That's about what I expected. Let's up the ante then, and ask if you are prepared to countenance honor killings?
Many cultures (not just Muslim, kids)hold that it is acceptable for the parents of a female child to kill her if she brings dishonor on her family. It is in fact codified in the laws of many countries.
Does your multiculturalism stretch that far? If not, why not?
No, I think he's right. You don't understand what a zealot is.
A zealot is a guy who will fly an airplane into a building for his faith, or blow up a school gym full of little kids. We don't see that much around here.
Ashcroft is a guy who has beliefs you don't agree with, and is not concerened that you disagree. That's not a zealot, that's a guy with some steel in his spine.
People with less money go into technical careers because it is much cheaper, both in money and time. The thing about professional education is that it is EXPENSIVE. Two hundred grand for an MD, 36 grand for my wanky Masters of PT.
For that kind of money, I expect to get the real skinny on the profession I'm entering. Bwhaha! Not!
The truth about professions like medicine is that most people are smart enough to do the clinical work. Where the trouble comes is the rest of the bullshit that goes along with it.
Doctors have to not only figure out the patient's health problem and treat it, they have to squeeze that work into a tiny space in their day which is taken up by all the regulatory, billing and legal crap, plus the running of their business, plus fielding phone calls, plus plus plus.
They do NOT tell you that in med school. Not only that, they pretend that those other things don't exist and focus only on the clinical aspect.
As for Physical Therapy, as a licensed PT it is my considered opinion that any fool can do this job. Again, its the other stuff that gets you. Any fool can't do this job in the time frame available, you have to be sharp like a friggin' razor.
Bottom line, my education is not what makes me effective in my profession. What makes me effective is my reading outside my field, my experience, the training in logic and science I managed to scrape together over my life, and a determination to do a good job. In the old days that was known as workmanship.
I did not get that from school. What I got for 36 thousand US dollars and two very unpleasant years of my time was A)permission to take the licensing exam and B) well meaning people trying to hammer my square peg through their regulation issue round hole. I didn't really learn squat until I was in the field doing the job, solving problems and kicking asses, because in school I spent most of my time dealing with people trying to mold and shape me against my will.
That's what's wrong with education these days. I could have studied for six months, taken the exam spent those two years making money and gaining experience. But then all those schools would be out of business, wouldn't they?
Try reading some Protestant philosophy. Martin Luther maybe. Freedom of Religion in the old days meant freedom to disagree with Rome on small details and not be burnt at the stake for it.
Currently the idea was expanded from that Christian Protestant begining to include the Post Modern freedom from any religion at all its all bad get it off me! type thing.
Basic premise can be found in the story of the Good Samaratin. Men of other faiths can be Godly.
I'm stretching here, but wasn't there some guy shot back in the 1960's? Something about a civil rights movement, has a holiday named after him. Martin Luther Something day?
First bacon, then no Christians at all, then we get down to excluding skin colors.
People really do have a problem admitting their Christian intellectual inheritance. Not the point however.
Granting (for sake of argument only) your objection that Christianity is a compilation, I observe that English is also a compilation. How far will a visitor to an English speaking nation get without some rudimentary grasp of the language?
Would we be IDIOTS not to teach English in schools?
Same idea.
By the way, I'm by no means a Bible scholar (!!!) but if you look you may find some concepts origional to Christianity. I'm sure there must be at least one or two.
"One can be ethical and can have morals without religion."
Yes, but the point is that the particular ethics we are discussing are Christian ones, and the USA is based on them no less than England or France. You don't have to be a Christian to follow them, but if you live in a Christian country you better at least know what they are.
As in, If I go to Saudi Arabia it would behove me to bone up on Muslim tradition and Arab law. Because if I don't, I could find myself getting arrested for any one of a hundred idiot reasons that we would think silly, but they take deadly seriously.
The West is being draged kicking and screaming into a religious war with the Middle East dude, or have you not been paying attention?
