No, I think you are confusing liberalism for communism or socialist here. Liberalism accepts a market that is controlled and supported by the government, which allows for regulation and redistribution of wealth. For more info on liberalism you can start by reading some John Locke, or just reading about him on wiki. Saying that no man should profit off of another's work is misleading, because the other man is also profitting for doing their work whist the man in change is profitting, or attempting to, by managing the logistics of the other men working for him.. What you are talking about is slavery.
I find Locke to be horridly outdated- especially since he's talking about an economy of real scarcity as opposed to an economy based on artificial scarcity (the economy we've been in since the 1930s has been one of artificial scarcity; where the rich attempt to raise prices both by monopolizing certain industries and by being conspicuous consumers themselves and monopolizing outputs).
However, I do realize this breaks down at the higher crusts where someone can just own a company and sit back and relax, but we do not have a true liberal society, rather a combination of liberal and conservative ideologies. Sorry to nit pick.
What we have simply doesn't work- the "jobless recovery" proved that to me. It's time to throw it out and replace it with something better.
Right here. But the problem is the past becomes indeterminate as well in any physics that allows time travel, so he's not neccessarily from OUR future.
What I don't get is his apparent fear of infinite regressio. Your analysis is absolutely correct- all he's really done is prove that our definition of motion is inadequate for time travel. This leads to three potentially conflicting conclusions:
1. For travel in the Nth dimension to make sense, n+1 dimensions are required with your motion halted in dimension n+1, for all dimensions 1-infinity.MBR> 2. The very universe is an illusion that has no past and no future- our expirence of it is completely imaginary.
3. Humans are not capable of breaking out of our 3-dimensional existance with one-way travel in the fourth spacial dimension at a speed of c- which explains why within our 3-dimensional universe we cannot exceed c.
The article would have us believe #1 and #2 are false, and #3 is true not only for human beings but for all matter in the universe. This is not falsifiable and therefore leaves the realm of science and enters religious belief based on a fear of infinity.
Such a piece of software was a part of the central theme to a murder in Douglas Adams' Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency.
I seem to remember though that version was applied to corporate metrics instead- it didn't sell well in England, where the music sounded like a funeral dirge, but it sold relatively well in America and even Japan, though the later got kind of high and squeeky at the end of the music.
You're mistaken in one sense and forgetting an underlying idea of capitalism in another sense: first, many of the left-wing publications are not 'corporate'-- in the sense of profit-motive or actual status. If they become too corporate, like, say, Rolling Stone or MTV in the music industry, then independent outlets spring up-- that's the point you're forgetting. It's gotten particularly easy with the internet since very little capital is involved, except free time, of which most of us have an excess.
I do see blogs as the new independant media- but as long as advertising and page hits are involved, even if only for bragging rights, that's a market. And nothing in a market can truly be considered free.
True for the 'corporate' media, untrue for independent or targeted media. And while you're probably right about the stock market, it doesn't gain anything to point it out. It's like a person telling the religious right that God doesn't exist or that their religion is just plain wrong. It would be easier and more effective for them to counter them in terms of the Bible, and move in slowly, one step at a time. But so as not to nitpick around your actual argument, I don't think the media's failure to attack primary causes is of any importance. There's a subtle Bush-bashing story every week, it seems like, the latest being the C.S. King funeral. The implications of the Penn. mining accident were all there-- corporations suck. Slashdot's 'YRO' section is not-so-veiled anti-fascism (even though the concept of a 'right' is infinitely disputable).
That's just trading one set of corporations for a different set of corporations- competition among corporations. The open source movement itself is about business plans and IPOs. Unless we attack the religion that is at the base of the problem we won't see any change- in Orwellian terms the upper and middle class will just change places, and the lives of the Proles will remain completely oppressed and unaffected. It's a false choice between Republicans and Democrats- they're the same type of people with different names. Blogging may one day become a truly free press- but I kind of doubt it will happen before internet-capable portable computers with free net access are available to homeless people for free.
I should have put quotes around 'liberal.' I agree, but actual liberals who aren't stupid or insanely-idealistic enough to vote 3rd party find their home with the democrats.
And in doing so, they sell out to the religion of money.
That is like saying, "if we have a right wing, how come we don't have any pogroms"?
But we DO have pogroms. Mainly on undocumented workers and terrorists and eco-nazis right now, but we certainly do have pogroms.
Actually, it left the government in charge. That's what made it left-wing (i.e. the government taking away something from everyone and oppressing people while saying it is for their own good). The Hillary attempt to destroy health care would have made Stalin happy: it included jail terms for attempting to see your doctor. That is what happens when the government gets involved.
A true single payer health care system wouldn't CARE what doctor you saw- only by leaving the HMOs in charge would this matter (because you'd be seeing a doctor who was out-of-plan).
In leftism/liberalism, it is OK for a corporation to profit as long as that corporation is the government
No, actually, in TRUE liberalism, as opposed to the stupid American version, making money off of the labor of somebody else is gravely immoral.
Egads... without digging into details of disagreement (I could go into the nonbiblical tradition of "no female leaders" for one thing), I largely agree with you. The Catholics do anger both sides. The abortion industry and its apologists hate the RCC for opposing abortion. The "blood and vengeance" guys in the right hate the RCC for opposing the death penalty, and for its pacifism. They may be just one sect of Christianity, but isn't the RCC the oldest organization on the planet?
No, some sects of Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are thousands of years older. But I'd agree time has been key in the moderation of thier doctrine- their method of forming doctrine takes CENTURIES to come to a decision (same with all of the organizations their age or older). That has a real tendency to place them in the center on most issues.
All reporting is biased. So what is your point?
It's not only biased- it's biased towards a certain set of interests, the profit motive. Thus it isn't free to report only facts and all of the facts.
It is not perfectly free, but it is more free and less controlled than just about any other country's press in the entire world, especially the large number of countries which range from China to the UK in which the government controls a large part or all of the media.
Which doesn't mean a heck of a lot....
Still, a press situation where Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, and Indymedia have a wide-open megaphone is indeed rather free.
Considering that they're all very much on the conservative side of world politics....
See, THAT's just the thing. The threat is apparently amplified beyond reality. Osama just said that he would attack in America and the threat level wasn't raised. If there were armies of these people the attacks would be steady. We have had the war on drugs for decades now and drugs still pour into our nation.
You don't actually think we've been waging the War on Drugs in the way it needs to be waged do you? We could stop the flow of drugs almost instantly- but to do so would require the death of everybody trying to cross our border and the permanent placement of 5 million troops across a 7000 mile border. We have no ability to actually *deal* with these people the way they need to be dealt with.
