You should realize that YOU Godwined the discussion. YOU are the one that put forth the "I was only following orders" defense.
The problem is the Feds are pretty damned close to Godwinning themselves. And maybe we have Godwin to blame; if he hadn't effectively ridiculed making hyperbolic comparisons to the Nazis, perhaps the Feds wouldn't have felt so free to reduce the hyperbole of those comparisons.
Yeah, they're not quite shipping us to the ovens. They are demanding papers (the phrase "papers please" being the hallmark of a totalitarian state, before DUI checkpoints and 9/11), virtually strip-searching us, literally groping us, etc. When do comparisons to the nutty Austrian and his gang become apt... do we have to wait until they're killing us wholesale.
Lastly, federal agents were indicted for manslaughter and first-degree murder, respectively. Yes, they were acquitted, but this is something that is going to follow them for the remainder of their careers.
Yeah, they probably get high-fives every time they visit a new office.
You know, substituting "feudal lord" for "corporation" in a statement is not guaranteed to preserve that statement's truth value.
Funny thing about feudalism. You know who was at the top? A king, or someone with a fancy title. Know what he was? Government. Then on down, you had archdukes and dukes and barons and the whole rest of the bunch, and you know what they all were? Government. Seems rather different that a system with limited government.
Funny, you'd think they'd take this opportunity as lame ducks to pass the legislation that's actually *good for the people* despite being unpopular with the powerful lobbies, because there wouldn't be many repercussions. Shame it doesn't appear to work that way.
You'd only think that if you assumed that legislators were good and kind-hearted people who were merely corrupted by the toxic Washington political/lobbying environment. If you assume they're bastards through and through, it makes perfect sense.
You're right, no one wants to be harassed needlessly, but the bombs sent in packages on election day make it abundantly clear that al Qaeda is still looking for vulnerabilities in our system. It would be a huge mistake for us to become lax in our enforcement.
How about instead of restricting and violating our own citizens over this, we go out and find al Queda wherever they happen to be, and kill them all? I mean, supposedly the US is this horrible imperialistic country which thinks nothing of killing poor innocent foreign civilians... how about we start taking advantage of that? Quit tiptoeing around the Pakistani government and send the entire US army into the border area with an ROE of "shoot anything that moves that ain't ours". If there's caves, fill 'em with poison gas (remember supposedly the US violates the Geneva conventions all the time ANYWAY). If there's objections from the Pakistani government, nuke Karachi. Same for anywhere else terrorists might be hanging out, and that includes Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria.
No? There are some things that the US government shouldn't do, even for the laudable goal of stopping terrorist attacks? Well, then perhaps invasive airport security scans are one of them too.
1) Stop flying. I realize this may be hard, but in most cases it is possible.
Sure, but it'll cost me my marriage, because my wife will be pissed off that I won't fly anywhere for vacation.
You cannot expect change over night.
Why not? We get change overnight all the time. Only it's change for the worse. Some new indignity they are requiring, or some new item which can't be taken on board.
Agree with all of that. But the point of civil disobedience is not to make life immediately more comfortable for yourself.
Civil disobedience (in the modern sense) is worthless; they have enough jails for everyone, and the media won't make a sensation out of you the way they did about Rosa Parks.
"Uttering threats"? Really? If that was his crime, why was he charged with (and convicted for) "menacing" rather than "uttering threats".
Here's the actual text of the law he was convicted of: "A person is guilty of an offence if he--sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" e Nice and vague. By calling it "of... menacing character", it makes it simpler for the state because there's no need to show anyone was actually menaced. There's no mens rea requirement either, so it's not necessary that he intended to menace anyone. It's a law which (literally) makes it illegal to say "Boo!" electronically. It's ridiculous.
To paraphrase your post "People in the UK look at stuff that goes on in the US... teens being charged as sex offenders for taking pictures of themselves, or strip searched at school for carrying a headache pill...".
