although they are truly evil in that they want to use the system itself to gain advantage. YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT TAXES, FINE:
George W. Bush's tax cut gives a higher percentage tax cut to the wealthy than it does to the poor. I believe it lowers the top tax bracket by 6.6% while it lowers the bottom by 5%. Now, can any Libertarian or Republican out there tell me how that is fair? At best it's trickle-down economics, just as George H.W. Bush proposed 10 years ago.
Well, PackMan97, if you are not voting for George W. Bush then at least you are an honest Libertarian (as self-centered as that is), but if you do vote for Bush then you are a hypocrite.
If your parents are Republicans and/or you live in a conservative area, then you are definitely not thinking on your own here. Regardless, I hope you have some doubt about the claims you make. You should. Your post offers only the versions of each issue that favor your particular politics. If you had studied the opposing views, your arguments would be much more logical and less emotional because thinking about opposing viewpoints requires logic. The emotional appeals in your arguments may make you feel more sure, but as a means of persuasion all it does is distract one from actually thinking. That's why so many people here on Slashdot are not sure about who they favor, they are trying to think through these issues--not repeating what they have heard from one party or the other.
You confuse politics with the issues. This is like understanding the way technology companies operate without any understanding of the technology itself. This is a very common mistake that plagues both politics and technology.
Unfortunately, the reality of each of the issues you wrote a blurb on encompasses so much that I cannot adequately explain them. This is something that your parents & teachers might not even be able to explain, although you should discuss it with them--logically! I'm going to give it a shot here, though.
Taxes: Here's an example. George W. Bush failed as an oilman in Texas in the 80's. He was looking for a new job. A rich friend of his wanted to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team, but the then-owner didn't know him & wanted to sell it to someone he knew, if possible. George W.'s rich friend knew that the owner liked the President, so he offered George W. a job if he could help him buy the team. George asked his dad to ask the owner to sell the team to George W.'s friend. This worked. George W. took out a $500K loan & then owned 2% of the team. But the team was shabby. It needed a stadium, which would cost $100M+. Now the mayor of Arlington was being investigated by the Bush Administration for some crime (fraud, I think). George W. asked this mayor to impose a tax on the local residents so that the team could have a new stadium. The mayor agreed to this proposal from George W., the son of the man who was investigating him. The stadium was built with tax-payer money & then given to the owners of the team. They then sold the team for 200M+, which included the stadium. George W. got 10M for his 2%. The New York Times article that this story comes from claimed that many owners of sports teams get this kind of gift. Similar kinds of deals happen everyday in any business you can think of. Now having George W. & friends pay a higher rate of taxes on their earnings than you or me doesn't counterbalance all of the advantages they have, but doesn't making their taxes more equal to our own just give them more advantages over us?
SS: Social Security was created as a safety net for when the entire economy collapses completely. Don't say, "Oh, but we have systems that prevent that from ever happening again." Unfortunately, not so. Therefore, risking Social Security in the market negates the very purpose of Social Security. The only reason George W. wants to do it is to flood the economy with that money to send stock prices up & make more money for rich shareholders. Only RICH shareholders. I have serveral friends who invest ~30K of their incomes every year and they are all living miserably & only getting a 10%-15% return from it. You need at least $500K-$1M to really invest, this is why so many brokerages only take on clients with this much money.
Abortion. Your argument is completely subjective, vague, and digresses into pathos at the end. Science cannot determine whether abortion is right/wrong. Science would classify capital punishment as murder, too, but I bet you're for that? I'm against both, but I'm not against people having sex so I don't think I'm ever voting against abortion. I plan on adopting children, too. Also, are you for/against euthenasia? Euthenasia's the one scenario where death actually is desired by the person being killed.
Gun Control: Your examples are Bad and Wrong. America had far fewer problems overall in the 1950's. Switzerland still does have far fewer problems than almost anywhere else in the world. The constitution changes whenever the USA faces a challenge that requires a universal solution. When the USA was weak & needed everyone available to be a soldier, the 2nd Amendment was added. When 15 year olds are planning wars against their classmates, the USA requires a solution that opposes the old one. BTW, at 15 I loved guns, but 10 years later I'm completely against them.
Vouchers: Ok, here's another version. Say your public school sucks. Not just one but 400 of your classmates want to use vouchers to attend the nearby private school. The private school is not able to accept more than 200 additional students. What happens to the 200 who can't get in? The public school still sucks, and the parents of the children who left now must pay all of their "lucky" children's tuition with less money (from the voucher) than they paid in taxes for education. The voucher idea once again only offers extra money to those rich people who send their children to private school anyway. My parents would have loved vouchers, they complained about paying my private school tuition despite it being the most important thing in my life. I also remember the one Mexican kid that came to my school having to leave because his mom couldn't keep up with the payments. I thought the local public school looked like a prison (it was sinking ~1"/year even), but I ended up going there for a while. Honestly, I learned as much because I knew my parents could pay for a good college if I got in, but I had far less fun.
