"In 1940-1 Germany had enough air power to do the job. I wouldn't call it supremacy, but the Battle of Britain was a draw in Germany's favor, it's just that the Germans didn't understand that well enough to keep pushing"
Completely disagree. For one, while the German fighter force was outstanding before the BOB, the Luftwaffe got the worst of it and lost too many experienced pilots in those fights. Second, Germany never developed a proper long range bomber force, nor a truly effective aerial supply operation. The last was very obvious at Stalingrad, where Goering promised Hitler that he could keep German forces supplied, and the Luftwaffe failed at this utterly. They simply didn't have the cargo capability needed for long range supply missions. As I said in an earlier thread, German forces were perfect for the continental domination of western Europe, but were ill suited for long range operations. And in the case of the BOB, they also woefully underestimated the power and impact of radar until it was too late.
Absolutely. Germany lost because of Hitler's greed and impatience. The Kriegsmarine was formidable in many ways, but wasn't very good at power projection abroad. Germany didn't have much of a conventional fleet compared to the Royal Navy and the US Navy, and didn't have much in the way of amphibious forces either. The Kriegsmarine's biggest strength was its sub force, which is good for causing havoc with surface shipping, but useless for invading other countries... subs couldn't do the things surface warships did, such as massive gunnery support for beach landings. The Kriegsmarine was best suited as a defensive weapon for European waters, not a power projection force like the American fleet.
Hitler's main military strength was his land forces, suited almost completely for continental control. Had Hitler stopped short of Russia, and simply maintained an aerial and naval stalemate with the British, then the Nazis likely would have won the European war. Britain couldn't keep up on it's own forever, and Stalin wasn't going to attack Hitler... he was rather in awe of the guy, in fact. Had Hitler stopped at that point, it's likely that the lingua franca from Paris to Warsaw today would be German.
Military spending has been increasing at an unsustainable rate for at least the last 30 years.
No, the cost of individual weapons systems has been rising at an unsustainable rate. Military spending is a fraction of what it was during it's peacetime highs, when it dominated federal spending in the 50's and 60's. Bush the Elder made big cuts to the military budget, and Bill Clinton made even bigger cuts. Even at the height of our military force structure during the Reagan years, the military was a fraction of what it was under Ike, Kennedy, and Johnson.
What we're getting isn't more military spending, but less bang for our military buck, by buying fewer weapons. We're spending about the same, GDP-wise. It's just that individual ships, planes, etc, cost more, so we're buying less of them. We bought 800 F-15's. We replaced them with 187 F-22's. Same buck. Less bang, even though the individual weapons are more capable. There's simply no way one F-22 can replace 4 F-15's in the real world, no matter what Lockheed's marketing department says.
By far the largest and most bloated parts of the federal budget are the entitlements... Social Security, Medicare, etc. They'll bankrupt us long before military spending would. And while you can cut military spending, by law, you can't cut SS and Medicare, only their rates of growth.
Some jackass will always be willing to take money for such a cause.
Remember triple amputee Vietnam vet Max Cleland?
They have no shame.
Being a military vet doesn't neccessarily mean you support a strong defense, or even support a military at all. Howard Zinn, after all, was a decorated AAF veteran.
And ultimately, while you're blaming "them"... Republican strategists... ultimately it was the voters of Georgia that made the decision, not "them". The fact is, Cleland was becoming increasingly liberal (see his votes on ANWR, abortion, etc) in an increasingly conservative state.
If you have a problem with the vote, take it up with the voters.
Really? Congress hands its authority off to a slew of science-technocratic authorities every day... the EPA, OSHA, etc. None of these bodies are elected, and yet they arguably have a huge and often expensive impact on our lives. They're literally the very model of a technocratic government that views "expertise" as more important than democratic self-rule.
I'd say Ike's second part was not only relevant, but turned out to be just as prophetic as the first military-industrial part.
While I agree that we're spending too much on some weapons systems... there's absolutely no excuse to pay 7 billion dollars for a DDG-1000 destroyer...Gates is fiercely protective of the biggest, most expensive military boondoggle of all time, the Joint Strike Fighter. He will absolutely tolerate no talk of canceling it.
