I said exactly what I mean, that I don't consider it right for other people to be polygamous, they can do it if they want, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.
There's a large difference between "it's not right" and "I don't like it".
My mother is a big Barry Manilow fan. I don't like that. I don't care for his music, it even makes me a little sad that she spends money going to his concerts.
But that fact that I don't like my mother's being a Barry Manilow fan, in no way implies that being a Barry Manilow fan is ethically wrong.
If you want to say that polyamory is somehow distasteful to you, fine. I can no more argue with your taste in love-styles than argue that Bach should be more to your liking than Brahms. But you do have the obligation to accurately understand the love-style before deciding if it's to your taste or not, just as you have to hear both Bach and Brahms before rendering your musical judgment; your comments show that you do not.
If you want to argue that polyamory is wrong, though, you'll need something more than "I don't like it". You'll need a coherent ethical framework, and an argument within it.
I also just see it causing pain to a few people that agree to the whole open relationships thing, but then end up getting too attached to one person and becoming jealous/whatever.
What, no one gets hurt, attached, jealous, et cetera in monogamous (or attempted monogamous) relationships?
Yes, people get hurt in romantic and sexual relationships. The best way to reduce the risk of that is to put aside social conventions and assumptions, and honestly work out with other people what sort of relationships you want.
Judgmental rhetoric about how what other people want in a relationship is "wrong", makes it that much more difficult for others to put aside assumptions and be honest. Your condemnation makes it less likely that people will be honest and thoughtful, and more likely that they will be hurt.
Please, stop engaging in behavior that makes it more likely that people will be hurt.
I don't see any proper 'deep' relationships happening if you are only having the multiple relationships for sexual purposes rather than for emotional support and so on.
People can have multiple relationships that involve both emotional support and sex.
I heard (don't have a link or proof) that they did a test on a male rat...
Don't you think half-remembered experiments on rats are a poor way to inform your thinking about human relationships?
Many long term relationships doesn't make sense to me, as I'm the sort of person that is very focused in whatever I do.
Bully for you. Whatever floats your boat. I wish you much happiness in whatever sort of relationship(s) work(s) for you. Just don't project your preferences on to others. Is that too much to ask?
(You might even find that your preferences, or your understanding of them, changes over time.)
This is why in Europe and Japan population is declining, and why, unless a new pro-family and pro-child secular ethos is created, religious people will be the ones keeping society going.
Oh, nonsense. The planet is well beyond its sustainable carrying capacity. Having fewer children is absolutely one of the best things you can do for the long-term health of human civilization; it is "pro-family" and "pro-child" to choose to have fewer, or even no, children.
Unfortuntely, we have an economic system based on the fiction that eternal growth is possible and desirable; so long as that unrealistic assumption persists, a stable or declining population will be seen as a problem.
A society with no children is a society with no future.
A society with a mildly declining population for a while is hardly a society with no children.
A society that uses up all its resources, is a society with no future.
It's immoral to people that consider that you should dedicate yourself to a relationship with one person.
It is perfectly fine for you to decided that you want to dedicate yourself to a relationship with one person. If you ask my opinion about the potential pitfalls along that approach, I'll tell you want I think, but tell you, "knock yourself out - whatever works for you".
It is not ok for you to decide that I should dedicate myself to a relationship with one person; you don't get to dictate what style of relationship makes me happy, any more that you get to decide what sort of music makes me happy. You are free to report your own experiences, preferences, even speculations: but when you attempt to tell me how I "should" love, you've left the realm of useful discourse. And when attempts are made through public policy to dicate how people "should" love, a sane society would hand those poltiicans a whuppin'.
People don't outlaw breaking and entering because they are jealous that they can't crack safes, etc.
Non sequitor. B & E is a violation of the rights of others; if my girlfriends and I decide to have open relationships, that's not a violation of anyone's rights.
I have no problem with birth control myself, but I do have a problem with people being promiscuous,
What in the world does that mean, that you "have a problem" with other people's personal sexual choices? How does my choice cause you any problem?
