A story about a soldier who was never in Iraq that the anti-war left rallied around.
Nope. First, it is a gross distortion to claim that the anti-war movement "rallied around" Jesse Macbeth. A handful of fringe groups passed on his story, that's all; most people in the anti-war movement have never even heard of him.
Third, it is clear that Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" remark was meant to include people like this earlier caller "Mike / Caller 1", whose comments were the subject of discussion when the "phony soliders" comment was made.
Fourth, Limbaugh make it quite clear who he considers a "real soldier": "If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq." Anyone serving who doesn't think we should be in Iraq, isn't a "real soldier" in his (worthless) opinion.
If civilized society redistributes wealth, then civilized society is comprised of stone-cold thieves.
The minor "redistribution of wealth" from rich to poor represented by social welfare programs is just a small governor on the runaway "redistribution of wealth" of everyone to the rich created by public policy that favors speculation over labor; the issuance of land and resource deeds, corporate charters, copyrights, and patents; the reserve banking system; the inheritablity of wealth; and everything else the government does to create capitalism.
But "redistribution of wealth" is not the issue with health care. Basic health care should be understood as a public good, just like an army, or roads. If the interstate highway system was justified as a "defense" program, then in this age of bioterrorist threats we should certainly understand health care the same way.
If my neighbor starts to show symptoms of anthrax or bubonic plague (or bird flu or SARS), it's in my whole neighborhood's interest that he gets to a see a doctor pretty damn quick. The idea behind "health savings accounts" and similar schemes, that provide an incentive for people to not seek medical care, can be seen to be highly dangerous not just to the individual but to the community.
And since a generally healthy population is more resistant to a biological attack (and a healthy militia is a lot better than a sick one), preventive care can also be justified.
(And of course, much of the cost of contemporary health care is the cost of drugs, which is kept artificially high by our patent policy.)
Except that you can quite legally yell fire in a crowded theatre under the right circumstances. If there happens to be a fire, it would be an excellent idea. Or if it's in the script of the performance on stage. (Penn Gillette (of Penn and Teller) used to have a bit involving juggling flaming objects where he did just that.)
It's not that the message "there's a fire in the theatre" is banned; it's that the time, place, and manner of the message is regulated.
Look at the concerted smear campaign against Rush Limbaugh right now. Totally contrived, and yet even Congress is wasting time with it.
No, what's contrived is the reponse of Limbaugh apologists who try to put his remarks into a different context, try to make his "phony soliders" remark refer to guys scamming VA benefits, rather than to soliders who express views against the war (such as the members of the 82nd Airborne who wrote the New York Times op-ed a few weeks ago).
Read the transcript and it's pitifully obvious what Limbaugh meant: anyone who disagrees with him about Iraq is a "phony solider".
I agree, however, that it's ridiculous that Congress is wasting time with this. Limbaugh's an idiot, and anyone who still takes him seriously is beyond hope.
How lifelike would it have to be to engage an intimacy with a machine if that is an option?
The question is, what you you mean by "intimacy"? Physical intercourse, there's already people screwing blow-up dolls. So on the physical end it doesn't take much.
But a relationship of emotional intimacy requires a robot capable of passing the Turing test, and getting married requires a robot be recognized as a legal person.
I don't see robotics being anywhere near that state.
Slightly weaker specs, and doesn't come pre-loaded, but does come with a keyboard and mouse.
But doesn't come with an Ethernet port.
I have keyboards and mice floating around, and don't need them for a NAS box or a router.
It's a nice box and all - I have a PIC, which is the first generation of the Dectop, have to boot it off a USB thumbdrive to get it running Linux. But the fit-PC has some points in its favor.
Depends on what you want it for. Hey, choice, what a concept.
I imagine that here in the US, the death penalty would be more of a deterrent if the same held true. If no one was ever on death row for more than two weeks and when the execution happened it was on the front page with a picture of the body.
No, I was right. They exist to serve the people. It's the only reason why they're allowed in a democracy or democratic republic. The growth purpose is a means to the end. We discovered that the best way to make a corporation serve the people effectively was to try to make them as profitable as possible
Well, no, sir, you were wrong. Originally corporations were permitted to exist only while they served the public interest, but that is no longer the case - which is why corporate charters are almost never revoked. Now corporations exist soley for their own interests.
