Versus resorting to dealing with the city council. Both courts and the city council are branches of government. Both would rule on the same issue. Is one of them illegitimate? Which one? Why?
Consider reading the article before getting all hyped up and performing the usual outrage-theatre on this. It has actual info.
The court will rule. The phony drama and the silly cheerleading will be forgotten. Google fiber will roll out on schedule. Some money might or might not change hands between mega-corps -- who cares?
Your viewpoint is effectively full on conservativism - don't change anything ever
See above where I said we should end the requirement for adults over 21 to have a license to drive. Because requiring such a license serves little purpose other than restricting individual freedom and giving governments a mechanism to bully, control, and tax otherwise innocent, ordinary citizens. Try again.
"Greater quality of political debate" starts with paying attention to ideas. Trying to shift the discussion to obviously false (and very silly) criticisms of me is the opposite. It's not about me. It's about policy and laws and how they affect people.
If you want to say we should "improve" things, then Ok, lets try to do that. Arguing seriously that governments and societies can be "optimized" is maniacal -- something a North Korean leader might say. What do you propose to do to people who refuse to act "optimally", in service to your "optimal" society?
Right, but the mere existence of something doesn't make it automatically optimal
Almost nothing that actually exists is "optimal". Optimal is for storytellers. Laws and Constitutions and civilizations are for humans. Human situations don't optimize.
Historically, when powerful people have mistakenly thought human situations could be optimized, it led to tragic results. World War 2 is one of countless examples.
Laws and the legal system don't have to satisfy "what about this thing I saw once in my comic books?" arguments. We have enough real problems, we don't have to worry about imaginary (or distant projected future) ones.
"Everything must be perfect or nothing matters at all" is an idea that's hard to argue against. You don't live your life that way. I don't know why you think societies should be organized that way.
We have the process we have. The Constitution isn't 50000 pages long with every possible detail and counterargument spelled out and refuted. It's not completely meaningless and useless to people because of this "flaw". Try to understand. Or don't, and continue to be surprised whenever anyone does anything. Your choice.
The presence of Canadians prevents gun crime over a certain threshold. So what? No other country can ever have as many Canadians per capita as Canada. It's hopeless.
On a more serious note, arguments like yours seem to presume that any population of people can easily decide to become identical to any other nation's population and immediately achieve whatever benefits are desired from that nation's traits. But this has never happened. Why do you think this is possible?
Do you honestly want to argue that we'll have less people breaking the law if we didn't license drivers,
Obviously we will. When you repeal a law, no one breaks that law any more. A whole class on law breakers entirely disappears.
that we'd have fewer bad drivers if they never had to sit a driving assessment?
You'd have exactly the same number. The license doesn't turn a bad driver into a good driver. It's a piece of plastic and an entry into a database somewhere. Driving ability is unchanged.
And you already have a whole class of people driving on your roads who never had to take your assessment: foreign visitors. You have no idea how any of them were tested. But they can rent a car and drive legally with whatever passes for a license from their country. They've been doing it all along. Did it cause the end of civilization?
Anyway, you might be comfortable with throwing otherwise innocent, ordinary people in jail for merely driving without government permission. I'm not. I don't like the government bullying people based on vague fears with zero facts to back them up.
No but there is not emergency going on all the time for all people. This is about preventing accidents for the whole population in general not individual instances.
All accidents are individual. Licenses do not convey driving ability upon people. Most adults have one, so most adults could clearly be trusted to drive (at least as much as they already are trusted) even if they didn't have one.
It hasn't been shown that a licensing scheme increases safety or prevents accidents. People who want to police everyone all the time will tell you it does, but they don't have any facts to back it up.
Then you have the wrong goverment. You should not vote those people into power.
Governments eventually become "the wrong government". Power gets abused. The only powers that don't eventually get abused are the powers a government doesn't have.
We would be wise to only give government power when there's a clear necessity, and then only with strong safeguards.
I'm not an American so I'll have to profess my ignorance of the details of your constitution, but I'm intrigued, does the constitution state the right to bear all or any arms? if it doesn't then the constitution could legally satisfied by defining a pillow as the only type of arms legally allowed - i.e. you have the right to bear arms, just not necessarily very good ones.
In general, legal protections don't work that way. If courts allow every trick anyone can think of to circumvent an enumerated right, then you effectively have no rights, all laws are essentially meaningless, and government power is absolute. Courts and lawyers have a professional interest in all laws not being essentially meaningless.
