"That's why we don't have the general public directly voting for laws."
That's also why they didn't let people vote directly for the President or Senators. But state laws and the Seventeenth Amendment (respectively) got around those "problems."
"because the political parties consisted largely of intellectuals."
No, the whole intent of the design of the federal government was to avoid political parties outright. They felt that party politics were what caused their problems with the UK Parliament to begin with. Leaving the decision of Senators up to the state legislatures was supposed to ensure that anybody who makes it to the Senate has a broad multipartisan appeal, and the Electoral College was essentially intended to be a nominating committee to present the House of Representatives with presidential candidates to vote for (it was supposed to be difficult for the electors to communicate with each other in an effort to ensure that no presidential candidate got a majority outright).
"Bear in mind Russia has a huge advantage over the US in both long term space missions (Cosmonauts in Mir hold the endurance record for space 'flight')"
Which is why we teamed up with them to begin with, to learn from their experience. How many astronauts did we eventually send to Mir?
"The Energia launch vehicle is capable of orbiting a payload of 100 tons - far more than than the 30 tons capable of being lifted by the shuttle."
That's all well and good, but they haven't done anything with the Energia since... well... since they slapped a shuttle orbiter ("Buran") on the thing in the 1980's. There are around a half-dozen of the rockets left, and they're all rusting away in the Ukraine somewhere. Including those in the Russian fleet is a stretch to say the least. It would make more sense to include the Saturn V in our fleet; We've at least maintained those museum pieces.
"While there have been plans for US heavy lift systems (cf. the 'Shuttle-C' cargo container, or the Ares booster) which could increase payload weight to 121 tons, the Russians designed a system (Volcano) derived from Energia which could loft over 200 tons of cargo!"
Note that they just have the designs. They haven't built the thing! I've got a pencil and a piece of paper as well, does that put me on par with Rosaviakosmos? If you want to compare pipe dreams, let's talk some more about Project Orion.
"Mars Express (from the ESA) is a clear example of how quality research can be performed at a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA mission."
From the article:
Up to 80% of the hardware making up Mars Express was originally designed for Rosetta, ESA's satellite that will be the first in history to land on a comet.
Amazing how you can save money when the R&D is already paid for through another project, isn't it?
"Pathfinder cost 'just' $200M - compare this to the British built 'Beagle' rover, which is more capable, and cost just £10M (~ $16M) to develop!"
And how much of that savings was from the ESA able to use the "been there, done that" information NASA paid for half a decade ago instead of paying to do their own R&D from scratch?
"Satellites can be optimally placed with cheap boosters, not expensive manned shuttle missions."
You make it sound like the shuttle is all there is to the US space fleet. As if we don't have any Titans or Deltas. While I admit that nobody really cares when these lift off (you hardly hear about them even when you live close enough to see the launches), that doesn't mean they don't happen.
And comparing the shuttle to other rockets is an apples v. oranges scenario. The shuttle was designed for two things: Build a space station and be a testbed for new technologies. The whole "putting up satellites" was something they used to pay the bills when Congress decided not to build a space station. And even then, you're not going to fix the Hubble from a Soyuz capsule.
"My wishes are: craft a strong enough bill to stand 1st Amendment challenges"
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Nowhere in the First Amendment does it say you get a free soapbox. You "deserve" to spam the same way you "deserve" a free billboard.
"This clearly implies cluelessness. Now, you might not expect a manager type to understand what's wrong with this statement. But you'd expect that they'd have some EEs on their payroll, and an EE's basic reaction to such a statement would be to snicker and say "Yeah; right.""
Who's this Maxwell guy and why do I keep hearing about these equations of his?
"Our representatives don't always represent our interests, but their party more than anything else since they know that they will get re-elected as long as the party is kept happy."
IMO, campaign finance laws have something to do with this as well. While the accountability of sources is always a good idea, placing limits on who can donate how much to whom seems to only have ensured that most campaign donations are funneled through either the PACs or one of the two major parties (third parties apparently don't count). If the money is going to be donated to candidate X one way or the other, preventing the donor from giving to X directly only serves to make the parties and lobbyists more powerful.
