Do you think your armed security guard really could have shot and killed 4 hijackers in a confined space without harming any innocent bystanders?
Do you really think it matters if they kill a couple of innocent bystanders if everybody on the plane is going to die anyway, and a few thousand on the ground as well? Don't think of the outcome, think of the alternative: has anything changed for those bystanders? No. Has anything changed for the rest of the people on the airplane, and the ground? Yes, for the better.
And, for the record, I do think armed personnell (including the aircrew) could have shot the hijackers without harming bystanders. The hijackers might have harmed one or more of the passengers in the period of time between the good guys drawing their guns and the last hijacker being stopped, but again, look at the alternative: a few get hurt, or everybody dies (including the ones who might have been hurt with a proper response).
People, or possibly companies. Hrm, companies. They have lots of money. Perhaps they can subsidize music by paying somebody else to broadcast it for the masses to listen to at no cost. We could call it "radio," and the patrons "advertisers." Nah, it'd never work.
...masses of poor people like me pooling their resources...
So, how much, exactly, would these poor people pay to subsidize this music? Does a dollar a song sound fair? I kinda think so.
Hrm. iTunes music store. $12 CDs, with about 12 tracks on them.
Maybe we could even build a place where CDs (or other media) could be kept, and lent out to members (membership is free). Perhaps we could even get the government to fund such places. I wonder if the word "library" is in use.
This means it can only be used as an aide to pilots (air and sea), never the primary method of navigation.
Ahh. So I guess all of those FAA-Approved GPSs (including Approach-Approved models like the GNS-430) aren't really approved, and the GPS approaches I teach my students aren't either.
--Dave Buckles
2711311 CFII 06/04
The statements he cited ring out as important because there are no circumstances under which a judge in a courtroom should make them.
No circumstances? Well, let's just see about that:
"Lady, what do you expect here, justice? This isn't about justice, it's about procedure."
At a preliminary hearing, arraignment, etc. Such things are not about justice, about settling the case; they're about making sure the proper procedure for obtaining justice is followed. In that context, this quote is precisely the right thing to say if the woman in question is trying to argue her case or such.
"Yes, you can have some time to get a lawyer, but I'm not going to allow him to examine the plaintiff."
Possible reason: the defendant putzed around, opted to represent himself until near the end of the trial, then decided at the last minute that he wanted a lawyer, after he'd abdicated his option to examine the plaintiff. He can still get a lawyer, but he is not entitled to recover from his foul-up; he should have thought of that in the first place. Other possibilities exist.
"It isn't the job of the plaintiff to prove their case. You are the defendant. It's you job to defend yourself."
In a criminal case, it is the job of the State (the equivalent of the plaintiff) to prove a case, and the charges will be dropped if the prosecutor fails to do so. In a civil case, both sides must argue for themselves, and the arbitrator (usually an individual judge, not a jury, though exceptions do exixt) makes the decision based on the arguments of both sides. Civil trials have different rules than criminal, and different standards of evidence (preponderance, not reasonable doubt). If the plaintiff argues successfully just one point, and the defense none, then the plaintiff has won by a preponderance. Ergo, the quote is correct: it is not necessarily necessary for the plaintiff to prove his case, just for him to do so more than the defense proves his own. Remember: plaintiff means civil suit, not criminal.
Yes, circumstances do exist; just because you can't think of them doesn't make them go away. Particularly for inflammatory quotes such as these, context is absolutely critical. There are procedures that have to be followed in court, and if they're not, the party failing to do so will pay the price. That's why you get a lawyer--a lawyer's job is not to win for his client, to beat the rap; it's to ensure that justice is served, and that is accomplished by making sure the proper procedures are followed.
...blah blah blah $5...$2.95 up to 10 CD's...yadda yadda yadda...
GASOLINE PRICES: I think gasoline should cost 49 cents a gallon. No, darn it, make that 29 cents a gallon! Also the gas-station attendants should pump it for you. And when you get home, you should be able to watch Milton Berle on your Philco TV.
When I sell my used car, should I have to forward a portion of it to Chrysler?
