Bingo: if they didn't ship IE with Windows how would new computer buyers connect to the internet to download Firefox?:)
Maybe it just keeps Firefox from becoming AOL-CD-like in distributing their product.
Plus theres the added benefit of people actually using IE, getting frustrated and pissed off at the lack of features and security(like usual), thus fueling the search for new browsing software.
I read his comment and noticed the sentence in question. My initial reaction was one similar to yours. However, after I thought about it I think I realized why he said what he did.
Many geeks have similar interests and also share a similar ethical consciousness. On a site like/. we discuss these things regularly and the relative homogeny reinforces a sense of ethical awareness.
Now the inequality you refer to comes in when you fail to realize that other social groups/ideological groups have their own ethics sets, though in different areas. A group of Christians will feel the same way when surrounded by Christians (insert any other group here as well) of a similar denomination. Seeing your ethics reflected in others around you reinforces your belief system while making it easy to dismiss the ethical validity and cohesiveness of other groups.
Inequality aside, if we take his comment in the best possible light, I think he means that we have a specialized ethics set that we feel strongly about as a community. Additionally, the things we feel strongly about are not championed by other groups or not understood by the rest of society (ie. open source, copyright laws, the EFF, DRM, real science vs religion based education, etc.) These two factors combined are what I think led to his comment, and in that interpretation the smug-soundingness gives way to a comment that expresses the singularity of our geek-oriented ethical position.
"90% of drivers think they're better than average. 90% of drivers are below average drivers. So I give free driving lessons. Like braking suddenly for tailgaters."
For irresponsible people like you who play fast and loose with the lives of other people on the road I have a favorite past time. I like to call it "Civic Lesson 101" or YANA (Your Ass is Not Anonomyous.)
What many people fail to recall (or do not know in the first place) is that their license plate number is linked to the public record of their automobile registration. Just as a police officer can access your records from his cruiser by entering your license plate into his computer, so I can access your public record from any PC with an internet connection.
Your public record contains useful data on how I can get in touch with you such as: your address, your full name, when and where you bought your vehicle, and what finance company is financing it. Sometimes it even has your phone number listed; however this is a convenience as a few moments with Google is just as effective. Someone motivated by sinister desires, vengeance, or worst of all a sense of justice could wreak incredible personal, financial, and even legal harm with these details. For me the mere inconvenience and/or uneasiness of the perp is enough. All I want is to remind them...YANA: act appropriately.
At this point the options are wide open. If the trangression was eggregious enough (road rage or say blocking the left lane on a multilane highway while driving under the speed limit and then aggressively braking) there can be severe penalties. In highschool we would grab a few friends, scrape together $40, buy 4000 forks, and then carefully stick them into the front yard of the offending idiot. Others have had fun with rock salt on the grass, but I draw the line at destruction of property.
As an adult I use a more civilized approach. Simply send an anonomyous letter addressed to the family of the perpetrator detailing the incident in question and how you attained their home address. Polite reminders about what someone of a more violent disposition might do under these circumstances are unnecessary. The imagination of the recipient of the letter is sufficient in this respect.
A follow-up phone call during business hours may or may not be necessary, though it is undeniably effective. The idea is to sound as a voice of reason, acting in the interests of public safety. Always be polite, professional, and as unemotional as Hal9000. Briefly describe the incident and ask the perpetrator (or better their spouse) to stop driving in that manner. You only make the phonce call AFTER they receive the letter, otherwise they tend to get hostile and quite rude. The letter tends to bring people down a notch as they realize that they are exposed while you, the slighted party, remain anonomyous.
Whether or not this has any lasting effect is unknown, however I think it does make people a little more aware that the vehicles they toy with on the road actually contain human beings...and remember that humans are unpredictable and...YANA.
I thought he meant the PS4 would be released so soon that the software companies wouldn't have a chance to fully exploit the game architecture of the PS3 before having to abandon it all to learn the PS4.
