How might an impartial observer verify your assertion that "the neocon agenda has an[d] will always be to turn the US into a police-state theocracy"? Again, I'm especially interested in the "theocracy" bit. Have any neocons written any books to that effect? Their own "Mein Kampf" so to speak? Have any of them expressed a belief in Christian dominionism? (please don't knee-jerk answer yes to this question unless you know what "dominionism" is.) Perhaps they're not forthright with their agenda -- has someone intercepted secret communications amongst the cabal, blowing the lid on their hidden agenda?
I'm honest-to-goodness interested in finding out why a rational person should come to accept this as true (i.e., based on evidence). I'm a rational person. Or at least, I hope to be one some day. Convince me!
You're being a bit hyperbolic, but you see my point: even though there is no significant connection between the bill in question and "theocracy", the poster still saw such a connection as patently self-evident. It strikes me that the poster is the sort of person (at least in this case) who has a theory, and then looks to shoe-horn evidence to fit. (Rather than, of course, gathering evidence and then forming a theory).
Their line of thought went something like this: "infringements on civil liberties? It must be the theocons!" And so, since they fixed the blame on the theocons, this particular episode provides them greater assurance that they were right all along about those dastardly theocons. (There's some circular reasoning in there, in case you missed it.)
An only vaguely related thought: if you started pointing fingers at the "neocons" that stalk the halls of power, you're more likely to end up pointing at a not-very-observant Jew than you would a dominionist Christian. So it's hard to imagine what sort of "theocracy" is coming our way. Will we all be forced to live by the strictures of Reformed Judaism? Personally, I'm looking forward to voting for Mitt Romney for President in 2008, a Mormon of all things! (I'm a run-of-the-mill Baptist.)
Can anyone explain to me how the passage of this bill would help bring about "theocracy"? The poster said that this would be a "great way" to do it, but I fail to see the connection. (N.B. I'm specifically asking about the "theocracy" bit.)
Sadly, medicine is still business first and foremost. Some drug company will make a mint from this.
"Sadly"? I don't think so -- the profit motive has done more to advance medical science than altruism ever has. (Not to knock altruism, though. I say, let's get as much as we can out of both of 'em!)
"Arguably, matrilinealization is the more intuitive method, becase you can be pretty certain who is the mother of the child."
... which is a good reason why family names get passed down patrilinearly! It gives the dad a stake in the life of the child, and it gives the child a claim on a particular father (even if it's the wrong one, biologically speaking).
What? I got moderated -1 Troll? This is a belief that has been held by one of the world's major religions for something like 2,000 years now! I was being entirely straightfoward in my response. I even put in some "if you accept the theology" argument softeners, to acknowledge that others believe differently. Sheesh.
Aw, he was just going for the "you must be new around here" running gag. You could probably use that reply on every post and get +3 Funny as often as not. (Especially if you were able to work in "4. Profit!".)
Of course, seeing as how you failed to recognize the "you must be new around here" running gag and gave it a serious response, I feel I must say this: you must be new around here.:)
Although it's true that if one of us allowed ourselves to be killed, that would be considered "passive", Jesus is considerably different than any of us. He chose to lay down His life so that He could rise again on the third day, and thereby secure victory over death/sin (if you accept the miraculous nature of what He was doing and the theology as expounded by the rest of the New Testament). So He allowed Himself to be killed so that He could bring the fight to the gates of Hell -- that doesn't sound passive to me.
Sorry, I don't consider them to be my religious forefathers.
I have a hard time believing that "Society has moved past [me/us]", given the fact that one of us happens to be the President of the United States. So I think we're still quite a long ways away from a "post-morality" society, and I would predict that you're gonna be stuck dealing with us for a long time to come.
Anyhow, various religious types have been luddites, various religious types have *not* been luddites, various luddites have been religious, and various luddites have *not* been religous. I don't think there's quite as strong a connection as you seem to want there to be. Heck, I could probably make the argument that lefty/green/back-to-nature types are more strongly anti-technology than any modern religious conservative types, at least not the religious conservative types that I would consider my religious forefathers or contemporaries.
Oh, if you happen to want an example of who I would consider a religious forefather, then I would say C.S. Lewis, FWIW. I would probably also self-identify as more of an "evangelical" than a "conservative", for what that's worth, too.
