No, the prosecutors who made sure the investigation fizzled absolutely cared - they cared that they and their buddies didn't get caught breaking the law.
In my experience on a criminal jury, we went back to the deliberation room, talked it over for an hour or two, all agreed on a clear answer (we had the victim's testimony, and enough other evidence to convict even without the victim's testimony), and walked out with a verdict. Granted, it was an easy case to decide, but the system worked quite well.
The rules for criminal trials in the US are typically: 12-0 you hang, 0-12 you're free, anything else is a mistrial which means you go free for now but the government can try again if they want to. The assumption (popularized in films like Twelve Angry Men) is that if 1 juror has a doubt, it's better to let the suspect go free than wrongly convict somebody.
Again, which of his positions do you find extreme?
Well, here's a couple: 1. Return to a gold standard. The vast majority of economists consider the gold standard to be a really really bad idea, because it leaves the government basically unable to mitigate the effects of economic crises.
2. Eliminating all social insurance programs, including Social Security. Public support for Social Security is somewhere between 65-85% (e.g. Wall Street Journal, AARP, neither exactly Democratic party shills).
In before you claim that Jim Crow was *only* the government's doing. Without the backing of businesses and such, Jim Crow wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of lasting as long as it did.
The government of course was a part of it, but the core of Jim Crow was not government or business but the KKK and those who's sentiments were basically agreeing with the KKK. The laws in question began getting passed in 1876, shortly after the US troops stopped enforcing the Reconstruction-era racial equality in the South. The KKK and its allies started using violence to prevent Republicans (who in that era supported those equality policies and sometimes elected black politicians) from voting, and then once in power passed Jim Crow laws. By 1890 it was perfectly acceptable for white mobs to lynch black people, which would continue into the 1950's.
I'm not always a "blame the people for the government's actions" sort of guy, but there's a lot of evidence that many if not most white southerners in the early 20th century were very very racist. There's also evidence (e.g. this story) that a lot of white people, particularly older and poorer white people, still are quite racist.
More recently, the two countries have had several shooting wars since the 1960s, with some thousands dead on each side, each time, that have been hushed up as neither side gained anything but open slots for promotions.
Hmm, maybe it actually went down like this: Russian leader: Hey, China, we've got some hot-headed army officers we'd like to get rid of. Do you mind if we send them in with a totally insufficient force to attack you? Chinese leader: Sure thing - we've got a few we're trying to get rid of too. Send 'em into that patch of worthless land east of Sretensk in 21 days, we'll meet 'em there. Russian leader: It's a deal! Let us know when your targets are dead, we'll let you know when our targets are dead, and then we'll leave.
Here's what they know: The US (specifically, that well-known liberal peacenik Richard Nixon) signed a treaty in 1972 specifically saying that nobody was allowed to do anti-ballistic missile defense, specifically so that there would always be a MAD scenario if somebody decided to strike. Then George W Bush basically told the Russians to go to hell and that the US was ignoring the treaty. Then they spent a lot of time and money trying to improve their anti-ballistic missile defense. Now Barack Obama is deploying anti-ballistic missile defense right near Russia's border.
Another way of thinking about it: Would you be fine with $EVIL_EMPIRE deploying missile defense in Cuba, Mexico, and Canada?
I get the joke, but the fact that the US is deploying it suggests that they think they have something useful.
I don't think it's stumbling like a blind fool - these military ventures are very much in line with the plans of some evil bastards who think that because the US (with help of some European allies) is capable of completely taking over the world militarily, it has a moral responsibility to do so. Never mind the millions of people that might get killed in the process.
Perhaps this is just a way for some universities to rake in more cash to misappropriate later while offering certificates that are not even worth the paper they're printed on.
What certificates do Harvard and MIT issue that aren't worth the paper they're printed on? If you're going to toss around an accusation like that, you'd better have evidence to back it up.
(Full disclosure: I'm one of the few members of my immediate family without a Harvard degree of some sort, but I've seen no evidence of low standards anywhere in the institution other than the president's office.)
We must demand a Constitutional amendment that clearly defines personal privacy... as an inalienable right.
Hmm, how about this as a starting draft: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"
That seems pretty clear to me about enforcing personal property. But I'm not sure we could get that one passed these days.
The IPCC report includes references to serious research that explain what they would expect to see happen between now and 2100 if CO2 emissions were dropped to 0 today. The short answer is that things would still be pretty bad, but nowhere near as bad as if we followed what seems to be our current strategy of carefully doing nothing significant.
