The latter. No company planning to stay in business long offers actual unlimited access to a resource that they only have in limited supply. Granted, it's a very high limit, but there are limits nonetheless.
Yes. Whether someone is more or less dangerous is strictly situational. Including a firearm can potentially change that, but does not by any means necessarily do so any more than holding a hammer necessarily makes one more dangerous. I have a hard time believing you have any way to add even the slightest logical support to a contrary argument. This would be the time when most people try to shift targets. Your ball.
The rest of the world thanks the US once again for speaking on its behalf. Where I come from, police uphold the law, not enforce it.
Please describe, in detail, how the police where you live functionally are more proactive than reactive.
Lots of police forces have a mission to "protect." Yes, the existence of armed forces deters crime (well, non-state crime anyway), but that is hardly a descriptor unique to benevolent police forces. In theory they have proactive roles, but those have nothing at all to do with protecting anyone, and everything to do with the fact that they are a well-known armed force.
Surely the whole POINT of having a gun in your hand is to be more dangerous than not having one.
Surely you are not that ignorant. Having a firearm does not make someone more dangerous. It is strictly situational. The statement is like saying holding a hammer makes one more dangerous. While it is true from a very specific philosophical standpoint, it's also a moronic thing to say in most contexts.
In fact, I've heard it used by members of our own armed forces as part of an explanation as to why the US military has, for the most part, abandoned full-auto in favor of burst fire.
This is also one of many reasons why bringing up automatic weapons in a discussion on gun control is at best extremely ignorant. "Spray and pray" is a term for idiots who use a firearm in a manner that almost guarantees they aren't going to hit anything they're aiming at. Fully automatic weapons are difficult to control, run out of ammo almost immediately if not fed by a drum or belt, and overheat and fail if over-fired. They are less effective than a similar non-automatic weapon in untrained hands. They're just a hell of a lot scarier to most people.
I hope you're not a native english speaker, because your last paragraph is completely incomprehensible. I have no idea what you mean.
It's comprehensible, but it's an asinine extension of philosophical thought. Extremist philosphers can argue, quite correctly from a theoretical point of view, that no distinction is provably valid. The concept requires re-inventing the wheel (actually, all language) if it is accepted as a valid basis for arguing against a given point.
"They do not serve any other meaningful purpose in almost any discussion involving firearms."
I apparently missed that when I wrote the sentence. There are times when a term like "spray fire" is meaningful. This is just not one of them, aside from the necessity of using the term in a discussion directly about said term.
There is no agency that I know of that funds the collection of statistics on the use or display of a firearm as a defensive act.
There is not even a national clearinghouse for data on civilians shot by police in the United States. Groups have been working for the past 10 years to set up data aggregation on it and are still waiting for funding (initiated by Don Pierce, executive director of WASPC). You think they're going to aggregate data on something that doesn't necessarily even warrant an officer follow-up? Don't hold your breath.
It was a response to something equally made-up: the terms "spray fire" and "assault weapon."
So, responding in that manner is no more a waste than using the above terms in the first place. They're used out of ignorance or with intent to cloud the issue. They do not serve any other meaningful purpose in any discussion involving firearms. The first can only apply to a very small subset of firearms, most of which are in military hands. The others they apply to are illegally modified in a manner that is not possible to stop, and is rarely used to commit crimes even when it happens.
The latter is a made-up political phrase. It means, quite literally, "weapons that look, but do not actually function, like an assault rifle." Oh, and a lot of other weapons that aren't even that close.
None of the rights enumerated when the Constitution was written mention citizens at all. What is mentioned repeatedly is "the people." There is nothing anywhere in the Constitution to suggest it does not mean the same thing every place it occurs. The use of dependent clauses to preamble the specific delineation of powers, rights, and prohibitions occurs in many places because it is a perfectly natural way to write. Then, as now, those who understand the usage of dependent clauses and preambles know that they can be stripped from the text and the meaning is not fundamentally altered. Just because the original wording now means something else in the common vernacular does not remove the clear meaning of the independent clause when using the only definition that existed at the time it was written.