It was supposed to be the "cheap" supplement to the F-22, much the same way the F-16 was the cheap supplement to the F-15. But now the F-35 costs as much, or possibly even more than the F-22 (CBO estimate: $122 million a copy and climbing), while being a substantially less capable airplane. And this has happened under Gates' watch.
And yet, he balks at buying more Super Hornets for the Navy instead, at what is a bargain price in the fighter world... $45 million apiece. There's no logic here.
I'm as big a hawk as you'll find, but I think the primary problem is with two parties here... defense contractors, and Congress. Congress sees defense as a jobs program, and defense contractors are ripping off the taxpayer. I've come to the reluctant conclusion perhaps we should abandon private suppliers for the military, and go back to in-house supply solutions. For instance, the Navy used to build their own ships in their own shipyards. It was seen as a way to not be too reliant on private yards, and to keep them honest. God knows we need that again. I'm a big capitalist, and all for competition in truly free, private markets. But defense contracting isn't really a free market. You're serving one customer... the government. Maybe it's time to open up our own shipyards again, and revive the old Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia. Maybe that's the only way to put firms like Lockheed on notice that the gravy train is over.
How does iTunes and their _billions_ of downloads, many of them paid, jive with your theory? Don't forget Amazon and their hefty number of digital music sales either.
There are many, many, people purchasing digital content online. Yes, there are many who don't but that doesn't invalidate the idea, or the reality, that people WILL pay for what they want.
The whole premise of the article was that if Big Media "just made downloading cheap and easy", most people would switch to a paid system. And while iTunes and Amazon are indeed moving a lot of digital product, it hasn't made a dent in piracy. If anything, content piracy only grows every year, even faster than the truly cheap and legal digital options.
> We have a generation that think music is free because it's on the Internet.
No. We have generations that think music is free because of radio.
Music has been free since before most people alive today were even born.
The difference being that the ability to get music from the radio is a fairly recent phenomena... since the advent of cheap cassettes in the 70's and 80's... and that while you can make subpar copies of radio music, it's still not free... the tapes cost money... and you can't distribute it for free to 20,000 of your closest friends.
Hearing music from radio was free. Owning music from radio was not.
Telus gave us this really crappy DSL/Wireless router. I never changed the admin password (admin/telus) on it, but I put a wireless password on it.
To quote the Mythbusters, "Well there's your problem!"
That's PART of your problem. The other part is that you went and downloaded pirated stuff. The problem with pirated stuff is that bad guys often use "free" as a way to get into YOUR stuff, and do very bad things. Yeah, you got to see Sherlock Holmes without paying for it (That's showing The Man!); but hey, how much is your time worth? How much is the security of your data worth?
As my grandparents used to say, if you lay down with dogs, you get fleas. If you get stuff from shady sources, don't be shocked when you discover that they want to do shady things to you, too.
In the example of music, we already have mulitple, cheap means of buying songs, most of them legal, most of them DRM-free. Amazon MP3 sells songs for 99 cents and most albums for under 10 bucks, with a huge selection of albums even cheaper that that. They regularly hold sales with popular albums in the 5 dollar range. All of it in standard MP3 formats without DRM.
There are several East European sites that sell MP3's for as little as 15 cents apiece.
And still, the torrents flow. Because if you make something available for free, with no consequences... even if legally you have no right to... eventually, people are going to give in to their baser instincts and take it.
We have a generation that think music is free because it's on the Internet, and everyone knows that the Internet is free. In the 60's, the mantra was "if it feels good, do it". In the Internet age, it's "If it can be ripped, take it".
True, and that rises interesting questions about whether the 1st Amendment or other laws like it are still sufficient in modern day. When corporations near governments in their power, shouldn't they be subjected to the same standards of behaviour?
No one is forcing you to use Wikipedia. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you don't like some corporation's policies, then don't use their products. What you're arguing for is a government-mandated right to tell private entitites that they WILL print your thoughts. You have no right... none... to tell Wikipedia or any other non-government organization how to do things.
Oh I agree, and furthermore, if this accident turns out to be as bad as the worst case, then I'd predict that this is probably the end of BP the company. They're probably looking at bankruptcy, and then being broken up into assets that are purchased by their competitors. In the worst case.
