It's called the "border search exception" to the 4th amendment, and it has always been in place.
Quoth the Wikipedia:
The United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP), a division of the United States Department of Homeland Security, is permitted to search travelers and their belongings at the American border without probable cause or a warrant. These searches are therefore exempted from the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement.
And according to the Yale Law Journal (Apr. 1968):
Customs officials conducting border searches have always been exempt from the usual fourth amendment requirement that searches be based on probable cause.
Since the border search statute was enacted in 1789, customs officials have been authorized to stop and examine any vehicle, person, or baggage arriving in the United States on suspicion that merchandise is concealed which is subject to duty or which cannot be legally imported into the United States.
Parliamentary systems have their own problems. For example, via coalition-building, fringe extreme groups can obtain an inordinate amount of power (see 1930's Europe). At least in a two-party system, the extremes can accomplish nothing without compromising their most radical positions, as each party is home to half the moderates in the country.
Disclaimer: I am not a political scientist, and thus can only write from my observations as a lay person. The above statements are IMHO only.
Consider that in an era without blogs, and with only a percentage of the US population having access to the internet, almost all Clinton scandals were broken by a single web-site: the Drudge Report.
Agree with your first sentence completely: nothing can be hidden these days.
And back during the Clinton administration, us Republicans bitched about Janet Reno, and her refusal to prosecute friends of the Clintons. In a few short months, it'll be our turn to bitch again. It's a cycle. It didn't start with this administration, and it won't end with it, either.
How does it feel to live in a country where your Executive Branch has branded you as a "bad" American unless you live and think the way they expect you to live and think.
I expect the next administration will think I'm a bad American, too. I'll be a conservative, Christian, homophobic, anti-choice Republican. It's called politics, and it stopped hurting my feelings sometime back during the Clinton administration.
Demonization comes with the territory. The coarsening of American politics happened before the second president's term ended. Back then, presidents stopped just short of saying their opponents caused cancer in puppies.
EDIT: I'm not saying I like it. I'm just saying that it's the way it has been for 200 years.
The problem is that most people can't even come to a single definition of "conservative." So what the heck is a "neo-conservative" supposed to be?
Wikipedia has a pretty good running definition for neo-con, though. Essentially, social conservatism with a big government twist (which essentially fits every Republican president since Ford, and is most exemplified by GWB). So-called "paleo-cons" (usually with libertarian leanings) are exactly the opposite.
BTW, unless you send money, time, or expertise to KDE e.V., you are a leech. This isn't a bad thing; it's what they want. Nevertheless, it means that you have nothing meaningful to contribute but bug-reports and feedback.
IOW, you have gotten absolutely zero reason for a sense of entitlement. When the XFree86 thing went down, I didn't bitch about it because I didn't do a damn thing for the project to earn the right. I just moved to x.org. If you think the KDE devs don't esteem your lofty opinions enough, consider using a different desktop.
Do they need you? Do they have an obligation to do anything for you?
From my perspective, they're Santa Claus: they may not give me all the free gifts I want or asked for ("I want the entire GI Joe collection"), but they give me a helluva lot of free gifts regardless.
Ah-HAH! But by insinuating that his own insult applies to him, you are also saying that all of his reasoning skills are impaired! Are you are thusly a pot-kettle-thingy yourself! And me, too! Oh, and anyone that points out my fallacious logic! Gotcha!
I'm not saying that anyone and everyone will find trinitarian doctrine self-evident from scripture. I'm saying the proofs are understandable to anyone versed in philosophical logic. Somehow I doubt Newton looked at the apologies and went "Duh..." I understand the proofs of many doctrines I disagree with. Maybe he disagreed with trinitarian doctrine... but if did, he did not spend much of his time disproving it, which he would otherwise do for many other doctrines he disagreed with.
Tertullian espoused trinitarian theology back in the 2nd century (and in fact coined the term "trinity" in its theological sense), based on various proof texts where the Bible equates God, Jesus, and the holy spirit as being the same in power and substance, which essentially means they are the same person. Of course, this interpretation requires the use of logical inference (which shouldn't be a problem for anyone who's had to take a college class on law, philosophy, or higher-level mathematics).
Earlier in my life, as an intellectual skeptic, I found Josh McDowell's short apology "More Than a Carpenter" to be a very convincing read, especially in the chapter where he addresses this very subject (historical authenticity and accuracy).
Slashdot Mirror
It's called the "border search exception" to the 4th amendment, and it has always been in place.
