You're misunderstanding the purpose of MS Research.
MSR is the part of Microsoft that is looking into prototypes and pure research in areas or technologies that are not ready for commercial software.They get to create stuff that is "really cool" but "clearly not ready for primetime". The other divisions partner heavily with folks in MSR, with the desire to create real world implementations.
The thing that you're asking for is usability testing. Both MSR and the divisions producing commercial product do usability testing, including focus groups, beta/alpha tests, market research, etc. But the product divisions (in this case Office) are responsible for the usability of their own product, and trust me... they do a LOT of work in this area.
So, recap... MSR - Pure research, exploring new areas of technology or new ways of integrating technology... these are allowed to be quirky, narrowly aplicable or to be almost unusable by regular users... and also get very little exposure to actual customers.
Product Divisions - Actual products, that people can use every day (and will pay money for).
Of COURSE we should be spending private money on space. Private investment is usually more efficient (and get's more results) than big government programs. It seems ironic that a self described liberal is espousing private investment and lambasting the president's government funded program.
What's the world coming to? It's sad that the supposed "conservative" guy is encouraging so much government spending. Not that I trust Mr. Gore to shrink the federal government... but Mr. Bush has dissapointed me with his big government programs.
Firstly, I generally disagree with those Supreme Court decisions that expanded the commerce clause to it's current state. Secondly, the commerce clause has generally been used to regulate... I can't recall it being used to start a federal utillity, so I'm not sure where you're going with this argument.
How does regulation of interstate commerce pave the way for a government subsidized or run ISP?
I'm also curious about the examples you gave. I'll have to do a little looking. As far as I recall rural electrification was achieved by requiring electric and telephone companies to eventually provide reasonable service to more rural areas. The government in this case (state government??) is saying because you're a utillity and because you have a monopoly you have to play by our rules.
As far as the regulation of radio frequencies there is certianly a difference between regulation of utillities and the regulation of airwaves. Airwaves would be akin to the regulation of the air and I can certianly buy the application of the commerce clause in the case of the FAA. Notwithstanding, broadcasting regulations are in my opinion overreaching but not nessecarily unconstitutional.
Even if you grant (for the sake of argument) that it may be possible to "gain more in the amount saved than you paid in taxes" there are still several issues.
1. You may be experiencing the gain simply because all Americans are taxed... not just those using the internet. I would consider this unfair in that case. If you just put an excise tax on internet access that would be less unfair, but is still wrought with potential issues.
2. The US Constitution clearly prohibits the federal government from participating in such a plan. The states could do this sort of thing but... they wouldn't have the same economy of scale that the feds would... and I don't want a state government that wanted to do such a thing. (Sadly my home state, Washington State, is particularly bad in this arena.)
3. The federalist principles that I generally espouse say that even disreguarding constitutional issues, the Federal government should only do the things that only the federal government can do and leave the rest to the states, local governments or directly to the people. I personally would apply the same to the state governments. I believe this because of the two reasons mentioned above... and also because when it comes to how efficient spending is from federal to state to local to private levels... the feds tend to waste about twice as much of each dollar in red tape as the states... the states about twice as much as the locals and the locals about twice as much as a private business. From the economic efficiency point of view most federal programs are either a wash because of economies of scale... or (most likely) a waste of money.
And if socialism works so well, why isn't Johnson's "Great Society" a reality today? The democrats had decades to implement plans to eliminate poverty, racism and social injustice from the federal level... so why isn't poverty eliminated? Why do Dems still beat the drum on racism and social injustice issues? If you look at all the money poured into federal programs... one would think that we could have accomplished more than we did.
This is where most liberals miss one of the key points of federalism. If you want to live in the Great Society, do it from a state or local level. The tax dollars will go further, local control will mean the system will be more responsive and I can go live in a state with people who don't want to be socialists.
Sadly because of the erosion of federalism states will never tackle these issues because "the feds are taking care of it" and we may never know if your socialist adjenda will work in an efficient way.
So to sum it all up, it's not just a cost/benefit issue. It's also a political, moral and "freedom" issue. Even if the cost/benefit analysis looks good your solution (for me at least) fails on the other issues.
If you dissagree, let me know where I went wrong with my analysis. I'm not here to insult you, just have a good spirited political discussion.
The problem is however that they mostly pay taxes to the FEDERAL government (they almost always pay to a social security number, but never get anything back), while they mostly take there, fairly earnedbenefits from the STATES.