Ultimately, BP is responsible for this as they leased the rig and hired the subcontractors. I'm not going to demonize BP. Right now, the cause is all a matter of speculation until they can get the well capped and do a proper investigation. Accidents happen (and yes, I live in a gulf state not too far from the coast), and the truth is, no one is giving up fossil fuels anytime soon, because there simply isn't a really practical replacement right now. Supplements, yes. Replacements... not so much. I recently read that there are over 1400 wells in the gulf, and none of them have ever had an accident like this. We should probably wait to see what actually happened and why before we decide who to line up against the wall.
"What did he get to do? Trees! He gets to animate trees all day."
But that's pretty much the case with all first jobs out of college. You start at the bottom. You get, as you put it, the sh*t jobs. Even if you're at the top of your class with an engineering degree, you're still going to start off with small-scale crappy duties at Ford or GM or wherever you go. One of the best things a business prof ever told us was "don't expect your own office and a secretary right out of school. You're going to start out at a lower level than you think". Every graduating senior, regardless of major, should get that speech.
I completely applaud your decisive, take-charge attitude about raising your kids. But while it may be a "great idea" for you, governments shouldn't dictate that it's a great idea for all the other parents.
" And in the U.S., permanent residents typically aren't hassled, at least until now. "
And if that happens, you can blame three parties for that in the US; the federal government, which has to a great extent ignored the problem of illegal immigration, the politicians that want them to continue ignoring the porous borders, and the businesses that keep them coming because they don't want to pay market rates for labor. Don't blame the people who finally got fed up with coyotes leading columns of illegal aliens across their lawns at 2 in the morning. The states are acting now because the federals are not.
Given that the US is a country of immigrants and therefore anyone and everyone looks like an immigrant, police can detain you until you prove that you are a citizen.
I'm a native-born US citizen of Italian descent who is frequently mistaken for a Latino, even by actual Latinos who come up to me and start speaking Spanish. I also travel through Arizona on a fairly regular basis. I will be curious to see if I'm ever asked to prove my citizenship. Sure hope I'm not going to have to start carrying a passport to in order to keep from being shipped to Mexico.
Showing a drivers license will suffice. One of the rumors floating around about this bill is that everyone will theoretically have to carry a birth certificate or citizenship papers with them, but that's not the case. The police will ask for a form of ID first... which they routinely do during things like traffic stops anyway. In my state, there are random sobriety checkpoints set up where state troopers will ask to see your license and registration and ask if you've been drinking. And they've been doing this for decades. So it's not like Americans have never had to deal with the inconvenience of police asking for ID before.
"So you're fine with being asked to provide proof of citizenship during a routine traffic stop? "
If law enforcement sees some kind of behavior that incurs the legal standard of "resonable suspicion"... yes.
"You obviously don't care if that happens to brown citizens going about their day, because, and this is a wild guess, you're white and don't think this law would affect you"
You're obviously an open-borders zealot because, and this is a wild guess, you're a silly liberal that hates white people.
See how much fun assumptions can be? Do you really want to keep playing?
"Can't prove your citizenship? Detention for you."
Yeah, because I couldn't just, oh, show them my drivers license. Because it's so unusual for police to ask for some identification during an investigation.
I have the same question for you that I posed to another gentleman; just what solution to illegal immigration would you propose? Just what would you do about it, including border security, and existing illegal aliens. Be specific.
No worries, they would only would only stop people if they have "reasonable" suspicion. As long as you make sure you appear reasonably white you'll be fine.
No worries, they would only would only stop people if they have "reasonable" suspicion. As long as you make sure you appear reasonably white you'll be fine.
Reasonably white. Ahh, the Amerikkka argument. OK, then what would you suggest the governments do about illegal immigration? Because it's pretty obvious that what they're doing now isn't stopping a rather considerable stream of illegal aliens from crossing into the country. Would you suggest better security? A fence? Cameras? Or would you prefer that the borders just be ignored altogether? Be honest.
Or those repressive Canadians either. Or Germany. Or the UK. Or France, or.... I think you get it. The vast majority of countries require visitors to the their country to have documentation with them.
Now, I've never thought "because others do it" is always a good reason for the US to adopt a policy. But in this case, this is just plain common sense.
