Your exchange with GP brings to light an interesting issue. The biggest difference between you, "jahudabudy", and GP "maypull" is that maypull knows a bunch of cops and you apparently don't. I think that has a lot to do with your differing perspectives. Maypull has seen police officers in all sorts of situations other than that of an arrest, traffic stop, questioning, etc. (let's ignore that he was a cop for illustrative purposes), whereas you have not. More importantly, the cops know maypull and have seen HIM in all sorts of situations other than that of an arrest, traffic stop, questioning, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is this: as long as police officers are nothing more than law enforcement whose main interaction with the public is when a call goes out or when they see something they don't like, the image you have (of a power imbalance that can screw up your life on first contact) will be the prevailing one. If the police officers are active members of the community who get to know the citizens in their jurisdiction, the uniform becomes much less of an unwelcome presence--you see instead a friend (or acquaintance) who can help you out when you need it, and they see someone they are familiar with and are less likely to need to bring their authority to bear.
There is undoubtedly resistance to the idea of just walking up to an officer and having a chat, at least where I live. Some of that, I think, stems from the fact that the cops are usually in their cars rather than on foot. More comes from our modern lack of community where we live surrounded by strangers. I don't think there's an easy answer to uprooting the mistrust in police, but I'm betting that what I described above is the biggest part of the problem.
I'll take the bait. I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but my roommate is. "How can an otherwise intelligent young man get so much enjoyment out of such a crappy sport?" is what I asked myself. Part of it was certainly his upbringing - his dad was a huge fan. But you know what? Under the surface, it's actually pretty interesting.
The issue is that it's kind of like golf, only the people who tend to watch it are larger, rowdier and smellier. Golf is pretty boring to watch, too, unless you have an eye for the subtleties of a good shot or an appreciation for the difficulty of a particular putt.
If you're watching mostly the track and seeing the cars go 'round to the left, you're going to be bored as hell. If you focus on an individual driver, and watch how he catches a draft off of a passing rival, and you understand that drafting will make both cars go faster (though the guy in front is at full throttle and the guy in back only half), the dynamics of the race become more interesting. In fact, I find the most entertaining part of the race to be how drivers play with the airstream (well, except for the crashes, of course).
I'm not a fan of Nascar by any stretch of the imagination and will never go out of my way to catch a race. If people are watching one where I am, though, I don't have to play the elitist asshole anymore because I understand that the game has some merits.
I agree that F1 is more interesting. Autocross not so much. And don't even get me started on drag racing.
A better method for customizing your registered email address is to use "+" on the left side. "me+example.com@gmail.com" should be directed to "me@gmail.com" by their system. I say "should" simply because I've never tested the "+" feature with "."s in "it." "
I"m sorry, I seem to have a quotation infesta""tion. The information"s correct, though.
You know what? I've been kicking around the idea of running for office for about a year. I'm 26, so too young for anything but a House Representative if I were to start on the national level, which is (I'm guessing) pretty unattainable without doing local politics first: start out in a position in my dinky little town, work my way up to state senate over a period of five or ten years, then see if I can make the jump.
The problem with that is that I don't really desire to be a politician; I just know that I'm a sensible, freedom-loving individual and that we need more of those in Congress. I don't want to spend a lot of time in the system because while I'm a very upright person, I also know that I'm not incorruptible and might wear down over time if I were to treat politics as a career.
So there you have it. In order to make a difference, you pretty much have to start at the bottom of the system and hope it doesn't fully suck out your soul by the time you get high up enough to start changing things. Unless there is a shortcut I don't know about, in which case I'm all ears.
In order to have been targeted, you would have had to of been on an overseas call, and according to the administrations, at least one part of the conversation had to be with a terrorist or suspected terrorist
How much of this is "according to the administration" and how much is actual text in the bill? Is it codified that warrentless wiretaps apply ONLY to calls crossing the US border? Is it codified that part of the conversation had to be with a terrorist, suspected terrorist, or person with ties to them? Because quite frankly, I don't care what they say they are looking for. I only care about the bill's potential to be misused once it's enacted, because it WILL be misused once it's enacted.