First of all, the shape of the Earth was never a controversy
... among non-idiots after about 300 BCE. That's precisely my point: Even though modern humans have had every reason imaginable to believe the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and pretty close to complete proof of the idea by about 1550, there are still Flat Earth believers. That's why idiocy and denial are the last refuge of a stupid idea.
Same story with the development of life on Earth. Evolution was widely accepted scientifically by about 1880 or so, but surveys show a solid 30% or so of Americans still believe that life was created by God 6000 years ago.
The problem is that while this may be the last scientific reason to think global climate change isn't happening or won't be a problem, what's really the last bastion is "la la la la I'm not listening! It's all a conspiracy!" And if issues like the the shape of the Earth and evolution are any guide, it may be several centuries before we're done dealing with that one.
Here, I think, is the reason that this one is so difficult to accept for many people: Western society is fundamentally based on the ideas of growth and progress, where society produces more than it used to and by so doing enables scientific discoveries that enable it to produce even more which in turn leads to more scientific discoveries in a nice virtuous circle that has exponentially increased our quality of life. The challenge presented by global climate change (and peak oil and several other related problems) is that growth and progress can't continue exponentially forever. It's no different, really, than a colony of bacteria filling up their petri dish and being unable to expand any further. And what's worse, capitalism, while admirably suited to allowing humanity to produce more useful goods than ever before, is completely ill-equipped to handle situations where further growth or even preventing a catastrophic decline is impossible.
Actually, I can think of some perfectly legitimate reasons for owning 35 assault rifles, like renting them out if you're running a shooting range. Which, if an ATF agent came knocking after you bought 35 assault rifles, would be the sort of explanation (with some evidence) that would probably have the agent saying, "Ok, thank you for your time, just checking up on it".
If people with more expensive property are expected to sell their homes then perhaps people with less expensive property should sell some of their organs?
So am I correct in boiling your argument down to the idea that my right to keep my property is more important than somebody else's right to remain alive? That seems more than a bit callous. If the government is Shylock (who is actually a pretty sympathetic character, upset because Antonio's pal stole his daughter and all his cash), you seem to be Ebenezer Scrooge ("Are there no workhouses?").
Losing one's home sucks. A lot. But it's a very different level of suffering from starving or living on the streets. Maybe you sell your $10M mansion for $3M - the $7M loss sucks, but it's not going to kill you.
In case you haven't heard one of Obama's admins was selling guns to drug dealers in Mexico, and then when those U.S. guns turned-up in southern border states, justified passage of anti-gun laws to limit them.
What onerous anti-gun laws were you referring to, exactly? The only thing I could turn up was that when a gun dealer sells more than 1 assault rifle in a state bordering Mexico, they have to report it (the NRA's take). It's not illegal to sell a bunch of AK-47s to somebody, it's just that in 4 states you have to fill out a form that says "Hey, this guy came into my store and bought a bunch of AK-47s".
Yes, there's a tradeoff: Downside of having to explain to an ATF agent why you just bought 35 assault rifles. Upside of "Hey, this guy is crossing the border here, stopping by each of the gun stores within this 300-square-mile area here here and here, and crossing the border again." Additional upside: "Hey, this guy is collecting a lot of AK-47s, and doesn't have any sort of legal use for those guns, and after further investigation seems to have this idea about starting a revolt against the US government. Maybe we should watch him a bit more closely."
There's obviously a need to strike a balance to achieve high levels of growth. Too high or too low causes problems. These are based off of the size of government by %GDP: Governments too poor to be effective: Afghanistan (9%), Turkmenistan (9%), Bangladesh (12%), Cambodia (13%) Private sectors too poor to be dynamic: Iraq (87%), Cuba (81%), Slovakia (66%), Timor (65%) G8 and permanent members of the UN Security Council: France (61%), Italy (55%), UK (50%), Germany (48%), Canada (48%), Japan (30%), China (22%), Russia (20%), USA (20%) There's definitely not an strong correlation between size of government and economic growth though. For instance, the UK and Germany are pretty close to the same size of government, but Germany's currently experiencing growth of around 1.5% while the UK is closer to -0.3% and the US is at 2%.
