And every society has protections from free communication, the trivial example are libel and slander laws.
Which are civil, not criminal, actions, which require not only that the "bits be transmitted", but that harm be shown.
In Canada, you can be prosecuted for publishing material that, for example, denies that the holocaust ever occured, or material which otherwise promotes "hate crimes."
And such laws are clear violations of the freedom of speech.
What if those bits are a collection of child pronography? I would say someone's rights and liberties were violated to create that content.
Not always. Some "child pornography" is fictious depictions.
Distribution of that content is continued abrogation of that person's rights.
It could be an invasion of the right to privacy distribute images of actual incidents of children being absued, yes. (Again, more of a civil matter.) But not to merely possess such images, or to distribute ficitious images.
How about if you cause your computer to send bits to my computer which, when received and decoded by my computer happen to trick it into retransmitting those bits to other computers
Here, you're talking about meta-communication factors - not the content, but the manner of communication. My right to free speech doesn't include putting a bullhorn up to your ear; but that's not related to the content of what I'm shouting.
However, I do have the right to talk about putting bullhorns up to people's ears, and to talk about the design and contruction of bullhorns. Similarly, I have the right to talk about malware and it's design and contruction.
Going a step further, how about if I figure out a way to brew a potent bioweapon, along the lines of the 99.99% effective Stephen King virus, using ingredients available at your local supermarket and off-the-shelf kitchen equipment?
What about it? You can learn all sorts of ways to kill people from books, or from taking a class in martial arts. Knowing how to kill cannot be banned. Even knowing how to kill everyone in one fell swoop.
In fact, I'd rather have that 99.99% lethal virus known to everyone than hidden away and denied. If we know about it, we can take action to stop it being used, rather than pretending it can't happen.
You'd only be delaying the information getting out anyway. Look at the situation with nukes - despite all the efforts to keep things secret, any nation with the industrial infrastructure can now build them. Decades we could have spend working for a world without the need for nuclear weapons were wasted trying to keep secrets, and now the question is not "will they ever be used again", but "when will they be used again".
Free communication includes the transmission of state secrets, disclosure of state security vulnerabilities etc.
Yes. If that state doesn't want me to know that the B1024 bomber can easily be disabled by shining a laser pointer at it, it's the state's problem to not let me know that. As I have taken no oath of secrecy, if I stumble on that fact, I am within my free speech rights to disclose it. (The state, oblivious to its own rules, of cource disagrees.)
A mob boss sends an email to an underling telling him to kill someone. That good enough for you?
Sending an e-mail tht says "Kill Bob!" is not by itself a crime, any more than speaking the words "Kill Bob!". It is only when the recipient actually goes and kills Bob that the communication might be considered part of a conspiracy.
I'm not trying to flame, but what if online freedom includes child porn? Or people being murdered while being taped and then the movies played out online? If we outlaw these isn't that a "freedom of experssion" also?
Yes, it is.
Sexually abusing children or committing murder are genuine crimes, and people who do such acts need to be removed from our company for everyone's safety.
Distributing images of actual occurances of the sexual abuse of children is an intrusion of the right to privacy of the children in question, and thus a legitimate crime; but the law claims that possessing even fictional depictions of the sexual abuse of children should be punushed. That's thoughtcrime.
(And for the slow-witted: no, I have no desire to view kiddie porn. The thought turns my stomach. But so does the thought of listening to Pat Robertson.)
Similarly, possessing images of people being murdered is not a genuine crime. Should it be a crime to have a picture of the 9/11 mass murder? Or the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald? Or of the security video tapes from Columbine (as seen in Bowling for Columbine)?
Yeah, because people should be free to do what they hell they like on-line, free from any kind of rules and regulations that are designed to protect our society. Right....
Yes. It's called "freedom". It applies to all forms of communication, spoken, written, or electronic.
Unless you can explain how my causing one computer to send bits to another computer is a credible threat to the basic rights and liberties of others, keep your laws off my computer.
If your society needs protection from free communication, then your society deserves no protection at all - it should be destroyed and replaced as soon as possible.
Certainly they're right that the text of the licence, not the opinion of the FSF, is what matters. However, they seem to not understand their own licence:
The Apache License says that if you claim the Apache software contains something that is not licensed free for everyone (i.e., specifically, you accuse someone of infringing your patent which implies that your patent is not free for everyone), then you can't use the Apache License as a defense against your own infringements.
