Icebike said twice, with no provocation things such as:
Are you a total idiot, or do you just think the average American Soldier is? And; Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
Both times when no one referenced, or implied, anything about US soldiers being morons, or otherwise slandered the people in the US military as a whole or in part. Both time he issued this statement was towards an attack on US policy and not those following mere orders.
So, lets simplify this; Someone says "The US Policy of imprisoning enemies is not infallible", and Icebike says "American soldiers are not dumb, ask one, though you probably would insult them [because you dislike them]". This is a text book straw man.
My comment, on the other hand, was just pointing this out, using a generalization of both of Icebike's comments. While the generalization might not be in the best rhetorical form, classifying it as a straw man was accurate.
You would be perfectly correct, if (and only if) any of the commenters was questioning the average soldiers judgment. They didn't.
I did. Yes, I was also being a bit inflammatory, but I'm sick of blind patriotism, and using the "troops" as a shield to protect dogmatic political ideologies.
Stating that you will make a better decision than someone who is black (or white or blue or rainbow hued) because you are of Germanic descent is racist.
Gonna stretch things a bit here; As an American of German decent I know the German-American community better than most people outside of that community, say. Thus when judging I am more informed on that issue. More qualified, or such. Yes, its a stretch. A large one, I'm just trying to give her the benefit of the doubt until I can actually learn something about her in her confirmation hearings. Until then, the proverbial jury is out.
I can see some benefit of having someone on the bench who isn't a WASP, who has a different background, though. Having one perspective is generally a bad idea. Again, this is a provincial judgment until I know more about her.
In 2006, a Federal District Court upheld the New Haven decision to discard the scores of such a test, because of the skin color of the applicants who did well, in the Ricci v. DeStefano decision. This decision was backed up in appeal by judge Sotomayor.
IANAL, so I'm not sure the specifics of this. From the little I do know of her though, she seems to mostly judge from strict legal interpretation. Perhaps there was some off paper-work, or something, or some other technicality. I'm not sure. If we take it on face value, though, I agree that this is a bad thing. Tolerance should now be colorblind, the time for giving points to people for race/gender has passed its usefulness. Hell, if we accept that certain races need a boost because of bad circumstances, we must acknowledge that there are whites in similar circumstances who also need a boost. From this we can just decide to FIX the social problems plaguing everyone, and be done with it.
Sadly, I expect the politicians who must affirm her appointment to act as usual, on political motivation, in their opposition and support.
It does depress me. I really wish the Democrats and Republicans would wake up and realize that the little D or R after your name is silly compared to WHY you are in public office. This Us vs. Them crap has to go, as does all this stupid slander.
I really wish all the pundits would bugger off, and stop helping to polarize our country.
Just like the innocent Nazis were kidnapped when they were caught on the battlefield or after contributing in a significant way to the Nazi party.
The captured Nazis also were subject to the Geneva Convention. And from what I've been told, there was this MASSIVE and somewhat important TRIAL after the war... Something called Nuremberg, or some such.
We will never give them asylum. Imagine how the right wing media would run with that. "TERRORISTS ON AMERICAN STREETS!", sure, we know they aren't terrorist, as would anyone with half a brain willing to read up on these things, but the only proof most of America needs to prove that someone is a terrorist (as sadly evident in this very topic) is "zomg they were in Gitmo!"
Can't you just hear the right wing fear machine grinding happily on that for months.
Don't know how you got marked as a troll for that.
I'd prefer that they were carefully vetted before release, but after that I too would be fine with them in my neighborhood. As long as they are forced to open some decent middle eastern restaurants around here.
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
Straw man much?
"If you don't agree with me you hate American soldiers!"
Some of our soldiers are idiots, yes. Some are not. This shouldn't be suprising, since American soldiers are well American, and some Americans are idiots, and some are not. This isn't suprising because Americans are just humans, and some humans are idiots and some are not. Just because you enlist in the armed forces you are not suddenly immune from being a moron. Hell, I know some morons who enlisted just because they couldn't find a decent job, and weren't bright enough for college.
Hell, some of my army buddies (not enlisted, but know a small boatload who are/were) complain non-stop about how moronic their comrades are. Actually, its odd, they talk about their military job in roughly the same terms as the average American talks about their civilian job.
People in the military, like everyone else in the world, have to earn my respect. You don't get a pass just because you enlist.
That said, as I said, I have some friends and acquaintances in the military who I respect a great deal, and being in the military doesn't hurt this one bit.
In actuality, these men were found on the battlefield participating in attacks on the US,
If someone invaded my country, I'd be on the battlefield participating in attacks against whoever it was. Its like saying the French Resistance in WWII was a terrorist organization, and was generally unlawful. The only time your allowed to fight an invading military force is if the invaders recognize your legitimacy.
I'm not sure of the reason every singe detainee is there, but I have heard that there was some amount of them who were "enemy combatants", which is a different thing than a terrorist. An "enemy combatant" is a POW who is not subject to the Geneva Convention because they are called "enemy combatants".
When did I say "freedom is bad"? Freedom is awesome as long as it doesn't restrict other people's ability to be free. Since other people being free is as awesome as you or me being free.
Go freedom! Woohoo!
Terrible thing... think of all those dead-weight, useless people that would have to go get jobs!
