That's not what he's saying. The FBI don't target people without a reason. Nobody does anything without a reason.
Their reason was that he looked like an arab aka terrorist and traveled frequently. What more reason do they need? If they had any actual evidence against him wouldn't they just come out and say it?
Granted, of course the study is not perfect; it does not for example weight income disparity and many of the measures are relative to middle income. They do have a section in the full feature describing their methods. While your account certainly is horrific; I'm not saying it's paradise, but I am not sure it's quite the hell you paint.
Uh. I actually lived there for more than a year. I speak from personal experience and you cite a silly newsweek country ranking? Where do they get their stats from? Have they actually been there? For more than a week? I cite where my data is coming from: my own personal experience. Where does theirs come from?
I never said it was a hell. I just pointed it out that it was no utopia either and most first world people would most definitely not want to live there. Especially if they had to live on the $12/month which is the average salary there. I didn't mind it so much because I had more money than most prostitutes (jineteras).
Oh did I mention almost no internet. Computers were illegal to possess. Phone lines and mail were *routinely* monitored. Very few if any goods in stores, which much of the population couldn't afford anyway. Some people (although by no means all) were afraid to even mention El Jefe (Castro). Unreliable water supply (as in it could make you sick) partially due to the blackouts. Cubans could go to jail for even being seen with a foreigner like me. Some would cross the street when I walked near them just to avoid being seen by the police near a foreigner etc. Sound like a paradise to you?
Is it all bad? No. Some of the people are nice, although as a rich foreigner many will see you as an ATM with legs and try to be a pseudo-friend to you. I liked some of the food: fresh yuca and malanga and plantains and cheap, fresh pineapples and watermelons and mangoes. Congris (Cuban version of rice and beans) is great and very cheap to make if you know how. Strangely, I thought the rum was pretty bad. I found the police to be a lot nicer, more human, and less thuggish than US police, but then that is true of most countries outside the US. US LEOs are definitely some of the worst in the world.
There is a difference between something that is illegal and something that is unconstitutional. Nowadays there is a HUGE difference between the two. It may be illegal for me to drive without a license or exceed a 20 mph speed limit but it is unconstitutional (although perfectly legal) for an LEO to cite me for these things.
You seem to want to do away with the constitution whenever it seems inconvenient, but that is not at all how that "limiting the tyranny" document was intended to be read. It explicitly allowed certain actions of the government and everything else was forbidden (without having to enumerate everything they were not allowed to do). Sure this can seem inconvenient at times, but try to think of it as the price to be paid to prevent our government from becoming like a Stalinist USSR or an East Germany with the DHS serving as STASI.
I agree it is nice to require drivers licenses. I approve of them as a way to at least show some competency on the road. However they are unconstitutional. Travel is a right. Not a privilege. In fact based on a strict reading of the constitution I am not at all sure that *anything* can be regarded as a privilege benevolently allowed by our kind government officials.
Your argument is based on pragmatism while the founders' arguments were based on philosophy. Mainly that of John Locke. It is nice to have "use of the commons" laws but not if the price is the inability to slow or stop the inevitable tyranny of governments. I believe that price is too high.
It sounds like you didn't read them either. The John Hopkins researchers explicitly mentioned that they were not even asked to assess any harmful impact of the xray scanners in operation. They were actually quite peaved that the TSA was twisting their words to mean that they had endorsed the machines as safe. They had most certainly not made that claim. I don't have time now to actually go look at them, but you are definitely mistaken if you think that the John Hopkins report made any conclusions about the safety of the machines.
The state can deny me a license to drive because I do not have a right guaranteed in the Constitution to operate a motor vehicle.
You keep saying this, but it simply is not true. The constitution is not a list of things that citizens are permitted to do. It is a list of things the government is *not* permitted to do? Can you show me where in the constitution it permits the government to prevent me from traveling by whatever conveyance I wish, whether it be horse and carriage or bicycle or on foot? They didn't have horseless carriages obviously. So they couldn't have explicitly permitted the government from stopping them. Do you genuinely believe that the founders of this country were more concerned with safety than freedom? This is the problem with the amendments and even the bill of rights. They can be interpreted to mean that those enumerated rights are the *only* ones we have. This was the point of the 9th amendment.
In 1789, while introducing to the House of Representatives nineteen[4] draft Amendments, James Madison addressed what would become the Ninth Amendment as follows:[5]
It has been objected also against a Bill of Rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.
Alexander Hamilton asked, "Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"
The bill of rights *has* been interpreted to mean that we don't possess any other natural rights, but that is a clear misinterpretation of the founders' intent. The government is simply not permitted to do anything not explicitly allowed in the constitution. That would obviously include driving a car, flying a plane, sailing a boat etc. Especially since flying machines and horseless carriages didn't even exist then.
If the government is not the one requiring the search, then there is no violation. You consent to that search when you want to get on someone else's property.
Actually it is still a violation as long as it is an agent of the government that is actually doing the search. But in the particular case we are discussing (of TSA and VIPRE checkpoints and surveillance) the government most definitely *is* the one requiring the search. You act as if the TSA were a private company contracted by the airlines. That is simply not the case.
