I think if you examine it more carefully, you'll find my statement was not equivalent to this.
you want some lucidity and coherence? ok:
Tacit admission you didn't have any before noted.
if guns are cracked down on, of course crime with guns will still happen. but a lot of the casual morons who shoot up discos because some chick looked at him funny and wackjobs like in arizona and virginia tech: that will stop. that's the point of cracking down on guns. not to stop the criminal mastermind, he will always get a gun, legal or not. but the criminal mastermind is smart, careful, and rare. you won't catch him shooting up a kindergarten or disco. the point is to stop the casual morons and insane people getting guns
Before this can qualify as lucid and coherent, you'd have to define what "cracking down" on guns exactly is. Usually "cracking down" means stricter enforcement of a rule which previously existed but was loosely enforced. However, this does not appear to be the meaning here.
As for "a lot of the casual morons who shoot up discos because some chick looked at him funny", I am not convinced there are a lot of such people. Nor am I convinced that any sort of gun control would have stopped the Virginia Tech killer; he may have been crazy, but he wasn't stupid nor did he lack the capability to plan. And there is a rather large category you have failed to address -- the ordinary criminal. Not crazy, not particularly intelligent, but in need of a firearm to effectively commit his crimes.
but apparently, if i say something like that, i will encounter NRA assholes like yourself who say this is unamerican and against the constitution
I'm not a member of the NRA. And without your definition of "cracking down", I cannot say whether your proposal is against the constitution. If it's something along the lines of taking guns away from everyone in order to prevent psychos from getting them... well, yeah.
i don't expect you to agree with me. you're well indoctrinated and entrenched in your point of view. like a creationist. logic and reason, you are impervious to
Given that you have failed to use any, there's no way you could know that.
So we have organization that promotes having its supporters brandish weapons at its rallies, has its most prominatent supporters openly talk about advocate armed rebellion, and armed secession, and other defunct 19th century extremist ideas, demonizing a duly elected political opponent, and now we have her shot, and 9 others killed.
Actually, those are 18th century extremist ideas. That fucker Jefferson was just egging them on with that stuff about the right of the people to "alter or abolish" their government.
Aside from being able to defend against wild animals, is there *really* any use in having a gun for self-defence? I can't imagine any realistic scenario where would-be burglar/thief/assassin/rapist is likely to get into a situation where their intended victim has a gun trained on *them*.
Fortunately, reality is not limited by your imagination.
You have a point, but on the other hand there are financial advantages to working in a high-paying job in a high-cost area rather than a low-paying job in a low cost area: 1) Some things are basically the same price nationally. Just about anything you order on the Internet, for instance. 2) Your savings and/or investment in the high cost area will be greater in dollars. (assuming you're living within your means anyway) 3) Similarly to 2, if you own a home and pay a similar percentage of your income in mortgage payments, your equity will be greater in dollars. Assuming we don't have another crash, anyway 4) Vacations will be easier financially, since their price doesn't typically depend on where you live. 5) Because of 2 and 3, you can have a retirement strategy involving moving somewhere cheaper.
There are lots of shills for the USA - they call themselves "patriots" and claim to support "freedom".
There probably are shills for the US government as well, what's your point?
Of course, a lot of non-shills claim to support "freedom" as well. I certainly do. And I don't think the shills would know freedom if it bit them in the ass. For instance, a shill would claim that "freedom" means the government allows anyone of "good moral character" a license to put things on the Internet under their verified identity, and would be shocked at the notion that "freedom" meant no license was needed at all.
Why? The police are merely enforcing the laws and protect human rights from thieves, murderers, et cetera. An eye-in-the-sky helps them complete that mission.
You're not too familiar with the Miami-Dade police department, or indeed with police in general, are you?
This is a no-brainer. If merely one person in a million could predict the future, teleport, move objects with their mind, or any of the other stuff usually claimed, our society simply couldn't operate as it does.
Only if they knew they could do it. For instance, I've never played roulette. If I did have some sort of uncanny advantage at it, I wouldn't know. If it was a small but significant advantage and I didn't play often, I'd probably attribute it to random chance.