Clinton, IMHO, was less an intellectual and more a personable orator of superlative quality and master politician. True he was intelligent, but intellectual describes a person removed from the confining biases of a political figure.
The problem I have with using the word "intellectual" in connection with politicians is that they don't (to quote the wikipedia definition you refer to) "use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas."
Politicians already have a defined boundary of action and a methodology of thought that is related to their proclaimed party affiliation and their constituents. The variety of different ideas that they review for a decision (if they do at all) is restricted to those that do not conflict with their party ideals. There is no room inside the rabidly enforced groupthink of the political landscape for "responsible lawmaking" that contradicts party lines. Therefore many reasonable courses of action on a topic are discarded merely because they are outside a party's political message.
A true intellectual would have more freedom of action in than party affiliated politicians. They would not be predestined to operate in only one realm of though, whether that is left/liberal or right/conservative.
Chill man. I know 2 Russians that spent a few years in the US and the paranoia is ingrained. Helps control the populace I guess.
Besides, the guy's/. account may have his personal website info on it or previous posts could point to that. Whois will get you fingered in a second. No imaginary lookup table required.
Even if it is far fetched to you, someone with direct experience or firsthand accounts of reprisals can be justified in such a response.
We commend tinfoil bedecked Americans who shun grocery store discount cards and always pay in cash and you want to bash this guy for being afraid for his family? The worst case scenario of each of those forms of "paranoia" should bring things back into focus.
"I think it's reasonable to require demonstration of the existence of a creator here before we call disbelief "anti-creator bias".
Just jumping in for a second to clear things up. Framing his comment as you do defies the experience of reading/. Creationists are referred to as morons, ignorant, stupid, defective, intellectually flawed, and many other derisive terms that are used to call into question their sanity and mental acuity.
I think the GP poster was referring to this pervasive attitude and not to "disbelief" as you put it. The fact that you don't see this type of abusive prejudice is interesting to me. It conjures up thoughts of selective attention in overdrive.
And the key mistake you are making in the argument is that you are confusing a military operation with political problem. Even with post-invasion losses included, this has been one of the least bloody operations in US history.
The military has done and is doing a fantastic job. The political ramifications of the invasion and subsequent nation building haven't been managed well. No this isn't Bush bashing exclusively, it a general condemnation of all of our elected federal officials and the way they navigated the post-invasion political minefield.
Damn straight. I can always hear clicking and humming of a certain type on my PC speakers and headphones 3-5 seconds before my cell phone rings.
It freaked my wife out until I finally let her in on what was happening. From her perspective I was just sitting there using headphones and then I am picking up the phone and talking to people, without even hearing the phone ring.
If they want to collect my virtual money, they will need to make an IRS guild with IRS tax collector characters in game to come and get it.
I will be more than happy to give them their percentage.
However I don't want to hear any complaints of "griefing" when I PK their asses into oblivion. The more they tax the more of their asses I will hand to them. Tit for tat, and all that.
On a similar note, if they want to collect REAL money for my virtual game cash I don't want to hear any complaints of "assault and battery" when I "WTFPWN teh n00b" workers in the local IRS tax office.
If they can blur the line between what is real and what is virtual, so can I.
It was something I built as a child, around 8 through 10 years old.
Thanks to generous relatives and a well know predeliction for LEGOS, I had am almost inexhaustable supply (more than 2 tall kitchen trash cans full) of space/moon themed legos.
Combine that with ample floor space in my playroom and a huge piece of plywood and you have the ingredients for the larges LEGO moonbase in history.
Essentially what I made was a lunar landing site by covering the plywood with moon texture lego tiles. On top of that I built, over the greater part of 2 years, a "lunar base" complete with, among other things, a launch pad, landing strip, housing quarters, energy reactor, elevated tram system, munitions dump/armory, and weapons installations to defend against land and space attacks. Not to mention numerous spacecraft.