If you honestly came to these conclusions on your own, please expand your views.
Slashdot Mirror
Is tech support really that horrible? If you don't know how to handle a problem it can be very frustrating, but the more common problem is controlling one's attitude toward the customers. I've turned into the "computer guy" from SNL too many times with people who deserve my support (esp. when I wrote the app.). Rude customers are far easier for me to handle than stupid ones, but I wish it was the other way around.
Best tech support story: I hooked up a (very intelligent) CPA with a complete system, and showed him all the features of the apps he'd use (using keyboard shortcuts--I hate mice). I didn't show him how to use the mouse, though. So I come back a week later, and he's using it like a trackball--he held it upside down, removed the mouseball enclosure, and was manipulating it with his fingers. He wanted me to speed up the movement. When I put it right-side up on the desk & moved the cursor, he almost stopped breathing.
Thanks for your very civil & thoughtful replies. The "10 Most Underreported stories" article disturbs me because I've read about all 10 stories extensively in the "liberal" media (NYTimes, WashingtonPost), and all of the "underreported" viewpoints had been included in the mainstream articles (along with other viewpoints). If you would like, I'll dig up links to all 10 stories in almost any paper. Does the inclusion of the opposing viewpoint somehow subjugate the conservative viewpoint, therefore making it "underreported"? You see, that scares me.
As for my use of "they," I was using ambiguous grammar to give you a gender-neutral pronoun. I'm worried that you are willing to do anything to defend your viewpoint (and your lifestyle) to the detriment of others. Your attack on the mainstream (which trys to include multiple viewpoints) & your preference on media purporting only one view as legitimate scares me, and I ask you to examine why you do that.
I work in the business-end of the healthcare industry, and the free market forces I see at work already do not portend well for your plan. The consensus that we now need a patient's bill of rights (which will only help patient's take cases to court, not to receive better care) should factor into your ideas. I apologize for my tone of ridicule in regards to your healthcare idea, but I can't see anyway in which it solves any of the problems currently facing healthcare! It seems to be all about the free market.
Do you want to see the free market reign supreme in the USA? Where do you draw the line? In California, for 20 years there has been a practice of having private judges hear the discovery (initial information gathering) phase of trials for tens of thousands of dollars. Can we restrict our legal rights in order to favor a free market? Doesn't our health directly affect our right to life & the pursuit of happiness? Doesn't that justify some level of legal protection in the field of healthcare? There is a dangerous inconsistency & short-sightedness to the current conservative ideology in the US, and one that doesn't need to be. I'm a strong believer in both liberal & libertarian values, although only as far as they do not conflict. I don't see a similar coherency in your views.
TheSHAD0W just plain scares me. TheSHAD0W has developed an entire world view based on their beliefs that doesn't make any sense. Because of this, TheSHAD0W has to be paranoid about everything, especially viewpoints that don't match TheSHAD0W's.
For instance, look at how TheSHAD0W misinterprets the poster's statement. It's not about forcing other people to hear what you have to say. Suppose you're an environmental activist with in depth knowledge of current problems. Fox News Channel runs a series of shows on those problems (hahahahaha!). FNC will most likely not ask you to come on, ignore your offer to discuss the problems, or berate you on television for being an anti-property-rights, anti-business pansy. That's what "If you have something different to say, you're told to go elsewhere" means.
Then TheSHAD0W becomes increasingly incoherent. Just what "Bad News" has been censored by the "liberal" networks & spread on Fox News? What is the difference btw. the info on CNN's website & what they show on TV?
Now here's the best part. Check out TheSHAD0W's idea for fixing healthcare. TheSHAD0W thinks that if we let the HMO's take over worker's compensation & life insurance, they'll have to provide better service. (This is too funny, really, how long did TheSHAD0W think about this?) If a company provided both health care and life insurance, their customers would be royally screwed. Because the company would have to pay the life insurance eventually anyway, why would they want to provide better, more expensive care to keep you alive? Also, if they had to provide worker's compensation, their health care would be integrally tied into making you go back to work. Is there something I'm missing?
TheSHAD0W would be a lot funnier if I didn't think they would do anything and everything to maintain the dominance of their particular slant on life.
If the average American is anywhere near as confused & smug as you, there is no future in the USA.
