You need evidence to win such a suit and the video evidence would usually be destroyed. The only time you have a chance is if the evidence was not destroyed. Also, unless you are rich or can find an attorney to take your case on a contingency basis you can forget it. If you have evidence you could still sue the cop pro se, but you are unlikely to win. It's tough enough to win a case against a cop when you have an attorney.
The part about editing. That's what the cops always say. They say, "Yes he did shoot that 12 year old girl in the head with a taser for running away from him, but you didn't see what happened just before that." They'll claim her real crime was edited out. I doubt that sort of thing happens very often. What is the motive supposed to be anyway for doing that? Maybe if the cop and the injured suspect had some kind of prior history, but usually that's not the case. People need to realize that for every police crime caught on camera and shown on youtube there must be hundreds of similar cases where there was no video and no proof of what really happened.
What if you can't afford a smartphone or some expensive data plan to go with it? What if they simply seize your phone and turn it off before they actually do anything to you?
Surely the police know about such things now. So they may just assume you are uploading the data somewhere. So what are they going to do? They'll just grab your phone and turn it off before they beat you half to death.After they beat you, assuming you are still alive, they will do their best to put you in prison for a long time by charging you with any cover charges they can think of. I doubt there are many cases of police brutality where the victim was not charged with something. Most victims will have hospital reports and photos of whatever injuries are visible. Probably enough evidence to at least somewhat convince a jury that doesn't have too many 'law enforcement can do no wrong' types that you were at least somewhat injured. Just proving that you were injured is not enough. You have to prove that the cop didn't have a good reason to beat you half to death in order to subdue you.
You will be accused of things like resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, assault and battery against a police officer, assault and battery with a deadly weapon and any other cover charges they can think of. They definitely believe that the best defense is a good offense and in this case they are so right. In addition to planting a weapon they may also plant drugs and then they've really got you. You cannot prove the charges against you are false and the police will have corroborating police witnesses who will all testify to the truth of the official police report. By the end of it all if you'll just be grateful if the worst that happens is you only get a few months in jail and if you manage to avoid any jail time you will really celebrate. By the time your case is over and you can even begin to think about filing a complaint or filing a civil suit most people will just want to get back to their life. Of course if you take a plea bargain, which many people would be tempted to do, no one will ever believe you when you tell them about what really happened and you won't be able to sue anymore either. You have to actually be found "not guilty" by a judge or jury first in order to sue and have any chance of winning.
Of course if they really want to screw you they could plant some kiddie porn. If they do that in addition to the drugs and the illegal weapon what judge or jury is ever going to find you not guilty? Your life would seriously be over. You wouldn't even get bail so that you could try to flee the country to somewhere with no extradition treaty. Probably the only reason why you don't hear of such things more often is that the cop himself would be embarrassed to carry the stuff around even if his buddies knew it was just for cover charges. Keep in mind that, far from fearing this sort of thing, cops know that it actually makes them look good. The official history is that he apprehended a serious criminal. If he makes enough such arrests he might even expect to be promoted.
Great. They are crimes. But how do you prove it? The only way to get a cop in any trouble whatsoever is to have 100% ironclad, undeniable evidence. Evidence that they will have erased and/or physically destroyed or "lost".
Like "oops" I accidentally broke half the bones in your body and smashed in your face and then tried to murder you. It was an accident though. Do you really expect them to take full responsibility for the stuff they do that is actually illegal? That's a level of honesty that even most non-police don't have. Police are professional liars. Lying is practically in their job description. Of course they are supposed to only lie to suspects, not in court under oath. I think most police have an attitude of "everyone lies". So they don't mind doing it themselves even if it means putting an innocent guy (that they don't like for whatever reason) in jail.
In my state the use of dashcam videos has been discontinued because it almost never helped the prosecution. 99% of the time it was solely benefiting the defense. Since it didn't help with convictions they just got rid of it. I guess their logic was why pay extra for something that only helps the other side. And it's not like the DA really wants to have to deal with corrupt, violent cops and false charges and all that other crap which he couldn't really pursue even if he wanted to because he relies on a close relationship with the police to get convictions. Or at least that's the logic I think. I think he would still get cooperation from the police because they want the convictions at least as much as the prosecutor himself does. The cops might start harassing him though.