This law so clearly violates the fourth amendment that it will never hold up when the inevitable challenge comes in the courts. Some have predicted it will go all the way to the SCOTUS but I don't see it getting nearly so far.
Good luck with that. This law largely mirrors existing federal law, which has been tested and found constitutional. The only hope you have of overturning it is, ironically, with a variation of the 10th Amendment; the argument that in this case, a state is usurping a federal role, not the other way around. The chances of this being tossed on 4th amendment grounds are nil.
En libertad, como los pajarillos. En libertad, que nadie me pregunte: a dónde vas?
I believe this is the reason that Arizona has gone Nazi on illegal immigrants. Now New Mexico on the other hand has a state constitution that embraces the bi-lingual hispanic community. Maybe you should just move there.
Arizona's new law largely mirrors existing federal law. The only people "going Nazi" are the hordes of activists that are violating Godwin's Law faster than the illegals that are actually crossing the border.
Whatever happened to "presumed innocent until proven guilty"?
Has anyone else noticed that laws seem to be slowly changing to produce a presumption of guilt (requiring a proof of innocence) these days?
Non-citizens do not have all of the rights that a citizen does. And frankly, I don't see what the big deal here is. In most places in the world... the first world included... visitors are required to have documentation on them of some kind, be it visa papers or a passport.
You joke, but lots of people still use them. In my son's high school, a class he's taking requires them. The teacher makes her students save everything on a floppy. Objections about safety of the data are ignored, so its rather ridiculous, but I've instructed my son to use two floppies... one as a backup... in case all his work dies on the primary. And yes, it's a public school.
Checks and balances can be a bitch sometimes. In this case, the Senate refused to write the check.
I didn't say it wouldn't cost money somewhere else. But if he wanted to, he could pick up a phone and tell the Joint Chiefs "Look, I want them all on a C-17 headed somewhere else in 6 hours. Make it happen". And it would.
Are you seriously... seriously going to argue that this hasn't happened because of cost?
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"In 1940-1 Germany had enough air power to do the job. I wouldn't call it supremacy, but the Battle of Britain was a draw in Germany's favor, it's just that the Germans didn't understand that well enough to keep pushing"
Completely disagree. For one, while the German fighter force was outstanding before the BOB, the Luftwaffe got the worst of it and lost too many experienced pilots in those fights. Second, Germany never developed a proper long range bomber force, nor a truly effective aerial supply operation. The last was very obvious at Stalingrad, where Goering promised Hitler that he could keep German forces supplied, and the Luftwaffe failed at this utterly. They simply didn't have the cargo capability needed for long range supply missions. As I said in an earlier thread, German forces were perfect for the continental domination of western Europe, but were ill suited for long range operations. And in the case of the BOB, they also woefully underestimated the power and impact of radar until it was too late.
"Sea Lion was a fantasy"
Absolutely. Germany lost because of Hitler's greed and impatience. The Kriegsmarine was formidable in many ways, but wasn't very good at power projection abroad. Germany didn't have much of a conventional fleet compared to the Royal Navy and the US Navy, and didn't have much in the way of amphibious forces either. The Kriegsmarine's biggest strength was its sub force, which is good for causing havoc with surface shipping, but useless for invading other countries... subs couldn't do the things surface warships did, such as massive gunnery support for beach landings. The Kriegsmarine was best suited as a defensive weapon for European waters, not a power projection force like the American fleet.
Hitler's main military strength was his land forces, suited almost completely for continental control. Had Hitler stopped short of Russia, and simply maintained an aerial and naval stalemate with the British, then the Nazis likely would have won the European war. Britain couldn't keep up on it's own forever, and Stalin wasn't going to attack Hitler... he was rather in awe of the guy, in fact. Had Hitler stopped at that point, it's likely that the lingua franca from Paris to Warsaw today would be German.
Military spending has been increasing at an unsustainable rate for at least the last 30 years.
No, the cost of individual weapons systems has been rising at an unsustainable rate. Military spending is a fraction of what it was during it's peacetime highs, when it dominated federal spending in the 50's and 60's. Bush the Elder made big cuts to the military budget, and Bill Clinton made even bigger cuts. Even at the height of our military force structure during the Reagan years, the military was a fraction of what it was under Ike, Kennedy, and Johnson.