As far as your example of losing your family home, you benefit from local and state services, so you should contribute in some way to the upkeep of your government. If the only way you can do so is to move into a smaller home, well, sorry, but that's the way it is, and if it's any consolation you can live quite comfortably on the $10M you got for it for the rest of your life (That's at least $100K a year for the rest of your life, way more if you invest it smartly). The people who benefit from your sale include the various real estate brokers and banks involved in the sale, the proud new owners benefit from having a lovely $10M mansion, and all your former neighbors who now don't have to pull your weight in paying for schools, police and fire departments.
Another way of explaining the problem: Imagine a population with 100 people in it. 15 of those people are broke and unemployed. 50 earn about $40K a year but have no assets. 30 people earn about $70K a year and have about $30K in assets. 4 people have $300K in assets and no income. 1 person has $10M in assets and no income. Collectively, the population has to pay a bill of $300,000 that takes care of maintaining the streets in front of everybody's home. How do you divvy up the responsibility fairly?
Well, making the people who are broke and unemployed pay anything is pointless, because they can't no matter how much you try to make them. You could have everybody else chip in about $3500, but that's obviously a much bigger deal for the people who make $40K than the people who make $70K and could be a problem to the people who have $300K in assets and no income. You're demand is that those with incomes cover the people with just assets, but that forces everyone else to pay another $50 per person so the guy with $10M gets to pay nothing, which seems a bit unfair. It's not like there's an easy way to do it, but you can't just say "small government, low taxes" and solve the problem. Even if you find a way to cut the collective bill down to $200,000, there's still a question of how to divy up the bill. If you cut the bill down to $0, then you have the problem of the streets being a wreck, which nobody wants.
This is the kind of online argument I'd expect: A: This is a superior product, because XYZ. B: But it's inferior because other products have KLM, which is better than XYZ. A: Whaddaya mean, XYZ rocks, KLM sucks! B: Your product sucks! A: Well, yeah... you're a stinky poopy-face! B: I'm not, but yo momma is! A: B is totally like Hitler!
Politician don't represent the people and they shouldn't
So tell me again why many of them have the job title of "Representative"? They're job is to give the people what they want - that's not "pandering" or "appeasement", that's democratic representation serving their constituents. They may have to balance several demands at once, and argue over how to make their demands a reality, but they are definitely supposed to be focused on doing what the voters want them to do.
How about I when I tell the government that I'd like 100% of my taxes to be spent on a tax credit for me? Of course, I still expect everybody else around me to pay for roads and other government services I use every day, but that's not my problem, right?
The basic problem of government is that everybody wants services, but nobody wants to pay for them. You can see that in California's state government, where Prop 13 prevents the government from raising taxes for any reason, but other ballot issues require the government to provide a litany of services without explaining where the money comes from. People, if given the chance, seem to vote for insolvent government.
Now, I agree the federal government spends a great deal on things I thoroughly disagree with, but that's not going to be solved by your proposal.
Actually, you're oversimplifying agnosticism. There are several forms, of which this is just a subset:
Atheist agnosticism - I don't know for sure that there is no God, but there's no proof of one. Theist agnosticism - I don't know for sure that there is a God, but I believe there is. Apathetic agnosticism - There may be a God, but he/she/it doesn't care what we do so it doesn't matter. Strong agnosticism - There's no way for any human to ever have a definitive answer to whether God exists. Weak agnosticism - I don't know for sure if there is a God, but maybe sometime in the future we'll be able to tell.
Unless you were lucky and some other ship saw you sink or saw any flares you were able to launch, the odds were that you would die a slow death waiting for help.
Of course, in the case of the Titanic sinking, there was a ship, the Californian, that saw flares launched from the Titanic and from her lifeboats, and in fact the Californian tried to signal the Titanic using Morse lamps. The Titanic wasn't in the middle of nowhere, it was basically in the standard ship route from the UK to the US. So yes, it would have made a big difference to have enough lifeboats for everybody.
What killed many of the passengers was sheer human stupidity (in addition to the aforementioned Californian, there were also many lifeboats sent out with empty seats).
Slashdot Mirror
Or did it just fizzle because nobody cared?
No, the prosecutors who made sure the investigation fizzled absolutely cared - they cared that they and their buddies didn't get caught breaking the law.
and snatch-and-grab detention of US citizens without justification or trial is entirely legal
What about just plain killing them? I mean, it's not lining people up in a stadium and shooting them, but it's still a pretty big deal.
