If you envision government primarily as a giant compulsory insurance monopoly, you certainly have a modern & fashionable way of looking at it. What could possibly go wrong...
Your assumptions make it sound like you want/have utilitarian government focused on generally econmic "benefiting" citizens (no doubt at the cost of un-benefitting others). Others argue that the purpose of government is only to defend people's rights to live in liberty to pursue their happiness. The latter is a less zero-sum-game view.
OK, if that's how low you think of your fellow citizens, why do you believe in democracy? (I get the sense that all this decrying of the teeeerrible influence of the rich is just about wanting to replace that influence by the self-designated less-rich elite. No thanks.)
More "say"? Equality of "quantity of speech" is a ludicrous standard. Electorally, the rich are way dis-empowered compared to the masses, whether based on simple capita counts, or contributions to the treasury, or indeed receipts from the treasury.
"It's well known that if you don't advertise you aren't going to win anything."
Then work on that problem: make people less gullible (if that's what you think all those proles really are).
Lessig appears to implicitly accept the idea that "money in political campaigns" = "corruption". Can it not be that the wealthy love their country enough to volunteer their own hard-earned wealth to improve it (as they see it)? The theory that every money-related act is necessarily self-interested (let alone corrupting) is naive.
Well, at least you didn't insult your opponents quite so openly this time. A lot of what you say is plausible, but you are doing a disservice by repeating Stevens' assertion that the recent Heller era decisions were somehow breaking with hundreds of years of precedent. That's not my understanding at all: it's more like the rise of the statist era (New Deal) started the more serious impediments on individuals' exercise of 2a rights.
(Look up a bit of the history US v. Miller, if you want to get disgusted with law sausage making - and one of the founding cases that let the New Deal era stuff hang around till Heller.)
"I don't think anybody argued your "straw man" position, that lethal self-defense is never necessary"
It wasn't a straw man... several posters here on thread made just that assertion.
"Do you accept that suicide or murders are sometimes successful? Are you prepared to sacrifice the lives of these people?"
Ah, the problem with your inversion is that it dreams that if the population were to be disarmed, suicide or murders would not occur (though means other than offensive firearms). So perhaps a compromise hypothetical - one which is quite realistic in fact - would go like... "Imagine a bad guy without a gun is trying to rob/kill/rape someone. Should that person get to defend herself effectively? If not with a gun, how else?"
Be really careful though in whose hands (in theory and in practice) the kill switch will fit. The cure (unconsentual shutdowns or other unintended consequences) may be worse than the disease (occasional theft).
I'm sorry, but with a concluding sentence that literally insults the intelligence of those opposed while claiming to take the high road, an argument such as yours earns little but eye-rolling.
At the least, it's progress for folks to admit that it's a dramatic change being contemplated, not merely correcting a little mistake or misunderstanding or something.
Your points as to the constitution being amendable are taken, as are imperfections of the times & people surrounding its creation. Current times & people are imperfect, and it is possible that philosophical well-educatedness has actually regressed since those days, so I wouldn't hold out much hope that new amendments would be well-considered just because they're no longer "out of date".
"You say that like it's necessarily a bad thing."
In this case, it would be a bad thing, for all the reasons the original "pointless editorializing" and its contemporaneous amplifications stated, which are still current and pressing.
I'm sorry, but I don't see an answer to my questions in yours.
Come clean out. In situations where lethal self-defence would be required, would you prefer the victims be unarmed? If the evidence you cite for "greater danger from your own gun than from others" turned out to be loony, would you change your mind?
The ACLU has usually been a left-wing organization, and thus usually only those civil rights favoured by that group have been championed. Heck, if the ACLU stood up for the second amendment too, the NRA wouldn't need to exist.
"all of the evidence makes plain that owning a gun is more of a threat to the gun owner and his family"
Can you imagine a situation where you would accept contrary evidence? Would such acceptance require you to completely flip around as your penile / psycho jokes and maybe even apologize?
Do you accept that lethal self-defence is sometimes necessary? Are you prepared to sacrifice the lives of these people?
My point was that by mashing together all these proxies, and presenting it as an edifice that can only fail if *all* parts fail, is an inappropriate burden of proof.
Slashdot Mirror
If you envision government primarily as a giant compulsory insurance monopoly, you certainly have a modern & fashionable way of looking at it. What could possibly go wrong ...
Your assumptions make it sound like you want/have utilitarian government focused on generally econmic "benefiting" citizens (no doubt at the cost of un-benefitting others). Others argue that the purpose of government is only to defend people's rights to live in liberty to pursue their happiness. The latter is a less zero-sum-game view.
