you have also asserted that you consider a nation where marijuana is free, but free speech is punished to be `more free'...
Not at all, I said that imprisonment for soft and prescription drug possession instead of treatment is more of a limitation on freedom than civil restrictions on speech. Now you are being dishonest.
Dean... has said he will use government agencies like the FCC to go after television networks he disagrees with?
So, if the judgement was unanimous, then why didn't Bush and Powell, who indicated that there weren't any Iraqi WMDs, know about the supposed intelligence?
The thing about classified intelligence is that you can refer to it without having to produce it, no?
Neocon, you can not accuse me of claiming that you do not "honestly" disagree with me on the issues, because I have never claimed that you were being dishonest, even when you were wrong. I've merly asserted that you have been misled.
I'm willing to join you in winding this thread to a close, in no small part because I'm sure anyone reading it in the future has enough to decide for themselves which of us has the truth on their side. I just want to point out four issues:
In terms of freedom, apart from the issue of drugs, we have four times more people in prison today than in 1980. Is the crime rate and standard of living sufficiently better than it was in 1980 for you to claim with a straight face that the country has not become significantly less free? If not, just how exactly are you defining freedom?
Note that I'm not blaming right-wingers for exploding the size of the prison population, but rather the powerful influence of the prison guards' labor unions. I wonder whether that position suprises you any more than my opposition to property taxes.
Justice Department is allegedly considering a lawsuit against three Florida counties for unspecified voting problems -- and yet these lawsuits never materialized
On the contrary, the lawsuits were filed, based on many of the Commission on Civil Rights findings resulting in the statistic I quoted, although they have not yet filed charges related to the DBT purge of voter rolls based on the names of felons, which are still being investigated.
To answer your question about elections, yes, I think the spoiler effect is a much larger source of electorial inaccuracy than giving diverse parties representation proportional to their supporters, which is clearly more democratic than perminatly excluding them, no matter whether they are on the fringe or not. Especially since it is so easy to eliminate the spoiler effect, which not only cost G.H.W. Bush the presidency due to Ross Perot, and cost Gore Florida due to Nader, but also cost Bush four states due to Buchannon in 2000: New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon.
On the issue of poverty, again, you are comparing salaries in Sweden to the cost of living in the U.S. I would be happy to discuss the issue in terms of child poverty as indicated by the experience of hunger, whether you care to use the USDA or the UNICEF definition of the term.
Interesting theory, but what kind of new intelligence could have been gathered between February 2001, when Powell flatly asserts that Iraq has no WMDs, or August 2001, when Bush indicates his lack of knowledge of Iraqi WMDs, and August 2002, when Dick Cheney said to the VFW national convention,
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
And, if there was new intelligence during that period, why haven't the administration said so? Even Joseph Wilson's report on the hoax Nigerian yellowcake memo predates Powell's quote.
They also haven't found evidence of WMD yet. That doesn't mean they won't.
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.
11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."
22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."
24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."
They are real, but not the whole story. Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.
11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."
22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."
24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.
11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."
22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."
24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."
2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.
11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."
22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."
24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."
Unless those WMD are found, the war was not a good thing for Bush. I think that, given all the alternative possibilities, the possibility that "Bush lied" is the least likely.
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.
11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."
22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."
24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."
Make no mistake, everyone - not just the U.S. and the U.K., but everyone - Russia, Germany, France... we all know they HAD weapons of mass destruction
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.
11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."
22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."
24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."
i don't like how Bush justified it (WMDs that have yet to surface).
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed they existed? To wit:
2 December 1999 -- During a debate in New Hampshire, George W Bush declares: "If I found in any way, shape or form that he was developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take 'em out." Asked if that meant he would overthrow Saddam, Bush said he was only talking about the weapons.
11 February 2000 -- Stumping in South Carolina, George W Bush declares: "If we catch them developing weapons of mass destruction, there won't be any weapons of mass destruction left in Iraq -- if I'm the Commander-in-Chief."
11 October 2000 -- During a debate at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, George W Bush declares: "We don't know whether he's developing weapons of mass destruction. He better not be, or there's going to be a consequence -- should I be the President."
