If you're at the store, and you take a jar of peanut butter and later place it on the shelf of the produce aisle, did you shoplift?
It depends. Did you tell the store owner that it went "missing" and then plan to retrieve it later when no one else is looking?
(Either way, you're at the very least a huge douche, especially if you're the kind that puts frozen or other perishable goods in random places in the store. That point, you've at least committed conversion.)
If you want to get technical, in the classic torts, you are correct that this is theft and not conversion. However, he's not being charged in a tort case. He's being charged for a violation of the Economic Espionage Act, and the relevant section is called "theft of trade secrets." (18 USC 1832)
So, you can either go informal, in which case "theft" is a reasonable, common word for taking someone else's stuff without their permission. Or you can go legalistic, in which case, the charge being applied to him is called "theft" as a matter of statutory law.
Perhaps Church Rock would be a better example? Shame they didn't do hardly any follow up studies on the effects on the people, being poor native Americans why bother.
That was more of a mining disaster than a nuclear power disaster and would have had similar cleanup issues if the heavy metal contamination was non-radioactive.
Mining disasters are frequently rife with issues of irresponsibility and expenses dumped on taxpayers, poor government oversight due to local corruption, and issues of environmental justice (i.e. the fact that polluting industries tend to seek out poor communities to avoid NIMBYism and to get locals to look the other way when a "job creator" is coming to town). The potential issues of racism and state & federal governments taking any opportunity to shaft Native Americans are just a cherry on top in this case -- but largely irrelevant to the question of the safety of nuclear power.
While he whitewashes the morality of the issue, Jared Diamond's "Collapse" has a pretty good introduction to all the horrors the mining industry creates and why.
The DOE's cleanup job is a joke here. I refuse to support any new nuclear power plant in the U.S. until it can be proven that the mess that results can be cleaned up.
Now, that's a bit too far. Hanford was contaminated long before we had any good understanding of how to properly contain radioactive waste, had any solid idea of what kind of harm it could do, and had any kind of national environmental regulation that established standards for proper handling. Oh, and it was a military site which meant that it would have likely been handled incredibly irresponsibly due to the lack of accountability that secrecy provides them.
You should consider whether or not in the current framework with a civilian project forced to obey modern standards whether or not such a mess is likely to occur again and whether it's likely to occur in a manner that creates such a nightmare in the first place. It may still be reasonable to conclude, "No," but you really should hold up Hanford as the measuring stick for what can be done over 50 years (and an entire environmental movement) later.
There's 100,000 pounds of this KILLER element released! Yes, but it's spread out evenly though 10 million tons of slurry over 100 square miles. You could probably strip-mine the top 5 feet of the same area in a city and find higher concentrations.
Yes, but the difference is that isn't not all in a highly soluble form with a high surface area. This is why mine tailings are such a huge source of acid and metal contamination. What would take millions of years to expose to streams and waters via natural erosion is ground up and dumped straight into waterways by industry. The resulting contamination is much higher than you would find by running water over the top of the material before processing.
I wonder how many men, if going away with perceptions like these, would be ready to ascribe it to some "them vs. me" issue. I mean, one can't conclude on basis of statements like these that some sort of improper discrimination wasn't going on, but neither can one conclude that it was.
Not many, for much the same reasons that polls show that white consider us to be living in a post-racial worlds while nearly everyone else in America disagrees strongly.
You don't generally notice discrimination if you're not the one being discriminated against, since most of it will happen out of your sight. You may have some awareness that "some people" still act that way, but it will seem remote to you and likely overblown.
Does no one remember what it was like to be a geek or nerd in high school? Sometimes people act against you with open, gleeful hostility, but most of the time, it's just a subtle undercurrent of preconceived notions and dismissive attitudes. Guess what? It doesn't really go away when we get older. It just happens to different people.
The whole "We changed our mind and decided that Pluto isn't a planet" is bullshit. Just say that Pluto and Eris are both planets and be done with it.
