> As long as there are people living below the poverty line, blue
> skies projects like this should not get funding from the federal government.
Although I understand your point, there are a few issues to consider. The first is that, since the poverty line is more or less a percentage measure, there will always be people below it (it's like saying, "until everyone earns in the top 60 percent wage bracket"). The second is that there will always be social issues that require funding, but it's very short-sighted to say there should be no funding for science until all of the relevant social issues are solved, since all of the relevant social issues will never get solved, and pure science research often leads to practical applications that solve some of the social issues. You must always remember that funding is never an all-or-nothing proposition, and it shouldn't be. The developers of radio science could never have imagined that someday their ideas would be used (in MRI) to diagnose diseases without surgery, and saying that such studies shouldn't have been funded until we cured all diseases would have been very short-sighted.
In short, most funding poured into scientific studies is wasted. The problem is, you never know beforehand which projects will be duds and which will transform the world. So, we must strike a balance, and this particular machine has showed much promise in revealing new secrets, so its price tag may very well be paid back with a cure for cancer or cheap, renewable energy that will make coal- and oil-fired power plants obsolete.
Miss number one. The old CD player works, but the new CD players don't. 8-track players don't figure in at all.
> It *still* doesn't mean that you can steal music.
Miss number two. I'd be satisfied if I could play the CD I bought on the player installed in my car. Despite the whole argument about personal copies being irrelevant (I'm trying to play the original CD, dammit!), I'd have been satisfied if they used the protection technology and simply put a warning label on the case so I knew it would be a problem. As it stands, I paid good money for a CD that won't play anywhere except the old CD player in my parent's house, three states away. Not only am I not stealing their music, they stole my money, because I paid for a CD and they gave me a coaster.
Who cares who courted whom? The fact that Microsoft offers the recording industry what they want does not make it right for them to force my choice of digital music vendor. To go back to the original example, if Bridgestone offered the auto industry tires that mounted easier than other brands, it would still be wrong to insist that I use Bridgestone (perhaps by voiding my warranty for using a different brand). Moreover, since Microsoft does not offer a WMA player for Linux, the recording industry is attempting to force my choice of operating system by forbidding me digital music unless I run Windows, because Microsoft is making their lives easier. That's way, way out of line.
> You will need to get the new players and you
will not be able
> to listen to the CDs wherever you want.
I have two new CD players which will only play some CDs. The old single player works, but the new car CD player (and my 100-CD changer which is a stereo component, by the way, not a computer component) won't play them, the file type of the digital files they provide is useless to me, and not being able to listen to CDs I paid for because the companies don't want to tell me whether they're protected is unacceptable recourse. Since the original discussion involves fair use rights, I can still say that the record companies are screwing me. I frankly don't care why, and neither does the copyright law whose fair use clauses they're violating. The nature of the law is such that they are not allowed to forbid me fair use to protect against violators. If they want me to play by the copyright laws, then why are they so quick to violate them? That qualifies as an ethical violation, and hopefully that woman in California will win her case against Charley Pride's label, thereby proving that it's also a legal violation.
Very good work, but you ignore most of the meaning in the post to make your point. Refute these:
1.) Unprotected CDs play in my CD-ROM drive without difficulty.
2.) They don't label which CDs are protected and which aren't, so I have no way of knowing whether the CD will play of not, and by the time I find out, I've opened it so I can't return it.
3.) They provide data files, but in a format that I can't change and can't use, and say that this protects my right to fair use.
Sorry, but the "gotta buy a CD player" argument doesn't fly, since their effort to prevent piracy has also stepped on my ability to use the CD in a legal fashion, and they didn't (and won't) tell me which of the CDs will or won't work as advertised. Something as simple as a warning label would validate your argument, but until you can point out such a label your argument is meaningless. And before you go down the whole "CD-ROM isn't a CD player" road, the CD player in my car, which is just a player, and which uses data-style caching for skip prevention, won't play them either. What can you say to that?
> Screw your fair use. It's only fair of you pay for it.
I buy a CD, and I like to use my PC to listen to it. Because of SunComm or Macrovision, it won't play in my CD-ROM drive, so I need a digital copy of the songs. They provide WMA files right on the CD for me, so all's well.
Try this: the humans feel that it's necessary to return the Klingon alive. The Vulcans want to pull the plug and send the corpse back. Perhaps the botch in first contact is that the Vulcans were right, and the fact that the humans felt the need to return Klang alive was just Earth-centric thinking. Therefore, the pilot plot is covered, but the insult of the return of a live, disgraced Klingon is enough to precipitate the war in the future.
Or maybe the Klingons were pissed because the Klingon with such a dorky name still lives.
> I like having a monthly summary of how much I've spent, where I spent it, and when I spent it. It makes planning easier and more realistic.
You then must consider whether you like others having a summary of how much you spent, where you spent it, and when you spent it. Then, when your insurance carrier finds out that you frequent the vending machines too often and raises your premiums, you'll wonder how it was you managed to give up so much for convenience.
> If the banks go under, they are insured,
right? By whom? The US gov't. Who pays for the US gov't? Taxpayers. So we taxpayers are held
responsible for bad business decisions of the country's financial institutions.
Um, you missed a step in your logic. See, the government insures the bank deposits, and taxpayers pay for government. But, the insured depositors are to a large extent those same taxpayers (you pay tax money to depositors if any bank fails, but if it's your bank that fails, the other taxpayers pay you). So, what we're really doing is participating in a mass insurance underwriting effort, albeit compulsory. The tradeoff is that banking policies have to be cleared with the SEC which ensures to some extent that bad business doesn't get so far out of hand that banks fail. Barring criminal activity, there hasn't been a major bank failure in quite a while, which is some indication that the system works.
> The Fed governs how much money is in circulation. As they add more "dollars" inflation grows because there is no real value behind it. The value is just spread through more pieces of paper, so each one is worth less.
This is a bit oversimple. The whole concept that printing more money causes inflation is an overextension of how monetary policy works. Since the actual paper money in the economy is only a very small part of the money supply, printing more bills isn't really going to have an effect on the economy. Some monetary policies can cause inflation of sorts, like decreasing the reserve rate, but mostly it's fiscal policy that causes inflation.
> This was what caused the Great Depression.
Not exactly. What caused the Great Depression was that the economy had gotten extremely built up in spite of there not being any good reason (much like the tech bubble that we just saw), and then in a very short time investor confidence in the market simply disappeared as people tried to get out before the fall really gained momentum. Virtually overnight, the value of the market dropped by half, and once the fall started, people rushed to get their investments out, which caused the market to fall even more, to the point where banks which had underwritten the pumped-up market didn't have enough liquid assets to satisfy all of the people bellying up to the teller windows for cash withdrawals. This caused those banks to have to shut down, preventing people from getting their money and started widespread panic that led to even more withdrawals. After this, for many years people were loathe to put their money at risk by depositing or investing it, so there was a shortage of lendable funds and so loans for economic expansion were all but nonexistent. It took WWII to convince people that investing was important (remember the war bond drives), and the rise in investment and employment jump-started the economy.