The prosecution backed down on that first one; they didn't get off scot-free (as they should have) but they were not convicted of any sex offense. Cite
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the strip search was wrong
In the UK, not only was the Robin Hood tweeter convicted, but his conviction was upheld on appeal. So I'm afraid that while the US is indeed fucked up, the UK is more fucked up.
Paul Chambers caused the police to waste time and money investigating his stupidity instead of doing productive work.
Well, this is certainly one of the more stupid statements I've seen on Slashdot, and that's saying something. It costs time and money for the police to determine a crime has not occurred, therefore we should declare everyone who does something that could warrant investigation guilty, regardless of the outcome of the investigation?
Israel trails Kuwait (ranked 60th), Lebanon (ranked 61st) and UAE (ranked 86th) in its region.
Wait, no it doesn't. Israel is ranked 71st, Kuwait 115th, Lebanon 118, and the UAE 153. Guinea-Bissau is at 107 and Qatar at 143. Israel, while rated only "Partly free", is still by far the freest in its region (24 points above Kuwait) according to your own source.
If we look at the 2010 tables, Israel has moved back into the "Free" category. 2010 middle east charts
Probably all of them would consider themselves to be free societies.
No, they don't. Freedom is not a universal value. Islam, for instance, means "submission to God". Freedom as an actual isn't even universal -- or common -- in the West any more, but most people think they value it even when they don't.
Civilizations that have 8000 years or so of culture "under their belt" tend to come up with important philosophical ideas earlier than their "younger neighbors".
Unfortunately, they often enough don't actually DO anything with them, preferring to preserve their sacred cows.
That is indeed the correct program. The section in question starts at about 53:06. The host is Nicky Campbell, the guests are Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch.
NC: Are we in any position to criticize countries for stoning people to death?
YAB: I don't think our politicians are. I think our human rights organizations certainly do have that right and should absolutely be speaking up. But I think for our politicians (she laughs), I think after... we're in the middle of talking about allegedly what some British soldiers did in Iraq; I don't think we have, they have, any moral authority anymore in the world to lecture anyone on human rights abuses. That's one of the prices, I think, that is paid by countries who think there's one law for us and one law for them.
NC: But our politicians surely have a moral duty to point out these abuses to call on abuses in other countries, countries which frankly have uncivilized laws.
YAB: Well I don't, I think it's absolutely wr... for example Mandela has the moral authority, which he sadly hasn't used often enough, to say to politic.. to countries... or lecture them even on the human rights abuses. In this country, our politicians lost that authority is all I'm saying.
NC (interrupting): Not all of them, not all of them.
YAB: Well since the war in iraq, I think our politi... except the ones who voted against the war, and there are very few of those. I think one of the consequences of this adventure is that the mor...now, I think our human rights organizations have absolutely the right to do what they are doing, and I also think we should remember what we did in China not so long ago in terms of Chinese ways of thinking about time, which is that we went to war with that country because they resisted our traders wanting to spread the opium habit. So you know we have to be careful about our own history there.
NC: Brad, do you want to come in? (Brad Adams disagrees rather strenuously with YAB)
YAB: I don't think that takes away my argument at all, I think human rights organizations have an absolute duty.
BA (Interrupting): No, and I appreciate that.
YAB: But not politicians who are at present involved in investigations about human rights violations. We're going through it ourselves and there's been no coming clean here by our politicians.
NC: So a politician can't say, "Listen I really think it's wrong that you don't educate girl children in your country but I can't really tell you that because I thought there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. " This doesn't make much sense.
YAB: You can say whatever you like but if you're David Cameron, no you can't.
(NC and YAB talk over each other)
YAB: The only authority politicians can have for themselves is rare creatures like Mandela who did the right thing and in the right way, eventually. And I think you have to make a distinction between politicians and human rights activists.
NC: So every single politician in this country who voted for the war in Iraq for whatever reason is morally a busted flush, Yasmin?
YAB: Yes, I actually do believe that.