22 February 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "The Secretary of State is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein: we won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction, and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone."
24 February 2001 -- In Cairo, Secretary of State Colin Powell declares: "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."
17 May 2001 -- State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declares: "The focus is on strengthening controls to prevent Iraq from rebuilding military capability in weapons of mass destruction, while facilitating a broader flow of goods to the civilian population of Iraq."
7 August 2001 -- George W Bush declares: "He needs to open his country up for inspection, so we can see whether or not he's developing weapons of mass destruction."
I was taking exception to you bouncing email because of how it's encoded.
I will give your opinions about how I should respond to my own email all the consideration that they deserve.
I was taking exception to you complaining about Microsoft not using published standards, when that encoding method (regardless of how inanely it is used) IS a published standard.
On the contrary, RFC 1341 states:
7.1.2 The Text/plain subtype
The primary subtype of text is "plain". This indicates plain (unformatted) text. The default Content-Type for Internet mail, "text/plain; charset=us-ascii", describes existing Internet practice, that is, it is the type of body defined by RFC 822.
RFC 822 in turn says:
Messages consist of lines of text.... The body is simply a sequence of lines containing ASCII charac- ters. It is separated from the headers by a null line (i.e., a line with nothing preceding the CRLF).
Encoding text/plain in base64 is clearly against the spirit and the letter of the MIME standards. What could possibly be the point of it? Why do you defend such idiocy as if there might be some reason for it? Do you work for a storage manufacturer or bandwidth provider and want to keep getting rich off the 25% waste of space?
Fair enough, except you still haven't indicated whether you consider abortion a more important issue than poverty, as far as I can tell. I would like to know, and if you don't want to tell me, I'd like to know why not, please.
Also, we haven't been anywhere near foreign policy, but if you're interested, this video (RealPlayer) has a wide-ranging debate between Richard Perle, another neoconservative, a journalist, and Josh Marshall, with whom I tend to agree. I'm not trying to argue any of the points made, it just seems to me that the were made well by both sides in the debate.
1. What percentage of their income do you think the rich spend on `vacations'?
I have no idea, but I am absolutly sure that the money exiting the economy due to luxury vacations can not possibly be anything less than orders of magnitude more than money leaving the economy through wellfare, if any does at all.
2. Do you think the word ``only'' (admittedly mistaken in haste) makes a difference in the quote? I.e. do you think that ``Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.'' also means ``Render unto Caesar the things which are not Caesar's''? ``Compel others by force to Render unto Caesar the things which are not Caesar's''?
Yes, I think it makes a difference. With "only" it implies not to ever pay any more than possible, as if paying taxes is distasteful. Without "only" it's simply a commandment to pay tax in addition to paing tithe, as if they are both important if not equally important. Do you see that?
3. Do you really believe that the following describes an act of non-violence:
After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brethren, and his disciples: and they continued there not many days. And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
Violence means a lot of things. A sound can be called violent if it startles like the crack of a bullwhip. My belief is that the violence forbidden by Christianity is that which does perminant damage to people, and harm to property clearly isn't forbidden. And of course it's in a relative sense. If I see my daughter about to be run over by a car, and my only choice is to pull her so hard that I could dislocate her shoulder, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment.
Most Quakers believe, as far as I know, that violence to property is not only allowed by scripture, but that it is occasionally important to make a point, because of the verses you quoted. This is why occasionally you'll read about Quakers taking hammers or cow blood to missle silos or F-15s. (I do not condone that kind of thing, by the way, unless the demonstration gets so much press that the example ends up actually doing more good than the harm of imprisoning good people, and I'm not sure if that's ever really happened in my lifetime.)
4. Do you believe that the admonition to turn the other cheek includes an admonition not to use your strength to prevent it when others are being slaughtered?
Yes and no. I don't believe in war, not even under the "just war" theory asdefined by the Vatican. I do believe in the use of physical restraint and imprisonment under certain circumstances, but certainly not for the possession of marijuana or doctor-shopped oxycontin.
5. Do you believe that Christ accepted suicide, and would have considered allowing someone to cut your throat to be acceptable, in the name of ``turning the other cheek''? If so, why did Christ evade the authorities until betrayed by Judas Iscariot?