BTW, IAAE (I am an economist), so I can say with confidence that a cashless society will not be our downfall, because as soon as the demand for cash is created by a too-powerful government, cash (in some form, and probably not sanctioned by the government) will reappear. If you think of money as only greenbacks, consider online money like Ploids for an example of non-sanctioned money.
Virg
P.S. The economy is already backed by something of substantive value. That thing is the collective earning power of all of its members, and historically, that's been a very solid base for an economic model. I read through the Constitution Party's platform on money and banking, and in addition to the obvious question of why it's necessarily bad that the Federal Reserve Bank is privatized, I'm left to wonder why currency has to be backed by a precious metal to prevent the economy's falling apart. It seems not to have needed that particular crutch for the last 180 years.
> So does the establishment like cash..... What is backing US currency.
> Nothing execept the promis to tax you in the future for any debt created
> by it's printing.
Okay, I'll bite on this one. What's backing U.S. dollar is the U.S. economy. It's nominally the government, but when a government tries to buttress the value of its currency when the local economy doesn't support it, you end up with the situation they had in Russia near the end of the Soviet Union, where people don't want the local currency because it's not "hard".
> Its the largest conterfiet operation in existance.
This makes a nice sound bite, but since the amount of real cash in a society represents only a miniscule fraction of the value of M1 (the money supply), I think this may be a bit of an exaggeration.
OMG, your.sig made me laugh out loud. It's about 5 lines shorter than the last one I saw about the woodchuck thing, and it's the whole code tuning for faster chuckage that made me laugh.
> They aren't "distributing" the code in the manner you imply.
> They are simply using it in some black box machine.
Distributing the code in binary format counts under the GPL.
> The code isn't downloadable or accessible, it's merely used as
> an OS/service layer. If nothing has been changed in the code, the GPL
> doesn't hold any sway.
Not true. The GPL follows GPL'ed programs even if they're not used to develop derivative works. The code is accessible, because their management software accesses it. Redistributing GPL'ed programs must be done in accordance with the GPL whether they're modified or not.
> by your reasoning, anyone using Linux and Apache to run a web site
> would need to notify its visitors of the use of the software and provide
> a download link to them both.
Wrong analogy. The correct analogy is that if someone set up a web server with Linux and Apache and then sold the server, they'd need to provide source code or access on request.
> that's why laws could be *carefuly* worded to only allow actions to be taken upon eavesdropping if that eavesdropping clearly showed acts of terrorism in preparation.
Two assumptions, both wrong.
1.) You're assuming that everyone agrees on what "terrorism" means. We're discussing the same federal government that once defined unions as Communists and interred Japanese Americans during WWII because they were "dangerous".
2.) You're assuming that the governmental agents who would collect information serreptitiously would then use it only for legal action. Again, we're talking about the same government that handed over data about Martin Luther King's movements to white supremacist groups so they could harass him.
> there's gotta be some way to compromise.
There is. It's referred to in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
> Are you claiming that there was a law somewhere that required people to fly commercial jets into buildings, thus people slowly got the impression that it was OK?
Reducto ad Absurdum. I'm not even going to grace this with an answer.
> No it isn't [much harder for evildoers to
influence those who are well educated]
Lawyers regularly dismiss jurors during Voire Dire for no other reason than the fact that they are college graduates. The reason given my by my lawyer friends is that the higher the level of education, the less likely the juror is to be swayed by emotional testimony. Enough said.
> Which experts agree? You are just making wild accusations without any shred of evidence.
Well, the CIA, for one. If you need direct quotes, respond to this and I'll give you links to keep you busy for a few hours reading.
> Are you claiming that the founding fathers were terrorists? How many innocent lives did they take en route to establishing America?
Not only am I claiming it, the British colonial government claimed it as well. When the Sons of Liberty decided to throw the Boston Tea Party, they dressed as Indians, boarded the British merchantmen and overpowered the crews, and dumped the tea into the harbor. Does a sailor whose only crime is being a night crewman on a British ship qualify as "innocent"? How about the Tory-sympathetic farmer whose farms were burned by Washington's troops so the Brits wouldn't have anything to eat? Lastly, you should consider that blowing up military ships and burning a British fort to the ground in the middle of the night qualify as terrorist acts, even though civilians weren't involved. If it isn't, how do you describe the attack on the U.S.S. Cole?
> You are holding up farmers as examples of savvy businessmen?
Most farmers are very savvy businessmen, because the ones who aren't can't make a living farming. Don't be a bigot.
> If it weren't for government subsidies there
would be no farmers.
> Why do they need government subsidies? Because the food they grow
> is in abundance.
This is nuts. And you claim to have a degree in economics? The government subsidies are in place to encourage large farms not to overproduce so that smaller farms can survive. To say that removing the subsidies would eliminate farmers is lunacy. It would eliminate small farms, as large farms, which can take advantage of economies of scale in shipping and storage, push prices down to the point where smaller farms are no longer profitable. This is precisely what happened in the crude oil industry, where such economic controls were absent.
> The only profit is monetary.
Again, you got a degree in economics? Two words: market share. There's more than money involved, even in capitalism. Many businesses give up profits every day for things like market share, public opinion and other such things. In the wake of the attacks, and the outpouring of assistance from corporations, I'm surprised you still can't see past the balance sheet.
> Sure you do buddy, I bet. You are just dripping with degrees aren't you?
MS Econs. from Rutgers University, 1991, and AssSci in Physics, same institution and year. And by the way, up yours for the implication.
> > Apache is a free web server, but it's running more than two thirds of all web sites.
> No it isn't. Just because Slashdot claims its so doesn't make it reality.
> I don't understand why people don't question the mainstream media outlets
> more often.
OK, how about Netcraft? Or Sendmail (old link, but you seem to imply that free software never has or had good market penetration)? Or Forbes? Apache has been the mainstream web server since 1991, and has just recently lost some (but not much) of its market to IIS. To quote, I don't understand why people don't question the mainstream media outlets more often.
> Neither does anyone else. They don't contain enough functionality to be of use for any actual work.
I refer to Apache for a web server and Sendmail as a mail transfer agent, and I'll let your own statment bury you.
> Thats why the stuff is distributed with the disclaimer that "This software is provided without any warranty of any kind, not even an assurance
of fitness for use" or some other such fancy way of saying that it doesn't really work all that well.