You want to keep practicing your Post Modernist Atheism or whatever, you'd better hope them historically interesting Christians fight hard for your freedom.
Otherwise it won't be looking so good. The Religion of Peace(TM) doesn't take kindly to unbelievers.
Boy howdy, you're an upset looking for a place to happen. Made my point for me there, eh?
The Christian religion is the philosophical basis upon which law and custom are built in Western society. By which I mean North AND South America, Europe, and their former empires. That's just the facts.
So if you don't know at least the tenets of Christianity, you have no idea what's going on here.
For example, the concept "freedom of religion" is derived from Christianity. Other religious traditions have no such belief. People who come to your country from those traditions will be most offended by your assertion that you are free to practice any religion you want.
Therefore if the tenets (and history!) of Christianity are not taught in school, there will be people in ever growing numbers who do not know about or understand the concept of Freedom of Religion, and who will be completely ignorant of the ass kicking awaiting them should they transgress against it.
Like the Muslim guy in Florida who fired his Latino secretary for eating a bacon sandwich at lunch. He is currently getting his ass kicked up and down and all around in the media and in court by the ACLU, because he doesn't understand that religious tolerance means HE has to tolerate OUR religion and values, not just that we have to tolerate his. In practical terms it means that while he is not required to eat bacon himself, his company does not have the right to declare bacon verboten for all employees.
A Conservative would state it thusly: "Welcome to my country. These are the rules. Play by them and there won't be any trouble. If you don't like the rules, go in peace."
I can't imagine what a Liberal would say, my mind won't bend that far into hyperspace. Probably depend on what day of the lunar calendar it was.
As for Christianity dying, only in New York public schools. But then math is dying there too, so pehaps we should not be shocked.
Tolerance? Come on dude, this is Slashdot. If it ain't Lefty liberal, flame on!
By the way, excellent point you make. Big "E" Education certainly is a religion to its practitioners, may they all come down with boils.
Besides, who says there's something wrong with teaching Christianity? If you don't know the rules of Western Civilization your life will suck, and all the rules come right out of the Bible like it or not.
One of the things forcibly impressed upon me from wasted years of "education" is the way school actively decieves you about the nature of the workplace.
Medical education is my latest nightmare. It fills the student with theory and visions of how things "should" be done, and informs them not at all regarding how things ARE done. Pity the poor medical student on their first hospital placement. The garbage colectors know more about what the score is than they do.
I've been out of public school for so long that I can't comment on how things are now, but higher education baby, that I can. What we have here is what I call Certification Syndrome. You aren't worth a damn to anyone unless you are Certified in some subject or other. Like a Certified Microsoft Engineer has a clue why XP screws up on one PC but not another.
The unholy alliance of lazy large busineses looking for replaceable cogs and schools willing to crank them out is what we have these days. Unfortunately people trained to be good little cogs don't do great things. Bill Gates for example is not a good little cog. Bill doesn't have a CME either, I bet.
Bottom line, if you want to be educated instead of trained, you have to WORK your ass off at it. Same for your kids. Teach them how to think, give them the tools of rationality or put up with them when they become Radical Vegan Socialists for Peace with a CME or an MD. Because that's what's fashionable at school this decade.
Next decade it'll probably be Radical Christian Conservatives For War. I don't see that as an improvement. You got a brain, you should get some decent software for it. God forbid you should have an origional thought.
Funny how Swift Boat Veterans For Truth and their media-ignored campaign didn't make the list. They had to buy a national TV ad to even make the papers, but the book's author has been after Kerry for 20 years, since Kerry first ran for the senate in fact. He might be full of shit, or not, but the media were dead set on us not knowing about it at all.
http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php
Funny how the uproar over The Sceptical Environmentalist author Bjorn Lomborg being censured by the Danish government and later de-censured didn't make the list. Didn't make the major media either, just like his book didn't. He's still buried.
Funny how they didn't mention the amazing under-reporting on the holes in Farenheit 9/11 and Moore's other "documentary" Bowling for Columbine.