No, I don't think you should allow your life to be taken if you can do something to prevent it, as long as that something doesn't involve killing someone else. Breaking their leg with a.357 slug, why not? It's a similar choice to dislocating a shoulder
If it is really your assertion that those over history who have disagreed with you have done so, not by disagreeing with you on the meaning of Christ's statements, but by taking other portions of the Bible `over' Christ's words or by not understanding what they were reading, then you hold your belief on much shakier grounds than you think you do.
In what way? I believe Jesus is God, while his apostles, along with Paul, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, Reinhold Niebuhr, and C. S. Lewis, were not God but were merely men, who were certainly influenced by the world around them at the time of their writings, and who may or may not have been guided by the Holy Spirit when they wrote any particular words, epistle, or book, no matter how many times their pages have been put in the same binding as the words of Jesus. So I believe the only way to interpret those men's words is to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit through prayer, while the words of Jesus should be taken at face value. Do your beliefs differ?
You either believe that the rich are rich at the expense of the poor... or you don't.
On the contrary, nothing keeps anyone from beliving as I do that the rich (particularly in the U.S.) are rich partly at the expense of the poor (i.e., look at the percentage of income paid as regressive sales taxes) and partly because of the economic growth and vitality that you seek, regardless of whether it is accompanied by job creation. Not everything is black or white. There is often a middle ground, often that has not yet been considered.
private property existed throughout... socialist (their word!) regimes -- what made these systems socialist was government control of employment -- i.e. a 100% income tax coupled with welfare in place of salary. And this, of course, differs only in degree from the amount of Socialism which you are willing to accept
Fair enough; on that we agree. The 100% property tax is a one-time event at the time communism is imposed, and from then on you are correct.
a flat tax on income is, by definition, neither regressive (taking a higher percent of the poor's income)
Correct. A flat tax on property, to which I had been referring, is almost always regressive, though that technically depends on the income/wealth distribution of the population involved. A flat tax on sales, as is becoming increasingly popular in the U.S. and Europe (with their VAT) is always regressive.
As a side note, I'm fascinated by your opposition to property tax (if I'm reading you right), as I largely share it.
I'm sorry to say that few progressives in the U.S. are consistent enough to argee with me, apparently because property tax is so fundamental to school financing here.
To say, for example, that ``one person's brainwashing is another person's enlightenment.' is simply false -- the two words describe different and unmistakeable things.
It's a matter of perspective, isn't it? To pick on people as far as possible from us to try to attain objectivity, a Shintoist could say that his Buddist neighbor is brainwashed by what the Buddist refers to as enlightenment, and at the same time that Budist can say the same of the Shintoist. I'm very grateful to the extent that you have been so willing and able to evaluate the denotation of the words I've used even when my emotion has interfered with selecting words with decent connotation. I try to proofread for good style, but often fal short of that.
Neocon, your points on England, the Netherlands, and Denmark, compare civil penalties, restrictions, and impositions to criminal imprisonment. I agree that prior restraint, restrictions and impositions on the practice of journalism, and warrantless searches are bad, but who thinks that they are anywhere near as bad as the U.S. pandering to powerful prison guard unions resulting in mandatory minimum sentencing fiascos?
Nearly one in four persons (23.7%) imprisoned in the United States is currently imprisoned for a drug offense. The number of persons behind bars for drug offenses (458,131) is roughly the same as the entire prison and jail population in 1980 (474,368).
From a utilitarian perspective, this situation is pointless because as far as I can tell, both prescription and illicit drugs are as available now as they were in 1980. And crime rates in general are within 20% of 1980 levels -- but we have four times as many people in prison! Does that trend lead you to believe that we are becoming more or less free?
For what reason do you suggest that prior restraint and the Official Secrets Act make people less free than mandatory minimum drug sentences? You can compare the two by simply determining whether the other nations in question have a greater proportion of people in prison for violations of the laws you cite. There is no greater loss of freedom experienced in the industrialized world than to be put in prison, save for execution (which, of those countries, is only practiced in the U.S., by the way.) To compare imprisonment to restrictions on freedom of speech resulting in civil penalties, or even warrantless searches, is simply absurd. I'll agree that we are more free in some ways, but nowhere near the most free overall.