Everything was reasoned out as well as a child's mind could and everything was designed straight from my imagination. Major upgrades came in August (my birthday) and December (Christmas) after the family got even more Legos for me. There were even major rebuilds, whether from "space attacks," sister attacks, or just revamping because of newer or "better" ideas.
At its peak I needed another piece of plywood to contain part of it. It never ceased to amaze my friends, relatives, and even my parent's friends. More importantly I had a freakin blast making it; it was more fun making and redesigning than "playing" with it.
And then, as only a child can do, I disasembled it without a thought. The Legos got tossed in the garbage cans (not to throw away but to store them) and I eventually gave them to a friend's younger brother when I was in high school.
So, yeah it was only for fun and yeah it wasn't of any use to anyone else but me, but it was the neatest thing I ever made. Sometimes I kinda miss it.
Rewmember that poisoning someone is a very personal act of violence. It could be that the KGB used the Polonium to make sure that Litvinenko knew who killed him.
In vendetta killings it is always sweeter if the victim knows just who is killing them. Anonomyous "Pwned" messages don't suffice. You have gotta leave your tag. What better way to do it than by using a 138 day halflife radioactive element that is obviously made ina nuclear reactor and would cost a million dollars to buy. If that ain't a government calling card I don't know what is.
I have always thought that ubiqutous braile might even allow some sighted people to learn it through daily repetetion. Imagine it on door handles (not just rest rooms) so that every time you open a door in a public place you are learning to identify braile. Also imagine dual text/braile books available to children as they learn to read in every school.
The payoff comes when the power is out or (worst case secnario?) there is a fire and visibility is zero and you need to identify a safe exit route. Or, when old age arrives and macular degeneration (or some other malady) takes your sight, you are already prepared. Even reading glasses would become almost unnecessary if everyone learned braile; provided menus and other reading materials were dual braile/text. Even someting as simple as reading a book in the dark would be a benefit.
Making money more easily identified will, in much the same way as the scenario I describe above, not only help the blind but will help the sighted as well. The results will be fewer mistakes with change, being able to check your pocket cashflow by feel, and drug deals could be conducted in complete darkness.
Ok that last one may not be a benefit for most of us but I am sure someone will appreciate it.
"The US military has always had a very warped view regarding the benefits that technology in a war can give them"
Infantry is the queen of battle.
Technology is there to support the infantry. Whether in the form of air support, tanks/armor, surveilance, or communications. All of it is there to make the infantry more effective.
Just because you do not understand the military (obviouls from your comments about Viet Nam) and how it works dosen't mean that the people that run it are stupid. In fact some of the greatest minds in history were revealed through the military. Closer to home you will find that many of the great minds in the US are in the military. And, in power-centric countries many of the best minds are pressed into military officership.
If you were to study military science and military history more you might learn important facts about why US military campaigns are run the way they are. In addition you could even form educated opinions about the way modern wars are waged.
Technology gives a massive boost in combat. Unfortunately in our society, where the lives of our soldiers and citizens are respected more than just about anywhere else, the cost of battle is always high. The military failures we have had can be weighed out in the worth of our young men and women who volunteer to fight for us. When we think the cost is too high we stop. Other countries, where human life is considered property of the government, do not have this limitation.
Our solution? We compensate for the value we place on our soldiers lives by spending money on technology to help them.
"if you do not vote, you forfeit all right to complain about anything your government does until november 2008"
Bullshit.
Every time someone gets voted in the voters have to put up with the hypocritical backsliding where at least 50% of the promises the party leadership and candidates campaigned on go straight out the window. Now, when you have a voter that is split between parties in representation of the major issues of the day, that voter has to be a mindreader to know which platform points the elected official is going to toss out and which he will pursue with all the half-assed vigor a lifetime politician can muster between shagging underage pages and counting his frozen money.