Modern large corporations profit by controlling markets, by externalizing costs, and by exploiting labor with a rush to the bottom, not by providing quality goods and services or by serving the people.
Actually having to do good work is old-fashioned, for tiny companies, not for corporate behemoths.
Most of the money naturally goes to the people responsible for the businesses (because they're the ones who've done the work or risked their capital)
But the ones who do the work are not the ones who get the money. One rarely acquires wealth in this economy through labor; it's done through parasitic speculation and absentee ownership. Or the old fashioned way - by inheritance (which is why the U.S. has lousy inter-generational income mobility).
Risking one's money isn't, in and of itself, admirable to such a degree that public policy should reward it. Gambling on stocks is no more heroic than gambling on the ponies.
I'm still looking for an example of a piece of legislation that the people are truly unhappy with as a whole that is requested by a corporation.
The point is that by controlling the process, corporate interests are able to keep such legislation out of the spotlight. Did "the people" want to give almost three billion dollars to the coal industry? Or lend five billion dollars to Westinghouse (a British Nuclear Fuels company, at the time) to build nuclear power plants in China, strengthening the infrastructure of our chief economic rival? (And giving technology to a Chinese company that had previously given nuclear tech to Iran and Pakistan!) I'm pretty darn sure they did not.
But did "the people" have any idea this was going on? No.
In practical reality, our society relies on corporate input to serve the people as well as accumulate wealth in the country.
No. The sole desire of large publicly-traded corporations is to grow, not to "serve the people". And the wealth they accumulate goes to a minority owning class, doing little for most of the country.
(Yes, there's some trickle down. But the fact that poor people can benefit by eating scraps out of the trash cans of the nobility, is no reason to not overthrow the fsckers (peacefully, of course) and institute a more just system where nobody has to eat out of trash cans.)
The corporations do not rule the people.
The corporations rule the government. (Yes, the linked story is from 2005. Let's not pretend things are fundamentally different with Democrats in the majority.) The government, by definition, rules the people.
The government is not out to get you.
Me specifically? Proabably not. (Well, other than that it would put me away for years if it had evidence of all of my "crimes" of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.)
But the government is clearly willing to screw over the middle class and the working class to the benefit of the wealthy.
And it's clearly willing to screw political dissidents who might change the power structure - I direct you to the Church report on COINTELPRO activity, which found that "covert action programs have been used to disrupt the lawful political activities of individual Americans and groups and to discredit them, using dangerous and degrading tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society."
Don't pretend it can't happen here - it already has. Many times.
Of course, we don't live in a straight-up democracy. In theory we live in a constitutional democratic republic; in practical reality, we live in a corporate plutocracy.
any controlling done by the government is controlling by the people (by proxy).
We know that the U.S. government has engaged in acts of domestic espionage, and that it has done so without the knowledge or oversight of "the people". In COINTELPRO operations, the FBI sought to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" Americans ranging from MLK to Nazis.
It is certainly possible that similar programs are in place today. (For example, it is often alleged that agents provocateur are used to incite violence at "anti-globalization" protests. )
If the government is doing this (and my friends, given its history the government of the United States should be considered guilty until proven innocent), and if such technology exists and is practical, it it highly likely that it would be used.
Yet another profession where we have to put ourselves in debt for 5-10 years
The cost of a college education is a significant, but separate, problem.
being indoctrinated by leftist professors
Educated people tend to be more liberal, yes. Given that the conservative movement in America has aligned itself with people who want to teach religious myths in biology classes, and believe in economic theories in which natural resources are unlimited, this is not a surprise.
I guess that means we'll have to pay them more. Up go the taxes. And we still get tasered by more expensive police officers because no one is taught civics in any kind of educational institution, anyway.
Yes, we should pay cops (and teachers, and fire fighters) more. Quality costs.
If we also improve the laws they're enforcing such that we're no longer jamming the prisons full of non-violent drug offenders, we'll save enough that taxes can go down. (Or they could, if we weren't so deep into debt thanks to borrow-and-spend Republicans that taxes will be high for generations just to keep paying the interest.)
I'm sorry that you didn't have civics in any of your schooling. I certainly did; "Constitution, Citizenship, and Political Issues" was mandatory in high school, and elements came up again in college classes in criminal justice, economics, and even theater.
You people screech about tasers being over used, but i'm yet to see a single video of a cop using a taser on someone who didn't deserve it.