I'm a police brutality victim. If my assailant hadn't been a cop I think it might even have been considered attempted murder. I had no idea that I could file a report with the FBI. I think I will eventually do that although I have no proof and no witnesses. Well, there were plenty of witnesses, but they were all cops.
It was before the recent case that confirmed that filming the police is legal. So I was afraid to record them because I felt certain that I would be arrested and charged under my state's wiretapping law. And I figured they would probably just "lose" my phone anyway. They'd say "What phone?". Now I'm afraid to leave my house without some kind of recording device. I will record the police at any encounter with them now.
I think there's actually a good chance that the cop in question would come after me for reporting him. After all, he tried to kill me for a much lesser offense right in front of a bunch of people. So I may wait until I can get a gun license and buy a gun to protect myself and then make a report.
This process has taught me that the police really are invulnerable and completely above the law unless you have at least an audio recording of the event or some unbiased civilian witnesses. Judges will always believe the word of a cop over a civilian. Juries also tend to believe the cop's story from what I've heard. People don't want to believe that there is a violent, abusive, and possibly homicidal and insane cop on the loose. So they don't believe it. At least not without clear video evidence.
If I ever have another run in with the police, I might just make a run for it. I almost died the last time when I fully cooperated. At the time I was completely certain that I was about to die. The fact that I was pinned there unable to do anything to save myself was one of the worst parts about the fact that I was about to die.
If there hadn't been so many police witnesses I am pretty sure I would be dead now. I was caught unprepared and never even tried to run away. I thought he was just going to arrest me on false charges, but instead he severely beat me and then apparently tried to kill me. I think one of the other cops there (there was a whole crowd of them nearby) pulled the enraged cop off of me.
Although I dislike cops even more after what happened to me I wish I knew who it was that saved my life. I figure he at least deserves a thank you. I can no longer honestly say that a cop has never helped me or saved me from anything. But it's hard to feel grateful to the police in general when I was saved from another cop intent on murdering me and then charged by the DA as though I were the one who attacked the cop. Although the cop was willing to save my life, he was not willing to come forward to save me from going to jail for many years for something I didn't do. I didn't end up having to go to jail because I took a plea bargain, but I did have to agree to the absurd story while under oath and lie to a judge, making it basically impossible to sue. From what I've heard that's the point of the whole exercise. The price of my freedom was a false confession. According to the public record I am now the one who attacked him. Just out of the blue for no reason whatsoever apparently. My side of the story was never even heard by anyone except my lawyer. That's American justice.
I think the only reason people mostly cooperate with the police is that they don't believe they are about to be murdered by them. That the worst they will do to you is maybe rough you up a bit and file false charges. I guess it's logical that a cop would be willing to commit murder for not sufficiently respecting their authority. They know that they can get away with it. So why not? To a sufficiently sadistic person murder is great fun.
Only to eliminate government bonds. Certainly at this point the US government has proven that it cannot be trusted with that level of responsibility. It's like giving your credit card to a 5 year old. Do you have a problem with that? I'd have to wonder why. Getting into the kind of debt that the US government is in now is so clearly suicidal and delusional that it's amazing to me that anyone would question whether they should be allowed to continue borrowing. We the people, if we had any sense, would revoke that particular privilege. At least until they have proven that they won't abuse it. Raise taxes all you want. Even to 100% income tax for everyone. If government borrowing is not reigned it it will not solve the problem.
I have a work based HMO that charges me $20 for office visits. Usually my office visit is for something trivial like getting some prescriptions written. The typical length of time I spend with the doctor is about 5 minutes. An unusually long consultation might be 15 minutes. For this my doctor charges the insurance company something like $150 - $200. Typically for 5 minutes of the doctor's time. Basically the doctor is getting around $30 to $40 per minute or $1800 to $2400 per hour. Medical Insurance companies presumably have that kind of money, but most individuals do not. While I do think doctors deserve to be well paid I think $1800 per hour is excessive. I'm somewhat skeptical that doctors would be able to charge that much if the insurance companies were not distorting the market by being willing to spend so much money. In some other countries I've paid as little as $20 - $50 for an office visit with no medical insurance. Countries where people don't typically have medical insurance.