Nah, with an attitude like that I really would have nothing against taxing the hell out of you and giving it to them. They seem to have more worth as people than you, monetary worth be damned.
That makes her a safe place-holder. Now, I'd be pissed if I wanted a real, effective, judicial activist, liberal judge. Because she's going to be feeble and easily cut down in argument.
I'm glad its become a game of "my side winning" and not... you know... democracy, and the good of the people, all that outdated jazz.
Oh and, my side lost, so I'm going to screw your side, because we still know better even if the majority of American voters decided otherwise.
The Dems were just as guilty of this too.
Screw Republicans, and screw democrats. Dogmatic, ignorant children them all. The second you accept a label, and a dogma, you really don't have much of a say in things. This is true for all the labels out there, from libertarian to socialist, from Democrat to Republican. You don't know better, your just as valid in your opinions as the side you dislike. The game isn't about WINNING, the game is about what America wants. America wanted Obama and the Dems, for good or ill, whether you like it or not. Going out to "git 'em" because you don't like the letter after their name at the bottom of the screen in your favorite self-selected biased partison television news station is idiotic.
The other party had their day in the sun, and mucked things up terribly, might as well let the other party try. Sure, they might muck things up too, but its worth letting them try, they really can't be much worse than Nixon/Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush was.
because the method of intimidation favored is to claim the opposing views are only driven by prejudice and paranoia.
Agreed.
Figuring her panel's overturn rate by the Supremes is probably a better indication of why she should not be on the Supreme Court but is fine where she is.
Its lower than the average, actually. And the issue is more complicated than that, since the SCOTUS only reviewed THREE of her thousands of cases. Three does not a valid sample make.
The real problem, she was selected for what she is, not who she is or how she ruled...
I worry about this too. Though WHY she was selected doesn't weigh for or against whether she is qualified or not. I'm guessing its more of her race and gender being a tie breaker, than the sole criteria. No matter how much people reject her, no one can really argue against the fact that she is very intelligent, and has a fair amount of judicial experience. Beyond that, I'm not (nor is the majority of slashdot, your cable news network of choice, or dogmatic righties or lefties) really able to tell her legal worth, not being a lawyer, or judicial wonk.
at least according to the speech the teleprompter provided.
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Most official use pre-prepared speaches, actually most experienced public speakers generally use either a pre-written transcript or well organized notes. Extemporaneous speeches are generally a bad thing on anything that matters (as G.W. Bush proved on more than one occasion). So your criticism depends on the technology used to deliver notes to the speaker. If so, then I agree, I prefer paper to teleprompters as well, but then again I'm old fashioned.
Also, just so you know, 90% of political speeches, even by the people you like, are written by someone else. Stupid, but true.
Your upbringing colors your perceptions and opinions. Being raised a middle class white male in the mostly white suburbs, has played a very large role in shaping me into who I am today. Granted, I've put some work into transcending this, but it still holds true. Hell, being left handed, wearing glasses, having curly hair, being tall, etc... has colored my perceptions.
I'm guessing being hispanic and female would have similar effects.
Pointing this out isn't racist. By stating that being of Germanic decent influences my opinions, am I being racist?
Yes, she represents a class that isn't common in our halls of power which are largely composed of older rich white men, yes, her views might give her certain insights that would be harder for rich white guys to see. Nothing too controversial here., I can admit that Martin Luther King Jr. was probably so effective at his work because he was... well... black. Would MLK Jr. stating that his background gives him insight on certain issues that would be much harder to obtain from a what guy, be racist?
Of all the arguments against her, this is the silliest, and least deserving of consideration. The fact that she is somewhat unknown, and doesn't have a clear history, or philosophy, is more disturbing to me. I also worry that she was picked because she is a latina, over other, perhaps more qualified, canditates just to solidify diversity.
I'm sick of diversity for diversity's sake. Merit should be colorblind, and the only criteria for our decisions.
I was addressing your own straw man. I wasn't disparaging "capitalism" as a whole, just a narrow fringe view that is prominently represented on Slashdot. Capitalism is fine and dandy, I have nothing against it. When it trumps human values, and becomes an poor ad hoc justification for blind greed, then its absurd.
Which is why centrally planned economies deserve nothing but contempt. Compare how humanity was treated in East Germany 1945-1985 to how humanity fared in West Germany during the same period.
Not disagreeing with you there.
All you need is a way of keeping the peace. When you start imposing rules is when it starts becoming artificial.
Where is the line between keeping the peace, and imposing so many rules as to make it "artificial"? Perhaps that's the real topic for debate in areas like this.
Here's a clue for you: every economy is capitalistic
Agreed, and point taken.
You're saying that one person or one small group of people can make better decisions than a huge collection of people arriving at a consensus. There is no way that's correct
I didn't say that, nor do I believe that. I do think, though, that capitalism, and economies, should always be forced to be humane, and within the limits of the social values of the culture they're embedded in. Basically, we should regulate them so they don't become hostile to people, not that we should completely control it. It should be free, but constrained, I suppose.
This is what I'm getting at, there has never been a completely free market, there always has been organized social pressure to keep it in check.
As stated, mere money and individual greed should be used contra to humanity, to should be used in a way that benefits it.
, they call it "Capitalism", and it actually has a pretty good history of improving living standards and prosperity.