A right on paper is useless until upheld in practice. (A'la poll taxes, literacy requirements)... with the whole Florida thing..which was extremely retarded(hand counts should be banned)...
So you bring up the ways in which Blacks' rights were denied, and then suggest denying another right (to a fair election).
Do you have the right to have your vote count if you're in a county with inadequate voting equipment and staff?
legally, yes
practically, no
And you even want to change the legality of it!! I'm sure you can rationalize this contradiction to yourself, but in doing so you only become more evil.
That is really what is being proposed in this article, anyway. At least that's the example that was given. This is definitely a moment where we need to make our voices heard, and try to be coherent about it.
First of all, what are you even doing on Slashdot saying this? Everytime you go to the bank, do want to fill out a deposit/withdrawal slip, wait in line, & then have somebody process it. NO, YOU WANT TO USE THE FUCKING ATM. Scantrons!--You are smoking some good pot there, aren't you?
I've heard that the polls close at the same time all across Florida, but the polling hours are different in the Western part (1 hour earlier). I've been trying to find out if this is correct, although I haven't seen anything official. SO EAT YOUR WORDS IF YOU'RE WRONG, and I'll do the same here.
George Bush did not answer any one of those questions himself. Al Gore may actually have, although even that is unlikely. I have heard both talk about the Internet & WWW and they barely have a grasp of it. Gore understands the big concepts, although he's surprisingly unknowledgeable about the specifics (i.e. encryption). Bush admitted he barely knows how to check e-mail.
Before anyone says I'm gullible for thinking Gore responded, my belief is based on his interest in Internet-related issues and that he writes his own speeches most of the time.
He's too busy writing this crap. And he's so in love with Gibson that he can't admit Stephenson writes better, more current cyberpunk. Witness his overly-stylized writing, a la Gibson, compared to Stephenson's plainer, more drawn out style. Gibson would never have written "In the beginning there was the command line." Too boring, too didactic, and too reality-based.
Slashdot has really suprised me with its progressive (liberal!) bent when it comes to politics because I'm much more used to views like this guy's coming from the tech world. I know a lot of smart people who just spend all day thinking about functions or servers, so when it comes to politics (or anything else) their narrow-mindedness reveals itself--classic Libertarians.
PackMan97 misses my point on each of the issues, and instead steers it toward his socioeconomic argument about the importance of making money. I really don't understand the soullessness of Libertarians and their ilk, but I won't let you muddle this up.
So, once again:
On your response to Taxes: The mention of Gore/Occidental is simply a recrimination & has nothing to do with taxes that I can see? PackMan then twists the point to try to say that nobody should pay taxes because of people like George W. Bush. He's right about most taxes not enough of our taxes making it back to us in meaningful ways, but the solution to that lies in taking the government on more forcefully. Good government requires citizens to be involved, which is why we don't have good government in the USA.
On Social Security, PackMan does the same damn thing. I have no idea what the point about his father means? My friends probably think they'll make money all that money, too. Only misery will come to these people. They live in $600/month apartments & recycle their razorblades even though they earn $50,000+. They're single and have little hope of attracting women when they're so cheap, or they're married & making their home life miserable. Oh, BTW my father-in-law died at 67 with over $1M in the bank and he lived a miserably shabby existence. He only collected SS for 2 years, too! WTF are you complaining about here?
No real argument on abortion. OH, except he's against all that money going to low-income health care. Yes, he'd be against all money going to low-income health care if he didn't think it would make him look like an a-hole.
Gun Control: Wow, what a shock, a constructionist reading of the constitution from a Libertarian! The founding fathers where sort of Libertarian in their desire to evade taxes & social tyranny. Modern Libertarians just exploit that legacy, but this brings up my main argument against Libertarians. That form of goverment might have worked for the 13 original colonies, as separate & self-contained as they were, BUT THERE IS NO CHANCE A LIBERTARIAN GOVERNMENT COULD WORK IN THE USA TODAY.
What's sad is that Libertarians are often upper-middle class people who think they could become much more wealthy if they were just unfettered from taxes & (most) laws. What's funny is that they would be crushed without all of the (governmental) infrastructure that has supported them all their lives. Republicans have the same goals, although they are truly evil in that they want to use the system itself to gain advantage. YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT TAXES, FINE:
George W. Bush's tax cut gives a higher percentage tax cut to the wealthy than it does to the poor. I believe it lowers the top tax bracket by 6.6% while it lowers the bottom by 5%. Now, can any Libertarian or Republican out there tell me how that is fair? At best it's trickle-down economics, just as George H.W. Bush proposed 10 years ago.