The Milita, as referenced in the Constitution, is clearly intended to mean the normal use of that word for the time period: every able-bodied citizen of one of the several States. In this case, that was white males, though now it includes women and non-whites. This is evidenced by the power granted to Congress earlier in the Constitution: "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States[...]" Congress is authorized to govern the part of them that is actively called into service, but the Militia itself is a larger body that Congress has no authority over when not in direct service to the United States.
Additionally, the enumeration doesn't make sense if it is intended as a right to protect only those actively serving the United States as a member of some branch of the Armed Forces. The power to regulate firearms in regard to the Armed Forces is clearly within the purview of the powers granted Congress by the Constitution. If it means that, the amendment is grossly redundant. In addition, including it in a set of amendments designed specifically to alleviate fears about rights the Federal Government might take away from the States or the people should they not be explicitly protected would be incredibly illogical. If it means that, it is the ultimate non sequitur in the Constitution. The intent of the amendment is to protect the ownership of firearms that are designed primarily to kill people. If you want to ban firearms, repeal the amendment.
Nowhere in the previous comment was a statement made concerning failure to understand RoF differences. He said he's unfamiliar with a specific term that is not encountered amongst educated firearms users (except, possibly, in discussions about people who are not educated regarding firearms).
No, your last line of defence against criminals is the police.
You've apparently never lived in a rural area where the nearest police officer might take an hour to get to you at top speed assuming you can contact him the second you need him and he leaves immediately.
Leaving rural areas aside, there are never enough police anywhere to do much about preventing a determined criminal. Their limited presence may prevent random, petty crimes, or larger crimes of opportunity, but the police are never actually a line of defense against crime. Their primary job, everywhere in the world is to respond after something has happened and, if necessary, investigate and apprehend people who engaged in criminal activity at some point.
Police are fundamentally reactive, not proactive.
That you seem to be preparing yourself to kill another human, even in self defence, probably indicates that your family might need protection from you, rather than you protecting them.
Nice ad hominem. I'll tell that to the man down the next ridge who would've been gunned down at his door two years ago had he not answered with a loaded firearm in his hand. That he was a deputy sheriff is irrelevant, since the job doesn't magically make one more responsible than ordinary mortals. There are some nasty, brutal people out there. Being prepared to take another's life in self-defense does not make one dangerous. Honestly, I'm glad that most people who espouse that sort of opinion are anti-gun. If you believe you are more dangerous for owning a firearm, then please never, ever purchase one. Such beliefs seem to have a tendency to be self-fulfilling.
The difference in the murder rate has little to do with the relative availability of firearms that don't require manually cycling a bolt vs those that do (the only meaningful difference between those in your Scandinavian examples vs those in the US). It has everything to do with culture.
Things like this are actually pretty rare, and most firearm murders only entail the firing of a handful of rounds at most. That is as easily accomplished with a non-semi-auto as it is with a semi-auto. The addition of fully automatic or legally concealed weapons in the comment is wasted space, since the statistics on those are crystal clear even to most ardent anti-gun people of average or better intelligence. With auto weapons, the suppliers are typically corrupt personnel working police evidence lockers or corrupt supply chain workers in the US or foreign militaries.
Less so than most may think. After Palm nearly died out, RIM was the only viable game in town. Of course a new platform would primarily eat into their market share. The clone PC market ate into IBM's market share too.:)
Comparing iOS marketshare to other smartphone OSes is even worse than the method used in this story's article. It's like bringing up Windows Mobile #s and claiming they're doing better in the cellular market than they are because of the total installed base (which includes a huge number of non-phone devices).
If you limit it to the installed base of devices that are designed primarily for cellular voice networks, the numbers might actually provide a realistic means of comparison. With them included, it's a journalistic hack job.
While I support the leak, I think this response is either oversimplified or ill-informed.