Here's a historic quote that I would be humbled and proud to consider part of my religious forefather/heritage type thing: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Yes I know many of the founding fathers weren't run-of-the-mill religious conservative types, but you gotta admit, "endowed by their Creator" is a pretty moral/religious idea.
If you read history, I think you'll find "morality" to be fluidly defined, and most technologies you take for granted today were opposed at some point by pin-headed religious conservative types.
The reason we are having this discussion today via computers in a world with jet travel, is because we chose to ignore morons like you.
You honest-to-goodness think that "morons like me" opposed "jet travel" and "[networked] computers" on moral grounds when they first came out? Well, as one of the morons in question, I can honestly say that I have no moral qualms about either of those, and the people I would look to as my forfathers of "religious conservatism" we're fine with them, as well. And just FYI, we're also okay with indoor plumbing, electricity, sterilization, telephones and cars.
Now when you start chipping away at the boundaries of what constitutes rights-bearing human life, then us religious conservative types do sit up and take notice. And anyway, you don't have to be religious at all to hold on to the ethical view that an embryo, as a complete combination of human DNA, distinct from each parent's DNA, with the possibility of becoming a full-fledged human being, *might* *possibly* deserve some special consideration above and beyond what we grant to excised tumors.
"... the Bush administrations religiously imposed dogma on science and progress."
Ah, yes. We certainly wouldn't want something as silly and old-fashioned as *morality* getting in the way of PROGRESS and SCIENCE...
Waitaminute, how is this modded "flamebait" when the grandparent's phrase, "religiously imposed dogma" gets a pass? What is that I smell? Could it be... bias?
I can imagine high-tech pickpockets/muggers wandering through the casino, seeing whose pockets light up their hand-held RFID reader, and then following them out to the parking lot or what-have-you.
"Does this mean that instead of using a more privacy friendly tool (i never though i'll use this expression on carnivore) is NOT needed any more because of the patriot act?"
Um, no. From the article, we learn that Carnivore was originally created because commercially-availble solutions at the time did not have the privacy protections the FBI needed. FBI needed these privacy protections so that evidence gathered in this manner would not be thrown out by judges -- so they built Carnivore in-house to make sure that it would only record information covered by warrant.
Now, there are commercially-available tools that have the requisite privacy protections, so the FBI will just use those instead of maintaining their own in-house program.
In short, the FBI are now doing with commerical software what they used to do with in-house software. (The ultimate point being that they needed some software one-way-or-another to gather information they were entitled to gather because they got a warrant).
So hey, if you want to go off on a tangent about how evil PATRIOT ACT/Echelon/John Ascroft/etc are, that's fine -- although that would be pretty off-topic given the issue presented in this article (i.e., Carnivore being replaced by commercially-available software that does the same thing).
GNU should append a clause to their licenses that military use is prohibited so that nobody can get harmed by Free code.
Or protected by it either, I guess...
Re:What if another coutry did the same ?
on
Strike on Iraq
·
· Score: 1
To perhaps answer your question on what the reaction would be if another country was bombing a poor country etc, here are some examples:
When Egypt nationalized the Suez canal, France and the UK invaded without UN approval. Russia invaded Afghanistan without UN approval. In Bosnia, the US skipped the UN Security Council and ran that whole deal via NATO. Had the USSR not been boycotting the UN at the time, the Korean War would've likely been done without UN approval.
And, lest we forget, Iraq invaded Kuwait without UN approval -- and the US stopped the invasion well short of Baghdad when there was really no reason we had to, and instead made peace with Iraq under certain conditions, such as ongoing weapons monitoring and the no-fly zones. Iraq has been in breach of those conditions pretty much continuously since Gulf War I ended.
The following is my US-centric train of thought. Please point out any and all errors, because I myself am still unsure of the accuracy of all of this.
1. "Free speech" includes such things as speech, the written word, symbolic acts, art of all forms, and video games.
2. Being "free speech" does not exempt one from liabilty in a civil court case. (I.e., one is responsible for ones actions, whether or not such actions are covered by the Bill of Rights.)
3. If it can be shown in court that Doom was partially responsible for the outcome (media speculation doesn't cut it as evidence), id Software could be held liable and be required to pay money to the vicitm's families.
4. Michael Carneal, another school shooter in December 1997, is said to have been influenced by the movie, "The Basketball Diaries," evidenced by court-appointed psychologists. (He claims he wasn't so influenced.) I seem to recall recently on some morning TV news show that the parents of his victims are suing various entertainment companies in a civil suit using just such an argument. I couldn't find any info on the net, though. Does anyone know about this?