I think it's extremely shallow, and in the end just leads to loneliness.
I hear a lot more discussion and thought from the polyamoury community about the nature of relationships than I do from most folks, so charges of "shallow" fall flat. And I see honest non-monogamous models working quite for many people - certainly much better than the dishonest non-monogamous model that condemnation like yours pushes people into.
Again: whatever works for you, fine and dandy. But your opinions about the choices of others seem based on faulty data.
Compare being raped by someone from an hour with not being able to go to the pizza place on the corner for an hour. Damn.
While it does not compare with rape, someone harrassing me and keeping me from going to the pizza place is harassment, maybe stalking and/or assault, and is still a crime.
Calling this "virtual rape" is probably all wrong, but the stress and trauma of being the target of harassment should not be minimized.
Sharp made a very nice clamshell Zaurus PDA with VGA resolution that runs Linux. (I have a somewhat earlier model). The used QT for the UI and supported both WiFi and Bluetooth. There apparently wasn't a big enough market for the product so it's been discontinued.
The Sharp Zarus SLC line is still available in Japan. The clamshell form factor is very common here for electronic dictionaries, in fact during my stay in Osaka a few people have mistaken my Z for one.
Doesn't do Bluetooth or WiFi without you adding a CF card; still, way cool. There are a few companies that import them and do the English conversion.
I have a SLC-3000, I use it mostly for writing - often I write my blog entries on it, sitting in a bar or on the train, and upload when I get home.
it's got to have at least, say, an 8" diagonal screen with 1024x768 to be even slightly useful (and the more pixels, the better).
Depends on what you're using it for. My Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 (link is not my site, BTW) has a screen about 4 inches diagonal. It's highly portable and I use it a lot for writing (poems, stories, essays - text entry as opposed to heavy formatting). I have even taken it on camping trips, USB cabled to my cell phone to check mail and have emergency login capabilities to the server at work. (This is for "car camping", not backpacking; when I go to the woods the rest of the world can go to hell for a few days.)
I have to set the font size very small to get an 80x25 terminal, but it's good enough for a quick login and restart the hung process sort of operation. Battery life is good and I can recharge it from a USB-style socket - so with a 12VDC-to-USB adaptor I'm set for the road.
It runs Linux and I love the clamshell form factor. And people often stop and ask about it and admire it.
Even if that were true, that doesn't necessarily mean that anyone is safer if you get to keep your guns.
I am safer for being armed. And because I am the kind of guy who helps others in trouble, my neighbors are safer for my being armed - if I hear the lady next store scream in the middle of the night, I can respond, armed, in less than an minute; a hell of a lot more quickly than a 911 response.
What happens if your guns get stolen? What happens if they end up being sold to criminals or gang members?
If my guns were somehow stolen, they'd infentesimally increase the supply and lower the price of black market guns.
If all guns in the country magically became unstealable, the black market price would rise and smuggling would increase. Again, it's just like the drug black market.
One might as well ask, what if your stereo gets stolen because you don't have the tools to protect your home, and the funds are used to purchase guns for criminals or gang members?
No, gun control is about disarming *everyone* - "good guys", "bad guys", all of them.
That's what gun control advocates hope will happen.
The reality is that gun control keeps guns away from "bad guys" about as well as heroin control keeps drugs away from junkies. So the actual effect of gun control is to disarm law-abiding citizens and not the bad guys.
If your nation doesn't have a heroin problem, it's not because prohibition laws make it
impossible for people to get drugs, it's because your society has given
people better options than smoking or shooting up addictive synthetic
opiates. (Hurray for you!)
If your nation doesn't have a violent crime problem, it's not
because prohibition laws make it impossible for people to get weapons,
it's because your society has given people better options than killing
each other. (Hurray for you!)
But trying to take away my guns won't make anyone safer. (Least of all the guy who tries to take them from me and gets shot for his trouble.)