Well, PackMan97, if you are not voting for George W. Bush then at least you are an honest Libertarian (as self-centered as that is), but if you do vote for Bush then you are a hypocrite.
If your parents are Republicans and/or you live in a conservative area, then you are definitely not thinking on your own here. Regardless, I hope you have some doubt about the claims you make. You should. Your post offers only the versions of each issue that favor your particular politics. If you had studied the opposing views, your arguments would be much more logical and less emotional because thinking about opposing viewpoints requires logic. The emotional appeals in your arguments may make you feel more sure, but as a means of persuasion all it does is distract one from actually thinking. That's why so many people here on Slashdot are not sure about who they favor, they are trying to think through these issues--not repeating what they have heard from one party or the other.
You confuse politics with the issues. This is like understanding the way technology companies operate without any understanding of the technology itself. This is a very common mistake that plagues both politics and technology.
Unfortunately, the reality of each of the issues you wrote a blurb on encompasses so much that I cannot adequately explain them. This is something that your parents & teachers might not even be able to explain, although you should discuss it with them--logically! I'm going to give it a shot here, though.
Taxes: Here's an example. George W. Bush failed as an oilman in Texas in the 80's. He was looking for a new job. A rich friend of his wanted to buy the Texas Rangers baseball team, but the then-owner didn't know him & wanted to sell it to someone he knew, if possible. George W.'s rich friend knew that the owner liked the President, so he offered George W. a job if he could help him buy the team. George asked his dad to ask the owner to sell the team to George W.'s friend. This worked. George W. took out a $500K loan & then owned 2% of the team. But the team was shabby. It needed a stadium, which would cost $100M+. Now the mayor of Arlington was being investigated by the Bush Administration for some crime (fraud, I think). George W. asked this mayor to impose a tax on the local residents so that the team could have a new stadium. The mayor agreed to this proposal from George W., the son of the man who was investigating him. The stadium was built with tax-payer money & then given to the owners of the team. They then sold the team for 200M+, which included the stadium. George W. got 10M for his 2%. The New York Times article that this story comes from claimed that many owners of sports teams get this kind of gift. Similar kinds of deals happen everyday in any business you can think of. Now having George W. & friends pay a higher rate of taxes on their earnings than you or me doesn't counterbalance all of the advantages they have, but doesn't making their taxes more equal to our own just give them more advantages over us?
SS: Social Security was created as a safety net for when the entire economy collapses completely. Don't say, "Oh, but we have systems that prevent that from ever happening again." Unfortunately, not so. Therefore, risking Social Security in the market negates the very purpose of Social Security. The only reason George W. wants to do it is to flood the economy with that money to send stock prices up & make more money for rich shareholders. Only RICH shareholders. I have serveral friends who invest ~30K of their incomes every year and they are all living miserably & only getting a 10%-15% return from it. You need at least $500K-$1M to really invest, this is why so many brokerages only take on clients with this much money.
Abortion. Your argument is completely subjective, vague, and digresses into pathos at the end. Science cannot determine whether abortion is right/wrong. Science would classify capital punishment as murder, too, but I bet you're for that? I'm against both, but I'm not against people having sex so I don't think I'm ever voting against abortion. I plan on adopting children, too. Also, are you for/against euthenasia? Euthenasia's the one scenario where death actually is desired by the person being killed.
Gun Control: Your examples are Bad and Wrong. America had far fewer problems overall in the 1950's. Switzerland still does have far fewer problems than almost anywhere else in the world. The constitution changes whenever the USA faces a challenge that requires a universal solution. When the USA was weak & needed everyone available to be a soldier, the 2nd Amendment was added. When 15 year olds are planning wars against their classmates, the USA requires a solution that opposes the old one. BTW, at 15 I loved guns, but 10 years later I'm completely against them.
Vouchers: Ok, here's another version. Say your public school sucks. Not just one but 400 of your classmates want to use vouchers to attend the nearby private school. The private school is not able to accept more than 200 additional students. What happens to the 200 who can't get in? The public school still sucks, and the parents of the children who left now must pay all of their "lucky" children's tuition with less money (from the voucher) than they paid in taxes for education. The voucher idea once again only offers extra money to those rich people who send their children to private school anyway. My parents would have loved vouchers, they complained about paying my private school tuition despite it being the most important thing in my life. I also remember the one Mexican kid that came to my school having to leave because his mom couldn't keep up with the payments. I thought the local public school looked like a prison (it was sinking ~1"/year even), but I ended up going there for a while. Honestly, I learned as much because I knew my parents could pay for a good college if I got in, but I had far less fun.
If you honestly came to these conclusions on your own, please expand your views.