Define "planet" in a meaningful, non-arbitrary way that does not include dozens of other bodies not traditionally recognized as planets in our solar system (e.g. Ceres). It's believed the Kuiper belt has hundreds of dwarf planets. You want to promote them all just to not have to give up a mnemonic from childhood?
that is why you don't tax "necessary" consumption, like purchase of food, payment of rent payment of electricity, water... (0% tax) and you do tax all luxury items like food in "high" category like Caviar, Champagne, expensive vines, expensive cars, expensive houses/villas, hotel bills, private planes yachts...
Woah, woah, woah. How do you determine what is and isn't a luxury item within the same category?
Let's take food, for example. So caviar is taxable, but what else is? Fatty tuna? Well, it's pretty expensive, but where do you draw the line between taxable tuna and not taxable tuna? Is there a tuna chart or fat percentage? You mention expensive wines, but where is the line on what's "expensive?" $100 bottles? $50 bottles? $20 bottles? Anything that doesn't come in a box or a 4-pack? Is organic food a luxury? Is meat? Do you tax steak at a Longhorn's different from Waffle House? Hell, are all restaurants luxuries or not, since people can just cook at home?
From the sound of things, you are creating a tax code far more detailed, controlling, and onerous than our existing income tax code. Furthermore, will its dividing lines move with inflation? How do you set up POS check-out terminals to handle this? What about private sellers (e.g. garage sales & eBay)? Etc. etc.
you can make as much for society as you want tax free, but as soon as you start spending resources you start loosing money
Compounding interest, my friend. Those who can afford to save will see their money grow, and even if they get taxed the same later, they still had a chance to grow in wealth far faster than someone who had to spend it all on necessities.
Why shouldn't I be able to choose exactly what I decide to give my kids? Seems pretty presumptuous on your part that you know how to distribute my money upon my death than I do.
Because you're dead. You don't really matter anymore. What does matter is whether your kids should be given a windfall of wealth and power without having to do anything to earn it. You may have worked quite hard for your money and thus deserved the benefits of it. But they don't. Unless you taught them how to earn it on their own, at which point they don't really need it.
That said, I only support a high estate tax on wealth over a certain (high) amount. The estate tax should be an anti-aristocracy measure and not something that applies to even the professional class (e.g. doctors, lawyers, etc.) who still have to work hard for their money. It's good to be able to give the family home to your kids. It's not good to be able to ensure they never have to work a day to enjoy all the privileges of wealth.
I think YOU are seeing the wrong side of it. Why is taxing income the best way to tax people? Income is wealth generation, we shouldn't tax it. Taxing consumption would be much better.
Taxing consumption disproportionately hits the lower and middle classes, who consume a greater percentage of their income than do the upper classes. It puts the burden of shouldering the government on those least able to afford it. In that manner it would act as a strong barrier to income mobility by preserving wealth for the wealthy and taking it most from the least wealthy.
Most phones except for the American Company Apple uses a Micro USB.
Oh, please -- put down the flag.
As an American Apple user, I hate the fact that Apple doesn't use the same charger / data cable as everyone else and that, worse, my iPhone 5 isn't even compatible with my iPhone 3 charger. It's an overpriced, short POS that has a pointless chip in it to prevent third party cables from working properly. It's also not water-resistant (which is great in case you accidentally drop the end of it into a glass of water on your desk). All in all, Apple's new charger has significantly worsened my enjoyment of the phone.
So, I'm all for standardization on something nearly everyone else has agreed is sane. Apple gets no free pass for being American with me.
Why do they think this is a matter for governments to decide?
Same reason each country has a standard railroad track, a standard power outlet, etc. Letting industries decide on mutually incompatible standards largely serves to lock in consumers and also creates great inefficiencies in the economy due to incompatbility. Standardization would allow business like cafes & airports to offer charging solutions that fit all their customers, and it would produce less physical waste.