...stealing from the authors and limiting their Constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Copyright is not a "Constitutionally-guaranteed" right. Congress has the power - but not the requirement - to create copyrights.
The GP's contention that Congress is "tasked with" promoting the arts and sciences is incorrect; it is "empowered to" do so by creating copyrights and patents. It is under no obligation to exercise that power, any more that it is under an obligation to declare war, call forth the militia, or borrow money.
I'm homeless because "The Man" doesn't like it when an employee demands proper share.
Then don't work for "The Man". Look for smaller companies, or even bigger companies with a more rational approach. Or work for yourself, even if that means changing fields.
I figure I'm not going to last long at a job working for "The Man" anyway, so I might as well turn down a job that asks me to sign away my dignity before I even start.
The last time I encountered one of these clauses was for a contract position at IBM. The contracting company's startard contract would basically have had IBM own all my creations; when I pointed out that according to the contract as written, IBM would own any poems I wrote (on my own time) and that seemed pretty silly, we agreed to strike that provision.
The only time I have signed one of these was at my first job; a year or so after I started there, the company made a partnership with a larger one demanded all employees sign IP agreements. If I knew then what I know now I would have fought harder, walked if necessary.
Normally the company will tell you,"You can't make any changes. That's the standard employee agreement. Everyone must sign it as is." If you don't want to sign it then you're free to be without a paycheck.
Normally I tell the company, "This is my policy. If you don't want to accept my changes you're free to be without my skills and talents."
Grow a pair, man. It's one thing if you're an unskilled lunk, but if you're a skilled professional, be assertive.
If you're lucky then your HR reps may even put that little asterisk next to your name in the national HR databases...
Just what "natioanl HR databases" are these?
You are being paranoid. Employers don't spread dirt on former or potential employees because they'd be sued into the ground if they did.
If he'd have kept his cool, and not tried to hide his box full of pot, the trooper probably wouldn't have had a reason to search the car.
There was no "box full of pot". It's quite possible - likely, even - that the "suspicious action" is a complete fabrication on the art of the cop in question.
According to TFA, "The officer got permission to search the vehicle". Never, never, never, never give your consent to a search. Don't do it. Ever. When you consent you give up your Fourth Amendment rights.
Cops lie. They will tell you that things will go easier if you consent. It's bullshit.
Richard Speck strangled and stabbed eight people in one gruesome night.
The Hutus were able to kill a hell of a lot of Tutsis with machetes - i.e., big knives.
Petar Brzica is said to have knifed 1,300 people in one night, though concentration camp inmates were obviously easy targets.
Somebody trained, with quality knives (including big knives such as swords or machetes), against 30 untrained panicing young people, divided into a few smaller groups in classrooms? Quite possible.
There's a reason that sword-wielding tyrants and conquerors, from the generals of Athens to the shoguns of Japan, were able to succeed: if I have a big knife and you don't, I'm in charge or you're dead. Even if there's a dozen of you.
But, we do need to recall that while this incident was the worst school shooting, it was not the worst school mass murder: the Bath School disaster killed 45 people. For mass murder, fire and explosives are the way to go.
Errr...I'm the GP poster, a gun owner, a karate instructor who teaches people how to kill and maim with their bare hands - and a vegan. Killing animals to eat their flesh has nothing to do with the rights and responsibilties of self-defense and defending others.
Nobody "deserves" to be killed, but sometimes using potentially lethal force is the least bad option available. It takes somebody somewhere to have fucked up royally for it to come down to a situation where violence is the least bad choice, but it does on rare occasions occur.
Those 30 people that died today would still be alive if there weren't any guns at all.
They'd also be alive if there weren't any violent psychopaths at all, or if tears cured bullet wounds.
However, let's confine ourselves to reality, in which psychopaths are things that we are stuck with, guns (for good and bad uses) are here to stay, and miracle cures are things that we do not have.
You can never justify the use of any gun.