Let me say that my intent was not to make excuses for those you call wilfully ignorant. My intent was to get people to treat other people like people, even when there is a huge disagreement, and my method was to give reasons (which I believe are valid) other than wilful ignorance for those people to think the way they do in order to make them a little less like the cardboard cutouts generally portrayed here on Slashdot. I see that I've generally failed to convince you, but that's okay.
It's clear to me that you hate what's going on and want to see things change as much as I do. You seem to have given up on a decent chunk of the population whereas I have not, but your fervor leads me to believe that you either have or are developing your own method of changing things. As long as that method includes more than complaining on the Internet (which we all do, myself enthusiastically included), I find no fault with you.
Anyone who would vote for Bush Jr. twice is wilfully ignorant.
Certainly some of them are. I think that the media is to blame for the majority of ignorance. TV still has the Mantle of Authority, especially for older generations of Americans. The only way to find out any individual's reasons for supporting Bush is to attempt to engage them in rational debate.
Anyone who supports perpetual budget defecits we're going to leave to our grandkids to pay back is wilfully ignorant.
Or overly optimistic that those in charge know what they're doing. Or simply unaware of the problem because again, it's not really discussed in the media (save perhaps the "liberal media," which you'll have a hard time convincing many conservatives to heed). I've omitted your next point because my response is essentially the same. You should also keep in mind that you are not likely to find many people who hold all of these views simultaneously (according to my experience, anyway).
Anyone who supports war against relatively innocent nations, first on the basis of dishonest 9/11 rhetoric, then on dishonest WMD rhetoric, then on dishonest "He's a very bad man. Aren't you glad he's dead?" rhetoric, is wilfully ignorant.
Agreed. Though the media certainly helped the Bushies at the beginning by pushing the 9/11 and WMD nonsense, people should be aware by now that they were repeatedly lied to. In my experience many people are aware, but they continue to support the war because they feel that we cannot pull out now and be responsible for the likely collapse of Iraq - they do not want this blemish on America's record. I disagree (because our record was tarnished as soon as we went in), but I can see where they are coming from. "We made the mess, we need to clean it up."
Anyone who supports demolishing our freedoms in order to attack terrorists who supposedly hate us for our freedom is wilfully ignorant.
Agreed, for the subset of individuals who are aware that our rights are being trampled and still stand behind the trampling. I am perhaps less optimistic than you in my estimate of the percentage of folks who are aware of their rights and why they are important.
These wilfully ignorant people, they are supporting policies which are having a massive negative impact on the entire world and her people. Tens of thousands, maybe millions of people are dead because of the actions brought about by their wilful ignorance. More Americans are dead because of these ignorant policies than were killed on 9/11.
These people are my enemies.
I must adamantly (yet respectfully!) disagree with you here.
First of all, the people certainly gave the Bush Administration its power through their vote, but you cannot hold the people responsible for the actions of their elected officials. It's not like the populace voted to invade Iraq - that was a hijacking of power by the Bushies.
Second, following from the first, your enemies are those in power who have perpetrated these acts, and those in power who enabled them to do so, and those in power who do nothing about them. The people just want to live their lives and be left alone. This is why all the heinous rights-trampling and soverignty-invading has been done under the guise of national security: if the people feel threatened, they will clamor for something to be done. The nasty debt-inducing financial practices can also be partially explained by this: lower taxes have an immediate benefit to the individual, which is what he cares about most. This is perfectly acceptable though certainly not optimal, as our representative democracy is supposed to let the individual remain (relatively) unconcerned with such high matters of state. The problem is that instead of responsible patriots being elected, we have partisan hacks and frauds gaming the system (again, through the media) to grab more power and use it to help themselves r
The majority of stupid people in this country see no problem with the "us vs them" mentality
Well now, I've got my dose of irony for the day!
If you show a little respect for people and realize that they are living, breathing, thinking individuals who have something to contribute to humanity, you will have a much better chance of convincing them that some of their actions or beliefs may be misguided.
The meme of the unwashed masses is as much "us vs them" as any you listed.