What we're getting isn't more military spending, but less bang for our military buck, by buying fewer weapons. We're spending about the same, GDP-wise. It's just that individual ships, planes, etc, cost more, so we're buying less of them. We bought 800 F-15's. We replaced them with 187 F-22's. Same buck. Less bang, even though the individual weapons are more capable. There's simply no way one F-22 can replace 4 F-15's in the real world, no matter what Lockheed's marketing department says.
By far the largest and most bloated parts of the federal budget are the entitlements... Social Security, Medicare, etc. They'll bankrupt us long before military spending would. And while you can cut military spending, by law, you can't cut SS and Medicare, only their rates of growth.
Some jackass will always be willing to take money for such a cause.
Remember triple amputee Vietnam vet Max Cleland?
They have no shame.
Being a military vet doesn't neccessarily mean you support a strong defense, or even support a military at all. Howard Zinn, after all, was a decorated AAF veteran.
And ultimately, while you're blaming "them"... Republican strategists... ultimately it was the voters of Georgia that made the decision, not "them". The fact is, Cleland was becoming increasingly liberal (see his votes on ANWR, abortion, etc) in an increasingly conservative state.
If you have a problem with the vote, take it up with the voters.
Because it didn't turn out to be relevant?
Really? Congress hands its authority off to a slew of science-technocratic authorities every day... the EPA, OSHA, etc. None of these bodies are elected, and yet they arguably have a huge and often expensive impact on our lives. They're literally the very model of a technocratic government that views "expertise" as more important than democratic self-rule.
I'd say Ike's second part was not only relevant, but turned out to be just as prophetic as the first military-industrial part.
While I agree that we're spending too much on some weapons systems... there's absolutely no excuse to pay 7 billion dollars for a DDG-1000 destroyer...Gates is fiercely protective of the biggest, most expensive military boondoggle of all time, the Joint Strike Fighter. He will absolutely tolerate no talk of canceling it.
It was supposed to be the "cheap" supplement to the F-22, much the same way the F-16 was the cheap supplement to the F-15. But now the F-35 costs as much, or possibly even more than the F-22 (CBO estimate: $122 million a copy and climbing), while being a substantially less capable airplane. And this has happened under Gates' watch.
And yet, he balks at buying more Super Hornets for the Navy instead, at what is a bargain price in the fighter world... $45 million apiece. There's no logic here.
I'm as big a hawk as you'll find, but I think the primary problem is with two parties here... defense contractors, and Congress. Congress sees defense as a jobs program, and defense contractors are ripping off the taxpayer. I've come to the reluctant conclusion perhaps we should abandon private suppliers for the military, and go back to in-house supply solutions. For instance, the Navy used to build their own ships in their own shipyards. It was seen as a way to not be too reliant on private yards, and to keep them honest. God knows we need that again. I'm a big capitalist, and all for competition in truly free, private markets. But defense contracting isn't really a free market. You're serving one customer... the government. Maybe it's time to open up our own shipyards again, and revive the old Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia. Maybe that's the only way to put firms like Lockheed on notice that the gravy train is over.
How does iTunes and their _billions_ of downloads, many of them paid, jive with your theory? Don't forget Amazon and their hefty number of digital music sales either.
There are many, many, people purchasing digital content online. Yes, there are many who don't but that doesn't invalidate the idea, or the reality, that people WILL pay for what they want.
The whole premise of the article was that if Big Media "just made downloading cheap and easy", most people would switch to a paid system. And while iTunes and Amazon are indeed moving a lot of digital product, it hasn't made a dent in piracy. If anything, content piracy only grows every year, even faster than the truly cheap and legal digital options.
> We have a generation that think music is free because it's on the Internet.
No. We have generations that think music is free because of radio.
Music has been free since before most people alive today were even born.
The difference being that the ability to get music from the radio is a fairly recent phenomena... since the advent of cheap cassettes in the 70's and 80's... and that while you can make subpar copies of radio music, it's still not free... the tapes cost money... and you can't distribute it for free to 20,000 of your closest friends.
Hearing music from radio was free. Owning music from radio was not.