DEMOCRACY:
``disqualification of voters'': this accusation... is nothing more than FUD -- extensive investigations by a number of groups have failed to turn up any significant number of people who were disqualified from voting who were not, in fact felons.
Estimates indicate that approximately 14.4 percent of Florida's black voters cast ballots that were rejected. This compares with approximately 1.6 percent of nonblack Florida voters who did not have their presidential votes counted.
of the nations you name, only one, Australia, uses anything resembling preferential voting of any sort, as you can verify at the Center for Voting and Democracy. Other than them, only Ireland, Malta, and Nauru, in all the world, use any form of such voting. Secondly, this system does not, as you seem to think, necessarily result in a `more democratic' outcome.
While you are technically correct about Austrailia, the systems in use in Canada and Brazil, and parts of England, e.g., the metropolitan London area, and France, also serve to eliminate the spoiler effect. Without the spoiler effect, Ross Perot would not have kept G.H.W. Bush from being re-elected, so this cuts both ways. Any nation incompetent enough to eliminate the spoiler effect, so easily done, is centuries behind in democracy.
Are you using an early version of pine or something?
I index my mail text so I can search it by full text going back many years at once.
Why should I have to base64-decode text? I can do it, but why should I? Why is there ever any reason to base64-encode text/plain or text/html? (For that matter, why is there any reason to send text/html... but I digress.)
f we went back in time, and made all MS products ultra-secure, but removde the ability to automate anything, most businesses using MS software would not be as productive as they are
That can't be right, because most businesses don't use automation features. The only scripting I've seen in more than one company in my long consulting career is VBScript in Excel.
Why automation is considered more important than security is one thing, but why do people feel the need to defend that wierd choice of values? Do people who grow up on this stuff and never learn software tools (unix) methedologies really think WSH is an interesting technology?
Interoperation is something Microsoft fundamentally doesn't get.
Instead of interoperating with published standards, they try to interoperate with Microsoft legacy methodologies (e.g., everything must bee visual basic scriptable.) This is a terrible source of security worm-holes.
I wish they would reorganize their visual basic scripting fanatics to Antarctica.
I make it a point to return any base64-encoded text/plain email to the Outlook-using idiot who sent it, explaining that Outlook is obscuring their email text, along with a list of reasons to switch to another email client and instructions for doing so.
[in re:] 'I support socialism, but not communism'... I see zero difference
You keep writing as if that's what you really mean, but I'm having trouble believing it.
Again, communism is a 100% property tax, regressive both because it is a property tax and because it is a flat tax. Communism is a terrible system, which is completely incompatible with capitalism. Socialism, on the other hand, can be progressive or regressive as a matter of degree, and is by demonstration fully compatible with capitalism. These facts seem so plain to me that I can't imagine what you must mean when you say the word socialism.
I look forward to your answers to the pertinent questions in response to my recent other post.
Slashdot Mirror
Not at all, I said that imprisonment for soft and prescription drug possession instead of treatment is more of a limitation on freedom than civil restrictions on speech. Now you are being dishonest.
Ah, ha! You read the doctored transcript, didn't you?
The thing about classified intelligence is that you can refer to it without having to produce it, no?
I'm willing to join you in winding this thread to a close, in no small part because I'm sure anyone reading it in the future has enough to decide for themselves which of us has the truth on their side. I just want to point out four issues:
In terms of freedom, apart from the issue of drugs, we have four times more people in prison today than in 1980. Is the crime rate and standard of living sufficiently better than it was in 1980 for you to claim with a straight face that the country has not become significantly less free? If not, just how exactly are you defining freedom?
Note that I'm not blaming right-wingers for exploding the size of the prison population, but rather the powerful influence of the prison guards' labor unions. I wonder whether that position suprises you any more than my opposition to property taxes.
On the contrary, the lawsuits were filed, based on many of the Commission on Civil Rights findings resulting in the statistic I quoted, although they have not yet filed charges related to the DBT purge of voter rolls based on the names of felons, which are still being investigated.
