"Lincoln made it a war directly about slavery only after the Emancipation Proclamation"
The Confederate Constitution, adopted in March, 1861, predating the Emancipation Proclamation by nearly two years, predating even Virginia's secession, has some interesting differences from the original 1789 document it was trying to emulate:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
But, oh no, it had nothing to do with slavery until 1863.
"The states were originally founded to each be sovereign"
The states are not sovereign, the people are sovereign. The states are a mere artificial construct.
"with a federal system to ensure interstate commerce and to protect the common borders"
But then the Articles of Confederation couldn't manage even that, and so we adopted a new constitution that included strong republican features, such as a directly elected House of Representatives (as well as firm safeguards to prevent your "sovereign states" from interfering in their election in any way). And lo and behold, having direct interaction between the people and their national government allowed the new government to accomplish what the old one (which never acknowledged any relationship between the people and the central government) never could do.
"As far as what that bill means, it doesn't mean that the Federal Gov't should say homosexuality is wrong, it says that the federal gov't should keep it's f*ing nose out of my bedroom."
First off, marriage is a state institution that extends far beyond the bedroom, otherwise it wouldn't exist even for heterosexual couples.
Secondly, what exactly is the federal government trying to do in your "bedroom?" At worst, it may try to compel your preciously sovereign state to recognize marriages from other states just as sovereign as yours. If you want your state to cherry-pick out-of-state marriages it finds "acceptable," then other states would be justified in declaring things like your driver's license null and void within their borders, and we end back up with the chaos we had before 1789.
If you value the federal constitution so much, you really should read Article IV some time.
"Now, once the federal gov't is gone, I'll deal with my state gov't."
Yeah, not like we haven't heard lines like that for the first eighty fucking years of the republic. We have the Fourteenth Amendment today because entrusting states (which seem intent on putting their sovereignty above that of their own people) to right their grievous wrongs against their own people "when they get around to it" just doesn't work.
The current federal framework is one in which the protections of personal rights and civil liberties within each state can only be greater and more stringent than the general, baseline protections provided by the federal government. People only pursue "states rights" when they want their state to have less protection, fewer safeguards than those afforded by the federal government. The only "states right" the argument pursues is the right of a state to oppress its own people.
"Seems there were a couple boys back in the 1800s that thought that way and went so far as to found a seperate nation between the US and Mexico,"
Because the Mexican federal government from which you seceded didn't want slavery.
"and the leaders only gave in when the populace wanted to join with the US,"
Uh-huh. They thought it was such a bad idea that Sam Houston was ardently against the second secession.
"But for to be the only State in this here Union which was previously a successful country of it's own right, to me that's pretty decent. Don't you agree?"
Then you may want to take a look at the histories of Vermont and Hawaii. Texas' only unique claim to fame is to be the only state to secede twice, from two different unions, because it wanted to protect slavery.
"it was about the fact that the southerners didn't want to pay exorbitant taxes to the north for manufactured goods produced in the US."
After you're done with familiarizing yourself with Article IV, you can move on to Article I. No taxes, duties or excises on interstate commerce.
But if it really was about the protectionist tariffs that increased the price of foreign manufactured goods, why didn't the secession happen some time before the brand-spanking-new, ardently abolitionist
Not really. "We can't do it, we lack the ability and the wherewithal" is something that would get a US politician voted out of office to the repeated frat boy chants of "USA! USA! USA!"
Nay, the US flavor of politician would go on about how we could, but wouldn't because we're such nice, peace-loving guys; besides, if we'd done it, it'd be so full of win that there'd be no doubt who pulled it off.
"Slashdot is not on their suggested blogs list. Can't imagine why."
Because unlike the left/liberal/whatever-leaning blogs listed, Slashdot is populated by rabid anarcho-capitalists that view Ron Paul as their messiah or will otherwise end up voting themseleves into utter meaninglessness this November.
I mean, the Illinois Nazis hate Bush too, and you don't see them on McCain's recommended spamming list.
"There is talk of compensation packages available for the falsely accused. "
And since it's cheaper to compensate the poor for their lost wages than the rich, guess who this will be used most heavily against, and who will be all but immune from it!
"Maybe it's just a term internally used by the Canadian secret services."
Or, maybe because it's being translated from a French document, it's a French abbreviation. After all, the abbreviation "EU" means completely different things to francophones and anglophones.
"One thing the North American market has that Japan and Europe doesn't have is LAND."
You're forgetting sea. North America is closer to the places where this hardware is manufactured than Europe. And there aren't as many pirates (of the "arrrr!" kind) in the central Pacific (i. e. the US Navy's playground) as there are in the Arabian Sea en route to the Suez. Unless they want to go through Panama, which means even more fuel oil burned.