Actually, I don't have any. If I did though, you'd get one. Far too many Americans are dissatisfied with the big two but unwilling to stand behind a third party. It's like nobody is willing to put in the effort to help a 3rd party get to the top tier - people see only that (for example) the Libertarian party cannot win this election, so they will never vote for the Libertarian party.
If all the time spent bitching about one of the big two were spent educating people about third party options and trying to get it through their heads that it doesn't always have to be this way, I'll bet within 10-12 years we would at least see a sizable minority of 3rd party members in Congress.
I can confirm this. I was warned by the guy at the mac store that memory is user-upgradeable, but you absolutely will void your warranty if you try to replace the hard drive. This was for MacBook Pro; the drives might be replaceable in their desktops.
[H]ow can we expect anyone else to pay attention past the face on their big screen TV telling them what to think?
Give them more information to think with. People are not the dumb, unwashed masses I hear referred to so often here on Slashdot. Most of the generations we're talking about here grew up when TV news was more trustworthy than it is today, as you should know given your moniker. Is it any wonder that they believe it so readily?
One thing to keep in mind is that people respond more strongly to stuff going on in real life than stuff that happens on TV or on the Web. Everybody's got their lists of stuff to care about, but I'm more likely to add something to my list if a friend discusses her concerns over it than I am if it's something I read on Slashdot. In order to effect real change, you have to get out from behind the screen and interact with people. I just finished up a post in the other telecom thread that's a stab in the dark at what we can do. You can't make everybody care about everything, but the more effort you put into something, the more likely others will understand your point of view and become concerned with it themselves.
It doesn't have to fail. You just have to go about it in the right way. I'm still not entirely sure what that is, but I do know this - it has little to do with the Internet (save perhaps as a way to find others in your area willing to help out or to share resources) and everything to do with local life and dealing with real people.
The first step is to raise awareness of the issue and help people to understand why it is important. This involves a fair amount of work with no guarantee of a big payoff, so I guess you have to weigh your rights against your laziness. If we are lucky, some intelligent, eloquent individuals will write concise documents about the issue that we can use everywhere. We have to make a compelling argument without being argumentative, a task that is traditionally hard for geeks to do. Off the top of my head, I think an FAQ would be one good way to present it:
"What's going on?" "Why is this important to me?" "Doesn't allowing these lawsuits hurt our fight against terrorists?" "If I have nothing to hide..." etc.
Well-written answers to these and more questions, without a patronizing tone, can and will have an effect on people. Once created, these guys can be printed and posted on telephone poles, stuffed into mailboxes (yeah, I know it's illegal; if it bothers you then mail 'em), and given to interested local businesses (who know a lot more people than you do) to hand out and discuss with their patrons. If you have money to burn, see if your local paper will give you a full-page ad or pack-in - you'd be surprised how willing they are to work with you, especially in small towns (where IMO the information is most needed). This is _by far_ the most important step, because the long-term goal should be to increase issues-based multi-tier rather than party-based single-tier participation in American politics.
As I said though, raising awareness is only the first step. Helping people to realize that "yes, we have a problem, but we can also fix it" comes next. If you are in an area whose congressman voted for telecom immunity, be sure to put that in the document along with his contact information. Reiterate that his job is to look out for your rights, that he failed miserably this time, and that he'll continue to fail unless YOU tell him that he is on the wrong track. Give contact info for your state's senators too and explain that it's even more important to tell them what you think since they haven't voted on the issue yet. If you're really industrious you can provide stationery and pre-addressed stamped envelopes to facilitate a letter campaign.
If that all sounds like too much trouble to you but you still want to do something, try writing a letter to the editor of your newspaper. That's one thing I may be doing this weekend in addition to figuring out how to best awaken the sense of injustice of the residents of my area.
We are a community that is spread out enough to do this sort of thing on a national scale if we get organized. I'm not qualified to do that - I'm more of an idea guy than anything else, and ideas are cheap unless they're implemented (or patent trolled =p) which is why I am focusing only in my area. If enough people decide to do something similar, we will have an effect. That doesn't mean this thing will get killed, but it's all about patterns: if you get into the pattern of caring about what goes on and helping other people to do the same, you start a trend. If you fail to do anything except complain on the Internet, that's your prerogative, but you only enforce the pattern of lethargy that brought us here in the first place and threatens to consume our once-great nation from within.