When was the last time you read the EULA for Windows? This exact phrase comes from the Windows 2000 EULA. See if it sounds familiar.
THE LIMITED WARRANTY THAT APPEARS ABOVE IS THE ONLY EXPRESS WARRANTY MADE TO YOU AND IS PROVIDED IN LIEU OF ANY OTHER EXPRESS WARRANTIES (IF ANY) CREATED BY ANY DOCUMENTATION OR PACKAGING. EXCEPT FOR THE LIMITED WARRANTY AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, MICROSOFT AND ITS SUPPLIERS PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE AND SUPPORT SERVICES (IF ANY) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND
HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY (IF ANY) IMPLIED WARRANTIES, DUTIES OR CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OF ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OR RESPONSES, OF RESULTS, OF WORKMANLIKE EFFORT, OF LACK OF VIRUSES AND OF LACK OF NEGLIGENCE, ALL WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE, AND THE PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT SERVICES. ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE.
Telling, no? Oh, and the limited warranty mentioned is that they'll return your money or send you a new copy if the medium is damaged (scratched CD or damaged diskettes).
You may want to try reading up on the whole open-source movement. For that matter, you might want to review everything you said here for accuracy.
Actually, there are a few points of contention that may change your analysis.
Defined borders - these exist to define who gets to do what with which piece of land, not so that we can limit or control immigration. Immigration Policy - this is to define who can live in the U.S., and so it doesn't generally apply to visitors. It helps with protection against terrorism, but for most attacks it would be ineffective. Flight Schools - This may have been effective in this particular case, but it's obvious that this regulation doesn't really impinge on personal freedom, unless you consider flying a passenger airliner a personal freedom. Locked Cockpit Doors - These are to insulate the pilots from interaction with passengers so they aren't interrupted while running the plane, which is a sort of freedom-for-security tradeoff, insofar as the passengers aren't allowed into the cockpit, but again, barring El-Al flights, these doors aren't capable of stopping a determined effort to enter the cockpit (they can be kicked open). They're in place to prevent honestly accidental intrusion, or intrusion by pasengers who aren't hell-bent on getting in. Just About Any Other Law... - Since there is a huge spectrum of laws, and they address many different levels of behavior, this is too broad a statement. More on this below.
> Are all examples of the "mythical" freedom verus security tradeoff.
You need to be careful not to confuse security with simple safety. A handrail on the stairs offers safety, but no security (it won't actively protect you if you fall, but it can be used by you to help prevent a fall). Laws pertaining to safety and laws pertaining to security are different animals as well, since safety is often very well defined (protection from a well defined and mostly passive threat), but security not so well (perceived reduction in the likelihood of victimization).
> The courts have ruled that there are certain cases when "a priori"
> censorship are permissable in the public interest, notably in
> matters of national security.
True, but the courts have always stated in such rulings that the censorship is a blocking of the dissemination of information, and have only allowed for the collection of information pursuant to warrants. These new laws and processes seek to establish permanent and warrantless collection and examination of information, which is in blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment, and cannot be defended with an "a priori" argument.
> There is another intersting issue, however. The FBI was able to
> identify all of the terrorists from the passenger manifests.
> Obviously these people were flying under real names, or known aliases.
The second statement doesn't follow from the first. The way the FBI identified the terrorists is to track back through all of the passengers on the manifest, eliminating each from suspicion until only those remain whose past doesn't ken for some reason, and these people are examined more closely or simply identified as the perpetrators. Since this method requires that the FBI know which manifests to examine (the ones for the planes that were hijacked), it does not follow that the terrorists were all identifiable by name or alias.
> Would it be a violation of your rights if the government furnished
> "watch lists" to airlines to check flight reservations against?
This is a real grey area ethically, because the watch list is not a perfect solution. What if my name happens to match a known terrorist? It would be a violation of my rights to detain me or deny me passage on a plane just because of unfortunate coincidence. You could argue that it's for the common good, but it's still ethically ambiguous, and you'd need to have some mechanism in place to protect against fault or abuse (abuse could occur if someone put my name on the list, assuming it doesn't belong there).
> it's like the mark of the beast, eventually
you won't be able to
> buy bread without joining the majority of people who really just want to
> be able to walk down the street without being shot at.
This statement is the rub of what truly worries me about this whole thing. There will be numerous people who will be putting this idea forward, saying that their particular law/procedure/whatever will protect you from the dangerous terrorists lurking around every corner. They'll tell you that the removal of your privacy is small price to pay for the safety of being able to get on a plane without having some crazy flying it into a building. And they'd be right if selling your privacy actually helped you to become safer, but it won't.
The part that they won't tell you is that terrorists aren't the only threat to your safety, and in the world they propose, they're not even the biggest threat to your safety. If police states are so good at protecting us from threats, why do people so regularly revolt against them? It's true that the number of Chinese citizens killed by terrorists is very low. So, what's their beef? The simple fact is that the people who say "only the guilty need privacy" always seem to want to apply their own definitions of "guilty" to others. Anyone who believes that giving up their right to privacy will keep them safe should consider talking to anyone who lived in Russia under Soviet rule. Ask them just how safe they felt, protected from terrorist attack by a government that controlled privacy very carefully to make sure no harm came to them. Ask them why the USSR had to close the borders and criminalize emigration to keep people from leaving the country in droves. Ask them if what they gained was worth what they had to give up. Then, and only then, will you be in a position to consider whether your freedom is worth whatever promises of safety these people are selling.
> It is my opinion that if we no longer supported Israel,
> all terrorism against the US would stop.
Your world history needs a little updating, then. Your statement implies that the only reason that anyone in the Middle East (or anywhere else in the world) dislikes us is because we're pro-Israel, and that's not true. For today's history lesson, the main reason Osama bin Laden hates us has nothing to do with Israel. See, we (the CIA, specifically) trained him and his men in the beginning so that they could fight effectively against the Soviet Union. When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, we pulled our funding, which for all intents and purposes plunged Afghanistan into civil war. The reason ObL wants us dead is because, in his mind, we left him and his men twisting in the wind when it no longer suited our purpose to support him. This all has naught to do with Israel.
>Not accepting others is not on the same level as blowing a
> building and killing thousands of people...
What starts with not accepting others ends in blowing up a building and killing thousands of people. The only difference is where it falls in the time line. The hijackers were at one time children, and if they hadn't been raised to think of the US as the enemy, they wouldn't have been willing to die to hurt the US. Censorship (of ideas about US citizens being people like them) turned them into killers.
> It can't? Thousands of years of the rule of law seems to be
> keeping people in line generally. People seem to be getting the
> idea that murder is wrong.