To answer your question about elections, yes, I think the spoiler effect is a much larger source of electorial inaccuracy than giving diverse parties representation proportional to their supporters, which is clearly more democratic than perminatly excluding them, no matter whether they are on the fringe or not. Especially since it is so easy to eliminate the spoiler effect, which not only cost G.H.W. Bush the presidency due to Ross Perot, and cost Gore Florida due to Nader, but also cost Bush four states due to Buchannon in 2000: New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin and Oregon.
On the issue of poverty, again, you are comparing salaries in Sweden to the cost of living in the U.S. I would be happy to discuss the issue in terms of child poverty as indicated by the experience of hunger, whether you care to use the USDA or the UNICEF definition of the term.
Interesting theory, but what kind of new intelligence could have been gathered between February 2001, when Powell flatly asserts that Iraq has no WMDs, or August 2001, when Bush indicates his lack of knowledge of Iraqi WMDs, and August 2002, when Dick Cheney said to the VFW national convention, "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."
And, if there was new intelligence during that period, why haven't the administration said so? Even Joseph Wilson's report on the hoax Nigerian yellowcake memo predates Powell's quote.
If you really want to know the truth, just ask Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz:
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
They are real, but not the whole story. Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
So much for that idea.
Apparently you don't have to be dead to be a martyr these days, if the CIA is willing to hummiliate you on TV. Oops.
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
So much for that idea.
Apparently, you don't have to be dead to be a martyr these days, not with the CIA humiliating you on TV.
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed Iraqi WMDs existed?
Are you aware that before 9/11, nobody in the Bush administration even claimed they existed? To wit:
I will give your opinions about how I should respond to my own email all the consideration that they deserve.
On the contrary, RFC 1341 states:
RFC 822 in turn says:
Encoding text/plain in base64 is clearly against the spirit and the letter of the MIME standards. What could possibly be the point of it? Why do you defend such idiocy as if there might be some reason for it? Do you work for a storage manufacturer or bandwidth provider and want to keep getting rich off the 25% waste of space?
Also, we haven't been anywhere near foreign policy, but if you're interested, this video (RealPlayer) has a wide-ranging debate between Richard Perle, another neoconservative, a journalist, and Josh Marshall, with whom I tend to agree. I'm not trying to argue any of the points made, it just seems to me that the were made well by both sides in the debate.
I have no idea, but I am absolutly sure that the money exiting the economy due to luxury vacations can not possibly be anything less than orders of magnitude more than money leaving the economy through wellfare, if any does at all.
Yes, I think it makes a difference. With "only" it implies not to ever pay any more than possible, as if paying taxes is distasteful. Without "only" it's simply a commandment to pay tax in addition to paing tithe, as if they are both important if not equally important. Do you see that?
Violence means a lot of things. A sound can be called violent if it startles like the crack of a bullwhip. My belief is that the violence forbidden by Christianity is that which does perminant damage to people, and harm to property clearly isn't forbidden. And of course it's in a relative sense. If I see my daughter about to be run over by a car, and my only choice is to pull her so hard that I could dislocate her shoulder, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment.
Most Quakers believe, as far as I know, that violence to property is not only allowed by scripture, but that it is occasionally important to make a point, because of the verses you quoted. This is why occasionally you'll read about Quakers taking hammers or cow blood to missle silos or F-15s. (I do not condone that kind of thing, by the way, unless the demonstration gets so much press that the example ends up actually doing more good than the harm of imprisoning good people, and I'm not sure if that's ever really happened in my lifetime.)
Yes and no. I don't believe in war, not even under the "just war" theory asdefined by the Vatican. I do believe in the use of physical restraint and imprisonment under certain circumstances, but certainly not for the possession of marijuana or doctor-shopped oxycontin.
No, I don't think you should allow your life to be taken if you can do something to prevent it, as long as that something doesn't involve killing someone else. Breaking their leg with a .357 slug, why not? It's a similar choice to dislocating a shoulder
In what way? I believe Jesus is God, while his apostles, along with Paul, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, St. Athanasius, St. John Chrysostom, Reinhold Niebuhr, and C. S. Lewis, were not God but were merely men, who were certainly influenced by the world around them at the time of their writings, and who may or may not have been guided by the Holy Spirit when they wrote any particular words, epistle, or book, no matter how many times their pages have been put in the same binding as the words of Jesus. So I believe the only way to interpret those men's words is to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit through prayer, while the words of Jesus should be taken at face value. Do your beliefs differ?