People who incite violence should be dealt with swiftly. The problem is not, however, strictly from a Protestant Islamic revolution. The problem is that people are being told by radical clerics how to interpret the Qu'ran and not reading it to decide for themselves.
Except for, according to the accepted schools of Islamic thought, those so-called "radical clerics" aren't clerics at all- they haven't had the training in how to interpret the Qu'ran correctly.
This is in part due to lower literacy rates but moreover due to intellectual dishonesty on the part of the flock. This is the exact same problem as Christian fundamentalism. For example: Leviticus 18:22 says that homosexuality is an abomination before God. Okay, that is clear and so it is wrong. But if you read the whole book, Leviticus 11:12 says that eating anything from a river or sea that doesn't have fins and scales is an abomination. In effect, eating lobster bisque is just as wrong as taking the stiff one-eye.
Correct- but notice Christian fundamentalism wouldn't exist either if it wasn't for Sola Scriptura- because in Catholicism interpretation of scripture is strictly controlled.
The Qu'ran says that if you are at war with another nation you aren't allowed to destroy their trees. Not a particularly violent notion. The people that are preaching baby killing have distorted the book to an astonishing level, yes, but atrocities are okayed in both holy books. Pat Robertson, Osama bin Laden and I can all read the same passages and come away with radically different interpretations (though to be fair Pat and I are reading translated texts anyway [which makes literal interpretation nonsensical at face value {paranthetical thoughts make poor sentences but do illustrate how I think} ] ). The extremist view on anything is necessarily flawed because life is analogue.
Absolutely right- however I see no way to be free of extremism without first being free of extremeists- and to do that we have to become extremist.
If I were Bush I would consider the path of containment we as a nation pursued in a very pragmatic way for decades. Other nations lack of "freedom" is regrettable, but just as 5% unemployment is cold-hearted and intentional the containment of a threat you cannot extinguish is the only way I see to go forward. Our safety is paramount and it cannot be bought on the backs of atrocities. If you commit mass murder to eliminate threats you only create more.
Depends on the level of mass murder you commit- if there is nobody else left willing to fight, then you've eliminated the threat. The problem with containment is that it's stopped working mainly because we don't have the will to maintain it- true containment would require *NO* diplomatic or trade contact with the middle east at all and an automatic death sentence for anybody coming from there trying to cross our borders. That is the level of containment we'd need to prevent another 9-11 type attack. Are you willing to support that level of containment? Obviously not.
As Ford Prefect said in "Life, the Universe, and Everything" they care and we don't. So they automatically WILL eventually win.
All that being said, I stand by the "I don't know what the solution is" refrain. While I res
Specifically, what we're fighting is the Islamic version of the Protestant Reformation- a new ideology that allows individual people and groups unconnected with Islamic schools of thought to declare genocidal Jihad and Fatwas on just about anybody and interpret the Koran for themselves. This is in reality no more dangerous or deadly than the Christian Protestant Reformation was- except for the genocidal part, and the fact that these Protestants could, in theory, lay their hands on WMDs. Oh yeah, and the Christian Protestant Reformation resulted in 500 years of unrest and 100 years of open bloodshed. The good news is that it took about 80 years for the Islamic reformation to spill over to non-Islamic targets.
Note that this is an utterly different enemy from who Bush is fighting- which is any country that dares endanger the petro-dollar by offering oil for sale in Euros.
Reasonable is a funny word. I myself find it unreasonable to flatten an entire culture due to an ill-defined fringe "threat". Sadly we must agree on some facts to base our discussion on. I appreciate your stance on this, I really do. I'll throw out a potential fact: Genocide is bad. Discuss.
Genocide IS bad- but when faced with a genocidal and more importantly, decentralized enemy, racial genocide is one of only three options for survival. NO option will produce a win- we lost the day we sold guns to the Wahhabis in return for oil.
The average person finds this solution deplorable.
Too bad- the average person will either have to grow a spine or convert to Islam. There is no other choice at this point.
If we are to behave as an empire then maybe you are right.
Our great grandfathers choose that for us, it's far too late to abandon the responsibilities of empire now.
I don't think that empire is the solution (though it may be the reality on the ground).
There are no real "solutions" left- only the choice between survival and non-survival, and tactics that either insure that survival or create a spectacular defeat. Either we let the 100 million destroy the 7 billion, or we contain or destroy the 100 million. That's the real choice.
As I said before, I don't know what the solution is. As I'm not a nation state leader you'll need to cut me some slack on that.
Pretend for a second that you are. You're one of 290 such leaders in a world of 7 billion citizens between you collectively. 100 million of those have developed a very dangerous theology that does not allow the survival of the other 6.9 billion people on the planet. What do you do?
If you're Bush, you'll hope the problem goes away magically while using the violence to grab more power and resources in the region and protect an economy that should have collapsed a decade ago- would have if it wasn't for the first gulf war.
If you are machiavellian like me, you bend the entire resources of a country of 290 million people to the destruction of the 100 million; even if you have to kill 300 million to do it, and you get the other 290 world leaders to go along with that whatever it takes.
If you're Pat Buchannan, you ignore the other 290 leaders, create a 12 mile barrier of death around your 290 million, and withdraw- forget about the other 6.7 billion people on the planet.
And if you're Danish, you tolerate the destruction of your embassies and culture and die for the sake of that tollerance.
And if you are an individual trying to survive, you convert to Islam in hopes that the Jihadists leave you alone.
Those are the 5 options I can see- of those only three have even a snowball's chance in hell of survivability, and only two can be done by a country that respects freedom of religion.
Are those two options incredibly deplorable and distastefull to the average person who has gotten used to a society that makes it's own laws instead of being limited to laws set down by a Prophet from God 1600 years ago? YES. But as long as we have people willing to kill in the name of God, I don't see any choice.
No. Democrats are left wing, but not far to the left of center. Republicans are right-wing, but not far to the right of center. There's an incredibly large number of liberals (left-wingers) in power in America. They hold large number of governor seats, many very important large city mayor posts, and almost half of each branch of Congress. We even had a liberal in the top political position in the nation until about 5 years ago. 5 years is not decades.
If that is true, then why don't we have any communes? Clinton was no liberal- and neither was his wife- their idea of universal health care was the perfect example. It left the HMOs in charge- people who make profit off of the sick. Not liberal at all- that's a distinctly right wing position.
Of course, I am measuring from the political center, only. (If you are far left wing and think that the far left is the center, then just about everything is right-wing to you).
Look at the nickname- but still, I see the center as being the Roman Catholic Church. They've had 2000 years to get it correct, and today do a very good job judging by how the extremeists on both sides howl at every declaration of doctrine.