They're here illegally. Their mere presence here means that they are BREAKING THE LAW. Saying that they "fairly earned" benefits is absurd.
I'm willing to discuss legal immigration policy... perhaps we should be less restrictive but I don't want to go there until we solve the illegal immigration problems. That's like complaining about a dripping water faucet when there's a burst pipe in the basement.
That being said I do agree with your analysis. I didn't double check you or anything but the concepts seem reasonable.
The most important thing here is that we the tax payers are getting screwed. California and some of the other states are nearly bankrupted.
I say build a wall... and slowly start actually deporting people. Not all at once though, that would screw our economy (we do depend on illegal labor and would need time to adjust), the economies of other countries and would devestate the illegal immigrants in a totally unfair way.
Yes they're here illegally and are breaking our laws just by being here... but we owe them at least a free ride out without a criminal record because of our implied acceptance due to lack of enforcement of our immigration policies.
On the bright side the national ID standards will require that illegal aliens not be given normal licenses. This is GOOD news for those who want to reduce government. Being from Washington State (the site of a rather grizly Gubernatorial election as of late) I will most certianly appreciate any new measure to prevent illegals from reaping *any* unearned benefits of citizenship... especially services that cost me tax dollars but most importantly "the vote".
Having worked at Microsoft as a contractor I never felt like I was a second class citizen.
Also, because of a lawsuit similar to the one we're discussing right now contractors are only allowed to work for 360 days at MS. Then they have a MANDATORY 90 day break from work at MS. Of course you can always go get another job somewhere else.
Basically in my view... I feel like the contractors who have sued in the past have screwed ME.
They signed up for a contract, and they were treated like part of the team (a bonus) but didn't get other bennies like stock options and health club memberships. After being there for a while they felt like they weren't getting what they should have, most likely regret from not getting those stock options back when MS stock was splitting once every few years.
So as a result of their greed, my contracts at MS are limited. This wasn't a law by the way, it was Microsoft attempting to mitigate or eliminate future lawsuits.
So the next headline could be, HP contractors sue, screwing all future HP contractors.
This may show up as contract length limitations. This may show up as substantial decreases in contracts that were in key roles... believe it or not some people do need an enterprise level architect for a few months at a time. This mgith also end up prohibiting contractors from coming along on company activities (release party, etc.) where as before they might have been invited or perhaps their team snuck them in.
All bad things. Unless you want contractors to be inhuman workerbees. Granted, some people want that, but as an employer I wouldn't want that even from a contractor.
Some of his religious motifs give me pause... but on the whole I like OSC. I'm not a religious person, but I am conservative and I'm glad that there are some fiction authors out there for me to support.
Just because some people think he's a loon doesn't mean he doesn't have an audience. And while you may consider me a loon as well, I would posit that we just have a difference of opinion on politics. I don't usually try to enter into political arguments by starting off with marginalization and name calling. But that's just me.
There are two easy ways to structure a flat tax so that it doesn't totally decimate people who are at poverty level.
1) Do not tax people on the first X dollars that they report in income and a flat percentage tax rate thereafter.
If Tim makes $510,000 Bob makes $60,000 and Jacob makes $10,000...
Tim pays nothing on the first 10k and then 10% on the rest... so he pays 50k in taxes.
Bob pays nothing on the first 10k and then 10% on the rest... so he pays 5k total in taxes.
Jacob pays nothing on the first 10k for a total of nothing.
2) Really, really low taxes
If your federal income taxes were assessed at 1% or (and this is going back before the 1920's) the way they used to do it $X per capita you wouldn't be complaining very much.
In the USA we have this thing called the Constitution that (supposedly) prevents the government from overreaching its mandate.
Sadly this has been overrun (for the most part) by the "provide for the common welfare" argument which over the years has allowed the government of the USA to move(on a sliding scale) from very limited government towards socialism. This idea was never the intent of the framers of the constitution, as they feared the power of pork to corrupt government.
In Europe it's ok for the government to compete with private business. Here in the US it is generally frowned upon.
I am accusing them of being left wing because I think their actions are caused by political correctness.
If I thought they were clamping down on halloween because of the religious right I would be the first to say so.
Being a citizen of Washington State (I live about 30 minutes away from Puyallup... prounounced pew- ahl-up by the way) I can say with very little doubt that the majority people involved in this decision were left leaning.