If it does then doesn't that mean American citizens (including the crazies and terrorists) can and should be given access to nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as well?
Courts have ruled that the right extends to arms in "common use", based partly on the idea that the guys who wrote the Constitution probably meant that when they said "bear arms". Prohibitions on arms are being scrutinized using either strict or intermediate scrutiny. Nukes are controlled because they're not in common use among individuals and there's a really good argument for controlling them. (Read the scrutiny definitions for exact details on this.)
There's no explicitly enumerated Constitutional right to drive a car. The right to bear arms is enumerated clearly.
But here's something to think about:. What problems were solved by requiring him to have a license to drive a car?
What problems do drivers licenses solve for anyone? Do they ensure that all licensed drivers are good drivers? Do they keep unlicensed drivers off the roads? Do criminals and other lawless people obey drivers license laws? If you lost your drivers license would you drive without one if a dire emergency required it?
We would be better off without the licensing requirement for drivers over 21. A court could still issue an order to prohibit a bad driver, or a drunk driver, or whomever else from driving. The only difference would be that courts provide a person with due process.
Licensing requirements for driving mostly provide the government with an excuse and a mechanism to bully and control and tax ordinary citizens.
And also note: there would be a lot fewer "driving while black" police stops without this excuse to bully people.
Here's hoping that the next administration starts "settling" these cases for an apology and a big donation to the NRA. Then maybe people will start paying attention to how corrupt this process is.
It's not "my threshold". False statements are false. If you want to call true statements false and false statements true, then you're a part of the problem.
If you read the article, both Rubio and Cruz "acknowledged that backdoors cause great security concerns". That's two.
Cruz:
...Well, listen. I think Apple has a serious argument that they should not be forced to put a backdoor in every cell phone everyone has. That creates a real security exposure for hackers, cyber criminals to break into our cell phones....
Rubio:
...Here's the thing though, if you require by law – if we passed a law that required Apple and these companies to create a backdoor, number one, criminals could figure that out and use it against you....
Do people make really obvious mistakes in these summaries on purpose? Are you trolling us?
A terrific reason to avoid government involvement in things whenever we can. Take more of the decisions, and the power, and the money out of government's hands, return them to the individual, and then we can all mind our own business and live together in peaceful coexistence despite our diverse outlooks.
Unfortunately, lots of people want to spend money they didn't earn. Others want to use the police to bully their neighbors, forcing them to live their lives based on alien values, and robbing them of the essential humanity of making their own personal choices.
Stop demanding what's not yours and the reasons to divide people and set them to war against their neighbors begin to disappear.
People who take offense (assume a posture of being offended) aggressively, as a means to exert control over others. Usually the offense is taken on behalf of some set of people who organize with leftists based on some real or imagined grievance.
Since controlling others is the goal, any discussion that isn't some sort of agreement to being controlled is considered Irrelevant at best. And at worst, discussion is considered an existential threat or sometimes even a direct injury, depending on whatever maximizes the ability to exert control over others.
Most people understand the term SJW fairly well when it is used in context. It's not surprising that SJWs take offense to it.
I don't care about the tribal division. I care about my tribe.
Then is it Ok with you if we're all one big tribe, peacefully coexisting with each other regardless of diverse outlooks on things? If you don't care about division, it should be.
...people have used anti scientific/religious arguments to fight stem cell research that could be of vital importance to fight diseases that may affect me, my family or other people that I care about.
They were fighting paying for it with Federal tax money. Other people found other sources of funds, but the research has yielded disappointing results so far.
The controversy was used to divide people into warring tribes with some success though: people trying to widen tribal divisions were able to gain some power for themselves.
But evolution has little (if any) relevance to stem cell research.
Slashdot Mirror
Versus resorting to dealing with the city council. Both courts and the city council are branches of government. Both would rule on the same issue. Is one of them illegitimate? Which one? Why?
Consider reading the article before getting all hyped up and performing the usual outrage-theatre on this. It has actual info.
The court will rule. The phony drama and the silly cheerleading will be forgotten. Google fiber will roll out on schedule. Some money might or might not change hands between mega-corps -- who cares?
Your viewpoint is effectively full on conservativism - don't change anything ever
See above where I said we should end the requirement for adults over 21 to have a license to drive. Because requiring such a license serves little purpose other than restricting individual freedom and giving governments a mechanism to bully, control, and tax otherwise innocent, ordinary citizens. Try again.