The moment you step into any private place and agree to the terms that the owner requires of you for staying there, you give up those rights.
So if I start an airline which doesn't "request" any assistance from the TSA then you would have no problem with it? What if I were to mandate that there be no security at all? No metal detectors, no bag xrays. Nothing. Otherwise you can't step on any of my planes. Seem reasonable to you? After all I own the planes. Oh wait, the TSA and DHS and US Government would not allow that. In fact, every single one of my customers would be arrested when they tried to get to my aircraft without being searched at the TSA checkpoints. But they are in a real bind aren't they because I will not allow them on my Liberty Airways aircraft if they have been searched by the TSA in any way. Also keep in mind that although planes and buses are generally privately owned, trains are not and neither are the airports, bus terminals (generally), train stations, and subway stations where the unconstitutional searches are actually taking place.
So you see your line of reasoning doesn't work at all. It has nothing to do with property rights of the owners of buses, trains, ferries, and aircraft and everything to do with the government depriving us of our basic human right to travel about freely.
Note that the TSA cannot search you just for leaving your house and walking on the street, at least not yet.
And note that if your reasoning were in fact sound the same argument could be applied toward leaving your house. After all you don't own the roads. The government does. So if you want to use them you may have to consent to their terms which may include your 12 year old daughter getting fisted first or at least having some naked photos taken of her etc.
Have you actually read or at least scanned the FDA link? I don't think it means what you think it means. How about if you link to or better yet directly quote these "safety assessments" you are referring to? As for the TSA link, don't make me laugh. They are known liars and have been caught many times in their lies.
It's not a medical device. Something does not become a medical device just by virtue of using X-rays.
That's right. When it isn't being used as a medical device it is more analogous to a weapon. Xrays are ionizing radiation and highly dangerous to human beings. Perhaps the resistance movement in the US should start making portable xray guns and kill TSOs with high doses of "safe" radiation.
Actually the right to travel without government interference *is* guaranteed in the constitution. Or more to the point the right to stop you from traveling is *not* given to the government in the constitution. Also keep in mind that a drivers license is more analogous to a pilot's license than to airline passengers being allowed to passively sit in a seat. It has more to do with driving competency than safety. If you want to make a fair comparison compare it to being a passenger in a car. By that logic prepare for your children to be strip searched and photographed naked every time they get into your SUV. After all you don't have to drive. You could walk or ride a bicycle or even a horse. The fact is there is no clear line that can be drawn where 4th amendment violations are acceptable and where they are not. They should never be acceptable and any supreme court justice who rules otherwise should be charged with treason and hanged. That may seem crazy to you but it wouldn't to the people who founded this republic in the first place.
Cuba does not have great political or personal freedoms but they have very high quality of life, education, and health care.
Where are you getting this from? As someone who has actually lived in Cuba I can assure you that none of that is true and a large percentage of the population actually wants to come here despite the huge amount of anti-US propaganda they see on television and read in school.
I have traveled to a great many countries, but I have never seen medical care anywhere near as bad as what I saw in Cuba. I have actually been in clinics where nurses would use non-disposable syringes and just briefly soak the tip in alcohol between patients. My girlfriend was there to get an injection and I had to pay extra to get them to use a disposable needle. Rolling power outages and hospitals without backup generators so that they couldn't rely on refrigerators to keep things cold. Or even have any lights. Even bandaids were expensive luxuries that most people couldn't afford. Probably there are central African countries with worse medical care, but that's about it. I even met a doctor who believed you could catch a cold from getting caught in the rain. An actual medical doctor who believed that.
As for the quality of life, you wouldn't want to live in the "houses" that many of them live in. Believe me. And most people could barely afford enough rice and beans to survive on. Not to mention the boredom of eating exactly the same thing every day of your life. Do you have even the vaguest idea of how difficult it is to live on $12 a month or even less? The only people who live a life that you would deem even slightly comfortable are prostitutes, criminals, highly placed party members, and the occasional professional baseball player.
As for education, don't make me laugh. Haha. There are even more ignorant people there than here in the US and that's saying a lot. Textbooks are a rare luxury. At least what we would think of as a textbook. That's not to say that there are not some highly educated, highly intelligent people in Cuba, but they are most definitely a minority.
Having said all that, Cubans do have more freedom to travel than we now do. And Havana is probably still safer than most major American cities. Although it has gotten much worse in the last decade in terms of street crime. Maybe due to the younger generation watching too many Hollywood movies that glorify violence.
Also Cuba has their own problems with ubiquitous surveillance by the CDR, the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Sort of their own version of the FBI. As an American, I was under surveillance by them. They had a file on me and everything. And you never knew which of your neighbors might secretly work for the CDR. They could be watching you (except without DHS/FBI fancy gadgets) and reporting your movements to the CDR etc.
Many Cubans are smart enough not to believe their government's propaganda. It's too bad that many foreigners aren't so discerning about what "facts" they believe.