Are you really trying to imply that people think that murder is wrong because it's illegal? I think you have that backwards. Ethics should drive laws. When laws drive ethics, you end up with the very attack that started this whole discussion.
> Of for fuck's sake, had I known this I would not have responded.
If the original poster's profession would have put you off, you're rather biased, and perhaps you should have stayed silent. If you need something that shallow to take me seriously, then rest assured that I'm a computer technician, which is likely on your list of "approved" professions.
> Education is always touted as the great savior, it isn't.
> There are plenty of very well educated people who are just inherently evil.
Wrong side of the analysis, sir. It doesn't matter that there are well-educated evildoers, because it's much harder for evildoers to influence those who are well educated, so education can very much make the difference. How many of the terrorists that perpetrated Tuesday's attacks were well educated, do you think? I'd warrant that their education was a bit skewed.
> Actually, a major crackdown on civil liberties would accomplish
> the same. If people are just not allowed to do stupid things then
> stupid things won't happen.
This would be awesomely funny if I didn't think you really believed it. As such, it's just really sad. Last I checked (and yes, experts on terrorism agree), cracking down on civil liberties causes terrorism. Why do you think the U.S. exists in the first place? Police states tend to cause dissidents, for reasons that are only obvious to those who think about it.
> Translation: I don't like having to pay for stuff. I'd really
> like to be able to steal it without any penalties. Lets be
> realistic, no scarcity means no profit. No profit means no stuff.
Despite that fact that I agree that IP isn't all bad, this is an horrific overextension of economic theory. Saying that no scarcity means no profit is flat-out wrong (ask any farmer (or for that matter, anyone who sells commodities) about how scarcity and price works). Saying no profit means no stuff implies that the only profits are monetary, which is also flat out wrong. Go read a book on economics before you toss off about how capitalism works. And, in case you think to attack my analysis because I'm a computer worker, I've got advnaced degrees in economics as well, so I know of what I speak.
> Yeah, you can hold up free software as an example of what can happen
> even if there is no profit, but free software is shit compared to its
> proprietary counterpart and everyone knows it. Stop trying to pull
> the wool over everyone's eyes.
Again, you should try research before you start typing. "Everyone" doesn't "know" that free software is worse than proprietary software in all cases. There are many free packages that suck, but there are many that work better than commercial packages. Apache is a free web server, but it's running more than two thirds of all web sites (the second place entry, Microsoft's IIS, has less than 25% market share). BSD UNIX is also free, but there seem to be just a few fans of it. Parhaps you aren't familiar with these packages because you don't use them in your job, but it's proof that your scope is very limited to make such blanket statements.
> I keep seeing this sentiment. What on earth are the purveyors of it thinking?
What I'm thinking is that he's doing exactly the same things, for exactly the same reasons, as those who started the chain of events that ended those peoples' lives. See below.
> Would you say, "Jerry Falwell killed 5,000 people. Send him
> to The Hague."? It sounds ridiculous, but you're not leaving any
> room for any other interpretation.
Well, if bin Laden is responsible for this tragedy, you can't officially say, "bin Laden killed 5,000 people" either, because it's not literally accurate. Few, however, would have difficulty placing responsibility if he was the mastermind. By the same token, Falwell doesn't directly commit crimes, but his inflammatory rhetoric inspires those who do.
> Hey, disagree with him, tell me he's rude, tell me he's a hypocrite,
> but don't put commentators on the same level as terrorists.
I don't think of Jerry as a commentator, I think of him as a hatemonger. He demonizes those with whom he disagrees and seeks to lay blame for all of the world's woes on those who are different from him. He hates others merely because of religious belief, and that makes him no better than the terrorists that committed these atrocities. The perpetrators of Tuesday's attacks killed thousands in one act, and Falwell's followers are trying to do it one clinic, one student, one religion at a time. But, it's only the scale that differs. It's still terrorism, and it's still evil.
> It is however, absurd to argue that more guns would act as a
> deterrent to crime. Violence only begets more violence.
Absurdity implies that there is hard evidence that my case is incorrect, and that hard evidence is in question. You need to consider the proofs of argument before assuming that either side is absurd. In my previous example, the case of Switzerland refutes your point, and without a strong argument for a less-apparent reason for their low crime rate, you cannot dismiss the idea that more guns can (at least in some cases) lead to lower crime rates. It's easy to say that violence only begets more violence, but that's an oversimplification of how violence works, and there's much evidence that certain levels of violence (and certain situations for violence) wherein violence begets peace. The best example I can present on short notice is our relations with Japan before and after WWII. Not a perfect example by any means, but certainly strong enough to rule out simple absurdity of the argument.
> IMHO, there is no question that of the Western or first world
> nations, the US has (per capita) the highest incidence of violent crime.
While you're quite rational in arguing, unfortunately your humble opinion (and mine, for that matter) don't count for much. I'd ask you to present numbers that would support your point as well.
> Furthermore, I have seen some UN-based statistics which indicate that the US has the highest percentage of their population incarcerated compared to all other nations.(Can't find a link though). I can only assume these people are not in jail for jaywalking...
Good assumption, but according the the Department of Justice, (see here for statistics), only half (51%) of the prison population was in for violent crimes. So, although the total number of inmates may be higher, I'd like to see the UN's breakdown of violent criminals in other countries' prisons before making judgements (pardon the pun).
> Want secured communication, you can always use phone. Mail etc. They can't spy phones on the fly, it takes a warrant. They can't open first class mail, they need a warrant.
Those involved in industrial espionage don't generally apply for warrants. Those in government who abuse power also do not generally apply for warrants.
I've discovered that all of the arguments of the stripe of "only criminals need privacy" are ploys by those who benefit from their targets giving up privacy. The doctrine of "innocent until proven guilty" was established by the Founding Fathers because of the abuses they saw with their own eyes by British governors, and they put it in place so that the average citizen is not required to give up privacy just to prove he/she's not doing anything wrong. Privacy is required for many more things than most people think, and that's because it's taken for granted, and that's a good thing. Next time you decide that cryptography is only for criminals, think about how it would affect your life not to have privacy in medical records, or your borrowing history, or your finances. Also remember that a lot of people died (albeit long ago) so that we could have this privacy, and giving it away in trade for perceived security is doing those people a disservice.
Actually, I'm an American citizen, and if my government responded to this attack by exterminating Afghanistan, I would take up arms against them, so you're not only wrong, you're short of vision. Besides, how does one determine "other offending countries"? By that definition, you'd need also to pancake Ireland (remember the IRA?), Israel (the Mosadi), the U.S. (Tim McVeigh and the Unabomber lived here), Russia, China, Germany, Brazil, and so on until the only livable place on Earth would be Antarctica. This wouldn't be a deterrent, it would be our undoing. Don't be such a troll.