Most of the press is controlled by corporations. This is because the system tends to encourage even very small organizations to incorporate in order to avoid frivolous lawsuits. However, even with this, there are major influential press organs which (as far as I can tell) are not organized into corporations. These included Drudge and indymedia.
Both of which make a lot of money based on biased reporting to biased individuals- neither of which I'd call a "free press" or even free of corporate influences.
"Death to all extremists" is itself an extreme position.
Yes, it is. We become what we fight, if we're going to win. That was as true for the Bolshevik revolution, as it was for WWII's fight against facism (that led directly to the creation of the military-industrial petro-dollar based superpower that the United States is today) as it is for the War on Terror. They know they're in a genocidal war- the question is why don't we?
I am sorry to say that you are behaving as part of the problem here, friend.
It's the only reasonable solution for the problem. After the Revolution, the communists created the NKVD- which was exactly the same as the Czar's secret police. After WWII we were left with a corporate-owned government- Hitler's very dream. And if we're going to win against the Islamic version of Sola Scriptura fundamentalists- we're going to need to become as genocidal as they are.
I don't know what the solution is, but it probably entails reasonable people making an extraordinary stand worldwide.
It's never happened before in the history of the world.
On its face that is unlikely.
It would be a UNIQUE occurance in all of history- I'd put more trust in the tactic that worked against semitic extremeists before, when Rome ran into this problem in 70 A.D.
If I'm reading this article right, CSAs are a critical part of the body's immune response. If we start slathering this stuff all over the place (presumably dramatically increasing it's presence in the environment), aren't we risking the evolution of resistance to it in viruses and bacteria? Might that not result in diseases to which our immune system has very little ability to fight?
Yep- that's the other danger. The fact that no known CURRENT virus or bacteria can fight back against CSAs means NOTHING- nature is inventive and will fill a vaccuum eventually.
Look how quickly resistence to Tamiflu emerged... I know a causal link hasn't been proven yet, but I'm betting it has something to do with the way it was available OTC in a lot of countries. There's no way we can ensure appropriate use of a drug like this sufficiently to prevent resistence from eventually emerging. What will we do then?
I expect we'll die in increasing numbers. Not from HIV, which will have practically been made extinct by this substance, but from something else.
I just get really nervous when we start copying core weapons of our own immune systems...
As well you should.
Re:DIY? No it will just move up a step
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I was thinking in terms of a separate system- a single-purpose computer kind of like a TIVO that sends data back to the computer. Thus USB- to emphasize the fact that it is a periphereal.
I am astounded by your reference to a pope's preascendent pontification vituperating moral relativism, whose own youthful history could be construed as an exemplary case study of situationalism past. Do you have a url for this readily at hand? Don't provide it if your conception of the creative is connected to him though. It amuses, may be used in future heterodoxical musing, and I am a proficient searchengine tech user. Does the XVI signify fifteen prior Pope Benedicts?
I was unable to find a primary source- it would probably be in Italian or German anyway, any quote from the homily would have to be translated regardless- but here's a news story on Cardinal Ratzinger's pre-conclave homily from The Catholic Exchange. NO, I don't consider the Pope to be creative- in fact, a creative Pope would be a horrific thing to happen to the Catholic Church, that's not his job. His job is to synthesize the work of others into universal doctrine- a creative Pope would be very dangerous indeed. And yes, there were 15 previous Popes by the name of Benedict- the last one was Pope during WWI and helped broker the Treaty of Versailes. The choice of the name seems to have been very purposeful- linking the mission of the current Papacy to that time, brokering peace between Catholics and the increasing Moslem population of Europe.
Also, is your given email pointer just a spam vacuum?
To some extent yes- it has a very aggressive bayesian spam filter on it. I also use it as my primary address with people I don't know whom I my wish to ignore. A better way to get in contact with me here is through Journal Entries.
I'm speaking of the press as being naturally liberal--not Democrat-- as opposed to the fascist nature of the corporation, and the institutions such as both political parties which it seeks to control. This is more philosophical than political. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, an interesting pair of anti-fascist philosophers (who seemed to have regarded Marx highly), related fascism to the condition of paranoia and liberalism (or the heterogeneous masses demanding their personal needs all at once) to the condition of schizophrenia.
That's interesting- but in modern America the press is controled by the corporations, and thus, reflects the fascist paranoid nature of the corporations, not the liberal schizophrenia of being socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Corporations can't afford to be fiscally liberal.
There are the 'paranoid' press outlets, CNN, Fox, ABC, et al, and the rest-- Mother Jones, Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, New York Review of Books (to name a few strongly 'democrat' leaning pubs), The National Review, High Times, etc., mostly with their own agendas. Even the recent views of NASA, espoused recently on/., and other scientific institutions and publications, represent what I'm talking about-- people stating their case against the established structure. This is what attracts the press most of all and constitutes a 'story.' Rarely do we hear if the gov't is doing its job well. The corporate controlled outlets tend to report on neutral items like, say, skiing accidents or famous weddings. But even in a case like the Penn. mining accidents, it reflects poorly on the corporation, so it's liberal-leaning.
But notice what they don't attack- the primary cause of the problems, the stock market itself, and the focus on short term profit to the exclusion of everything else. NOBODY is putting out that point of view- it's amazing the blank stares I get when I say the stock market is the primary cause of evil in this country.
So to clarify, there's an enormous amount of press that constitutes a formidable barrier to total fascism and almost by its definition, the press is liberal. It's convenient for people to say they're 'biased', but that's only because the Democrats happen to have the liberal constituency.
Democrats aren't liberal. Democrats are center-right. Republicans are right wing. There are no liberals in power in America, and haven't been for decades now.
RTFA- the chemical in question was ORIGINALLY being investigated for it's antibacterial properties, it was only by accident that they found it killed viruses as well (including HIV).
This substance is a mimic of a current human body chemical, and attacks one hell of a lot more than just HIV- my guess is it will end one of two ways. It will either strip the body of everything including our normal colonies of beneficial bacteria and yeasts, and thus be too dangerous to use. Or it won't work for some mutation, and we'll still have a million or so HIV patients after it's in widespread use.
I've never owned a non-standard transmission car before....
Well, I suppose you could always simulate it in software- a clutch pedal that "disengages" the current setting, move the stick to a new setting, let up the clutch, and the power range of your accelerator changes....complete with an OD setting for people who don't want to bother...kind of like the autostick on a Nash Rambler....