"If the President doesn't like a bill he has the duty to veto it."
That's not his only option, but anyway...
"If the Congress can gather a super-majority they can override said veto."
In the case of the USA PATRIOT Act, it already had that "super-majority" you describe and then some. I'm pretty sure I can count the number of Congresspersons and Senators (combined) that opposed the bill (or even just abastained) on one hand. That kind of momentum would have steamrolled any veto effort flat.
"As for the folks who respond "we're not a democracy, we're a republic," thanks very much for that insightful commentary; glad to see you paid attention in 9th grade civics class. You're missing the point."
No, you're missing the point and they don't know what they're talking about. The point is that we are in the United States. We are not a republic, we are a collection of fifty free and sovereign republics. How many countries do you know of require extradition procedures to be carried out to move prisoners within its own borders?
We didn't vote directly for or against George W. Bush for the same reasons we didn't vote directly for or against John D. Negroponte.
"Thanks for stopping by, and sorry for making all this liberal noise about rights & privacy. I mean really, what were we thinking?"
Don't you dare assume that my distaste for this piece of legislation puts me "left" on your little left/right scale. I am a citizen of the United States and the State of Louisiana and that is all that matters. I am neither "republican" or "democrat," "left" or "right." I refuse to be pigeon-holed into your little "with us/against us" mentality that both you and the original poster seem to support. If you insist on classifying everybody on that silly little scale, please feel free to label me as "against you." Both of you.
"The PATRIOT is our most anti-constitutional act to date that most people can name."
Now now, it's not like President Bush has had the entire Maryland legislature put under house arrest or ordered federal troops deployed to Baltimore to arrest anybody wearing red and white, or sent troops to silence the US Supreme Court or anything...
What did the Supreme Court have to do with the 2002 election?
All of you had the chance to vote out any and every House member that supported the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of you also had the ability to get rid of any Senator. And yet you don't want any of the blame, you want to blame the Supreme Court that "appointed" President Bush, the very same president that has yet to veto anything Congress gave him since his term began. If you quit bitching about the 2000 election for five minutes and realized that this White House has literally allowed Congress to do whatever it damned well pleased, you might have seen this law coming to begin with.
I also find it amusing that you blame the Electoral College, when the people, allowed to vote without thinking thanks to the Seventeenth Amendment, were the ones that overwhelimingly supported the incumbents that composed and passed the USA PATRIOT Act to begin with. Hey, it's not like over 90% of the folks you got to elect directly supported the bill or anything...
No, what we have here is not a "break down" of democracy. The USA PATRIOT Act happened because of democracy! Both chambers of Congress are full of people who got their position not because of merit, but because they looked good on TV and had catchy campaign slogans. Why should they avoid knee-jerk reactions when they're there because of knee-jerk reactions? For the USA PATRIOT Act, you can thank both yourselves and your 1913 compatriots that gave you the ability to shoot yourselves in the foot like this to begin with.
Why should we have to rely on SCOTUS to be the first, last, and only line of defense for civil liberties? Especially since it's not like we directly elected them.
"The general population? Or the justices of the Supreme Court?"
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the president is far from the only job in the federal government. Seeing as how the whole damned House and a third of the Senate were up for grabs in 2000 and '02 (just like every election year), I am quite comfortable with blaming the voting public in general.
Especially so when you consider that all President Bush has essentially done is rubber stamp any and every piece of legislation that comes across his desk, having yet to veto anything.
"The Chinese in Hong Kong had 10 long years before 1997, the year that Hong Kong became part of China"
If Hong Kong wanted to remain British, if Hong Kong had said anything, the PRC could have weighed in on the matter with the full backing of the UN. Take a look at all the flak the US and the UK are getting from the rest of the UN (almost to a man) about the continued posession of places like Puerto Rico, Guam, Gibraltar, the Faulklands, Deigo Garcia... Even though the people of these places have repeatedly and overwhelmingly democratically elected to maintain their status, the UN generally believes it knows better.
