April 9, 1865, but that is neither here nor there. Are you telling me that you would not object to security screenings were individual states' port authorities to enact restrictions and conduct searches? Are your problems with the TSA and its restrictions really based on principles of states' rights?
No, of course not. Based on solid and reasoned Libertarian principles. I'm not a strict constitutionalist by any means, but it is a start, and if security screenings were done by the states one could argue that I'd have a choice on travel. Even so, I haven't read many state constitutions, just California's where I reside and it adheres to the bill of rights, I'll assume many other states do so as well; other arguments such as unwarranted searches and seizures still apply.
Now do your homework on what those amendments are actually for and not for. (Hint: Do I have a right to commit murder?)
Constitutionally? Yes. The tenth amendment tells us that any power not in the constitution is reserved to the individual states (or to the people). The power to pass laws prohibiting murder (or abortion, or wearing green pajamas to school) is reserved to the states (or o the people). The constitution only talks of few *federal* crimes, namely treason, piracy and counterfeiting, the founding fathers allowed each individual state to define their own criminal system. Most states constitutions therefore make it one of their first priorities to adhere to similar items as the bill of rights at the state level.
They are both somewhat redundant, but it was put in to make sure that its meaning was implicit. Their main purpose (as with the rest of the Constitution) is to limit the power of the Federal Government: to give it bounds.
Now, do *your homework* and try to trace when and why this amazing document got corrupted by reality.
The Right to privacy, as well as the right to carry liquids in containers above 1oz on an airplane are clearly stated in the constitution, right next to the right to walk on your hands (it's actually the right to *pursuit* walking on your hands) and the right to wear green pants on Easter Sunday:
U.S. Constitution, 9th Amendment. Quote:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
U.S. Constitution, 10th Amendment. Quote:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Big brother only works when you're afraid of him
Go reread 1984. Big Brother always works, he's always watching you. He cares and he loves you. He won't let you out of his sight. Stand up, and he runs away like a scared little kitten
I wish that was true, but I'm afraid it isn't, liberty takes a bit more than just standing up, and totalitarians are not known for backing away that easily.
Here's to the flagged ones. I'm probably as flagged as it gets outside of gitmo:)
And then I think of the Dr. in the fertility clinic who impregnated countless women with his own seed. People do stupid things. People who are stupid also are more likely to let their animal drives take over regardless of future consequence. Anyway, the point is that if I was a woman I would never trust a guy who told me he was on the pill, less so than me, being a man, would trust a woman who says the same thing. But I agree with the other answer, more choice is a good thing. For me, and to make sure, it was snip snip after I was done breeding.
This more than anything will make it hard for a male pill to ever work, men know it and women know it: Women's drive is to have babies when it is best, when they've found a partner to help them with the decades it takes to raise a child, etc. Men's drive is (mostly) to have as many as possible with as many women as possible. Single women know this, and are thus less likely to trust a man's word that he's on the pill.
Of course... we are human, which means that evolutionary drive is not the only thing that matters, but it is there nevertheless. In the words of Steve Vai... we may be humans, but we're still animals.
Healthcare does not really build value. Nothing has been made because Aunty Tilly got a $20,000 bypass instead of a $5 bottle of asprin.
I disagree. It does add value. Ask Aunty Tilly, by definition: value... is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. People do want $20,000 bypasses, so that makes them a value. Not only that, but every $20,000 spent to make a person's life livable keeps that person in the economy, both spending money and generating it.
It looks cool, I've seen the pictures before. But it's still flat (I much rather have to touch type on an ergonomic keyboard) plus it'll probably be very expensive.
I have a Maxim keyboard (by kinesis, online link left as an excercise for the student). It's fairly ergonomic, and best of all, its keys are all the same size, so you can easily pop them out and put them back in the correct (i.e. Dvorak way). Except for the F and the J, which have a little bump that means they don't fit anywhere else, so I got four keys (UFHJ) out of order.
Meanwhile, on the brink of his lavish wake, a lot of Enron retirees are probably looking to dine on some delicious cat food this week.
I'm sorry, but I don't think that many of Enron's employees are pure victims either. I have family in the energy industry and it was obvious at the time that Enron was using funny accounting. This is similar to how it was obvious to many of us in the tech sector that the dot com era was just fantasy that would burst sooner or later, they chose to work for Enron, they should have done enough research that the company they were working for was built on much air. Sure, I'm sure some employees were unaware of what was going on, but hey, life is NOT fair. Also, if you are retired (or close to retirement) and you have all of your money on one company's stock (even if its the company from which you retired) you are pretty stupid.