I think you're partially right, though its a slightly negative outlook. You're forgetting one thing, though: freedom of the press-- something that perhaps no fascist society has, arguably, ever had (Soviet Russia fell only a few years after Gorbechav granted the press freedom (or did the freedom of press grant gorbechav?:)). Consider the press to be the truly democratic arm of the gov't. It's no accident that the press is 'liberal'-- it's almost by definition that they behave liberally, or even democratically.
I don't see the press as being either liberal or free. Sure, they pretend to be- but in reality they are heavily controlled by corporate sponsorship and corporations, who are the real government in the United States. Other than Mother Jones Newsletter, I don't know of a single truly liberal publication, TV, or radio station. There are some fake liberal stations running around- but most of those are in deep with the Democratic Party, which is of itself paid off by certain corporate sponsors. When I say that the United States is fascist, I'm refering to Musolini's definition of the term- where corporations and the rich have bribed every viable politician on the ballot regardless of party, in an effort to write the laws to support profit and raise barriers of entry into the marketplace.
The tax code, the refusal to protect the borders, the lack of justice in the court system, are all symptoms of this problem (among others).
Read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Those are the ideals I'm referring to, whether you choose to ignore them or not.
Since 1876, those rights have only applied to corporations, not second rate citizens. Only the rich have rights- because they're the only ones who can afford to defend those rights. Oh, there have been a few attempts to bring back a constitutional government- the last was Adalai Stevenson's run against Nixon- but by and large, the corporations have made the Constituation obsolete.
... and also because so much of the world was willing to fight against him.
This part means nothing at all if you are strong enough to destroy the rest of the world, defend your citizens, and buffer them from the outside world to the point that the outside world doesn't matter. Hitler wasn't strong enough in two important ways- he lacked WMDs and the few generals that gave him the strength he needed to do what he did, he executed or imprisoned.
Why? Because his actions were intolerable.
Tolerable and intolerable doesn't matter to the dead.
The worse US actions become, the more resistance it will face as well.
True- but so what? What does that matter to a true superpower- the kind that can make entire cities disappear? What that matters to is the fake superpower- the kind that CAN make entire cities disappear but won't out of sheer cowardice, or out of fear of losing profit. I'm not sure if Bush is the first or the second- but either way, he's failed in creating a true empire before he's even started from a lack of willingness to be ruthless. Instead he's pussyfooting around with the wrong people and creating MORE ill will than if he had simply nuked the entire Middle East.
Have you considered that maybe you are dreaming now, but your dream is a nightmare? Perhaps the country isn't as hopelessly corrupt as you think it is.
The illegal immigration rate alone proves that wrong.
Alternatively, if the country is as bad as you say, why do you support making it stronger?
Depends what you mean by "stronger". My people have been here 40,000 years- I support it being kept *sovereign* not neccessarily *stronger*.
If the situation is hopeless, wouldn't you prefer to see it destroyed so that something better could take its place?
Ah, but you see, if we got rid of the profit motive, even just temporarily to wipe out a foreign attacker, that alone would make the United States a better place. That's exactly the purpose behind this- Rome was very comfortable for it's citizens, but Carthage who was dependant upon others for their wealth was destroyed. I want US citizenship to mean something again- and to do so, we need to get rid of the traitors, the corporations who have sucked us into being dependant upon foreign agents and nations (and by extention, that dependancy leads to becoming involved in other people's civil wars- which is what this War on Terror really is, the Islamic Reformation). We need to become isolationist- isolationist to the point of making sure *NOBODY* takes what we have away from us without serious retribution.
Bush 43 is way too much of a coward and traitor himself to accomplish that- he's been paid off by big oil.
I'm not advocating the previous poster's position, but I'd like to point out that you're a little confused. He's not advocating treating American citizens poorly, only foreigners. In any normal society, foreigners don't get the rights and priveleges that Citizens do.
I wish I had thought about this rebuttal- and more to the point:
As an example, look at the Roman Empire. During its peak, its citizens lived a pretty good life, and were well protected from outside invaders by the powerful Roman Army. Now if you were an outsider, all bets were off. The Romans had a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness in the way they treated enemies, slaves, etc. This system worked very well too, for the Roman Citizens (who cares about the foreigners?). It was internal corruption that really destroyed Rome, not any foreign invaders or terrorists. This sounds like what the previous poster is advocating: treating our citizens well, and being absolutely ruthless and merciless with everyone else so that they fear the Empire.
Exactly right- and I'd also point out that Roman Citizenship itself was a priviledge, not a right- and could be removed for a variety of reasons. But every citizen had the right to appeal any decision to the Emperor himself- St Paul used this to delay his execution for decades.
That's exactly what I'm talking about when I say be less like Carthage (which was truly fascist by modern terms- in that there was a collusion between business and government) and more like Rome (where individual citizens were protected from outside influences).
DIY? No it will just move up a step
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How BeyondTV looks like they may get around it is by having Haupage create a capture card computer with a USB 2.0 interface- thus they'll only need to certify the periphereal.....
And to that aim, we have failed and will always fail. There are many more angry with us and have taken up arms now than ever before, many who were sympathetic towards us after 9/11.
I ascribe that entirely to Bush, who failed to realize the primary fact of war- if it must be done, 'tis well that it be done QUICKLY. All this pussyfooting around in Iraq and lack of focus on the primary target allows the rest of the world time to turn against us.
And that is the very definition of terrorism. If you can't get to the people doing you harm, you attack their family and supporters in hopes of creating fear.
No, you don't understand. You get the people doing you harm AND you utterly wipe out their family and supporters AS WELL. You do both, and you don't vary from that- no side trips to get people who aren't involved. No effort to make money off of the situation. No attempt to preserve resources for future use. Singlemindedness to accomplish the goal. And when they're wiped out, you can then erase their names from the newspapers, from the history books, from the planet- as if they never existed at all.
Should we execute Timothy McVeigh's family?
Yes- it's obvious from his bumbling that they are on the shallow end of the gene pool- we're better off without them.
Should we kill the families of Eric Rudolph and the kaczynski family?
Yes.
Did the death of Randy Weaver's family or the extended family at Waco end terrorism in the US?
Neither was anything close to complete. People escaped alive from both- and the fact that we still hear about them says that the government *also* failed to erase them from popular memory. They don't deserve to be remembered.
I think the families of those who died in the Alfred P. Murrah Building could answer that.
Yep...the erasure was bungled. Tim McVeigh, as a member of the insurgency (aka Millitias) should have been rounded up at the same time as Randy Weaver and been either in jail or executed- not left free to blow up a federal building. They're either dangerous, or they're not- and if they're dangerous, then they need to be eliminated.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I think you are confusing liberalism for communism or socialist here. Liberalism accepts a market that is controlled and supported by the government, which allows for regulation and redistribution of wealth. For more info on liberalism you can start by reading some John Locke, or just reading about him on wiki. Saying that no man should profit off of another's work is misleading, because the other man is also profitting for doing their work whist the man in change is profitting, or attempting to, by managing the logistics of the other men working for him.. What you are talking about is slavery.