But chicken pox is way down the list of diseases to do that too, and we don't have infinite resources. At the very least, HPV is above it. And it's much better to work 100% on one thing, because the point isn't to 'reduce' a disease, it's to fucking smallpox it off the face of the earth, so no one ever gets it ever again.
Smallpox was a special case. No animal reservoir, and the vaccine for it was a different virus. Neither of these is true of chicken pox.
Believe it or not, people do actually have to get work done, even with sensitive documents. Make it so e.g. they have to type in a 100-character passphrase and enter a one-time password from a key card every time they open the document, and they're going to leave the document open all the time or spoil the security in some other way.
You're advocating giving up all of my freedoms and rights, so I don't sit in jail? How is that a viable solution?
No, I'm simply pointing out that your method won't work. There is no viable solution.
Remember, WE give the government it's rights and power, they don't give it to us.
A pretty thought. But in fact, just about every member of "we" will stand against you. If some cop starts arbitrarily violating your rights and you stand up for yourself, he will most likely simply beat you down and no one will stand with you. If you actually manage to physically stop the violation, "we the people" will come down on you like a ton of bricks, whether or not the cop was wrong in the first place.
You can continue to sit, fat and happy watching your American Idol and playing your PS3, but just remember who stood up for you and fought for your freedoms and rights, while you sat back and did nothing.
That's my point. No one will remember you. No one will even know about you in the first place. There isn't any civil rights movement to make a big stink about anyone unjustly imprisoned; those days are over.
I'll take the jail time, thanks. I'm not going to let the threat of jail time compel me to revoke my own morals or those of generations of people who will come after me. It's our rights we're standing up for here.
Then you'll sit in jail. No one will care. Your friends will think you were an idiot for not just co-operating. Freedom just isn't a virtue in itself for most people any more.
Humans are pretty weak-willed in general. Smokers, people who are obese, people with more than 2-3 kids, people who watch television more or play computer games more than a few hours a week, etc.
"Not behaving as RazzleFrog would like" != "weak willed".
I was thinking of the iPod Touch, but an iPhone is also not primarily an alarm clock. I'm not saying the bug is a good thing, just that I don't think it's reasonable to consider a temporary problem with alarms not going off a "critical" bug in a device which is primarily not an alarm clock -- whether it's primarily a music player or a phone.
Were the US cellular market more accessible and dynamic, with doing things like "getting a spartan voice only plan for a bells and whistles smartphone" easy, rather than possible but obscure
Trivial from T-Mobile, possible but obscure from AT&T (it looks like they don't have a SIM-only plan, so you'd have to buy a dumbphone and not use it. Or possibly they have one and it's buried on their site somewhere). I'm using a prepaid T-mobile SIM in my Android device right now.
It's funny really; the Slashdot crowd has been predicting for years that $COMPANY will challenge Apple's dominance in their various markets. Google (with Nexus, and their various software) looked good, but didn't happen. MS with WinMo7, the Kin, the Zune, etc., looked like a fair bet too.
You are suggesting that the "Slashdot crowd" thought the Zune and the Kin were serious threats to Apple? That is not the groupthink I remember.
Slashdot Mirror
I think if you examine it more carefully, you'll find my statement was not equivalent to this.
Tacit admission you didn't have any before noted.
Before this can qualify as lucid and coherent, you'd have to define what "cracking down" on guns exactly is. Usually "cracking down" means stricter enforcement of a rule which previously existed but was loosely enforced. However, this does not appear to be the meaning here.
As for "a lot of the casual morons who shoot up discos because some chick looked at him funny", I am not convinced there are a lot of such people. Nor am I convinced that any sort of gun control would have stopped the Virginia Tech killer; he may have been crazy, but he wasn't stupid nor did he lack the capability to plan. And there is a rather large category you have failed to address -- the ordinary criminal. Not crazy, not particularly intelligent, but in need of a firearm to effectively commit his crimes.
I'm not a member of the NRA. And without your definition of "cracking down", I cannot say whether your proposal is against the constitution. If it's something along the lines of taking guns away from everyone in order to prevent psychos from getting them... well, yeah.