Pure capitalism is just like pure socialism, ineffectual, untried, and inhumane. It's naive dogma.
Social Darwinism is when people say "the poor are poor by their own choices, and thus deserve all that that get", which is fallacious, and rather sociopathic.
No one would ever try to stop this natural process of letting the big, inefficient dinosaurs die off so that the smaller and more adaptable could fill the void. I mean, that would be crazy, right?
See, there is the fallacy. Economy is not a natural phenomena, its made made, no matter what market ideology you want to accept. Also, the poor, and unproductive are not a species, nor is it a genetic condition to be weeded out. If we kill everyone making below 20k a year, in a generation there will be a whole new crop of poor, disenfranchised people. If we do this over and over and over, the problem will never go away. This isn't Evolution.
Poverty isn't genetic, and therefore isn't under the same rules as evolution. Instead of disparaging the disenfranchised, we should be asking why they are disenfranchised!
Also the second an mere idea becomes hostile to humanity, it deserves nothing but contempt.
But I think it is also important not to "suppress" an idea because it leads to a negative outcome.
Never stated that I'm for suppression of any idea. I do wish there was a way to automatically attach historical footnotes to uninformed comments though. Though sometimes I feel feisty, and would like to claim "you don't have a right to ignorance". That becomes a rather sticky position though.
Off topic; I always had a warm spot for Continental Philosophy, though it is almost impossible to pick up here in the States. I got lucky in my undergrad program to have two migrant Continental drift in from Canada, other than that all I could find in practically available universities was boring analytical philosophy. If I wanted to major in philosophical logic, I would have probably picked math or CS.
Luckily, I had a very good philosophy of science guy available, to maintain my interest.
American philosophy departments really need to diversify a bit. I find the post-War Continental thoughts to be very important for the reasons that you state. The European intellectuals bent inward, and tried to discover the "how" and "why" of the atrocity that was WWII, which is more important to me than moving a bunch of lifeless (and ultimately meaningless) symbols around....but many flavors of continental philosophy have gone so far in that direction that they have undermined any possibility of authority at all (even truth).
Which flavors, pre tell, to risk veering even further off topic.
Not all good ideas must come from good intentions. Planned Parenthood, in its modern conception might be a good idea, but it was originated from bad ideas.
Sometimes it shocks me how ignorant most of my fellow Americans are of their negative history. This is especially true of eugenics. Hitler actually ADMIRED us, he wrote a letter to Woodrow Wilson claiming as much. It was a big, accepted deal before WWII put a sour flavor into our mouths.
I wish we remembered, since Darwinism is still misused to tragic ends. Socioeconomic Darwinism is still flaunted among the extreme libertarian/Randian/. crowd, even if it is a dire fallacy which lead to some serious negative consequences. those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Machines that can handle more than 8GB tend to top out at 64GB. I'm not going to say that 64GB should be enough for anyone, but there's a significant price jump because a 64GB machine is considered low-end "enterprise" class.
A bit of hyperbole there. My laptop has 4GB, uses a ton of bloated software on my win7 test install, and very rarely needs to write out. My main computer, used for gaming, writing, graphic design, browsing, etc.. has 6GB and I don't think I've actually had it write to cache in 6 months, barring a couple rare circumstances (playing Fallout3 while deciding I really need to process that RAW file, forgetting I'm encoding a AVI file, all at the same time, for example), but never due to running "normal" bloated applications. Right now I'd say 4GB is more than enough for the casual user, less if your using a leaner OS like Linux (where the only writes I get on my laptop are from wonky WINE and VM experiments).
Though sometimes it is shocking to check my usage. I'm standing at 3.18GB of tied up ram right, thanks to running WoW, iTunes, Firefox with 3 tabs open, and some random TSRs.
If you don't want bloat, fine. Don't use any windower (they all have feature creep lately), use lynx, use pine, use the lightest install you can find.
But you would be in a tiny, infinitesimal almost, minority. Actually not, since you admit that KDE's bloat is fine. One person's bloat is another's essential feature. Looking into the OSS world, Vim and Emacs are the definition of bloat. Why use a simple editor, when you can have your own mini-OS?
In apps like Office, and Photoshop, there are, suprisingly, people who actually use all these features you don't. Sure, at some point nobody uses them all, but between everyone they are all used.
Yes, there is a point where it gets absurd.
All software I installed on my computers, was free (as in everything) for me. So I care for not buying another piece of RAM.
I don't get how one statement implies the other. There is no implication, I would replace "so" with "and".
Legality and morality are loosely linked, but do not imply each other. I jay walk almost daily, but I doubt that this puts my morality into question. Some people might not view some copyright laws (and instances of them) as particularly moral, and thus feel free to ignore them as long as the risk of getting caught is lower than the satisfaction gained in the action.
I'm sick of people thinking that following law is always moral, or that all laws are moral statements. In extreme circumstances following laws can be immoral, and breaking them moral. Hording mp3's or ROM files probably don't fall into this (to me its pretty morally agnostic, in some cases I see no problem with piracy, and in some I do, depending on circumstance, and how unnatural the law is in that case).
To me the pathology springs from wanting to have 6000 ROMs, when there is no chance in hell that you could ever enjoy a significant percentage of them, I horde DVDs, but I have managed to watch all of them (sans a few crappy gifts).