NYT v US did not prevent the filing of criminal charges against parties who were involved in the actual procurement of documents. In fact, one of the Justices who joined the majority opinion (White, maybe?) went so far as to encourage the prosecution of all involved under other statutes. The decision was limited to whether the government could prevent publication, not whether they could criminally charge them with possession of classified material. The latter was still held to be within their power.
Additionally, if (and that's a big if) they can make a case that publication poses a threat of "direct, immediate, and irreparable harm to [the USA], or its people," then NYT v US does not apply.
Yes, they're apples-and-oranges cases (or perhaps a pallet of Red Delicious vs a mixed pallet of numerous types of apples).
On the flip side, the same thing happened with clones breaking away from IBM and with the current Mac-v-PC debate (to name just the two most relevant examples). When you have devices of two general classifications where one manufacturer controls one and the production of the other is spread amongst several manufacturers, there is no avoiding comparisons that might (in other circumstances) seem unfair.
I'll roll these both into one, since you stated a preference for the clarity of this post to the other.
On the above I'm entirely in agreement with you, excepting (as I have repeatedly in this, since each post seems to express it) the assumption that all disagreement necessarily means empty parroting of ideas with no actual principle or logic behind the opposition.
Yes, there are stupid fringe groups. I'd go so far as to say most mainstream groups are also lead by extremists of one stripe or another that have a particular agenda and use the movement as a vehicle to advance it.
However, that doesn't automatically mean that two people who argue a particular point are both idiots just because one of those people is a brain-dead parrot. Assume that and there's no point in debating anything, because even positions with a great deal of objective, empirical supporting evidence can be parroted by morons with no understanding of the facts.
At least change the line to "It is easier to do nothing and pretend all change is the wrong change than it is to attempt any change in the hope that it will improve society." I don't know anyone, especially fringe groups, who think we live in a perfect society. Most of them want far more radical change than anything proposed.
Some people don't have the time to exhaustively dissect issues on/. (I, as should now be apparent, am not one such person).
Howling at the moon is perfectly reasonable for an incredibly large percentage of the population, because it's all they are capable of bringing to bear in a political discussion. Even those who have the time and inclination are usually shouted down by people who blindly support the measures proposed.
Arguing to not do this is not the same as arguing to do nothing at all. Claiming it is implied in a statement where no such clear implication exists is a common tactic used to discredit what may be an opinion held for perfectly valid reasons which were not elaborated on also for perfectly valid reasons. Immediately assuming the worst in things (particularly the motivations of others) is a particularly nasty human trait that needs to be exposed and stomped on wherever it is found. It causes unnecessary hardships in communication and consensus, and is really just ugly to watch.
I fail to see how I was supposed to infer you were not lumping me into your terse, two-sentence reply to me that is apparently a description of... now I have no idea who you are actually referring to, so I don't even have a descriptor to use. You're apparently very anti-something, but I'm not exactly sure what that something is.
I'm so glad people have created the pejorative "teabagger" to apply to anyone who questions anything that's not approved by Godlike Leftist Figure X. The knee-jerk use of it to dismiss opposition is as what the Right has been doing through Beck and Limbaugh for years. We need both sides to be on the same intellectual playing field for the gladiatorial fight to the death.
The "letting a few..." comment is not necessarily directed narrowly at breath tests, and you write well enough that you should know better than to claim it is. It is in response to a comment you made referencing more than just a breath test, in an article about something more than just a breath test. Though I have my doubts whether you'll actually read it with an open mind, you may want to read this for a bit more perspective on why there might actually be some substance to concerns over the any means necessary approach to the problems with drunk drivers. Or, perhaps you don't have an issue with using any means necessary. If that's the case, please speak up and I'll stop bothering to reply to you.