You grandmother (or if you hate your grandma, some little old lady you like) is home alone. Some big strong guy with a head full of bad chemicals breaks into her house, with a big knife and desire for rape, torture, and mayhem.
He rips the phone out of the wall. The cops are 20 minutes away anyway, even if she could call. With her bad hip, she can't run. While she's pretty spry for her age, even went to a class on self-defense for seniors last fall, she's 85 and not real big.
Do you wish that Granny had a gun? Would she be justified in using it?
Yes, it's a lousy scenario. But it's one that happens.
I knew people who lived in shacks made of mud with a grass roof...They didn't live in the streets, even if their huts were little better than a refrigerator box.
The people you mention in Brazil had one important thing that the homeless don't have in the U.S.: the ability to occupy land.
I'm in Osaka, Japan at the moment. In larger parks, there are tents and huts that "homeless" people (I suppose if they have a hut, in a sense they're not homeless) have set up, made with government-issued tarps and scavenged materials. Some of them are remarkably engineered, have a bike parked outside (hmmm, I wonder if that's where my stolen bike ended up...), a few potted plants, an old car battery running a light at night.
In the U.S., anyone trying to set up something like this would get it knocked down in about five minutes.
The 'illegal justice system' in the US is among the best legal systems in the world, its the people running the show AND the front liners that are not educated properly in the laws of the land
You contradict yourself; if the people running the show are not educated properly in the laws, that's a pretty lousy system.
Prisoner of War. POWs are allowed to be held until the end of the conflict; or the end of the prisoner's ability to participate in said war*.
But the United States is not at war. Congress has made no such declaration, and there is no government (or in civil wars and revolutions, putative government) with which we are engaged in armed conflict.
A war ends when the two governments agree, or when one government is destroyed and the other occupies it, extending its own governance or setting up a new government in the conquered territory.
It is only because war has such a rather clear end, that the concept of "prisoner of war" has meaning.
The "Global War on Terror" is a branding campaign for various acts of military agression; it is not a war.
Those detainees also get review processes each and every year to make sure they are indeed the people we want and that they are actually capable of the stuff they are suspected of doing.
...which is rather like the principal in this story conducting a review.
There's a reason we have a court system with jury trials and an adverserial process.
We are so much better off without guns and its time people start realizing that.
Many of those people who died today might have lived if someone else present had had a gun and used it to stop the shooter.
As for international comparions - the U.S. has more non-firearms homicides per capita, more fatal beatings and stabbings, than many nations' total murder rate. The problem is not in our guns; it's social and economic.
go look at crime statistics (especially violent crimes, and crimes including a gun) for US vs. Canada, Australia, France, Sweden, UK. The US has a much higher rate, while the other countries have gun control laws.
Yes, go look at crime stats.
Notice that those states within the U.S. with strong gun control, have the highest violent crime rates.
Notice that Canada, Switzerland, and Israel have comparable levels of gun ownership to the U.S., but much lower crime rates.
Notice that in the U.S., we have more non-gun murders per capita than the U.K. or Japan (IIRC) have total homicides. We beat and stab each other to death at an astounding rate.
The problem lies not in our guns but in our selves.
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There's a large difference between "it's not right" and "I don't like it".
My mother is a big Barry Manilow fan. I don't like that. I don't care for his music, it even makes me a little sad that she spends money going to his concerts.
But that fact that I don't like my mother's being a Barry Manilow fan, in no way implies that being a Barry Manilow fan is ethically wrong.
If you want to say that polyamory is somehow distasteful to you, fine. I can no more argue with your taste in love-styles than argue that Bach should be more to your liking than Brahms. But you do have the obligation to accurately understand the love-style before deciding if it's to your taste or not, just as you have to hear both Bach and Brahms before rendering your musical judgment; your comments show that you do not.
If you want to argue that polyamory is wrong, though, you'll need something more than "I don't like it". You'll need a coherent ethical framework, and an argument within it.
What, no one gets hurt, attached, jealous, et cetera in monogamous (or attempted monogamous) relationships?