They control it by controlling who you get to vote for.
No. Third Parties exist, and are not barred from running, or even winning. People don't vote for them because they like the status-quo, are brainwashed morons (anyone who self-identifies with a single noun denoting a full spectrum of ideology is a moron), too uneducated to evalute claims rationally, or there might be no valid, sane, third party. All of these brings up a deeper, and more difficult to diagnose, can of worms.
Then they tell you who will be a judge.
No. This is the Constitution telling you that your elected Executive gets to pick your judge, and your elected Congress gets to agree or not.
Your position has oodles of "jurisprudence" to back it up
Our legal position is common law, due to our English heritage and political pedigree. Judges make law by their decisions. We, the people, have ways of removing judges (albeit often second hand). This is so law reflects the mores and norms of the land, even with some lag. Yes, there are hickups, but there always will be, and always were. We have ALWAYS had mere "jurisprudence" to back up our law, even if this law is the interpretation of the Constitution. Yes, the Constitution, like all documents, is subject to some degree of this. We are not the same people as the framers, and are from a different culture, therefore there will be some differences. Yes, the fundamentals that we all can agree are static, the context changes. What does "search and seizure" mean in the context of modern technology for example. You might answer, but your answer is an opinion.
they do not have the best interests of the citizens in mind
In your opinion. In my opinion the Second Amendment allows the government to bar access to guns in some cases, just because of the use of the term "people" over "persons" (one being the whole, the other being individuals). Is this correct? Perhaps, but it is just my opinion. Law, and the legistlator, exist to flesh this out. This will change over the times, but the spirit remains the same, some access to guns to "the people" is needed. The extent is the fun part.
I hope you never need your free speech, for you have abandoned it.
Welcome to the straw man. I can say "you can't yell fire in a theater" or "you can slander/libel with the intent to do harm" or "you can't make threats without them being acted upon seriously", or "owners of property, or media, have the ability to censor speech", and still stand for the first amendment, and freedom of speech as a whole.
Government is about balancing the rights of individuals against the rights of the whole. Your rights end where mine begin, and visa versa. You have the right to free speach, but the second your speech causes me harm, or hinders my rights, your rights end. And, of course, visa versa.
This all said, I do agree with your previous posts on some levels. I just think that you overstate your point somewhat. Really, nothing in the whole of the universe is black and white, and the second we think it is, really bad stuff generally starts to happen. There is a spirit of the Constitution that we should, must, obey. But the Constitution was also written, and based, on a certain spirit as well. This is the practice of common law, and the balancing of rights between individuals. All of our rights are justifiably restricted to protect the rights of others, and their rights restricted to protect our own. Rights, whatever the hell that term objectively means, are a social convention, and not an individual one.
I do have issues with Sotomayor as well. But more along the line that she was picked because of her race and gender (if not, good, but Obama made it seem like he picked her to give "people the promise that they could be something when they grow up", which is the worst possible reason for picking someone so powerful). I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Anytime you put "diversity" above color, gender, and cultur
You know, Texas just might leave the union (with other states not far behind) in the next eight years if our nation's situation doesn't improve at the federal level.
On the behalf of the rest of the nation; is that a promise?
Good. I wouldn't miss Texas, nor much of the South or Bible Belt. I'd be thrilled if they formed their trickle-down theocratic wonderland, and leave the rest of the US in peace. They could call themselves the United States of Backwardia.
I don't think Texas has much going for it in the constitutional sense, they kill a lot of people, they really like their religion, and to enforce it on others, etc...
To the rest of the South, and sane Texans, your more than welcome to join the rest of us. I know there are sane people over there. The generalization was for humor. Though it would be nice if all the "red state"-Limbaugh folk left the rest of us alone.
I'm personally out on this issue, I really don't know enough to form an opinion. I'm generally against it for the reasons you state. Private industry should be allowed to fail.
But we run into two issues. The first being something a fellow earlier brought up, that we need some industry here for national security. Imagine going into WWII without any capability existent for large scale vehicle manufacturing. Our ability to turn the proverbial Plymouths into swords helped us become a military force to reckon with.
The second is the jobs. While American Automakers have gone out of their way to screw workers, and move all their actual work to third world countries, they still employ huge amounts of people, all the way down the supply chain. If we remove them, we exasperate our current economic problems by some huge amounts, that would be even an even larger FUBAR than now.
As an aside, I always found it odd that we thought we could move all our jobs over-seas, and really expect ourselves to be the largest consumers of our own goods. If we lose jobs, do we not lose spending power? If we lose spending power, we must cut production, lessening the amount of jobs. And on and on. Its no surprise it bites us in the ass in the end. Oddly, Marx, love him or hate him, did point this long ago.
Slashdot Mirror
Icebike said twice, with no provocation things such as:
Are you a total idiot, or do you just think the average American Soldier is?
And;
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
Both times when no one referenced, or implied, anything about US soldiers being morons, or otherwise slandered the people in the US military as a whole or in part. Both time he issued this statement was towards an attack on US policy and not those following mere orders.
So, lets simplify this; Someone says "The US Policy of imprisoning enemies is not infallible", and Icebike says "American soldiers are not dumb, ask one, though you probably would insult them [because you dislike them]". This is a text book straw man.