And I for one am willing to continue to risk staying in the US, knowing the potential cost. Freedom isn't free.
In my experience on a criminal jury, we went back to the deliberation room, talked it over for an hour or two, all agreed on a clear answer (we had the victim's testimony, and enough other evidence to convict even without the victim's testimony), and walked out with a verdict. Granted, it was an easy case to decide, but the system worked quite well.
The rules for criminal trials in the US are typically: 12-0 you hang, 0-12 you're free, anything else is a mistrial which means you go free for now but the government can try again if they want to. The assumption (popularized in films like Twelve Angry Men) is that if 1 juror has a doubt, it's better to let the suspect go free than wrongly convict somebody.
Again, which of his positions do you find extreme?
Well, here's a couple:
1. Return to a gold standard. The vast majority of economists consider the gold standard to be a really really bad idea, because it leaves the government basically unable to mitigate the effects of economic crises.
2. Eliminating all social insurance programs, including Social Security. Public support for Social Security is somewhere between 65-85% (e.g. Wall Street Journal, AARP, neither exactly Democratic party shills).
In before you claim that Jim Crow was *only* the government's doing. Without the backing of businesses and such, Jim Crow wouldn't have had a snowball's chance in hell of lasting as long as it did.
The government of course was a part of it, but the core of Jim Crow was not government or business but the KKK and those who's sentiments were basically agreeing with the KKK. The laws in question began getting passed in 1876, shortly after the US troops stopped enforcing the Reconstruction-era racial equality in the South. The KKK and its allies started using violence to prevent Republicans (who in that era supported those equality policies and sometimes elected black politicians) from voting, and then once in power passed Jim Crow laws. By 1890 it was perfectly acceptable for white mobs to lynch black people, which would continue into the 1950's.
I'm not always a "blame the people for the government's actions" sort of guy, but there's a lot of evidence that many if not most white southerners in the early 20th century were very very racist. There's also evidence (e.g. this story) that a lot of white people, particularly older and poorer white people, still are quite racist.
More recently, the two countries have had several shooting wars since the 1960s, with some thousands dead on each side, each time, that have been hushed up as neither side gained anything but open slots for promotions.
Hmm, maybe it actually went down like this:
Russian leader: Hey, China, we've got some hot-headed army officers we'd like to get rid of. Do you mind if we send them in with a totally insufficient force to attack you?
Chinese leader: Sure thing - we've got a few we're trying to get rid of too. Send 'em into that patch of worthless land east of Sretensk in 21 days, we'll meet 'em there.
Russian leader: It's a deal! Let us know when your targets are dead, we'll let you know when our targets are dead, and then we'll leave.
Here's what they know: The US (specifically, that well-known liberal peacenik Richard Nixon) signed a treaty in 1972 specifically saying that nobody was allowed to do anti-ballistic missile defense, specifically so that there would always be a MAD scenario if somebody decided to strike. Then George W Bush basically told the Russians to go to hell and that the US was ignoring the treaty. Then they spent a lot of time and money trying to improve their anti-ballistic missile defense. Now Barack Obama is deploying anti-ballistic missile defense right near Russia's border.
Another way of thinking about it: Would you be fine with $EVIL_EMPIRE deploying missile defense in Cuba, Mexico, and Canada?
I get the joke, but the fact that the US is deploying it suggests that they think they have something useful.
I don't think it's stumbling like a blind fool - these military ventures are very much in line with the plans of some evil bastards who think that because the US (with help of some European allies) is capable of completely taking over the world militarily, it has a moral responsibility to do so. Never mind the millions of people that might get killed in the process.
"Are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"I think so, Brain, but how will we get the pantyhose on the goat?"
You missed the joke - SJHillman had accidentally left out a verb, so the word "long" described the person, not the tenure of his/her employment.
The longer people on the payroll
That's an odd way of making the decision - there are very few businesses where how long somebody is has anything to do with their job performance.
Perhaps this is just a way for some universities to rake in more cash to misappropriate later while offering certificates that are not even worth the paper they're printed on.
What certificates do Harvard and MIT issue that aren't worth the paper they're printed on? If you're going to toss around an accusation like that, you'd better have evidence to back it up.
(Full disclosure: I'm one of the few members of my immediate family without a Harvard degree of some sort, but I've seen no evidence of low standards anywhere in the institution other than the president's office.)
We must demand a Constitutional amendment that clearly defines personal privacy ... as an inalienable right.