Actually, the Apache License says more than that. It says "any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate" if you file certain lawsuits. Without patent licenses, in theory you can't even run the software. (Which is why software patents are evil, stupid, and must be destroyed.)
The Apache License can take away your right to use the software by revoking patent licenses (admittedly, only if you behave like a scumbag, but that's beside the point).This is what is not permitted under the GPL. The GPL states "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein"; a license that says "you can't use this software if you behave like a scumbag and file patent lawsuits" is not compatible with this requirement.
Again, it's not necessarily a bad idea (as the FSF page notes). But it is not GPL-compatible.
When I went to Japan, I got a much better exchange rate when I exchanged my US dollars for yen in Japan than my friend did when she exchanged hers here (Texas).
Yes, I also got more yen for the dollar at the airport in Osaka than I would have stateside (San Francisco, as the exchange at BWI wasn't open yet). Fortunately I'd been advised of this in advance.
I didn't change my leftover yen until I had been back a few weeks, had to go to an American Express office to do it only to find out that they would only change bills, not coins. So I've got about $25 worth of yen sitting on my dresser says "Come back to Japan and spend us!"
I get in political discussion with folks who complain about the system not working...when I ask if they write their representatives they say no. I ask if they vote, they say they aren't registered.
I write my representatives. And I vote. Know what? It still doesn't make a damn bit of difference so long as at election time I'm given no real choice.
As Bill Hicks put it, "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs. I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking. Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding both puppets."
They don't listen to the majority, they lose their job.
The majority are easily led around by those in power. Most Americans beleive that Iraq as involved in 9/11 and that we have found weapons of mass destruction in our invasion there. Our "leaders" have gotten people more disturbed about destroying a flag than about destroying the land that the flag represents.
The game is rigged. Third-party candidates are doomed from the start. Any candidate talking about real change is not permitted to get past the primaries - look at how they savaged Dean for speaking truth. Betting on a Senator for re-election is about the safest bet you can make, and Representatives only risk losing their seats if their opposing party gets ahold of the state legislature and manages to redistrict them out.
So, yeah, I vote, I give to the ACLU, I write my Congresscritters, but I don't expect it to make much difference. Me, I'm looking for Yin revolution. And if that don't work...well, that's why there's a rifle in the closet.
You can achieve the same result by calling your local police/fire/ambulence, whatever that 7-10 digit number may be.
No. I've actually called a local police 10-digit number and was told I had to dial 911 to be connected with the division I needed. (And this was to file a non-emergency report of stolen property!) 911 is more than a convenience, in some areas it is now the only number to call for emergency dispatch or some other services.
What happened to choice? If I don't want to use it, it doesn't matter. Suddenly I'm required to pay for something I may not have wanted.
No more so than the 911 fee that's on your land line or telephone. If you want a VoIP service that touches the PSTN, expect it to be regulated like other telephone service.
VoIP is a service being provided by private companies--you're not locked into anything. Why forcefully regluate things like this when a free market would naturally provide each consumer with what _they_ want?
VoIP is one thing, VoIP that accesses the PSTN is another.
As long as VoIP doesn't have easy access into the telco networks it will remain a novelty.
If you want to be a telephone system, you have to meet telephone system standards.
If all you want to do is stream audio between your PC and your girlfriends' over your broadband connections, I don't think even the FCC is dumb enough to try to stop you.
you find that the phrase "bear Arms" was never used except in referring to militia activities.
The context for the discussion was state rights versus federal power, and the creation of standing armies versus reliance on militias, so this is hardly surprising. Remeber that the Bill of Rights was an afterthought! However, it is clear that the framers had a armed citizenry (and not standing armies) in mind:
"..but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Hamilton, Federalist No. 29
"...the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation..." -- Madison, Federalist No. 46
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair." Hamilton, Federalist 28
The National Guard are militias.
As they are today, the National Guards are more military reserve units than real militias. (See Title 32 U.S.C.)
Yet why did they explain why it was important?
Explaining why something is important is done to give it extra weight. Doesn't your boss ever say things like, "Nomadic, getting this project done is necessary to keep FooBar as a customer, so I need this next week"?
they DIDN'T use that phrase with any other amendments.
Which would indicate that it was especially important. "Nomadic, do X. Nomadic, do Y. Nomadic, getting Z done is necessary to keep the company solvent, so do Z." Which do you do first?