No, just to the state government. Seriously, though, why is it that we feel the actual producer of a good (you know, the guy actually doing something useful for the economy) is only entitled to be paid once for it, but roll over and accept that the government is entitled to a cut every time it changes hands? This isn't a troll--I really don't understand why one is different from the other, conceptually. Please, somebody explain this to me. Why haven't we had the same level of uproar about the never-ending demand of a cut by the government as we have about the never-ending demand of a cut by the producers?
Assuming you can identify the port from which the infected traffic is coming, post a list of all infected rooms on the front door of the dorms, with an explanation that "these computers are causing your network to suck."
He's innocent....Alleged writer. Innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.
Close. He is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty; the presumption doesn't change whether or not he is actually innocent, it only affects how he is tried.
For example: all those of you sharing MP3s of Metallica's latest: you are guilty of copyright infringement (as defined by statute); however, if (when?) you are picked up on charges, you will be presumed innocent by the court until proven guilty. That presumption does not change the historical fact that you did, indeed, break the law.
My solution? I've become intimately familiar with the "transfer" button on my phone. Customer is a fsckwit? "Let me let you talk to Don." Don't feel like handling this problem? "I think Mac is probably more familiar with your network than I am." Hell, I haven't done any real work since I started! I love my job!
Jurisdiction. Specifically, the case that held the legality if P2P was decided in a different district than this case, so there is no appliciable precedent here. That's how the system works: precedent only works in the jurisdiction of the court making precedent, and only for lower courts at that.
Further, precedent doesn't prevent a lawsuit from being filed; it merely provides a tool for the defense team. As a practical matter, when there is a strong precedent favoring the defense, the plaintiff (or prosecution, in criminal cases) will decline to file, as he knows he has a weak case; however, without a strong precedent, or with a precedent he feels will be overturned (setting a precedent in the opposite direction, which they already have in some jurisdictions), the plaintiff may decide to press anyway. The plaintiff may also believe the precedent may not apply (and I sincerely doubt anybody here is sufficiently familiar with the circumstances of the KaZaA case and case to make such a determination; indeed, it's up to the presiding judge to make that call, in every case). Further, the plaintiff can file anything he wants; it's up to the defense to even mention the precedent. That is, each side has the make its own case, and if it fails to do so, it loses. The judge cannot rule on evidence not presented.
(Note that this applies in all cases, to all parties: for example, in criminal law, you can be guilty as hell, but if the prosecutor fails to prove just one of the elements of the offense, even by omission, you can ask for an immediate dismissal on the grounds that he didn't prove all elements, and you'll get it.)
I, of course, am not a lawyer, but I sit next to one at the dinner table.
I don't see my government acting in my favor here.
In your favor, probably not. In favor of the workers, yes. One of the big reasons mo many things are imported from {Korea|China|Taiwan} is the low cost of labor. 'Course, the labor conditions over there suck in ways that certain whiny politicians and union leaders haven't even conceived of, but that's the "cost" of low prices.
It's funny to hear all these people whining about the "human rights violations" in these countries; they say "it's wrong," "people shouldn't have to work like that," etc. Then, two minutes later, they say things like "[b]ut as a consumer I want the lower prices." Well, you get one or the other. American workers have been priced out of the market by government regulations, and they have priced themselves out of the market with their salary demands. Certainly, I support the idea that a man should be able to demand any salary he wants; however, that doesn't mean that the employer should have to pay it, especially if there's a line of people willing to take his place. If the supply is that high, his value is low.
In any case, if you want RAM, you are going to have to pay the price. You can pay it in cash, or you can pay it by supporting "human rights violations," but there is a price to be paid. If you want "fair working conditions" (a nebulous term at best), it's going to cost you.
I'm picky about what I sell and I still make a decent profit. If their customers wanted pork skins in the shape of Jesus, they'd sell them. I wouldn't.
So...it's all right for you to limit your product line (censor your offerings), but it's not all right for Wal*Mart to do the same? And why, exactly, wouldn't you sell Jesus-shaped pork rinds if your customers wanted them? What principle would they violate?
Wait a sec, I need to remove the needle from my irony detector from it's peg....
(Incidentally, if their religious zealotry is as strong as you seem to believe, I sincerely doubt they'd be selling said pork rinds. Blasphemy, graven image, all that. But keep playing.)