Yeah, the plan is to build it myself with the help of lots of friends and family. I'm quite lucky to have friends who are builders, and a father who has the know-how to do just about everything needed for new home construction. They're all intrigued by the dome idea and find it quirky enough to wanna help out just for kicks. I'd love to do it all debt-free like your sis (and you have my condolences...) but I'm not sure I can pull it off. I may buy the land and sit on it for a few years before I can start building. When you really get down to it, I have no idea what the Mysterious Future holds, and as I'm only in the planning stage everything is still pretty volatile. But I've been kicking around the idea for almost a decade now, so I think it has a good chance of taking root.
The idea that abortion is morally wrong because it destroys the life of the fetus is a reason invented to keep the law in place retrospectively. It was not the intent of those who put the laws into place. Do you have anything to back that statement up? I'm not looking for a reference, just some more information on the event. It's pretty well-established that "abortion is morally wrong" was not the original reason for the law, but the claim that said reason was "invented" to keep the law in place strikes me as less likely (and more conspiratorial) than the supposition that people's feelings on abortion generally changed towards disfavor during the years when it wasn't really an option.
I'm pretty ignorant on the history of the matter, but the quoted statement kinda triggered my bullshit detector. (FTR, I am in no way taking a stance here. I'm just curious.)
Thanks for all the great info. I've been looking mainly at the Timberline prefabs - a concrete dome looks just horrible to my eye. I was mostly interested in the sort of stuff you've seen inside domes, but I'm really digging the cordwood masonry. It looks great and has a slightly more conventional structure, and is therefore much more likely to fly with the missus =)
Slashdot Mirror
Your exchange with GP brings to light an interesting issue. The biggest difference between you, "jahudabudy", and GP "maypull" is that maypull knows a bunch of cops and you apparently don't. I think that has a lot to do with your differing perspectives. Maypull has seen police officers in all sorts of situations other than that of an arrest, traffic stop, questioning, etc. (let's ignore that he was a cop for illustrative purposes), whereas you have not. More importantly, the cops know maypull and have seen HIM in all sorts of situations other than that of an arrest, traffic stop, questioning, etc.
I guess what I'm saying is this: as long as police officers are nothing more than law enforcement whose main interaction with the public is when a call goes out or when they see something they don't like, the image you have (of a power imbalance that can screw up your life on first contact) will be the prevailing one. If the police officers are active members of the community who get to know the citizens in their jurisdiction, the uniform becomes much less of an unwelcome presence--you see instead a friend (or acquaintance) who can help you out when you need it, and they see someone they are familiar with and are less likely to need to bring their authority to bear.
There is undoubtedly resistance to the idea of just walking up to an officer and having a chat, at least where I live. Some of that, I think, stems from the fact that the cops are usually in their cars rather than on foot. More comes from our modern lack of community where we live surrounded by strangers. I don't think there's an easy answer to uprooting the mistrust in police, but I'm betting that what I described above is the biggest part of the problem.
Er...the submitter is the one using the extra 0. The submitter is not the author.
(What is
I'll take the bait. I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but my roommate is. "How can an otherwise intelligent young man get so much enjoyment out of such a crappy sport?" is what I asked myself. Part of it was certainly his upbringing - his dad was a huge fan. But you know what? Under the surface, it's actually pretty interesting.
The issue is that it's kind of like golf, only the people who tend to watch it are larger, rowdier and smellier. Golf is pretty boring to watch, too, unless you have an eye for the subtleties of a good shot or an appreciation for the difficulty of a particular putt.
If you're watching mostly the track and seeing the cars go 'round to the left, you're going to be bored as hell. If you focus on an individual driver, and watch how he catches a draft off of a passing rival, and you understand that drafting will make both cars go faster (though the guy in front is at full throttle and the guy in back only half), the dynamics of the race become more interesting. In fact, I find the most entertaining part of the race to be how drivers play with the airstream (well, except for the crashes, of course).