If somebody calls the cops and tells them they witnessed an middle-aged man arguing with a teenage girl (presumably his daughter) and the cops then find a middle-aged man and a teenage girl in the area it's a fairly safe assumption that they are the ones in question.
None of which has anything to do with demands for ID papers. No one said "I saw Dudley Hiibel being naughty".
You do not have the right to refuse to give the authorities your name
First, he wasn't asked for his name. Only for his papers. Second, yes, you do, though refusal to give your name can be grounds for suspicion - but not, by itself, probable cause for arrest. But you can always say "I don't want to talk to you. Unless you are detaining me or arresting me, I'm going to leave now," and be perfectly within your legal rights. Third, since the cops in this case weren't looking for any person by name, neither giving a name nor showing ID could have any effect on reasonable suspicion or probable cause in this case.
As a parent you don't look to make a political statement if it's going to harm your child. It's simply not worth it.
It saddens and amazes me that you thinks that insisting on your civil liberties being recognized is just a "political statement". And I'd say standing up for right and freedom is one of the most important things you can do and demonstrate for your kids.
I do know that in my state they can't force me to give ID.
It has nothing to do with which State you're in. It's a fundamental principle of American law.
The most persuasive argument imho is that it was a provision that allowed the states to maintain their militias. It was probably not meant to guarantee individual gun ownership rights.
A militia means an armed citizen body. Even here in Maryland, one of the worst states when it comes to recognizing the right to keep and bear arms, the law is clear that every able-bodied male in a certain age range, is the militia.
You don't have a militia without individual gun ownership.
"..the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." I think the framers were smart enough to be able to say "the right of the states..." if that's what they meant.
Don't you? Or does the "right of the people peaceably to assemble" mean that only representatives of the States can get together to petition the federal government?
The fact that an important reason for this is that a "well regulated militia" - a body of trained armed citizens - is "necessary to the security of a free state", doesn't change that.
"X being necessary to Y, Z" is not a form that puts limitations on Z - it's a form that explains why Z is important. "A well educated electorate being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
The guy never asked him if he had probable cause to ask for ID -- he just refused.His body language wasn't exactly friendly either.
Neither refusing to show ID, nor hostile body language, are grounds for reasonable suspicion (allowing detention) or probable cause (allowing arrest) that a crime has been commited.
but he's obviously in the wrong here. The Police Officer was just trying to do his job.
So were the southern cops in the 1960s who turned the dogs and the fire hoses on civil rights marchers. Your point?
There's a term for countries where citizens are legally obligated to make it easy for police officers to do their job. The term is "police state".
The cowboy was moderately animated, moved around a bit, and refused to show his ID. I can see how the cop would definitely have his guard up.
"Having your guard up" is not the same as having probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed.
It's a difficult line to draw. Both arguments seem reasonable.
It's not and they don't. Police can detain a citizen only when there are specific and articulable facts supporting reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, and can make an arrest only based on probable cause. "I don't want to show you my papers, and I don't want to talk to you" is basis for neither.
If you are planning on civil disobedience...
Civil disobedience means breaking the law. It does not include standing up for your legal rights. The only law breaking going on here was the actions of the police.
In the video, Hiibel states: "i'm being cooperative"...but many people will look at his body language and decide that he really wasn't.
Borg Gates and I both receive the same benefits from government, he just has to pay a helluva lot more.
No, Bill Gates receives a lot more benefits from government. Who issues the copyrights and patents that make Microsoft a rich company? Hell, who issued Microsoft's corporate charter? Who issued him the deed to the land where his mansion sits? Who protects Bill from a little grass-roots redistribution of the wealth?
When you're living in a cardboard box, it doesn't much matter if you're living in a democracy or a dictatorship or total anarchy.
Or maybe you just work out alternate transportation when you're out drinking.
If I'm going out with the intention to do a lot of drinking (which I rarely do), yes. If I'm going to drink one champange toast at a four hour event, it's clear that I don't need to do this.
The problem is the grey area in between...that "oh, I had some wine with dinner, but just two glasses, I guess I can have one after-dinner drink, after all I won't be leaving for a while" space.
But you bring up another point - a lot of drunk driving could probably be prevented if there were decent transportation alternatives. Good mass transit would save a lot of lives, directly from reduced accidents as well as indirectly from lower ecological impact.
