I would be labeled as a depressed potential murderer and have a police record. I like that. Even though I had 0 intention of actually acting it out, my life would be ruined, because of your logic. Not only am I not depressive, I have 0 intention on ever murdering anyone, or have I ever.
First, you don't get a police record for being a "depressed potential murderer". Though you may get something worse than that - you may be councelled within an inch of your life (sometimes I think the one would be worse, sometimes the other).
Second, it is, of course, intuitively obvious that you never had such an intention, correct?
Proving you were going to commit such a crime is, of course, a matter for the justice system. Watching for danger signs of a crime is a responsibility for all of us - or do you believe that if you see four masked & armed men getting out of a van and walking into a bank that you should just continue about your daily affairs as if nothing were happening. After all, they could be actors doing a bank-robbery drill for the bank's security people, so no reason to think a crime were being contemplated, right?
Slashing and stabbing weapons are used in 32% of lethal incidents here. Knifes do require a lot more skill than firearms: victims of stabbings usually survive.
In 1997, here were 39400 firearms injuries from assaults (treated in hospitals) in the USA, and only 13300 firearms homicides. Looks like most victims of gunshot survive too....
With all due respect, the idiot is you. Just like Rove wanted, you voted for Bush because you feared Gore and Kerry, you are a good Republican voter. More than willing to accept negative advertising, as your final source. I liked both Gore and Kerry, not as much as other candidates, but what could I do Iowa spoke (why we allow them to have first pick on our president I do not know), but far more than Bush. Besides I find it funny that you seem to think Bush gives a good speech. (Mr. Stumbles himself, WaaaHaHaHaHaHa)
You're funny. I didn't say Bush gave a good speech. I said Kerry and Gore gave bad ones. They did. You seem to have paid no attention to the "vote against" comment of mine. I didn't vote FOR Bush, I voted AGAINST Gore and Kerry. And largely on the basis of their speeches. Of course, the content of their speeches had a lot to do with it, for me.
One must remember that elections are popularty contests. And that noone wins by swaying the other guy's voters - you win by convincing your own voters to get out and vote. Neither Kerry nor Gore managed to do so. Bush did so. Bush got elected. Twice. Once with a majority. As a counter-example, Clinton didn't get a majority either time. If Kerry or Gore could have given a decent speech, they would have gotten people excited enough about it to get out and vote. Alas, all they could manage is the same mantra you use "Bush/Rove is teh debhil!1!!!". Which, like it or not, isn't a winning combination.
Note that, historically, playing the ""other side" is teh debhil!!1!" hasn't EVER worked (note that the Republicans tried that with Clinton - failed both times). You can call the other candidate the anti-Christ if you want to, but unless you are FOR something in addition, you won't win.
Sorry, but Clinton ended his term 6 freaking years ago, please, let it go, I know, it's hard not to blame him for everything.
Clinton is the most recent example. I can pull out more for other Presidents, but it's seldom worth the bother, since most people don't remember President's promises more than three weeks after the election anyway.
I know that you have been programed, by the neo-conservative radio hosts to make vague "moral questions" and "talk about failed promises" about that darn Clinton guy, but for the sake of accuracy please list them rather than doing the 'you know what he did'.
Talk Radio? Stopped listening to it in the Clinton Years. Along about '94-'95, I decided that Limbaugh had jumped the shark when he predicted that the Left would begin to demonize the SUV, and stopped listening to any Talk Radio.
Clinton's big promises:
Gays in the Military. Alas, Clinton didn't remember Truman. Truman decided that the military needed to be integrated, and ordered it done. And it was done. Clinton could have done the same thing, but instead he waffled onto "don't ask, don't tell" - which offended both the Left and the Right, and accomplished zilch. By, the by, I'm utterly indifferent to the question of gays in the Military, knowing as I do that they've always been there, and serve about as well as any other (some good, some bad, mostly indifferent).
Middle Class Tax Cut. Surely you remember that one? Clinton promised one in all his speeches. Then came the election. six weeks later (before he even took office), he announced that he'd been mistaken, that we couldn't afford a middle class tax cut, and the issue was forgotten. Since the budget is a matter of public record, and tax revenues the same, it's pretty clear he knew when he was promising the tax cut that he wasn't going to be giving one - either that, or he was too stupid to look up the numbers and got blindsided (Clinton was many things, both good and bad - but stupid wasn't one of them).
And the Socialized Health Care. He gave that one the old college try. When the Dems in the Senate said "No", he backed off. But I'll give him credit for trying. No opinions on whether socialized health care is a good thing - some
Ok so perhaps you aren't a single issue voter, but if Nuclear power was one of the reasons why you voted for Bush,
It wasn't. I voted for Bush because Gore was an idiot. And I voted for him again because Kerry was an idiot. If either of those men could have given a decent speech, they'd have won. As is, neither can give a decent speech to save their lives.
Note that, inn general, I do not vote FOR anyone. I vote AGAINST people.
Again they made lots of promises that their voters never hold them up to.
Would that be like Clinton's promises? Do you remember the three big ones he made in his first campaign? He didn't keep any of them. Didn't even seriously TRY to keep but one of them, and didn't push that one when his own Party told him "no"....
The real reason why is the very heavy 'NIBY' effect of nuclear power, I dare you to put a sign up in your yard which say "Please place nuclear power plant within sight of this house" (a cooling tower can been seen for dozens of miles), or better yet, get the good people in the red-state of Nevada [ananuclear.org] to allow Yucca Mt [yuccamountain.org] to come online. However perhaps you could imagine if your county was the nations radioactive landfill, I'd bet your property value would plummet. Would you like it if nuclear waste trucks shared the same highway you take to work every day. Frankly I'd like to see more nuclear power, but what to do with the waste?
I've lived in a major metropolitan area with a nuclear reactor. And the usual anti-nuke loons would protest against nuclear power regularly. Interestingly, they didn't protest at the nuclear reactor because noone told them it was there - I remember baiting some of them once by pointing it out to them....
My house now is within 20 miles of several nuclear reactors. Doesn't bother me a bit.
Trucks full of nuclear waste? No problems. Most nuclear wastes are VERY low-level waste - the kind that might fog an x-ray, if it was left near them for a month or two. High-level radioactive wastes tend to stay high-level for a few days to a few weeks, depending on just where you draw the line between high-level and low-level. The stuff being shipped (if it were legal to do so) is generally so low-level that you'd have a hard time telling it from non-radioactive unless you were told.