...it isn't in my best self-interest to be a conservative or liberal right now.
Fortunately, some of us are willing to put equality and justice before our "best self-interest."
I'm a college student. I make bugger-all income. I pay my taxes, without whining that somebody else is getting a bigger refund than me. Why? Because he's paying more than me. The "working poor" that certain Democrats are trying to give "refundable tax credits" to do get on my nerves--why should they be entitled to a refund if they're not paying any taxes? How can it even be called a refund? My dictionary says this about the word "refund:" "To give back, especially money." How, exactly, can giving these people, who paid no taxes, checks possibly be considered a refund? They're not getting any money back! Handout, yes; refund, no.
And why should my tax dollars go to fund the "undernourished child of a single working parent?" Why is she (most single parents seem to be women, though there are exceptions) single? Odds are by her choice. Fact is, it takes two parents to raise a child properly; those who argue otherwise don't read studies by developmental psychologists. And, while we're on the subject of her decision to have a child (yes, she chose to do it; between the choice to have sex, and the strongly-protected option of an abortion, and adoption, and a few other possiblities, but mostly the choice to have sex), why did she choose to have a kid when she couldn't afford it? If she has to work full-time to support the kid, who's raising him? Perhaps she should have considered that before putting herself in that position. I believe in personal responsibility: you make a bad decision, you get yourself into a hole, well, you'd best be prepared to drag yourself out of it. I don't understand, absolutely cannot fathom, why her poor decision-making process is my problem.
BTW, I'm against the tax breaks for "yacht fuel," as you describe. However, I'd like to know where they came from--perhaps you can cite some sort of law, perhaps a portion of the tax code? I know there are all kinds of government subsidies out there--Ted Turner got half a million bucks for his ranch--and I'm opposed to them. People should learn to stand on their own two feet, and that applies equally to the rich as well as the poor.
And, just for the record, why should corporations be taxed? You do know that corporations never pay taxes, don't you? They don't--they just collect them. If a company needs to make x dollars to stay in business, and the gov't imposes a tax on them, they'll raise prices to make up the difference. Just passing the cost along to the consumer. Also consider that the dollar is being taxed when the consumer spends it on a product, when the company receives it as income, when the employee receives it as personal income...when is enough? How many times should it be taxed in a single cycle? But it doesn't matter at what stage the tax occurs; it's always the consumer paying it.
Perhaps that's why I'm a registered Libertarian. In any case, my principles are a lot stronger than my own self-interest. Perhaps if more people's were, we'd have fewer problems.
Nowadays, though, there's no realistic way a civilian could stand up to today's modern, combined-arms military.
Certainly there is.
When the American Revolution started, the Americans were woefully under-armed, particularly as compared to the British Army. We did have one important quality, though, that the British seemed to be lacking: brains.
Ever heard the phrase "he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day?" We managed to inflict a lot of damage upon a far-superior enemy by exercising good strategy and tactics. Hide in the bushes, snipe a few soldiers, and run like hell. Deny the Opposing Force (hereafter OpFor) the opportunity to run the battle on their terms; instead, take command of the battlefield and run it on your own. It seems to have worked rather well.
Fast-forward a couple hundred years. We have tanks, fighter jets, bombers, napalm, and all sorts of other neat military hardware; yet, with all the toys, we still couldn't beat a third-rate military power using mostly rifles and small explosives, many of which were homemade. Why not? Two reasons: the people living in that Southeast Asian jungle didn't want to be beaten (in fact, they wanted to win more than we did), and they denied us the opportunity to run the battle the way we wanted to. Instead of open combat on large battlefields, they snuck around at night, one or two at a time, and gnawed away at us, one step at a time. Very effectively, I might add; we spent many years in that particular area, dropping thousands of tons of ordnance, and firing millions of rounds of ammunition, before finally leaving in defeat.
Fast-forward to today. Say the gov't decides to use military force to take control of the country. Even assuming that all of our servicemen followed the orders to attack their own countrymen (most wouldn't), they could still be beaten by small-arms fire. How? By denying them the use of their superior firepower.