Hmm, how about this as a starting draft:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated"
That seems pretty clear to me about enforcing personal property. But I'm not sure we could get that one passed these days.
The IPCC report includes references to serious research that explain what they would expect to see happen between now and 2100 if CO2 emissions were dropped to 0 today. The short answer is that things would still be pretty bad, but nowhere near as bad as if we followed what seems to be our current strategy of carefully doing nothing significant.
First of all, the shape of the Earth was never a controversy
... among non-idiots after about 300 BCE. That's precisely my point: Even though modern humans have had every reason imaginable to believe the Earth is an oblate spheroid, and pretty close to complete proof of the idea by about 1550, there are still Flat Earth believers. That's why idiocy and denial are the last refuge of a stupid idea.
Same story with the development of life on Earth. Evolution was widely accepted scientifically by about 1880 or so, but surveys show a solid 30% or so of Americans still believe that life was created by God 6000 years ago.
The problem is that while this may be the last scientific reason to think global climate change isn't happening or won't be a problem, what's really the last bastion is "la la la la I'm not listening! It's all a conspiracy!" And if issues like the the shape of the Earth and evolution are any guide, it may be several centuries before we're done dealing with that one.
Here, I think, is the reason that this one is so difficult to accept for many people: Western society is fundamentally based on the ideas of growth and progress, where society produces more than it used to and by so doing enables scientific discoveries that enable it to produce even more which in turn leads to more scientific discoveries in a nice virtuous circle that has exponentially increased our quality of life. The challenge presented by global climate change (and peak oil and several other related problems) is that growth and progress can't continue exponentially forever. It's no different, really, than a colony of bacteria filling up their petri dish and being unable to expand any further. And what's worse, capitalism, while admirably suited to allowing humanity to produce more useful goods than ever before, is completely ill-equipped to handle situations where further growth or even preventing a catastrophic decline is impossible.
Actually, I can think of some perfectly legitimate reasons for owning 35 assault rifles, like renting them out if you're running a shooting range. Which, if an ATF agent came knocking after you bought 35 assault rifles, would be the sort of explanation (with some evidence) that would probably have the agent saying, "Ok, thank you for your time, just checking up on it".
If you do not work you do not eat.
If people with more expensive property are expected to sell their homes then perhaps people with less expensive property should sell some of their organs?
So am I correct in boiling your argument down to the idea that my right to keep my property is more important than somebody else's right to remain alive? That seems more than a bit callous. If the government is Shylock (who is actually a pretty sympathetic character, upset because Antonio's pal stole his daughter and all his cash), you seem to be Ebenezer Scrooge ("Are there no workhouses?").
Losing one's home sucks. A lot. But it's a very different level of suffering from starving or living on the streets. Maybe you sell your $10M mansion for $3M - the $7M loss sucks, but it's not going to kill you.
In case you haven't heard one of Obama's admins was selling guns to drug dealers in Mexico, and then when those U.S. guns turned-up in southern border states, justified passage of anti-gun laws to limit them.
What onerous anti-gun laws were you referring to, exactly? The only thing I could turn up was that when a gun dealer sells more than 1 assault rifle in a state bordering Mexico, they have to report it (the NRA's take). It's not illegal to sell a bunch of AK-47s to somebody, it's just that in 4 states you have to fill out a form that says "Hey, this guy came into my store and bought a bunch of AK-47s".
Yes, there's a tradeoff: Downside of having to explain to an ATF agent why you just bought 35 assault rifles. Upside of "Hey, this guy is crossing the border here, stopping by each of the gun stores within this 300-square-mile area here here and here, and crossing the border again." Additional upside: "Hey, this guy is collecting a lot of AK-47s, and doesn't have any sort of legal use for those guns, and after further investigation seems to have this idea about starting a revolt against the US government. Maybe we should watch him a bit more closely."
There's obviously a need to strike a balance to achieve high levels of growth. Too high or too low causes problems. These are based off of the size of government by %GDP:
Governments too poor to be effective: Afghanistan (9%), Turkmenistan (9%), Bangladesh (12%), Cambodia (13%)
Private sectors too poor to be dynamic: Iraq (87%), Cuba (81%), Slovakia (66%), Timor (65%)
G8 and permanent members of the UN Security Council: France (61%), Italy (55%), UK (50%), Germany (48%), Canada (48%), Japan (30%), China (22%), Russia (20%), USA (20%)
There's definitely not an strong correlation between size of government and economic growth though. For instance, the UK and Germany are pretty close to the same size of government, but Germany's currently experiencing growth of around 1.5% while the UK is closer to -0.3% and the US is at 2%.