However, in general, what to do with the waste? Reprocess it, for starters. All that plutonium is valuable, as are several other fission byproducts. Take the rest of it, and embed it in glass bricks, and stack the bricks somewhere in the desert. Done. It's not like the jabber about 250,000 YEARS!!! is meaningful, really. That's to make the 99.9% of the plutonium stop being radioactive, but if you remove the Pu in advance (reprocessing, remember?), that issue is removed. Instead, we'd be mostly limited by the small amount of Co-60 (which should also be removed, since it has medical uses) - half life of 5 or 6 years, as I recall from way back when I studied such things. So store it for 50 years (which we've already done for most of it, so we surely can do it again), and it'll be reduced to being pretty much harmless.
The real irony is that according to you the French have done it right, they force people to accept many nuclear power plants, and they reprocess spent fuel, which is a good idea generally, except if you don't like fissionable material being produced/held at dozens (perhaps hundreds) of sites around your country.
The French have done that right. If we'd done what the French did back in the 60's, we'd not have these problems now. The French have other issues, of course. But their energy policies have never been one of them.
As far as energy goes I am most hopeful about Ethanol, as it fits right in our gas tanks which we have now. If we had only put 1% of the money which we have dumped into Iraq on Ethanol, gas would now be $2/ gallon.
Don't kid yourself. Gasoline isn't quite at record prices right now (ad
Oh, but this is the "Permanent Republican Majority", right? AKA, the Thousand Year Right? Therefore there will never again be a non-Republican president, and therefore we can trust them all.
If most of the Left thinks the way you do, the Right is prolly right. Face it, the Democrats need to get together on some idea other than "Bush is teh debhil!!!!". Because if they don't they won't see much of the White House for a long time to come.
Have you ever bothered to keep up on Democratic Presidents since WW2? Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman. Of those, Clinton was elected twice. Truman served two terms as President, even though he was elected only once.
Republican Presidents, same period - Eisonhower, Nixon, (Ford), Reagan, Bush, Bush. Ford is questionable - the only US President never elected to either the Presidency or vice Presidency. Of the others, only one (Bush the Elder) failed of reelection.
See the pattern here? The Democrats have traditionally been very popular in Congress (though much of that popularity has been due to the Old South voting solidly Democrat since the Civil War - they were annoyed that the Republicans had freed the slaves - which Party loyalty has been fading in recent decades), but really haven't done so well in the White House. Their really bright period was pre-Civil war, when there was no real opposition (the Federalists imploded after Adams, and the Whigs never were a serious contender).
Alas, the Democrats have been trying their best to marginalize themselves for decades. The "working man" would be solidly Democratic, if only the Dems would stop embracing every lunatic fringe on the left (most "working men" are pretty conservative, except for their positions on the whole management-labor argument). Many religious types would be solidly Democratic as well, but for the same embracing of every lunatic fringe - most religious people are more comfortable with socialism than you might think from looking at current politics.
Frankly, if the Democrats were to dump their "loony left", then they'd solidly dominate American politics (if the Republicans would dump their "loony right", they'd get little real benefit - the Left won't shift Republican if the Republicans move more centrist).
I'm not arguing that it is or it isn't, but you sure are ready for the fight. Seeing that, I'd bet dollars to donuts that your vote hinges on this particular issue. You sir are (almost certainly) a single issue voter.
I'm willing to bet you are too. Just no candidate has come out for abolishing your "single issue". Or do you really think you'd vote for a candidate who favoured every position you have EXCEPT the First Amendment?
Face it - everyone is a Single Issue voter. We all have things we will NOT give up, for any price. For the most part, our politicians haven't tried to take these things away, or have failed miserably when they tried. Gun Rights is the most noticable single issue only because the political wing in favour of removing the Right doesn't seem to want to give up, no matter how many times they're told "NO!".
However, I say that even in the enviroment Rebpulican 'single issue' voters win the numbers game. For every person who gets charged up enough to protect the spotted owl, there are twenty loggers who need the work.
A Logger who needs work isn't an Environmental single issue voter. You'd be amazed, I expect, at how few people re in favour of destroying the environment. The argument is all over the fringes - do we protect this one lizard at the price of 100,000 acres of (semi) useful land? That sort of thing.
So then like, we're living in a utopia.
No, I live in Louisiana...
Personally I wouldn't call the environment 'well-protected'
Pretty much proves that you're too young to remember what it was like back in the 60's. Trust me, compared to then, this is an earthly paradise. Yah, there's room for improvement. And if the anti-nuke hysterics can ever calmm down enough to allow construction of a large number of identical (as the Navy found out a long time ago, much easier to deal with one or two designs than with 50 or 60) nuclear plants, we might be able to move a bit further along the road toward a cleaner environment. But right now, it's cleaner than it has been since before the Revolution (trust me - a City full of horses is NOT environmentally friendly, even if there are no cars)....
Anecdotal, I have found that when I have conversations about abortion with pro-life folks, they coincide nothing, and insist that their candidate support criminalizing (or at least restricting) abortions, while pro-choice people tend to think of it as part of the package (granted an important part). My best guess is for them it's legalized murder, while pro-choice see it as part of the personal privacy issue.
Quite so. The question about abortion is, and has always been, when does human life begin? Pro-life types tend to think either (a) at conception (and therefore abortion is murder), or (b) unknown (and therefore better to err on the side of caution). Pro-choice types tend to think it is irrelevant - the baby/fetus/growth doesn't matter to anyone but the mother.
Frankly, I find the pro-choice position offensive, even though I personally have no problems with abortion. Historically, dealing with unwanted children has been an issue for every society, and abortion is as effective as any way of doing so (not very). The attitude, however, that if a woman gets pregnant she it she only voice that matters is ludicrous - it's just barely possible her partner might want some input into the fate of his child-to-be.