Quoth the Wikipedia:
And according to the Yale Law Journal (Apr. 1968):
Sure it wasn't the NCC-1701 Enterprise?
You see? This is why we need longer sigs on Slashdot. I'd totally use this.
Parliamentary systems have their own problems. For example, via coalition-building, fringe extreme groups can obtain an inordinate amount of power (see 1930's Europe). At least in a two-party system, the extremes can accomplish nothing without compromising their most radical positions, as each party is home to half the moderates in the country.
Disclaimer: I am not a political scientist, and thus can only write from my observations as a lay person. The above statements are IMHO only.
Consider that in an era without blogs, and with only a percentage of the US population having access to the internet, almost all Clinton scandals were broken by a single web-site: the Drudge Report.
Agree with your first sentence completely: nothing can be hidden these days.
I hit the "Continue Editing" button.
EDIT: I thought it was a needed caveat. ;)
"People like you"
See how easy it is? Easy and effective, which is why it's never going away.
And back during the Clinton administration, us Republicans bitched about Janet Reno, and her refusal to prosecute friends of the Clintons. In a few short months, it'll be our turn to bitch again. It's a cycle. It didn't start with this administration, and it won't end with it, either.
I expect the next administration will think I'm a bad American, too. I'll be a conservative, Christian, homophobic, anti-choice Republican. It's called politics, and it stopped hurting my feelings sometime back during the Clinton administration.
Demonization comes with the territory. The coarsening of American politics happened before the second president's term ended. Back then, presidents stopped just short of saying their opponents caused cancer in puppies.
EDIT: I'm not saying I like it. I'm just saying that it's the way it has been for 200 years.
The problem is that most people can't even come to a single definition of "conservative." So what the heck is a "neo-conservative" supposed to be?
Wikipedia has a pretty good running definition for neo-con, though. Essentially, social conservatism with a big government twist (which essentially fits every Republican president since Ford, and is most exemplified by GWB). So-called "paleo-cons" (usually with libertarian leanings) are exactly the opposite.
True, but KDE e.V. is where you can send money, IIRC.
BTW, unless you send money, time, or expertise to KDE e.V., you are a leech. This isn't a bad thing; it's what they want. Nevertheless, it means that you have nothing meaningful to contribute but bug-reports and feedback.
IOW, you have gotten absolutely zero reason for a sense of entitlement. When the XFree86 thing went down, I didn't bitch about it because I didn't do a damn thing for the project to earn the right. I just moved to x.org. If you think the KDE devs don't esteem your lofty opinions enough, consider using a different desktop.
Do they need you? Do they have an obligation to do anything for you?
From my perspective, they're Santa Claus: they may not give me all the free gifts I want or asked for ("I want the entire GI Joe collection"), but they give me a helluva lot of free gifts regardless.
Fixed that for you. And let me tell you, It makes me really want to move to Canada right now.
Ah-HAH! But by insinuating that his own insult applies to him, you are also saying that all of his reasoning skills are impaired! Are you are thusly a pot-kettle-thingy yourself! And me, too! Oh, and anyone that points out my fallacious logic! Gotcha!
Umm... the other two guys in the trinity? One power, one substance, different manifestations.
I'm not saying that anyone and everyone will find trinitarian doctrine self-evident from scripture. I'm saying the proofs are understandable to anyone versed in philosophical logic. Somehow I doubt Newton looked at the apologies and went "Duh..." I understand the proofs of many doctrines I disagree with. Maybe he disagreed with trinitarian doctrine... but if did, he did not spend much of his time disproving it, which he would otherwise do for many other doctrines he disagreed with.
His rather prolific theological works are also not held as in high regard as his mathematical work.
That's different than saying that the actual text of the OT was changed from the Hebrew Torah.
Or CLI text editors.
Tertullian espoused trinitarian theology back in the 2nd century (and in fact coined the term "trinity" in its theological sense), based on various proof texts where the Bible equates God, Jesus, and the holy spirit as being the same in power and substance, which essentially means they are the same person. Of course, this interpretation requires the use of logical inference (which shouldn't be a problem for anyone who's had to take a college class on law, philosophy, or higher-level mathematics).
Earlier in my life, as an intellectual skeptic, I found Josh McDowell's short apology "More Than a Carpenter" to be a very convincing read, especially in the chapter where he addresses this very subject (historical authenticity and accuracy).
This is where he lost me as completely, absolutely, blowing smoke.
I learned how to program in C on ROM 2.4. If that doesn't teach you pointers, nothing will.
And now I know that Kevin Spacey is also cptnapalm...