Also, I'd wager that Mexican longshoremen are cheaper than their European counterparts. NAFTA means they can just truck it up from Manzanillo rather than deal with Long Beach or Vancouver.
"Over the past five years, 43 US states have adopted data breach notification laws"
"If you get hacked, you have to tell us, so that we can prosecute you for having lax security and your customers can abandon you." Or, you know, they can keep their mouthes shut, since the reason for these mandatory disclosure laws to begin with is that, unless these companies say anything, nobody but the thief knows they were compromised.
I'm sure that even the use tax laws are more successful.
"but it's not like there wasn't hyperinflation when our money was "good as gold". In fact, banks were collapsing left and right throughout the 1800's when we were solidly on a gold standard."
Hyperinflation was Weimar Germany. If I remember correctly, the US banking crises of the Nineteenth Century (aside from the lack of the New Deal, since before then they happened every other decade or so) was the gold standard bringing about deflation. If the value of the money in your pocket goes down, it makes it easier to pay off your debts as the value of those debts decrease as well. But if the value increases, then suddenly your farm isn't worth the mortgage you took out on it.
Slashdot Mirror
The best part are the pics that show the guy's room. The only time a woman sees that room is when his mother comes down to do the laundry.
Bitch better be Cat6A.
Since we're talking about the House of Lords, does that mean that they're preparing YouTube videos with the Queen as the intended audience?
"launched Wednesday at 1605 GMT."
So we're talking 0405 UTC?
"I don't remember the military having to be called in to take over Panama."
You mean the Colombian province?
"Many Slashdotters are strongly freedom-oriented."
For their own personal definition of "freedom." Freedom for whom? Freedom from what?
"Ron Paul was the freedom-oriented candidate. How is this confusing?
Because Ron Paul wants to eliminate many, perhaps most, of the protections of aforementioned civil liberties.
The Confederate Constitution, adopted in March, 1861, predating the Emancipation Proclamation by nearly two years, predating even Virginia's secession, has some interesting differences from the original 1789 document it was trying to emulate:
- No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
- The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
- In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
But, oh no, it had nothing to do with slavery until 1863."The states were originally founded to each be sovereign"
The states are not sovereign, the people are sovereign. The states are a mere artificial construct.
"with a federal system to ensure interstate commerce and to protect the common borders"
But then the Articles of Confederation couldn't manage even that, and so we adopted a new constitution that included strong republican features, such as a directly elected House of Representatives (as well as firm safeguards to prevent your "sovereign states" from interfering in their election in any way). And lo and behold, having direct interaction between the people and their national government allowed the new government to accomplish what the old one (which never acknowledged any relationship between the people and the central government) never could do.
"As far as what that bill means, it doesn't mean that the Federal Gov't should say homosexuality is wrong, it says that the federal gov't should keep it's f*ing nose out of my bedroom."
First off, marriage is a state institution that extends far beyond the bedroom, otherwise it wouldn't exist even for heterosexual couples.
Secondly, what exactly is the federal government trying to do in your "bedroom?" At worst, it may try to compel your preciously sovereign state to recognize marriages from other states just as sovereign as yours. If you want your state to cherry-pick out-of-state marriages it finds "acceptable," then other states would be justified in declaring things like your driver's license null and void within their borders, and we end back up with the chaos we had before 1789.
If you value the federal constitution so much, you really should read Article IV some time.
"Now, once the federal gov't is gone, I'll deal with my state gov't."
Yeah, not like we haven't heard lines like that for the first eighty fucking years of the republic. We have the Fourteenth Amendment today because entrusting states (which seem intent on putting their sovereignty above that of their own people) to right their grievous wrongs against their own people "when they get around to it" just doesn't work.
The current federal framework is one in which the protections of personal rights and civil liberties within each state can only be greater and more stringent than the general, baseline protections provided by the federal government. People only pursue "states rights" when they want their state to have less protection, fewer safeguards than those afforded by the federal government. The only "states right" the argument pursues is the right of a state to oppress its own people.
"Seems there were a couple boys back in the 1800s that thought that way and went so far as to found a seperate nation between the US and Mexico,"
Because the Mexican federal government from which you seceded didn't want slavery.
"and the leaders only gave in when the populace wanted to join with the US,"
Uh-huh. They thought it was such a bad idea that Sam Houston was ardently against the second secession.
"But for to be the only State in this here Union which was previously a successful country of it's own right, to me that's pretty decent. Don't you agree?"