My comment, on the other hand, was just pointing this out, using a generalization of both of Icebike's comments. While the generalization might not be in the best rhetorical form, classifying it as a straw man was accurate.
You would be perfectly correct, if (and only if) any of the commenters was questioning the average soldiers judgment. They didn't.
I did. Yes, I was also being a bit inflammatory, but I'm sick of blind patriotism, and using the "troops" as a shield to protect dogmatic political ideologies.
Stating that you will make a better decision than someone who is black (or white or blue or rainbow hued) because you are of Germanic descent is racist.
Gonna stretch things a bit here; As an American of German decent I know the German-American community better than most people outside of that community, say. Thus when judging I am more informed on that issue. More qualified, or such. Yes, its a stretch. A large one, I'm just trying to give her the benefit of the doubt until I can actually learn something about her in her confirmation hearings. Until then, the proverbial jury is out.
I can see some benefit of having someone on the bench who isn't a WASP, who has a different background, though. Having one perspective is generally a bad idea. Again, this is a provincial judgment until I know more about her.
In 2006, a Federal District Court upheld the New Haven decision to discard the scores of such a test, because of the skin color of the applicants who did well, in the Ricci v. DeStefano decision. This decision was backed up in appeal by judge Sotomayor.
IANAL, so I'm not sure the specifics of this. From the little I do know of her though, she seems to mostly judge from strict legal interpretation. Perhaps there was some off paper-work, or something, or some other technicality. I'm not sure. If we take it on face value, though, I agree that this is a bad thing. Tolerance should now be colorblind, the time for giving points to people for race/gender has passed its usefulness. Hell, if we accept that certain races need a boost because of bad circumstances, we must acknowledge that there are whites in similar circumstances who also need a boost. From this we can just decide to FIX the social problems plaguing everyone, and be done with it.
Sadly, I expect the politicians who must affirm her appointment to act as usual, on political motivation, in their opposition and support.
It does depress me. I really wish the Democrats and Republicans would wake up and realize that the little D or R after your name is silly compared to WHY you are in public office. This Us vs. Them crap has to go, as does all this stupid slander.
I really wish all the pundits would bugger off, and stop helping to polarize our country.
the most obvious is that they were not wearing a uniform.
I'm sure we both realize how dumb that is. Human rights has become a question of wardrobe? This makes sense how?
Think of the French Resistance in WWII, I'm sure most of us would agree that they had rights and were subject to the Geneva Convention.
Just like the innocent Nazis were kidnapped when they were caught on the battlefield or after contributing in a significant way to the Nazi party.
The captured Nazis also were subject to the Geneva Convention. And from what I've been told, there was this MASSIVE and somewhat important TRIAL after the war... Something called Nuremberg, or some such.
I agree with you completely... but...
We will never give them asylum. Imagine how the right wing media would run with that. "TERRORISTS ON AMERICAN STREETS!", sure, we know they aren't terrorist, as would anyone with half a brain willing to read up on these things, but the only proof most of America needs to prove that someone is a terrorist (as sadly evident in this very topic) is "zomg they were in Gitmo!"
Can't you just hear the right wing fear machine grinding happily on that for months.
Don't know how you got marked as a troll for that.
I'd prefer that they were carefully vetted before release, but after that I too would be fine with them in my neighborhood. As long as they are forced to open some decent middle eastern restaurants around here.
Talk to someone who has served in country. If you can refrain from insulting them long enough to actually listen to what they tell you.
Straw man much?
"If you don't agree with me you hate American soldiers!"
Some of our soldiers are idiots, yes. Some are not. This shouldn't be suprising, since American soldiers are well American, and some Americans are idiots, and some are not. This isn't suprising because Americans are just humans, and some humans are idiots and some are not. Just because you enlist in the armed forces you are not suddenly immune from being a moron. Hell, I know some morons who enlisted just because they couldn't find a decent job, and weren't bright enough for college.
Hell, some of my army buddies (not enlisted, but know a small boatload who are/were) complain non-stop about how moronic their comrades are. Actually, its odd, they talk about their military job in roughly the same terms as the average American talks about their civilian job.
People in the military, like everyone else in the world, have to earn my respect. You don't get a pass just because you enlist.
That said, as I said, I have some friends and acquaintances in the military who I respect a great deal, and being in the military doesn't hurt this one bit.
In actuality, these men were found on the battlefield participating in attacks on the US,
If someone invaded my country, I'd be on the battlefield participating in attacks against whoever it was. Its like saying the French Resistance in WWII was a terrorist organization, and was generally unlawful. The only time your allowed to fight an invading military force is if the invaders recognize your legitimacy.
I'm not sure of the reason every singe detainee is there, but I have heard that there was some amount of them who were "enemy combatants", which is a different thing than a terrorist. An "enemy combatant" is a POW who is not subject to the Geneva Convention because they are called "enemy combatants".
Actually most of the back roads around here are too narrow for a Hummer. Having a 7' width isn't very practical, even if a 12" clearance it.
Wait... wait...
When did I say "freedom is bad"? Freedom is awesome as long as it doesn't restrict other people's ability to be free. Since other people being free is as awesome as you or me being free.
Go freedom! Woohoo!