I'm not a fan of Nascar by any stretch of the imagination and will never go out of my way to catch a race. If people are watching one where I am, though, I don't have to play the elitist asshole anymore because I understand that the game has some merits.
I agree that F1 is more interesting. Autocross not so much. And don't even get me started on drag racing.
There is a way to block just the chat service.
A better method for customizing your registered email address is to use "+" on the left side. "me+example.com@gmail.com" should be directed to "me@gmail.com" by their system. I say "should" simply because I've never tested the "+" feature with "."s in "it."
"
I"m sorry, I seem to have a quotation infesta""tion. The information"s correct, though.
You know what? I've been kicking around the idea of running for office for about a year. I'm 26, so too young for anything but a House Representative if I were to start on the national level, which is (I'm guessing) pretty unattainable without doing local politics first: start out in a position in my dinky little town, work my way up to state senate over a period of five or ten years, then see if I can make the jump.
The problem with that is that I don't really desire to be a politician; I just know that I'm a sensible, freedom-loving individual and that we need more of those in Congress. I don't want to spend a lot of time in the system because while I'm a very upright person, I also know that I'm not incorruptible and might wear down over time if I were to treat politics as a career.
So there you have it. In order to make a difference, you pretty much have to start at the bottom of the system and hope it doesn't fully suck out your soul by the time you get high up enough to start changing things. Unless there is a shortcut I don't know about, in which case I'm all ears.
In order to have been targeted, you would have had to of been on an overseas call, and according to the administrations, at least one part of the conversation had to be with a terrorist or suspected terrorist
How much of this is "according to the administration" and how much is actual text in the bill? Is it codified that warrentless wiretaps apply ONLY to calls crossing the US border? Is it codified that part of the conversation had to be with a terrorist, suspected terrorist, or person with ties to them? Because quite frankly, I don't care what they say they are looking for. I only care about the bill's potential to be misused once it's enacted, because it WILL be misused once it's enacted.
Fair enough.
Let me say that my intent was not to make excuses for those you call wilfully ignorant. My intent was to get people to treat other people like people, even when there is a huge disagreement, and my method was to give reasons (which I believe are valid) other than wilful ignorance for those people to think the way they do in order to make them a little less like the cardboard cutouts generally portrayed here on Slashdot. I see that I've generally failed to convince you, but that's okay.
It's clear to me that you hate what's going on and want to see things change as much as I do. You seem to have given up on a decent chunk of the population whereas I have not, but your fervor leads me to believe that you either have or are developing your own method of changing things. As long as that method includes more than complaining on the Internet (which we all do, myself enthusiastically included), I find no fault with you.
Best of luck.
Anyone who would vote for Bush Jr. twice is wilfully ignorant.
Certainly some of them are. I think that the media is to blame for the majority of ignorance. TV still has the Mantle of Authority, especially for older generations of Americans. The only way to find out any individual's reasons for supporting Bush is to attempt to engage them in rational debate.
Anyone who supports perpetual budget defecits we're going to leave to our grandkids to pay back is wilfully ignorant.
Or overly optimistic that those in charge know what they're doing. Or simply unaware of the problem because again, it's not really discussed in the media (save perhaps the "liberal media," which you'll have a hard time convincing many conservatives to heed). I've omitted your next point because my response is essentially the same. You should also keep in mind that you are not likely to find many people who hold all of these views simultaneously (according to my experience, anyway).
Anyone who supports war against relatively innocent nations, first on the basis of dishonest 9/11 rhetoric, then on dishonest WMD rhetoric, then on dishonest "He's a very bad man. Aren't you glad he's dead?" rhetoric, is wilfully ignorant.
Agreed. Though the media certainly helped the Bushies at the beginning by pushing the 9/11 and WMD nonsense, people should be aware by now that they were repeatedly lied to. In my experience many people are aware, but they continue to support the war because they feel that we cannot pull out now and be responsible for the likely collapse of Iraq - they do not want this blemish on America's record. I disagree (because our record was tarnished as soon as we went in), but I can see where they are coming from. "We made the mess, we need to clean it up."