I remember reading once (one of Asimov's non-fiction, I believe) that he considered the existance of a large moon a prerequisite to higher life forming. Aside from other issues mentioned around here, the large tides produced by the moon create a nice interface between sea and land that is sometimes wet, sometimes dry creating a habitat for creatures that can survive that environment and a steping stone into dry land.
Without dry land you cannot easily have fire, and without fire you cannot easily have civilization. Could a civilization rise from purely ocean creatures? perhaps, but the streamlined forms ideal for life in water make it less likely for grasping apendages to form, plus again, you can't have fire. A world without moon won't have tides, tidal interface, dry land creatures, civilizations, or will take much longer to develop one.
But am I the only one around here that thinks that the main two reasons why venus is different than the earth are the obvious ones? 1) it is closer to the sun, thus getting more heat and 2) it rotates slower than its year, which makes one side much, much hoter than the other one.
Did you never stop to consider that maybe the evolution of two major parties, opposing each other around the gravity of a centrist position, is a natural and healthy--and therefore desireable--outcome of democratic rule?
Yup. I stopped to consider it, thought seriously about it and figured (as posted elsewhere in this thread) that this is not the case, because your one dimensional model is wrong(er) than my two dimensional model. In a two dimensional model (The Nolan Chart), traditional democrats favor economic controls and social freedoms, traditional republicans favor social control and democratic freedoms. Because both parties feel stronger about their "control" platforms than about their "freedom" platforms what you end up with is not a healthy average, but a very unhealthy totalitarian regime.
Here, "moderate" is simply the thing that most reasonable people can agree on.
I am a Libertarian, and work day in and day out in getting people to consider the Libertarian alternative. Most reasonable people agree that Libertarianism is the best option, the problem is that most people are not reasonable. Liberty requires thought, and most people don't have the initiative to think about politics, it's beyond the scope of this post to consider the reason.
Given enough time, I can convince many people to register Libertarian (or at least Decline-to-state) as long as they aren't already "in politics".
Wake me up when your "real alternative" can come up with a platform most reasonable people can agree on.
Wake up!
No, I'm not necessarily paranoid. But the problem is worse than you think. As you can see here, the republicans have abandoned any pretense at being fiscally conservative. Even those that still say they want economic freedom care much more about social control. Among the democrats they care much more about economic control than they do about social freedoms, when you put all of this together you get a continued move towards economic AND social control: the worse of both worlds. I'm sure most politicians think they are doing their best for the country, meanwhile the direction of the whole polit goes further and further south in the Nolan chart.
There are differences, but not essential ones. Republicans speak of fiscal conservatism while plunging us into the worst debt in history. Democrats speak of Social Liberty while allowing the abuses of the drug war, terror war and war-du-jour to go on (almost no member of congress or senate of either party speaks about these things). Sure, there are differences, and they can easily be charted here but where the rubber meets the road we're talking The Evil Party vs. The Stupid Party (and notice that I don't say which one is which).
I mean, half the country openly dissents from the ruling party.
You can only say that if you seriously think that the democrats and the are not part of the ruling party. The ruling party has a duopoly, they trade places in power once in a while to make you believe that there really is a democracy, and to keep you from voting for a real alternative with fear that the worst of two evils might get elected.
Wake up!
Although I do have to say that there have been worse Totalitarian societies, but wait.... our rulers are not done yet.
Except for the immense debt we are piling on at our levels of government (8.2 trillion national, not including social security or medicare, state and local bonds, etc OR interest!)
The GOP is liable to take it up the ass big time in November. Hopefully this will clear out some of the ancient old farts so we can later elect younger pols with more of a Libertarian bent.
Then why don't you just do the Right Thing (tm) and join the only party with a consistent, clear and platform: The Libertarian Party?
OK, I'll give you that, it would not have been "Frank Herbert's Dune", but it would have been a very interesting movie, particularly because of all of the people involved in the film... and perhaps better than the duh-sounding "The sleeper has awakened" and "Am I the one?" from Lynch's version (which I must confess I like a lot).
I have read most of Niven's opus (and loved most of it) but IMHO his sequels usually leave a lot to be desired, e.g. the Mott's eye books, the Integral trees books, the Ringworld books, the beowolf books. He has an amazing imagingation for setting a novel, and does a good job on the first one, but then the sequels just don't grip me as much as the originals, but I'll read them anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
April 9, 1865, but that is neither here nor there. Are you telling me that you would not object to security screenings were individual states' port authorities to enact restrictions and conduct searches? Are your problems with the TSA and its restrictions really based on principles of states' rights?