While I don't think it should be attached to an interlock, if I'm going to be subject to arrest based upon a test I ought to be able to administer that test myself. (You can buy cheap pocket breathalyzers but they are not legally binding, therefore useless.)
DUI laws are odd in that its quite possible to violate them unintentionally. When I go somewhere and have three or four beers over the course of the evening (or maybe only two if they're strong trippels), the only way I can figure my BAC is to approximate that it takes about 75 minutes to burn off one drink. But both the alcohol content of a drink and the metabolic rate of consumption are highly variable figures.
Last time I drove home from a party, sure, I waited, I felt fine, I had no problems driving, I had every intention of being within the law and believe that I complied. But I can't know for sure because the legal standard I'm held to is something I can't monitor myself.
Either the use of chemical tests for impairment should be stopped, or all cars ought to be equipped with breathalyzers just like they're equipped with speedometers.
High protein diets don't do a thing you describe; *high fat* diets do
The currently faddish high protein diets are also high fats diets. They are also low in important vitamins, minerals, and fiber. This is the cause of some of the problems related to them. However, excess dietary protein in and of itself is linked with kidney problems, gout, and osteoporosis.
Low carb diets are also associated with low levels of glucose getting to the brain, leading to emotional problems - is that why you're feeling so hostile?
Do you want to have hybrids created by traditional selective breeding labeled too, or only ones created by GM?
You're using the word "hybrid" in two rather different senses. But yes, I have much more concern about a tomato hybridized with a fish than with a Best Boy hybridized with a Beefstake. (Though even there, one runs into concerns about hybrids driving out heirloom varieties and leading to the risks of monoculture.)
Can you really not see that the point is the fallacy of trying to prove a negative?
If I were demanding absolute proof, yes, that would be such a fallacy. But demanding reasonable evidence of safety before putting something into your body is no fallacy. Or would you swallow any substance I gave you if I said "No one has yet proved this is harmful?" (Consider how long it took to prove tobacco smoking harmful.)
In fact, I'm not even demanding proof - I'm demanding the ability to make a choice. Why are you so against people having choice? Do you work for Monsanto, or what?
The whole point of showing you an example that uses your exact reasoning to come up with a result you may not approve of is to point out the flaws of your reasoning, not to assert that the two cases are related.
The process you are engaged in is known as "setting up straw men and knocking them down";
your example is not connected to my reasoning - or to any reasoning - at all.
On the contrary, technology is the *only* way to solve problems. Can you give an example of even one problem solved by a sociologist?
To take an example right under your nose, did technology end apartheid? Or segregation in the U.S.? Or get the right to vote extended past white male landowners? End exploitive child labor practices? Eliminate torture as an acceptable practice? Establish democracy as a replacement for monarchy? No, those were done by social movements.
Anti-GM zealots like to say that GM is different than selective breeding because according to them, "genes don't cross species". Yet, when it suits them, the exact same anti-GM crowd turns around and invokes the possibility of lateral gene transfer between GM crops and wild crops.
Nice attempt to put words in my mouth.
Genes do occasionally cross species (a process known as "horizontal gene transfer") via viral infection. This is very rare, as organisms have mechanisms to reject foreign genetic material. Genetic modification techniques are designed to make it easier for genes from one species to be incorporated into the genome of another - it therefore increases the likelihood of horizontal gene transfer.
The point is just like the anti-GM crowd, the white South Africans had no evidence for their prejudices, although they could certainly say that there was no *proof* that Blacks were safe.
Let me give you some advice on rhetoric: this statement is so ridiculous that it undermines any credibility that your argument might otherwise have. Comparing the desire to know what's in your food with racial discrimination...the absurdity speaks for itself.
However, I'll point out that Black people have been around on this planet long enough - longer that White people, probably - to prove that interacting with them will not cause a White person harm. (That's putting aside the issue of whether dividing people into racial groups is even meaningful.) The same cannot be said of GM food crops.
Either technology can be used to help the problems of the third world, or the problems can remain unsolved
You can't solve a sociological problem with a technological approach; and this particular technology makes the problem worse, not better.
Closures aren't "used for anything", they just give the language straightforward and sensible semantics, as opposed to the mess that results when you name functions by strings, like PHP does.
In other words, you don't like the syntactic sugar. PHP has the mechanism, you just don't like it's looks. And you're surprised that this isn't a hot issue in the development of the language?
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Which are civil, not criminal, actions, which require not only that the "bits be transmitted", but that harm be shown.