Slashdot Mirror
Horrifying, if true.
How might an impartial observer verify your assertion that "the neocon agenda has an[d] will always be to turn the US into a police-state theocracy"? Again, I'm especially interested in the "theocracy" bit. Have any neocons written any books to that effect? Their own "Mein Kampf" so to speak? Have any of them expressed a belief in Christian dominionism? (please don't knee-jerk answer yes to this question unless you know what "dominionism" is.) Perhaps they're not forthright with their agenda -- has someone intercepted secret communications amongst the cabal, blowing the lid on their hidden agenda?
I'm honest-to-goodness interested in finding out why a rational person should come to accept this as true (i.e., based on evidence). I'm a rational person. Or at least, I hope to be one some day. Convince me!
You're being a bit hyperbolic, but you see my point: even though there is no significant connection between the bill in question and "theocracy", the poster still saw such a connection as patently self-evident. It strikes me that the poster is the sort of person (at least in this case) who has a theory, and then looks to shoe-horn evidence to fit. (Rather than, of course, gathering evidence and then forming a theory).
Their line of thought went something like this: "infringements on civil liberties? It must be the theocons!" And so, since they fixed the blame on the theocons, this particular episode provides them greater assurance that they were right all along about those dastardly theocons. (There's some circular reasoning in there, in case you missed it.)
An only vaguely related thought: if you started pointing fingers at the "neocons" that stalk the halls of power, you're more likely to end up pointing at a not-very-observant Jew than you would a dominionist Christian. So it's hard to imagine what sort of "theocracy" is coming our way. Will we all be forced to live by the strictures of Reformed Judaism? Personally, I'm looking forward to voting for Mitt Romney for President in 2008, a Mormon of all things! (I'm a run-of-the-mill Baptist.)
Can anyone explain to me how the passage of this bill would help bring about "theocracy"? The poster said that this would be a "great way" to do it, but I fail to see the connection. (N.B. I'm specifically asking about the "theocracy" bit.)
Yeah, it's too bad Congress can only address one issue at a time.
"Sadly"? I don't think so -- the profit motive has done more to advance medical science than altruism ever has. (Not to knock altruism, though. I say, let's get as much as we can out of both of 'em!)
"Arguably, matrilinealization is the more intuitive method, becase you can be pretty certain who is the mother of the child."
So the socialist mayor's only leverage is in changing the cost of what HP wants to do? Sounds rather ... capitalist, to me.
Go invisible hand!
As a conservative, I favor the policy that ensures maximum violence.
What? I got moderated -1 Troll? This is a belief that has been held by one of the world's major religions for something like 2,000 years now! I was being entirely straightfoward in my response. I even put in some "if you accept the theology" argument softeners, to acknowledge that others believe differently. Sheesh.
Aw, he was just going for the "you must be new around here" running gag. You could probably use that reply on every post and get +3 Funny as often as not. (Especially if you were able to work in "4. Profit!".)
:)
Of course, seeing as how you failed to recognize the "you must be new around here" running gag and gave it a serious response, I feel I must say this: you must be new around here.
Although it's true that if one of us allowed ourselves to be killed, that would be considered "passive", Jesus is considerably different than any of us. He chose to lay down His life so that He could rise again on the third day, and thereby secure victory over death/sin (if you accept the miraculous nature of what He was doing and the theology as expounded by the rest of the New Testament). So He allowed Himself to be killed so that He could bring the fight to the gates of Hell -- that doesn't sound passive to me.
So conservatives are pro-violence?
Sorry, I don't consider them to be my religious forefathers.
I have a hard time believing that "Society has moved past [me/us]", given the fact that one of us happens to be the President of the United States. So I think we're still quite a long ways away from a "post-morality" society, and I would predict that you're gonna be stuck dealing with us for a long time to come.
Anyhow, various religious types have been luddites, various religious types have *not* been luddites, various luddites have been religious, and various luddites have *not* been religous. I don't think there's quite as strong a connection as you seem to want there to be. Heck, I could probably make the argument that lefty/green/back-to-nature types are more strongly anti-technology than any modern religious conservative types, at least not the religious conservative types that I would consider my religious forefathers or contemporaries.
Oh, if you happen to want an example of who I would consider a religious forefather, then I would say C.S. Lewis, FWIW. I would probably also self-identify as more of an "evangelical" than a "conservative", for what that's worth, too.