Anyone who supports demolishing our freedoms in order to attack terrorists who supposedly hate us for our freedom is wilfully ignorant.
Agreed, for the subset of individuals who are aware that our rights are being trampled and still stand behind the trampling. I am perhaps less optimistic than you in my estimate of the percentage of folks who are aware of their rights and why they are important.
These wilfully ignorant people, they are supporting policies which are having a massive negative impact on the entire world and her people. Tens of thousands, maybe millions of people are dead because of the actions brought about by their wilful ignorance. More Americans are dead because of these ignorant policies than were killed on 9/11.
These people are my enemies.
I must adamantly (yet respectfully!) disagree with you here.
First of all, the people certainly gave the Bush Administration its power through their vote, but you cannot hold the people responsible for the actions of their elected officials. It's not like the populace voted to invade Iraq - that was a hijacking of power by the Bushies.
Second, following from the first, your enemies are those in power who have perpetrated these acts, and those in power who enabled them to do so, and those in power who do nothing about them. The people just want to live their lives and be left alone. This is why all the heinous rights-trampling and soverignty-invading has been done under the guise of national security: if the people feel threatened, they will clamor for something to be done. The nasty debt-inducing financial practices can also be partially explained by this: lower taxes have an immediate benefit to the individual, which is what he cares about most. This is perfectly acceptable though certainly not optimal, as our representative democracy is supposed to let the individual remain (relatively) unconcerned with such high matters of state. The problem is that instead of responsible patriots being elected, we have partisan hacks and frauds gaming the system (again, through the media) to grab more power and use it to help themselves r
The majority of stupid people in this country see no problem with the "us vs them" mentality
Well now, I've got my dose of irony for the day!
If you show a little respect for people and realize that they are living, breathing, thinking individuals who have something to contribute to humanity, you will have a much better chance of convincing them that some of their actions or beliefs may be misguided.
The meme of the unwashed masses is as much "us vs them" as any you listed.
Oh, believe me, friend, I would have rather not mentioned it at all. But the rules clearly state that if you lose, you gotta own up to it.
God dammit! I *did* just lose the game, and I had a winning streak of close to 4 years, my personal best!
At least I know I'll be bringing other people down with me.
Fuck Bush!
I normally don't go in for such nonsense, but I was browsing at 0 and saw this lonely little post desperately crying out for some attention.
*hugs*
Feel better?
Have a mod point!
Actually, I don't have any. If I did though, you'd get one. Far too many Americans are dissatisfied with the big two but unwilling to stand behind a third party. It's like nobody is willing to put in the effort to help a 3rd party get to the top tier - people see only that (for example) the Libertarian party cannot win this election, so they will never vote for the Libertarian party.
If all the time spent bitching about one of the big two were spent educating people about third party options and trying to get it through their heads that it doesn't always have to be this way, I'll bet within 10-12 years we would at least see a sizable minority of 3rd party members in Congress.
Thanks for the info. I guess it's not surprising that they'd want to say something like that to people, but I'm surprised they're allowed.
(What I wrote originally was the truth, so I don't appreciate the troll mod, ye bastards.)
I can confirm this. I was warned by the guy at the mac store that memory is user-upgradeable, but you absolutely will void your warranty if you try to replace the hard drive. This was for MacBook Pro; the drives might be replaceable in their desktops.
There are some who call me...Tim.
[H]ow can we expect anyone else to pay attention past the face on their big screen TV telling them what to think?
Give them more information to think with. People are not the dumb, unwashed masses I hear referred to so often here on Slashdot. Most of the generations we're talking about here grew up when TV news was more trustworthy than it is today, as you should know given your moniker. Is it any wonder that they believe it so readily?
One thing to keep in mind is that people respond more strongly to stuff going on in real life than stuff that happens on TV or on the Web. Everybody's got their lists of stuff to care about, but I'm more likely to add something to my list if a friend discusses her concerns over it than I am if it's something I read on Slashdot. In order to effect real change, you have to get out from behind the screen and interact with people. I just finished up a post in the other telecom thread that's a stab in the dark at what we can do. You can't make everybody care about everything, but the more effort you put into something, the more likely others will understand your point of view and become concerned with it themselves.