Then you may want to take a look at the histories of Vermont and Hawaii. Texas' only unique claim to fame is to be the only state to secede twice, from two different unions, because it wanted to protect slavery.
"it was about the fact that the southerners didn't want to pay exorbitant taxes to the north for manufactured goods produced in the US."
After you're done with familiarizing yourself with Article IV, you can move on to Article I. No taxes, duties or excises on interstate commerce.
But if it really was about the protectionist tariffs that increased the price of foreign manufactured goods, why didn't the secession happen some time before the brand-spanking-new, ardently abolitionist
"Before reagan, pubs wanted us to stay out of other nations"
Unless they really wanted to build a new canal. Or just plain shoot at some Spaniards and their former subjects.
Not really. "We can't do it, we lack the ability and the wherewithal" is something that would get a US politician voted out of office to the repeated frat boy chants of "USA! USA! USA!"
Nay, the US flavor of politician would go on about how we could, but wouldn't because we're such nice, peace-loving guys; besides, if we'd done it, it'd be so full of win that there'd be no doubt who pulled it off.
"Slashdot is not on their suggested blogs list. Can't imagine why."
Because unlike the left/liberal/whatever-leaning blogs listed, Slashdot is populated by rabid anarcho-capitalists that view Ron Paul as their messiah or will otherwise end up voting themseleves into utter meaninglessness this November.
I mean, the Illinois Nazis hate Bush too, and you don't see them on McCain's recommended spamming list.
"There is talk of compensation packages available for the falsely accused. "
And since it's cheaper to compensate the poor for their lost wages than the rich, guess who this will be used most heavily against, and who will be all but immune from it!
Then demonstrate your literacy (and your geekdom) by gleaning it from the URL.
"Aren't those the 5 most prominant English-speaking countries?"
I'm pretty sure India would bump New Zealand off that list.
It's the list of countries dominated by English-speaking white Protestants. South Africa and Ireland need not apply.
"Maybe it's just a term internally used by the Canadian secret services."
Or, maybe because it's being translated from a French document, it's a French abbreviation. After all, the abbreviation "EU" means completely different things to francophones and anglophones.
Even TFA doesn't include France and Germany in this "U5" boy band thing or whatever it is.
Welcome to Slashdot, where even the submitter doesn't need to RTFA.
"I'm not used to seeing NZ in the short-list for anything,"
The Back-Seater's Gang, along with Canada and, um... Canada...
There's gotta be more members!
"One thing the North American market has that Japan and Europe doesn't have is LAND."
You're forgetting sea. North America is closer to the places where this hardware is manufactured than Europe. And there aren't as many pirates (of the "arrrr!" kind) in the central Pacific (i. e. the US Navy's playground) as there are in the Arabian Sea en route to the Suez. Unless they want to go through Panama, which means even more fuel oil burned.
Also, I'd wager that Mexican longshoremen are cheaper than their European counterparts. NAFTA means they can just truck it up from Manzanillo rather than deal with Long Beach or Vancouver.
"Remember when you were little and some kid said they were gonna tell on you because you called them a poo-poo head?"
Remember when you were little and called someone a poo-poo head and then their parents mindfucked you until you killed yourself?
"Actually, it was more like some whiny kid who learned how to manipulate their parents to get the retribution they wanted against someone."
Like creating a fake MySpace profile with the sole intent to harass.
"Over the past five years, 43 US states have adopted data breach notification laws"
"If you get hacked, you have to tell us, so that we can prosecute you for having lax security and your customers can abandon you." Or, you know, they can keep their mouthes shut, since the reason for these mandatory disclosure laws to begin with is that, unless these companies say anything, nobody but the thief knows they were compromised.
I'm sure that even the use tax laws are more successful.
"It's bad enough that the figure used is USD."
There's not enough significant digits for there to be a difference between the numbers in USD and CAD.
"but it's not like there wasn't hyperinflation when our money was "good as gold". In fact, banks were collapsing left and right throughout the 1800's when we were solidly on a gold standard."
Hyperinflation was Weimar Germany. If I remember correctly, the US banking crises of the Nineteenth Century (aside from the lack of the New Deal, since before then they happened every other decade or so) was the gold standard bringing about deflation. If the value of the money in your pocket goes down, it makes it easier to pay off your debts as the value of those debts decrease as well. But if the value increases, then suddenly your farm isn't worth the mortgage you took out on it.
"Nintendo should just go ahead and silently raise the price a little."
notrly
"I hate hearing the whining of the article repeated elsewhere"
TFA talks of the North American market. Tack on the Canadian numbers to those of the US and I'm sure you'll see the total top the Japanese numbers.
He's a natural-born citizen over the age of 35. Does anything more really matter?