The constitution is just some old yellowing, tattered set of documents written long before we even had typewriters let alone computers. It may as well be some stone tablet uncovered from an archaeological expedition for all it matters now. The founders' mistake was in putting the same kind of faith in it that you are now. Maybe if natural language had been more precise so that founders' intentions couldn't have been twisted into exactly the opposite of what they had intended or interpreted out of existence entirely by a group of judges. Maybe if thinking for themselves wasn't seen as such a chore for most of the human population. Who knows? What should be obvious to almost anyone by now is that governments grow out of control. Always. And no damn piece of paper is ever going to stop that. He who has the guns, rules. Full stop. Also, the founders' screwed up in believing in their whole "balance of power" system. It just doesn't work. It is only natural for all the "branches" to work together. They are not natural enemies, but natural allies. So finally it has come to this. It was inevitable. OBL just sped it up a little. The only way this could ever be stopped now is through a real revolution with blood running in the streets. A civil war between those who value freedom and those who hate it. It's too bad that Egyptians and Libyans have far more courage than we do. We, the modern descendants of those terrorist-revolutionaries who fought and died for real freedom, are not worthy of their noble experiment. A republic--if you can keep it. We couldn't.
Thailand is the only country where I have seen "fake" blu-ray discs for sale in shops. Now that is impressive. Whether they will actually play on a bluray player I don't know because I didn't buy them.
That seems pretty shaky to me. Wikileaks would have to be interpreted as an "enemy", which is quite a stretch. I can easily imagine a judge not agreeing with that interpretation. Just imagine how disappointed you will be if he is found not guilty of all charges.
What freedoms? America is demonstrably less free than most countries in the world. Including some communist ones. I know this because I have lived in other countries. America feels (and is) quite a bit less free. The lack of freedom to travel is just the latest in a long line of lost freedoms since our government started wiping its ass with the constitution that was supposed to protect citizens from them. Tyranny always has the last laugh. And you will be fighting on the anti-freedom side if there ever is a civil war here. I think you will find that some of us basement dwellers are better shots than you might imagine. I would be willing to die to get back real freedom here in the US or in any country. You don't even understand what freedom is.
Alcon Entertainment has previously produced 19 other films, including The Blind Side, Insomnia, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pant, P.S. I Love You and the post apocalyptic science fiction film The Book of Eli, which starred Denzel Washington.
Lost & Found My Dog Skip The Affair of the Necklace Insomnia Love Don't Cost a Thing Chasing Liberty Racing Stripes The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 16 Blocks The Wicker Man P.S. I Love You One Missed Call The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 The Blind Side The Book of Eli Lottery Ticket
No. This will not end well. Although, to be fair, Insomnia was not bad. It's just that the Norwegian original was much, much better. The remake was not necessary. We can only pray that these jokers choose a decent writer and director for like the first time in their lives. This should have been tagged with "whatcouldpossiblygowrong".
Seriously, why would anyone start or be in a business if not to make a good living (money)?
Well they are working to make money. At least in the sense that if they weren't able to make money at doing what they enjoy they would have to spend much of their time doing something they hated or found boring. Imagine wanting to create something. In my case it may be a robot or a computer program that is special. That no one has ever created before. It's true that either could result in profit, but that is not my motivation in creating them.
Believe it or not money is not the most important value in everyone's life. For some people that may be hard to believe. If you look at the sheer variety of businesses, products, and services in the world I think it is easy to see that money is not the *only* motivation for everyone. Yes, people need to make enough money to buy food and pay rent/mortgage, medical care, but above that bare minimum the rest is just luxury. Much of it not really making people much happier.
Consider computer game programmers. They tend to make less money than other programmers, and yet have much longer hours. They basically have no free time at all. They are some of the most talented programmers around. So why do they do it? Writers would be another example. Sure there are bestselling authors with questionable talent who are clearly writing solely for the money, but most authors, even famous, highly talented ones will never strike it rich on the royalties they receive from their books. So why do they do it? Or how about musicians? Some of them even have to work a "day job" to pay the rent. So why do they bother with the music when working as a waiter pays better?
Personally I would much rather have an interesting job than make a whole pile of money. I'd choose a job I find interesting over a boring one that paid twice as much every single time. What are you really going to spend the money on anyway? I don't envy people rich people. I envy happy people. Driving a fancy car which you can't legally drive in a fun way on US roads between your painstakingly dull job or business and your huge house each day is not going to make you happy.
You mention travel, having fun, and chasing women as some things you would do if you had "enough" money, but those are all things you can do anyway. You don't need much money to do them.
The great thing about running your own business is not that you can make more money than you could as an employee, even though that is often true. It is that you have the freedom to earn a living doing exactly the thing that you are most interested in. Assuming of course that the result is something that people would pay for. My point was that corporations of any significant size are almost never motivated by anything other than money. Often they don't even care about the quality of their products as long as they don't break within the warranty period. If they break outside the warranty period it is actually considered a good thing.
The reason for corporate person hood is so that if you are working at your $5 / hour minimum wage job at McDonalds and serve someone coffee and they burn their face off, they don't sue YOU for negligence.