On the contrary, nothing keeps anyone from beliving as I do that the rich (particularly in the U.S.) are rich partly at the expense of the poor (i.e., look at the percentage of income paid as regressive sales taxes) and partly because of the economic growth and vitality that you seek, regardless of whether it is accompanied by job creation. Not everything is black or white. There is often a middle ground, often that has not yet been considered.
Fair enough; on that we agree. The 100% property tax is a one-time event at the time communism is imposed, and from then on you are correct.
Neocon, your points on England, the Netherlands, and Denmark, compare civil penalties, restrictions, and impositions to criminal imprisonment. I agree that prior restraint, restrictions and impositions on the practice of journalism, and warrantless searches are bad, but who thinks that they are anywhere near as bad as the U.S. pandering to powerful prison guard unions resulting in mandatory minimum sentencing fiascos?
From the July 2000 report, Poor Prescription: The Costs of Imprisoning Drug Offenders in the United States:
From a utilitarian perspective, this situation is pointless because as far as I can tell, both prescription and illicit drugs are as available now as they were in 1980. And crime rates in general are within 20% of 1980 levels -- but we have four times as many people in prison! Does that trend lead you to believe that we are becoming more or less free?
For what reason do you suggest that prior restraint and the Official Secrets Act make people less free than mandatory minimum drug sentences? You can compare the two by simply determining whether the other nations in question have a greater proportion of people in prison for violations of the laws you cite. There is no greater loss of freedom experienced in the industrialized world than to be put in prison, save for execution (which, of those countries, is only practiced in the U.S., by the way.) To compare imprisonment to restrictions on freedom of speech resulting in civil penalties, or even warrantless searches, is simply absurd. I'll agree that we are more free in some ways, but nowhere near the most free overall.
DEMOCRACY:
Not according to:
While you are technically correct about Austrailia, the systems in use in Canada and Brazil, and parts of England, e.g., the metropolitan London area, and France, also serve to eliminate the spoiler effect. Without the spoiler effect, Ross Perot would not have kept G.H.W. Bush from being re-elected, so this cuts both ways. Any nation incompetent enough to eliminate the spoiler effect, so easily done, is centuries behind in democracy.
POVERTY:
Exactly.
I index my mail text so I can search it by full text going back many years at once.
Why should I have to base64-decode text? I can do it, but why should I? Why is there ever any reason to base64-encode text/plain or text/html? (For that matter, why is there any reason to send text/html... but I digress.)
That can't be right, because most businesses don't use automation features. The only scripting I've seen in more than one company in my long consulting career is VBScript in Excel.
Yeah, it's also called Melissa and several other names.
Why automation is considered more important than security is one thing, but why do people feel the need to defend that wierd choice of values? Do people who grow up on this stuff and never learn software tools (unix) methedologies really think WSH is an interesting technology?
Interoperation is something Microsoft fundamentally doesn't get.
Instead of interoperating with published standards, they try to interoperate with Microsoft legacy methodologies (e.g., everything must bee visual basic scriptable.) This is a terrible source of security worm-holes. I wish they would reorganize their visual basic scripting fanatics to Antarctica.
I make it a point to return any base64-encoded text/plain email to the Outlook-using idiot who sent it, explaining that Outlook is obscuring their email text, along with a list of reasons to switch to another email client and instructions for doing so.
sadly, fuel cells do not glow unless they have just out-flamed for a considerable length of time.
You keep writing as if that's what you really mean, but I'm having trouble believing it.
Again, communism is a 100% property tax, regressive both because it is a property tax and because it is a flat tax. Communism is a terrible system, which is completely incompatible with capitalism. Socialism, on the other hand, can be progressive or regressive as a matter of degree, and is by demonstration fully compatible with capitalism. These facts seem so plain to me that I can't imagine what you must mean when you say the word socialism.
I look forward to your answers to the pertinent questions in response to my recent other post.