If Hong Kong wanted independence, the PRC could have asked all sorts of touchy and embarassing questions about the UK's role in the Opium Wars (where they gained control of Hong Kong to begin with). They'd also use the UN in this case to back their talk about "national integrity" and the like. Generally speaking, representation in the UN is from national governments, which may or may not reflect the will of the peole. As a result, UN policy considers the "rights" of the nation first, and considers the rights of the individuals only as a distant second.
Remember how the UN got involved in Cambodia, Rwanda, Congo, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq? See how they're getting involved in Ivory Coast and Cuba?
I'm sure that at least some of the people in Hong Kong were influenced by the way that nobody would help them. That, and they may have suspected that those that voted against reunification would eventually be looked up after the fact and have a pleasant visit from party officials.
"By contrast, the East Timorese demanded independence."
And they got it only because Australia was about two seconds away from invading, all while the UN did what it usually does and stared at its collective navel.
" but the idea of course is that a University does need to be a place for the free exchange of ideas and they need to protect their students."
Ah, to be young and impressionable. Try speaking out against the practices of one of the faculty, especially one that has tenure, and see just how "free" your speech really is.
The schools are interested in one thing and one thing only: Money. When all is said and done, they really don't care what you do so long as you continue to bend over and take it whenever they hike up the cost of tuition, mandatory housing, etc. If what you do gets in between them and "their" money (such as bad-mouthing a member of the faculty and saying "Avoid him"), don't be surprised to see your school drop you like a bad habit.
"Though I'm starting to wonder how they knew anyway who it was without the university's co-operation."
Why just get money from students when you could get money from students and the RIAA? Suddenly I forsee MTU hosting some concerts for less money than they usually do. CD prices in the student book store will still be obnoxiously high, but a bigger percentage of that will go to the school now.
"Reguardless, what can we realisticly expect Universities to do to help students?"
Faster lines at class registration so that they help you hurry up and pay them. Beyond that...
If students want to actually do something about this, they need to stop thinking about boycotting just the RIAA and boycotting MTU as well. Look into where those credits of yours can transfer. That way you'll be getting MTU's attention the same way the RIAA got it: through their wallets.
"Guess what, the inalinable rights granted in the constitution are a white peace of paper."
I agree with that statement 100%. The rights granted to the federal government by the US Constitution are just words on paper, as is the federal government itself.
Oh, I'm sorry, were you under the wrong impression that the constitution had anything to do with "granting" personal rights?
"During McCarthyism, for example, this paper was walked over on. And people thought it was quite right as long as they were not threatened."
Yeah, that explains why the rest of the Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure Senator McCarthy, after the scathing treatment he got from the popular press.
"A utilitarian may reply that, indeed, rights are just a meaningless parchment."
They are given meaning by the blood that was spilled to support those "meaningless parchments." They are given meaning by my personal belief in them.
"Why do you think your way is right?"
Because I know I am free to think otherwise. All things being equal, more things can be acheived with individual and communal freedom of thought and expression than otherwise.
"Because you live well? Oh, but that is a question of economics and only then of values."
By your argument, the people are always more right than the government, because the people always have the might to overthrow that government (whether they choose to believe they do or not).
"It's not my government. I have the rights that are upheld under my government."
No, your government upholds the rights you believe should be upheld, which is as it should be.
Let me show you what comes immediately after the "unalienable rights" bit that you paraphrased:
That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among them, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
"Going in and bombing them and forcing them to live how I live just because I think I'm right?"
No. But you should if they also feel you're right. The problem with despotry is that their government won't allow them to ask you for help, like we saw with the Tiananmen Massacre.
Slashdot Mirror
"That's why we don't have the general public directly voting for laws."
That's also why they didn't let people vote directly for the President or Senators. But state laws and the Seventeenth Amendment (respectively) got around those "problems."
"because the political parties consisted largely of intellectuals."