They wouldn't do that in the first place because someone working at McDonalds wouldn't have any real money. No one should be able to sue someone (and win) when they spill hot coffee on their face anyway. Hot coffee is what they ordered. This sort of evasion of personal responsibility is so pathetic and part of the reason why corporate personhood itself is such a bad idea. People have to take responsibility for their own actions.
On the other hand if you are waiting tables and spill hot coffee on someone's face and cause them real harm you should be prepared to accept responsibility for that.
and you'll probably end up unable to collect your judgement, since the bulk of the fault will probably end up being found in the engineering and manufacturing areas. So you don't get your money, or everybody in the world is then required to start carrying their own professional liability insurance if they don't want to end up living on the streets as a result of having a bad day at work and screwing something up. What a great solution you're offering.
That is mainly what I was replying to. You seem to be implying that a worker should not have to take responsibility for "having a bad day at work". If that bad day results in harm to someone else then, at least IMHO, he should be willing to take responsibility for that harm. Period. OTOH, I am not saying that it should be impossible to sue a corporation either if the blame is sufficiently dilute. I agree that as a practical matter it may not be possible to find out who made the decisions, gave the orders, and then proceeded to carry out the orders that resulted, say, in dumping toxic chemicals or whatever the crime may be.
As far as the slip and fall litigation I see that as another issue. Many of those cases are frivolous. Again, people need to take responsibility for their own actions and not see a corporation as some kind of lottery ticket whenever anything bad happens to them.
Without incorporation, it would be virtually impossible (or stupid at the very least) for a person or couple of people to try to start their own business. They need that corporate protection so that they can take some risk, but not risk losing everything they own personally (house, cars, kids college fund, life savings) for something even slightly going wrong in their business. Heck, even if they're not even at fault, in today's litigious society...you can get lawsuits thrown at you for nothing...and a person trying to start a new business would get killed automatically for life over something potentially meaningless.
Ah, the "limited liability" argument again. Have you ever considered it from the POV of the creditors left holding their dicks? Why should you be able to just walk away from responsibilities, promises to pay, and contractual obligations just because you fucked up? Since you want to consider small businesses, how about the other small businesses you screw over when you rely on your limited liability get out of jail free card? How about a small bank who trusted you and lent you money and gave you the chance you needed to become rich or realize your dreams? How about taking some fucking responsibility for the consequences of your actions?
If these licenses to create a faceless non-human sociopathic entity that pursues profit at any price which we call 'corporations' were not available there would probably be this thing called "insurance". Maybe you have heard of it. Buy as big a policy as you think you need and you pay the premiums necessary to reduce your risk as much as you feel comfortable with instead of relying on the rest of society to pay them for you in terms of all of the consequences of absorbing that liability if you fail. As economists like to say, TAINSTAFL. You may not have to pay for your failure, but you can be sure that others will. Others who maybe didn't get the chance you had to strike it rich or follow your dream. Maybe the guy who lent you money at the bank will get fired and have to get a job as a Walmart greeter for his obviously poor decision. What about him? He also made a mistake. The difference is he will have to live with the consequences and you won't. What makes you so special just because you tried to start a business? So you see the counter arguments work like that. It's so funny how all of us hate creditors so much that they are not deemed worthy of even the slightest consideration. I don't like them either, but of course. I'm still willing to take their money when they offer it.
Of course they too are evil corporations. The reason that they are evil is due to human nature. Because human beings are inherently evil, especially in groups. Give a bunch of human beings power or the opportunity to make money and take away the responsibility for their actions and evil is what you get. You bring out and encourage the very worst of human nature all in the name of economic prosperity. Maybe we should start considering the price of the extra prosperity that all this ruthless profit-trumps-all corporate culture buys us. Is it worth living in a society of uncaring selfish robots who would stab their own mother in the heart for an extra dollar? That sort of thing.
No matter how pro-corporation you may be I think anyone should at least be able to see that a business owned by a single individual is much more likely to act in an ethical manner, is much more likely to consider reasons for being in business other than making money. Motivations like making the best product or offering the best service. Or selling a product/service that no one else does. Yes those things *can* also make you more money, but that isn't the only reason you are in business. Corporations by their very nature will make as much money as possible as quickly as possible and are not motivated by anything else. Even if their limited liability really is of net benefit to society (which I doubt), the fact that they bring out the worst in people and themselves behave like the very worst human beings seems like reason enough to abolish them or at least fix the parts that cause them to behave so badly.
So you don't believe that we should have to take responsibility for our actions as long as our actions were taken on behalf of our employer? If I work as a contract killer should I be immune from prosecution because I had no personal stake in the murder? Because I was just doing my job? What if my company asks me to steal documents from a competitor (industrial espionage), or dump toxic chemicals in a river? I believe that everyone should be responsible for their actions even if they are being paid to do them. We can say no or even quit if necessary. If you would normally be prosecuted for or responsible for something as an individual I don't see how getting paid to do the same thing should absolve you from said responsibility. A corporation is just a group of individuals and no legalese doublespeak is going to change that basic fact.
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That's not what he's saying. The FBI don't target people without a reason. Nobody does anything without a reason.
Their reason was that he looked like an arab aka terrorist and traveled frequently. What more reason do they need? If they had any actual evidence against him wouldn't they just come out and say it?