Telus gave us this really crappy DSL/Wireless router. I never changed the admin password (admin/telus) on it, but I put a wireless password on it.
To quote the Mythbusters, "Well there's your problem!"
That's PART of your problem. The other part is that you went and downloaded pirated stuff. The problem with pirated stuff is that bad guys often use "free" as a way to get into YOUR stuff, and do very bad things. Yeah, you got to see Sherlock Holmes without paying for it (That's showing The Man!); but hey, how much is your time worth? How much is the security of your data worth?
As my grandparents used to say, if you lay down with dogs, you get fleas. If you get stuff from shady sources, don't be shocked when you discover that they want to do shady things to you, too.
In the example of music, we already have mulitple, cheap means of buying songs, most of them legal, most of them DRM-free. Amazon MP3 sells songs for 99 cents and most albums for under 10 bucks, with a huge selection of albums even cheaper that that. They regularly hold sales with popular albums in the 5 dollar range. All of it in standard MP3 formats without DRM.
There are several East European sites that sell MP3's for as little as 15 cents apiece.
And still, the torrents flow. Because if you make something available for free, with no consequences... even if legally you have no right to... eventually, people are going to give in to their baser instincts and take it.
We have a generation that think music is free because it's on the Internet, and everyone knows that the Internet is free. In the 60's, the mantra was "if it feels good, do it". In the Internet age, it's "If it can be ripped, take it".
True, and that rises interesting questions about whether the 1st Amendment or other laws like it are still sufficient in modern day. When corporations near governments in their power, shouldn't they be subjected to the same standards of behaviour?
No one is forcing you to use Wikipedia. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you don't like some corporation's policies, then don't use their products. What you're arguing for is a government-mandated right to tell private entitites that they WILL print your thoughts. You have no right... none... to tell Wikipedia or any other non-government organization how to do things.
Oh I agree, and furthermore, if this accident turns out to be as bad as the worst case, then I'd predict that this is probably the end of BP the company. They're probably looking at bankruptcy, and then being broken up into assets that are purchased by their competitors. In the worst case.
Ultimately, BP is responsible for this as they leased the rig and hired the subcontractors. I'm not going to demonize BP. Right now, the cause is all a matter of speculation until they can get the well capped and do a proper investigation. Accidents happen (and yes, I live in a gulf state not too far from the coast), and the truth is, no one is giving up fossil fuels anytime soon, because there simply isn't a really practical replacement right now. Supplements, yes. Replacements... not so much. I recently read that there are over 1400 wells in the gulf, and none of them have ever had an accident like this. We should probably wait to see what actually happened and why before we decide who to line up against the wall.
"What did he get to do? Trees! He gets to animate trees all day."
But that's pretty much the case with all first jobs out of college. You start at the bottom. You get, as you put it, the sh*t jobs. Even if you're at the top of your class with an engineering degree, you're still going to start off with small-scale crappy duties at Ford or GM or wherever you go. One of the best things a business prof ever told us was "don't expect your own office and a secretary right out of school. You're going to start out at a lower level than you think". Every graduating senior, regardless of major, should get that speech.
I completely applaud your decisive, take-charge attitude about raising your kids. But while it may be a "great idea" for you, governments shouldn't dictate that it's a great idea for all the other parents.
" And in the U.S., permanent residents typically aren't hassled, at least until now. "
And if that happens, you can blame three parties for that in the US; the federal government, which has to a great extent ignored the problem of illegal immigration, the politicians that want them to continue ignoring the porous borders, and the businesses that keep them coming because they don't want to pay market rates for labor. Don't blame the people who finally got fed up with coyotes leading columns of illegal aliens across their lawns at 2 in the morning. The states are acting now because the federals are not.
Given that the US is a country of immigrants and therefore anyone and everyone looks like an immigrant, police can detain you until you prove that you are a citizen.
I'm a native-born US citizen of Italian descent who is frequently mistaken for a Latino, even by actual Latinos who come up to me and start speaking Spanish. I also travel through Arizona on a fairly regular basis. I will be curious to see if I'm ever asked to prove my citizenship. Sure hope I'm not going to have to start carrying a passport to in order to keep from being shipped to Mexico.