Not really. UV vision is pretty common among insects & birds. Additionally, it's pretty common in lizards and fish that live close to the surface. And don't get us started on the ridiculously overengineered eyes of the mantis shrimp.
Among mammals, it's common in nocturnal species like mice & bats, and we've started to notice it in reindeer and have theorized that it might be common in snow-adapted species.
Funny how 30-40 sec into the video they've identified UV discharges from a tower that appears to have a flock of sheep browsing under it. Perhaps not so scary after all?
What makes you think sheep can see UV light?
Most mammals that can see UV light are nocturnal or live in arctic conditions where it helps deal with snow-blindness (according to current theories). It's also worth noting that mammals whose eyes filter out UV (like humans) tend to have better visual resolution.
Sheep are diurnal animals that rely heavily on vision for defense from predators. They also, like most dichromatic animals, have roughly red & green cones with no blue cones. It's pretty unlikely they can see the flashes.
That movie has aged shockingly well, despite the fashions and workplace technology. Every single issue (other than leftist militants) is still just as relevant today.
The right wing should be opposed on free-market principles. The left wing should be opposed on environmental grounds. So which politicians should be in favour of this regulation again?
The pragmatists & cynics who need local, wealthy donors to bankroll their campaigns.
Of course desalination is going to require more energy, which is why the 'activists' oppose every energy project that comes along, even these: [link to solar farm v. brown tortoise]. If there's an opportunity to stick it to the human species, they will take it.
*sigh*
First of all, like any group, there are factions within that place different priorities on different things. Take for example, the split in the Republican party between the social conservatives and the libertarians on issues like medical marijuana. Or between the business community and the law & order faction on illegal immigration. What's going on here is a battle between conservationists and green energy people, but you can't just selectively pick one faction's views and attribute it to everyone under the same tent. That's just as unfair as when liberals were screaming "Blood for oil!" about Iraq when there were a wide variety of reasons that Republicans thought the war was a good idea.
So the second thing is that neither group is motivated by wanting to "stick it to the human species." That's ridiculous on its face, and I think you have to know that. The first things you should think when looking at a political cause is, "Why would idealists support it?" and "Why would selfish people support it?" Then, evaluate any claims the opposition makes in that light and see if they pass a sniff test or if they just sound like self-serving demonization.
People who want to preserve other species aren't doing out of hatred for humanity. They have a variety of idealistic reasons: some have a desire to preserve the turtles for the future generations for aesthetic and utilitarian reasons, some think it's a matter of the other species' right to exist alongside us, some worry more about the way that removing a species can have massive network effects on the environment in unexpected ways. Then of course, there's selfish reasons like NIMBYism, e.g. Cape Cod windmills. No one is going, "Ha ha! Another blow against the human race!" (Well, okay no one but a few nuts, but every political group has got a few.)
So, no, that's not the reason. You may have different priorities from conservationists, but you do yourself and the country a major disservice by claiming your foes are all baby-eating monsters. Nothing of value will get done in this country again if we don't all learn to talk like adults to each other.
We just need to get serious about desalination.... But of course, you will never hear this argument from "environmental activists," because their whole agenda is fewer people, subsisting in increasingly primitive conditions. If they could engineer a plague that would wipe us all out, they would do it.
Oh, come off it. You won't hear many environmentalists arguing for desalination because (a) it has enormous energy costs which themselves have environmental impacts, and (b) it's just a band-aid over overconsumption, and it won't discourage people from continuing on an unsustainable trend until we get to a point that technology can't solve.
Plus, you shouldn't mentally lump an entire group in with its extremists. Do you really feel it's fair when people paint all conservatives as white supremacists just because that elements exists at the fringes of the conservative movement? Then it's no more fair to paint all environmentalists as neo-primitive genocidal maniacs. Yeah, they're there, but they aren't the majority by a long shot.