There is only one country I have lived in where the average person cannot really afford medical treatment and it was a Communist country in Southeast Asia. My friend's wife was injured in an accident and they really couldn't afford any kind of real medical care. Not that there were even any hospitals in the country. Just a small clinic run by a foreign doctor, who charged something like $40 for an office visit IIRC.
The problem of medical insurance in the US is an interesting one. It certainly appears to be a failure of the free market. One could argue that in a free market such insurance companies would always arise and that they would always distort the market in the same way that very rich people can when they just pay absurd prices because they can. But it's not that simple because doctors in private clinics in other countries seem to be able to make a living from $40 office visits and no tax funding. I don't really understand what happened in the US to make medical costs so ridiculously high.
It's easy to find examples of absurd pricing in the US. I have asthma and a typical salbutamol MDI inhaler in the US can easily cost somewhere between $200 and $400. For an inhaler which typically lasts no more than a month. Who could possibly afford that? Basically only very rich people. In most countries that I have lived in outside of the US such an inhaler would typically only cost maybe $4 - $8 and there would be no need to pay a doctor to write you a prescription. There's another distortion of the market. Prescription laws. In the US even my copay for such an inhaler is typically $20 - $40.
The Tea Party Patriotsâ(TM) mission is to restore Americaâ(TM)s founding principles of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets. OUR CORE PRINCIPLES
FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY means not overspending, and not burdening our children and grandchildren with our bills. In the words of Thomas Jefferson: "the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity [is] swindling futurity on a large scale." A more fiscally responsible government will take fewer taxes from our paychecks.
CONSTITUTIONALLY LIMITED GOVERNMENT means power resides with the people and not with the government. Governing should be done at the most local level possible where it can be held accountable. Americaâ(TM)s founders believed that government power should be limited, enumerated, and constrained by our Constitution. Tea Party Patriots agree. The American people make this country great, not our government.
FREE MARKET ECONOMICS made America an economic superpower that for at least two centuries provided subsequent generations of Americans more opportunities and higher standards of living. An erosion of our free markets through government intervention is at the heart of Americaâ(TM)s current economic decline, stagnating jobs, and spiraling debt and deficits. Failures in government programs and government-controlled financial markets helped spark the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Further government interventions and takeovers have made this Great Recession longer and deeper. A renewed focus on free markets will lead to a more vibrant economy creating jobs and higher standards of living for future generations.
Just thought I would inject a few facts into the smear campaign. I'm a Libertarian, and I haven't really understood exactly what the Tea Party stands for or what made them decide not to simply join the Libertarian Party, a pro-freedom political group that had already existed for many years.
1. They want lower taxes, but they aren't specific about how low. They also don't say anything specific about how they feel about borrowing money. So their position is kind of vague. Libertarians tend to believe in either no taxes at all or a very small, single digit flat tax or VAT and they don't try to substitute borrowed money for tax money.
2. They see the constitution as a document that limits the government and not the citizens. Presumably that means actually interpreting the 9th amendment literally. This sounds very close to the Libertarian position. The only difference may be that Libertarians tend to argue for the philosophy that lies behind the constitution and the bill of rights and tend to speak about things like "natural rights". Libertarians don't tend to rely on the constitution as if it were a kind of holy document, but instead will discuss people like John Locke or other Enlightenment philosophers who so strongly influenced the ideas of the men who wrote the constitution. It's not clear to me how comfortable Tea Partiers are discussing the philosophy behind their positions.
3. The free market = good. Here they do sound like Libertarians.
Unfortunately that summary mentions nothing about personal freedoms. Although if they do truly support a direct, literal interpretation of the constitution then that would at least somewhat take care of their position on the current encroachment of the police state. Republicans tend to be even more in favor of a police state than Democrats. If the Tea Party really is in favor of personal freedoms they should state that explicitly as that is a serious problem with Republicans.