Objecting to a rubber-stamp warrant on the side of the road, the publicly advertised purpose of which is to remove the ability to exercise a right, is akin to supporting a traitor? Interesting take on things certainly. Note, since they don't have to have probable cause at a checkpoint, they can do this to people who show absolutely no sign of being intoxicated. Have a legitimate concern about the accuracy of a breathalizer (in my city two years ago, they threw out a month's worth of cases because of faulty calibrations) and refuse even though you're provably not intoxicated? Sucks for you if the cop is a dick or having a bad day. "Oh, I'm sorry I rolled your vein 15 times. We only got 40 hours of training..." I've had a lots (probably nearing 3 digits) of veins stuck, and even people who have only been doing it every day for their first several months can cause serious pain. I don't know that the 40-hour peace officer IV cert is necessarily how they'll do it in Florida, but that's how Minnesota is planning it, so it's not some wild and crazy theory. People can be serious assholes, especially authority figures who think (rightly or wrongly) that someone is not respecting their authority by failing to submit immediately. Couple that with a procedure that can easily be very painful when done even a small bit incorrectly, and you have a recipe for major abuse. Letting a few drunk drivers slip is an acceptable price to pay in order to prevent that from happening. There are lots of other things that this money could go toward that actually have valid, scientific data to back up their efficacy. But arguing for that instead of this is anti-change, right? I wouldn't want to impede progress by asking that things change in that direction. That would be too much like complaining about change because I'm secretly longing for things to stay exactly as they are forever and ever because absolutely nothing is wrong with how the world is at exactly this moment. Or something...
For the record, patriotism is overrated. My arguments are not from a "patriotic" perspective, and I shudder almost every time the term is used since most people who use it have either proven themselves to be idiots or are getting ready to do so.
Interesting, so you believe that any attempt to fix something is automatically the right way to fix it, or at least some form of progress, no matter what the proposed fix is? Or is it just that you can't believe there is any possible logical reason to oppose this particular "solution" except fear of change? Seriously? You are so sure of yourself that any argument against this is baseless bullshit? You're that egotistical?
I'd make an ad hominem analogous to the one you just leveled against me about a remotely tangentially related extremist leftist group and how you must be one of them because I don't like your argument and linking you to them allows me to conveniently discard everything you say as baseless, but every time I start I have to stop because I can't bring myself to that level of ridiculousness without laughing.
I was willing to take you seriously until you made this post. Not anymore...
I don't conflate "this is the wrong way to fix issue A" with "there's nothing wrong, issue A is not an issue."
I also didn't mean my comment to be taken just within the context of this 8-indent thread. I meant the entire story and all of the comments in it.
I don't believe there's nothing wrong, and I could write you a novel regarding why I believe alcohol is one of the worst things that exist in human society. That opinion does not automatically relegate me to support the elimination of drunk driving by any means necessary. I do not think the ends justify the means in this case without reworking the legal framework of the USA. Change tho Constitution and allow summary execution of people with a BAC over 0.2. Fine with me.
If you're alright with this, it's not a stretch to mandate the implantation of a BARD port into every licensed driver, and requiring an actual BAC analyzer with a genetic steering lock in every vehicle in order to operate it.
<federal act> has more to do with giving people the ILLUSION that <act's advertised purpose> whilst making sure that <opposite of act's advertised purpose> happens.
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The latter. No company planning to stay in business long offers actual unlimited access to a resource that they only have in limited supply. Granted, it's a very high limit, but there are limits nonetheless.
Yes. Whether someone is more or less dangerous is strictly situational. Including a firearm can potentially change that, but does not by any means necessarily do so any more than holding a hammer necessarily makes one more dangerous. I have a hard time believing you have any way to add even the slightest logical support to a contrary argument. This would be the time when most people try to shift targets. Your ball.
The rest of the world thanks the US once again for speaking on its behalf. Where I come from, police uphold the law, not enforce it.
Please describe, in detail, how the police where you live functionally are more proactive than reactive.
Lots of police forces have a mission to "protect." Yes, the existence of armed forces deters crime (well, non-state crime anyway), but that is hardly a descriptor unique to benevolent police forces. In theory they have proactive roles, but those have nothing at all to do with protecting anyone, and everything to do with the fact that they are a well-known armed force.
Surely the whole POINT of having a gun in your hand is to be more dangerous than not having one.