Granted, of course the study is not perfect; it does not for example weight income disparity and many of the measures are relative to middle income. They do have a section in the full feature describing their methods. While your account certainly is horrific; I'm not saying it's paradise, but I am not sure it's quite the hell you paint.
Uh. I actually lived there for more than a year. I speak from personal experience and you cite a silly newsweek country ranking? Where do they get their stats from? Have they actually been there? For more than a week? I cite where my data is coming from: my own personal experience. Where does theirs come from?
I never said it was a hell. I just pointed it out that it was no utopia either and most first world people would most definitely not want to live there. Especially if they had to live on the $12/month which is the average salary there. I didn't mind it so much because I had more money than most prostitutes (jineteras).
Oh did I mention almost no internet. Computers were illegal to possess. Phone lines and mail were *routinely* monitored. Very few if any goods in stores, which much of the population couldn't afford anyway. Some people (although by no means all) were afraid to even mention El Jefe (Castro). Unreliable water supply (as in it could make you sick) partially due to the blackouts. Cubans could go to jail for even being seen with a foreigner like me. Some would cross the street when I walked near them just to avoid being seen by the police near a foreigner etc. Sound like a paradise to you?
Is it all bad? No. Some of the people are nice, although as a rich foreigner many will see you as an ATM with legs and try to be a pseudo-friend to you. I liked some of the food: fresh yuca and malanga and plantains and cheap, fresh pineapples and watermelons and mangoes. Congris (Cuban version of rice and beans) is great and very cheap to make if you know how. Strangely, I thought the rum was pretty bad. I found the police to be a lot nicer, more human, and less thuggish than US police, but then that is true of most countries outside the US. US LEOs are definitely some of the worst in the world.
http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m287/Soultnuts/wwwsoultnutscom.jpg
There is a difference between something that is illegal and something that is unconstitutional. Nowadays there is a HUGE difference between the two. It may be illegal for me to drive without a license or exceed a 20 mph speed limit but it is unconstitutional (although perfectly legal) for an LEO to cite me for these things.
You seem to want to do away with the constitution whenever it seems inconvenient, but that is not at all how that "limiting the tyranny" document was intended to be read. It explicitly allowed certain actions of the government and everything else was forbidden (without having to enumerate everything they were not allowed to do). Sure this can seem inconvenient at times, but try to think of it as the price to be paid to prevent our government from becoming like a Stalinist USSR or an East Germany with the DHS serving as STASI.
I agree it is nice to require drivers licenses. I approve of them as a way to at least show some competency on the road. However they are unconstitutional. Travel is a right. Not a privilege. In fact based on a strict reading of the constitution I am not at all sure that *anything* can be regarded as a privilege benevolently allowed by our kind government officials.
Your argument is based on pragmatism while the founders' arguments were based on philosophy. Mainly that of John Locke. It is nice to have "use of the commons" laws but not if the price is the inability to slow or stop the inevitable tyranny of governments. I believe that price is too high.
It sounds like you didn't read them either. The John Hopkins researchers explicitly mentioned that they were not even asked to assess any harmful impact of the xray scanners in operation. They were actually quite peaved that the TSA was twisting their words to mean that they had endorsed the machines as safe. They had most certainly not made that claim. I don't have time now to actually go look at them, but you are definitely mistaken if you think that the John Hopkins report made any conclusions about the safety of the machines.
The state can deny me a license to drive because I do not have a right guaranteed in the Constitution to operate a motor vehicle.
You keep saying this, but it simply is not true. The constitution is not a list of things that citizens are permitted to do. It is a list of things the government is *not* permitted to do? Can you show me where in the constitution it permits the government to prevent me from traveling by whatever conveyance I wish, whether it be horse and carriage or bicycle or on foot? They didn't have horseless carriages obviously. So they couldn't have explicitly permitted the government from stopping them. Do you genuinely believe that the founders of this country were more concerned with safety than freedom? This is the problem with the amendments and even the bill of rights. They can be interpreted to mean that those enumerated rights are the *only* ones we have. This was the point of the 9th amendment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
In 1789, while introducing to the House of Representatives nineteen[4] draft Amendments, James Madison addressed what would become the Ninth Amendment as follows:[5]
It has been objected also against a Bill of Rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.
Alexander Hamilton asked, "Why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"
The bill of rights *has* been interpreted to mean that we don't possess any other natural rights, but that is a clear misinterpretation of the founders' intent. The government is simply not permitted to do anything not explicitly allowed in the constitution. That would obviously include driving a car, flying a plane, sailing a boat etc. Especially since flying machines and horseless carriages didn't even exist then.
If the government is not the one requiring the search, then there is no violation. You consent to that search when you want to get on someone else's property.
Actually it is still a violation as long as it is an agent of the government that is actually doing the search. But in the particular case we are discussing (of TSA and VIPRE checkpoints and surveillance) the government most definitely *is* the one requiring the search. You act as if the TSA were a private company contracted by the airlines. That is simply not the case.
The moment you step into any private place and agree to the terms that the owner requires of you for staying there, you give up those rights.