Although I try to avoid wikipedia when it comes to controversial subjects because it often tends to have inaccurate information, the wikipedia entry seems rather interesting in this case. The wiki entry
I suspect 'gun porn' would represent close up high resolution photos or video of various guns both assembled and disassembled which are regarded as being aesthetically pleasing.
I actually had to look up "minarchist". I've been a Libertarian since the late 70s, but I actually haven't heard the term 'minarchist' before. At first glance it might seem to mean "a little bit of anarchy" or something similar, but in fact it looks like it was just intended to separate Anarcho-Libertarians (Anarchists that have a free market oriented 'plan') from limited/minimalist government Libertarians. So a Minarchist is just a limited government Libertarian. I'm not sure why you believe a limited government Libertarian is not a "pure" Libertarian. Minimalist government Libertarians do seem to represent the majority of Libertarians in my experience. Although I haven't examined the Libertarian Party's platform recently I would quite surprised if they were actually advocating any sort of Anarchy.
Taxes are pretty much 100% indistinguishable from Mafia protection money and nearly indistinguishable from slavery, albeit of a part time variety.
It isn't the same as theft in the sense of someone breaking into your house while you are not there and taking stuff or picking your pocket because in those cases your cooperation is not required. In a mugging you could just refuse to give them your money. In some cases you may get shot or stabbed, but it is still a kind of choice. In the same way I could simply not pay taxes. I'd probably end up in prison, but it is still a kind of choice.
I suppose taxes do somewhat resemble a mugging where someone puts a gun to your head and politely asks you for "their" money. The mugger might even regard your hiding money from them as "cheating". The mugger might shoot you for it. Governments tend to just lock you in a cage.
I am in one of the lowest income brackets in the US and yet I still pay about 1/3 of my income to the government. Basically for about 4 months of every year I am working for the government and only for the government. For that period of time I am not benefiting from my own labor at all. For that period of time, for practical purposes, I am in fact a slave and my labor is indistinguishable from slave labor. I could imagine a system where you could avoid income taxes by simply "volunteering" to do unpaid labor directly for the government for 4 months out of every year. In such a society it might even be seen as a kind of civic duty.
Either higher taxes or lower spending are definitely needed. And no more borrowing. Period. Just as a responsible individual does not get into so much debt that they cannot pay it back, a responsible government should not either.
Your overall attitude seems Libertarian, but your belief in a tax funded safety net strays a bit from the ideal. You definitely do not fit in either the Republican or Democrat categories. Maybe Tea Party Republican, although I'm not really clear on what they stand for exactly. All I really know about them is that they feel the Republican party has moved too far to the left and that they are supporters of constitutional rights at least to some extent.
If one uses the "left" to "right" terminology to mean largest government role in society to smallest government role in society with Anarchists or Anarcho-Libertarians at the furthest point to the right and Socialists/Communists/Fascists/Totalitarians as furthest to the left I would say you are just a bit to the left of the standard Limited Government Libertarian.
The bottom 65% don't pay taxes? Are you talking about the US? Do you have a citation for that? I think I am in something like the bottom 10% and I most definitely have to pay taxes. And I most definitely do not get back anything but a tiny fraction as much as I pay.
I'm sure the FBI will leave no stone unturned and is doing a complete investigation to see if the person responsible is a US citizen or lives in a country with an extradition agreement. They will find this villain and put him behind bars, right? Because of course they don't want it to look like they only investigate cases where a large corporation with lots of bribe money is involved.
Just recently I was downloading some free software that was available either through bittorrent or via a server. The server was transferring at around 50 kilobytes per second. That seemed awfully slow. So I switched to the torrent and was able to download at over 2 megabytes per second. For anyone without a fast server and unlimited bandwidth bittorrent is a godsend. The fact that it is mostly used for copyright infringement does not make it any less useful as a file transfer protocol. Banning the protocol itself is ridiculous and harmful. I have noticed quite a few servers that seem to intentionally limit bandwidth. Bittorrent is only limited by the upload speed of your peers.
You mean one of its uses is downloading stuff and that some people believe that is wrong. Usually people who have a direct financial stake in the product. Generally people who make several orders of magnitude more money than we do. I picture a very small violin, but unfortunately that image in my mind is the result of a copyrighted image I once viewed. Off to jail with me!