Perhaps you've ignored the recent news stories about students being tasered for declining to cooperate with misbehaving cops. (The one guy was assaulted by cops for not showing a library employee an ID, the other assaulted for hogging the mic at a Q&A after a Kerry speech.) Or perhaps you're such an fan of authoritarian behavior that you thought those students "deserved" to be tortured.
But it's not the job of a cop to decide that a person "deserves" to be punished by being tortured with potentially fatal electrical shock. In a free society, it's the job of a cop to stop behavior that is a threat to the rights or safety of others, using the minimum force necessary.
There are good cops out there. Most are not outstanding but are competent in ordinary situations. But there are all too many bad ones.
(Of course, it's probably hard to find people who are educated, and yet will take a job where they are expected to put people in cages for drug possession, prostitution, and the like. Better laws would undoubtedly attract better candidates to enforce them.)
And most police are undertrained for the job they have. In some states only a few hundred hours of training are necessary.
Some are attracted by power rather than service. Many feel that they are entitled to mete out punishment (like the Baltimore cop who proudly told me how he punched a suspect who tried to run - not to subdue him, but "of course I popped him one for trying to get away.")
they aren't rounding up defensless fluffy bunnies you know. cops deal with people who would kill or maime them in the blink of an eye
Sometimes. Much more often they're arresting petty criminals guilty of non-violent drug crimes or minor property crimes. And often they're putting down political protest, whether that be one individual standing up for his rights or a group action.
As long as it doesn't say they are NOT allowed to, then if the PEOPLE abide by it, they have the power.
No. Powers of the federal government are strictly limited to those given in the Constitution. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It's right there in Amendment X.
Are you one of those people who thinks no rights exist except those specified in the Constitution?
No. Rights of citizens are not limited to those given in the Constitution. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It's right there in Amendment IX.
If others are willing to take the risk of going without it, they should be allowed.
Pardon, but you seem to have a radically mistaken notion of the purpose of motor vehicle insurance. You aren't complelled to buy it for your protection. You're compelled to buy it to protect me, the guy you might crash into.
Driving on the public streets is inherently risky to other persons. It's quite sensible that we don't let people do things that put non-consenting others at risk without requiring insurance or a bond.
The owners? Are the owners the company, or not? If you view the company as a "being" separate from it's owners, then your model is correct.
And a large publicly-traded corporation is indeed a being separate from its owners. That's the whole point. The corporation is an artificial person created by the state to allow shareholders to make profits while being protected from responsibility.
Oops, here's comes somebody babbling about "the right to jury nullification". Doesn't exist, except in the overactive imaginations of people who also believe in the "civil flag".
You might think we'd be better off without it, you might think it's fine that jurors aren't told about it, and be within the bounds of legitimately debatable opinion. But when you insist that it "doesn't exist", you are simply in factual error.
(As for flags, I think you mean the "admiralty flag" bit, which is of course paranoid nonsense. It's not as if politicians willing to disregard the Consitution (who certainly do exist) are going to feel obligated to play some bizarre game about accessorizing the flag.)
If their food is so bad, why do several hundred million people around the world eat it every day?
Because human beings are not rational animals.
On any given day, several hundred million people around the world do foolish or irrational things. From religious practices to politics to TV ratings, observation shows that popularity and quality are not correlated.
True, but how many of them can claim to be written over such a period of time, and yet line up with history.
What in the world are you talking about? The Bible doesn't line up well at all with history. There were no Israelite slaves in Egypt; the story of Jesus is largely cribbed from the Mithra cult; there's no historical evidence of the "Massacre of the Innocents" by Herod.
That's not a foretelling of the end of the world, but of the fulfilment of Jesus's prophecy that Jerusalem would be destroyed
No. "See the kingdom of God" does not mean see the destruction of Jerusalem; and among the things that are supposed to occur is "the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." These didn't happen. The prophecy in the story didn't come true.
Sure, if you do it in hindsight. Try writing a book about the future
Except that's not what the authors and editors who wrote and complied the Bible did. The New Testament wasn't compiled until centuries after the purported execution of it's number one hero.
You may well be trolling, but assuming you're serious:
he inspired people to write it over a period of 2000 years.
What, this omnipotent god of yours had to work through a bunch of balding monkeys, rather that just saying "Zotz! Biblios appearus!" or something?