"Greater quality of political debate" starts with paying attention to ideas. Trying to shift the discussion to obviously false (and very silly) criticisms of me is the opposite. It's not about me. It's about policy and laws and how they affect people.
If you want to say we should "improve" things, then Ok, lets try to do that. Arguing seriously that governments and societies can be "optimized" is maniacal -- something a North Korean leader might say. What do you propose to do to people who refuse to act "optimally", in service to your "optimal" society?
Right, but the mere existence of something doesn't make it automatically optimal
Almost nothing that actually exists is "optimal". Optimal is for storytellers. Laws and Constitutions and civilizations are for humans. Human situations don't optimize.
Historically, when powerful people have mistakenly thought human situations could be optimized, it led to tragic results. World War 2 is one of countless examples.
How would technology such as an exo-suit fit in?
Laws and the legal system don't have to satisfy "what about this thing I saw once in my comic books?" arguments. We have enough real problems, we don't have to worry about imaginary (or distant projected future) ones.
"Everything must be perfect or nothing matters at all" is an idea that's hard to argue against. You don't live your life that way. I don't know why you think societies should be organized that way.
We have the process we have. The Constitution isn't 50000 pages long with every possible detail and counterargument spelled out and refuted. It's not completely meaningless and useless to people because of this "flaw". Try to understand. Or don't, and continue to be surprised whenever anyone does anything. Your choice.
The presence of Canadians prevents gun crime over a certain threshold. So what? No other country can ever have as many Canadians per capita as Canada. It's hopeless.
On a more serious note, arguments like yours seem to presume that any population of people can easily decide to become identical to any other nation's population and immediately achieve whatever benefits are desired from that nation's traits. But this has never happened. Why do you think this is possible?
Do you honestly want to argue that we'll have less people breaking the law if we didn't license drivers,
Obviously we will. When you repeal a law, no one breaks that law any more. A whole class on law breakers entirely disappears.
that we'd have fewer bad drivers if they never had to sit a driving assessment?
You'd have exactly the same number. The license doesn't turn a bad driver into a good driver. It's a piece of plastic and an entry into a database somewhere. Driving ability is unchanged.
And you already have a whole class of people driving on your roads who never had to take your assessment: foreign visitors. You have no idea how any of them were tested. But they can rent a car and drive legally with whatever passes for a license from their country. They've been doing it all along. Did it cause the end of civilization?
Anyway, you might be comfortable with throwing otherwise innocent, ordinary people in jail for merely driving without government permission. I'm not. I don't like the government bullying people based on vague fears with zero facts to back them up.
No but there is not emergency going on all the time for all people. This is about preventing accidents for the whole population in general not individual instances.
All accidents are individual. Licenses do not convey driving ability upon people. Most adults have one, so most adults could clearly be trusted to drive (at least as much as they already are trusted) even if they didn't have one.
It hasn't been shown that a licensing scheme increases safety or prevents accidents. People who want to police everyone all the time will tell you it does, but they don't have any facts to back it up.
Then you have the wrong goverment. You should not vote those people into power.
Governments eventually become "the wrong government". Power gets abused. The only powers that don't eventually get abused are the powers a government doesn't have.
We would be wise to only give government power when there's a clear necessity, and then only with strong safeguards.
No I would drive without a license in an emergency and I would face the consequences but what has that to do with anything?
Why should there be consequences? Are you a criminal? Why should you be treated like one for acting like anyone else would in an emergency?
If you can drive without a license in an emergency, why not all the time? Are you a better driver in an emergency?
And also note: there would be a lot fewer "driving while black" police stops without this excuse to bully people.
That is a completely different problem not related to drivers licenses.
Government power gets used against people. Always. It's not a "different problem", it's the problem.
I'm not an American so I'll have to profess my ignorance of the details of your constitution, but I'm intrigued, does the constitution state the right to bear all or any arms? if it doesn't then the constitution could legally satisfied by defining a pillow as the only type of arms legally allowed - i.e. you have the right to bear arms, just not necessarily very good ones.
In general, legal protections don't work that way. If courts allow every trick anyone can think of to circumvent an enumerated right, then you effectively have no rights, all laws are essentially meaningless, and government power is absolute. Courts and lawyers have a professional interest in all laws not being essentially meaningless.
If it does then doesn't that mean American citizens (including the crazies and terrorists) can and should be given access to nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons as well?
Courts have ruled that the right extends to arms in "common use", based partly on the idea that the guys who wrote the Constitution probably meant that when they said "bear arms". Prohibitions on arms are being scrutinized using either strict or intermediate scrutiny. Nukes are controlled because they're not in common use among individuals and there's a really good argument for controlling them. (Read the scrutiny definitions for exact details on this.)