As far as your example of losing your family home, you benefit from local and state services, so you should contribute in some way to the upkeep of your government. If the only way you can do so is to move into a smaller home, well, sorry, but that's the way it is, and if it's any consolation you can live quite comfortably on the $10M you got for it for the rest of your life (That's at least $100K a year for the rest of your life, way more if you invest it smartly). The people who benefit from your sale include the various real estate brokers and banks involved in the sale, the proud new owners benefit from having a lovely $10M mansion, and all your former neighbors who now don't have to pull your weight in paying for schools, police and fire departments.
Another way of explaining the problem:
Imagine a population with 100 people in it. 15 of those people are broke and unemployed. 50 earn about $40K a year but have no assets. 30 people earn about $70K a year and have about $30K in assets. 4 people have $300K in assets and no income. 1 person has $10M in assets and no income. Collectively, the population has to pay a bill of $300,000 that takes care of maintaining the streets in front of everybody's home. How do you divvy up the responsibility fairly?
Well, making the people who are broke and unemployed pay anything is pointless, because they can't no matter how much you try to make them. You could have everybody else chip in about $3500, but that's obviously a much bigger deal for the people who make $40K than the people who make $70K and could be a problem to the people who have $300K in assets and no income. You're demand is that those with incomes cover the people with just assets, but that forces everyone else to pay another $50 per person so the guy with $10M gets to pay nothing, which seems a bit unfair. It's not like there's an easy way to do it, but you can't just say "small government, low taxes" and solve the problem. Even if you find a way to cut the collective bill down to $200,000, there's still a question of how to divy up the bill. If you cut the bill down to $0, then you have the problem of the streets being a wreck, which nobody wants.
This is the kind of online argument I'd expect: ... you're a stinky poopy-face!
A: This is a superior product, because XYZ.
B: But it's inferior because other products have KLM, which is better than XYZ.
A: Whaddaya mean, XYZ rocks, KLM sucks!
B: Your product sucks!
A: Well, yeah
B: I'm not, but yo momma is!
A: B is totally like Hitler!
Politician don't represent the people and they shouldn't
So tell me again why many of them have the job title of "Representative"? They're job is to give the people what they want - that's not "pandering" or "appeasement", that's democratic representation serving their constituents. They may have to balance several demands at once, and argue over how to make their demands a reality, but they are definitely supposed to be focused on doing what the voters want them to do.
How about I when I tell the government that I'd like 100% of my taxes to be spent on a tax credit for me? Of course, I still expect everybody else around me to pay for roads and other government services I use every day, but that's not my problem, right?
The basic problem of government is that everybody wants services, but nobody wants to pay for them. You can see that in California's state government, where Prop 13 prevents the government from raising taxes for any reason, but other ballot issues require the government to provide a litany of services without explaining where the money comes from. People, if given the chance, seem to vote for insolvent government.
Now, I agree the federal government spends a great deal on things I thoroughly disagree with, but that's not going to be solved by your proposal.
Actually, you're oversimplifying agnosticism. There are several forms, of which this is just a subset:
Atheist agnosticism - I don't know for sure that there is no God, but there's no proof of one.
Theist agnosticism - I don't know for sure that there is a God, but I believe there is.
Apathetic agnosticism - There may be a God, but he/she/it doesn't care what we do so it doesn't matter.
Strong agnosticism - There's no way for any human to ever have a definitive answer to whether God exists.
Weak agnosticism - I don't know for sure if there is a God, but maybe sometime in the future we'll be able to tell.
Unless you were lucky and some other ship saw you sink or saw any flares you were able to launch, the odds were that you would die a slow death waiting for help.
Of course, in the case of the Titanic sinking, there was a ship, the Californian, that saw flares launched from the Titanic and from her lifeboats, and in fact the Californian tried to signal the Titanic using Morse lamps. The Titanic wasn't in the middle of nowhere, it was basically in the standard ship route from the UK to the US. So yes, it would have made a big difference to have enough lifeboats for everybody.
What killed many of the passengers was sheer human stupidity (in addition to the aforementioned Californian, there were also many lifeboats sent out with empty seats).