And such laws are clear violations of the freedom of speech.
Not always. Some "child pornography" is fictious depictions.
It could be an invasion of the right to privacy distribute images of actual incidents of children being absued, yes. (Again, more of a civil matter.) But not to merely possess such images, or to distribute ficitious images.
Here, you're talking about meta-communication factors - not the content, but the manner of communication. My right to free speech doesn't include putting a bullhorn up to your ear; but that's not related to the content of what I'm shouting.
However, I do have the right to talk about putting bullhorns up to people's ears, and to talk about the design and contruction of bullhorns. Similarly, I have the right to talk about malware and it's design and contruction.
What about it? You can learn all sorts of ways to kill people from books, or from taking a class in martial arts. Knowing how to kill cannot be banned. Even knowing how to kill everyone in one fell swoop.
In fact, I'd rather have that 99.99% lethal virus known to everyone than hidden away and denied. If we know about it, we can take action to stop it being used, rather than pretending it can't happen.
You'd only be delaying the information getting out anyway. Look at the situation with nukes - despite all the efforts to keep things secret, any nation with the industrial infrastructure can now build them. Decades we could have spend working for a world without the need for nuclear weapons were wasted trying to keep secrets, and now the question is not "will they ever be used again", but "when will they be used again".
Yes. If that state doesn't want me to know that the B1024 bomber can easily be disabled by shining a laser pointer at it, it's the state's problem to not let me know that. As I have taken no oath of secrecy, if I stumble on that fact, I am within my free speech rights to disclose it. (The state, oblivious to its own rules, of cource disagrees.)
Sending an e-mail tht says "Kill Bob!" is not by itself a crime, any more than speaking the words "Kill Bob!". It is only when the recipient actually goes and kills Bob that the communication might be considered part of a conspiracy.
Yes, it is.
Sexually abusing children or committing murder are genuine crimes, and people who do such acts need to be removed from our company for everyone's safety.
Distributing images of actual occurances of the sexual abuse of children is an intrusion of the right to privacy of the children in question, and thus a legitimate crime; but the law claims that possessing even fictional depictions of the sexual abuse of children should be punushed. That's thoughtcrime.
(And for the slow-witted: no, I have no desire to view kiddie porn. The thought turns my stomach. But so does the thought of listening to Pat Robertson.)
Similarly, possessing images of people being murdered is not a genuine crime. Should it be a crime to have a picture of the 9/11 mass murder? Or the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald? Or of the security video tapes from Columbine (as seen in Bowling for Columbine)?
(Oh, and snuff films don't exist. Warning: link is not pleasant reading.)
Yes. It's called "freedom". It applies to all forms of communication, spoken, written, or electronic.
Unless you can explain how my causing one computer to send bits to another computer is a credible threat to the basic rights and liberties of others, keep your laws off my computer.
If your society needs protection from free communication, then your society deserves no protection at all - it should be destroyed and replaced as soon as possible.
Certainly they're right that the text of the licence, not the opinion of the FSF, is what matters. However, they seem to not understand their own licence:
Actually, the Apache License says more than that. It says "any patent licenses granted to You under this License for that Work shall terminate" if you file certain lawsuits. Without patent licenses, in theory you can't even run the software. (Which is why software patents are evil, stupid, and must be destroyed.)
The Apache License can take away your right to use the software by revoking patent licenses (admittedly, only if you behave like a scumbag, but that's beside the point).This is what is not permitted under the GPL. The GPL states "You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein"; a license that says "you can't use this software if you behave like a scumbag and file patent lawsuits" is not compatible with this requirement.
Again, it's not necessarily a bad idea (as the FSF page notes). But it is not GPL-compatible.
Yes, I also got more yen for the dollar at the airport in Osaka than I would have stateside (San Francisco, as the exchange at BWI wasn't open yet). Fortunately I'd been advised of this in advance.
I didn't change my leftover yen until I had been back a few weeks, had to go to an American Express office to do it only to find out that they would only change bills, not coins. So I've got about $25 worth of yen sitting on my dresser says "Come back to Japan and spend us!"
I write my representatives. And I vote. Know what? It still doesn't make a damn bit of difference so long as at election time I'm given no real choice.
As Bill Hicks put it, "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs. I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking. Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding both puppets."