Could it be... self censorship?
Or could they be a George Sorros funded partisan propaganda mill? Hmmmn?
Or possibly they are just a bunch of non-affiliated Bush hating squeebs busy making shit up. That'd be my vote.
You wanna see some REAL media hijinks, check out MRC. http://www.mrc.org/ It'll curl yer hair.
That's good for you, because if you maybe wanted to decide for yourself how to spend -your- money instead of letting some desk pilot do it, your stress level would be through the roof. ~:D Like the poor bastard trying to make a living running his company where all the workers get 5 weeks vacation plus plus plus.
I'm a Canadian, we pay roughly 50% tax compared to income if you include everything. I lived for 10 years in the USA, and I'm here to tell you that lower taxes ROCK! Its called FREEDOM, fly down to Arizona and breath in a big lungful of it sometime.
And before you start in on how the Americans don't have heathcare let me assure you that A) they do, lots of people lie about that, mostly socialists and B) if you have -money- you can -buy- healthcare. Most people have the money, the ones who don't get Medicare. Even bums and illegals get treatment.
Unlike Canada, where you can't buy an xray even if your friggin' life depends on it. You wait in line until you die waiting, or you drive to the USA and buy your treatment with your paltry after-tax savings. The Mayo Clinic is full to the tits with Canadians. Why? If they wait for treatment at home they die waiting. No shit kids.
Well, its the carrying of the launcher that's in question I think. More than one version of the story etc.
I didn't say he shouldn't have shot the kid, just that he's wangled himself a medal for backshooting a guy and on a separate issue (Cambodia) he's a liar.
Maybe not a horrific criminal, but questionable Presidential material.
Hmm, compressed air plus explosives...
on
Disney Goes Boom!
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· Score: 1
I'm thinking there's just something about that combination that sounds so wrong.
It may interest you to know that the guy who was Kerry's gunner was on Rush Limbaugh last week, and his MEMORY of the whole affair differs considerably from your report.
He says that not only was John Kerry not in Cambodia at Christmas that year, he personally watched Kerry's lyin' ass not being in Cambodia the whole time. Never got within 50 miles of Cambodia.
It may also interest you to know that there's no such thing as a "combat V" for the Silver Star, contrary to Kerry's medal list on his website.
That makes him a LYIN' backshooter. Leaving aside his entire record in the Senate of course, which has him voting against every major weapons system for the last 20 years that were all used to kick Saddam's ass in both Gulf wars.
So, you can vote for him if you want, but be honest for just a second. If the Dems had nominated a stuffed poodle to run for president, you'd vote for it. Right?
Shooting that kid in the back is what Kerry got his Silver Star for. HE said he shot the kid running away. Read the Kerry web site, dork.
By the way, I'm A) a Canadian and B) did indeed serve in our joke army during the Vietnam era. It sucked and I'm glad we were never issued live ammo except at the range. Would have been a frickin' disaster.
But you know, I doubt any of us would shoot an unarmed man running away and then brag about it. You only brag when you shoot 'em in the front.
Riiiight, those wascawy Wepubwicans control the media.
That's why Day 1 of the Republican Convention is being NOT aired on all the networks, because they held the convention and spent millions of bucks so nobody would cover it, right?
Are you this big an idiot naturally, or did you have to work at it?
Now that I have your probably limited attention, don't you think that question is a little, well, STUPID?
The act of defacing the street is the same, the purpose of the defacement is irrelevant. Yes, the Coke driver would get busted and fined the same as Wonderboy with his Wonderbike. Vandalism is vandalism. That it happens to support your team in this really disgraceful election season is a point AGAINST your side.
I find this willingness to excuse the destructive activities of pro-Democrat protesters very troubling. Did we see anti-Kerry Republicans screwing things up in Boston? No. Do we see anti-Bush Democrat a-holes this week screwing up New York? Thousands. Including Bike Genius. Pretty soon they will be burning cars. Is burning a car protected political speech?