No, the whole intent of the design of the federal government was to avoid political parties outright. They felt that party politics were what caused their problems with the UK Parliament to begin with. Leaving the decision of Senators up to the state legislatures was supposed to ensure that anybody who makes it to the Senate has a broad multipartisan appeal, and the Electoral College was essentially intended to be a nominating committee to present the House of Representatives with presidential candidates to vote for (it was supposed to be difficult for the electors to communicate with each other in an effort to ensure that no presidential candidate got a majority outright).
I think you meant Congress. They're the ones that have difficulty with the whole "shall make no law" concept.
Which is why we teamed up with them to begin with, to learn from their experience. How many astronauts did we eventually send to Mir?
"The Energia launch vehicle is capable of orbiting a payload of 100 tons - far more than than the 30 tons capable of being lifted by the shuttle."
That's all well and good, but they haven't done anything with the Energia since... well... since they slapped a shuttle orbiter ("Buran") on the thing in the 1980's. There are around a half-dozen of the rockets left, and they're all rusting away in the Ukraine somewhere. Including those in the Russian fleet is a stretch to say the least. It would make more sense to include the Saturn V in our fleet; We've at least maintained those museum pieces.
"While there have been plans for US heavy lift systems (cf. the 'Shuttle-C' cargo container, or the Ares booster) which could increase payload weight to 121 tons, the Russians designed a system (Volcano) derived from Energia which could loft over 200 tons of cargo!"
Note that they just have the designs. They haven't built the thing! I've got a pencil and a piece of paper as well, does that put me on par with Rosaviakosmos? If you want to compare pipe dreams, let's talk some more about Project Orion.
"Mars Express (from the ESA) is a clear example of how quality research can be performed at a fraction of the cost of a typical NASA mission."
From the article:Amazing how you can save money when the R&D is already paid for through another project, isn't it?
"Pathfinder cost 'just' $200M - compare this to the British built 'Beagle' rover, which is more capable, and cost just £10M (~ $16M) to develop!"
And how much of that savings was from the ESA able to use the "been there, done that" information NASA paid for half a decade ago instead of paying to do their own R&D from scratch?
"Satellites can be optimally placed with cheap boosters, not expensive manned shuttle missions."
You make it sound like the shuttle is all there is to the US space fleet. As if we don't have any Titans or Deltas. While I admit that nobody really cares when these lift off (you hardly hear about them even when you live close enough to see the launches), that doesn't mean they don't happen.
And comparing the shuttle to other rockets is an apples v. oranges scenario. The shuttle was designed for two things: Build a space station and be a testbed for new technologies. The whole "putting up satellites" was something they used to pay the bills when Congress decided not to build a space station. And even then, you're not going to fix the Hubble from a Soyuz capsule.
That, and the whole "women are less likely to get spacesick" thing as well.
LANs are less likely to go down than internet connections, which you have to access to get to Microsoft's pay-as-you-play Office servers.
"In Soviet Russia, gas is ... ?"
Bose-Einstein condensate!
"My wishes are: craft a strong enough bill to stand 1st Amendment challenges"
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Nowhere in the First Amendment does it say you get a free soapbox. You "deserve" to spam the same way you "deserve" a free billboard.
"This clearly implies cluelessness. Now, you might not expect a manager type to understand what's wrong with this statement. But you'd expect that they'd have some EEs on their payroll, and an EE's basic reaction to such a statement would be to snicker and say "Yeah; right.""
Who's this Maxwell guy and why do I keep hearing about these equations of his?
I'd rather get my internet connection from the local power company than through either BellSouth or Cox.
"Our representatives don't always represent our interests, but their party more than anything else since they know that they will get re-elected as long as the party is kept happy."
IMO, campaign finance laws have something to do with this as well. While the accountability of sources is always a good idea, placing limits on who can donate how much to whom seems to only have ensured that most campaign donations are funneled through either the PACs or one of the two major parties (third parties apparently don't count). If the money is going to be donated to candidate X one way or the other, preventing the donor from giving to X directly only serves to make the parties and lobbyists more powerful.
"If the President doesn't like a bill he has the duty to veto it."
That's not his only option, but anyway...