In a two party system where both parties manipulate the voters to get into office and then immediately discard the issues that were used to cajole and bribe their voters, EVERYONE has a right to complain. In other words if the decision before us is between lying fuckhead scumball #1 who screwed us for 4/6 years already , or lying fuckhead scumball #2 who can't wait to get in and put the screws to us in new and interesting ways, you think that no one has the right to complain if they abstain from supporting a lying fuckhead scumball? I beg to differ.
Lets look at an analogy that mimics your position. How about a/. poll where one of the rules is that there is no complaining about the lack of poll selections? Just so you know, 90% of the posts in those discussions are ABOUT THE LACK OF OPTIONS! I'm sure you, given sufficient mod points, whould moderate all those offtopic and troll, right? Even better just delete their posts. They shouldn't have a right to talk about that, right?
How about another analogy that we hear all the time that sounds really close to your position: If you haven't served in the military you cannot comment on military topics and you certainly can't contradict anyone who has been in the military. More bullshit. Discussions aren't enriched by disqualifying people's comments because of a certain act that they do or do not perform. The reason and intelligence behind their statements is all that is worthy or unworthy.
Stop telling me (and alot of other people) why they can't complain and start listening to why people aren't voting. Alot of it has to do with the fucked up candidates lobbed in front of us every 4 years, from both sides.
Speaking of, I can't wait for 2008 elections wnen I might actually vote again. Having a US president with the last name so close to Ossama appeals to my sense of irony!
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Bingo: if they didn't ship IE with Windows how would new computer buyers connect to the internet to download Firefox? :)
Maybe it just keeps Firefox from becoming AOL-CD-like in distributing their product.
Plus theres the added benefit of people actually using IE, getting frustrated and pissed off at the lack of features and security(like usual), thus fueling the search for new browsing software.
Method!=madness.
I read his comment and noticed the sentence in question. My initial reaction was one similar to yours. However, after I thought about it I think I realized why he said what he did.
/. we discuss these things regularly and the relative homogeny reinforces a sense of ethical awareness.
Many geeks have similar interests and also share a similar ethical consciousness. On a site like
Now the inequality you refer to comes in when you fail to realize that other social groups/ideological groups have their own ethics sets, though in different areas. A group of Christians will feel the same way when surrounded by Christians (insert any other group here as well) of a similar denomination. Seeing your ethics reflected in others around you reinforces your belief system while making it easy to dismiss the ethical validity and cohesiveness of other groups.
Inequality aside, if we take his comment in the best possible light, I think he means that we have a specialized ethics set that we feel strongly about as a community. Additionally, the things we feel strongly about are not championed by other groups or not understood by the rest of society (ie. open source, copyright laws, the EFF, DRM, real science vs religion based education, etc.) These two factors combined are what I think led to his comment, and in that interpretation the smug-soundingness gives way to a comment that expresses the singularity of our geek-oriented ethical position.
I hear they got some retired plumbers involved and now its just a system of tubes.
"90% of drivers think they're better than average.
90% of drivers are below average drivers.
So I give free driving lessons.
Like braking suddenly for tailgaters."
For irresponsible people like you who play fast and loose with the lives of other people on the road I have a favorite past time. I like to call it "Civic Lesson 101" or YANA (Your Ass is Not Anonomyous.)
What many people fail to recall (or do not know in the first place) is that their license plate number is linked to the public record of their automobile registration. Just as a police officer can access your records from his cruiser by entering your license plate into his computer, so I can access your public record from any PC with an internet connection.
Your public record contains useful data on how I can get in touch with you such as: your address, your full name, when and where you bought your vehicle, and what finance company is financing it. Sometimes it even has your phone number listed; however this is a convenience as a few moments with Google is just as effective. Someone motivated by sinister desires, vengeance, or worst of all a sense of justice could wreak incredible personal, financial, and even legal harm with these details. For me the mere inconvenience and/or uneasiness of the perp is enough. All I want is to remind them...YANA: act appropriately.