Slashdot Mirror
> As long as there are people living below the poverty line, blue
> skies projects like this should not get funding from the federal government.
Although I understand your point, there are a few issues to consider. The first is that, since the poverty line is more or less a percentage measure, there will always be people below it (it's like saying, "until everyone earns in the top 60 percent wage bracket"). The second is that there will always be social issues that require funding, but it's very short-sighted to say there should be no funding for science until all of the relevant social issues are solved, since all of the relevant social issues will never get solved, and pure science research often leads to practical applications that solve some of the social issues. You must always remember that funding is never an all-or-nothing proposition, and it shouldn't be. The developers of radio science could never have imagined that someday their ideas would be used (in MRI) to diagnose diseases without surgery, and saying that such studies shouldn't have been funded until we cured all diseases would have been very short-sighted.
In short, most funding poured into scientific studies is wasted. The problem is, you never know beforehand which projects will be duds and which will transform the world. So, we must strike a balance, and this particular machine has showed much promise in revealing new secrets, so its price tag may very well be paid back with a cure for cancer or cheap, renewable energy that will make coal- and oil-fired power plants obsolete.
Virg
> And your 8-track player can't play CDs. So?
Miss number one. The old CD player works, but the new CD players don't. 8-track players don't figure in at all.
> It *still* doesn't mean that you can steal music.
Miss number two. I'd be satisfied if I could play the CD I bought on the player installed in my car. Despite the whole argument about personal copies being irrelevant (I'm trying to play the original CD, dammit!), I'd have been satisfied if they used the protection technology and simply put a warning label on the case so I knew it would be a problem. As it stands, I paid good money for a CD that won't play anywhere except the old CD player in my parent's house, three states away. Not only am I not stealing their music, they stole my money, because I paid for a CD and they gave me a coaster.
Virg
Who cares who courted whom? The fact that Microsoft offers the recording industry what they want does not make it right for them to force my choice of digital music vendor. To go back to the original example, if Bridgestone offered the auto industry tires that mounted easier than other brands, it would still be wrong to insist that I use Bridgestone (perhaps by voiding my warranty for using a different brand). Moreover, since Microsoft does not offer a WMA player for Linux, the recording industry is attempting to force my choice of operating system by forbidding me digital music unless I run Windows, because Microsoft is making their lives easier. That's way, way out of line.
Virg
> You will need to get the new players and you will not be able
> to listen to the CDs wherever you want.
I have two new CD players which will only play some CDs. The old single player works, but the new car CD player (and my 100-CD changer which is a stereo component, by the way, not a computer component) won't play them, the file type of the digital files they provide is useless to me, and not being able to listen to CDs I paid for because the companies don't want to tell me whether they're protected is unacceptable recourse. Since the original discussion involves fair use rights, I can still say that the record companies are screwing me. I frankly don't care why, and neither does the copyright law whose fair use clauses they're violating. The nature of the law is such that they are not allowed to forbid me fair use to protect against violators. If they want me to play by the copyright laws, then why are they so quick to violate them? That qualifies as an ethical violation, and hopefully that woman in California will win her case against Charley Pride's label, thereby proving that it's also a legal violation.
Virg
Very good work, but you ignore most of the meaning in the post to make your point. Refute these:
1.) Unprotected CDs play in my CD-ROM drive without difficulty.
2.) They don't label which CDs are protected and which aren't, so I have no way of knowing whether the CD will play of not, and by the time I find out, I've opened it so I can't return it.
3.) They provide data files, but in a format that I can't change and can't use, and say that this protects my right to fair use.
Sorry, but the "gotta buy a CD player" argument doesn't fly, since their effort to prevent piracy has also stepped on my ability to use the CD in a legal fashion, and they didn't (and won't) tell me which of the CDs will or won't work as advertised. Something as simple as a warning label would validate your argument, but until you can point out such a label your argument is meaningless. And before you go down the whole "CD-ROM isn't a CD player" road, the CD player in my car, which is just a player, and which uses data-style caching for skip prevention, won't play them either. What can you say to that?
Virg
> Screw your fair use. It's only fair of you pay for it.
I buy a CD, and I like to use my PC to listen to it. Because of SunComm or Macrovision, it won't play in my CD-ROM drive, so I need a digital copy of the songs. They provide WMA files right on the CD for me, so all's well.
Oops. I don't run Windows.
Now, what were you saying about paying for it?
Virg
Try this: the humans feel that it's necessary to return the Klingon alive. The Vulcans want to pull the plug and send the corpse back. Perhaps the botch in first contact is that the Vulcans were right, and the fact that the humans felt the need to return Klang alive was just Earth-centric thinking. Therefore, the pilot plot is covered, but the insult of the return of a live, disgraced Klingon is enough to precipitate the war in the future.
Or maybe the Klingons were pissed because the Klingon with such a dorky name still lives.
Virg
> Jerry Rice? That's Jerry Lynn Ryan you mook!
Jerry Lynn Ryan? That's Jeri Lynn Ryan, you mook!
Virg
> I like having a monthly summary of how much I've spent, where I spent it, and when I spent it. It makes planning easier and more realistic.
You then must consider whether you like others having a summary of how much you spent, where you spent it, and when you spent it. Then, when your insurance carrier finds out that you frequent the vending machines too often and raises your premiums, you'll wonder how it was you managed to give up so much for convenience.
Virg
> If the banks go under, they are insured, right? By whom? The US gov't. Who pays for the US gov't? Taxpayers. So we taxpayers are held responsible for bad business decisions of the country's financial institutions.
Um, you missed a step in your logic. See, the government insures the bank deposits, and taxpayers pay for government. But, the insured depositors are to a large extent those same taxpayers (you pay tax money to depositors if any bank fails, but if it's your bank that fails, the other taxpayers pay you). So, what we're really doing is participating in a mass insurance underwriting effort, albeit compulsory. The tradeoff is that banking policies have to be cleared with the SEC which ensures to some extent that bad business doesn't get so far out of hand that banks fail. Barring criminal activity, there hasn't been a major bank failure in quite a while, which is some indication that the system works.
> The Fed governs how much money is in circulation. As they add more "dollars" inflation grows because there is no real value behind it. The value is just spread through more pieces of paper, so each one is worth less.
This is a bit oversimple. The whole concept that printing more money causes inflation is an overextension of how monetary policy works. Since the actual paper money in the economy is only a very small part of the money supply, printing more bills isn't really going to have an effect on the economy. Some monetary policies can cause inflation of sorts, like decreasing the reserve rate, but mostly it's fiscal policy that causes inflation.
> This was what caused the Great Depression.