Terrible thing... think of all those dead-weight, useless people that would have to go get jobs!
Nah, with an attitude like that I really would have nothing against taxing the hell out of you and giving it to them. They seem to have more worth as people than you, monetary worth be damned.
Yes. Mr. Troll. I was mean.
That makes her a safe place-holder. Now, I'd be pissed if I wanted a real, effective, judicial activist, liberal judge. Because she's going to be feeble and easily cut down in argument.
I'm glad its become a game of "my side winning" and not... you know... democracy, and the good of the people, all that outdated jazz.
Oh and, my side lost, so I'm going to screw your side, because we still know better even if the majority of American voters decided otherwise.
The Dems were just as guilty of this too.
Screw Republicans, and screw democrats. Dogmatic, ignorant children them all. The second you accept a label, and a dogma, you really don't have much of a say in things. This is true for all the labels out there, from libertarian to socialist, from Democrat to Republican. You don't know better, your just as valid in your opinions as the side you dislike. The game isn't about WINNING, the game is about what America wants. America wanted Obama and the Dems, for good or ill, whether you like it or not. Going out to "git 'em" because you don't like the letter after their name at the bottom of the screen in your favorite self-selected biased partison television news station is idiotic.
The other party had their day in the sun, and mucked things up terribly, might as well let the other party try. Sure, they might muck things up too, but its worth letting them try, they really can't be much worse than Nixon/Carter/Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush was.
because the method of intimidation favored is to claim the opposing views are only driven by prejudice and paranoia.
Agreed.
Figuring her panel's overturn rate by the Supremes is probably a better indication of why she should not be on the Supreme Court but is fine where she is.
Its lower than the average, actually. And the issue is more complicated than that, since the SCOTUS only reviewed THREE of her thousands of cases. Three does not a valid sample make.
The real problem, she was selected for what she is, not who she is or how she ruled...
I worry about this too. Though WHY she was selected doesn't weigh for or against whether she is qualified or not. I'm guessing its more of her race and gender being a tie breaker, than the sole criteria. No matter how much people reject her, no one can really argue against the fact that she is very intelligent, and has a fair amount of judicial experience. Beyond that, I'm not (nor is the majority of slashdot, your cable news network of choice, or dogmatic righties or lefties) really able to tell her legal worth, not being a lawyer, or judicial wonk.
at least according to the speech the teleprompter provided.
I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. Most official use pre-prepared speaches, actually most experienced public speakers generally use either a pre-written transcript or well organized notes. Extemporaneous speeches are generally a bad thing on anything that matters (as G.W. Bush proved on more than one occasion). So your criticism depends on the technology used to deliver notes to the speaker. If so, then I agree, I prefer paper to teleprompters as well, but then again I'm old fashioned.
Also, just so you know, 90% of political speeches, even by the people you like, are written by someone else. Stupid, but true.
Your upbringing colors your perceptions and opinions. Being raised a middle class white male in the mostly white suburbs, has played a very large role in shaping me into who I am today. Granted, I've put some work into transcending this, but it still holds true. Hell, being left handed, wearing glasses, having curly hair, being tall, etc... has colored my perceptions.
I'm guessing being hispanic and female would have similar effects.
Pointing this out isn't racist. By stating that being of Germanic decent influences my opinions, am I being racist?
Yes, she represents a class that isn't common in our halls of power which are largely composed of older rich white men, yes, her views might give her certain insights that would be harder for rich white guys to see. Nothing too controversial here., I can admit that Martin Luther King Jr. was probably so effective at his work because he was... well... black. Would MLK Jr. stating that his background gives him insight on certain issues that would be much harder to obtain from a what guy, be racist?
Of all the arguments against her, this is the silliest, and least deserving of consideration. The fact that she is somewhat unknown, and doesn't have a clear history, or philosophy, is more disturbing to me. I also worry that she was picked because she is a latina, over other, perhaps more qualified, canditates just to solidify diversity.
I'm sick of diversity for diversity's sake. Merit should be colorblind, and the only criteria for our decisions.
Nice strawman you've got, there.
Thank you.
I was addressing your own straw man. I wasn't disparaging "capitalism" as a whole, just a narrow fringe view that is prominently represented on Slashdot. Capitalism is fine and dandy, I have nothing against it. When it trumps human values, and becomes an poor ad hoc justification for blind greed, then its absurd.
Which is why centrally planned economies deserve nothing but contempt. Compare how humanity was treated in East Germany 1945-1985 to how humanity fared in West Germany during the same period.
Not disagreeing with you there.
All you need is a way of keeping the peace. When you start imposing rules is when it starts becoming artificial.
Where is the line between keeping the peace, and imposing so many rules as to make it "artificial"? Perhaps that's the real topic for debate in areas like this.
Here's a clue for you: every economy is capitalistic
Agreed, and point taken.
You're saying that one person or one small group of people can make better decisions than a huge collection of people arriving at a consensus. There is no way that's correct
I didn't say that, nor do I believe that. I do think, though, that capitalism, and economies, should always be forced to be humane, and within the limits of the social values of the culture they're embedded in. Basically, we should regulate them so they don't become hostile to people, not that we should completely control it. It should be free, but constrained, I suppose.
This is what I'm getting at, there has never been a completely free market, there always has been organized social pressure to keep it in check.