Gosh. Stop the presses. They've created a model. I suppose actually aiming a Thz transmitter at some real DNA was far too much trouble. So much easier to to just write a C function that is absolutely 100% indistinguishable from real DNA.
Also concrete construction is simply the norm in many countries. Stick frame construction is superior in terms of thermal insulation, but generally inferior in terms of sound transmission level. Stick frame construction would be quite a bit more expensive in countries that normally use concrete.
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You need evidence to win such a suit and the video evidence would usually be destroyed. The only time you have a chance is if the evidence was not destroyed. Also, unless you are rich or can find an attorney to take your case on a contingency basis you can forget it. If you have evidence you could still sue the cop pro se, but you are unlikely to win. It's tough enough to win a case against a cop when you have an attorney.
The part about editing. That's what the cops always say. They say, "Yes he did shoot that 12 year old girl in the head with a taser for running away from him, but you didn't see what happened just before that." They'll claim her real crime was edited out. I doubt that sort of thing happens very often. What is the motive supposed to be anyway for doing that? Maybe if the cop and the injured suspect had some kind of prior history, but usually that's not the case. People need to realize that for every police crime caught on camera and shown on youtube there must be hundreds of similar cases where there was no video and no proof of what really happened.
What if you can't afford a smartphone or some expensive data plan to go with it? What if they simply seize your phone and turn it off before they actually do anything to you?
Surely the police know about such things now. So they may just assume you are uploading the data somewhere. So what are they going to do? They'll just grab your phone and turn it off before they beat you half to death .After they beat you, assuming you are still alive, they will do their best to put you in prison for a long time by charging you with any cover charges they can think of. I doubt there are many cases of police brutality where the victim was not charged with something. Most victims will have hospital reports and photos of whatever injuries are visible. Probably enough evidence to at least somewhat convince a jury that doesn't have too many 'law enforcement can do no wrong' types that you were at least somewhat injured. Just proving that you were injured is not enough. You have to prove that the cop didn't have a good reason to beat you half to death in order to subdue you.
You will be accused of things like resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, assault and battery against a police officer, assault and battery with a deadly weapon and any other cover charges they can think of. They definitely believe that the best defense is a good offense and in this case they are so right. In addition to planting a weapon they may also plant drugs and then they've really got you. You cannot prove the charges against you are false and the police will have corroborating police witnesses who will all testify to the truth of the official police report. By the end of it all if you'll just be grateful if the worst that happens is you only get a few months in jail and if you manage to avoid any jail time you will really celebrate. By the time your case is over and you can even begin to think about filing a complaint or filing a civil suit most people will just want to get back to their life. Of course if you take a plea bargain, which many people would be tempted to do, no one will ever believe you when you tell them about what really happened and you won't be able to sue anymore either. You have to actually be found "not guilty" by a judge or jury first in order to sue and have any chance of winning.
Of course if they really want to screw you they could plant some kiddie porn. If they do that in addition to the drugs and the illegal weapon what judge or jury is ever going to find you not guilty? Your life would seriously be over. You wouldn't even get bail so that you could try to flee the country to somewhere with no extradition treaty. Probably the only reason why you don't hear of such things more often is that the cop himself would be embarrassed to carry the stuff around even if his buddies knew it was just for cover charges. Keep in mind that, far from fearing this sort of thing, cops know that it actually makes them look good. The official history is that he apprehended a serious criminal. If he makes enough such arrests he might even expect to be promoted.
Great. They are crimes. But how do you prove it? The only way to get a cop in any trouble whatsoever is to have 100% ironclad, undeniable evidence. Evidence that they will have erased and/or physically destroyed or "lost".
Like "oops" I accidentally broke half the bones in your body and smashed in your face and then tried to murder you. It was an accident though. Do you really expect them to take full responsibility for the stuff they do that is actually illegal? That's a level of honesty that even most non-police don't have. Police are professional liars. Lying is practically in their job description. Of course they are supposed to only lie to suspects, not in court under oath. I think most police have an attitude of "everyone lies". So they don't mind doing it themselves even if it means putting an innocent guy (that they don't like for whatever reason) in jail.