Also in nearly conversation I've seen, a NRA guy will insist that they need guns to protect themselves from the government, a gun-control guy will see it as part of a larger issue of fighting crime (perhaps an important part). I see the real irony here is the same party which support 'a gun in every home'*, seems to be intent on giving you a real need for the guns. [Perhaps it's the gun manufactures trying to build up sales! ]
Oh? And when has gun control ever reduced crime? Check the evidence - it is, at best, inconclusive. Speaking strictly of the USA (other countries have different cultures, and different results - Switzerland has many guns, little gun crime, England has few guns, little gun crime, as examples), there is no evidence yet that restricting access to firearms has ever successfully reduced crime. After all, it's been illegal for felons to own firearms for more than a century, and yet there are still repeat offenders.
On the other hand, Iraq (among many other cases) provides an excellent example of the value of firearms in civilian hands - there would be no meaningful Insurrection without armed civilians.
Note also that while gun control laws have proliferated into the thousands in this century, crime rates have not been appreciably affected - even the CDC, when set the task of analyzing the effectiveness of gun control by a pro-gun-control administration, managed only to say that there was little evidence that gun ownership INCREASED crime. They couldn't come up with any indication that restricting gun ownership had any measurable effect at all.
And yes there are a number of Democrats who support gun rights, they have to.
Why do you think they "have to"? Is it not possible within your worldview to believe that some Democrats believe that gun control is wrong? I should point out that the rural South is still full of people who think of themselves as Democrats, and who are pro-gun. Note that many of these Democrats vote Republican more often than not at the national level, in spite of being registered Democrats.
Which would (I believe) indicate a higher 'tolerance' of gun control voters for candidates with the 'wrong' position.
No, I don't think so. It indicates that the politicians know a losing position, and won't take one if they can help it. Gun control single issue voters are actually quite small in number. Just check the membership of the prominent pro-gun-control organizations as compared to the NRA. But the pro-gun-control types in the Media (yah, the major media is remarkably pro-gun-control) do make an effort to make them look mainstream.
Note, by the way, that pro-abortion/pro-life is a much more even split - perhaps because there's so little room in the middle. pro-gun/a
We Democrats have flirted with the idea of gun control, and thus are generally tainted, except those of us who have done penance by going hunting.
Actually, quite a few dems are pro-gun. Especially in the South. The NRA has no problems with them. It has endorsed Dems over Republicans, when the Dems were pro-gun, and the Republicans were not.
Yes, it is a single issue organization, kinda like the pro-life organizations.
Yah, I know that. My comment was in reference to the "NRA supports incumbents" comment earlier. The NRA doesn't support incumbents any more than any other organization.
And it's interesting that your definition of "single issue" includes pro-life, but not pro-abortion (many of whom are single issue), or pro-gun-control (also single issue...
True, the NRA guys tend to be more Republican vs Democrat, but they also openly state that they will stand by an incumbent regardless of party affiliation.
I must have missed that when I joined. The NRA stands by pro-2nd Amendment candidates, whether republican or democrat or other.
The NRA is supposedly the most influential lobby groups in the US. And, yes, we/they are a bunch of narrow minded, cant see the forest for the trees, bunch of people like any extremist group. But I feel more comfortable living in a country that has a NRA like group and a 2nd amendment. The NRA ignores the part about the "well regulated militia", and I'm a little more open to have some form of regulation there.
"well regulated militia". It's an interesting phrase. And the words don't necessarily mean what you think they do. "Regulated" in that era meant what we mean by "trained". And "militia" meant all white males aged 21-45, except for some government officials.
What is most interesting about the whole concept is that the inherent limitations of the militia system had been demonstrated quite graphically in the Revolution - that war was won, not by the militias, but by the Continental Army (as close to Regulars as we could put together) and the French Army & Navy - also Regulars.
All that said, "...shall not be infringed" isn't even on the same level as "Congress shall make no laws restricting...". There are a lot of ways to restrict something without Congress making laws, but not many ways to disarm the populace that don't come under "shall not be infringed"....
And for those who insist that the US Army would put down any citizen revolt quite handily, I offer... Iraq. A few hundred (thousand) idiots there are managing to keep things boiling with a large chunk of the Army trying to stop them. How much easier will it be for the Army to stop 10,000,000 people than 10,000?
2) Join the NRA and learn how to protect yourself and your family _AND_ buy at least 20-30,000 rounds of ammo.
Sounds like you haven't priced rifle rounds recently. Try $1-$2 per round for.30-06, as an example.
Of course, 5.56 Nato is only about $0.20 each. So you'd only need $4000 to $6000 to stock up on that, as opposed to $20,000 - $60,000 to stock up on.30-06 ammunition....
You know, criminals used machine guns all the time in the 1920s and 1930s. And then they were outlawed.
Umm... no. They weren't. An expensive (for the day) license was required to buy one, but that's all. And since criminals can't legally own firearms of any sort, obviously the license won't be much of a deterrent.
Note that the same conditions still apply - machine guns (fully automatic weapons) are legally purchasable if you have the appropriate license (and pay the appropriate fees.
Note further that during the ten years of the "Assault Weapon Ban", that those same conditions applied - machine guns (fully automatic weapons) were legally purchasable if you had the appropriate license (and paid the appropriate fees). Of course, semi-automatic weapons were illegal then....
the US does not have a reciprocal extradition treaty with the UK.
Actually, it does. The 1972 Extradition Treaty between the USA and UK is still binding on the USA, until and unless it either repudiates it (extremely unlikely), or ratifies the new one (probably also extremely unlikely).
Come to that, I'm not even sure that the newer Treaty (ratified by the UK) is binding on the Brits, since it hasn't been ratified by teh USA - most Treaties require both parties (or some subset defined in the Treaty, if more than two parties areivoloved) to ratify the Treaty before it takes effect in either country.
Most Americans are more than broke (ie, in debt). Most Americans are cheap. We eat horrible, inexpensive, non-nutritional food. We have to worry about our cars being stolen, or if you get into a fender bender, you better pay that 15-25% of the cost of a (modest) car a year for insurance so you can drive your 4x4 SUV. Even if your a good boy and pay the health insurance extortion racket, I dare you to get sick. I double dare you to find good health care. Remember, most are broke and getting sick or in an accident is a major expense that is not included in our interest payments.
Hmm, none of that seems to apply to me. Or to anyone I know, really. Even when I was unemployed, I had no problems getting good health care.
If you own a computer in the US, and you are knowledgeable, you have to be on the alert because people from all over the world are going to try to break into it, or at the least you have to deal with getting a ratio of 100:1 spam:real mail.