At this point the options are wide open. If the trangression was eggregious enough (road rage or say blocking the left lane on a multilane highway while driving under the speed limit and then aggressively braking) there can be severe penalties. In highschool we would grab a few friends, scrape together $40, buy 4000 forks, and then carefully stick them into the front yard of the offending idiot. Others have had fun with rock salt on the grass, but I draw the line at destruction of property.
As an adult I use a more civilized approach. Simply send an anonomyous letter addressed to the family of the perpetrator detailing the incident in question and how you attained their home address. Polite reminders about what someone of a more violent disposition might do under these circumstances are unnecessary. The imagination of the recipient of the letter is sufficient in this respect.
A follow-up phone call during business hours may or may not be necessary, though it is undeniably effective. The idea is to sound as a voice of reason, acting in the interests of public safety. Always be polite, professional, and as unemotional as Hal9000. Briefly describe the incident and ask the perpetrator (or better their spouse) to stop driving in that manner. You only make the phonce call AFTER they receive the letter, otherwise they tend to get hostile and quite rude. The letter tends to bring people down a notch as they realize that they are exposed while you, the slighted party, remain anonomyous.
Whether or not this has any lasting effect is unknown, however I think it does make people a little more aware that the vehicles they toy with on the road actually contain human beings...and remember that humans are unpredictable and...YANA.
"...outside of the four walls of a prison."
There's the rub.
They just moved the walls when no one was looking.
"technological lead "
Until I re-read your sentence I thought this was a neat-o new euphemism for advanced car batteries.
So you're saying you would give back any monies labeled "Christmas Bonus"?
And I thought Atheists were smarter than faith-monkeys....damn.
I thought he meant the PS4 would be released so soon that the software companies wouldn't have a chance to fully exploit the game architecture of the PS3 before having to abandon it all to learn the PS4.
Clinton, IMHO, was less an intellectual and more a personable orator of superlative quality and master politician. True he was intelligent, but intellectual describes a person removed from the confining biases of a political figure.
The problem I have with using the word "intellectual" in connection with politicians is that they don't (to quote the wikipedia definition you refer to) "use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas."
Politicians already have a defined boundary of action and a methodology of thought that is related to their proclaimed party affiliation and their constituents. The variety of different ideas that they review for a decision (if they do at all) is restricted to those that do not conflict with their party ideals. There is no room inside the rabidly enforced groupthink of the political landscape for "responsible lawmaking" that contradicts party lines. Therefore many reasonable courses of action on a topic are discarded merely because they are outside a party's political message.
A true intellectual would have more freedom of action in than party affiliated politicians. They would not be predestined to operate in only one realm of though, whether that is left/liberal or right/conservative.
Chill man. I know 2 Russians that spent a few years in the US and the paranoia is ingrained. Helps control the populace I guess.
/. account may have his personal website info on it or previous posts could point to that. Whois will get you fingered in a second. No imaginary lookup table required.
Besides, the guy's
Even if it is far fetched to you, someone with direct experience or firsthand accounts of reprisals can be justified in such a response.
We commend tinfoil bedecked Americans who shun grocery store discount cards and always pay in cash and you want to bash this guy for being afraid for his family? The worst case scenario of each of those forms of "paranoia" should bring things back into focus.
From someone's sig he on /. (visualize the Apple vs PC commercial)
Apple: Hey, what you got there?
PC: Games...
Apple: Can I play, too.
PC: Nope.
Nuff said.
"I think it's reasonable to require demonstration of the existence of a creator here before we call disbelief "anti-creator bias".
/. Creationists are referred to as morons, ignorant, stupid, defective, intellectually flawed, and many other derisive terms that are used to call into question their sanity and mental acuity.
Just jumping in for a second to clear things up. Framing his comment as you do defies the experience of reading
I think the GP poster was referring to this pervasive attitude and not to "disbelief" as you put it. The fact that you don't see this type of abusive prejudice is interesting to me. It conjures up thoughts of selective attention in overdrive.