I find Locke to be horridly outdated- especially since he's talking about an economy of real scarcity as opposed to an economy based on artificial scarcity (the economy we've been in since the 1930s has been one of artificial scarcity; where the rich attempt to raise prices both by monopolizing certain industries and by being conspicuous consumers themselves and monopolizing outputs).
However, I do realize this breaks down at the higher crusts where someone can just own a company and sit back and relax, but we do not have a true liberal society, rather a combination of liberal and conservative ideologies. Sorry to nit pick.
What we have simply doesn't work- the "jobless recovery" proved that to me. It's time to throw it out and replace it with something better.
Maybe you're like Rimmer in Red Dwarf- and your mind just hates you.
Right here. But the problem is the past becomes indeterminate as well in any physics that allows time travel, so he's not neccessarily from OUR future.
Go to sleep- if time is the illusion he says, you can suddenly "accelerate" to 28800 seconds/second for an average human adult....
What I don't get is his apparent fear of infinite regressio. Your analysis is absolutely correct- all he's really done is prove that our definition of motion is inadequate for time travel. This leads to three potentially conflicting conclusions:
1. For travel in the Nth dimension to make sense, n+1 dimensions are required with your motion halted in dimension n+1, for all dimensions 1-infinity.MBR>
2. The very universe is an illusion that has no past and no future- our expirence of it is completely imaginary.
3. Humans are not capable of breaking out of our 3-dimensional existance with one-way travel in the fourth spacial dimension at a speed of c- which explains why within our 3-dimensional universe we cannot exceed c.
The article would have us believe #1 and #2 are false, and #3 is true not only for human beings but for all matter in the universe. This is not falsifiable and therefore leaves the realm of science and enters religious belief based on a fear of infinity.
Such a piece of software was a part of the central theme to a murder in Douglas Adams' Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency.
I seem to remember though that version was applied to corporate metrics instead- it didn't sell well in England, where the music sounded like a funeral dirge, but it sold relatively well in America and even Japan, though the later got kind of high and squeeky at the end of the music.
You're mistaken in one sense and forgetting an underlying idea of capitalism in another sense: first, many of the left-wing publications are not 'corporate'-- in the sense of profit-motive or actual status. If they become too corporate, like, say, Rolling Stone or MTV in the music industry, then independent outlets spring up-- that's the point you're forgetting. It's gotten particularly easy with the internet since very little capital is involved, except free time, of which most of us have an excess.
I do see blogs as the new independant media- but as long as advertising and page hits are involved, even if only for bragging rights, that's a market. And nothing in a market can truly be considered free.
True for the 'corporate' media, untrue for independent or targeted media. And while you're probably right about the stock market, it doesn't gain anything to point it out. It's like a person telling the religious right that God doesn't exist or that their religion is just plain wrong. It would be easier and more effective for them to counter them in terms of the Bible, and move in slowly, one step at a time. But so as not to nitpick around your actual argument, I don't think the media's failure to attack primary causes is of any importance. There's a subtle Bush-bashing story every week, it seems like, the latest being the C.S. King funeral. The implications of the Penn. mining accident were all there-- corporations suck. Slashdot's 'YRO' section is not-so-veiled anti-fascism (even though the concept of a 'right' is infinitely disputable).
That's just trading one set of corporations for a different set of corporations- competition among corporations. The open source movement itself is about business plans and IPOs. Unless we attack the religion that is at the base of the problem we won't see any change- in Orwellian terms the upper and middle class will just change places, and the lives of the Proles will remain completely oppressed and unaffected. It's a false choice between Republicans and Democrats- they're the same type of people with different names. Blogging may one day become a truly free press- but I kind of doubt it will happen before internet-capable portable computers with free net access are available to homeless people for free.
I should have put quotes around 'liberal.' I agree, but actual liberals who aren't stupid or insanely-idealistic enough to vote 3rd party find their home with the democrats.
And in doing so, they sell out to the religion of money.
That is like saying, "if we have a right wing, how come we don't have any pogroms"?
But we DO have pogroms. Mainly on undocumented workers and terrorists and eco-nazis right now, but we certainly do have pogroms.
Actually, it left the government in charge. That's what made it left-wing (i.e. the government taking away something from everyone and oppressing people while saying it is for their own good). The Hillary attempt to destroy health care would have made Stalin happy: it included jail terms for attempting to see your doctor. That is what happens when the government gets involved.
A true single payer health care system wouldn't CARE what doctor you saw- only by leaving the HMOs in charge would this matter (because you'd be seeing a doctor who was out-of-plan).
In leftism/liberalism, it is OK for a corporation to profit as long as that corporation is the government
No, actually, in TRUE liberalism, as opposed to the stupid American version, making money off of the labor of somebody else is gravely immoral.
Egads... without digging into details of disagreement (I could go into the nonbiblical tradition of "no female leaders" for one thing), I largely agree with you. The Catholics do anger both sides. The abortion industry and its apologists hate the RCC for opposing abortion. The "blood and vengeance" guys in the right hate the RCC for opposing the death penalty, and for its pacifism. They may be just one sect of Christianity, but isn't the RCC the oldest organization on the planet?
No, some sects of Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism are thousands of years older. But I'd agree time has been key in the moderation of thier doctrine- their method of forming doctrine takes CENTURIES to come to a decision (same with all of the organizations their age or older). That has a real tendency to place them in the center on most issues.
All reporting is biased. So what is your point?
It's not only biased- it's biased towards a certain set of interests, the profit motive. Thus it isn't free to report only facts and all of the facts.
It is not perfectly free, but it is more free and less controlled than just about any other country's press in the entire world, especially the large number of countries which range from China to the UK in which the government controls a large part or all of the media.
Which doesn't mean a heck of a lot....
Still, a press situation where Michael Moore, Rush Limbaugh, and Indymedia have a wide-open megaphone is indeed rather free.
Considering that they're all very much on the conservative side of world politics....
See, THAT's just the thing. The threat is apparently amplified beyond reality. Osama just said that he would attack in America and the threat level wasn't raised. If there were armies of these people the attacks would be steady. We have had the war on drugs for decades now and drugs still pour into our nation.
You don't actually think we've been waging the War on Drugs in the way it needs to be waged do you? We could stop the flow of drugs almost instantly- but to do so would require the death of everybody trying to cross our border and the permanent placement of 5 million troops across a 7000 mile border. We have no ability to actually *deal* with these people the way they need to be dealt with.