In my state the use of dashcam videos has been discontinued because it almost never helped the prosecution. 99% of the time it was solely benefiting the defense. Since it didn't help with convictions they just got rid of it. I guess their logic was why pay extra for something that only helps the other side. And it's not like the DA really wants to have to deal with corrupt, violent cops and false charges and all that other crap which he couldn't really pursue even if he wanted to because he relies on a close relationship with the police to get convictions. Or at least that's the logic I think. I think he would still get cooperation from the police because they want the convictions at least as much as the prosecutor himself does. The cops might start harassing him though.
I'm a police brutality victim. If my assailant hadn't been a cop I think it might even have been considered attempted murder. I had no idea that I could file a report with the FBI. I think I will eventually do that although I have no proof and no witnesses. Well, there were plenty of witnesses, but they were all cops.
It was before the recent case that confirmed that filming the police is legal. So I was afraid to record them because I felt certain that I would be arrested and charged under my state's wiretapping law. And I figured they would probably just "lose" my phone anyway. They'd say "What phone?". Now I'm afraid to leave my house without some kind of recording device. I will record the police at any encounter with them now.
I think there's actually a good chance that the cop in question would come after me for reporting him. After all, he tried to kill me for a much lesser offense right in front of a bunch of people. So I may wait until I can get a gun license and buy a gun to protect myself and then make a report.
This process has taught me that the police really are invulnerable and completely above the law unless you have at least an audio recording of the event or some unbiased civilian witnesses. Judges will always believe the word of a cop over a civilian. Juries also tend to believe the cop's story from what I've heard. People don't want to believe that there is a violent, abusive, and possibly homicidal and insane cop on the loose. So they don't believe it. At least not without clear video evidence.
If I ever have another run in with the police, I might just make a run for it. I almost died the last time when I fully cooperated. At the time I was completely certain that I was about to die. The fact that I was pinned there unable to do anything to save myself was one of the worst parts about the fact that I was about to die.
If there hadn't been so many police witnesses I am pretty sure I would be dead now. I was caught unprepared and never even tried to run away. I thought he was just going to arrest me on false charges, but instead he severely beat me and then apparently tried to kill me. I think one of the other cops there (there was a whole crowd of them nearby) pulled the enraged cop off of me.
Although I dislike cops even more after what happened to me I wish I knew who it was that saved my life. I figure he at least deserves a thank you. I can no longer honestly say that a cop has never helped me or saved me from anything. But it's hard to feel grateful to the police in general when I was saved from another cop intent on murdering me and then charged by the DA as though I were the one who attacked the cop. Although the cop was willing to save my life, he was not willing to come forward to save me from going to jail for many years for something I didn't do. I didn't end up having to go to jail because I took a plea bargain, but I did have to agree to the absurd story while under oath and lie to a judge, making it basically impossible to sue. From what I've heard that's the point of the whole exercise. The price of my freedom was a false confession. According to the public record I am now the one who attacked him. Just out of the blue for no reason whatsoever apparently. My side of the story was never even heard by anyone except my lawyer. That's American justice.
I think the only reason people mostly cooperate with the police is that they don't believe they are about to be murdered by them. That the worst they will do to you is maybe rough you up a bit and file false charges. I guess it's logical that a cop would be willing to commit murder for not sufficiently respecting their authority. They know that they can get away with it. So why not? To a sufficiently sadistic person murder is great fun.
Only to eliminate government bonds. Certainly at this point the US government has proven that it cannot be trusted with that level of responsibility. It's like giving your credit card to a 5 year old. Do you have a problem with that? I'd have to wonder why. Getting into the kind of debt that the US government is in now is so clearly suicidal and delusional that it's amazing to me that anyone would question whether they should be allowed to continue borrowing. We the people, if we had any sense, would revoke that particular privilege. At least until they have proven that they won't abuse it. Raise taxes all you want. Even to 100% income tax for everyone. If government borrowing is not reigned it it will not solve the problem.