"If the Congress can gather a super-majority they can override said veto."
In the case of the USA PATRIOT Act, it already had that "super-majority" you describe and then some. I'm pretty sure I can count the number of Congresspersons and Senators (combined) that opposed the bill (or even just abastained) on one hand. That kind of momentum would have steamrolled any veto effort flat.
"As for the folks who respond "we're not a democracy, we're a republic," thanks very much for that insightful commentary; glad to see you paid attention in 9th grade civics class. You're missing the point."
No, you're missing the point and they don't know what they're talking about. The point is that we are in the United States. We are not a republic, we are a collection of fifty free and sovereign republics. How many countries do you know of require extradition procedures to be carried out to move prisoners within its own borders?
We didn't vote directly for or against George W. Bush for the same reasons we didn't vote directly for or against John D. Negroponte.
They were elected for mostly three reasons:
- Their party
- Their looks
- Their catchy campaign slogan
If you're looking for somebody to uphold the US Constitution, you're obviously looking in the wrong place."Thanks for stopping by, and sorry for making all this liberal noise about rights & privacy. I mean really, what were we thinking?"
Don't you dare assume that my distaste for this piece of legislation puts me "left" on your little left/right scale. I am a citizen of the United States and the State of Louisiana and that is all that matters. I am neither "republican" or "democrat," "left" or "right." I refuse to be pigeon-holed into your little "with us/against us" mentality that both you and the original poster seem to support. If you insist on classifying everybody on that silly little scale, please feel free to label me as "against you." Both of you.
Apparently somebody doesn't remember the bad rap that members of so-called "militia" groups got after 1995.
"The PATRIOT is our most anti-constitutional act to date that most people can name."
Now now, it's not like President Bush has had the entire Maryland legislature put under house arrest or ordered federal troops deployed to Baltimore to arrest anybody wearing red and white, or sent troops to silence the US Supreme Court or anything...
What did the Supreme Court have to do with the 2002 election?
All of you had the chance to vote out any and every House member that supported the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of you also had the ability to get rid of any Senator. And yet you don't want any of the blame, you want to blame the Supreme Court that "appointed" President Bush, the very same president that has yet to veto anything Congress gave him since his term began. If you quit bitching about the 2000 election for five minutes and realized that this White House has literally allowed Congress to do whatever it damned well pleased, you might have seen this law coming to begin with.
I also find it amusing that you blame the Electoral College, when the people, allowed to vote without thinking thanks to the Seventeenth Amendment, were the ones that overwhelimingly supported the incumbents that composed and passed the USA PATRIOT Act to begin with. Hey, it's not like over 90% of the folks you got to elect directly supported the bill or anything...
No, what we have here is not a "break down" of democracy. The USA PATRIOT Act happened because of democracy! Both chambers of Congress are full of people who got their position not because of merit, but because they looked good on TV and had catchy campaign slogans. Why should they avoid knee-jerk reactions when they're there because of knee-jerk reactions? For the USA PATRIOT Act, you can thank both yourselves and your 1913 compatriots that gave you the ability to shoot yourselves in the foot like this to begin with.
Did you even vote last year?
Why should we have to rely on SCOTUS to be the first, last, and only line of defense for civil liberties? Especially since it's not like we directly elected them.
Kinda funny how things seem to work out better when the people have a buffer between their passions and their "representatives."
"The general population? Or the justices of the Supreme Court?"
Sorry to burst your bubble, but the president is far from the only job in the federal government. Seeing as how the whole damned House and a third of the Senate were up for grabs in 2000 and '02 (just like every election year), I am quite comfortable with blaming the voting public in general.
Especially so when you consider that all President Bush has essentially done is rubber stamp any and every piece of legislation that comes across his desk, having yet to veto anything.
"perhaps you're mistaking the typical timidity of undergraduate students for active repression?"
Timid students are one thing. The professor in question threatening me with a lawsuit is something completely different.