I can walk into the library and find dozens, if not hundreds, of books that claim to be inspired by gods or other supernatural entities, from the
Upanishads to the latest New Age bestseller from someone channeling telepathic transmissions from Sirius. The Bible just ain't special.
including prophecies that are fulfilled hundreds (if not thousands) of years after they are written
But if you believe that the Bible is any guide to history, cosmology, metaphysics, or pretty much any aspect of objective consensus reality, you're sadly mistaken.
Why not videotape our best teachers/profs in each subject - pay them ungodly amounts of money and let the students watch over youtube (thanks Cal) and take the tests at a standardized testing center?
How do I ask a videotape a question? Or start a class discussion with one?
Indeed, why would I need a videotape when I can read the textbook?
Real teaching and learning is a dialog. Too many teachers are merely reciting; too many students are merely playing stenographer.
A real teacher cannot be replaced with a book, a videotape, or a glitzy multimedia presentation. A real student is not a sponge who absorbs data and then regurgitates it on exams, but is someone who engages in conversation.
Times change. we do not live in the United States of the 1780s. We should not act like it.
Yes, that's often the argument of those who wish us to abandon our rights: "We needed that right of X back in the rough-and-tumble of the 1700s, but in the modern era when we know government is wise and benign, why, there's no need for such radical individual liberties!"
The value of X ranges over the right to keep and bear arms, the right to self-defense (especially against rouge agents of the state), the right to a fully informed jury...and now the right to a jury trial at all and the right the habeas corpus, are coming under similar attack.
The argument is piffle of the highest purity. We do not live in the 1780s, but neither the nature of human beings nor the nature of governments has changed in the intervening years.
"We categorically reject the idea that, in a society committed to the rule of law, jury nullification is desirable or that courts may permit it to occur when it is within their authority to prevent. Accordingly, we conclude that a juror who intends to nullify the applicable law is no less subject to dismissal than is a juror who disregards the court's instructions due to an event or relationship that renders him biased or otherwise unable to render a fair and impartial verdict." U.S. v. Thomas.
That's a crock.
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy." - Chief Justice John Jay
"It's not only....(the juror's) right, but his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." - John Adams
"The judge cannot direct a verdict it is true, and the jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
"In the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be the Judges of Law, as well as of fact, except that the Court may pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction." -- Constitution of the State of Maryland
At the time of the framing of the Constitution, it was well understood that a jury meant a panel of persons empowered to render judgment on both the facts and the law. The ignorance - or straight-out power grabbing - of later judges cannot remove this right.
but they can certainly (and should) prevent you from sitting on the jury if they feel your impartiality will be threatened by your personal issues.
There is a large difference between "having personal issues" that make one partial to a person involved in the case, and judging the law and finding it wanting.
Slashdot Mirror
Nope. First, it is a gross distortion to claim that the anti-war movement "rallied around" Jesse Macbeth. A handful of fringe groups passed on his story, that's all; most people in the anti-war movement have never even heard of him.
Second, Limbaugh then lied about what he had said.
Third, it is clear that Limbaugh's "phony soldiers" remark was meant to include people like this earlier caller "Mike / Caller 1", whose comments were the subject of discussion when the "phony soliders" comment was made.
Fourth, Limbaugh make it quite clear who he considers a "real soldier": "If you talk to a real soldier, they are proud to serve. They want to be over in Iraq." Anyone serving who doesn't think we should be in Iraq, isn't a "real soldier" in his (worthless) opinion.
The minor "redistribution of wealth" from rich to poor represented by social welfare programs is just a small governor on the runaway "redistribution of wealth" of everyone to the rich created by public policy that favors speculation over labor; the issuance of land and resource deeds, corporate charters, copyrights, and patents; the reserve banking system; the inheritablity of wealth; and everything else the government does to create capitalism.
But "redistribution of wealth" is not the issue with health care. Basic health care should be understood as a public good, just like an army, or roads. If the interstate highway system was justified as a "defense" program, then in this age of bioterrorist threats we should certainly understand health care the same way.
If my neighbor starts to show symptoms of anthrax or bubonic plague (or bird flu or SARS), it's in my whole neighborhood's interest that he gets to a see a doctor pretty damn quick. The idea behind "health savings accounts" and similar schemes, that provide an incentive for people to not seek medical care, can be seen to be highly dangerous not just to the individual but to the community.