By far, most of us are motivated by concerns over human survival. We're concerned that humanity is steering itself off a cliff and are a willing to make a few economic sacrifices right now to avoid catastrophic ones later. (You know, just like most conservatives want us to do with our national spending.) It's just all about long-term planning and responsible use of resources. It does not involve killing people -- that's what we want to stop from happening.
The actual power given to them by the constitution is the usual judicial power. Or in other words: guilty, not guilty, adjudication withheld, case dismissed, etc. They have original jurisdiction in cases that involve the states, ambassadors and so forth. Nowhere does the constitution say or imply they can declare a law unconstitutional. That is done by the constitution itself. That's the whole damned point of it.
You need to really read Marbury v. Madison (1803). The Court really lays out the reason why they have to. The judges must hold every law up to the standards of the Constitution, if they do not judge the Constitutionality of laws, then the Constitution has no meaning, because Congress can pass any law they feel like, and there is no one else who can say, "Hey, I don't think that law is actually legal."
Without anyone to actually enforce the Constitution, it's a meaningless piece of paper.
The constitution is written in plain English.
That's actually, in many ways, the problem. If the Constitution were written out in far more formal language, there would be less wiggle room and thus less need for interpretation.
This theory that the Supreme Court somehow wields exclusive power to interpret the Constitution is a throwback to the oracles of ancient mysticism.
They have no such authority either implied or exclusive.
Well, there's the Court's appellate review power in Article III, Section 2. You know, in the Constitution itself. Then there's Marbury v. Madison (1803) which solidly lays out the reasons for judicial review and points out that the Constitution has absolutely no force if the courts are not bound by it and that being bound by it requires them to interpret it when laws are in conflict.
Also, you have to understand that the Constitution didn't appear out of a vacuum and set the starting point from which an entire legal system would sprout. The Constitution was written in context of an existing English common law legal system used across the 13 colonies and uses terms that would have been well understood in that context and did not need specific definition, as you would see in a modern contract or statute.
For example, what is "corruption of blood" in Article III, Section 3? If you aren't an 18th century lawyer, you probably would have no idea since it isn't defined. A much bigger definition problem: What exactly is "due process?" It's not explained anywhere in the Constitution itself and is defined solely through court decisions.
But the ninth amendment does, and the combined weight of the ninth and tenth amendments draws a very clear dark line around the limited powers of a limited government and says in a very clear and unambiguous voice: "this far, and no further."
Doubtful. It's highly unlikely that the framers who wrote Article I intended to immediately neuter all powers Congress had at the time of ratification and to toss everything out. The intention was simply to state the the Constitution didn't grant the government the power to take away all rights not covered by the Bill of Rights and that it was limited to the powers enumerated in the Constitution.
Of course, the problem here is that the ability to regulate interstate commerce is enumerated in the Constitution. You can't really get around that fact.
It is NOT solely up to the Supreme Court to make the kinds of decisions you claim they have the authority to make. Rights retained by the people (9th Amendment), by definition, are retained by the people, and it is up to the people -- not the government -- to decide what those rights are.
So, who gets to interpret that Amendment? Might it be the same people who interpret the rest of the Constitution? Why, it turns out that it is, especially since the question of the Supreme Court's power of review was settled during the lifetimes of the framers.
By the way, here's the full text of the 9th and 10th Amendments:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Interstate Commerce Clause is part of Article I, defining the powers delegated to Congress by the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment explicitly does not trump those powers defined in the main body of the Constitution, because that is the document which defines the powers delegated to the United States. Both amendments are catch-all clauses for "things we didn't think of," and not a negation of the things they did think of.
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If you're at the store, and you take a jar of peanut butter and later place it on the shelf of the produce aisle, did you shoplift?
It depends. Did you tell the store owner that it went "missing" and then plan to retrieve it later when no one else is looking?
(Either way, you're at the very least a huge douche, especially if you're the kind that puts frozen or other perishable goods in random places in the store. That point, you've at least committed conversion.)