----- So that's the context, that's why stoning in particular, and that's why he "shan't tell" Amnesty (because he's a politician and by YABs argument, should therefore not complain about human rights abuses).
So you'd crack a joke about having a bomb in your luggage in front of a TSA official in a US airport? Sure, "any sensible person" would get the joke, but we no longer live in sensible times and everyone knows that there are certain situations where the jokes have to stop.
Your dedication to the principle of freedom of speech is likewise noted. (and everyone knows the TSA isn't sensible).
This filing doesn't mean that even Google think the defence will succeed.
It's my understanding that if you want to preserve your rights to assert a defense, you have to assert it up front. This prevents dramatic Perry Mason-style maneuvers where you pull a new defense out of the hat near the end of the trial.
But the predictable consequence of this rule is that lawyers will assert any and all possible defenses up front, so as to preserve their client's options.
This is a literal threat. This says, literally, that the speaker will detonate something at an airport, unless his demands are met. The only way to not perceive this as a threat is by reading between the lines and assuming a context that's just not there.
Right. Ever seen _My Cousin Vinnie_? The sheriff accuses Ralph Macchio's character of shooting a convenience store clerk. He replies, in an incredulous tone: "I shot the clerk". The sheriff later introduces this in court as a confession. That's about what you're doing here. Reading a public posting of "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" as a serious threat requires deliberate misunderstanding.
Having free speech doesn't mean you have freedom from responsiblity.
Yes, it fucking does. At least, it means you don't have to answer to the government for your speech. What ELSE would it mean? Is it just one of those general principles that people give lip service to but find a reason for its inapplicability in every specific case where it comes up?
Please read the actual patent claims themselves before declaring prior art. The fact that the Slashdot headline boldly proclaims "Microsoft Patents Foot Computing" doesn't mean that the patent covers every manifestation of foot-controlled computing.
No, it just means Microsoft will be able to plausibly sue over every manifestation of foot-controlled computing. And with patent case law strongly favoring a wide interpretation of a patent's coverage and narrow interpretation of prior art, they'll likely win. Wait, my first "No" is incorrect, then.
...and more specifically, how a law that on the surface seems perfectly reasonable can be so easily misused.
The law is against menacing, the statement -- made publicly, not directed at any given person -- is "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
Any sensible person can see there is no threat there, it's just someone being a drama queen. But it violates the letter of the law and it's politically expedient to ignore the obvious.
Similarly, "Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really." is not a serious solicitation to murder; it's just someone being an ass. Or making a point in an offensive way, given that he says he was responding to a comment by Alibhai-Brown that no politician has the right to comment on human rights abuses, including the stoning of women in Iran.
I would presume that this is the program in question, though I haven't listened to it so don't know.
JEE no longer requires you to write an interface multiple times
Wait, if you don't have to write an interface at least twice in code, then twice in XML configuration files and once in a.INI style configuration file, along with another XML file to put it all together, how do you know it's J2EE?
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is the Feds are pretty damned close to Godwinning themselves. And maybe we have Godwin to blame; if he hadn't effectively ridiculed making hyperbolic comparisons to the Nazis, perhaps the Feds wouldn't have felt so free to reduce the hyperbole of those comparisons.
Yeah, they're not quite shipping us to the ovens. They are demanding papers (the phrase "papers please" being the hallmark of a totalitarian state, before DUI checkpoints and 9/11), virtually strip-searching us, literally groping us, etc. When do comparisons to the nutty Austrian and his gang become apt... do we have to wait until they're killing us wholesale.
Yeah, they probably get high-fives every time they visit a new office.
You know, substituting "feudal lord" for "corporation" in a statement is not guaranteed to preserve that statement's truth value.
Funny thing about feudalism. You know who was at the top? A king, or someone with a fancy title. Know what he was? Government. Then on down, you had archdukes and dukes and barons and the whole rest of the bunch, and you know what they all were? Government. Seems rather different that a system with limited government.