So if I start an airline which doesn't "request" any assistance from the TSA then you would have no problem with it? What if I were to mandate that there be no security at all? No metal detectors, no bag xrays. Nothing. Otherwise you can't step on any of my planes. Seem reasonable to you? After all I own the planes. Oh wait, the TSA and DHS and US Government would not allow that. In fact, every single one of my customers would be arrested when they tried to get to my aircraft without being searched at the TSA checkpoints. But they are in a real bind aren't they because I will not allow them on my Liberty Airways aircraft if they have been searched by the TSA in any way. Also keep in mind that although planes and buses are generally privately owned, trains are not and neither are the airports, bus terminals (generally), train stations, and subway stations where the unconstitutional searches are actually taking place.
So you see your line of reasoning doesn't work at all. It has nothing to do with property rights of the owners of buses, trains, ferries, and aircraft and everything to do with the government depriving us of our basic human right to travel about freely.
Note that the TSA cannot search you just for leaving your house and walking on the street, at least not yet.
And note that if your reasoning were in fact sound the same argument could be applied toward leaving your house. After all you don't own the roads. The government does. So if you want to use them you may have to consent to their terms which may include your 12 year old daughter getting fisted first or at least having some naked photos taken of her etc.
Have you actually read or at least scanned the FDA link? I don't think it means what you think it means. How about if you link to or better yet directly quote these "safety assessments" you are referring to? As for the TSA link, don't make me laugh. They are known liars and have been caught many times in their lies.
It's not a medical device. Something does not become a medical device just by virtue of using X-rays.
That's right. When it isn't being used as a medical device it is more analogous to a weapon. Xrays are ionizing radiation and highly dangerous to human beings. Perhaps the resistance movement in the US should start making portable xray guns and kill TSOs with high doses of "safe" radiation.
Actually the right to travel without government interference *is* guaranteed in the constitution. Or more to the point the right to stop you from traveling is *not* given to the government in the constitution. Also keep in mind that a drivers license is more analogous to a pilot's license than to airline passengers being allowed to passively sit in a seat. It has more to do with driving competency than safety. If you want to make a fair comparison compare it to being a passenger in a car. By that logic prepare for your children to be strip searched and photographed naked every time they get into your SUV. After all you don't have to drive. You could walk or ride a bicycle or even a horse. The fact is there is no clear line that can be drawn where 4th amendment violations are acceptable and where they are not. They should never be acceptable and any supreme court justice who rules otherwise should be charged with treason and hanged. That may seem crazy to you but it wouldn't to the people who founded this republic in the first place.
Cuba does not have great political or personal freedoms but they have very high quality of life, education, and health care.
Where are you getting this from? As someone who has actually lived in Cuba I can assure you that none of that is true and a large percentage of the population actually wants to come here despite the huge amount of anti-US propaganda they see on television and read in school.
I have traveled to a great many countries, but I have never seen medical care anywhere near as bad as what I saw in Cuba. I have actually been in clinics where nurses would use non-disposable syringes and just briefly soak the tip in alcohol between patients. My girlfriend was there to get an injection and I had to pay extra to get them to use a disposable needle. Rolling power outages and hospitals without backup generators so that they couldn't rely on refrigerators to keep things cold. Or even have any lights. Even bandaids were expensive luxuries that most people couldn't afford. Probably there are central African countries with worse medical care, but that's about it. I even met a doctor who believed you could catch a cold from getting caught in the rain. An actual medical doctor who believed that.
As for the quality of life, you wouldn't want to live in the "houses" that many of them live in. Believe me. And most people could barely afford enough rice and beans to survive on. Not to mention the boredom of eating exactly the same thing every day of your life. Do you have even the vaguest idea of how difficult it is to live on $12 a month or even less? The only people who live a life that you would deem even slightly comfortable are prostitutes, criminals, highly placed party members, and the occasional professional baseball player.
As for education, don't make me laugh. Haha. There are even more ignorant people there than here in the US and that's saying a lot. Textbooks are a rare luxury. At least what we would think of as a textbook. That's not to say that there are not some highly educated, highly intelligent people in Cuba, but they are most definitely a minority.
Having said all that, Cubans do have more freedom to travel than we now do. And Havana is probably still safer than most major American cities. Although it has gotten much worse in the last decade in terms of street crime. Maybe due to the younger generation watching too many Hollywood movies that glorify violence.
Also Cuba has their own problems with ubiquitous surveillance by the CDR, the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution. Sort of their own version of the FBI. As an American, I was under surveillance by them. They had a file on me and everything. And you never knew which of your neighbors might secretly work for the CDR. They could be watching you (except without DHS/FBI fancy gadgets) and reporting your movements to the CDR etc.
Many Cubans are smart enough not to believe their government's propaganda. It's too bad that many foreigners aren't so discerning about what "facts" they believe.