If you want to get technical, in the classic torts, you are correct that this is theft and not conversion. However, he's not being charged in a tort case. He's being charged for a violation of the Economic Espionage Act, and the relevant section is called "theft of trade secrets." (18 USC 1832)
So, you can either go informal, in which case "theft" is a reasonable, common word for taking someone else's stuff without their permission. Or you can go legalistic, in which case, the charge being applied to him is called "theft" as a matter of statutory law.
Either way, checkmate.
At which point does one simply write off sleep for the night if solely because getting a small amount feels worse than no sleep at all?
At my age? Never. ANY sleep is better than no sleep. Otherwise you spend the day microsleeping and only waking when your head dips.
Perhaps Church Rock would be a better example? Shame they didn't do hardly any follow up studies on the effects on the people, being poor native Americans why bother.
That was more of a mining disaster than a nuclear power disaster and would have had similar cleanup issues if the heavy metal contamination was non-radioactive.
Mining disasters are frequently rife with issues of irresponsibility and expenses dumped on taxpayers, poor government oversight due to local corruption, and issues of environmental justice (i.e. the fact that polluting industries tend to seek out poor communities to avoid NIMBYism and to get locals to look the other way when a "job creator" is coming to town). The potential issues of racism and state & federal governments taking any opportunity to shaft Native Americans are just a cherry on top in this case -- but largely irrelevant to the question of the safety of nuclear power.
While he whitewashes the morality of the issue, Jared Diamond's "Collapse" has a pretty good introduction to all the horrors the mining industry creates and why.
The DOE's cleanup job is a joke here. I refuse to support any new nuclear power plant in the U.S. until it can be proven that the mess that results can be cleaned up.
Now, that's a bit too far. Hanford was contaminated long before we had any good understanding of how to properly contain radioactive waste, had any solid idea of what kind of harm it could do, and had any kind of national environmental regulation that established standards for proper handling. Oh, and it was a military site which meant that it would have likely been handled incredibly irresponsibly due to the lack of accountability that secrecy provides them.
You should consider whether or not in the current framework with a civilian project forced to obey modern standards whether or not such a mess is likely to occur again and whether it's likely to occur in a manner that creates such a nightmare in the first place. It may still be reasonable to conclude, "No," but you really should hold up Hanford as the measuring stick for what can be done over 50 years (and an entire environmental movement) later.
There's 100,000 pounds of this KILLER element released! Yes, but it's spread out evenly though 10 million tons of slurry over 100 square miles. You could probably strip-mine the top 5 feet of the same area in a city and find higher concentrations.
Yes, but the difference is that isn't not all in a highly soluble form with a high surface area. This is why mine tailings are such a huge source of acid and metal contamination. What would take millions of years to expose to streams and waters via natural erosion is ground up and dumped straight into waterways by industry. The resulting contamination is much higher than you would find by running water over the top of the material before processing.
Anything that orbits the Sun directly in a fairly circular orbit is a planet. Why shouldn't Ceres be one?
Do comets count? How "off" of an orbit do you have to be not to count (and yet for Pluto to count).
Where's the big deal?
Where's the big deal in Pluto not being a planet?
I wonder how many men, if going away with perceptions like these, would be ready to ascribe it to some "them vs. me" issue. I mean, one can't conclude on basis of statements like these that some sort of improper discrimination wasn't going on, but neither can one conclude that it was.
Not many, for much the same reasons that polls show that white consider us to be living in a post-racial worlds while nearly everyone else in America disagrees strongly.
You don't generally notice discrimination if you're not the one being discriminated against, since most of it will happen out of your sight. You may have some awareness that "some people" still act that way, but it will seem remote to you and likely overblown.
Does no one remember what it was like to be a geek or nerd in high school? Sometimes people act against you with open, gleeful hostility, but most of the time, it's just a subtle undercurrent of preconceived notions and dismissive attitudes. Guess what? It doesn't really go away when we get older. It just happens to different people.
The whole "We changed our mind and decided that Pluto isn't a planet" is bullshit. Just say that Pluto and Eris are both planets and be done with it.