As stated, mere money and individual greed should be used contra to humanity, to should be used in a way that benefits it.
Poverty, and other "undesirable" traits are not genetic, and thus not subject to the same rules of selection as genes (ala natural selection).
, they call it "Capitalism", and it actually has a pretty good history of improving living standards and prosperity.
Pure capitalism is just like pure socialism, ineffectual, untried, and inhumane. It's naive dogma.
Social Darwinism is when people say "the poor are poor by their own choices, and thus deserve all that that get", which is fallacious, and rather sociopathic.
No one would ever try to stop this natural process of letting the big, inefficient dinosaurs die off so that the smaller and more adaptable could fill the void. I mean, that would be crazy, right?
See, there is the fallacy. Economy is not a natural phenomena, its made made, no matter what market ideology you want to accept. Also, the poor, and unproductive are not a species, nor is it a genetic condition to be weeded out. If we kill everyone making below 20k a year, in a generation there will be a whole new crop of poor, disenfranchised people. If we do this over and over and over, the problem will never go away. This isn't Evolution.
Poverty isn't genetic, and therefore isn't under the same rules as evolution. Instead of disparaging the disenfranchised, we should be asking why they are disenfranchised!
Also the second an mere idea becomes hostile to humanity, it deserves nothing but contempt.
But I think it is also important not to "suppress" an idea because it leads to a negative outcome.
Never stated that I'm for suppression of any idea. I do wish there was a way to automatically attach historical footnotes to uninformed comments though. Though sometimes I feel feisty, and would like to claim "you don't have a right to ignorance". That becomes a rather sticky position though.
Off topic; I always had a warm spot for Continental Philosophy, though it is almost impossible to pick up here in the States. I got lucky in my undergrad program to have two migrant Continental drift in from Canada, other than that all I could find in practically available universities was boring analytical philosophy. If I wanted to major in philosophical logic, I would have probably picked math or CS.
Luckily, I had a very good philosophy of science guy available, to maintain my interest.
American philosophy departments really need to diversify a bit. I find the post-War Continental thoughts to be very important for the reasons that you state. The European intellectuals bent inward, and tried to discover the "how" and "why" of the atrocity that was WWII, which is more important to me than moving a bunch of lifeless (and ultimately meaningless) symbols around. ...but many flavors of continental philosophy have gone so far in that direction that they have undermined any possibility of authority at all (even truth).
Which flavors, pre tell, to risk veering even further off topic.
Actually Sanger was a eugenics follower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger#Eugenics_and_euthanasia
Not all good ideas must come from good intentions. Planned Parenthood, in its modern conception might be a good idea, but it was originated from bad ideas.
Sometimes it shocks me how ignorant most of my fellow Americans are of their negative history. This is especially true of eugenics. Hitler actually ADMIRED us, he wrote a letter to Woodrow Wilson claiming as much. It was a big, accepted deal before WWII put a sour flavor into our mouths.
I wish we remembered, since Darwinism is still misused to tragic ends. Socioeconomic Darwinism is still flaunted among the extreme libertarian/Randian /. crowd, even if it is a dire fallacy which lead to some serious negative consequences. those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Machines that can handle more than 8GB tend to top out at 64GB. I'm not going to say that 64GB should be enough for anyone, but there's a significant price jump because a 64GB machine is considered low-end "enterprise" class.
A bit of hyperbole there. My laptop has 4GB, uses a ton of bloated software on my win7 test install, and very rarely needs to write out. My main computer, used for gaming, writing, graphic design, browsing, etc.. has 6GB and I don't think I've actually had it write to cache in 6 months, barring a couple rare circumstances (playing Fallout3 while deciding I really need to process that RAW file, forgetting I'm encoding a AVI file, all at the same time, for example), but never due to running "normal" bloated applications. Right now I'd say 4GB is more than enough for the casual user, less if your using a leaner OS like Linux (where the only writes I get on my laptop are from wonky WINE and VM experiments).
Though sometimes it is shocking to check my usage. I'm standing at 3.18GB of tied up ram right, thanks to running WoW, iTunes, Firefox with 3 tabs open, and some random TSRs.
If you don't want bloat, fine. Don't use any windower (they all have feature creep lately), use lynx, use pine, use the lightest install you can find.
But you would be in a tiny, infinitesimal almost, minority. Actually not, since you admit that KDE's bloat is fine. One person's bloat is another's essential feature. Looking into the OSS world, Vim and Emacs are the definition of bloat. Why use a simple editor, when you can have your own mini-OS?
In apps like Office, and Photoshop, there are, suprisingly, people who actually use all these features you don't. Sure, at some point nobody uses them all, but between everyone they are all used.
Yes, there is a point where it gets absurd.
All software I installed on my computers, was free (as in everything) for me. So I care for not buying another piece of RAM.
I don't get how one statement implies the other. There is no implication, I would replace "so" with "and".
Legal != Right; Illegal != Wrong.
Legality and morality are loosely linked, but do not imply each other. I jay walk almost daily, but I doubt that this puts my morality into question. Some people might not view some copyright laws (and instances of them) as particularly moral, and thus feel free to ignore them as long as the risk of getting caught is lower than the satisfaction gained in the action.