No, of course not. Based on solid and reasoned Libertarian principles. I'm not a strict constitutionalist by any means, but it is a start, and if security screenings were done by the states one could argue that I'd have a choice on travel. Even so, I haven't read many state constitutions, just California's where I reside and it adheres to the bill of rights, I'll assume many other states do so as well; other arguments such as unwarranted searches and seizures still apply.
Now do your homework on what those amendments are actually for and not for. (Hint: Do I have a right to commit murder?)
Constitutionally? Yes. The tenth amendment tells us that any power not in the constitution is reserved to the individual states (or to the people). The power to pass laws prohibiting murder (or abortion, or wearing green pajamas to school) is reserved to the states (or o the people). The constitution only talks of few *federal* crimes, namely treason, piracy and counterfeiting, the founding fathers allowed each individual state to define their own criminal system. Most states constitutions therefore make it one of their first priorities to adhere to similar items as the bill of rights at the state level.
They are both somewhat redundant, but it was put in to make sure that its meaning was implicit. Their main purpose (as with the rest of the Constitution) is to limit the power of the Federal Government: to give it bounds.
Now, do *your homework* and try to trace when and why this amazing document got corrupted by reality.
U.S. Constitution, 9th Amendment. Quote: U.S. Constitution, 10th Amendment. Quote:
Don't worry about them owning us. We give the chinese small worthless pieces of paper and get stuff in return. Who's getting a raw deal?
Big brother only works when you're afraid of him :)
Go reread 1984. Big Brother always works, he's always watching you. He cares and he loves you. He won't let you out of his sight.
Stand up, and he runs away like a scared little kitten
I wish that was true, but I'm afraid it isn't, liberty takes a bit more than just standing up, and totalitarians are not known for backing away that easily.
Here's to the flagged ones. I'm probably as flagged as it gets outside of gitmo
And then I think of the Dr. in the fertility clinic who impregnated countless women with his own seed. People do stupid things. People who are stupid also are more likely to let their animal drives take over regardless of future consequence. Anyway, the point is that if I was a woman I would never trust a guy who told me he was on the pill, less so than me, being a man, would trust a woman who says the same thing. But I agree with the other answer, more choice is a good thing. For me, and to make sure, it was snip snip after I was done breeding.
This more than anything will make it hard for a male pill to ever work, men know it and women know it: Women's drive is to have babies when it is best, when they've found a partner to help them with the decades it takes to raise a child, etc. Men's drive is (mostly) to have as many as possible with as many women as possible. Single women know this, and are thus less likely to trust a man's word that he's on the pill.
Of course... we are human, which means that evolutionary drive is not the only thing that matters, but it is there nevertheless. In the words of Steve Vai... we may be humans, but we're still animals.
Healthcare does not really build value. Nothing has been made because Aunty Tilly got a $20,000 bypass instead of a $5 bottle of asprin. I disagree. It does add value. Ask Aunty Tilly, by definition: value... is that which one acts to gain and/or keep. People do want $20,000 bypasses, so that makes them a value. Not only that, but every $20,000 spent to make a person's life livable keeps that person in the economy, both spending money and generating it.
At least this time
Folsom Dam Perhaps? We moved to Roseville in a small part because of its closure. I still have a bumper sticker that says "Open the Dam Road".
It looks cool, I've seen the pictures before. But it's still flat (I much rather have to touch type on an ergonomic keyboard) plus it'll probably be very expensive.
I have a Maxim keyboard (by kinesis, online link left as an excercise for the student). It's fairly ergonomic, and best of all, its keys are all the same size, so you can easily pop them out and put them back in the correct (i.e. Dvorak way). Except for the F and the J, which have a little bump that means they don't fit anywhere else, so I got four keys (UFHJ) out of order.
Meanwhile, on the brink of his lavish wake, a lot of Enron retirees are probably looking to dine on some delicious cat food this week.
I'm sorry, but I don't think that many of Enron's employees are pure victims either. I have family in the energy industry and it was obvious at the time that Enron was using funny accounting. This is similar to how it was obvious to many of us in the tech sector that the dot com era was just fantasy that would burst sooner or later, they chose to work for Enron, they should have done enough research that the company they were working for was built on much air. Sure, I'm sure some employees were unaware of what was going on, but hey, life is NOT fair. Also, if you are retired (or close to retirement) and you have all of your money on one company's stock (even if its the company from which you retired) you are pretty stupid.