And since a generally healthy population is more resistant to a biological attack (and a healthy militia is a lot better than a sick one), preventive care can also be justified.
(And of course, much of the cost of contemporary health care is the cost of drugs, which is kept artificially high by our patent policy.)
Except that you can quite legally yell fire in a crowded theatre under the right circumstances. If there happens to be a fire, it would be an excellent idea. Or if it's in the script of the performance on stage. (Penn Gillette (of Penn and Teller) used to have a bit involving juggling flaming objects where he did just that.)
It's not that the message "there's a fire in the theatre" is banned; it's that the time, place, and manner of the message is regulated.
No, what's contrived is the reponse of Limbaugh apologists who try to put his remarks into a different context, try to make his "phony soliders" remark refer to guys scamming VA benefits, rather than to soliders who express views against the war (such as the members of the 82nd Airborne who wrote the New York Times op-ed a few weeks ago).
Read the transcript and it's pitifully obvious what Limbaugh meant: anyone who disagrees with him about Iraq is a "phony solider".
I agree, however, that it's ridiculous that Congress is wasting time with this. Limbaugh's an idiot, and anyone who still takes him seriously is beyond hope.
The question is, what you you mean by "intimacy"? Physical intercourse, there's already people screwing blow-up dolls. So on the physical end it doesn't take much.
But a relationship of emotional intimacy requires a robot capable of passing the Turing test, and getting married requires a robot be recognized as a legal person.
I don't see robotics being anywhere near that state.
But doesn't come with an Ethernet port.
I have keyboards and mice floating around, and don't need them for a NAS box or a router.
It's a nice box and all - I have a PIC, which is the first generation of the Dectop, have to boot it off a USB thumbdrive to get it running Linux. But the fit-PC has some points in its favor.
Depends on what you want it for. Hey, choice, what a concept.
Remember, the harder you look, the more you will see the Law of Fives manifest...
Not so much.
In England around 1800, picking pockets was a capital crime. (As were more than 200 other offenses.) Yet, pickpockets routinely worked the crowds at public hangings.
Time was - back in the 1600s - in Russia, you could be summarily executed for possession of tobacco. Didn't stop people from smoking.
Executions, public or not, are not a significant deterrant.
Well, no, sir, you were wrong. Originally corporations were permitted to exist only while they served the public interest, but that is no longer the case - which is why corporate charters are almost never revoked. Now corporations exist soley for their own interests.
Modern large corporations profit by controlling markets, by externalizing costs, and by exploiting labor with a rush to the bottom, not by providing quality goods and services or by serving the people.
Actually having to do good work is old-fashioned, for tiny companies, not for corporate behemoths.
But the ones who do the work are not the ones who get the money. One rarely acquires wealth in this economy through labor; it's done through parasitic speculation and absentee ownership. Or the old fashioned way - by inheritance (which is why the U.S. has lousy inter-generational income mobility).
Risking one's money isn't, in and of itself, admirable to such a degree that public policy should reward it. Gambling on stocks is no more heroic than gambling on the ponies.
The point is that by controlling the process, corporate interests are able to keep such legislation out of the spotlight. Did "the people" want to give almost three billion dollars to the coal industry? Or lend five billion dollars to Westinghouse (a British Nuclear Fuels company, at the time) to build nuclear power plants in China, strengthening the infrastructure of our chief economic rival? (And giving technology to a Chinese company that had previously given nuclear tech to Iran and Pakistan!) I'm pretty darn sure they did not.
But did "the people" have any idea this was going on? No.
No. The sole desire of large publicly-traded corporations is to grow, not to "serve the people". And the wealth they accumulate goes to a minority owning class, doing little for most of the country.
(Yes, there's some trickle down. But the fact that poor people can benefit by eating scraps out of the trash cans of the nobility, is no reason to not overthrow the fsckers (peacefully, of course) and institute a more just system where nobody has to eat out of trash cans.)
The corporations rule the government. (Yes, the linked story is from 2005. Let's not pretend things are fundamentally different with Democrats in the majority.) The government, by definition, rules the people.
Me specifically? Proabably not. (Well, other than that it would put me away for years if it had evidence of all of my "crimes" of sex, drugs, and rock and roll.)