Just as a curiosity, would you agree that WonderVandal chalking "Bush Lied!" with his VandalBike Of Doom is as much a defacement of public property as some Republican chalking "Kerry Is A Backshooter!"?
One of those statements is actually true, (because we know that John Kerry really is a backshooter, he personally capped an unarmed teenager who was running away at the time) wouldn't that make it OK?
Coke PAYS for advertising space, you juvenile. Democrat supporting vandals steal theirs. What does that tell us?
Not so, learned colegue. Socialism by nature cannot exist without a coercive component, because there are always people who don't want to cough up the taxes. That's the snake oil they always try to slide past you in Poly Sci class. So I must disagree with the link you gave.
The greater the socialism, the greater the tax demands of the gubmint and of course the greater the coersion. The Communist police state is merely the fully fledged end of the spectrum.
The less developed middle can be seen in Britain, Canada and Australia for example. (And anybody who thinks Britian isn't fast becoming a police state should inquire into the fate of the average schmoe who is unfortunate enough to wound or kill a robber in the comission of a robbery in their own home. It ain't pretty.)
At the Olympics the antics of the IOC are closer to the Soviet end of the spectrum. If athletes deviate even slightly from the ever growing, ever more intrusive list of regulations they get sent to Siberia immediately.
The purpose of all this is to enrich the IOC and of course further solidify their power in the sporting world. Sooner or later I expect the sporting world to tell them to shove it and just hold their usual world championships.
You can have a police state without socialism of course, but you need some other religion to glue it together. Iran would be an example. Its still a coercive, abusive government, they just lie about different stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
That's about what I expected. Let's up the ante then, and ask if you are prepared to countenance honor killings?
Many cultures (not just Muslim, kids)hold that it is acceptable for the parents of a female child to kill her if she brings dishonor on her family. It is in fact codified in the laws of many countries.
Does your multiculturalism stretch that far? If not, why not?
"Or, did you mean, the individual could come in anyway and not abide by them? Hmmm?"
Yeah, he meant that. Not his country, remember?
And he will keep meaning it until some imported bad guy decides not to follow the rules and blows up people in HIS town. Then it will be different.
No, I think he's right. You don't understand what a zealot is.
A zealot is a guy who will fly an airplane into a building for his faith, or blow up a school gym full of little kids. We don't see that much around here.
Ashcroft is a guy who has beliefs you don't agree with, and is not concerened that you disagree. That's not a zealot, that's a guy with some steel in his spine.
People with less money go into technical careers because it is much cheaper, both in money and time. The thing about professional education is that it is EXPENSIVE. Two hundred grand for an MD, 36 grand for my wanky Masters of PT.
For that kind of money, I expect to get the real skinny on the profession I'm entering. Bwhaha! Not!
The truth about professions like medicine is that most people are smart enough to do the clinical work. Where the trouble comes is the rest of the bullshit that goes along with it.
Doctors have to not only figure out the patient's health problem and treat it, they have to squeeze that work into a tiny space in their day which is taken up by all the regulatory, billing and legal crap, plus the running of their business, plus fielding phone calls, plus plus plus.
They do NOT tell you that in med school. Not only that, they pretend that those other things don't exist and focus only on the clinical aspect.
As for Physical Therapy, as a licensed PT it is my considered opinion that any fool can do this job. Again, its the other stuff that gets you. Any fool can't do this job in the time frame available, you have to be sharp like a friggin' razor.
Bottom line, my education is not what makes me effective in my profession. What makes me effective is my reading outside my field, my experience, the training in logic and science I managed to scrape together over my life, and a determination to do a good job. In the old days that was known as workmanship.
I did not get that from school. What I got for 36 thousand US dollars and two very unpleasant years of my time was A)permission to take the licensing exam and B) well meaning people trying to hammer my square peg through their regulation issue round hole. I didn't really learn squat until I was in the field doing the job, solving problems and kicking asses, because in school I spent most of my time dealing with people trying to mold and shape me against my will.