Not exactly. What caused the Great Depression was that the economy had gotten extremely built up in spite of there not being any good reason (much like the tech bubble that we just saw), and then in a very short time investor confidence in the market simply disappeared as people tried to get out before the fall really gained momentum. Virtually overnight, the value of the market dropped by half, and once the fall started, people rushed to get their investments out, which caused the market to fall even more, to the point where banks which had underwritten the pumped-up market didn't have enough liquid assets to satisfy all of the people bellying up to the teller windows for cash withdrawals. This caused those banks to have to shut down, preventing people from getting their money and started widespread panic that led to even more withdrawals. After this, for many years people were loathe to put their money at risk by depositing or investing it, so there was a shortage of lendable funds and so loans for economic expansion were all but nonexistent. It took WWII to convince people that investing was important (remember the war bond drives), and the rise in investment and employment jump-started the economy.
BTW, IAAE (I am an economist), so I can say with confidence that a cashless society will not be our downfall, because as soon as the demand for cash is created by a too-powerful government, cash (in some form, and probably not sanctioned by the government) will reappear. If you think of money as only greenbacks, consider online money like Ploids for an example of non-sanctioned money.
Virg
P.S. The economy is already backed by something of substantive value. That thing is the collective earning power of all of its members, and historically, that's been a very solid base for an economic model. I read through the Constitution Party's platform on money and banking, and in addition to the obvious question of why it's necessarily bad that the Federal Reserve Bank is privatized, I'm left to wonder why currency has to be backed by a precious metal to prevent the economy's falling apart. It seems not to have needed that particular crutch for the last 180 years.
> So does the establishment like cash..... What is backing US currency.
> Nothing execept the promis to tax you in the future for any debt created
> by it's printing.
Okay, I'll bite on this one. What's backing U.S. dollar is the U.S. economy. It's nominally the government, but when a government tries to buttress the value of its currency when the local economy doesn't support it, you end up with the situation they had in Russia near the end of the Soviet Union, where people don't want the local currency because it's not "hard".
> Its the largest conterfiet operation in existance.
This makes a nice sound bite, but since the amount of real cash in a society represents only a miniscule fraction of the value of M1 (the money supply), I think this may be a bit of an exaggeration.
Virg
OMG, your .sig made me laugh out loud. It's about 5 lines shorter than the last one I saw about the woodchuck thing, and it's the whole code tuning for faster chuckage that made me laugh.
Well done.
Virg
> They aren't "distributing" the code in the manner you imply.
> They are simply using it in some black box machine.
Distributing the code in binary format counts under the GPL.
> The code isn't downloadable or accessible, it's merely used as
> an OS/service layer. If nothing has been changed in the code, the GPL
> doesn't hold any sway.
Not true. The GPL follows GPL'ed programs even if they're not used to develop derivative works. The code is accessible, because their management software accesses it. Redistributing GPL'ed programs must be done in accordance with the GPL whether they're modified or not.
> by your reasoning, anyone using Linux and Apache to run a web site
> would need to notify its visitors of the use of the software and provide
> a download link to them both.
Wrong analogy. The correct analogy is that if someone set up a web server with Linux and Apache and then sold the server, they'd need to provide source code or access on request.
Virg
> that's why laws could be *carefuly* worded to only allow actions to be taken upon eavesdropping if that eavesdropping clearly showed acts of terrorism in preparation.
Two assumptions, both wrong.
1.) You're assuming that everyone agrees on what "terrorism" means. We're discussing the same federal government that once defined unions as Communists and interred Japanese Americans during WWII because they were "dangerous".
2.) You're assuming that the governmental agents who would collect information serreptitiously would then use it only for legal action. Again, we're talking about the same government that handed over data about Martin Luther King's movements to white supremacist groups so they could harass him.
> there's gotta be some way to compromise.
There is. It's referred to in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution.
Virg
Reducto ad Absurdum. I'm not even going to grace this with an answer.
> No it isn't [much harder for evildoers to influence those who are well educated]
Lawyers regularly dismiss jurors during Voire Dire for no other reason than the fact that they are college graduates. The reason given my by my lawyer friends is that the higher the level of education, the less likely the juror is to be swayed by emotional testimony. Enough said.
> Which experts agree? You are just making wild accusations without any shred of evidence.
Well, the CIA, for one. If you need direct quotes, respond to this and I'll give you links to keep you busy for a few hours reading.
> Are you claiming that the founding fathers were terrorists? How many innocent lives did they take en route to establishing America?
Not only am I claiming it, the British colonial government claimed it as well. When the Sons of Liberty decided to throw the Boston Tea Party, they dressed as Indians, boarded the British merchantmen and overpowered the crews, and dumped the tea into the harbor. Does a sailor whose only crime is being a night crewman on a British ship qualify as "innocent"? How about the Tory-sympathetic farmer whose farms were burned by Washington's troops so the Brits wouldn't have anything to eat? Lastly, you should consider that blowing up military ships and burning a British fort to the ground in the middle of the night qualify as terrorist acts, even though civilians weren't involved. If it isn't, how do you describe the attack on the U.S.S. Cole?
> You are holding up farmers as examples of savvy businessmen?
Most farmers are very savvy businessmen, because the ones who aren't can't make a living farming. Don't be a bigot.
> If it weren't for government subsidies there would be no farmers.
> Why do they need government subsidies? Because the food they grow
> is in abundance.
This is nuts. And you claim to have a degree in economics? The government subsidies are in place to encourage large farms not to overproduce so that smaller farms can survive. To say that removing the subsidies would eliminate farmers is lunacy. It would eliminate small farms, as large farms, which can take advantage of economies of scale in shipping and storage, push prices down to the point where smaller farms are no longer profitable. This is precisely what happened in the crude oil industry, where such economic controls were absent.
> The only profit is monetary.
Again, you got a degree in economics? Two words: market share. There's more than money involved, even in capitalism. Many businesses give up profits every day for things like market share, public opinion and other such things. In the wake of the attacks, and the outpouring of assistance from corporations, I'm surprised you still can't see past the balance sheet.
> Sure you do buddy, I bet. You are just dripping with degrees aren't you?
MS Econs. from Rutgers University, 1991, and AssSci in Physics, same institution and year. And by the way, up yours for the implication.
> > Apache is a free web server, but it's running more than two thirds of all web sites.
> No it isn't. Just because Slashdot claims its so doesn't make it reality.
> I don't understand why people don't question the mainstream media outlets
> more often.
OK, how about Netcraft? Or Sendmail (old link, but you seem to imply that free software never has or had good market penetration)? Or Forbes? Apache has been the mainstream web server since 1991, and has just recently lost some (but not much) of its market to IIS. To quote, I don't understand why people don't question the mainstream media outlets more often.