Define "planet" in a meaningful, non-arbitrary way that does not include dozens of other bodies not traditionally recognized as planets in our solar system (e.g. Ceres). It's believed the Kuiper belt has hundreds of dwarf planets. You want to promote them all just to not have to give up a mnemonic from childhood?
that is why you don't tax "necessary" consumption, like purchase of food, payment of rent payment of electricity, water ... (0% tax) ...
and you do tax all luxury items like food in "high" category like Caviar, Champagne, expensive vines, expensive cars, expensive houses/villas, hotel bills, private planes yachts
Woah, woah, woah. How do you determine what is and isn't a luxury item within the same category?
Let's take food, for example. So caviar is taxable, but what else is? Fatty tuna? Well, it's pretty expensive, but where do you draw the line between taxable tuna and not taxable tuna? Is there a tuna chart or fat percentage? You mention expensive wines, but where is the line on what's "expensive?" $100 bottles? $50 bottles? $20 bottles? Anything that doesn't come in a box or a 4-pack? Is organic food a luxury? Is meat? Do you tax steak at a Longhorn's different from Waffle House? Hell, are all restaurants luxuries or not, since people can just cook at home?
From the sound of things, you are creating a tax code far more detailed, controlling, and onerous than our existing income tax code. Furthermore, will its dividing lines move with inflation? How do you set up POS check-out terminals to handle this? What about private sellers (e.g. garage sales & eBay)? Etc. etc.
you can make as much for society as you want tax free, but as soon as you start spending resources you start loosing money
Compounding interest, my friend. Those who can afford to save will see their money grow, and even if they get taxed the same later, they still had a chance to grow in wealth far faster than someone who had to spend it all on necessities.
Why shouldn't I be able to choose exactly what I decide to give my kids? Seems pretty presumptuous on your part that you know how to distribute my money upon my death than I do.
Because you're dead. You don't really matter anymore. What does matter is whether your kids should be given a windfall of wealth and power without having to do anything to earn it. You may have worked quite hard for your money and thus deserved the benefits of it. But they don't. Unless you taught them how to earn it on their own, at which point they don't really need it.
That said, I only support a high estate tax on wealth over a certain (high) amount. The estate tax should be an anti-aristocracy measure and not something that applies to even the professional class (e.g. doctors, lawyers, etc.) who still have to work hard for their money. It's good to be able to give the family home to your kids. It's not good to be able to ensure they never have to work a day to enjoy all the privileges of wealth.
I think YOU are seeing the wrong side of it. Why is taxing income the best way to tax people? Income is wealth generation, we shouldn't tax it. Taxing consumption would be much better.
Taxing consumption disproportionately hits the lower and middle classes, who consume a greater percentage of their income than do the upper classes. It puts the burden of shouldering the government on those least able to afford it. In that manner it would act as a strong barrier to income mobility by preserving wealth for the wealthy and taking it most from the least wealthy.
Most phones except for the American Company Apple uses a Micro USB.
Oh, please -- put down the flag.
As an American Apple user, I hate the fact that Apple doesn't use the same charger / data cable as everyone else and that, worse, my iPhone 5 isn't even compatible with my iPhone 3 charger. It's an overpriced, short POS that has a pointless chip in it to prevent third party cables from working properly. It's also not water-resistant (which is great in case you accidentally drop the end of it into a glass of water on your desk). All in all, Apple's new charger has significantly worsened my enjoyment of the phone.
So, I'm all for standardization on something nearly everyone else has agreed is sane. Apple gets no free pass for being American with me.
Why do they think this is a matter for governments to decide?
Same reason each country has a standard railroad track, a standard power outlet, etc. Letting industries decide on mutually incompatible standards largely serves to lock in consumers and also creates great inefficiencies in the economy due to incompatbility. Standardization would allow business like cafes & airports to offer charging solutions that fit all their customers, and it would produce less physical waste.