There's no explicitly enumerated Constitutional right to drive a car. The right to bear arms is enumerated clearly.
But here's something to think about:. What problems were solved by requiring him to have a license to drive a car?
What problems do drivers licenses solve for anyone? Do they ensure that all licensed drivers are good drivers? Do they keep unlicensed drivers off the roads? Do criminals and other lawless people obey drivers license laws? If you lost your drivers license would you drive without one if a dire emergency required it?
We would be better off without the licensing requirement for drivers over 21. A court could still issue an order to prohibit a bad driver, or a drunk driver, or whomever else from driving. The only difference would be that courts provide a person with due process.
Licensing requirements for driving mostly provide the government with an excuse and a mechanism to bully and control and tax ordinary citizens.
And also note: there would be a lot fewer "driving while black" police stops without this excuse to bully people.
The EPA of corrupt settlements in legal cases. If crimes were committed, why should VW (or anyone) get away with them by funding leftist feel-good projects?
Here's hoping that the next administration starts "settling" these cases for an apology and a big donation to the NRA. Then maybe people will start paying attention to how corrupt this process is.
It's not "my threshold". False statements are false. If you want to call true statements false and false statements true, then you're a part of the problem.
Nevertheless, the statement "only one candidate even acknowledged that backdoors cause great security concerns for the public" is false.
As far as looks go, Trump is sort of a toss-up versus Hillary or Sanders. Expect low turnout. Trump has more TV experience. That might help him.
Which cranky aging white person should it be? I hope we can avoid making that choice.
So what? Americans vote based on how the candidates look anyway.
If you read the article, both Rubio and Cruz "acknowledged that backdoors cause great security concerns". That's two.
Cruz:
Rubio:
Do people make really obvious mistakes in these summaries on purpose? Are you trolling us?
Many of them vote.
A terrific reason to avoid government involvement in things whenever we can. Take more of the decisions, and the power, and the money out of government's hands, return them to the individual, and then we can all mind our own business and live together in peaceful coexistence despite our diverse outlooks.
Unfortunately, lots of people want to spend money they didn't earn. Others want to use the police to bully their neighbors, forcing them to live their lives based on alien values, and robbing them of the essential humanity of making their own personal choices.
Stop demanding what's not yours and the reasons to divide people and set them to war against their neighbors begin to disappear.
Not to be a mathhole or anything, but we have 300 million people. Out of 7 billion, that's well over 4%.
It's really obvious. It is the best way to poll for religion affecting peoples beliefs. The ONLY reason to not believe in evolution is religious.
Yes. Like I said, to divide people.
You could also ask them questions like: are you religious? Why wouldn't you do that instead?
It is important to know what percentage of people are willing to cloud their logical beliefs due to religion.
Why is it important?
Commienazipaedoterroristboogiemanfluoridator.
SJW is easier to spell.
What do *you* mean when you use it?
People who take offense (assume a posture of being offended) aggressively, as a means to exert control over others. Usually the offense is taken on behalf of some set of people who organize with leftists based on some real or imagined grievance.
Since controlling others is the goal, any discussion that isn't some sort of agreement to being controlled is considered Irrelevant at best. And at worst, discussion is considered an existential threat or sometimes even a direct injury, depending on whatever maximizes the ability to exert control over others.
Most people understand the term SJW fairly well when it is used in context. It's not surprising that SJWs take offense to it.
I don't care about the tribal division. I care about my tribe.
Then is it Ok with you if we're all one big tribe, peacefully coexisting with each other regardless of diverse outlooks on things? If you don't care about division, it should be.
...people have used anti scientific/religious arguments to fight stem cell research that could be of vital importance to fight diseases that may affect me, my family or other people that I care about.
They were fighting paying for it with Federal tax money. Other people found other sources of funds, but the research has yielded disappointing results so far.
The controversy was used to divide people into warring tribes with some success though: people trying to widen tribal divisions were able to gain some power for themselves.
But evolution has little (if any) relevance to stem cell research.
A perfect argument for everyone minding their own business, so individuals can keep the power to make their own choices.
Self interest, of course. But if you're such a proponent of minding your own business, why are you arguing here ?
I'm not. You were responding to me. Very, very vaguely. Hence the questions.
For someone who claims to want people to be informed, you're not very good at providing informative answers to very simple, straightforward questions.