Yes, people get hurt in romantic and sexual relationships. The best way to reduce the risk of that is to put aside social conventions and assumptions, and honestly work out with other people what sort of relationships you want.
Judgmental rhetoric about how what other people want in a relationship is "wrong", makes it that much more difficult for others to put aside assumptions and be honest. Your condemnation makes it less likely that people will be honest and thoughtful, and more likely that they will be hurt.
Please, stop engaging in behavior that makes it more likely that people will be hurt.
People can have multiple relationships that involve both emotional support and sex.
Don't you think half-remembered experiments on rats are a poor way to inform your thinking about human relationships?
Bully for you. Whatever floats your boat. I wish you much happiness in whatever sort of relationship(s) work(s) for you. Just don't project your preferences on to others. Is that too much to ask?
(You might even find that your preferences, or your understanding of them, changes over time.)
Do tell. Please, how exactly does my having more than one sexual relationship hurt anyone?
Oh, nonsense. The planet is well beyond its sustainable carrying capacity. Having fewer children is absolutely one of the best things you can do for the long-term health of human civilization; it is "pro-family" and "pro-child" to choose to have fewer, or even no, children.
Japan is crowded. A population decline means more land, more energy, more of every natural resource, per person. The population decline caused by the plague was one of the factors leading to the Renaissance.
Unfortuntely, we have an economic system based on the fiction that eternal growth is possible and desirable; so long as that unrealistic assumption persists, a stable or declining population will be seen as a problem.
A society with a mildly declining population for a while is hardly a society with no children.
A society that uses up all its resources, is a society with no future.
It is perfectly fine for you to decided that you want to dedicate yourself to a relationship with one person. If you ask my opinion about the potential pitfalls along that approach, I'll tell you want I think, but tell you, "knock yourself out - whatever works for you".
It is not ok for you to decide that I should dedicate myself to a relationship with one person; you don't get to dictate what style of relationship makes me happy, any more that you get to decide what sort of music makes me happy. You are free to report your own experiences, preferences, even speculations: but when you attempt to tell me how I "should" love, you've left the realm of useful discourse. And when attempts are made through public policy to dicate how people "should" love, a sane society would hand those poltiicans a whuppin'.
Non sequitor. B & E is a violation of the rights of others; if my girlfriends and I decide to have open relationships, that's not a violation of anyone's rights.
What in the world does that mean, that you "have a problem" with other people's personal sexual choices? How does my choice cause you any problem?
I hear a lot more discussion and thought from the polyamoury community about the nature of relationships than I do from most folks, so charges of "shallow" fall flat. And I see honest non-monogamous models working quite for many people - certainly much better than the dishonest non-monogamous model that condemnation like yours pushes people into.
Again: whatever works for you, fine and dandy. But your opinions about the choices of others seem based on faulty data.
While it does not compare with rape, someone harrassing me and keeping me from going to the pizza place is harassment, maybe stalking and/or assault, and is still a crime.
Calling this "virtual rape" is probably all wrong, but the stress and trauma of being the target of harassment should not be minimized.
The Sharp Zarus SLC line is still available in Japan. The clamshell form factor is very common here for electronic dictionaries, in fact during my stay in Osaka a few people have mistaken my Z for one.
Doesn't do Bluetooth or WiFi without you adding a CF card; still, way cool. There are a few companies that import them and do the English conversion.
I have a SLC-3000, I use it mostly for writing - often I write my blog entries on it, sitting in a bar or on the train, and upload when I get home.
Depends on what you're using it for. My Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000 (link is not my site, BTW) has a screen about 4 inches diagonal. It's highly portable and I use it a lot for writing (poems, stories, essays - text entry as opposed to heavy formatting). I have even taken it on camping trips, USB cabled to my cell phone to check mail and have emergency login capabilities to the server at work. (This is for "car camping", not backpacking; when I go to the woods the rest of the world can go to hell for a few days.)