Just another excuse for wacko liberals to demand we abandon civilization and go back to our caves.
Because, of course, there couldn't possibly be a technological solution to this. It's only "do it cheap" or "I hate America."
Not really. UV vision is pretty common among insects & birds. Additionally, it's pretty common in lizards and fish that live close to the surface. And don't get us started on the ridiculously overengineered eyes of the mantis shrimp.
Among mammals, it's common in nocturnal species like mice & bats, and we've started to notice it in reindeer and have theorized that it might be common in snow-adapted species.
Funny how 30-40 sec into the video they've identified UV discharges from a tower that appears to have a flock of sheep browsing under it. Perhaps not so scary after all?
What makes you think sheep can see UV light?
Most mammals that can see UV light are nocturnal or live in arctic conditions where it helps deal with snow-blindness (according to current theories). It's also worth noting that mammals whose eyes filter out UV (like humans) tend to have better visual resolution.
Sheep are diurnal animals that rely heavily on vision for defense from predators. They also, like most dichromatic animals, have roughly red & green cones with no blue cones. It's pretty unlikely they can see the flashes.
That movie has aged shockingly well, despite the fashions and workplace technology. Every single issue (other than leftist militants) is still just as relevant today.
The right wing should be opposed on free-market principles. The left wing should be opposed on environmental grounds. So which politicians should be in favour of this regulation again?
The pragmatists & cynics who need local, wealthy donors to bankroll their campaigns.
Of course desalination is going to require more energy, which is why the 'activists' oppose every energy project that comes along, even these: [link to solar farm v. brown tortoise].
If there's an opportunity to stick it to the human species, they will take it.
*sigh*
First of all, like any group, there are factions within that place different priorities on different things. Take for example, the split in the Republican party between the social conservatives and the libertarians on issues like medical marijuana. Or between the business community and the law & order faction on illegal immigration. What's going on here is a battle between conservationists and green energy people, but you can't just selectively pick one faction's views and attribute it to everyone under the same tent. That's just as unfair as when liberals were screaming "Blood for oil!" about Iraq when there were a wide variety of reasons that Republicans thought the war was a good idea.
So the second thing is that neither group is motivated by wanting to "stick it to the human species." That's ridiculous on its face, and I think you have to know that. The first things you should think when looking at a political cause is, "Why would idealists support it?" and "Why would selfish people support it?" Then, evaluate any claims the opposition makes in that light and see if they pass a sniff test or if they just sound like self-serving demonization.
People who want to preserve other species aren't doing out of hatred for humanity. They have a variety of idealistic reasons: some have a desire to preserve the turtles for the future generations for aesthetic and utilitarian reasons, some think it's a matter of the other species' right to exist alongside us, some worry more about the way that removing a species can have massive network effects on the environment in unexpected ways. Then of course, there's selfish reasons like NIMBYism, e.g. Cape Cod windmills. No one is going, "Ha ha! Another blow against the human race!" (Well, okay no one but a few nuts, but every political group has got a few.)
So, no, that's not the reason. You may have different priorities from conservationists, but you do yourself and the country a major disservice by claiming your foes are all baby-eating monsters. Nothing of value will get done in this country again if we don't all learn to talk like adults to each other.
We just need to get serious about desalination. ... But of course, you will never hear this argument from "environmental activists," because their whole agenda is fewer people, subsisting in increasingly primitive conditions. If they could engineer a plague that would wipe us all out, they would do it.
Oh, come off it. You won't hear many environmentalists arguing for desalination because (a) it has enormous energy costs which themselves have environmental impacts, and (b) it's just a band-aid over overconsumption, and it won't discourage people from continuing on an unsustainable trend until we get to a point that technology can't solve.
Plus, you shouldn't mentally lump an entire group in with its extremists. Do you really feel it's fair when people paint all conservatives as white supremacists just because that elements exists at the fringes of the conservative movement? Then it's no more fair to paint all environmentalists as neo-primitive genocidal maniacs. Yeah, they're there, but they aren't the majority by a long shot.