I'm sick of people thinking that following law is always moral, or that all laws are moral statements. In extreme circumstances following laws can be immoral, and breaking them moral. Hording mp3's or ROM files probably don't fall into this (to me its pretty morally agnostic, in some cases I see no problem with piracy, and in some I do, depending on circumstance, and how unnatural the law is in that case).
To me the pathology springs from wanting to have 6000 ROMs, when there is no chance in hell that you could ever enjoy a significant percentage of them, I horde DVDs, but I have managed to watch all of them (sans a few crappy gifts).
They control it by controlling who you get to vote for.
No. Third Parties exist, and are not barred from running, or even winning. People don't vote for them because they like the status-quo, are brainwashed morons (anyone who self-identifies with a single noun denoting a full spectrum of ideology is a moron), too uneducated to evalute claims rationally, or there might be no valid, sane, third party. All of these brings up a deeper, and more difficult to diagnose, can of worms.
Then they tell you who will be a judge.
No. This is the Constitution telling you that your elected Executive gets to pick your judge, and your elected Congress gets to agree or not.
Your position has oodles of "jurisprudence" to back it up
Our legal position is common law, due to our English heritage and political pedigree. Judges make law by their decisions. We, the people, have ways of removing judges (albeit often second hand). This is so law reflects the mores and norms of the land, even with some lag. Yes, there are hickups, but there always will be, and always were. We have ALWAYS had mere "jurisprudence" to back up our law, even if this law is the interpretation of the Constitution. Yes, the Constitution, like all documents, is subject to some degree of this. We are not the same people as the framers, and are from a different culture, therefore there will be some differences. Yes, the fundamentals that we all can agree are static, the context changes. What does "search and seizure" mean in the context of modern technology for example. You might answer, but your answer is an opinion.
they do not have the best interests of the citizens in mind
In your opinion. In my opinion the Second Amendment allows the government to bar access to guns in some cases, just because of the use of the term "people" over "persons" (one being the whole, the other being individuals). Is this correct? Perhaps, but it is just my opinion. Law, and the legistlator, exist to flesh this out. This will change over the times, but the spirit remains the same, some access to guns to "the people" is needed. The extent is the fun part.
I hope you never need your free speech, for you have abandoned it.
Welcome to the straw man. I can say "you can't yell fire in a theater" or "you can slander/libel with the intent to do harm" or "you can't make threats without them being acted upon seriously", or "owners of property, or media, have the ability to censor speech", and still stand for the first amendment, and freedom of speech as a whole.
Government is about balancing the rights of individuals against the rights of the whole. Your rights end where mine begin, and visa versa. You have the right to free speach, but the second your speech causes me harm, or hinders my rights, your rights end. And, of course, visa versa.
This all said, I do agree with your previous posts on some levels. I just think that you overstate your point somewhat. Really, nothing in the whole of the universe is black and white, and the second we think it is, really bad stuff generally starts to happen. There is a spirit of the Constitution that we should, must, obey. But the Constitution was also written, and based, on a certain spirit as well. This is the practice of common law, and the balancing of rights between individuals. All of our rights are justifiably restricted to protect the rights of others, and their rights restricted to protect our own. Rights, whatever the hell that term objectively means, are a social convention, and not an individual one.
I do have issues with Sotomayor as well. But more along the line that she was picked because of her race and gender (if not, good, but Obama made it seem like he picked her to give "people the promise that they could be something when they grow up", which is the worst possible reason for picking someone so powerful). I hope I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Anytime you put "diversity" above color, gender, and cultur
You know, Texas just might leave the union (with other states not far behind) in the next eight years if our nation's situation doesn't improve at the federal level.
On the behalf of the rest of the nation; is that a promise?
Good. I wouldn't miss Texas, nor much of the South or Bible Belt. I'd be thrilled if they formed their trickle-down theocratic wonderland, and leave the rest of the US in peace. They could call themselves the United States of Backwardia.
I don't think Texas has much going for it in the constitutional sense, they kill a lot of people, they really like their religion, and to enforce it on others, etc...
To the rest of the South, and sane Texans, your more than welcome to join the rest of us. I know there are sane people over there. The generalization was for humor. Though it would be nice if all the "red state"-Limbaugh folk left the rest of us alone.
-this post was bought to you by beer and fatigue.
I'm personally out on this issue, I really don't know enough to form an opinion. I'm generally against it for the reasons you state. Private industry should be allowed to fail.
But we run into two issues. The first being something a fellow earlier brought up, that we need some industry here for national security. Imagine going into WWII without any capability existent for large scale vehicle manufacturing. Our ability to turn the proverbial Plymouths into swords helped us become a military force to reckon with.
The second is the jobs. While American Automakers have gone out of their way to screw workers, and move all their actual work to third world countries, they still employ huge amounts of people, all the way down the supply chain. If we remove them, we exasperate our current economic problems by some huge amounts, that would be even an even larger FUBAR than now.
As an aside, I always found it odd that we thought we could move all our jobs over-seas, and really expect ourselves to be the largest consumers of our own goods. If we lose jobs, do we not lose spending power? If we lose spending power, we must cut production, lessening the amount of jobs. And on and on. Its no surprise it bites us in the ass in the end. Oddly, Marx, love him or hate him, did point this long ago.