You'd only think that if you assumed that legislators were good and kind-hearted people who were merely corrupted by the toxic Washington political/lobbying environment. If you assume they're bastards through and through, it makes perfect sense.
Last time I looked, my Garmin was in fact x86. Some 80186 derivative. Maybe newer ones aren't.
How about instead of restricting and violating our own citizens over this, we go out and find al Queda wherever they happen to be, and kill them all? I mean, supposedly the US is this horrible imperialistic country which thinks nothing of killing poor innocent foreign civilians... how about we start taking advantage of that? Quit tiptoeing around the Pakistani government and send the entire US army into the border area with an ROE of "shoot anything that moves that ain't ours". If there's caves, fill 'em with poison gas (remember supposedly the US violates the Geneva conventions all the time ANYWAY). If there's objections from the Pakistani government, nuke Karachi. Same for anywhere else terrorists might be hanging out, and that includes Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria.
No? There are some things that the US government shouldn't do, even for the laudable goal of stopping terrorist attacks? Well, then perhaps invasive airport security scans are one of them too.
Sure, but it'll cost me my marriage, because my wife will be pissed off that I won't fly anywhere for vacation.
Why not? We get change overnight all the time. Only it's change for the worse. Some new indignity they are requiring, or some new item which can't be taken on board.
Civil disobedience (in the modern sense) is worthless; they have enough jails for everyone, and the media won't make a sensation out of you the way they did about Rosa Parks.
"Uttering threats"? Really? If that was his crime, why was he charged with (and convicted for) "menacing" rather than "uttering threats".
Here's the actual text of the law he was convicted of: ... menacing character", it makes it simpler for the state because there's no need to show anyone was actually menaced. There's no mens rea requirement either, so it's not necessary that he intended to menace anyone. It's a law which (literally) makes it illegal to say "Boo!" electronically. It's ridiculous.
"A person is guilty of an offence if he--sends by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character"
e
Nice and vague. By calling it "of
The prosecution backed down on that first one; they didn't get off scot-free (as they should have) but they were not convicted of any sex offense.
Cite
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the strip search was wrong
Cite
In the UK, not only was the Robin Hood tweeter convicted, but his conviction was upheld on appeal. So I'm afraid that while the US is indeed fucked up, the UK is more fucked up.
Well, this is certainly one of the more stupid statements I've seen on Slashdot, and that's saying something. It costs time and money for the police to determine a crime has not occurred, therefore we should declare everyone who does something that could warrant investigation guilty, regardless of the outcome of the investigation?
Wait, no it doesn't. Israel is ranked 71st, Kuwait 115th, Lebanon 118, and the UAE 153. Guinea-Bissau is at 107 and Qatar at 143. Israel, while rated only "Partly free", is still by far the freest in its region (24 points above Kuwait) according to your own source.
If we look at the 2010 tables, Israel has moved back into the "Free" category.
2010 middle east charts
No, they don't. Freedom is not a universal value. Islam, for instance, means "submission to God". Freedom as an actual isn't even universal -- or common -- in the West any more, but most people think they value it even when they don't.
Unfortunately, they often enough don't actually DO anything with them, preferring to preserve their sacred cows.
That is indeed the correct program. The section in question starts at about 53:06. The host is Nicky Campbell, the guests are Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch.
NC: Are we in any position to criticize countries for stoning people to death?
YAB: I don't think our politicians are. I think our human rights organizations certainly do have that right and should absolutely be speaking up. But I think for our politicians (she laughs), I think after... we're in the middle of talking about allegedly what some British soldiers did in Iraq; I don't think we have, they have, any moral authority anymore in the world to lecture anyone on human rights abuses. That's one of the prices, I think, that is paid by countries who think there's one law for us and one law for them.
NC: But our politicians surely have a moral duty to point out these abuses to call on abuses in other countries, countries which frankly have uncivilized laws.
YAB: Well I don't, I think it's absolutely wr... for example Mandela has the moral authority, which he sadly hasn't used often enough, to say to politic.. to countries... or lecture them even on the human rights abuses. In this country, our politicians lost that authority is all I'm saying.