A real-life witch who lives in nearby Tacoma agreed that the superintendent in Puyallup must be off his broomstick.
"I see Halloween more as a holiday, a fun time for them. Some of us Wiccan have a deeper meaning under it, but I don't think we should take away from the kids," Wiccan Marjenna Gittings said.
And the independent survey... 1) I know a bunch of Wiccans 2) Call in radio shows were unable to locate offended Wiccans, but managed to find plenty of Wiccans that *weren't* offended 3) The reporter from the story you quoted was unable to locate any offended Wiccans
The other reasons for cancellation are just as weak.
My point is not that there weren't other reasons for cancelling haloween, but that Puyallup School District is way too politically correct for it's own good.
This is the same school district that cancelled halloween this year. And they did it to avoid offending Wiccans. An independant survey of Wiccans in the area didn't reveal any who would have been offended.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136946,00.ht ml
This is an issue on which Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree. What we have here is a group of school administrators so extremely left wing and paranoid that they'll cancel just about anything.
School Board puts sticker on THEIR books. It's just labeling their property.
The statement on the sticker is true... so what's all the fuss about? Even the most rabid proponents of evolution still call it a theory. (As all good scientists should)
This quote is just silly:
By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories,” U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.
It is often impossible to separate "moral" issues from "legal" issues. For example... why is murder illegal?? Because it's immoral to murder someone.
This is why abortion and embryonic stem cell research are such touchy issues. The issue at hand is not "is murder wrong" it is instead "is this considered a person? and therefore ceasing it's existance is considered murder??"
Statements such as:
"Justification with something so simple as "my morals happen to be correct" isn't acceptable. The government either needs to stop making moral issues legal issues. Doing so would have the potential to save thousands of lives."
are childish, in that they completely ignore that law is entirely based on moral issues. We define what constitutes life, liberty and property entirely based on morals. Law simply codifies our societal morals.
My contention is that the ADA and the Civil Rights Act are unconstitutional. Because they interfere with two principles: 1) Amendment 10 2) Freedom of Association which is based off of amendments 1 and 14 and is well established even in very early supreme court judicial review.
California and New York have made laws that are morally wrong, but not unconstitutional. IE I think that government in general is getting too big and intrusive so I am making a moral judgement that the anti-smoking legislation is wrong.
My comments about the "natural state" go to the fact that a lot of people assume that highly regulated business is the the norm, or how things should be. My view is that the natural state of any transaction between two (or more) citizens should not be regulated, with the exception being protection against obvious lawsuits.
For the moment let's say that there are two main types of laws. Those that protect people from each other and those that protect people from themselves. This is a simplistic view... but I'm using it to illustrate the fact that I'm against *all* laws that protect people from themselves and I'm against *many* laws that protect people from each other at the expense of *every* citizen's liberty.
The founding fathers had a notion of balance between anarchy and extreme government control of everything. My view is that we have been and continue to head towards extreme government control of everything. I would love to see the pendulum swing the other direction a little.
Gore never wanted a full state-wide count. He was aiming for a recount in counties that were Democrat heavy. Oddly... if Gore had "gotten his way" he would have still lost.
And all of this talk doesn't take into account the ill affects of the press calling the race early. The turnout in the more heavily Republican panhandle was much lower than expected.
Naw, I'm implying that I actually have spent a good deal of time studying the Constitution. During the course of this study I have had to "throw off" some of my old ideas about the nature of government. I've learned over the years the amount of tripe that was shoveled into my head by our public schools in the US. Especially concerning the nature of government.
If you want to know what I know, go back... read the full text of the US Constitution and *then* read the Federalist Papers. It's a pretty huge collection of commentary on why certian wording or specific concepts were used in the constitution.
Then take a close look at American constitutional history... specifically in reference to the FDR presidency and his initial failed attempts to start the "ABC" programs. Those were originally struck down by the Supreme Court. Until FDR did some really crazy restructuring of the court... I was totally shocked when I learned about it.
I wonder if ACs get notified that I replied to their message.
Go read the federalist papers, they were written by the same people that wrote our US constitution. After reading that incredibly thorough commentary on why things were worded the way they were I don't think you could come away with your continuing misunderstanding of the words "Public" and "Private" in relation to your Rights, the law, and the Constitution.