Given that you have failed to use any, there's no way you could know that.
It's rather conceited to assume that anyone both intelligent and sane will agree with you.
Actually, those are 18th century extremist ideas. That fucker Jefferson was just egging them on with that stuff about the right of the people to "alter or abolish" their government.
Fortunately, reality is not limited by your imagination.
By your own philosophy, if anyone kills a would-be censor you are now partially responsible. Preach on.
You have a point, but on the other hand there are financial advantages to working in a high-paying job in a high-cost area rather than a low-paying job in a low cost area:
1) Some things are basically the same price nationally. Just about anything you order on the Internet, for instance.
2) Your savings and/or investment in the high cost area will be greater in dollars. (assuming you're living within your means anyway)
3) Similarly to 2, if you own a home and pay a similar percentage of your income in mortgage payments, your equity will be greater in dollars. Assuming we don't have another crash, anyway
4) Vacations will be easier financially, since their price doesn't typically depend on where you live.
5) Because of 2 and 3, you can have a retirement strategy involving moving somewhere cheaper.
There probably are shills for the US government as well, what's your point?
Of course, a lot of non-shills claim to support "freedom" as well. I certainly do. And I don't think the shills would know freedom if it bit them in the ass. For instance, a shill would claim that "freedom" means the government allows anyone of "good moral character" a license to put things on the Internet under their verified identity, and would be shocked at the notion that "freedom" meant no license was needed at all.
Wow. I knew we had Microsoft shills, and China shills, but shills for South Korea?
If Twitter doesn't move to quash this, fuck them.
So you're the evil twin of the Verizon guy? "I can hear you now. BAD!".
You're not too familiar with the Miami-Dade police department, or indeed with police in general, are you?
Only if they knew they could do it. For instance, I've never played roulette. If I did have some sort of uncanny advantage at it, I wouldn't know. If it was a small but significant advantage and I didn't play often, I'd probably attribute it to random chance.
Smallpox was a special case. No animal reservoir, and the vaccine for it was a different virus. Neither of these is true of chicken pox.
Believe it or not, people do actually have to get work done, even with sensitive documents. Make it so e.g. they have to type in a 100-character passphrase and enter a one-time password from a key card every time they open the document, and they're going to leave the document open all the time or spoil the security in some other way.
Not any more. Now the first thing that link returns is... this story.
No, I'm simply pointing out that your method won't work. There is no viable solution.
A pretty thought. But in fact, just about every member of "we" will stand against you. If some cop starts arbitrarily violating your rights and you stand up for yourself, he will most likely simply beat you down and no one will stand with you. If you actually manage to physically stop the violation, "we the people" will come down on you like a ton of bricks, whether or not the cop was wrong in the first place.
That's my point. No one will remember you. No one will even know about you in the first place. There isn't any civil rights movement to make a big stink about anyone unjustly imprisoned; those days are over.
It's safer to talk about the 2nd amendment than to talk about armed rebellion. And by "safer" I mean "less likely to get you that 2am no-knock raid".
Then you'll sit in jail. No one will care. Your friends will think you were an idiot for not just co-operating. Freedom just isn't a virtue in itself for most people any more.
"Not behaving as RazzleFrog would like" != "weak willed".
I was thinking of the iPod Touch, but an iPhone is also not primarily an alarm clock. I'm not saying the bug is a good thing, just that I don't think it's reasonable to consider a temporary problem with alarms not going off a "critical" bug in a device which is primarily not an alarm clock -- whether it's primarily a music player or a phone.
No, it isn't. Only lazy racists classify people according to their appearance; the meticulous ones demand a pedigree.
Sure... for an alarm clock. For a music player that happens to have an alarm clock, not so much.
Trivial from T-Mobile, possible but obscure from AT&T (it looks like they don't have a SIM-only plan, so you'd have to buy a dumbphone and not use it. Or possibly they have one and it's buried on their site somewhere). I'm using a prepaid T-mobile SIM in my Android device right now.
You are suggesting that the "Slashdot crowd" thought the Zune and the Kin were serious threats to Apple? That is not the groupthink I remember.