I've never gotten terribly excited about spam. And never really understood why people bother to get excited about it. Delete works real well, even on the things that get past my spam filter.
Keep in mind that we are broke and cheap, so we're always looking for a deal, right? Well, there is always someone looking to take your money, so those "deals" often don't work out as well as advertised.
Possible. Closest I've ever come to a problem like this is when all the advertised rebates didn't pay out. So I had to pay list for a memory stick - big deal....
Also, we have still have racial tension here. The legal and criminal system here is geared towards "controlling" minorities, but hey, if you're not a 2.1 kid bearing family, you too can be subject to being treated as a minority in the criminal justice system. Being a single, middle aged white guy, I have to pretend to be more "average" so that I can more easily hide myself from the police here.
Hmm, It's never even occurred to me to "hide myself from the police". I wonder how I've managed to stay out of jail my whole life.
Also, keep in mind that our legal system also favors businesses and corps over individuals. On average, in a year or two an individual can be sentenced to life in prison or execution. A lawsuit against a business or corp takes years upon years, and in the end its usually the lawyers and the business that benefit.
And this affects our health how?
My own, uninformed opinion - Americans worry too much. They seem to go out of their way to get upset about everything imaginable. Me, I take a Stoic philosophy to life - if I can't control something (the weather, the government, the economy, etc.) I don't let it bother me. Works pretty well.
The cause of the problem is the decline of revenue vs payouts due to the ratio of retirees to productive workers increasing, life-expectancy being merely one of the factors in that ratio, others, more important ones, being simply brain-dead policies resulting in overall decline of workforce vs the retirees.
Back in the day, the ratio of workers to retirees (defined as over 65) was 25:1. Today, by the way, before the boom in retirees really happens (most of our old people were born back pre-penicillin, much less modern healthcare - look for the ratio of over 65 to under 65 to continue to grwo dramatically).
To have a similar ratio today, we'd need a total population of ~850 million.
So, you're suggesting that the problem could be resolved by allowing 550 million immigrants into the USA?
Note that 550 million immigrants would imply that in about 30 years we'd triple our number of retirees (or do the immigrants not get SS under your worldview?)
Which increase in retirees could be supported by allowing another 1.5 billion immigrants into the country.
See the problem yet?
Nothing we could do in the way of immigration policy, free trade (or lack of same), or anything else really, will keep the Social Security solvent without a dramatic increase in the retirement age. Which is NOT going to happen, since it is politically infeasible at this point. And will remain politically infeasible until the retiree's lobby isn't the biggest one in the mix....
The assumptions were actually rather reasonable and made by knowledgable people,
Yes, they were. The original assumption behind Social Security was that payouts begin at age 65. It is perhaps helpful to note that at the time, the average life expectancy was...65.
Today, average life expectancy is 77+, as I recall.
So, we designed a system that didn't pay anything to anyone unless they lived longer than average. And we're now paying out to everyone who gets within a decade of average lifespan.
And average lifespan continues to increase.
Oh, and for anyone who thinks the obvious solution is to raise retirement age to 77, I suggest you talk to AARP about the feasibility of that particular plan. I'm sure they'll disabuse you of the notion quickly....
My god, man! How big is your cellphone? I just stuck mine up next to my ear, and it's not even in my field of view. Even the hand holding it is below the line of the passenger-side window, so it's not blocking anything either.
Ok, then my solution does come within your categories. You can't have it both ways.
You've obviously mistaken me for the OP. Sorry, that was someone else. You contradicted the OP, stating that there was a THIRD way to grow an economy. I pointed out that your third way wasn't different than his first way.
Therefore, your third way was not, in fact, a third way. The fact that it was an example of a growing economy in no way makes it separate from the two ways the OP mentioned as ways to grow an economy.
What Kyoto mandates is overall reduction from developed countries and it CAPs the developing countries pollution to a MUCH smaller per capita than developed countries per capita.
Umm, no. Reread the Kyoto Treaty. It puts NO caps in place for developing countries.
Annex I countries have obligations. Including to pay the bills for anything developing countries may choose to do to ameliorate climate change. Other countries aren't obligated at all, though IF and ONLY IF they choose to relabel themselves as Annex I nations, they can become obligated come the next round of negotiations.
Any bets on whether China or India will declare themselves to be Annex I?
No, because you have missed another way: 3. Develop new technologies that give better value and employ people. This is what happened with the IT industry - an industry that barely existed decades ago.
No. That comes under his "Make more stuff per worker". If we were not making "more stuff per worker" averagig across all industries, then there would have been no people available to employ in the IT industry, or any other new industry.
Technological/industrial advance has always been coupled with "make more stuff per worker". Which frees up more workers to move into industries that were never conceived of earlier.
If you're an environmentalist it's your job to get off your fat arse and make a better plan , not just sit their whining.
I'm not an environmentalist, but I have a better plan:
First: Stop all production of fossil fuel burning equipment immediately. No new gasoline/diesel cars, trucks, airplanes, lawn-mowers, weedwhackers, etc.
Second: Require that all existing non-mobile fossil-fuel burning power plants be replaced by nuclear power plants, each to produce 50% more electricity than the fossil-fuel burning plant it replaces. This is to be done at the rate of 2% of existing fossil-fuel burning plants per year, starting with the oldest then existing. Plant shutdowns must begin 10 years from and proceed until there are no more fossil-fuel plants.
Third: 25 years from , all fossil-fuel burning power plants not covered by (2) will become illegal, and the selling of gasoline/diesel/heating oil, etc. will become illegal as well.
Note that this applies to the entire world, even non-signatories, as of the date of acceptance by 3/4 of the member states of the UN.
Note that military force in the form of UN sanctions is mandated for non-complying nations.
This should deal with the problem quite nicely. Want to bet on how many nations would sign onto the plan I've outlined?
Umm, no. They don't actually. Governments grant rights to their own citizens (or God grants them to everyone, assuming you believe in God), and sometimes (only sometimes) extend those rights to everyone else. The USA, for instance, generally extends its civil rights to anyone present in the USA, with exclusions for spies and suchlike - enemy soldiers who might be in the USA, as happened in WW2 (some POW's (or a lawyer wanting to make a name for himself) tried to bring suit against the government for treating them, well, like POW's - the Supremes told them to go pound sand).