The majority are easily led around by those in power. Most Americans beleive that Iraq as involved in 9/11 and that we have found weapons of mass destruction in our invasion there. Our "leaders" have gotten people more disturbed about destroying a flag than about destroying the land that the flag represents.
The game is rigged. Third-party candidates are doomed from the start. Any candidate talking about real change is not permitted to get past the primaries - look at how they savaged Dean for speaking truth. Betting on a Senator for re-election is about the safest bet you can make, and Representatives only risk losing their seats if their opposing party gets ahold of the state legislature and manages to redistrict them out.
So, yeah, I vote, I give to the ACLU, I write my Congresscritters, but I don't expect it to make much difference. Me, I'm looking for Yin revolution. And if that don't work...well, that's why there's a rifle in the closet.
No. I've actually called a local police 10-digit number and was told I had to dial 911 to be connected with the division I needed. (And this was to file a non-emergency report of stolen property!) 911 is more than a convenience, in some areas it is now the only number to call for emergency dispatch or some other services.
No more so than the 911 fee that's on your land line or telephone. If you want a VoIP service that touches the PSTN, expect it to be regulated like other telephone service.
VoIP is one thing, VoIP that accesses the PSTN is another.
While entirely Internet-based VoIP services are "unregulated information services", anything that touches the PSTN is heavily regulated. This is a fact of life like gravity, death, and taxes, and complaining about it is useless and pointless.
If you want to be a telephone system, you have to meet telephone system standards.
If all you want to do is stream audio between your PC and your girlfriends' over your broadband connections, I don't think even the FCC is dumb enough to try to stop you.
The context for the discussion was state rights versus federal power, and the creation of standing armies versus reliance on militias, so this is hardly surprising. Remeber that the Bill of Rights was an afterthought! However, it is clear that the framers had a armed citizenry (and not standing armies) in mind:
"..but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Hamilton, Federalist No. 29
"...the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation..." -- Madison, Federalist No. 46
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair." Hamilton, Federalist 28
As they are today, the National Guards are more military reserve units than real militias. (See Title 32 U.S.C.)
Explaining why something is important is done to give it extra weight. Doesn't your boss ever say things like, "Nomadic, getting this project done is necessary to keep FooBar as a customer, so I need this next week"?
Which would indicate that it was especially important. "Nomadic, do X. Nomadic, do Y. Nomadic, getting Z done is necessary to keep the company solvent, so do Z." Which do you do first?
None of which has anything to do with demands for ID papers. No one said "I saw Dudley Hiibel being naughty".
First, he wasn't asked for his name. Only for his papers. Second, yes, you do, though refusal to give your name can be grounds for suspicion - but not, by itself, probable cause for arrest. But you can always say "I don't want to talk to you. Unless you are detaining me or arresting me, I'm going to leave now," and be perfectly within your legal rights. Third, since the cops in this case weren't looking for any person by name, neither giving a name nor showing ID could have any effect on reasonable suspicion or probable cause in this case.
It saddens and amazes me that you thinks that insisting on your civil liberties being recognized is just a "political statement". And I'd say standing up for right and freedom is one of the most important things you can do and demonstrate for your kids.
It has nothing to do with which State you're in. It's a fundamental principle of American law.
A militia means an armed citizen body. Even here in Maryland, one of the worst states when it comes to recognizing the right to keep and bear arms, the law is clear that every able-bodied male in a certain age range, is the militia.
You don't have a militia without individual gun ownership.
"..the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." I think the framers were smart enough to be able to say "the right of the states..." if that's what they meant. Don't you? Or does the "right of the people peaceably to assemble" mean that only representatives of the States can get together to petition the federal government?
The fact that an important reason for this is that a "well regulated militia" - a body of trained armed citizens - is "necessary to the security of a free state", doesn't change that.
"X being necessary to Y, Z" is not a form that puts limitations on Z - it's a form that explains why Z is important. "A well educated electorate being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed."
Neither refusing to show ID, nor hostile body language, are grounds for reasonable suspicion (allowing detention) or probable cause (allowing arrest) that a crime has been commited.
So were the southern cops in the 1960s who turned the dogs and the fire hoses on civil rights marchers. Your point?
There's a term for countries where citizens are legally obligated to make it easy for police officers to do their job. The term is "police state".
It's not and they don't. Police can detain a citizen only when there are specific and articulable facts supporting reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed, and can make an arrest only based on probable cause. "I don't want to show you my papers, and I don't want to talk to you" is basis for neither.