I have to set the font size very small to get an 80x25 terminal, but it's good enough for a quick login and restart the hung process sort of operation. Battery life is good and I can recharge it from a USB-style socket - so with a 12VDC-to-USB adaptor I'm set for the road.
It runs Linux and I love the clamshell form factor. And people often stop and ask about it and admire it.
I am safer for being armed. And because I am the kind of guy who helps others in trouble, my neighbors are safer for my being armed - if I hear the lady next store scream in the middle of the night, I can respond, armed, in less than an minute; a hell of a lot more quickly than a 911 response.
If my guns were somehow stolen, they'd infentesimally increase the supply and lower the price of black market guns.
If all guns in the country magically became unstealable, the black market price would rise and smuggling would increase. Again, it's just like the drug black market.
One might as well ask, what if your stereo gets stolen because you don't have the tools to protect your home, and the funds are used to purchase guns for criminals or gang members?
That's what gun control advocates hope will happen.
The reality is that gun control keeps guns away from "bad guys" about as well as heroin control keeps drugs away from junkies. So the actual effect of gun control is to disarm law-abiding citizens and not the bad guys.
If your nation doesn't have a heroin problem, it's not because prohibition laws make it impossible for people to get drugs, it's because your society has given people better options than smoking or shooting up addictive synthetic opiates. (Hurray for you!)
If your nation doesn't have a violent crime problem, it's not because prohibition laws make it impossible for people to get weapons, it's because your society has given people better options than killing each other. (Hurray for you!)
But trying to take away my guns won't make anyone safer. (Least of all the guy who tries to take them from me and gets shot for his trouble.)
Copyright is not a "Constitutionally-guaranteed" right. Congress has the power - but not the requirement - to create copyrights.
The GP's contention that Congress is "tasked with" promoting the arts and sciences is incorrect; it is "empowered to" do so by creating copyrights and patents. It is under no obligation to exercise that power, any more that it is under an obligation to declare war, call forth the militia, or borrow money.
That said: this still sucks.
Then don't work for "The Man". Look for smaller companies, or even bigger companies with a more rational approach. Or work for yourself, even if that means changing fields.
I figure I'm not going to last long at a job working for "The Man" anyway, so I might as well turn down a job that asks me to sign away my dignity before I even start.
The last time I encountered one of these clauses was for a contract position at IBM. The contracting company's startard contract would basically have had IBM own all my creations; when I pointed out that according to the contract as written, IBM would own any poems I wrote (on my own time) and that seemed pretty silly, we agreed to strike that provision.
The only time I have signed one of these was at my first job; a year or so after I started there, the company made a partnership with a larger one demanded all employees sign IP agreements. If I knew then what I know now I would have fought harder, walked if necessary.
Normally I tell the company, "This is my policy. If you don't want to accept my changes you're free to be without my skills and talents."
Grow a pair, man. It's one thing if you're an unskilled lunk, but if you're a skilled professional, be assertive.
Just what "natioanl HR databases" are these?
You are being paranoid. Employers don't spread dirt on former or potential employees because they'd be sued into the ground if they did.
Yes, that is funny. "Boy, living things are complicated. Therefore God exists." Hardee-har-har, what a chuckle.
"Squash" seems be be some bizarre beverage they drink in the U.K. .
Depending on where you are, "doing something suspicious" may include:
There was no "box full of pot". It's quite possible - likely, even - that the "suspicious action" is a complete fabrication on the art of the cop in question.
According to TFA, "The officer got permission to search the vehicle". Never, never, never, never give your consent to a search. Don't do it. Ever. When you consent you give up your Fourth Amendment rights.
Cops lie. They will tell you that things will go easier if you consent. It's bullshit.
Instead, be calm, be nice, but flex your rights.
This middle aged guy in China got 10 people with knife and ax.
Richard Speck strangled and stabbed eight people in one gruesome night.
The Hutus were able to kill a hell of a lot of Tutsis with machetes - i.e., big knives.