Showing a drivers license will suffice. One of the rumors floating around about this bill is that everyone will theoretically have to carry a birth certificate or citizenship papers with them, but that's not the case. The police will ask for a form of ID first... which they routinely do during things like traffic stops anyway. In my state, there are random sobriety checkpoints set up where state troopers will ask to see your license and registration and ask if you've been drinking. And they've been doing this for decades. So it's not like Americans have never had to deal with the inconvenience of police asking for ID before.
Gee, I wonder why this isn't such and important issue for them...
They could ask you why illegal immigration isn't an issue for you
"So you're fine with being asked to provide proof of citizenship during a routine traffic stop? "
If law enforcement sees some kind of behavior that incurs the legal standard of "resonable suspicion"... yes.
"You obviously don't care if that happens to brown citizens going about their day, because, and this is a wild guess, you're white and don't think this law would affect you"
You're obviously an open-borders zealot because, and this is a wild guess, you're a silly liberal that hates white people.
See how much fun assumptions can be? Do you really want to keep playing?
"Can't prove your citizenship? Detention for you."
Yeah, because I couldn't just, oh, show them my drivers license. Because it's so unusual for police to ask for some identification during an investigation.
I have the same question for you that I posed to another gentleman; just what solution to illegal immigration would you propose? Just what would you do about it, including border security, and existing illegal aliens. Be specific.
No worries, they would only would only stop people if they have "reasonable" suspicion. As long as you make sure you appear reasonably white you'll be fine.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-26-2010/law---border
No worries, they would only would only stop people if they have "reasonable" suspicion. As long as you make sure you appear reasonably white you'll be fine.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-26-2010/law---border
Reasonably white. Ahh, the Amerikkka argument. OK, then what would you suggest the governments do about illegal immigration? Because it's pretty obvious that what they're doing now isn't stopping a rather considerable stream of illegal aliens from crossing into the country. Would you suggest better security? A fence? Cameras? Or would you prefer that the borders just be ignored altogether? Be honest.
Yeah, let's be more like China.
Or those repressive Canadians either. Or Germany. Or the UK. Or France, or.... I think you get it. The vast majority of countries require visitors to the their country to have documentation with them.
Now, I've never thought "because others do it" is always a good reason for the US to adopt a policy. But in this case, this is just plain common sense.
This law so clearly violates the fourth amendment that it will never hold up when the inevitable challenge comes in the courts. Some have predicted it will go all the way to the SCOTUS but I don't see it getting nearly so far.
Good luck with that. This law largely mirrors existing federal law, which has been tested and found constitutional. The only hope you have of overturning it is, ironically, with a variation of the 10th Amendment; the argument that in this case, a state is usurping a federal role, not the other way around. The chances of this being tossed on 4th amendment grounds are nil.
En libertad, como los pajarillos.
En libertad, que nadie me pregunte: a dónde vas?
I believe this is the reason that Arizona has gone Nazi on illegal immigrants. Now New Mexico on the other hand has a state constitution that embraces the bi-lingual hispanic community. Maybe you should just move there.
Arizona's new law largely mirrors existing federal law. The only people "going Nazi" are the hordes of activists that are violating Godwin's Law faster than the illegals that are actually crossing the border.
Whatever happened to "presumed innocent until proven guilty"?
Has anyone else noticed that laws seem to be slowly changing to produce a presumption of guilt (requiring a proof of innocence) these days?
Non-citizens do not have all of the rights that a citizen does. And frankly, I don't see what the big deal here is. In most places in the world... the first world included... visitors are required to have documentation on them of some kind, be it visa papers or a passport.
You joke, but lots of people still use them. In my son's high school, a class he's taking requires them. The teacher makes her students save everything on a floppy. Objections about safety of the data are ignored, so its rather ridiculous, but I've instructed my son to use two floppies... one as a backup... in case all his work dies on the primary. And yes, it's a public school.
Checks and balances can be a bitch sometimes. In this case, the Senate refused to write the check.
I didn't say it wouldn't cost money somewhere else. But if he wanted to, he could pick up a phone and tell the Joint Chiefs "Look, I want them all on a C-17 headed somewhere else in 6 hours. Make it happen". And it would.
Are you seriously... seriously going to argue that this hasn't happened because of cost?