OK, if that's how low you think of your fellow citizens, why do you believe in democracy? (I get the sense that all this decrying of the teeeerrible influence of the rich is just about wanting to replace that influence by the self-designated less-rich elite. No thanks.)
We are talking about money to support a political campaign/idea, not money to be used as income by a politician.
"he's got more say than that 90%"
More "say"? Equality of "quantity of speech" is a ludicrous standard. Electorally, the rich are way dis-empowered compared to the masses, whether based on simple capita counts, or contributions to the treasury, or indeed receipts from the treasury.
"It's well known that if you don't advertise you aren't going to win anything."
Then work on that problem: make people less gullible (if that's what you think all those proles really are).
Lessig appears to implicitly accept the idea that "money in political campaigns" = "corruption". Can it not be that the wealthy love their country enough to volunteer their own hard-earned wealth to improve it (as they see it)? The theory that every money-related act is necessarily self-interested (let alone corrupting) is naive.
Will no one rid me of this turbulent senator?
The pen may be mightier than the sword, but nothing is riskier than thought itself.
Common sense alert: people who are well rewarded work hard for their rewards.
Well, at least you didn't insult your opponents quite so openly this time. A lot of what you say is plausible, but you are doing a disservice by repeating Stevens' assertion that the recent Heller era decisions were somehow breaking with hundreds of years of precedent. That's not my understanding at all: it's more like the rise of the statist era (New Deal) started the more serious impediments on individuals' exercise of 2a rights.
(Look up a bit of the history US v. Miller, if you want to get disgusted with law sausage making - and one of the founding cases that let the New Deal era stuff hang around till Heller.)
"I don't think anybody argued your "straw man" position, that lethal self-defense is never necessary"
It wasn't a straw man ... several posters here on thread made just that assertion.
"Do you accept that suicide or murders are sometimes successful? Are you prepared to sacrifice the lives of these people?"
Ah, the problem with your inversion is that it dreams that if the population were to be disarmed, suicide or murders would not occur (though means other than offensive firearms). So perhaps a compromise hypothetical - one which is quite realistic in fact - would go like ... "Imagine a bad guy without a gun is trying to rob/kill/rape someone. Should that person get to defend herself effectively? If not with a gun, how else?"
Be really careful though in whose hands (in theory and in practice) the kill switch will fit. The cure (unconsentual shutdowns or other unintended consequences) may be worse than the disease (occasional theft).
IMEIs can sometimes (often?) be changed.
I'm sorry, but with a concluding sentence that literally insults the intelligence of those opposed while claiming to take the high road, an argument such as yours earns little but eye-rolling.
At the least, it's progress for folks to admit that it's a dramatic change being contemplated, not merely correcting a little mistake or misunderstanding or something.
Your points as to the constitution being amendable are taken, as are imperfections of the times & people surrounding its creation. Current times & people are imperfect, and it is possible that philosophical well-educatedness has actually regressed since those days, so I wouldn't hold out much hope that new amendments would be well-considered just because they're no longer "out of date".
"You say that like it's necessarily a bad thing."
In this case, it would be a bad thing, for all the reasons the original "pointless editorializing" and its contemporaneous amplifications stated, which are still current and pressing.
I'm sorry, but I don't see an answer to my questions in yours.
Come clean out. In situations where lethal self-defence would be required, would you prefer the victims be unarmed? If the evidence you cite for "greater danger from your own gun than from others" turned out to be loony, would you change your mind?
The ACLU has usually been a left-wing organization, and thus usually only those civil rights favoured by that group have been championed. Heck, if the ACLU stood up for the second amendment too, the NRA wouldn't need to exist.
"all of the evidence makes plain that owning a gun is more of a threat to the gun owner and his family"
Can you imagine a situation where you would accept contrary evidence? Would such acceptance require you to completely flip around as your penile / psycho jokes and maybe even apologize?
Do you accept that lethal self-defence is sometimes necessary? Are you prepared to sacrifice the lives of these people?
It's not a "re-examination". It's a butchering.
One wonders whether Mr. Beard had to do a lie detector run to prove his loyalty the cause(s) du jour.
It must be awkward for the ASF/OASIS fundraiser folks to have helped a reporter make it sound like they feel entitled to Apple's charity.
It is too easy to flip around that "analysis" with partisan rhetoric of the other polarity.
Or maybe it's questionable because the Lovejoy paper is based on the Amman/Wahl multiproxy work, which is far from uncontroversial.
My point was that by mashing together all these proxies, and presenting it as an edifice that can only fail if *all* parts fail, is an inappropriate burden of proof.
It's a questionable mixing of questionable data, with a proposed burden of proof that claims to immunize it against questioning or any part.
It's as though you only accept a cryptosystem broken if all stages and are shown weak.
"all of these would have to be invalidated"
No, only *any*.