Man, that was the first thing that came to my mind as well when I heard. At least you're not alone in thinking this!
Ook
I remember reading once (one of Asimov's non-fiction, I believe) that he considered the existance of a large moon a prerequisite to higher life forming. Aside from other issues mentioned around here, the large tides produced by the moon create a nice interface between sea and land that is sometimes wet, sometimes dry creating a habitat for creatures that can survive that environment and a steping stone into dry land.
Without dry land you cannot easily have fire, and without fire you cannot easily have civilization. Could a civilization rise from purely ocean creatures? perhaps, but the streamlined forms ideal for life in water make it less likely for grasping apendages to form, plus again, you can't have fire. A world without moon won't have tides, tidal interface, dry land creatures, civilizations, or will take much longer to develop one.
But am I the only one around here that thinks that the main two reasons why venus is different than the earth are the obvious ones? 1) it is closer to the sun, thus getting more heat and 2) it rotates slower than its year, which makes one side much, much hoter than the other one.
Did you never stop to consider that maybe the evolution of two major parties, opposing each other around the gravity of a centrist position, is a natural and healthy--and therefore desireable--outcome of democratic rule?
Yup. I stopped to consider it, thought seriously about it and figured (as posted elsewhere in this thread) that this is not the case, because your one dimensional model is wrong(er) than my two dimensional model. In a two dimensional model (The Nolan Chart), traditional democrats favor economic controls and social freedoms, traditional republicans favor social control and democratic freedoms. Because both parties feel stronger about their "control" platforms than about their "freedom" platforms what you end up with is not a healthy average, but a very unhealthy totalitarian regime.
Here, "moderate" is simply the thing that most reasonable people can agree on.
I am a Libertarian, and work day in and day out in getting people to consider the Libertarian alternative. Most reasonable people agree that Libertarianism is the best option, the problem is that most people are not reasonable. Liberty requires thought, and most people don't have the initiative to think about politics, it's beyond the scope of this post to consider the reason.
Given enough time, I can convince many people to register Libertarian (or at least Decline-to-state) as long as they aren't already "in politics".
Wake me up when your "real alternative" can come up with a platform most reasonable people can agree on.
Wake up!
No, I'm not necessarily paranoid. But the problem is worse than you think. As you can see here, the republicans have abandoned any pretense at being fiscally conservative. Even those that still say they want economic freedom care much more about social control. Among the democrats they care much more about economic control than they do about social freedoms, when you put all of this together you get a continued move towards economic AND social control: the worse of both worlds. I'm sure most politicians think they are doing their best for the country, meanwhile the direction of the whole polit goes further and further south in the Nolan chart.
There are differences, but not essential ones. Republicans speak of fiscal conservatism while plunging us into the worst debt in history. Democrats speak of Social Liberty while allowing the abuses of the drug war, terror war and war-du-jour to go on (almost no member of congress or senate of either party speaks about these things). Sure, there are differences, and they can easily be charted here but where the rubber meets the road we're talking The Evil Party vs. The Stupid Party (and notice that I don't say which one is which).
I mean, half the country openly dissents from the ruling party.
You can only say that if you seriously think that the democrats and the are not part of the ruling party. The ruling party has a duopoly, they trade places in power once in a while to make you believe that there really is a democracy, and to keep you from voting for a real alternative with fear that the worst of two evils might get elected.
Wake up!
Although I do have to say that there have been worse Totalitarian societies, but wait.... our rulers are not done yet.
Except for the immense debt we are piling on at our levels of government (8.2 trillion national, not including social security or medicare, state and local bonds, etc OR interest!)
The GOP is liable to take it up the ass big time in November. Hopefully this will clear out some of the ancient old farts so we can later elect younger pols with more of a Libertarian bent.
Then why don't you just do the Right Thing (tm) and join the only party with a consistent, clear and platform: The Libertarian Party?
Yeah, but consider the latency!
OK, I'll give you that, it would not have been "Frank Herbert's Dune", but it would have been a very interesting movie, particularly because of all of the people involved in the film... and perhaps better than the duh-sounding "The sleeper has awakened" and "Am I the one?" from Lynch's version (which I must confess I like a lot).
I have read most of Niven's opus (and loved most of it) but IMHO his sequels usually leave a lot to be desired, e.g. the Mott's eye books, the Integral trees books, the Ringworld books, the beowolf books. He has an amazing imagingation for setting a novel, and does a good job on the first one, but then the sequels just don't grip me as much as the originals, but I'll read them anyway.