Shooting at a tank with a.30-06 is crazy, and will accomplish nothing. So don't do it. Instead, shoot at the tanker when he steps out to take a leak. Shoot at the supplyman who offloads the rounds from the truck into the tank. Shoot the pilot on the way to his airplane, or the gasman as he's fueling the bird. Hell, shoot the bird--from a mile and a half away, on the takeoff run, put a round down the air intake. Hit a turbine blade at full power, it's all over. Shoot the truck driver carrying the unit's MREs; an army travels on it's stomach, you know.
The point is, of course small arms can beat the US military--if the people doing it are determined enough, and smart enough. If it was only about weapons, only about sheer power, why even fight a war? We're better than anybody else out there; if that was the only criterion, then why would anybody else even fight? Because we're only better in certain modes of combat. With a determined OpFor, one with strategy designed to mitigate the advantages and exploit the weaknesses of the attacker, victory is entirely possible. History is replete with examples of such; I've cited two, but there are countless others: the Russians, in WWII, held off Hitler's army while hopelessly outclassed; there are many more. Indeed, if you read the history, I think you'll find that determination and smart tactics win the war in almost all circumstances.
Ultimately, the rights of the people collectively come first; less important than the least-important right of the people collectively is the most-important right of the individual...
This is easily the scariest statement I've ever heard on this board, and I've heard some whoppers.
First of all, it belies the fact that "collective" rights are all derived from individual rightsthere is no right afforded to society that does not stem from the rights afforded to the individual.
Secondly, this creates a dangerous situation of denying the rights of the individual in favor of the collective. Who makes the decision? Who decides that a given issue is of sufficient importance to society to decide that the individual should be deprived of his rights? With your statement that all collective rights outweigh all individual rights, the individual has no rights at all. Taken to the extreme, your statement says that "the least-important right of the people collectively" is more important than, say, your right to live. What, exactly, are those collective rights? Are there any you wouldn't be willing to volunteer for execution to maintain?
In reality, there are no "collective" rights; they are all individual rights, applied to the large group of individuals that makes up a society. The idea that the society has rights greater than the individuals leads to the condition that the society has power over individuals, and can compel those individuals to behave in a manner contrary to their individual wills. Did the right of the antebellum south to maintain an economy outweigh the individual right to freedom of the slaves? I rather think not. How about the right of China to maintain a society--does that outweigh the rights of the protesters in Tianenmen Square? Again, I'd say no. In reality, individuals, and only individuals, have rights; we choose to partially surrender some of them to power structures comprising other individuals (i.e. the government) in order to smooth the day-to-day functioning of society, but in a just system, we can recall that delegation of power and assign it to different individuals (elections, etc.), or change the power structure entirely. The key distinction is that we give the power to individuals--we give them that power on the basis of an office they hold, but the power is still vested in individuals, and can be stripped from those same individuals. "Society," defined as "government," has power because we say it does, but when defined as "the people collectively," it has no rights, and no power--only the individual has rights.
An interesting angle on the Barbara Streisand suit:
The photographer claims to have taken his pictures "from a helicopter flying over the Pacific Ocean." This could present a jurisdictional issue.
SCOTUS precedent holds that the federal government has sole jurisdiction to the airspace over the US, as well as to lands off the coast (United States v. State of Texas, 1950, for the latter decision, which was used to support the former as well; a previous case, US v. California, also deals with offshore rights, and was used to support US v. Texas). If the location from which the picures were taken was outside the jurisdiction of California, then California would have no claim; in this case, he may have been twice out of their jurisdiction: once offshore, once in the air. Without jurisdiction, the State of California can blow and go all it wants, but can't bother the photographer. 'Course, he'll probably have to fight in Federal court to establish that, but it's still an interesting position.
You'd think the First Amendment would take care of such things, but it wouldn't be the first Amendment (no pun intended) to be ignored in California....
(IANAL, but I did help write a textbook on Aviation Law; US v. Texas is discussed in Chapter 7.)
Slashdot Mirror
Do you think your armed security guard really could have shot and killed 4 hijackers in a confined space without harming any innocent bystanders?