By far, most of us are motivated by concerns over human survival. We're concerned that humanity is steering itself off a cliff and are a willing to make a few economic sacrifices right now to avoid catastrophic ones later. (You know, just like most conservatives want us to do with our national spending.) It's just all about long-term planning and responsible use of resources. It does not involve killing people -- that's what we want to stop from happening.
it solves the upskirt issue, the paparazzi problem, and ends those annoying red light cameras.
It also solves the problem of security cameras if you're a burglar and prevents cops from being worried about recordings of police brutality. Neat!
The actual power given to them by the constitution is the usual judicial power. Or in other words: guilty, not guilty, adjudication withheld, case dismissed, etc. They have original jurisdiction in cases that involve the states, ambassadors and so forth. Nowhere does the constitution say or imply they can declare a law unconstitutional. That is done by the constitution itself. That's the whole damned point of it.
You need to really read Marbury v. Madison (1803). The Court really lays out the reason why they have to. The judges must hold every law up to the standards of the Constitution, if they do not judge the Constitutionality of laws, then the Constitution has no meaning, because Congress can pass any law they feel like, and there is no one else who can say, "Hey, I don't think that law is actually legal."
Without anyone to actually enforce the Constitution, it's a meaningless piece of paper.
The constitution is written in plain English.
That's actually, in many ways, the problem. If the Constitution were written out in far more formal language, there would be less wiggle room and thus less need for interpretation.
This theory that the Supreme Court somehow wields exclusive power to interpret the Constitution is a throwback to the oracles of ancient mysticism.
They have no such authority either implied or exclusive.
Well, there's the Court's appellate review power in Article III, Section 2. You know, in the Constitution itself. Then there's Marbury v. Madison (1803) which solidly lays out the reasons for judicial review and points out that the Constitution has absolutely no force if the courts are not bound by it and that being bound by it requires them to interpret it when laws are in conflict.
Also, you have to understand that the Constitution didn't appear out of a vacuum and set the starting point from which an entire legal system would sprout. The Constitution was written in context of an existing English common law legal system used across the 13 colonies and uses terms that would have been well understood in that context and did not need specific definition, as you would see in a modern contract or statute.
For example, what is "corruption of blood" in Article III, Section 3? If you aren't an 18th century lawyer, you probably would have no idea since it isn't defined. A much bigger definition problem: What exactly is "due process?" It's not explained anywhere in the Constitution itself and is defined solely through court decisions.
But the ninth amendment does, and the combined weight of the ninth and tenth amendments draws a very clear dark line around the limited powers of a limited government and says in a very clear and unambiguous voice: "this far, and no further."
Doubtful. It's highly unlikely that the framers who wrote Article I intended to immediately neuter all powers Congress had at the time of ratification and to toss everything out. The intention was simply to state the the Constitution didn't grant the government the power to take away all rights not covered by the Bill of Rights and that it was limited to the powers enumerated in the Constitution.
Of course, the problem here is that the ability to regulate interstate commerce is enumerated in the Constitution. You can't really get around that fact.
It is NOT solely up to the Supreme Court to make the kinds of decisions you claim they have the authority to make. Rights retained by the people (9th Amendment), by definition, are retained by the people, and it is up to the people -- not the government -- to decide what those rights are.
So, who gets to interpret that Amendment? Might it be the same people who interpret the rest of the Constitution? Why, it turns out that it is, especially since the question of the Supreme Court's power of review was settled during the lifetimes of the framers.
By the way, here's the full text of the 9th and 10th Amendments:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The Interstate Commerce Clause is part of Article I, defining the powers delegated to Congress by the Constitution. The Tenth Amendment explicitly does not trump those powers defined in the main body of the Constitution, because that is the document which defines the powers delegated to the United States. Both amendments are catch-all clauses for "things we didn't think of," and not a negation of the things they did think of.