And the key mistake you are making in the argument is that you are confusing a military operation with political problem. Even with post-invasion losses included, this has been one of the least bloody operations in US history.
The military has done and is doing a fantastic job. The political ramifications of the invasion and subsequent nation building haven't been managed well. No this isn't Bush bashing exclusively, it a general condemnation of all of our elected federal officials and the way they navigated the post-invasion political minefield.
Damn straight. I can always hear clicking and humming of a certain type on my PC speakers and headphones 3-5 seconds before my cell phone rings.
It freaked my wife out until I finally let her in on what was happening. From her perspective I was just sitting there using headphones and then I am picking up the phone and talking to people, without even hearing the phone ring.
If they want to collect my virtual money, they will need to make an IRS guild with IRS tax collector characters in game to come and get it.
I will be more than happy to give them their percentage.
However I don't want to hear any complaints of "griefing" when I PK their asses into oblivion. The more they tax the more of their asses I will hand to them. Tit for tat, and all that.
On a similar note, if they want to collect REAL money for my virtual game cash I don't want to hear any complaints of "assault and battery" when I "WTFPWN teh n00b" workers in the local IRS tax office.
If they can blur the line between what is real and what is virtual, so can I.
It was something I built as a child, around 8 through 10 years old.
Thanks to generous relatives and a well know predeliction for LEGOS, I had am almost inexhaustable supply (more than 2 tall kitchen trash cans full) of space/moon themed legos.
Combine that with ample floor space in my playroom and a huge piece of plywood and you have the ingredients for the larges LEGO moonbase in history.
Essentially what I made was a lunar landing site by covering the plywood with moon texture lego tiles. On top of that I built, over the greater part of 2 years, a "lunar base" complete with, among other things, a launch pad, landing strip, housing quarters, energy reactor, elevated tram system, munitions dump/armory, and weapons installations to defend against land and space attacks. Not to mention numerous spacecraft.
Everything was reasoned out as well as a child's mind could and everything was designed straight from my imagination. Major upgrades came in August (my birthday) and December (Christmas) after the family got even more Legos for me. There were even major rebuilds, whether from "space attacks," sister attacks, or just revamping because of newer or "better" ideas.
At its peak I needed another piece of plywood to contain part of it. It never ceased to amaze my friends, relatives, and even my parent's friends. More importantly I had a freakin blast making it; it was more fun making and redesigning than "playing" with it.
And then, as only a child can do, I disasembled it without a thought. The Legos got tossed in the garbage cans (not to throw away but to store them) and I eventually gave them to a friend's younger brother when I was in high school.
So, yeah it was only for fun and yeah it wasn't of any use to anyone else but me, but it was the neatest thing I ever made. Sometimes I kinda miss it.
You forget the other side of the equation.
Rewmember that poisoning someone is a very personal act of violence. It could be that the KGB used the Polonium to make sure that Litvinenko knew who killed him.
In vendetta killings it is always sweeter if the victim knows just who is killing them. Anonomyous "Pwned" messages don't suffice. You have gotta leave your tag. What better way to do it than by using a 138 day halflife radioactive element that is obviously made ina nuclear reactor and would cost a million dollars to buy. If that ain't a government calling card I don't know what is.
From the linked text:
"If you really wanted tom poison someone"
Freudian slip much?
Speaking of expensive things, have you SEEN the prices for a pound of marijuana lately?
I know it doesn't grow on trees or anything but...oh wait...
Damn straight.
I have always thought that ubiqutous braile might even allow some sighted people to learn it through daily repetetion. Imagine it on door handles (not just rest rooms) so that every time you open a door in a public place you are learning to identify braile. Also imagine dual text/braile books available to children as they learn to read in every school.