Do you really think it matters if they kill a couple of innocent bystanders if everybody on the plane is going to die anyway, and a few thousand on the ground as well? Don't think of the outcome, think of the alternative: has anything changed for those bystanders? No. Has anything changed for the rest of the people on the airplane, and the ground? Yes, for the better.
And, for the record, I do think armed personnell (including the aircrew) could have shot the hijackers without harming bystanders. The hijackers might have harmed one or more of the passengers in the period of time between the good guys drawing their guns and the last hijacker being stopped, but again, look at the alternative: a few get hurt, or everybody dies (including the ones who might have been hurt with a proper response).
Give them something to monitor.
People, or possibly companies. Hrm, companies. They have lots of money. Perhaps they can subsidize music by paying somebody else to broadcast it for the masses to listen to at no cost. We could call it "radio," and the patrons "advertisers." Nah, it'd never work.
So, how much, exactly, would these poor people pay to subsidize this music? Does a dollar a song sound fair? I kinda think so.
Hrm. iTunes music store. $12 CDs, with about 12 tracks on them.
Maybe we could even build a place where CDs (or other media) could be kept, and lent out to members (membership is free). Perhaps we could even get the government to fund such places. I wonder if the word "library" is in use.
Wind. Duh.
This means it can only be used as an aide to pilots (air and sea), never the primary method of navigation.
Ahh. So I guess all of those FAA-Approved GPSs (including Approach-Approved models like the GNS-430) aren't really approved, and the GPS approaches I teach my students aren't either.
--Dave Buckles
2711311 CFII 06/04
The statements he cited ring out as important because there are no circumstances under which a judge in a courtroom should make them.
No circumstances? Well, let's just see about that:
At a preliminary hearing, arraignment, etc. Such things are not about justice, about settling the case; they're about making sure the proper procedure for obtaining justice is followed. In that context, this quote is precisely the right thing to say if the woman in question is trying to argue her case or such.
Possible reason: the defendant putzed around, opted to represent himself until near the end of the trial, then decided at the last minute that he wanted a lawyer, after he'd abdicated his option to examine the plaintiff. He can still get a lawyer, but he is not entitled to recover from his foul-up; he should have thought of that in the first place. Other possibilities exist.
In a criminal case, it is the job of the State (the equivalent of the plaintiff) to prove a case, and the charges will be dropped if the prosecutor fails to do so. In a civil case, both sides must argue for themselves, and the arbitrator (usually an individual judge, not a jury, though exceptions do exixt) makes the decision based on the arguments of both sides. Civil trials have different rules than criminal, and different standards of evidence (preponderance, not reasonable doubt). If the plaintiff argues successfully just one point, and the defense none, then the plaintiff has won by a preponderance. Ergo, the quote is correct: it is not necessarily necessary for the plaintiff to prove his case, just for him to do so more than the defense proves his own. Remember: plaintiff means civil suit, not criminal.
Yes, circumstances do exist; just because you can't think of them doesn't make them go away. Particularly for inflammatory quotes such as these, context is absolutely critical. There are procedures that have to be followed in court, and if they're not, the party failing to do so will pay the price. That's why you get a lawyer--a lawyer's job is not to win for his client, to beat the rap; it's to ensure that justice is served, and that is accomplished by making sure the proper procedures are followed.
...blah blah blah $5...$2.95 up to 10 CD's...yadda yadda yadda...
--Dave BarryWhen I sell my used car, should I have to forward a portion of it to Chrysler?
No, just to the state government. Seriously, though, why is it that we feel the actual producer of a good (you know, the guy actually doing something useful for the economy) is only entitled to be paid once for it, but roll over and accept that the government is entitled to a cut every time it changes hands? This isn't a troll--I really don't understand why one is different from the other, conceptually. Please, somebody explain this to me. Why haven't we had the same level of uproar about the never-ending demand of a cut by the government as we have about the never-ending demand of a cut by the producers?
Assuming you can identify the port from which the infected traffic is coming, post a list of all infected rooms on the front door of the dorms, with an explanation that "these computers are causing your network to suck."
The problem will be fixed.
I haven't talked to a live person at Dell in almost two years.
So you're still on hold, too?
He's innocent....Alleged writer. Innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.