Think about how you would discuss types of economies, socialism, communism or free market capitalism. In communism there is no private business. It's all owned by the state. In a pure free market system there is no public business.
Yes I know that some laws refer to any place where the general populace is allowed as "public". It is exactly that mind set that allows us to force ridiculous amounts of regulation on businesses.
So go, educate yourself. Learn what the founders intended and what the "Marshall Court" and FDR did to subvert the nature of our government into the pseudo-socialist system that we have today.
FDR had most of his "ABC" programs struck down by the court until he "stacked" it.
(I only use the "pseudo" because I'm implying that most people think we're still living in a free market economy.)
You may like the way it is now... and that's fine, but until you have a correct understanding of how our country started and the consequences of the incredible changes that have taken place... I don't think you're in any condition to have a fair intellectual argument with me about the nature of the Constitution.
I'm merely stating that I believe that the civil rights act and other such laws are actually unconstitutional.
However... You are *still* mistaken as to what the legal definition of "public" is. A public place is something like a park, government building or the sidewalk.
A business is a private place and any transactions or goings on that occur on that property are negotiated at the free will of both involved parties. For example I believe the ban on smoking in bars in California and New York to be unconstitutional. If you don't like being subjected to smoke in a bar... leave. It's as simple as that. Nobody is forcing you to be there.
The difference being.. you have no choice if you have to go to court... or walk on a sidewalk or play in a park that you paid for.
I *do* think I am *better* than a jurist on the US Supreme Court. Most notably because they consider themselves beholden to bad judgements made by past jurists and even lesser courts. I just analyze the Constitution in reference to my own personal beliefs and the intent of the founders.
At any rate... barring any other constraining regulations the natural state of things is for a business to be private and can include or exclude people for any reason.
Those other contraining regulations include the ADA and the civil rights act.
If you enjoy those regulations so much... try to get them put into the constitution. =)
It's these kind of comments from people that really piss me off~ I can hardly believe what a fucked up job our education system is doing with civics and political science.
Slashdot Mirror
Media Server: n. A euphamism for digital porn storage.
You're misunderstanding the purpose of MS Research.
MSR is the part of Microsoft that is looking into prototypes and pure research in areas or technologies that are not ready for commercial software.They get to create stuff that is "really cool" but "clearly not ready for primetime". The other divisions partner heavily with folks in MSR, with the desire to create real world implementations.
The thing that you're asking for is usability testing. Both MSR and the divisions producing commercial product do usability testing, including focus groups, beta/alpha tests, market research, etc. But the product divisions (in this case Office) are responsible for the usability of their own product, and trust me... they do a LOT of work in this area.
So, recap...
MSR - Pure research, exploring new areas of technology or new ways of integrating technology... these are allowed to be quirky, narrowly aplicable or to be almost unusable by regular users... and also get very little exposure to actual customers.
Product Divisions - Actual products, that people can use every day (and will pay money for).
Of COURSE we should be spending private money on space. Private investment is usually more efficient (and get's more results) than big government programs. It seems ironic that a self described liberal is espousing private investment and lambasting the president's government funded program.
What's the world coming to? It's sad that the supposed "conservative" guy is encouraging so much government spending. Not that I trust Mr. Gore to shrink the federal government... but Mr. Bush has dissapointed me with his big government programs.
*sigh*
I found this article on MSDN...
e nMP/default.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/10/Op
Firstly, I generally disagree with those Supreme Court decisions that expanded the commerce clause to it's current state. Secondly, the commerce clause has generally been used to regulate... I can't recall it being used to start a federal utillity, so I'm not sure where you're going with this argument.
How does regulation of interstate commerce pave the way for a government subsidized or run ISP?
I'm also curious about the examples you gave. I'll have to do a little looking. As far as I recall rural electrification was achieved by requiring electric and telephone companies to eventually provide reasonable service to more rural areas. The government in this case (state government??) is saying because you're a utillity and because you have a monopoly you have to play by our rules.
As far as the regulation of radio frequencies there is certianly a difference between regulation of utillities and the regulation of airwaves. Airwaves would be akin to the regulation of the air and I can certianly buy the application of the commerce clause in the case of the FAA. Notwithstanding, broadcasting regulations are in my opinion overreaching but not nessecarily unconstitutional.
Even if you grant (for the sake of argument) that it may be possible to "gain more in the amount saved than you paid in taxes" there are still several issues.