The Geneva Conventions grant rights to civilians. But carefully define civilians to exclude people using guns/bombs. Again, the later Protocols extend the rules to include civilians using guns/bombs, but the USA (and Iraq, and Afghanistan, among many others) haven't ratified those Protocols, and are not bound by them.
As signatories, unless specifically withdrawn or shown to engage in actions contrary to the conventions,
Hmm, seems to me that gassing your own people (as was done in Iraq), or the way the Taliban treated women, children, and the opposition counts as "actions contrary to the conventions". Which, by your definition, would remove them from the protections of the Conventions.
However, the Conventions do not make special provisions for people who ratify the conventions and ignore the requirements. Signatories ARE STILL BOUND by the Conventions, even if their opposition (also a signatory) chooses to ignore their own obligations under the Conventions.
You seem to have this peculiar belief that a law means something other than what it says. The Geneva Conventions very carefully define "civilian". The definition does NOT include people using guns. Note that the Protocols (not signed by any party to the current disagreement) DO define and provide for "civilians with guns".
In other words, your assumption that ANY CIVILIAN ANYWHERE has the same basic rights as the citizens of your country is sadly mistaken. Even when your Army is present somewhere, this does not grant the rights of a civilian of your nation to the locals, though your own Army/government may choose to do so if it wishes.
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Of course, Dick Tracy didn't make an appearance till '31, and his Wrist Radio didn't appear till '46.
Admittedly, Buck Rogers used a reasonable facsimile thereof. Didn't appear till 1928, though.
Try not to make the mistake of thinking that everything that happened before your time happened at the same time.
You DO know that the 20's were the Flapper era, right? Where skirts above the knees were normal?
For that matter, you are no doubt aware that many women were in the workforce then as well. Ww1 being recently over then.
First, you don't get a police record for being a "depressed potential murderer". Though you may get something worse than that - you may be councelled within an inch of your life (sometimes I think the one would be worse, sometimes the other).
Second, it is, of course, intuitively obvious that you never had such an intention, correct?
Proving you were going to commit such a crime is, of course, a matter for the justice system. Watching for danger signs of a crime is a responsibility for all of us - or do you believe that if you see four masked & armed men getting out of a van and walking into a bank that you should just continue about your daily affairs as if nothing were happening. After all, they could be actors doing a bank-robbery drill for the bank's security people, so no reason to think a crime were being contemplated, right?
Yes, in fact, most of them are. And ignorant to boot.
Or do you somehow imagine that all those high school linebackers are the intellectual cream of our society?
In 1997, here were 39400 firearms injuries from assaults (treated in hospitals) in the USA, and only 13300 firearms homicides. Looks like most victims of gunshot survive too....
You're funny. I didn't say Bush gave a good speech. I said Kerry and Gore gave bad ones. They did. You seem to have paid no attention to the "vote against" comment of mine. I didn't vote FOR Bush, I voted AGAINST Gore and Kerry. And largely on the basis of their speeches. Of course, the content of their speeches had a lot to do with it, for me.
One must remember that elections are popularty contests. And that noone wins by swaying the other guy's voters - you win by convincing your own voters to get out and vote. Neither Kerry nor Gore managed to do so. Bush did so. Bush got elected. Twice. Once with a majority. As a counter-example, Clinton didn't get a majority either time. If Kerry or Gore could have given a decent speech, they would have gotten people excited enough about it to get out and vote. Alas, all they could manage is the same mantra you use "Bush/Rove is teh debhil!1!!!". Which, like it or not, isn't a winning combination.
Note that, historically, playing the ""other side" is teh debhil!!1!" hasn't EVER worked (note that the Republicans tried that with Clinton - failed both times). You can call the other candidate the anti-Christ if you want to, but unless you are FOR something in addition, you won't win.
Sorry, but Clinton ended his term 6 freaking years ago, please, let it go, I know, it's hard not to blame him for everything.
Clinton is the most recent example. I can pull out more for other Presidents, but it's seldom worth the bother, since most people don't remember President's promises more than three weeks after the election anyway.
I know that you have been programed, by the neo-conservative radio hosts to make vague "moral questions" and "talk about failed promises" about that darn Clinton guy, but for the sake of accuracy please list them rather than doing the 'you know what he did'.
Talk Radio? Stopped listening to it in the Clinton Years. Along about '94-'95, I decided that Limbaugh had jumped the shark when he predicted that the Left would begin to demonize the SUV, and stopped listening to any Talk Radio.
Clinton's big promises:
Gays in the Military. Alas, Clinton didn't remember Truman. Truman decided that the military needed to be integrated, and ordered it done. And it was done. Clinton could have done the same thing, but instead he waffled onto "don't ask, don't tell" - which offended both the Left and the Right, and accomplished zilch. By, the by, I'm utterly indifferent to the question of gays in the Military, knowing as I do that they've always been there, and serve about as well as any other (some good, some bad, mostly indifferent).
Middle Class Tax Cut. Surely you remember that one? Clinton promised one in all his speeches. Then came the election. six weeks later (before he even took office), he announced that he'd been mistaken, that we couldn't afford a middle class tax cut, and the issue was forgotten. Since the budget is a matter of public record, and tax revenues the same, it's pretty clear he knew when he was promising the tax cut that he wasn't going to be giving one - either that, or he was too stupid to look up the numbers and got blindsided (Clinton was many things, both good and bad - but stupid wasn't one of them).
And the Socialized Health Care. He gave that one the old college try. When the Dems in the Senate said "No", he backed off. But I'll give him credit for trying. No opinions on whether socialized health care is a good thing - some
It wasn't. I voted for Bush because Gore was an idiot. And I voted for him again because Kerry was an idiot. If either of those men could have given a decent speech, they'd have won. As is, neither can give a decent speech to save their lives.
Note that, inn general, I do not vote FOR anyone. I vote AGAINST people.
Again they made lots of promises that their voters never hold them up to.
Would that be like Clinton's promises? Do you remember the three big ones he made in his first campaign? He didn't keep any of them. Didn't even seriously TRY to keep but one of them, and didn't push that one when his own Party told him "no"....