I have a work based HMO that charges me $20 for office visits. Usually my office visit is for something trivial like getting some prescriptions written. The typical length of time I spend with the doctor is about 5 minutes. An unusually long consultation might be 15 minutes. For this my doctor charges the insurance company something like $150 - $200. Typically for 5 minutes of the doctor's time. Basically the doctor is getting around $30 to $40 per minute or $1800 to $2400 per hour. Medical Insurance companies presumably have that kind of money, but most individuals do not. While I do think doctors deserve to be well paid I think $1800 per hour is excessive. I'm somewhat skeptical that doctors would be able to charge that much if the insurance companies were not distorting the market by being willing to spend so much money. In some other countries I've paid as little as $20 - $50 for an office visit with no medical insurance. Countries where people don't typically have medical insurance.
There is only one country I have lived in where the average person cannot really afford medical treatment and it was a Communist country in Southeast Asia. My friend's wife was injured in an accident and they really couldn't afford any kind of real medical care. Not that there were even any hospitals in the country. Just a small clinic run by a foreign doctor, who charged something like $40 for an office visit IIRC.
The problem of medical insurance in the US is an interesting one. It certainly appears to be a failure of the free market. One could argue that in a free market such insurance companies would always arise and that they would always distort the market in the same way that very rich people can when they just pay absurd prices because they can. But it's not that simple because doctors in private clinics in other countries seem to be able to make a living from $40 office visits and no tax funding. I don't really understand what happened in the US to make medical costs so ridiculously high.
It's easy to find examples of absurd pricing in the US. I have asthma and a typical salbutamol MDI inhaler in the US can easily cost somewhere between $200 and $400. For an inhaler which typically lasts no more than a month. Who could possibly afford that? Basically only very rich people. In most countries that I have lived in outside of the US such an inhaler would typically only cost maybe $4 - $8 and there would be no need to pay a doctor to write you a prescription. There's another distortion of the market. Prescription laws. In the US even my copay for such an inhaler is typically $20 - $40.
You don't have to be stupid or crazy to have philosophical positions that are different from the majority.
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/about/
Just thought I would inject a few facts into the smear campaign. I'm a Libertarian, and I haven't really understood exactly what the Tea Party stands for or what made them decide not to simply join the Libertarian Party, a pro-freedom political group that had already existed for many years.
1. They want lower taxes, but they aren't specific about how low. They also don't say anything specific about how they feel about borrowing money. So their position is kind of vague. Libertarians tend to believe in either no taxes at all or a very small, single digit flat tax or VAT and they don't try to substitute borrowed money for tax money.
2. They see the constitution as a document that limits the government and not the citizens. Presumably that means actually interpreting the 9th amendment literally. This sounds very close to the Libertarian position. The only difference may be that Libertarians tend to argue for the philosophy that lies behind the constitution and the bill of rights and tend to speak about things like "natural rights". Libertarians don't tend to rely on the constitution as if it were a kind of holy document, but instead will discuss people like John Locke or other Enlightenment philosophers who so strongly influenced the ideas of the men who wrote the constitution. It's not clear to me how comfortable Tea Partiers are discussing the philosophy behind their positions.
3. The free market = good. Here they do sound like Libertarians.
Unfortunately that summary mentions nothing about personal freedoms. Although if they do truly support a direct, literal interpretation of the constitution then that would at least somewhat take care of their position on the current encroachment of the police state. Republicans tend to be even more in favor of a police state than Democrats. If the Tea Party really is in favor of personal freedoms they should state that explicitly as that is a serious problem with Republicans.
Although I try to avoid wikipedia when it comes to controversial subjects because it often tends to have inaccurate information, the wikipedia entry seems rather interesting in this case. The wiki entry
But you know, it's a free country
Huh?! Shirley you are not Sirius.
I suspect 'gun porn' would represent close up high resolution photos or video of various guns both assembled and disassembled which are regarded as being aesthetically pleasing.
I actually had to look up "minarchist". I've been a Libertarian since the late 70s, but I actually haven't heard the term 'minarchist' before. At first glance it might seem to mean "a little bit of anarchy" or something similar, but in fact it looks like it was just intended to separate Anarcho-Libertarians (Anarchists that have a free market oriented 'plan') from limited/minimalist government Libertarians. So a Minarchist is just a limited government Libertarian. I'm not sure why you believe a limited government Libertarian is not a "pure" Libertarian. Minimalist government Libertarians do seem to represent the majority of Libertarians in my experience. Although I haven't examined the Libertarian Party's platform recently I would quite surprised if they were actually advocating any sort of Anarchy.