1. You may be experiencing the gain simply because all Americans are taxed... not just those using the internet. I would consider this unfair in that case. If you just put an excise tax on internet access that would be less unfair, but is still wrought with potential issues.
2. The US Constitution clearly prohibits the federal government from participating in such a plan. The states could do this sort of thing but... they wouldn't have the same economy of scale that the feds would... and I don't want a state government that wanted to do such a thing. (Sadly my home state, Washington State, is particularly bad in this arena.)
3. The federalist principles that I generally espouse say that even disreguarding constitutional issues, the Federal government should only do the things that only the federal government can do and leave the rest to the states, local governments or directly to the people. I personally would apply the same to the state governments. I believe this because of the two reasons mentioned above... and also because when it comes to how efficient spending is from federal to state to local to private levels... the feds tend to waste about twice as much of each dollar in red tape as the states... the states about twice as much as the locals and the locals about twice as much as a private business. From the economic efficiency point of view most federal programs are either a wash because of economies of scale... or (most likely) a waste of money.
And if socialism works so well, why isn't Johnson's "Great Society" a reality today? The democrats had decades to implement plans to eliminate poverty, racism and social injustice from the federal level... so why isn't poverty eliminated? Why do Dems still beat the drum on racism and social injustice issues? If you look at all the money poured into federal programs... one would think that we could have accomplished more than we did.
This is where most liberals miss one of the key points of federalism. If you want to live in the Great Society, do it from a state or local level. The tax dollars will go further, local control will mean the system will be more responsive and I can go live in a state with people who don't want to be socialists.
Sadly because of the erosion of federalism states will never tackle these issues because "the feds are taking care of it" and we may never know if your socialist adjenda will work in an efficient way.
So to sum it all up, it's not just a cost/benefit issue. It's also a political, moral and "freedom" issue. Even if the cost/benefit analysis looks good your solution (for me at least) fails on the other issues.
If you dissagree, let me know where I went wrong with my analysis. I'm not here to insult you, just have a good spirited political discussion.
They're here illegally. Their mere presence here means that they are BREAKING THE LAW. Saying that they "fairly earned" benefits is absurd.
I'm willing to discuss legal immigration policy... perhaps we should be less restrictive but I don't want to go there until we solve the illegal immigration problems. That's like complaining about a dripping water faucet when there's a burst pipe in the basement.
That being said I do agree with your analysis. I didn't double check you or anything but the concepts seem reasonable.
The most important thing here is that we the tax payers are getting screwed. California and some of the other states are nearly bankrupted.
I say build a wall... and slowly start actually deporting people. Not all at once though, that would screw our economy (we do depend on illegal labor and would need time to adjust), the economies of other countries and would devestate the illegal immigrants in a totally unfair way.
Yes they're here illegally and are breaking our laws just by being here... but we owe them at least a free ride out without a criminal record because of our implied acceptance due to lack of enforcement of our immigration policies.
On the bright side the national ID standards will require that illegal aliens not be given normal licenses. This is GOOD news for those who want to reduce government. Being from Washington State (the site of a rather grizly Gubernatorial election as of late) I will most certianly appreciate any new measure to prevent illegals from reaping *any* unearned benefits of citizenship... especially services that cost me tax dollars but most importantly "the vote".
Having worked at Microsoft as a contractor I never felt like I was a second class citizen.
Also, because of a lawsuit similar to the one we're discussing right now contractors are only allowed to work for 360 days at MS. Then they have a MANDATORY 90 day break from work at MS. Of course you can always go get another job somewhere else.
Basically in my view... I feel like the contractors who have sued in the past have screwed ME.
They signed up for a contract, and they were treated like part of the team (a bonus) but didn't get other bennies like stock options and health club memberships. After being there for a while they felt like they weren't getting what they should have, most likely regret from not getting those stock options back when MS stock was splitting once every few years.
So as a result of their greed, my contracts at MS are limited. This wasn't a law by the way, it was Microsoft attempting to mitigate or eliminate future lawsuits.
So the next headline could be, HP contractors sue, screwing all future HP contractors.
This may show up as contract length limitations. This may show up as substantial decreases in contracts that were in key roles... believe it or not some people do need an enterprise level architect for a few months at a time. This mgith also end up prohibiting contractors from coming along on company activities (release party, etc.) where as before they might have been invited or perhaps their team snuck them in.