But the government is clearly willing to screw over the middle class and the working class to the benefit of the wealthy.
And it's clearly willing to screw political dissidents who might change the power structure - I direct you to the Church report on COINTELPRO activity, which found that "covert action programs have been used to disrupt the lawful political activities of individual Americans and groups and to discredit them, using dangerous and degrading tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society."
Don't pretend it can't happen here - it already has. Many times.
AT&T got all kinds of subsidies and grants of right-of-way to build their infrastructure. The theory was that this was in exchange for access.
Is, say, 48 years "long enough"?
Of course, we don't live in a straight-up democracy. In theory we live in a constitutional democratic republic; in practical reality, we live in a corporate plutocracy.
We know that the U.S. government has engaged in acts of domestic espionage, and that it has done so without the knowledge or oversight of "the people". In COINTELPRO operations, the FBI sought to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" Americans ranging from MLK to Nazis.
It is certainly possible that similar programs are in place today. (For example, it is often alleged that agents provocateur are used to incite violence at "anti-globalization" protests. )
If the government is doing this (and my friends, given its history the government of the United States should be considered guilty until proven innocent), and if such technology exists and is practical, it it highly likely that it would be used.
The cost of a college education is a significant, but separate, problem.
Educated people tend to be more liberal, yes. Given that the conservative movement in America has aligned itself with people who want to teach religious myths in biology classes, and believe in economic theories in which natural resources are unlimited, this is not a surprise.
Yes, we should pay cops (and teachers, and fire fighters) more. Quality costs.
If we also improve the laws they're enforcing such that we're no longer jamming the prisons full of non-violent drug offenders, we'll save enough that taxes can go down. (Or they could, if we weren't so deep into debt thanks to borrow-and-spend Republicans that taxes will be high for generations just to keep paying the interest.)
I'm sorry that you didn't have civics in any of your schooling. I certainly did; "Constitution, Citizenship, and Political Issues" was mandatory in high school, and elements came up again in college classes in criminal justice, economics, and even theater.
But more to the point, college-educated cops have been shown to have fewer disciplinary problems, incur fewer complaints, and use force less often.
Perhaps you've ignored the recent news stories about students being tasered for declining to cooperate with misbehaving cops. (The one guy was assaulted by cops for not showing a library employee an ID, the other assaulted for hogging the mic at a Q&A after a Kerry speech.) Or perhaps you're such an fan of authoritarian behavior that you thought those students "deserved" to be tortured.
But it's not the job of a cop to decide that a person "deserves" to be punished by being tortured with potentially fatal electrical shock. In a free society, it's the job of a cop to stop behavior that is a threat to the rights or safety of others, using the minimum force necessary.
There are good cops out there. Most are not outstanding but are competent in ordinary situations. But there are all too many bad ones.
Most are undereducated for better jobs. In 1967, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice, recommended "that all police personnel with general enforcement powers have baccalaureate degrees," but very few forces have any requirement beyond a high school diploma. Less than five percent of large police forces require a four year degree.
(Of course, it's probably hard to find people who are educated, and yet will take a job where they are expected to put people in cages for drug possession, prostitution, and the like. Better laws would undoubtedly attract better candidates to enforce them.)
And most police are undertrained for the job they have. In some states only a few hundred hours of training are necessary.
Some are attracted by power rather than service. Many feel that they are entitled to mete out punishment (like the Baltimore cop who proudly told me how he punched a suspect who tried to run - not to subdue him, but "of course I popped him one for trying to get away.")
Sometimes. Much more often they're arresting petty criminals guilty of non-violent drug crimes or minor property crimes. And often they're putting down political protest, whether that be one individual standing up for his rights or a group action.
No. Powers of the federal government are strictly limited to those given in the Constitution. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." It's right there in Amendment X.
No. Rights of citizens are not limited to those given in the Constitution. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It's right there in Amendment IX.
Really, read the damn thing. It's not hard.
Pardon, but you seem to have a radically mistaken notion of the purpose of motor vehicle insurance. You aren't complelled to buy it for your protection. You're compelled to buy it to protect me, the guy you might crash into.
Driving on the public streets is inherently risky to other persons. It's quite sensible that we don't let people do things that put non-consenting others at risk without requiring insurance or a bond.
And a large publicly-traded corporation is indeed a being separate from its owners. That's the whole point. The corporation is an artificial person created by the state to allow shareholders to make profits while being protected from responsibility.