> Neither does anyone else. They don't contain enough functionality to be of use for any actual work.
I refer to Apache for a web server and Sendmail as a mail transfer agent, and I'll let your own statment bury you.
> Thats why the stuff is distributed with the disclaimer that "This software is provided without any warranty of any kind, not even an assurance of fitness for use" or some other such fancy way of saying that it doesn't really work all that well.
When was the last time you read the EULA for Windows? This exact phrase comes from the Windows 2000 EULA. See if it sounds familiar.Telling, no? Oh, and the limited warranty mentioned is that they'll return your money or send you a new copy if the medium is damaged (scratched CD or damaged diskettes).
You may want to try reading up on the whole open-source movement. For that matter, you might want to review everything you said here for accuracy.
Virg
Actually, there are a few points of contention that may change your analysis.
Defined borders - these exist to define who gets to do what with which piece of land, not so that we can limit or control immigration.
Immigration Policy - this is to define who can live in the U.S., and so it doesn't generally apply to visitors. It helps with protection against terrorism, but for most attacks it would be ineffective.
Flight Schools - This may have been effective in this particular case, but it's obvious that this regulation doesn't really impinge on personal freedom, unless you consider flying a passenger airliner a personal freedom.
Locked Cockpit Doors - These are to insulate the pilots from interaction with passengers so they aren't interrupted while running the plane, which is a sort of freedom-for-security tradeoff, insofar as the passengers aren't allowed into the cockpit, but again, barring El-Al flights, these doors aren't capable of stopping a determined effort to enter the cockpit (they can be kicked open). They're in place to prevent honestly accidental intrusion, or intrusion by pasengers who aren't hell-bent on getting in.
Just About Any Other Law... - Since there is a huge spectrum of laws, and they address many different levels of behavior, this is too broad a statement. More on this below.
> Are all examples of the "mythical" freedom verus security tradeoff.
You need to be careful not to confuse security with simple safety. A handrail on the stairs offers safety, but no security (it won't actively protect you if you fall, but it can be used by you to help prevent a fall). Laws pertaining to safety and laws pertaining to security are different animals as well, since safety is often very well defined (protection from a well defined and mostly passive threat), but security not so well (perceived reduction in the likelihood of victimization).
> The courts have ruled that there are certain cases when "a priori"
> censorship are permissable in the public interest, notably in
> matters of national security.
True, but the courts have always stated in such rulings that the censorship is a blocking of the dissemination of information, and have only allowed for the collection of information pursuant to warrants. These new laws and processes seek to establish permanent and warrantless collection and examination of information, which is in blatant violation of the Fourth Amendment, and cannot be defended with an "a priori" argument.
> There is another intersting issue, however. The FBI was able to
> identify all of the terrorists from the passenger manifests.
> Obviously these people were flying under real names, or known aliases.
The second statement doesn't follow from the first. The way the FBI identified the terrorists is to track back through all of the passengers on the manifest, eliminating each from suspicion until only those remain whose past doesn't ken for some reason, and these people are examined more closely or simply identified as the perpetrators. Since this method requires that the FBI know which manifests to examine (the ones for the planes that were hijacked), it does not follow that the terrorists were all identifiable by name or alias.
> Would it be a violation of your rights if the government furnished
> "watch lists" to airlines to check flight reservations against?
This is a real grey area ethically, because the watch list is not a perfect solution. What if my name happens to match a known terrorist? It would be a violation of my rights to detain me or deny me passage on a plane just because of unfortunate coincidence. You could argue that it's for the common good, but it's still ethically ambiguous, and you'd need to have some mechanism in place to protect against fault or abuse (abuse could occur if someone put my name on the list, assuming it doesn't belong there).
Virg
> it's like the mark of the beast, eventually you won't be able to
> buy bread without joining the majority of people who really just want to
> be able to walk down the street without being shot at.
This statement is the rub of what truly worries me about this whole thing. There will be numerous people who will be putting this idea forward, saying that their particular law/procedure/whatever will protect you from the dangerous terrorists lurking around every corner. They'll tell you that the removal of your privacy is small price to pay for the safety of being able to get on a plane without having some crazy flying it into a building. And they'd be right if selling your privacy actually helped you to become safer, but it won't.
The part that they won't tell you is that terrorists aren't the only threat to your safety, and in the world they propose, they're not even the biggest threat to your safety. If police states are so good at protecting us from threats, why do people so regularly revolt against them? It's true that the number of Chinese citizens killed by terrorists is very low. So, what's their beef? The simple fact is that the people who say "only the guilty need privacy" always seem to want to apply their own definitions of "guilty" to others. Anyone who believes that giving up their right to privacy will keep them safe should consider talking to anyone who lived in Russia under Soviet rule. Ask them just how safe they felt, protected from terrorist attack by a government that controlled privacy very carefully to make sure no harm came to them. Ask them why the USSR had to close the borders and criminalize emigration to keep people from leaving the country in droves. Ask them if what they gained was worth what they had to give up. Then, and only then, will you be in a position to consider whether your freedom is worth whatever promises of safety these people are selling.
Virg
> It is my opinion that if we no longer supported Israel,
> all terrorism against the US would stop.
Your world history needs a little updating, then. Your statement implies that the only reason that anyone in the Middle East (or anywhere else in the world) dislikes us is because we're pro-Israel, and that's not true. For today's history lesson, the main reason Osama bin Laden hates us has nothing to do with Israel. See, we (the CIA, specifically) trained him and his men in the beginning so that they could fight effectively against the Soviet Union. When the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, we pulled our funding, which for all intents and purposes plunged Afghanistan into civil war. The reason ObL wants us dead is because, in his mind, we left him and his men twisting in the wind when it no longer suited our purpose to support him. This all has naught to do with Israel.
Virg
OK, once more: RADIO stations don't generally broadcast VIDEO signals.
Got it now? 8)
I do, however, agree with your idea. It's a hoot to listen to some phone schmuck at the station trying to tell you your request isn't allowed.
Virg
>Not accepting others is not on the same level as blowing a
> building and killing thousands of people...
What starts with not accepting others ends in blowing up a building and killing thousands of people. The only difference is where it falls in the time line. The hijackers were at one time children, and if they hadn't been raised to think of the US as the enemy, they wouldn't have been willing to die to hurt the US. Censorship (of ideas about US citizens being people like them) turned them into killers.
Virg
> It can't? Thousands of years of the rule of law seems to be
> keeping people in line generally. People seem to be getting the
> idea that murder is wrong.
Are you really trying to imply that people think that murder is wrong because it's illegal? I think you have that backwards. Ethics should drive laws. When laws drive ethics, you end up with the very attack that started this whole discussion.