All bad things. Unless you want contractors to be inhuman workerbees. Granted, some people want that, but as an employer I wouldn't want that even from a contractor.
~foooo
Some of his religious motifs give me pause... but on the whole I like OSC. I'm not a religious person, but I am conservative and I'm glad that there are some fiction authors out there for me to support.
Just because some people think he's a loon doesn't mean he doesn't have an audience. And while you may consider me a loon as well, I would posit that we just have a difference of opinion on politics. I don't usually try to enter into political arguments by starting off with marginalization and name calling. But that's just me.
~foooo
There are two easy ways to structure a flat tax so that it doesn't totally decimate people who are at poverty level.
1) Do not tax people on the first X dollars that they report in income and a flat percentage tax rate thereafter.
If Tim makes $510,000 Bob makes $60,000 and Jacob makes $10,000...
Tim pays nothing on the first 10k and then 10% on the rest... so he pays 50k in taxes.
Bob pays nothing on the first 10k and then 10% on the rest... so he pays 5k total in taxes.
Jacob pays nothing on the first 10k for a total of nothing.
2) Really, really low taxes
If your federal income taxes were assessed at 1% or (and this is going back before the 1920's) the way they used to do it $X per capita you wouldn't be complaining very much.
~foooo
In the USA we have this thing called the Constitution that (supposedly) prevents the government from overreaching its mandate.
Sadly this has been overrun (for the most part) by the "provide for the common welfare" argument which over the years has allowed the government of the USA to move(on a sliding scale) from very limited government towards socialism. This idea was never the intent of the framers of the constitution, as they feared the power of pork to corrupt government.
In Europe it's ok for the government to compete with private business. Here in the US it is generally frowned upon.
I am accusing them of being left wing because I think their actions are caused by political correctness.
If I thought they were clamping down on halloween because of the religious right I would be the first to say so.
Being a citizen of Washington State (I live about 30 minutes away from Puyallup... prounounced pew- ahl-up by the way) I can say with very little doubt that the majority people involved in this decision were left leaning.
That was the quote from my article...
A real-life witch who lives in nearby Tacoma agreed that the superintendent in Puyallup must be off his broomstick.
"I see Halloween more as a holiday, a fun time for them. Some of us Wiccan have a deeper meaning under it, but I don't think we should take away from the kids," Wiccan Marjenna Gittings said.
And the independent survey...
1) I know a bunch of Wiccans
2) Call in radio shows were unable to locate offended Wiccans, but managed to find plenty of Wiccans that *weren't* offended
3) The reporter from the story you quoted was unable to locate any offended Wiccans
The other reasons for cancellation are just as weak.
My point is not that there weren't other reasons for cancelling haloween, but that Puyallup School District is way too politically correct for it's own good.
This is the same school district that cancelled halloween this year. And they did it to avoid offending Wiccans. An independant survey of Wiccans in the area didn't reveal any who would have been offended.
t ml
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136946,00.h
This is an issue on which Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree. What we have here is a group of school administrators so extremely left wing and paranoid that they'll cancel just about anything.
Ask for your job back?
THAT'S A LIE!
There is no limit to the powers of Vulcan sexiness!
Text books belong to the school.
School Board puts sticker on THEIR books. It's just labeling their property.
The statement on the sticker is true... so what's all the fuss about? Even the most rabid proponents of evolution still call it a theory. (As all good scientists should)
This quote is just silly:
By denigrating evolution, the school board appears to be endorsing the well-known prevailing alternative theory, creationism or variations thereof, even though the sticker does not specifically reference any alternative theories,” U.S. District Judge Clarence Cooper said.
It is often impossible to separate "moral" issues from "legal" issues. For example... why is murder illegal?? Because it's immoral to murder someone.
This is why abortion and embryonic stem cell research are such touchy issues. The issue at hand is not "is murder wrong" it is instead "is this considered a person? and therefore ceasing it's existance is considered murder??"
Statements such as:
"Justification with something so simple as "my morals happen to be correct" isn't acceptable. The government either needs to stop making moral issues legal issues. Doing so would have the potential to save thousands of lives."
are childish, in that they completely ignore that law is entirely based on moral issues. We define what constitutes life, liberty and property entirely based on morals. Law simply codifies our societal morals.
My contention is that the ADA and the Civil Rights Act are unconstitutional. Because they interfere with two principles:
1) Amendment 10
2) Freedom of Association which is based off of amendments 1 and 14 and is well established even in very early supreme court judicial review.