The real reason why is the very heavy 'NIBY' effect of nuclear power, I dare you to put a sign up in your yard which say "Please place nuclear power plant within sight of this house" (a cooling tower can been seen for dozens of miles), or better yet, get the good people in the red-state of Nevada [ananuclear.org] to allow Yucca Mt [yuccamountain.org] to come online. However perhaps you could imagine if your county was the nations radioactive landfill, I'd bet your property value would plummet. Would you like it if nuclear waste trucks shared the same highway you take to work every day. Frankly I'd like to see more nuclear power, but what to do with the waste?
I've lived in a major metropolitan area with a nuclear reactor. And the usual anti-nuke loons would protest against nuclear power regularly. Interestingly, they didn't protest at the nuclear reactor because noone told them it was there - I remember baiting some of them once by pointing it out to them....
My house now is within 20 miles of several nuclear reactors. Doesn't bother me a bit.
Trucks full of nuclear waste? No problems. Most nuclear wastes are VERY low-level waste - the kind that might fog an x-ray, if it was left near them for a month or two. High-level radioactive wastes tend to stay high-level for a few days to a few weeks, depending on just where you draw the line between high-level and low-level. The stuff being shipped (if it were legal to do so) is generally so low-level that you'd have a hard time telling it from non-radioactive unless you were told.
However, in general, what to do with the waste? Reprocess it, for starters. All that plutonium is valuable, as are several other fission byproducts. Take the rest of it, and embed it in glass bricks, and stack the bricks somewhere in the desert. Done. It's not like the jabber about 250,000 YEARS!!! is meaningful, really. That's to make the 99.9% of the plutonium stop being radioactive, but if you remove the Pu in advance (reprocessing, remember?), that issue is removed. Instead, we'd be mostly limited by the small amount of Co-60 (which should also be removed, since it has medical uses) - half life of 5 or 6 years, as I recall from way back when I studied such things. So store it for 50 years (which we've already done for most of it, so we surely can do it again), and it'll be reduced to being pretty much harmless.
The real irony is that according to you the French have done it right, they force people to accept many nuclear power plants, and they reprocess spent fuel, which is a good idea generally, except if you don't like fissionable material being produced/held at dozens (perhaps hundreds) of sites around your country.
The French have done that right. If we'd done what the French did back in the 60's, we'd not have these problems now. The French have other issues, of course. But their energy policies have never been one of them.
As far as energy goes I am most hopeful about Ethanol, as it fits right in our gas tanks which we have now. If we had only put 1% of the money which we have dumped into Iraq on Ethanol, gas would now be $2/ gallon.
Don't kid yourself. Gasoline isn't quite at record prices right now (ad
If most of the Left thinks the way you do, the Right is prolly right. Face it, the Democrats need to get together on some idea other than "Bush is teh debhil!!!!". Because if they don't they won't see much of the White House for a long time to come.
Have you ever bothered to keep up on Democratic Presidents since WW2? Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy, Truman. Of those, Clinton was elected twice. Truman served two terms as President, even though he was elected only once.
Republican Presidents, same period - Eisonhower, Nixon, (Ford), Reagan, Bush, Bush. Ford is questionable - the only US President never elected to either the Presidency or vice Presidency. Of the others, only one (Bush the Elder) failed of reelection.
See the pattern here? The Democrats have traditionally been very popular in Congress (though much of that popularity has been due to the Old South voting solidly Democrat since the Civil War - they were annoyed that the Republicans had freed the slaves - which Party loyalty has been fading in recent decades), but really haven't done so well in the White House. Their really bright period was pre-Civil war, when there was no real opposition (the Federalists imploded after Adams, and the Whigs never were a serious contender).
Alas, the Democrats have been trying their best to marginalize themselves for decades. The "working man" would be solidly Democratic, if only the Dems would stop embracing every lunatic fringe on the left (most "working men" are pretty conservative, except for their positions on the whole management-labor argument). Many religious types would be solidly Democratic as well, but for the same embracing of every lunatic fringe - most religious people are more comfortable with socialism than you might think from looking at current politics.
Frankly, if the Democrats were to dump their "loony left", then they'd solidly dominate American politics (if the Republicans would dump their "loony right", they'd get little real benefit - the Left won't shift Republican if the Republicans move more centrist).
I'm willing to bet you are too. Just no candidate has come out for abolishing your "single issue". Or do you really think you'd vote for a candidate who favoured every position you have EXCEPT the First Amendment?
Face it - everyone is a Single Issue voter. We all have things we will NOT give up, for any price. For the most part, our politicians haven't tried to take these things away, or have failed miserably when they tried. Gun Rights is the most noticable single issue only because the political wing in favour of removing the Right doesn't seem to want to give up, no matter how many times they're told "NO!".
However, I say that even in the enviroment Rebpulican 'single issue' voters win the numbers game. For every person who gets charged up enough to protect the spotted owl, there are twenty loggers who need the work.
A Logger who needs work isn't an Environmental single issue voter. You'd be amazed, I expect, at how few people re in favour of destroying the environment. The argument is all over the fringes - do we protect this one lizard at the price of 100,000 acres of (semi) useful land? That sort of thing.
So then like, we're living in a utopia.
No, I live in Louisiana...
Personally I wouldn't call the environment 'well-protected'
Pretty much proves that you're too young to remember what it was like back in the 60's. Trust me, compared to then, this is an earthly paradise. Yah, there's room for improvement. And if the anti-nuke hysterics can ever calmm down enough to allow construction of a large number of identical (as the Navy found out a long time ago, much easier to deal with one or two designs than with 50 or 60) nuclear plants, we might be able to move a bit further along the road toward a cleaner environment. But right now, it's cleaner than it has been since before the Revolution (trust me - a City full of horses is NOT environmentally friendly, even if there are no cars)....
Quite so. The question about abortion is, and has always been, when does human life begin? Pro-life types tend to think either (a) at conception (and therefore abortion is murder), or (b) unknown (and therefore better to err on the side of caution). Pro-choice types tend to think it is irrelevant - the baby/fetus/growth doesn't matter to anyone but the mother.
Frankly, I find the pro-choice position offensive, even though I personally have no problems with abortion. Historically, dealing with unwanted children has been an issue for every society, and abortion is as effective as any way of doing so (not very). The attitude, however, that if a woman gets pregnant she it she only voice that matters is ludicrous - it's just barely possible her partner might want some input into the fate of his child-to-be.