The constitution is just some old yellowing, tattered set of documents written long before we even had typewriters let alone computers. It may as well be some stone tablet uncovered from an archaeological expedition for all it matters now. The founders' mistake was in putting the same kind of faith in it that you are now. Maybe if natural language had been more precise so that founders' intentions couldn't have been twisted into exactly the opposite of what they had intended or interpreted out of existence entirely by a group of judges. Maybe if thinking for themselves wasn't seen as such a chore for most of the human population. Who knows? What should be obvious to almost anyone by now is that governments grow out of control. Always. And no damn piece of paper is ever going to stop that. He who has the guns, rules. Full stop. Also, the founders' screwed up in believing in their whole "balance of power" system. It just doesn't work. It is only natural for all the "branches" to work together. They are not natural enemies, but natural allies. So finally it has come to this. It was inevitable. OBL just sped it up a little. The only way this could ever be stopped now is through a real revolution with blood running in the streets. A civil war between those who value freedom and those who hate it. It's too bad that Egyptians and Libyans have far more courage than we do. We, the modern descendants of those terrorist-revolutionaries who fought and died for real freedom, are not worthy of their noble experiment. A republic--if you can keep it. We couldn't.
Was it any good though? TPB doesn't have it but Demonoid does (one of those rare occasions). Downloading now.
Thailand is the only country where I have seen "fake" blu-ray discs for sale in shops. Now that is impressive. Whether they will actually play on a bluray player I don't know because I didn't buy them.
That seems pretty shaky to me. Wikileaks would have to be interpreted as an "enemy", which is quite a stretch. I can easily imagine a judge not agreeing with that interpretation. Just imagine how disappointed you will be if he is found not guilty of all charges.
Can you fight fear with missiles and M16s? Mass distribution of xanax would be much more effective.
What freedoms? America is demonstrably less free than most countries in the world. Including some communist ones. I know this because I have lived in other countries. America feels (and is) quite a bit less free. The lack of freedom to travel is just the latest in a long line of lost freedoms since our government started wiping its ass with the constitution that was supposed to protect citizens from them. Tyranny always has the last laugh. And you will be fighting on the anti-freedom side if there ever is a civil war here. I think you will find that some of us basement dwellers are better shots than you might imagine. I would be willing to die to get back real freedom here in the US or in any country. You don't even understand what freedom is.
What exactly does freedom of speech have to do with treason?
What exactly does treason have to do with freedom of speech?
Alcon Entertainment has previously produced 19 other films, including The Blind Side, Insomnia, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pant, P.S. I Love You and the post apocalyptic science fiction film The Book of Eli, which starred Denzel Washington.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcon_Entertainment
Lost & Found
My Dog Skip
The Affair of the Necklace
Insomnia
Love Don't Cost a Thing
Chasing Liberty
Racing Stripes
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
16 Blocks
The Wicker Man
P.S. I Love You
One Missed Call
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2
The Blind Side
The Book of Eli
Lottery Ticket
No. This will not end well. Although, to be fair, Insomnia was not bad. It's just that the Norwegian original was much, much better. The remake was not necessary. We can only pray that these jokers choose a decent writer and director for like the first time in their lives. This should have been tagged with "whatcouldpossiblygowrong".
Seriously, why would anyone start or be in a business if not to make a good living (money)?
Well they are working to make money. At least in the sense that if they weren't able to make money at doing what they enjoy they would have to spend much of their time doing something they hated or found boring. Imagine wanting to create something. In my case it may be a robot or a computer program that is special. That no one has ever created before. It's true that either could result in profit, but that is not my motivation in creating them.
Believe it or not money is not the most important value in everyone's life. For some people that may be hard to believe. If you look at the sheer variety of businesses, products, and services in the world I think it is easy to see that money is not the *only* motivation for everyone. Yes, people need to make enough money to buy food and pay rent/mortgage, medical care, but above that bare minimum the rest is just luxury. Much of it not really making people much happier.
Consider computer game programmers. They tend to make less money than other programmers, and yet have much longer hours. They basically have no free time at all. They are some of the most talented programmers around. So why do they do it? Writers would be another example. Sure there are bestselling authors with questionable talent who are clearly writing solely for the money, but most authors, even famous, highly talented ones will never strike it rich on the royalties they receive from their books. So why do they do it? Or how about musicians? Some of them even have to work a "day job" to pay the rent. So why do they bother with the music when working as a waiter pays better?
Personally I would much rather have an interesting job than make a whole pile of money. I'd choose a job I find interesting over a boring one that paid twice as much every single time. What are you really going to spend the money on anyway? I don't envy people rich people. I envy happy people. Driving a fancy car which you can't legally drive in a fun way on US roads between your painstakingly dull job or business and your huge house each day is not going to make you happy.
You mention travel, having fun, and chasing women as some things you would do if you had "enough" money, but those are all things you can do anyway. You don't need much money to do them.
The great thing about running your own business is not that you can make more money than you could as an employee, even though that is often true. It is that you have the freedom to earn a living doing exactly the thing that you are most interested in. Assuming of course that the result is something that people would pay for. My point was that corporations of any significant size are almost never motivated by anything other than money. Often they don't even care about the quality of their products as long as they don't break within the warranty period. If they break outside the warranty period it is actually considered a good thing.
The reason for corporate person hood is so that if you are working at your $5 / hour minimum wage job at McDonalds and serve someone coffee and they burn their face off, they don't sue YOU for negligence.