Petar Brzica is said to have knifed 1,300 people in one night, though concentration camp inmates were obviously easy targets.
Somebody trained, with quality knives (including big knives such as swords or machetes), against 30 untrained panicing young people, divided into a few smaller groups in classrooms? Quite possible.
There's a reason that sword-wielding tyrants and conquerors, from the generals of Athens to the shoguns of Japan, were able to succeed: if I have a big knife and you don't, I'm in charge or you're dead. Even if there's a dozen of you.
But, we do need to recall that while this incident was the worst school shooting, it was not the worst school mass murder: the Bath School disaster killed 45 people. For mass murder, fire and explosives are the way to go.
Errr...I'm the GP poster, a gun owner, a karate instructor who teaches people how to kill and maim with their bare hands - and a vegan. Killing animals to eat their flesh has nothing to do with the rights and responsibilties of self-defense and defending others.
Nobody "deserves" to be killed, but sometimes using potentially lethal force is the least bad option available. It takes somebody somewhere to have fucked up royally for it to come down to a situation where violence is the least bad choice, but it does on rare occasions occur.
They'd also be alive if there weren't any violent psychopaths at all, or if tears cured bullet wounds.
However, let's confine ourselves to reality, in which psychopaths are things that we are stuck with, guns (for good and bad uses) are here to stay, and miracle cures are things that we do not have.
You grandmother (or if you hate your grandma, some little old lady you like) is home alone. Some big strong guy with a head full of bad chemicals breaks into her house, with a big knife and desire for rape, torture, and mayhem.
He rips the phone out of the wall. The cops are 20 minutes away anyway, even if she could call. With her bad hip, she can't run. While she's pretty spry for her age, even went to a class on self-defense for seniors last fall, she's 85 and not real big.
Do you wish that Granny had a gun? Would she be justified in using it?
Yes, it's a lousy scenario. But it's one that happens.
The people you mention in Brazil had one important thing that the homeless don't have in the U.S.: the ability to occupy land.
I'm in Osaka, Japan at the moment. In larger parks, there are tents and huts that "homeless" people (I suppose if they have a hut, in a sense they're not homeless) have set up, made with government-issued tarps and scavenged materials. Some of them are remarkably engineered, have a bike parked outside (hmmm, I wonder if that's where my stolen bike ended up...), a few potted plants, an old car battery running a light at night.
In the U.S., anyone trying to set up something like this would get it knocked down in about five minutes.
You contradict yourself; if the people running the show are not educated properly in the laws, that's a pretty lousy system.
The fact that we have the world's highest prison population, both per-captia and in terms of absolute numbers; that in some cities thousands of arrests without merit are made per year; and that the system is known to have a strong racial bias, all show that the system needs sustantial improvement.
But the United States is not at war. Congress has made no such declaration, and there is no government (or in civil wars and revolutions, putative government) with which we are engaged in armed conflict.
A war ends when the two governments agree, or when one government is destroyed and the other occupies it, extending its own governance or setting up a new government in the conquered territory.
It is only because war has such a rather clear end, that the concept of "prisoner of war" has meaning.
The "Global War on Terror" is a branding campaign for various acts of military agression; it is not a war.
...which is rather like the principal in this story conducting a review.
There's a reason we have a court system with jury trials and an adverserial process.
Many of those people who died today might have lived if someone else present had had a gun and used it to stop the shooter.
As for international comparions - the U.S. has more non-firearms homicides per capita, more fatal beatings and stabbings, than many nations' total murder rate. The problem is not in our guns; it's social and economic.
Yes, go look at crime stats.
Notice that those states within the U.S. with strong gun control, have the highest violent crime rates.
Notice that Canada, Switzerland, and Israel have comparable levels of gun ownership to the U.S., but much lower crime rates.
Notice that in the U.S., we have more non-gun murders per capita than the U.K. or Japan (IIRC) have total homicides. We beat and stab each other to death at an astounding rate.
The problem lies not in our guns but in our selves.