> Of for fuck's sake, had I known this I would not have responded.
If the original poster's profession would have put you off, you're rather biased, and perhaps you should have stayed silent. If you need something that shallow to take me seriously, then rest assured that I'm a computer technician, which is likely on your list of "approved" professions.
> Education is always touted as the great savior, it isn't.
> There are plenty of very well educated people who are just inherently evil.
Wrong side of the analysis, sir. It doesn't matter that there are well-educated evildoers, because it's much harder for evildoers to influence those who are well educated, so education can very much make the difference. How many of the terrorists that perpetrated Tuesday's attacks were well educated, do you think? I'd warrant that their education was a bit skewed.
> Actually, a major crackdown on civil liberties would accomplish
> the same. If people are just not allowed to do stupid things then
> stupid things won't happen.
This would be awesomely funny if I didn't think you really believed it. As such, it's just really sad. Last I checked (and yes, experts on terrorism agree), cracking down on civil liberties causes terrorism. Why do you think the U.S. exists in the first place? Police states tend to cause dissidents, for reasons that are only obvious to those who think about it.
> Translation: I don't like having to pay for stuff. I'd really
> like to be able to steal it without any penalties. Lets be
> realistic, no scarcity means no profit. No profit means no stuff.
Despite that fact that I agree that IP isn't all bad, this is an horrific overextension of economic theory. Saying that no scarcity means no profit is flat-out wrong (ask any farmer (or for that matter, anyone who sells commodities) about how scarcity and price works). Saying no profit means no stuff implies that the only profits are monetary, which is also flat out wrong. Go read a book on economics before you toss off about how capitalism works. And, in case you think to attack my analysis because I'm a computer worker, I've got advnaced degrees in economics as well, so I know of what I speak.
> Yeah, you can hold up free software as an example of what can happen
> even if there is no profit, but free software is shit compared to its
> proprietary counterpart and everyone knows it. Stop trying to pull
> the wool over everyone's eyes.
Again, you should try research before you start typing. "Everyone" doesn't "know" that free software is worse than proprietary software in all cases. There are many free packages that suck, but there are many that work better than commercial packages. Apache is a free web server, but it's running more than two thirds of all web sites (the second place entry, Microsoft's IIS, has less than 25% market share). BSD UNIX is also free, but there seem to be just a few fans of it. Parhaps you aren't familiar with these packages because you don't use them in your job, but it's proof that your scope is very limited to make such blanket statements.
Virg
> I keep seeing this sentiment. What on earth are the purveyors of it thinking?
What I'm thinking is that he's doing exactly the same things, for exactly the same reasons, as those who started the chain of events that ended those peoples' lives. See below.
> Would you say, "Jerry Falwell killed 5,000 people. Send him
> to The Hague."? It sounds ridiculous, but you're not leaving any
> room for any other interpretation.
Well, if bin Laden is responsible for this tragedy, you can't officially say, "bin Laden killed 5,000 people" either, because it's not literally accurate. Few, however, would have difficulty placing responsibility if he was the mastermind. By the same token, Falwell doesn't directly commit crimes, but his inflammatory rhetoric inspires those who do.
> Hey, disagree with him, tell me he's rude, tell me he's a hypocrite,
> but don't put commentators on the same level as terrorists.
I don't think of Jerry as a commentator, I think of him as a hatemonger. He demonizes those with whom he disagrees and seeks to lay blame for all of the world's woes on those who are different from him. He hates others merely because of religious belief, and that makes him no better than the terrorists that committed these atrocities. The perpetrators of Tuesday's attacks killed thousands in one act, and Falwell's followers are trying to do it one clinic, one student, one religion at a time. But, it's only the scale that differs. It's still terrorism, and it's still evil.
Virg
> It is however, absurd to argue that more guns would act as a
> deterrent to crime. Violence only begets more violence.
Absurdity implies that there is hard evidence that my case is incorrect, and that hard evidence is in question. You need to consider the proofs of argument before assuming that either side is absurd. In my previous example, the case of Switzerland refutes your point, and without a strong argument for a less-apparent reason for their low crime rate, you cannot dismiss the idea that more guns can (at least in some cases) lead to lower crime rates. It's easy to say that violence only begets more violence, but that's an oversimplification of how violence works, and there's much evidence that certain levels of violence (and certain situations for violence) wherein violence begets peace. The best example I can present on short notice is our relations with Japan before and after WWII. Not a perfect example by any means, but certainly strong enough to rule out simple absurdity of the argument.
> IMHO, there is no question that of the Western or first world
> nations, the US has (per capita) the highest incidence of violent crime.
While you're quite rational in arguing, unfortunately your humble opinion (and mine, for that matter) don't count for much. I'd ask you to present numbers that would support your point as well.
> Furthermore, I have seen some UN-based statistics which indicate that the US has the highest percentage of their population incarcerated compared to all other nations.(Can't find a link though). I can only assume these people are not in jail for jaywalking...
Good assumption, but according the the Department of Justice, (see here for statistics), only half (51%) of the prison population was in for violent crimes. So, although the total number of inmates may be higher, I'd like to see the UN's breakdown of violent criminals in other countries' prisons before making judgements (pardon the pun).
Virg
> Want secured communication, you can always use phone. Mail etc. They can't spy phones on the fly, it takes a warrant. They can't open first class mail, they need a warrant.
Those involved in industrial espionage don't generally apply for warrants. Those in government who abuse power also do not generally apply for warrants.
I've discovered that all of the arguments of the stripe of "only criminals need privacy" are ploys by those who benefit from their targets giving up privacy. The doctrine of "innocent until proven guilty" was established by the Founding Fathers because of the abuses they saw with their own eyes by British governors, and they put it in place so that the average citizen is not required to give up privacy just to prove he/she's not doing anything wrong. Privacy is required for many more things than most people think, and that's because it's taken for granted, and that's a good thing. Next time you decide that cryptography is only for criminals, think about how it would affect your life not to have privacy in medical records, or your borrowing history, or your finances. Also remember that a lot of people died (albeit long ago) so that we could have this privacy, and giving it away in trade for perceived security is doing those people a disservice.
Virg
Actually, I'm an American citizen, and if my government responded to this attack by exterminating Afghanistan, I would take up arms against them, so you're not only wrong, you're short of vision. Besides, how does one determine "other offending countries"? By that definition, you'd need also to pancake Ireland (remember the IRA?), Israel (the Mosadi), the U.S. (Tim McVeigh and the Unabomber lived here), Russia, China, Germany, Brazil, and so on until the only livable place on Earth would be Antarctica. This wouldn't be a deterrent, it would be our undoing. Don't be such a troll.
Virg