People who incite violence should be dealt with swiftly. The problem is not, however, strictly from a Protestant Islamic revolution. The problem is that people are being told by radical clerics how to interpret the Qu'ran and not reading it to decide for themselves.
Except for, according to the accepted schools of Islamic thought, those so-called "radical clerics" aren't clerics at all- they haven't had the training in how to interpret the Qu'ran correctly.
This is in part due to lower literacy rates but moreover due to intellectual dishonesty on the part of the flock. This is the exact same problem as Christian fundamentalism. For example: Leviticus 18:22 says that homosexuality is an abomination before God. Okay, that is clear and so it is wrong. But if you read the whole book, Leviticus 11:12 says that eating anything from a river or sea that doesn't have fins and scales is an abomination. In effect, eating lobster bisque is just as wrong as taking the stiff one-eye.
Correct- but notice Christian fundamentalism wouldn't exist either if it wasn't for Sola Scriptura- because in Catholicism interpretation of scripture is strictly controlled.
The Qu'ran says that if you are at war with another nation you aren't allowed to destroy their trees. Not a particularly violent notion. The people that are preaching baby killing have distorted the book to an astonishing level, yes, but atrocities are okayed in both holy books. Pat Robertson, Osama bin Laden and I can all read the same passages and come away with radically different interpretations (though to be fair Pat and I are reading translated texts anyway [which makes literal interpretation nonsensical at face value {paranthetical thoughts make poor sentences but do illustrate how I think} ] ). The extremist view on anything is necessarily flawed because life is analogue.
Absolutely right- however I see no way to be free of extremism without first being free of extremeists- and to do that we have to become extremist.
If I were Bush I would consider the path of containment we as a nation pursued in a very pragmatic way for decades. Other nations lack of "freedom" is regrettable, but just as 5% unemployment is cold-hearted and intentional the containment of a threat you cannot extinguish is the only way I see to go forward. Our safety is paramount and it cannot be bought on the backs of atrocities. If you commit mass murder to eliminate threats you only create more.
Depends on the level of mass murder you commit- if there is nobody else left willing to fight, then you've eliminated the threat. The problem with containment is that it's stopped working mainly because we don't have the will to maintain it- true containment would require *NO* diplomatic or trade contact with the middle east at all and an automatic death sentence for anybody coming from there trying to cross our borders. That is the level of containment we'd need to prevent another 9-11 type attack. Are you willing to support that level of containment? Obviously not.
As Ford Prefect said in "Life, the Universe, and Everything" they care and we don't. So they automatically WILL eventually win.
All that being said, I stand by the "I don't know what the solution is" refrain. While I res
What are we fighting?
Specifically, what we're fighting is the Islamic version of the Protestant Reformation- a new ideology that allows individual people and groups unconnected with Islamic schools of thought to declare genocidal Jihad and Fatwas on just about anybody and interpret the Koran for themselves. This is in reality no more dangerous or deadly than the Christian Protestant Reformation was- except for the genocidal part, and the fact that these Protestants could, in theory, lay their hands on WMDs. Oh yeah, and the Christian Protestant Reformation resulted in 500 years of unrest and 100 years of open bloodshed. The good news is that it took about 80 years for the Islamic reformation to spill over to non-Islamic targets.
Note that this is an utterly different enemy from who Bush is fighting- which is any country that dares endanger the petro-dollar by offering oil for sale in Euros.
Reasonable is a funny word. I myself find it unreasonable to flatten an entire culture due to an ill-defined fringe "threat". Sadly we must agree on some facts to base our discussion on. I appreciate your stance on this, I really do. I'll throw out a potential fact: Genocide is bad. Discuss.
Genocide IS bad- but when faced with a genocidal and more importantly, decentralized enemy, racial genocide is one of only three options for survival. NO option will produce a win- we lost the day we sold guns to the Wahhabis in return for oil.
The average person finds this solution deplorable.
Too bad- the average person will either have to grow a spine or convert to Islam. There is no other choice at this point.
If we are to behave as an empire then maybe you are right.
Our great grandfathers choose that for us, it's far too late to abandon the responsibilities of empire now.
I don't think that empire is the solution (though it may be the reality on the ground).
There are no real "solutions" left- only the choice between survival and non-survival, and tactics that either insure that survival or create a spectacular defeat. Either we let the 100 million destroy the 7 billion, or we contain or destroy the 100 million. That's the real choice.
As I said before, I don't know what the solution is. As I'm not a nation state leader you'll need to cut me some slack on that.
Pretend for a second that you are. You're one of 290 such leaders in a world of 7 billion citizens between you collectively. 100 million of those have developed a very dangerous theology that does not allow the survival of the other 6.9 billion people on the planet. What do you do?
If you're Bush, you'll hope the problem goes away magically while using the violence to grab more power and resources in the region and protect an economy that should have collapsed a decade ago- would have if it wasn't for the first gulf war.
If you are machiavellian like me, you bend the entire resources of a country of 290 million people to the destruction of the 100 million; even if you have to kill 300 million to do it, and you get the other 290 world leaders to go along with that whatever it takes.
If you're Pat Buchannan, you ignore the other 290 leaders, create a 12 mile barrier of death around your 290 million, and withdraw- forget about the other 6.7 billion people on the planet.
And if you're Danish, you tolerate the destruction of your embassies and culture and die for the sake of that tollerance.
And if you are an individual trying to survive, you convert to Islam in hopes that the Jihadists leave you alone.
Those are the 5 options I can see- of those only three have even a snowball's chance in hell of survivability, and only two can be done by a country that respects freedom of religion.
Are those two options incredibly deplorable and distastefull to the average person who has gotten used to a society that makes it's own laws instead of being limited to laws set down by a Prophet from God 1600 years ago? YES. But as long as we have people willing to kill in the name of God, I don't see any choice.
No. Democrats are left wing, but not far to the left of center. Republicans are right-wing, but not far to the right of center. There's an incredibly large number of liberals (left-wingers) in power in America. They hold large number of governor seats, many very important large city mayor posts, and almost half of each branch of Congress. We even had a liberal in the top political position in the nation until about 5 years ago. 5 years is not decades.
If that is true, then why don't we have any communes? Clinton was no liberal- and neither was his wife- their idea of universal health care was the perfect example. It left the HMOs in charge- people who make profit off of the sick. Not liberal at all- that's a distinctly right wing position.
Of course, I am measuring from the political center, only. (If you are far left wing and think that the far left is the center, then just about everything is right-wing to you).
Look at the nickname- but still, I see the center as being the Roman Catholic Church. They've had 2000 years to get it correct, and today do a very good job judging by how the extremeists on both sides howl at every declaration of doctrine.