They wouldn't do that in the first place because someone working at McDonalds wouldn't have any real money. No one should be able to sue someone (and win) when they spill hot coffee on their face anyway. Hot coffee is what they ordered. This sort of evasion of personal responsibility is so pathetic and part of the reason why corporate personhood itself is such a bad idea. People have to take responsibility for their own actions.
On the other hand if you are waiting tables and spill hot coffee on someone's face and cause them real harm you should be prepared to accept responsibility for that.
and you'll probably end up unable to collect your judgement, since the bulk of the fault will probably end up being found in the engineering and manufacturing areas. So you don't get your money, or everybody in the world is then required to start carrying their own professional liability insurance if they don't want to end up living on the streets as a result of having a bad day at work and screwing something up. What a great solution you're offering.
That is mainly what I was replying to. You seem to be implying that a worker should not have to take responsibility for "having a bad day at work". If that bad day results in harm to someone else then, at least IMHO, he should be willing to take responsibility for that harm. Period. OTOH, I am not saying that it should be impossible to sue a corporation either if the blame is sufficiently dilute. I agree that as a practical matter it may not be possible to find out who made the decisions, gave the orders, and then proceeded to carry out the orders that resulted, say, in dumping toxic chemicals or whatever the crime may be.
As far as the slip and fall litigation I see that as another issue. Many of those cases are frivolous. Again, people need to take responsibility for their own actions and not see a corporation as some kind of lottery ticket whenever anything bad happens to them.
Without incorporation, it would be virtually impossible (or stupid at the very least) for a person or couple of people to try to start their own business. They need that corporate protection so that they can take some risk, but not risk losing everything they own personally (house, cars, kids college fund, life savings) for something even slightly going wrong in their business. Heck, even if they're not even at fault, in today's litigious society...you can get lawsuits thrown at you for nothing...and a person trying to start a new business would get killed automatically for life over something potentially meaningless.
Ah, the "limited liability" argument again. Have you ever considered it from the POV of the creditors left holding their dicks? Why should you be able to just walk away from responsibilities, promises to pay, and contractual obligations just because you fucked up? Since you want to consider small businesses, how about the other small businesses you screw over when you rely on your limited liability get out of jail free card? How about a small bank who trusted you and lent you money and gave you the chance you needed to become rich or realize your dreams? How about taking some fucking responsibility for the consequences of your actions?
If these licenses to create a faceless non-human sociopathic entity that pursues profit at any price which we call 'corporations' were not available there would probably be this thing called "insurance". Maybe you have heard of it. Buy as big a policy as you think you need and you pay the premiums necessary to reduce your risk as much as you feel comfortable with instead of relying on the rest of society to pay them for you in terms of all of the consequences of absorbing that liability if you fail. As economists like to say, TAINSTAFL. You may not have to pay for your failure, but you can be sure that others will. Others who maybe didn't get the chance you had to strike it rich or follow your dream. Maybe the guy who lent you money at the bank will get fired and have to get a job as a Walmart greeter for his obviously poor decision. What about him? He also made a mistake. The difference is he will have to live with the consequences and you won't. What makes you so special just because you tried to start a business? So you see the counter arguments work like that. It's so funny how all of us hate creditors so much that they are not deemed worthy of even the slightest consideration. I don't like them either, but of course. I'm still willing to take their money when they offer it.
Of course they too are evil corporations. The reason that they are evil is due to human nature. Because human beings are inherently evil, especially in groups. Give a bunch of human beings power or the opportunity to make money and take away the responsibility for their actions and evil is what you get. You bring out and encourage the very worst of human nature all in the name of economic prosperity. Maybe we should start considering the price of the extra prosperity that all this ruthless profit-trumps-all corporate culture buys us. Is it worth living in a society of uncaring selfish robots who would stab their own mother in the heart for an extra dollar? That sort of thing.
No matter how pro-corporation you may be I think anyone should at least be able to see that a business owned by a single individual is much more likely to act in an ethical manner, is much more likely to consider reasons for being in business other than making money. Motivations like making the best product or offering the best service. Or selling a product/service that no one else does. Yes those things *can* also make you more money, but that isn't the only reason you are in business. Corporations by their very nature will make as much money as possible as quickly as possible and are not motivated by anything else. Even if their limited liability really is of net benefit to society (which I doubt), the fact that they bring out the worst in people and themselves behave like the very worst human beings seems like reason enough to abolish them or at least fix the parts that cause them to behave so badly.
So you don't believe that we should have to take responsibility for our actions as long as our actions were taken on behalf of our employer? If I work as a contract killer should I be immune from prosecution because I had no personal stake in the murder? Because I was just doing my job? What if my company asks me to steal documents from a competitor (industrial espionage), or dump toxic chemicals in a river? I believe that everyone should be responsible for their actions even if they are being paid to do them. We can say no or even quit if necessary. If you would normally be prosecuted for or responsible for something as an individual I don't see how getting paid to do the same thing should absolve you from said responsibility. A corporation is just a group of individuals and no legalese doublespeak is going to change that basic fact.