NC (interrupting): Not all of them, not all of them.
YAB: Well since the war in iraq, I think our politi... except the ones who voted against the war, and there are very few of those. I think one of the consequences of this adventure is that the mor...now, I think our human rights organizations have absolutely the right to do what they are doing, and I also think we should remember what we did in China not so long ago in terms of Chinese ways of thinking about time, which is that we went to war with that country because they resisted our traders wanting to spread the opium habit. So you know we have to be careful about our own history there.
NC: Brad, do you want to come in?
(Brad Adams disagrees rather strenuously with YAB)
YAB: I don't think that takes away my argument at all, I think human rights organizations have an absolute duty.
BA (Interrupting): No, and I appreciate that.
YAB: But not politicians who are at present involved in investigations about human rights violations. We're going through it ourselves and there's been no coming clean here by our politicians.
NC: So a politician can't say, "Listen I really think it's wrong that you don't educate girl children in your country but I can't really tell you that because I thought there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. " This doesn't make much sense.
YAB: You can say whatever you like but if you're David Cameron, no you can't.
(NC and YAB talk over each other)
YAB: The only authority politicians can have for themselves is rare creatures like Mandela who did the right thing and in the right way, eventually. And I think you have to make a distinction between politicians and human rights activists.
NC: So every single politician in this country who voted for the war in Iraq for whatever reason is morally a busted flush, Yasmin?
YAB: Yes, I actually do believe that.
-----
So that's the context, that's why stoning in particular, and that's why he "shan't tell" Amnesty (because he's a politician and by YABs argument, should therefore not complain about human rights abuses).
Your dedication to the principle of freedom of speech is likewise noted. (and everyone knows the TSA isn't sensible).
It's my understanding that if you want to preserve your rights to assert a defense, you have to assert it up front. This prevents dramatic Perry Mason-style maneuvers where you pull a new defense out of the hat near the end of the trial.
But the predictable consequence of this rule is that lawyers will assert any and all possible defenses up front, so as to preserve their client's options.
Right. Ever seen _My Cousin Vinnie_? The sheriff accuses Ralph Macchio's character of shooting a convenience store clerk. He replies, in an incredulous tone: "I shot the clerk". The sheriff later introduces this in court as a confession. That's about what you're doing here. Reading a public posting of
"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
as a serious threat requires deliberate misunderstanding.
The Communications Act is a rather large body of law; a more specific citation is necessary.
Yes, it fucking does. At least, it means you don't have to answer to the government for your speech. What ELSE would it mean? Is it just one of those general principles that people give lip service to but find a reason for its inapplicability in every specific case where it comes up?
Your dedication to the principle of freedom of speech is touching.
Maybe that wouldn't be as effective as being nasty.
There's no slander involved here.
No, it just means Microsoft will be able to plausibly sue over every manifestation of foot-controlled computing. And with patent case law strongly favoring a wide interpretation of a patent's coverage and narrow interpretation of prior art, they'll likely win. Wait, my first "No" is incorrect, then.
Got a cite for that?
...and more specifically, how a law that on the surface seems perfectly reasonable can be so easily misused.
The law is against menacing, the statement -- made publicly, not directed at any given person -- is
"Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"
Any sensible person can see there is no threat there, it's just someone being a drama queen. But it violates the letter of the law and it's politically expedient to ignore the obvious.
Similarly,
"Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't. It would be a blessing, really."
is not a serious solicitation to murder; it's just someone being an ass. Or making a point in an offensive way, given that he says he was responding to a comment by Alibhai-Brown that no politician has the right to comment on human rights abuses, including the stoning of women in Iran.
I would presume that this is the program in question, though I haven't listened to it so don't know.
Wait, if you don't have to write an interface at least twice in code, then twice in XML configuration files and once in a .INI style configuration file, along with another XML file to put it all together, how do you know it's J2EE?