"The Chinese in Hong Kong had 10 long years before 1997, the year that Hong Kong became part of China"
If Hong Kong wanted to remain British, if Hong Kong had said anything, the PRC could have weighed in on the matter with the full backing of the UN. Take a look at all the flak the US and the UK are getting from the rest of the UN (almost to a man) about the continued posession of places like Puerto Rico, Guam, Gibraltar, the Faulklands, Deigo Garcia... Even though the people of these places have repeatedly and overwhelmingly democratically elected to maintain their status, the UN generally believes it knows better.
If Hong Kong wanted independence, the PRC could have asked all sorts of touchy and embarassing questions about the UK's role in the Opium Wars (where they gained control of Hong Kong to begin with). They'd also use the UN in this case to back their talk about "national integrity" and the like. Generally speaking, representation in the UN is from national governments, which may or may not reflect the will of the peole. As a result, UN policy considers the "rights" of the nation first, and considers the rights of the individuals only as a distant second.
Remember how the UN got involved in Cambodia, Rwanda, Congo, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq? See how they're getting involved in Ivory Coast and Cuba?
I'm sure that at least some of the people in Hong Kong were influenced by the way that nobody would help them. That, and they may have suspected that those that voted against reunification would eventually be looked up after the fact and have a pleasant visit from party officials.
"By contrast, the East Timorese demanded independence."
And they got it only because Australia was about two seconds away from invading, all while the UN did what it usually does and stared at its collective navel.
" but the idea of course is that a University does need to be a place for the free exchange of ideas and they need to protect their students."
Ah, to be young and impressionable. Try speaking out against the practices of one of the faculty, especially one that has tenure, and see just how "free" your speech really is.
The schools are interested in one thing and one thing only: Money. When all is said and done, they really don't care what you do so long as you continue to bend over and take it whenever they hike up the cost of tuition, mandatory housing, etc. If what you do gets in between them and "their" money (such as bad-mouthing a member of the faculty and saying "Avoid him"), don't be surprised to see your school drop you like a bad habit.
"Though I'm starting to wonder how they knew anyway who it was without the university's co-operation."
Why just get money from students when you could get money from students and the RIAA? Suddenly I forsee MTU hosting some concerts for less money than they usually do. CD prices in the student book store will still be obnoxiously high, but a bigger percentage of that will go to the school now.
"Reguardless, what can we realisticly expect Universities to do to help students?"
Faster lines at class registration so that they help you hurry up and pay them. Beyond that...
If students want to actually do something about this, they need to stop thinking about boycotting just the RIAA and boycotting MTU as well. Look into where those credits of yours can transfer. That way you'll be getting MTU's attention the same way the RIAA got it: through their wallets.
"Guess what, the inalinable rights granted in the constitution are a white peace of paper."
I agree with that statement 100%. The rights granted to the federal government by the US Constitution are just words on paper, as is the federal government itself.
Oh, I'm sorry, were you under the wrong impression that the constitution had anything to do with "granting" personal rights?
"During McCarthyism, for example, this paper was walked over on. And people thought it was quite right as long as they were not threatened."
Yeah, that explains why the rest of the Senate voted 67 to 22 to censure Senator McCarthy, after the scathing treatment he got from the popular press.
"A utilitarian may reply that, indeed, rights are just a meaningless parchment."
They are given meaning by the blood that was spilled to support those "meaningless parchments." They are given meaning by my personal belief in them.
"Why do you think your way is right?"
Because I know I am free to think otherwise. All things being equal, more things can be acheived with individual and communal freedom of thought and expression than otherwise.
"Because you live well? Oh, but that is a question of economics and only then of values."
You assume that it is not the other way around.
By your argument, the people are always more right than the government, because the people always have the might to overthrow that government (whether they choose to believe they do or not).
No, your government upholds the rights you believe should be upheld, which is as it should be.
Let me show you what comes immediately after the "unalienable rights" bit that you paraphrased: "Going in and bombing them and forcing them to live how I live just because I think I'm right?"
No. But you should if they also feel you're right. The problem with despotry is that their government won't allow them to ask you for help, like we saw with the Tiananmen Massacre.