Most of the press is controlled by corporations. This is because the system tends to encourage even very small organizations to incorporate in order to avoid frivolous lawsuits. However, even with this, there are major influential press organs which (as far as I can tell) are not organized into corporations. These included Drudge and indymedia.
Both of which make a lot of money based on biased reporting to biased individuals- neither of which I'd call a "free press" or even free of corporate influences.
"Death to all extremists" is itself an extreme position.
Yes, it is. We become what we fight, if we're going to win. That was as true for the Bolshevik revolution, as it was for WWII's fight against facism (that led directly to the creation of the military-industrial petro-dollar based superpower that the United States is today) as it is for the War on Terror. They know they're in a genocidal war- the question is why don't we?
I am sorry to say that you are behaving as part of the problem here, friend.
It's the only reasonable solution for the problem. After the Revolution, the communists created the NKVD- which was exactly the same as the Czar's secret police. After WWII we were left with a corporate-owned government- Hitler's very dream. And if we're going to win against the Islamic version of Sola Scriptura fundamentalists- we're going to need to become as genocidal as they are.
I don't know what the solution is, but it probably entails reasonable people making an extraordinary stand worldwide.
It's never happened before in the history of the world.
On its face that is unlikely.
It would be a UNIQUE occurance in all of history- I'd put more trust in the tactic that worked against semitic extremeists before, when Rome ran into this problem in 70 A.D.
If I'm reading this article right, CSAs are a critical part of the body's immune response. If we start slathering this stuff all over the place (presumably dramatically increasing it's presence in the environment), aren't we risking the evolution of resistance to it in viruses and bacteria? Might that not result in diseases to which our immune system has very little ability to fight?
Yep- that's the other danger. The fact that no known CURRENT virus or bacteria can fight back against CSAs means NOTHING- nature is inventive and will fill a vaccuum eventually.
Look how quickly resistence to Tamiflu emerged... I know a causal link hasn't been proven yet, but I'm betting it has something to do with the way it was available OTC in a lot of countries. There's no way we can ensure appropriate use of a drug like this sufficiently to prevent resistence from eventually emerging. What will we do then?
I expect we'll die in increasing numbers. Not from HIV, which will have practically been made extinct by this substance, but from something else.
I just get really nervous when we start copying core weapons of our own immune systems...
As well you should.
I was thinking in terms of a separate system- a single-purpose computer kind of like a TIVO that sends data back to the computer. Thus USB- to emphasize the fact that it is a periphereal.
I am astounded by your reference to a pope's preascendent pontification vituperating moral relativism, whose own youthful history could be construed as an exemplary case study of situationalism past. Do you have a url for this readily at hand? Don't provide it if your conception of the creative is connected to him though. It amuses, may be used in future heterodoxical musing, and I am a proficient searchengine tech user. Does the XVI signify fifteen prior Pope Benedicts?
I was unable to find a primary source- it would probably be in Italian or German anyway, any quote from the homily would have to be translated regardless- but here's a news story on Cardinal Ratzinger's pre-conclave homily from The Catholic Exchange. NO, I don't consider the Pope to be creative- in fact, a creative Pope would be a horrific thing to happen to the Catholic Church, that's not his job. His job is to synthesize the work of others into universal doctrine- a creative Pope would be very dangerous indeed. And yes, there were 15 previous Popes by the name of Benedict- the last one was Pope during WWI and helped broker the Treaty of Versailes. The choice of the name seems to have been very purposeful- linking the mission of the current Papacy to that time, brokering peace between Catholics and the increasing Moslem population of Europe.
Also, is your given email pointer just a spam vacuum?
To some extent yes- it has a very aggressive bayesian spam filter on it. I also use it as my primary address with people I don't know whom I my wish to ignore. A better way to get in contact with me here is through Journal Entries.
I'm speaking of the press as being naturally liberal--not Democrat-- as opposed to the fascist nature of the corporation, and the institutions such as both political parties which it seeks to control. This is more philosophical than political. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, an interesting pair of anti-fascist philosophers (who seemed to have regarded Marx highly), related fascism to the condition of paranoia and liberalism (or the heterogeneous masses demanding their personal needs all at once) to the condition of schizophrenia.
/., and other scientific institutions and publications, represent what I'm talking about-- people stating their case against the established structure. This is what attracts the press most of all and constitutes a 'story.' Rarely do we hear if the gov't is doing its job well. The corporate controlled outlets tend to report on neutral items like, say, skiing accidents or famous weddings. But even in a case like the Penn. mining accidents, it reflects poorly on the corporation, so it's liberal-leaning.
That's interesting- but in modern America the press is controled by the corporations, and thus, reflects the fascist paranoid nature of the corporations, not the liberal schizophrenia of being socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Corporations can't afford to be fiscally liberal.
There are the 'paranoid' press outlets, CNN, Fox, ABC, et al, and the rest-- Mother Jones, Harpers, Atlantic Monthly, New York Review of Books (to name a few strongly 'democrat' leaning pubs), The National Review, High Times, etc., mostly with their own agendas. Even the recent views of NASA, espoused recently on
But notice what they don't attack- the primary cause of the problems, the stock market itself, and the focus on short term profit to the exclusion of everything else. NOBODY is putting out that point of view- it's amazing the blank stares I get when I say the stock market is the primary cause of evil in this country.
So to clarify, there's an enormous amount of press that constitutes a formidable barrier to total fascism and almost by its definition, the press is liberal. It's convenient for people to say they're 'biased', but that's only because the Democrats happen to have the liberal constituency.
Democrats aren't liberal. Democrats are center-right. Republicans are right wing. There are no liberals in power in America, and haven't been for decades now.
RTFA- the chemical in question was ORIGINALLY being investigated for it's antibacterial properties, it was only by accident that they found it killed viruses as well (including HIV).
This substance is a mimic of a current human body chemical, and attacks one hell of a lot more than just HIV- my guess is it will end one of two ways. It will either strip the body of everything including our normal colonies of beneficial bacteria and yeasts, and thus be too dangerous to use. Or it won't work for some mutation, and we'll still have a million or so HIV patients after it's in widespread use.
I've never owned a non-standard transmission car before....
Well, I suppose you could always simulate it in software- a clutch pedal that "disengages" the current setting, move the stick to a new setting, let up the clutch, and the power range of your accelerator changes....complete with an OD setting for people who don't want to bother...kind of like the autostick on a Nash Rambler....