Close. He is to be presumed innocent until proven guilty; the presumption doesn't change whether or not he is actually innocent, it only affects how he is tried.
For example: all those of you sharing MP3s of Metallica's latest: you are guilty of copyright infringement (as defined by statute); however, if (when?) you are picked up on charges, you will be presumed innocent by the court until proven guilty. That presumption does not change the historical fact that you did, indeed, break the law.
/pedantry
My solution? I've become intimately familiar with the "transfer" button on my phone. Customer is a fsckwit? "Let me let you talk to Don." Don't feel like handling this problem? "I think Mac is probably more familiar with your network than I am." Hell, I haven't done any real work since I started! I love my job!
Jurisdiction. Specifically, the case that held the legality if P2P was decided in a different district than this case, so there is no appliciable precedent here. That's how the system works: precedent only works in the jurisdiction of the court making precedent, and only for lower courts at that.
Further, precedent doesn't prevent a lawsuit from being filed; it merely provides a tool for the defense team. As a practical matter, when there is a strong precedent favoring the defense, the plaintiff (or prosecution, in criminal cases) will decline to file, as he knows he has a weak case; however, without a strong precedent, or with a precedent he feels will be overturned (setting a precedent in the opposite direction, which they already have in some jurisdictions), the plaintiff may decide to press anyway. The plaintiff may also believe the precedent may not apply (and I sincerely doubt anybody here is sufficiently familiar with the circumstances of the KaZaA case and case to make such a determination; indeed, it's up to the presiding judge to make that call, in every case). Further, the plaintiff can file anything he wants; it's up to the defense to even mention the precedent. That is, each side has the make its own case, and if it fails to do so, it loses. The judge cannot rule on evidence not presented.
(Note that this applies in all cases, to all parties: for example, in criminal law, you can be guilty as hell, but if the prosecutor fails to prove just one of the elements of the offense, even by omission, you can ask for an immediate dismissal on the grounds that he didn't prove all elements, and you'll get it.)
I, of course, am not a lawyer, but I sit next to one at the dinner table.
More like Mach 2000; Mach 1 is 300-odd meters/second, not kilometers/second.
very lonely, depressed, negative, anti-social, brilliant people.
So this will make me brilliant? Sign me up!
Log Off And Drive!
Do you think you could drive any better with that keyboard shoved up your ass?
My other car is a G5
And, of course,
:-)
I don't see my government acting in my favor here.
In your favor, probably not. In favor of the workers, yes. One of the big reasons mo many things are imported from {Korea|China|Taiwan} is the low cost of labor. 'Course, the labor conditions over there suck in ways that certain whiny politicians and union leaders haven't even conceived of, but that's the "cost" of low prices.
It's funny to hear all these people whining about the "human rights violations" in these countries; they say "it's wrong," "people shouldn't have to work like that," etc. Then, two minutes later, they say things like "[b]ut as a consumer I want the lower prices." Well, you get one or the other. American workers have been priced out of the market by government regulations, and they have priced themselves out of the market with their salary demands. Certainly, I support the idea that a man should be able to demand any salary he wants; however, that doesn't mean that the employer should have to pay it, especially if there's a line of people willing to take his place. If the supply is that high, his value is low.
In any case, if you want RAM, you are going to have to pay the price. You can pay it in cash, or you can pay it by supporting "human rights violations," but there is a price to be paid. If you want "fair working conditions" (a nebulous term at best), it's going to cost you.
I'm picky about what I sell and I still make a decent profit. If their customers wanted pork skins in the shape of Jesus, they'd sell them. I wouldn't.
So...it's all right for you to limit your product line (censor your offerings), but it's not all right for Wal*Mart to do the same? And why, exactly, wouldn't you sell Jesus-shaped pork rinds if your customers wanted them? What principle would they violate?
Wait a sec, I need to remove the needle from my irony detector from it's peg....
(Incidentally, if their religious zealotry is as strong as you seem to believe, I sincerely doubt they'd be selling said pork rinds. Blasphemy, graven image, all that. But keep playing.)
Fortunately, some of us are willing to put equality and justice before our "best self-interest."