Taxes are pretty much 100% indistinguishable from Mafia protection money and nearly indistinguishable from slavery, albeit of a part time variety.
It isn't the same as theft in the sense of someone breaking into your house while you are not there and taking stuff or picking your pocket because in those cases your cooperation is not required. In a mugging you could just refuse to give them your money. In some cases you may get shot or stabbed, but it is still a kind of choice. In the same way I could simply not pay taxes. I'd probably end up in prison, but it is still a kind of choice.
I suppose taxes do somewhat resemble a mugging where someone puts a gun to your head and politely asks you for "their" money. The mugger might even regard your hiding money from them as "cheating". The mugger might shoot you for it. Governments tend to just lock you in a cage.
I am in one of the lowest income brackets in the US and yet I still pay about 1/3 of my income to the government. Basically for about 4 months of every year I am working for the government and only for the government. For that period of time I am not benefiting from my own labor at all. For that period of time, for practical purposes, I am in fact a slave and my labor is indistinguishable from slave labor. I could imagine a system where you could avoid income taxes by simply "volunteering" to do unpaid labor directly for the government for 4 months out of every year. In such a society it might even be seen as a kind of civic duty.
Either higher taxes or lower spending are definitely needed. And no more borrowing. Period. Just as a responsible individual does not get into so much debt that they cannot pay it back, a responsible government should not either.
So what does that make me?
Your overall attitude seems Libertarian, but your belief in a tax funded safety net strays a bit from the ideal. You definitely do not fit in either the Republican or Democrat categories. Maybe Tea Party Republican, although I'm not really clear on what they stand for exactly. All I really know about them is that they feel the Republican party has moved too far to the left and that they are supporters of constitutional rights at least to some extent.
If one uses the "left" to "right" terminology to mean largest government role in society to smallest government role in society with Anarchists or Anarcho-Libertarians at the furthest point to the right and Socialists/Communists/Fascists/Totalitarians as furthest to the left I would say you are just a bit to the left of the standard Limited Government Libertarian.
The bottom 65% don't pay taxes? Are you talking about the US? Do you have a citation for that? I think I am in something like the bottom 10% and I most definitely have to pay taxes. And I most definitely do not get back anything but a tiny fraction as much as I pay.
I'm sure the FBI will leave no stone unturned and is doing a complete investigation to see if the person responsible is a US citizen or lives in a country with an extradition agreement. They will find this villain and put him behind bars, right? Because of course they don't want it to look like they only investigate cases where a large corporation with lots of bribe money is involved.
Just recently I was downloading some free software that was available either through bittorrent or via a server. The server was transferring at around 50 kilobytes per second. That seemed awfully slow. So I switched to the torrent and was able to download at over 2 megabytes per second. For anyone without a fast server and unlimited bandwidth bittorrent is a godsend. The fact that it is mostly used for copyright infringement does not make it any less useful as a file transfer protocol. Banning the protocol itself is ridiculous and harmful. I have noticed quite a few servers that seem to intentionally limit bandwidth. Bittorrent is only limited by the upload speed of your peers.
You mean one of its uses is downloading stuff and that some people believe that is wrong. Usually people who have a direct financial stake in the product. Generally people who make several orders of magnitude more money than we do. I picture a very small violin, but unfortunately that image in my mind is the result of a copyrighted image I once viewed. Off to jail with me!
If everyone ignored speed limits then how would they be a "useful thing"?
Intellectual property is intellectually dishonest.
Gosh. Stop the presses. They've created a model. I suppose actually aiming a Thz transmitter at some real DNA was far too much trouble. So much easier to to just write a C function that is absolutely 100% indistinguishable from real DNA.
Also concrete construction is simply the norm in many countries. Stick frame construction is superior in terms of thermal insulation, but generally inferior in terms of sound transmission level. Stick frame construction would be quite a bit more expensive in countries that normally use concrete.