California and New York have made laws that are morally wrong, but not unconstitutional. IE I think that government in general is getting too big and intrusive so I am making a moral judgement that the anti-smoking legislation is wrong.
My comments about the "natural state" go to the fact that a lot of people assume that highly regulated business is the the norm, or how things should be. My view is that the natural state of any transaction between two (or more) citizens should not be regulated, with the exception being protection against obvious lawsuits.
For the moment let's say that there are two main types of laws. Those that protect people from each other and those that protect people from themselves. This is a simplistic view... but I'm using it to illustrate the fact that I'm against *all* laws that protect people from themselves and I'm against *many* laws that protect people from each other at the expense of *every* citizen's liberty.
The founding fathers had a notion of balance between anarchy and extreme government control of everything. My view is that we have been and continue to head towards extreme government control of everything. I would love to see the pendulum swing the other direction a little.
Gore never wanted a full state-wide count. He was aiming for a recount in counties that were Democrat heavy. Oddly... if Gore had "gotten his way" he would have still lost.
And all of this talk doesn't take into account the ill affects of the press calling the race early. The turnout in the more heavily Republican panhandle was much lower than expected.
Naw, I'm implying that I actually have spent a good deal of time studying the Constitution. During the course of this study I have had to "throw off" some of my old ideas about the nature of government. I've learned over the years the amount of tripe that was shoveled into my head by our public schools in the US. Especially concerning the nature of government.
If you want to know what I know, go back... read the full text of the US Constitution and *then* read the Federalist Papers. It's a pretty huge collection of commentary on why certian wording or specific concepts were used in the constitution.
Then take a close look at American constitutional history... specifically in reference to the FDR presidency and his initial failed attempts to start the "ABC" programs. Those were originally struck down by the Supreme Court. Until FDR did some really crazy restructuring of the court... I was totally shocked when I learned about it.
I wonder if ACs get notified that I replied to their message.
Go read the federalist papers, they were written by the same people that wrote our US constitution. After reading that incredibly thorough commentary on why things were worded the way they were I don't think you could come away with your continuing misunderstanding of the words "Public" and "Private" in relation to your Rights, the law, and the Constitution.
Think about how you would discuss types of economies, socialism, communism or free market capitalism. In communism there is no private business. It's all owned by the state. In a pure free market system there is no public business.
Yes I know that some laws refer to any place where the general populace is allowed as "public". It is exactly that mind set that allows us to force ridiculous amounts of regulation on businesses.
So go, educate yourself. Learn what the founders intended and what the "Marshall Court" and FDR did to subvert the nature of our government into the pseudo-socialist system that we have today.
FDR had most of his "ABC" programs struck down by the court until he "stacked" it.
(I only use the "pseudo" because I'm implying that most people think we're still living in a free market economy.)
You may like the way it is now... and that's fine, but until you have a correct understanding of how our country started and the consequences of the incredible changes that have taken place... I don't think you're in any condition to have a fair intellectual argument with me about the nature of the Constitution.
They do have that right. They either patronize the business or not. If the community at large chooses not to go there then it'll go out of business.
=)
Thus the "invisible hand" takes care of that particular problem.
I'm merely stating that I believe that the civil rights act and other such laws are actually unconstitutional.
However... You are *still* mistaken as to what the legal definition of "public" is. A public place is something like a park, government building or the sidewalk.
A business is a private place and any transactions or goings on that occur on that property are negotiated at the free will of both involved parties. For example I believe the ban on smoking in bars in California and New York to be unconstitutional. If you don't like being subjected to smoke in a bar... leave. It's as simple as that. Nobody is forcing you to be there.
The difference being.. you have no choice if you have to go to court... or walk on a sidewalk or play in a park that you paid for.
I *do* think I am *better* than a jurist on the US Supreme Court. Most notably because they consider themselves beholden to bad judgements made by past jurists and even lesser courts. I just analyze the Constitution in reference to my own personal beliefs and the intent of the founders.
At any rate... barring any other constraining regulations the natural state of things is for a business to be private and can include or exclude people for any reason.
Those other contraining regulations include the ADA and the civil rights act.
If you enjoy those regulations so much... try to get them put into the constitution. =)
It's these kind of comments from people that really piss me off~ I can hardly believe what a fucked up job our education system is doing with civics and political science.
-foooo