That's what's wrong with education these days. I could have studied for six months, taken the exam spent those two years making money and gaining experience. But then all those schools would be out of business, wouldn't they?
Graduated from physical therapy school in the 1990's, thank god. CME is Certified Microsoft Engineer.
Its a Western Christian invention, post Bible.
Try reading some Protestant philosophy. Martin Luther maybe. Freedom of Religion in the old days meant freedom to disagree with Rome on small details and not be burnt at the stake for it.
Currently the idea was expanded from that Christian Protestant begining to include the Post Modern freedom from any religion at all its all bad get it off me! type thing.
Basic premise can be found in the story of the Good Samaratin. Men of other faiths can be Godly.
I'm stretching here, but wasn't there some guy shot back in the 1960's? Something about a civil rights movement, has a holiday named after him. Martin Luther Something day?
First bacon, then no Christians at all, then we get down to excluding skin colors.
Try not to be an idiot, won't you?
People really do have a problem admitting their Christian intellectual inheritance. Not the point however.
Granting (for sake of argument only) your objection that Christianity is a compilation, I observe that English is also a compilation. How far will a visitor to an English speaking nation get without some rudimentary grasp of the language?
Would we be IDIOTS not to teach English in schools?
Same idea.
By the way, I'm by no means a Bible scholar (!!!) but if you look you may find some concepts origional to Christianity. I'm sure there must be at least one or two.
"One can be ethical and can have morals without religion."
Yes, but the point is that the particular ethics we are discussing are Christian ones, and the USA is based on them no less than England or France. You don't have to be a Christian to follow them, but if you live in a Christian country you better at least know what they are.
As in, If I go to Saudi Arabia it would behove me to bone up on Muslim tradition and Arab law. Because if I don't, I could find myself getting arrested for any one of a hundred idiot reasons that we would think silly, but they take deadly seriously.
Not that I've noticed.
Are you a coward? Just asking.
The West is being draged kicking and screaming into a religious war with the Middle East dude, or have you not been paying attention?
You want to keep practicing your Post Modernist Atheism or whatever, you'd better hope them historically interesting Christians fight hard for your freedom.
Otherwise it won't be looking so good. The Religion of Peace(TM) doesn't take kindly to unbelievers.
Boy howdy, you're an upset looking for a place to happen. Made my point for me there, eh?
The Christian religion is the philosophical basis upon which law and custom are built in Western society. By which I mean North AND South America, Europe, and their former empires. That's just the facts.
So if you don't know at least the tenets of Christianity, you have no idea what's going on here.
For example, the concept "freedom of religion" is derived from Christianity. Other religious traditions have no such belief. People who come to your country from those traditions will be most offended by your assertion that you are free to practice any religion you want.
Therefore if the tenets (and history!) of Christianity are not taught in school, there will be people in ever growing numbers who do not know about or understand the concept of Freedom of Religion, and who will be completely ignorant of the ass kicking awaiting them should they transgress against it.
Like the Muslim guy in Florida who fired his Latino secretary for eating a bacon sandwich at lunch. He is currently getting his ass kicked up and down and all around in the media and in court by the ACLU, because he doesn't understand that religious tolerance means HE has to tolerate OUR religion and values, not just that we have to tolerate his. In practical terms it means that while he is not required to eat bacon himself, his company does not have the right to declare bacon verboten for all employees.
A Conservative would state it thusly: "Welcome to my country. These are the rules. Play by them and there won't be any trouble. If you don't like the rules, go in peace."
I can't imagine what a Liberal would say, my mind won't bend that far into hyperspace. Probably depend on what day of the lunar calendar it was.
As for Christianity dying, only in New York public schools. But then math is dying there too, so pehaps we should not be shocked.
Tolerance? Come on dude, this is Slashdot. If it ain't Lefty liberal, flame on!