The payoff comes when the power is out or (worst case secnario?) there is a fire and visibility is zero and you need to identify a safe exit route. Or, when old age arrives and macular degeneration (or some other malady) takes your sight, you are already prepared. Even reading glasses would become almost unnecessary if everyone learned braile; provided menus and other reading materials were dual braile/text. Even someting as simple as reading a book in the dark would be a benefit.
Making money more easily identified will, in much the same way as the scenario I describe above, not only help the blind but will help the sighted as well. The results will be fewer mistakes with change, being able to check your pocket cashflow by feel, and drug deals could be conducted in complete darkness.
Ok that last one may not be a benefit for most of us but I am sure someone will appreciate it.
"The US military has always had a very warped view regarding the benefits that technology in a war can give them"
Infantry is the queen of battle.
Technology is there to support the infantry. Whether in the form of air support, tanks/armor, surveilance, or communications. All of it is there to make the infantry more effective.
Just because you do not understand the military (obviouls from your comments about Viet Nam) and how it works dosen't mean that the people that run it are stupid. In fact some of the greatest minds in history were revealed through the military. Closer to home you will find that many of the great minds in the US are in the military. And, in power-centric countries many of the best minds are pressed into military officership.
If you were to study military science and military history more you might learn important facts about why US military campaigns are run the way they are. In addition you could even form educated opinions about the way modern wars are waged.
Technology gives a massive boost in combat. Unfortunately in our society, where the lives of our soldiers and citizens are respected more than just about anywhere else, the cost of battle is always high. The military failures we have had can be weighed out in the worth of our young men and women who volunteer to fight for us. When we think the cost is too high we stop. Other countries, where human life is considered property of the government, do not have this limitation.
Our solution? We compensate for the value we place on our soldiers lives by spending money on technology to help them.
"The black holes that are getting created here will not destroy the earth."
Suuuure! That's what you said the last time the Earth was destroyed.
I keep hearing on the news that the American stock is at an "all time low."
If that's true, couldn't he just could form a hostile takeover and, like, BUY the place? Why be the president when you can be the owner?
"if you do not vote, you forfeit all right to complain about anything your government does until november 2008"
/. poll where one of the rules is that there is no complaining about the lack of poll selections? Just so you know, 90% of the posts in those discussions are ABOUT THE LACK OF OPTIONS! I'm sure you, given sufficient mod points, whould moderate all those offtopic and troll, right? Even better just delete their posts. They shouldn't have a right to talk about that, right?
Bullshit.
Every time someone gets voted in the voters have to put up with the hypocritical backsliding where at least 50% of the promises the party leadership and candidates campaigned on go straight out the window. Now, when you have a voter that is split between parties in representation of the major issues of the day, that voter has to be a mindreader to know which platform points the elected official is going to toss out and which he will pursue with all the half-assed vigor a lifetime politician can muster between shagging underage pages and counting his frozen money.
In a two party system where both parties manipulate the voters to get into office and then immediately discard the issues that were used to cajole and bribe their voters, EVERYONE has a right to complain. In other words if the decision before us is between lying fuckhead scumball #1 who screwed us for 4/6 years already , or lying fuckhead scumball #2 who can't wait to get in and put the screws to us in new and interesting ways, you think that no one has the right to complain if they abstain from supporting a lying fuckhead scumball? I beg to differ.
Lets look at an analogy that mimics your position. How about a
How about another analogy that we hear all the time that sounds really close to your position: If you haven't served in the military you cannot comment on military topics and you certainly can't contradict anyone who has been in the military. More bullshit. Discussions aren't enriched by disqualifying people's comments because of a certain act that they do or do not perform. The reason and intelligence behind their statements is all that is worthy or unworthy.
Stop telling me (and alot of other people) why they can't complain and start listening to why people aren't voting. Alot of it has to do with the fucked up candidates lobbed in front of us every 4 years, from both sides.
Speaking of, I can't wait for 2008 elections wnen I might actually vote again. Having a US president with the last name so close to Ossama appeals to my sense of irony!
Sorry, what's an R-Tard?