I'm a college student. I make bugger-all income. I pay my taxes, without whining that somebody else is getting a bigger refund than me. Why? Because he's paying more than me. The "working poor" that certain Democrats are trying to give "refundable tax credits" to do get on my nerves--why should they be entitled to a refund if they're not paying any taxes? How can it even be called a refund? My dictionary says this about the word "refund:" "To give back, especially money." How, exactly, can giving these people, who paid no taxes, checks possibly be considered a refund? They're not getting any money back! Handout, yes; refund, no.
And why should my tax dollars go to fund the "undernourished child of a single working parent?" Why is she (most single parents seem to be women, though there are exceptions) single? Odds are by her choice. Fact is, it takes two parents to raise a child properly; those who argue otherwise don't read studies by developmental psychologists. And, while we're on the subject of her decision to have a child (yes, she chose to do it; between the choice to have sex, and the strongly-protected option of an abortion, and adoption, and a few other possiblities, but mostly the choice to have sex), why did she choose to have a kid when she couldn't afford it? If she has to work full-time to support the kid, who's raising him? Perhaps she should have considered that before putting herself in that position. I believe in personal responsibility: you make a bad decision, you get yourself into a hole, well, you'd best be prepared to drag yourself out of it. I don't understand, absolutely cannot fathom, why her poor decision-making process is my problem.
BTW, I'm against the tax breaks for "yacht fuel," as you describe. However, I'd like to know where they came from--perhaps you can cite some sort of law, perhaps a portion of the tax code? I know there are all kinds of government subsidies out there--Ted Turner got half a million bucks for his ranch--and I'm opposed to them. People should learn to stand on their own two feet, and that applies equally to the rich as well as the poor.
And, just for the record, why should corporations be taxed? You do know that corporations never pay taxes, don't you? They don't--they just collect them. If a company needs to make x dollars to stay in business, and the gov't imposes a tax on them, they'll raise prices to make up the difference. Just passing the cost along to the consumer. Also consider that the dollar is being taxed when the consumer spends it on a product, when the company receives it as income, when the employee receives it as personal income...when is enough? How many times should it be taxed in a single cycle? But it doesn't matter at what stage the tax occurs; it's always the consumer paying it.
Perhaps that's why I'm a registered Libertarian. In any case, my principles are a lot stronger than my own self-interest. Perhaps if more people's were, we'd have fewer problems.
Nowadays, though, there's no realistic way a civilian could stand up to today's modern, combined-arms military.
Certainly there is.
When the American Revolution started, the Americans were woefully under-armed, particularly as compared to the British Army. We did have one important quality, though, that the British seemed to be lacking: brains.
Ever heard the phrase "he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day?" We managed to inflict a lot of damage upon a far-superior enemy by exercising good strategy and tactics. Hide in the bushes, snipe a few soldiers, and run like hell. Deny the Opposing Force (hereafter OpFor) the opportunity to run the battle on their terms; instead, take command of the battlefield and run it on your own. It seems to have worked rather well.
Fast-forward a couple hundred years. We have tanks, fighter jets, bombers, napalm, and all sorts of other neat military hardware; yet, with all the toys, we still couldn't beat a third-rate military power using mostly rifles and small explosives, many of which were homemade. Why not? Two reasons: the people living in that Southeast Asian jungle didn't want to be beaten (in fact, they wanted to win more than we did), and they denied us the opportunity to run the battle the way we wanted to. Instead of open combat on large battlefields, they snuck around at night, one or two at a time, and gnawed away at us, one step at a time. Very effectively, I might add; we spent many years in that particular area, dropping thousands of tons of ordnance, and firing millions of rounds of ammunition, before finally leaving in defeat.
Fast-forward to today. Say the gov't decides to use military force to take control of the country. Even assuming that all of our servicemen followed the orders to attack their own countrymen (most wouldn't), they could still be beaten by small-arms fire. How? By denying them the use of their superior firepower.