It doesn't have to fail. You just have to go about it in the right way. I'm still not entirely sure what that is, but I do know this - it has little to do with the Internet (save perhaps as a way to find others in your area willing to help out or to share resources) and everything to do with local life and dealing with real people.
The first step is to raise awareness of the issue and help people to understand why it is important. This involves a fair amount of work with no guarantee of a big payoff, so I guess you have to weigh your rights against your laziness. If we are lucky, some intelligent, eloquent individuals will write concise documents about the issue that we can use everywhere. We have to make a compelling argument without being argumentative, a task that is traditionally hard for geeks to do. Off the top of my head, I think an FAQ would be one good way to present it:
"What's going on?"
"Why is this important to me?"
"Doesn't allowing these lawsuits hurt our fight against terrorists?"
"If I have nothing to hide..."
etc.
Well-written answers to these and more questions, without a patronizing tone, can and will have an effect on people. Once created, these guys can be printed and posted on telephone poles, stuffed into mailboxes (yeah, I know it's illegal; if it bothers you then mail 'em), and given to interested local businesses (who know a lot more people than you do) to hand out and discuss with their patrons. If you have money to burn, see if your local paper will give you a full-page ad or pack-in - you'd be surprised how willing they are to work with you, especially in small towns (where IMO the information is most needed). This is _by far_ the most important step, because the long-term goal should be to increase issues-based multi-tier rather than party-based single-tier participation in American politics.
As I said though, raising awareness is only the first step. Helping people to realize that "yes, we have a problem, but we can also fix it" comes next. If you are in an area whose congressman voted for telecom immunity, be sure to put that in the document along with his contact information. Reiterate that his job is to look out for your rights, that he failed miserably this time, and that he'll continue to fail unless YOU tell him that he is on the wrong track. Give contact info for your state's senators too and explain that it's even more important to tell them what you think since they haven't voted on the issue yet. If you're really industrious you can provide stationery and pre-addressed stamped envelopes to facilitate a letter campaign.
If that all sounds like too much trouble to you but you still want to do something, try writing a letter to the editor of your newspaper. That's one thing I may be doing this weekend in addition to figuring out how to best awaken the sense of injustice of the residents of my area.
We are a community that is spread out enough to do this sort of thing on a national scale if we get organized. I'm not qualified to do that - I'm more of an idea guy than anything else, and ideas are cheap unless they're implemented (or patent trolled =p) which is why I am focusing only in my area. If enough people decide to do something similar, we will have an effect. That doesn't mean this thing will get killed, but it's all about patterns: if you get into the pattern of caring about what goes on and helping other people to do the same, you start a trend. If you fail to do anything except complain on the Internet, that's your prerogative, but you only enforce the pattern of lethargy that brought us here in the first place and threatens to consume our once-great nation from within.
Gotcha, thanks for the clarification.
Yeah, the plan is to build it myself with the help of lots of friends and family. I'm quite lucky to have friends who are builders, and a father who has the know-how to do just about everything needed for new home construction. They're all intrigued by the dome idea and find it quirky enough to wanna help out just for kicks. I'd love to do it all debt-free like your sis (and you have my condolences...) but I'm not sure I can pull it off. I may buy the land and sit on it for a few years before I can start building. When you really get down to it, I have no idea what the Mysterious Future holds, and as I'm only in the planning stage everything is still pretty volatile. But I've been kicking around the idea for almost a decade now, so I think it has a good chance of taking root.
I'm pretty ignorant on the history of the matter, but the quoted statement kinda triggered my bullshit detector. (FTR, I am in no way taking a stance here. I'm just curious.)
Thanks for all the great info. I've been looking mainly at the Timberline prefabs - a concrete dome looks just horrible to my eye. I was mostly interested in the sort of stuff you've seen inside domes, but I'm really digging the cordwood masonry. It looks great and has a slightly more conventional structure, and is therefore much more likely to fly with the missus =)
Got any pictures or blueprints? I've been interested in building a dome for years now. Never saw one with suspended walkways, but it sounds awesome.