Here's a historic quote that I would be humbled and proud to consider part of my religious forefather/heritage type thing: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Yes I know many of the founding fathers weren't run-of-the-mill religious conservative types, but you gotta admit, "endowed by their Creator" is a pretty moral/religious idea.
You honest-to-goodness think that "morons like me" opposed "jet travel" and "[networked] computers" on moral grounds when they first came out? Well, as one of the morons in question, I can honestly say that I have no moral qualms about either of those, and the people I would look to as my forfathers of "religious conservatism" we're fine with them, as well. And just FYI, we're also okay with indoor plumbing, electricity, sterilization, telephones and cars.
Now when you start chipping away at the boundaries of what constitutes rights-bearing human life, then us religious conservative types do sit up and take notice. And anyway, you don't have to be religious at all to hold on to the ethical view that an embryo, as a complete combination of human DNA, distinct from each parent's DNA, with the possibility of becoming a full-fledged human being, *might* *possibly* deserve some special consideration above and beyond what we grant to excised tumors.
Waitaminute, how is this modded "flamebait" when the grandparent's phrase, "religiously imposed dogma" gets a pass? What is that I smell? Could it be ... bias?
"... the Bush administrations religiously imposed dogma on science and progress."
...
Ah, yes. We certainly wouldn't want something as silly and old-fashioned as *morality* getting in the way of PROGRESS and SCIENCE
I can imagine high-tech pickpockets/muggers wandering through the casino, seeing whose pockets light up their hand-held RFID reader, and then following them out to the parking lot or what-have-you.
How come the American flag has 12 stripes now? Did I miss the memo?
(look up at the flag used as the topic icon for this story)
Um, no. From the article, we learn that Carnivore was originally created because commercially-availble solutions at the time did not have the privacy protections the FBI needed. FBI needed these privacy protections so that evidence gathered in this manner would not be thrown out by judges -- so they built Carnivore in-house to make sure that it would only record information covered by warrant.
Now, there are commercially-available tools that have the requisite privacy protections, so the FBI will just use those instead of maintaining their own in-house program.
In short, the FBI are now doing with commerical software what they used to do with in-house software. (The ultimate point being that they needed some software one-way-or-another to gather information they were entitled to gather because they got a warrant).
So hey, if you want to go off on a tangent about how evil PATRIOT ACT/Echelon/John Ascroft/etc are, that's fine -- although that would be pretty off-topic given the issue presented in this article (i.e., Carnivore being replaced by commercially-available software that does the same thing).
> What crazy things will they think of next?
Power over Wireless Ethernet
POW!
GNU should append a clause to their licenses that military use is prohibited so that nobody can get harmed by Free code.
...
Or protected by it either, I guess
To perhaps answer your question on what the reaction would be if another country was bombing a poor country etc, here are some examples:
When Egypt nationalized the Suez canal, France and the UK invaded without UN approval. Russia invaded Afghanistan without UN approval. In Bosnia, the US skipped the UN Security Council and ran that whole deal via NATO. Had the USSR not been boycotting the UN at the time, the Korean War would've likely been done without UN approval.
And, lest we forget, Iraq invaded Kuwait without UN approval -- and the US stopped the invasion well short of Baghdad when there was really no reason we had to, and instead made peace with Iraq under certain conditions, such as ongoing weapons monitoring and the no-fly zones. Iraq has been in breach of those conditions pretty much continuously since Gulf War I ended.
The following is my US-centric train of thought. Please point out any and all errors, because I myself am still unsure of the accuracy of all of this.
1. "Free speech" includes such things as speech, the written word, symbolic acts, art of all forms, and video games.
2. Being "free speech" does not exempt one from liabilty in a civil court case. (I.e., one is responsible for ones actions, whether or not such actions are covered by the Bill of Rights.)
3. If it can be shown in court that Doom was partially responsible for the outcome (media speculation doesn't cut it as evidence), id Software could be held liable and be required to pay money to the vicitm's families.
4. Michael Carneal, another school shooter in December 1997, is said to have been influenced by the movie, "The Basketball Diaries," evidenced by court-appointed psychologists. (He claims he wasn't so influenced.)
I seem to recall recently on some morning TV news show that the parents of his victims are suing various entertainment companies in a civil suit using just such an argument. I couldn't find any info on the net, though. Does anyone know about this?