Civil disobedience means breaking the law. It does not include standing up for your legal rights. The only law breaking going on here was the actions of the police.
Body language is not probable cause for arrest.
No, Bill Gates receives a lot more benefits from government. Who issues the copyrights and patents that make Microsoft a rich company? Hell, who issued Microsoft's corporate charter? Who issued him the deed to the land where his mansion sits? Who protects Bill from a little grass-roots redistribution of the wealth?
When you're living in a cardboard box, it doesn't much matter if you're living in a democracy or a dictatorship or total anarchy.
If I'm going out with the intention to do a lot of drinking (which I rarely do), yes. If I'm going to drink one champange toast at a four hour event, it's clear that I don't need to do this.
The problem is the grey area in between...that "oh, I had some wine with dinner, but just two glasses, I guess I can have one after-dinner drink, after all I won't be leaving for a while" space.
But you bring up another point - a lot of drunk driving could probably be prevented if there were decent transportation alternatives. Good mass transit would save a lot of lives, directly from reduced accidents as well as indirectly from lower ecological impact.
While I don't think it should be attached to an interlock, if I'm going to be subject to arrest based upon a test I ought to be able to administer that test myself. (You can buy cheap pocket breathalyzers but they are not legally binding, therefore useless.)
DUI laws are odd in that its quite possible to violate them unintentionally. When I go somewhere and have three or four beers over the course of the evening (or maybe only two if they're strong trippels), the only way I can figure my BAC is to approximate that it takes about 75 minutes to burn off one drink. But both the alcohol content of a drink and the metabolic rate of consumption are highly variable figures.
Last time I drove home from a party, sure, I waited, I felt fine, I had no problems driving, I had every intention of being within the law and believe that I complied. But I can't know for sure because the legal standard I'm held to is something I can't monitor myself.
Either the use of chemical tests for impairment should be stopped, or all cars ought to be equipped with breathalyzers just like they're equipped with speedometers.
The currently faddish high protein diets are also high fats diets. They are also low in important vitamins, minerals, and fiber. This is the cause of some of the problems related to them. However, excess dietary protein in and of itself is linked with kidney problems, gout, and osteoporosis.
Low carb diets are also associated with low levels of glucose getting to the brain, leading to emotional problems - is that why you're feeling so hostile?
You're using the word "hybrid" in two rather different senses. But yes, I have much more concern about a tomato hybridized with a fish than with a Best Boy hybridized with a Beefstake. (Though even there, one runs into concerns about hybrids driving out heirloom varieties and leading to the risks of monoculture.)
If I were demanding absolute proof, yes, that would be such a fallacy. But demanding reasonable evidence of safety before putting something into your body is no fallacy. Or would you swallow any substance I gave you if I said "No one has yet proved this is harmful?" (Consider how long it took to prove tobacco smoking harmful.)
In fact, I'm not even demanding proof - I'm demanding the ability to make a choice. Why are you so against people having choice? Do you work for Monsanto, or what?
The process you are engaged in is known as "setting up straw men and knocking them down"; your example is not connected to my reasoning - or to any reasoning - at all.
To take an example right under your nose, did technology end apartheid? Or segregation in the U.S.? Or get the right to vote extended past white male landowners? End exploitive child labor practices? Eliminate torture as an acceptable practice? Establish democracy as a replacement for monarchy? No, those were done by social movements.
Nice attempt to put words in my mouth.
Genes do occasionally cross species (a process known as "horizontal gene transfer") via viral infection. This is very rare, as organisms have mechanisms to reject foreign genetic material. Genetic modification techniques are designed to make it easier for genes from one species to be incorporated into the genome of another - it therefore increases the likelihood of horizontal gene transfer.
Let me give you some advice on rhetoric: this statement is so ridiculous that it undermines any credibility that your argument might otherwise have. Comparing the desire to know what's in your food with racial discrimination...the absurdity speaks for itself.
However, I'll point out that Black people have been around on this planet long enough - longer that White people, probably - to prove that interacting with them will not cause a White person harm. (That's putting aside the issue of whether dividing people into racial groups is even meaningful.) The same cannot be said of GM food crops.
You can't solve a sociological problem with a technological approach; and this particular technology makes the problem worse, not better.
In other words, you don't like the syntactic sugar. PHP has the mechanism, you just don't like it's looks. And you're surprised that this isn't a hot issue in the development of the language?