I think you're partially right, though its a slightly negative outlook. You're forgetting one thing, though: freedom of the press-- something that perhaps no fascist society has, arguably, ever had (Soviet Russia fell only a few years after Gorbechav granted the press freedom (or did the freedom of press grant gorbechav?:)). Consider the press to be the truly democratic arm of the gov't. It's no accident that the press is 'liberal'-- it's almost by definition that they behave liberally, or even democratically.
I don't see the press as being either liberal or free. Sure, they pretend to be- but in reality they are heavily controlled by corporate sponsorship and corporations, who are the real government in the United States. Other than Mother Jones Newsletter, I don't know of a single truly liberal publication, TV, or radio station. There are some fake liberal stations running around- but most of those are in deep with the Democratic Party, which is of itself paid off by certain corporate sponsors. When I say that the United States is fascist, I'm refering to Musolini's definition of the term- where corporations and the rich have bribed every viable politician on the ballot regardless of party, in an effort to write the laws to support profit and raise barriers of entry into the marketplace.
The tax code, the refusal to protect the borders, the lack of justice in the court system, are all symptoms of this problem (among others).
According to the Koran- the source of all law is God. Mankind's laws don't have to be followed, because they have no force of law.
Read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Those are the ideals I'm referring to, whether you choose to ignore them or not.
... and also because so much of the world was willing to fight against him.
Since 1876, those rights have only applied to corporations, not second rate citizens. Only the rich have rights- because they're the only ones who can afford to defend those rights. Oh, there have been a few attempts to bring back a constitutional government- the last was Adalai Stevenson's run against Nixon- but by and large, the corporations have made the Constituation obsolete.
This part means nothing at all if you are strong enough to destroy the rest of the world, defend your citizens, and buffer them from the outside world to the point that the outside world doesn't matter. Hitler wasn't strong enough in two important ways- he lacked WMDs and the few generals that gave him the strength he needed to do what he did, he executed or imprisoned.
Why? Because his actions were intolerable.
Tolerable and intolerable doesn't matter to the dead.
The worse US actions become, the more resistance it will face as well.
True- but so what? What does that matter to a true superpower- the kind that can make entire cities disappear? What that matters to is the fake superpower- the kind that CAN make entire cities disappear but won't out of sheer cowardice, or out of fear of losing profit. I'm not sure if Bush is the first or the second- but either way, he's failed in creating a true empire before he's even started from a lack of willingness to be ruthless. Instead he's pussyfooting around with the wrong people and creating MORE ill will than if he had simply nuked the entire Middle East.
Have you considered that maybe you are dreaming now, but your dream is a nightmare? Perhaps the country isn't as hopelessly corrupt as you think it is.
The illegal immigration rate alone proves that wrong.
Alternatively, if the country is as bad as you say, why do you support making it stronger?
Depends what you mean by "stronger". My people have been here 40,000 years- I support it being kept *sovereign* not neccessarily *stronger*.
If the situation is hopeless, wouldn't you prefer to see it destroyed so that something better could take its place?
Ah, but you see, if we got rid of the profit motive, even just temporarily to wipe out a foreign attacker, that alone would make the United States a better place. That's exactly the purpose behind this- Rome was very comfortable for it's citizens, but Carthage who was dependant upon others for their wealth was destroyed. I want US citizenship to mean something again- and to do so, we need to get rid of the traitors, the corporations who have sucked us into being dependant upon foreign agents and nations (and by extention, that dependancy leads to becoming involved in other people's civil wars- which is what this War on Terror really is, the Islamic Reformation). We need to become isolationist- isolationist to the point of making sure *NOBODY* takes what we have away from us without serious retribution.
Bush 43 is way too much of a coward and traitor himself to accomplish that- he's been paid off by big oil.
I'm not advocating the previous poster's position, but I'd like to point out that you're a little confused. He's not advocating treating American citizens poorly, only foreigners. In any normal society, foreigners don't get the rights and priveleges that Citizens do.
I wish I had thought about this rebuttal- and more to the point:
As an example, look at the Roman Empire. During its peak, its citizens lived a pretty good life, and were well protected from outside invaders by the powerful Roman Army. Now if you were an outsider, all bets were off. The Romans had a well-deserved reputation for ruthlessness in the way they treated enemies, slaves, etc. This system worked very well too, for the Roman Citizens (who cares about the foreigners?). It was internal corruption that really destroyed Rome, not any foreign invaders or terrorists. This sounds like what the previous poster is advocating: treating our citizens well, and being absolutely ruthless and merciless with everyone else so that they fear the Empire.
Exactly right- and I'd also point out that Roman Citizenship itself was a priviledge, not a right- and could be removed for a variety of reasons. But every citizen had the right to appeal any decision to the Emperor himself- St Paul used this to delay his execution for decades.
That's exactly what I'm talking about when I say be less like Carthage (which was truly fascist by modern terms- in that there was a collusion between business and government) and more like Rome (where individual citizens were protected from outside influences).
How BeyondTV looks like they may get around it is by having Haupage create a capture card computer with a USB 2.0 interface- thus they'll only need to certify the periphereal.....
And to that aim, we have failed and will always fail. There are many more angry with us and have taken up arms now than ever before, many who were sympathetic towards us after 9/11.
I ascribe that entirely to Bush, who failed to realize the primary fact of war- if it must be done, 'tis well that it be done QUICKLY. All this pussyfooting around in Iraq and lack of focus on the primary target allows the rest of the world time to turn against us.
And that is the very definition of terrorism. If you can't get to the people doing you harm, you attack their family and supporters in hopes of creating fear.
No, you don't understand. You get the people doing you harm AND you utterly wipe out their family and supporters AS WELL. You do both, and you don't vary from that- no side trips to get people who aren't involved. No effort to make money off of the situation. No attempt to preserve resources for future use. Singlemindedness to accomplish the goal. And when they're wiped out, you can then erase their names from the newspapers, from the history books, from the planet- as if they never existed at all.
Should we execute Timothy McVeigh's family?
Yes- it's obvious from his bumbling that they are on the shallow end of the gene pool- we're better off without them.
Should we kill the families of Eric Rudolph and the kaczynski family?
Yes.
Did the death of Randy Weaver's family or the extended family at Waco end terrorism in the US?
Neither was anything close to complete. People escaped alive from both- and the fact that we still hear about them says that the government *also* failed to erase them from popular memory. They don't deserve to be remembered.
I think the families of those who died in the Alfred P. Murrah Building could answer that.
Yep...the erasure was bungled. Tim McVeigh, as a member of the insurgency (aka Millitias) should have been rounded up at the same time as Randy Weaver and been either in jail or executed- not left free to blow up a federal building. They're either dangerous, or they're not- and if they're dangerous, then they need to be eliminated.