The right of juries to judge questions of both fact and of law is not just a legal precedent stretching back to colonial times and acknowledged in many court decisions, it is written into the state constitutions of Maryland and Indiana..
Claiming that a principal written into decisions written by folks like John Jay and Oliver Wendel Holmes as well as state constitutions "doesn't exist", shows either your ignorance or your determination to ignore fact in pursuit of some poltical end.
You might think we'd be better off without it, you might think it's fine that jurors aren't told about it, and be within the bounds of legitimately debatable opinion. But when you insist that it "doesn't exist", you are simply in factual error.
(As for flags, I think you mean the "admiralty flag" bit, which is of course paranoid nonsense. It's not as if politicians willing to disregard the Consitution (who certainly do exist) are going to feel obligated to play some bizarre game about accessorizing the flag.)
Because human beings are not rational animals.
On any given day, several hundred million people around the world do foolish or irrational things. From religious practices to politics to TV ratings, observation shows that popularity and quality are not correlated.
What in the world are you talking about? The Bible doesn't line up well at all with history. There were no Israelite slaves in Egypt; the story of Jesus is largely cribbed from the Mithra cult; there's no historical evidence of the "Massacre of the Innocents" by Herod.
No. "See the kingdom of God" does not mean see the destruction of Jerusalem; and among the things that are supposed to occur is "the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory." These didn't happen. The prophecy in the story didn't come true.
Except that's not what the authors and editors who wrote and complied the Bible did. The New Testament wasn't compiled until centuries after the purported execution of it's number one hero.
You may well be trolling, but assuming you're serious:
What, this omnipotent god of yours had to work through a bunch of balding monkeys, rather that just saying "Zotz! Biblios appearus!" or something?
I can walk into the library and find dozens, if not hundreds, of books that claim to be inspired by gods or other supernatural entities, from the Upanishads to the latest New Age bestseller from someone channeling telepathic transmissions from Sirius. The Bible just ain't special.
What, prophecies like Jesus's that the world would end during the lifetime of some of his followers (Luke 9:27: "But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.", and 21:32: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.":)
Let me write and edit a book in which I get to report both the prophecy and the outcomes, and I could make all sorts of prophecies come true. But Biblical authors and editors couldn't even do that.
I'm afraid you're again in error.
Look, if you find churchgoing a rewarding expereince, great. Live by the foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.
But if you believe that the Bible is any guide to history, cosmology, metaphysics, or pretty much any aspect of objective consensus reality, you're sadly mistaken.
Anarchy doesn't mean violence.
How do I ask a videotape a question? Or start a class discussion with one?
Indeed, why would I need a videotape when I can read the textbook?
Real teaching and learning is a dialog. Too many teachers are merely reciting; too many students are merely playing stenographer.
A real teacher cannot be replaced with a book, a videotape, or a glitzy multimedia presentation. A real student is not a sponge who absorbs data and then regurgitates it on exams, but is someone who engages in conversation.
Yes, that's often the argument of those who wish us to abandon our rights: "We needed that right of X back in the rough-and-tumble of the 1700s, but in the modern era when we know government is wise and benign, why, there's no need for such radical individual liberties!"
The value of X ranges over the right to keep and bear arms, the right to self-defense (especially against rouge agents of the state), the right to a fully informed jury...and now the right to a jury trial at all and the right the habeas corpus, are coming under similar attack.
The argument is piffle of the highest purity. We do not live in the 1780s, but neither the nature of human beings nor the nature of governments has changed in the intervening years.
That's a crock.
"The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy." - Chief Justice John Jay
"It's not only ....(the juror's) right, but his duty, in that case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." - John Adams
"The judge cannot direct a verdict it is true, and the jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
"In the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be the Judges of Law, as well as of fact, except that the Court may pass upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction." -- Constitution of the State of Maryland
At the time of the framing of the Constitution, it was well understood that a jury meant a panel of persons empowered to render judgment on both the facts and the law. The ignorance - or straight-out power grabbing - of later judges cannot remove this right.
(I also note that despite the erroneous statement you quote, the court did find the dismissing the juror was an error and remanded the case for new trial.)
There is a large difference between "having personal issues" that make one partial to a person involved in the case, and judging the law and finding it wanting.