By the way, excellent point you make. Big "E" Education certainly is a religion to its practitioners, may they all come down with boils.
Besides, who says there's something wrong with teaching Christianity? If you don't know the rules of Western Civilization your life will suck, and all the rules come right out of the Bible like it or not.
One of the things forcibly impressed upon me from wasted years of "education" is the way school actively decieves you about the nature of the workplace.
Medical education is my latest nightmare. It fills the student with theory and visions of how things "should" be done, and informs them not at all regarding how things ARE done. Pity the poor medical student on their first hospital placement. The garbage colectors know more about what the score is than they do.
I've been out of public school for so long that I can't comment on how things are now, but higher education baby, that I can. What we have here is what I call Certification Syndrome. You aren't worth a damn to anyone unless you are Certified in some subject or other. Like a Certified Microsoft Engineer has a clue why XP screws up on one PC but not another.
The unholy alliance of lazy large busineses looking for replaceable cogs and schools willing to crank them out is what we have these days. Unfortunately people trained to be good little cogs don't do great things. Bill Gates for example is not a good little cog. Bill doesn't have a CME either, I bet.
Bottom line, if you want to be educated instead of trained, you have to WORK your ass off at it. Same for your kids. Teach them how to think, give them the tools of rationality or put up with them when they become Radical Vegan Socialists for Peace with a CME or an MD. Because that's what's fashionable at school this decade.
Next decade it'll probably be Radical Christian Conservatives For War. I don't see that as an improvement. You got a brain, you should get some decent software for it. God forbid you should have an origional thought.
Funny how Swift Boat Veterans For Truth and their media-ignored campaign didn't make the list. They had to buy a national TV ad to even make the papers, but the book's author has been after Kerry for 20 years, since Kerry first ran for the senate in fact. He might be full of shit, or not, but the media were dead set on us not knowing about it at all.
http://swift1.he.net/~swiftvet/index.php
Funny how the uproar over The Sceptical Environmentalist author Bjorn Lomborg being censured by the Danish government and later de-censured didn't make the list. Didn't make the major media either, just like his book didn't. He's still buried.
Funny how they didn't mention the amazing under-reporting on the holes in Farenheit 9/11 and Moore's other "documentary" Bowling for Columbine.
Could it be... self censorship?
Or could they be a George Sorros funded partisan propaganda mill? Hmmmn?
Or possibly they are just a bunch of non-affiliated Bush hating squeebs busy making shit up. That'd be my vote.
You wanna see some REAL media hijinks, check out MRC. http://www.mrc.org/ It'll curl yer hair.
That's good for you, because if you maybe wanted to decide for yourself how to spend -your- money instead of letting some desk pilot do it, your stress level would be through the roof. ~:D Like the poor bastard trying to make a living running his company where all the workers get 5 weeks vacation plus plus plus.
I'm a Canadian, we pay roughly 50% tax compared to income if you include everything. I lived for 10 years in the USA, and I'm here to tell you that lower taxes ROCK! Its called FREEDOM, fly down to Arizona and breath in a big lungful of it sometime.
And before you start in on how the Americans don't have heathcare let me assure you that A) they do, lots of people lie about that, mostly socialists and B) if you have -money- you can -buy- healthcare. Most people have the money, the ones who don't get Medicare. Even bums and illegals get treatment.
Unlike Canada, where you can't buy an xray even if your friggin' life depends on it. You wait in line until you die waiting, or you drive to the USA and buy your treatment with your paltry after-tax savings. The Mayo Clinic is full to the tits with Canadians. Why? If they wait for treatment at home they die waiting. No shit kids.
But they still gotta cough up that 50%.
...except at income tax time.
Well, its the carrying of the launcher that's in question I think. More than one version of the story etc.
I didn't say he shouldn't have shot the kid, just that he's wangled himself a medal for backshooting a guy and on a separate issue (Cambodia) he's a liar.