Also in nearly conversation I've seen, a NRA guy will insist that they need guns to protect themselves from the government, a gun-control guy will see it as part of a larger issue of fighting crime (perhaps an important part). I see the real irony here is the same party which support 'a gun in every home'*, seems to be intent on giving you a real need for the guns. [Perhaps it's the gun manufactures trying to build up sales! ]
Oh? And when has gun control ever reduced crime? Check the evidence - it is, at best, inconclusive. Speaking strictly of the USA (other countries have different cultures, and different results - Switzerland has many guns, little gun crime, England has few guns, little gun crime, as examples), there is no evidence yet that restricting access to firearms has ever successfully reduced crime. After all, it's been illegal for felons to own firearms for more than a century, and yet there are still repeat offenders.
On the other hand, Iraq (among many other cases) provides an excellent example of the value of firearms in civilian hands - there would be no meaningful Insurrection without armed civilians.
Note also that while gun control laws have proliferated into the thousands in this century, crime rates have not been appreciably affected - even the CDC, when set the task of analyzing the effectiveness of gun control by a pro-gun-control administration, managed only to say that there was little evidence that gun ownership INCREASED crime. They couldn't come up with any indication that restricting gun ownership had any measurable effect at all.
And yes there are a number of Democrats who support gun rights, they have to.
Why do you think they "have to"? Is it not possible within your worldview to believe that some Democrats believe that gun control is wrong? I should point out that the rural South is still full of people who think of themselves as Democrats, and who are pro-gun. Note that many of these Democrats vote Republican more often than not at the national level, in spite of being registered Democrats.
Which would (I believe) indicate a higher 'tolerance' of gun control voters for candidates with the 'wrong' position.
No, I don't think so. It indicates that the politicians know a losing position, and won't take one if they can help it. Gun control single issue voters are actually quite small in number. Just check the membership of the prominent pro-gun-control organizations as compared to the NRA. But the pro-gun-control types in the Media (yah, the major media is remarkably pro-gun-control) do make an effort to make them look mainstream.
Note, by the way, that pro-abortion/pro-life is a much more even split - perhaps because there's so little room in the middle. pro-gun/a
Actually, quite a few dems are pro-gun. Especially in the South. The NRA has no problems with them. It has endorsed Dems over Republicans, when the Dems were pro-gun, and the Republicans were not.
Yes, it is a single issue organization, kinda like the pro-life organizations.
Yah, I know that. My comment was in reference to the "NRA supports incumbents" comment earlier. The NRA doesn't support incumbents any more than any other organization.
And it's interesting that your definition of "single issue" includes pro-life, but not pro-abortion (many of whom are single issue), or pro-gun-control (also single issue...
I must have missed that when I joined. The NRA stands by pro-2nd Amendment candidates, whether republican or democrat or other.
The NRA is supposedly the most influential lobby groups in the US. And, yes, we/they are a bunch of narrow minded, cant see the forest for the trees, bunch of people like any extremist group. But I feel more comfortable living in a country that has a NRA like group and a 2nd amendment. The NRA ignores the part about the "well regulated militia", and I'm a little more open to have some form of regulation there.
"well regulated militia". It's an interesting phrase. And the words don't necessarily mean what you think they do. "Regulated" in that era meant what we mean by "trained". And "militia" meant all white males aged 21-45, except for some government officials.
What is most interesting about the whole concept is that the inherent limitations of the militia system had been demonstrated quite graphically in the Revolution - that war was won, not by the militias, but by the Continental Army (as close to Regulars as we could put together) and the French Army & Navy - also Regulars.
All that said, "...shall not be infringed" isn't even on the same level as "Congress shall make no laws restricting...". There are a lot of ways to restrict something without Congress making laws, but not many ways to disarm the populace that don't come under "shall not be infringed"....
And for those who insist that the US Army would put down any citizen revolt quite handily, I offer... Iraq. A few hundred (thousand) idiots there are managing to keep things boiling with a large chunk of the Army trying to stop them. How much easier will it be for the Army to stop 10,000,000 people than 10,000?
Sounds like you haven't priced rifle rounds recently. Try $1-$2 per round for .30-06, as an example.
Of course, 5.56 Nato is only about $0.20 each. So you'd only need $4000 to $6000 to stock up on that, as opposed to $20,000 - $60,000 to stock up on .30-06 ammunition....
Umm... no. They weren't. An expensive (for the day) license was required to buy one, but that's all. And since criminals can't legally own firearms of any sort, obviously the license won't be much of a deterrent.
Note that the same conditions still apply - machine guns (fully automatic weapons) are legally purchasable if you have the appropriate license (and pay the appropriate fees.
Note further that during the ten years of the "Assault Weapon Ban", that those same conditions applied - machine guns (fully automatic weapons) were legally purchasable if you had the appropriate license (and paid the appropriate fees). Of course, semi-automatic weapons were illegal then....
Actually, it does. The 1972 Extradition Treaty between the USA and UK is still binding on the USA, until and unless it either repudiates it (extremely unlikely), or ratifies the new one (probably also extremely unlikely).
Come to that, I'm not even sure that the newer Treaty (ratified by the UK) is binding on the Brits, since it hasn't been ratified by teh USA - most Treaties require both parties (or some subset defined in the Treaty, if more than two parties areivoloved) to ratify the Treaty before it takes effect in either country.
And here I always thought that that bridge collapsed in 1940.
Hmm, none of that seems to apply to me. Or to anyone I know, really. Even when I was unemployed, I had no problems getting good health care.
If you own a computer in the US, and you are knowledgeable, you have to be on the alert because people from all over the world are going to try to break into it, or at the least you have to deal with getting a ratio of 100:1 spam:real mail.
I've never gotten terribly excited about spam. And never really understood why people bother to get excited about it. Delete works real well, even on the things that get past my spam filter.
Keep in mind that we are broke and cheap, so we're always looking for a deal, right? Well, there is always someone looking to take your money, so those "deals" often don't work out as well as advertised.
Possible. Closest I've ever come to a problem like this is when all the advertised rebates didn't pay out. So I had to pay list for a memory stick - big deal....