Shooting at a tank with a .30-06 is crazy, and will accomplish nothing. So don't do it. Instead, shoot at the tanker when he steps out to take a leak. Shoot at the supplyman who offloads the rounds from the truck into the tank. Shoot the pilot on the way to his airplane, or the gasman as he's fueling the bird. Hell, shoot the bird--from a mile and a half away, on the takeoff run, put a round down the air intake. Hit a turbine blade at full power, it's all over. Shoot the truck driver carrying the unit's MREs; an army travels on it's stomach, you know.
The point is, of course small arms can beat the US military--if the people doing it are determined enough, and smart enough. If it was only about weapons, only about sheer power, why even fight a war? We're better than anybody else out there; if that was the only criterion, then why would anybody else even fight? Because we're only better in certain modes of combat. With a determined OpFor, one with strategy designed to mitigate the advantages and exploit the weaknesses of the attacker, victory is entirely possible. History is replete with examples of such; I've cited two, but there are countless others: the Russians, in WWII, held off Hitler's army while hopelessly outclassed; there are many more. Indeed, if you read the history, I think you'll find that determination and smart tactics win the war in almost all circumstances.
pedantery, ahoy!
That's pedantry. But I'm sure you knew that.
"...This could be a big blow to the file-swapping community, even if you're swapping legit."
Isn't that like saying "this could be a big blow to the pornography-subscribing community, even if you're just reading the articles?"
(And yes, the pun was intended.)
Ultimately, the rights of the people collectively come first; less important than the least-important right of the people collectively is the most-important right of the individual...
This is easily the scariest statement I've ever heard on this board, and I've heard some whoppers.
First of all, it belies the fact that "collective" rights are all derived from individual rightsthere is no right afforded to society that does not stem from the rights afforded to the individual.
Secondly, this creates a dangerous situation of denying the rights of the individual in favor of the collective. Who makes the decision? Who decides that a given issue is of sufficient importance to society to decide that the individual should be deprived of his rights? With your statement that all collective rights outweigh all individual rights, the individual has no rights at all. Taken to the extreme, your statement says that "the least-important right of the people collectively" is more important than, say, your right to live. What, exactly, are those collective rights? Are there any you wouldn't be willing to volunteer for execution to maintain?
In reality, there are no "collective" rights; they are all individual rights, applied to the large group of individuals that makes up a society. The idea that the society has rights greater than the individuals leads to the condition that the society has power over individuals, and can compel those individuals to behave in a manner contrary to their individual wills. Did the right of the antebellum south to maintain an economy outweigh the individual right to freedom of the slaves? I rather think not. How about the right of China to maintain a society--does that outweigh the rights of the protesters in Tianenmen Square? Again, I'd say no. In reality, individuals, and only individuals, have rights; we choose to partially surrender some of them to power structures comprising other individuals (i.e. the government) in order to smooth the day-to-day functioning of society, but in a just system, we can recall that delegation of power and assign it to different individuals (elections, etc.), or change the power structure entirely. The key distinction is that we give the power to individuals--we give them that power on the basis of an office they hold, but the power is still vested in individuals, and can be stripped from those same individuals. "Society," defined as "government," has power because we say it does, but when defined as "the people collectively," it has no rights, and no power--only the individual has rights.
An interesting angle on the Barbara Streisand suit:
The photographer claims to have taken his pictures "from a helicopter flying over the Pacific Ocean." This could present a jurisdictional issue.
SCOTUS precedent holds that the federal government has sole jurisdiction to the airspace over the US, as well as to lands off the coast (United States v. State of Texas, 1950, for the latter decision, which was used to support the former as well; a previous case, US v. California, also deals with offshore rights, and was used to support US v. Texas). If the location from which the picures were taken was outside the jurisdiction of California, then California would have no claim; in this case, he may have been twice out of their jurisdiction: once offshore, once in the air. Without jurisdiction, the State of California can blow and go all it wants, but can't bother the photographer. 'Course, he'll probably have to fight in Federal court to establish that, but it's still an interesting position.
You'd think the First Amendment would take care of such things, but it wouldn't be the first Amendment (no pun intended) to be ignored in California....
(IANAL, but I did help write a textbook on Aviation Law; US v. Texas is discussed in Chapter 7.)
Your pedantics are only an attempt to cloud the issue with superficial details.
Yeah...those damned "facts" can be so stubborn sometimes. Especially when they're not on your side.