Maybe not a horrific criminal, but questionable Presidential material.
I'm thinking there's just something about that combination that sounds so wrong.
It may interest you to know that the guy who was Kerry's gunner was on Rush Limbaugh last week, and his MEMORY of the whole affair differs considerably from your report.
He says that not only was John Kerry not in Cambodia at Christmas that year, he personally watched Kerry's lyin' ass not being in Cambodia the whole time. Never got within 50 miles of Cambodia.
It may also interest you to know that there's no such thing as a "combat V" for the Silver Star, contrary to Kerry's medal list on his website.
That makes him a LYIN' backshooter. Leaving aside his entire record in the Senate of course, which has him voting against every major weapons system for the last 20 years that were all used to kick Saddam's ass in both Gulf wars.
So, you can vote for him if you want, but be honest for just a second. If the Dems had nominated a stuffed poodle to run for president, you'd vote for it. Right?
Shooting that kid in the back is what Kerry got his Silver Star for. HE said he shot the kid running away. Read the Kerry web site, dork.
By the way, I'm A) a Canadian and B) did indeed serve in our joke army during the Vietnam era. It sucked and I'm glad we were never issued live ammo except at the range. Would have been a frickin' disaster.
But you know, I doubt any of us would shoot an unarmed man running away and then brag about it. You only brag when you shoot 'em in the front.
Riiiight, those wascawy Wepubwicans control the media.
That's why Day 1 of the Republican Convention is being NOT aired on all the networks, because they held the convention and spent millions of bucks so nobody would cover it, right?
Are you this big an idiot naturally, or did you have to work at it?
Now that I have your probably limited attention, don't you think that question is a little, well, STUPID?
The act of defacing the street is the same, the purpose of the defacement is irrelevant. Yes, the Coke driver would get busted and fined the same as Wonderboy with his Wonderbike. Vandalism is vandalism. That it happens to support your team in this really disgraceful election season is a point AGAINST your side.
I find this willingness to excuse the destructive activities of pro-Democrat protesters very troubling. Did we see anti-Kerry Republicans screwing things up in Boston? No. Do we see anti-Bush Democrat a-holes this week screwing up New York? Thousands. Including Bike Genius. Pretty soon they will be burning cars. Is burning a car protected political speech?
Just as a curiosity, would you agree that WonderVandal chalking "Bush Lied!" with his VandalBike Of Doom is as much a defacement of public property as some Republican chalking "Kerry Is A Backshooter!"?
One of those statements is actually true, (because we know that John Kerry really is a backshooter, he personally capped an unarmed teenager who was running away at the time) wouldn't that make it OK?
Coke PAYS for advertising space, you juvenile. Democrat supporting vandals steal theirs. What does that tell us?
Not so, learned colegue. Socialism by nature cannot exist without a coercive component, because there are always people who don't want to cough up the taxes. That's the snake oil they always try to slide past you in Poly Sci class. So I must disagree with the link you gave.
The greater the socialism, the greater the tax demands of the gubmint and of course the greater the coersion. The Communist police state is merely the fully fledged end of the spectrum.
The less developed middle can be seen in Britain, Canada and Australia for example. (And anybody who thinks Britian isn't fast becoming a police state should inquire into the fate of the average schmoe who is unfortunate enough to wound or kill a robber in the comission of a robbery in their own home. It ain't pretty.)
At the Olympics the antics of the IOC are closer to the Soviet end of the spectrum. If athletes deviate even slightly from the ever growing, ever more intrusive list of regulations they get sent to Siberia immediately.
The purpose of all this is to enrich the IOC and of course further solidify their power in the sporting world. Sooner or later I expect the sporting world to tell them to shove it and just hold their usual world championships.
You can have a police state without socialism of course, but you need some other religion to glue it together. Iran would be an example. Its still a coercive, abusive government, they just lie about different stuff.
My profound appologies to any molluscs or slime molds who may have read my comments and been offended.
Hey, wait a second...!