Also, we have still have racial tension here. The legal and criminal system here is geared towards "controlling" minorities, but hey, if you're not a 2.1 kid bearing family, you too can be subject to being treated as a minority in the criminal justice system. Being a single, middle aged white guy, I have to pretend to be more "average" so that I can more easily hide myself from the police here.
Hmm, It's never even occurred to me to "hide myself from the police". I wonder how I've managed to stay out of jail my whole life.
Also, keep in mind that our legal system also favors businesses and corps over individuals. On average, in a year or two an individual can be sentenced to life in prison or execution. A lawsuit against a business or corp takes years upon years, and in the end its usually the lawyers and the business that benefit.
And this affects our health how?
My own, uninformed opinion - Americans worry too much. They seem to go out of their way to get upset about everything imaginable. Me, I take a Stoic philosophy to life - if I can't control something (the weather, the government, the economy, etc.) I don't let it bother me. Works pretty well.
Back in the day, the ratio of workers to retirees (defined as over 65) was 25:1. Today, by the way, before the boom in retirees really happens (most of our old people were born back pre-penicillin, much less modern healthcare - look for the ratio of over 65 to under 65 to continue to grwo dramatically).
To have a similar ratio today, we'd need a total population of ~850 million.
So, you're suggesting that the problem could be resolved by allowing 550 million immigrants into the USA?
Note that 550 million immigrants would imply that in about 30 years we'd triple our number of retirees (or do the immigrants not get SS under your worldview?)
Which increase in retirees could be supported by allowing another 1.5 billion immigrants into the country.
See the problem yet?
Nothing we could do in the way of immigration policy, free trade (or lack of same), or anything else really, will keep the Social Security solvent without a dramatic increase in the retirement age. Which is NOT going to happen, since it is politically infeasible at this point. And will remain politically infeasible until the retiree's lobby isn't the biggest one in the mix....
Yes, they were. The original assumption behind Social Security was that payouts begin at age 65. It is perhaps helpful to note that at the time, the average life expectancy was...65.
Today, average life expectancy is 77+, as I recall.
So, we designed a system that didn't pay anything to anyone unless they lived longer than average. And we're now paying out to everyone who gets within a decade of average lifespan.
And average lifespan continues to increase.
Oh, and for anyone who thinks the obvious solution is to raise retirement age to 77, I suggest you talk to AARP about the feasibility of that particular plan. I'm sure they'll disabuse you of the notion quickly....
My god, man! How big is your cellphone? I just stuck mine up next to my ear, and it's not even in my field of view. Even the hand holding it is below the line of the passenger-side window, so it's not blocking anything either.
You've obviously mistaken me for the OP. Sorry, that was someone else. You contradicted the OP, stating that there was a THIRD way to grow an economy. I pointed out that your third way wasn't different than his first way.
Therefore, your third way was not, in fact, a third way. The fact that it was an example of a growing economy in no way makes it separate from the two ways the OP mentioned as ways to grow an economy.
Umm, no. Reread the Kyoto Treaty. It puts NO caps in place for developing countries.
Annex I countries have obligations. Including to pay the bills for anything developing countries may choose to do to ameliorate climate change. Other countries aren't obligated at all, though IF and ONLY IF they choose to relabel themselves as Annex I nations, they can become obligated come the next round of negotiations.
Any bets on whether China or India will declare themselves to be Annex I?
No. That comes under his "Make more stuff per worker". If we were not making "more stuff per worker" averagig across all industries, then there would have been no people available to employ in the IT industry, or any other new industry.
Technological/industrial advance has always been coupled with "make more stuff per worker". Which frees up more workers to move into industries that were never conceived of earlier.
I'm not an environmentalist, but I have a better plan:
First: Stop all production of fossil fuel burning equipment immediately. No new gasoline/diesel cars, trucks, airplanes, lawn-mowers, weedwhackers, etc.
Second: Require that all existing non-mobile fossil-fuel burning power plants be replaced by nuclear power plants, each to produce 50% more electricity than the fossil-fuel burning plant it replaces. This is to be done at the rate of 2% of existing fossil-fuel burning plants per year, starting with the oldest then existing. Plant shutdowns must begin 10 years from and proceed until there are no more fossil-fuel plants.
Third: 25 years from , all fossil-fuel burning power plants not covered by (2) will become illegal, and the selling of gasoline/diesel/heating oil, etc. will become illegal as well.
Note that this applies to the entire world, even non-signatories, as of the date of acceptance by 3/4 of the member states of the UN.
Note that military force in the form of UN sanctions is mandated for non-complying nations.
This should deal with the problem quite nicely. Want to bet on how many nations would sign onto the plan I've outlined?
Umm, no. They don't actually. Governments grant rights to their own citizens (or God grants them to everyone, assuming you believe in God), and sometimes (only sometimes) extend those rights to everyone else. The USA, for instance, generally extends its civil rights to anyone present in the USA, with exclusions for spies and suchlike - enemy soldiers who might be in the USA, as happened in WW2 (some POW's (or a lawyer wanting to make a name for himself) tried to bring suit against the government for treating them, well, like POW's - the Supremes told them to go pound sand).
The Geneva Conventions grant rights to civilians. But carefully define civilians to exclude people using guns/bombs. Again, the later Protocols extend the rules to include civilians using guns/bombs, but the USA (and Iraq, and Afghanistan, among many others) haven't ratified those Protocols, and are not bound by them.
As signatories, unless specifically withdrawn or shown to engage in actions contrary to the conventions,
Hmm, seems to me that gassing your own people (as was done in Iraq), or the way the Taliban treated women, children, and the opposition counts as "actions contrary to the conventions". Which, by your definition, would remove them from the protections of the Conventions.
However, the Conventions do not make special provisions for people who ratify the conventions and ignore the requirements. Signatories ARE STILL BOUND by the Conventions, even if their opposition (also a signatory) chooses to ignore their own obligations under the Conventions.
You seem to have this peculiar belief that a law means something other than what it says. The Geneva Conventions very carefully define "civilian". The definition does NOT include people using guns. Note that the Protocols (not signed by any party to the current disagreement) DO define and provide for "civilians with guns".
In other words, your assumption that ANY CIVILIAN ANYWHERE has the same basic rights as the citizens of your country is sadly mistaken. Even when your Army is present somewhere, this does not grant the rights of a civilian of your nation to the locals, though your own Army/government may choose to do so if it wishes.