Surely you are not that ignorant. Having a firearm does not make someone more dangerous. It is strictly situational. The statement is like saying holding a hammer makes one more dangerous. While it is true from a very specific philosophical standpoint, it's also a moronic thing to say in most contexts.
In fact, I've heard it used by members of our own armed forces as part of an explanation as to why the US military has, for the most part, abandoned full-auto in favor of burst fire.
This is also one of many reasons why bringing up automatic weapons in a discussion on gun control is at best extremely ignorant. "Spray and pray" is a term for idiots who use a firearm in a manner that almost guarantees they aren't going to hit anything they're aiming at. Fully automatic weapons are difficult to control, run out of ammo almost immediately if not fed by a drum or belt, and overheat and fail if over-fired. They are less effective than a similar non-automatic weapon in untrained hands. They're just a hell of a lot scarier to most people.
I hope you're not a native english speaker, because your last paragraph is completely incomprehensible. I have no idea what you mean.
It's comprehensible, but it's an asinine extension of philosophical thought. Extremist philosphers can argue, quite correctly from a theoretical point of view, that no distinction is provably valid. The concept requires re-inventing the wheel (actually, all language) if it is accepted as a valid basis for arguing against a given point.
"They do not serve any other meaningful purpose in almost any discussion involving firearms."
I apparently missed that when I wrote the sentence. There are times when a term like "spray fire" is meaningful. This is just not one of them, aside from the necessity of using the term in a discussion directly about said term.
By casting it in that light, no victim-initiated contact with an aggressor is defensive.
A woman kicking a rapist in the junk is not defending herself.
The guy in Alaska who killed a charging brown bear in '09 with his sidearm was not defending himself.
Someone using the closest club-like weapon against a mugger armed with a knife is not defending themselves.
Interesting re-definition of "defense."
There is no agency that I know of that funds the collection of statistics on the use or display of a firearm as a defensive act.
There is not even a national clearinghouse for data on civilians shot by police in the United States. Groups have been working for the past 10 years to set up data aggregation on it and are still waiting for funding (initiated by Don Pierce, executive director of WASPC). You think they're going to aggregate data on something that doesn't necessarily even warrant an officer follow-up? Don't hold your breath.
It was a response to something equally made-up: the terms "spray fire" and "assault weapon."
So, responding in that manner is no more a waste than using the above terms in the first place. They're used out of ignorance or with intent to cloud the issue. They do not serve any other meaningful purpose in any discussion involving firearms. The first can only apply to a very small subset of firearms, most of which are in military hands. The others they apply to are illegally modified in a manner that is not possible to stop, and is rarely used to commit crimes even when it happens.
The latter is a made-up political phrase. It means, quite literally, "weapons that look, but do not actually function, like an assault rifle." Oh, and a lot of other weapons that aren't even that close.
None of the rights enumerated when the Constitution was written mention citizens at all. What is mentioned repeatedly is "the people." There is nothing anywhere in the Constitution to suggest it does not mean the same thing every place it occurs. The use of dependent clauses to preamble the specific delineation of powers, rights, and prohibitions occurs in many places because it is a perfectly natural way to write. Then, as now, those who understand the usage of dependent clauses and preambles know that they can be stripped from the text and the meaning is not fundamentally altered. Just because the original wording now means something else in the common vernacular does not remove the clear meaning of the independent clause when using the only definition that existed at the time it was written.
The Milita, as referenced in the Constitution, is clearly intended to mean the normal use of that word for the time period: every able-bodied citizen of one of the several States. In this case, that was white males, though now it includes women and non-whites. This is evidenced by the power granted to Congress earlier in the Constitution: "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States[...]" Congress is authorized to govern the part of them that is actively called into service, but the Militia itself is a larger body that Congress has no authority over when not in direct service to the United States.
Additionally, the enumeration doesn't make sense if it is intended as a right to protect only those actively serving the United States as a member of some branch of the Armed Forces. The power to regulate firearms in regard to the Armed Forces is clearly within the purview of the powers granted Congress by the Constitution. If it means that, the amendment is grossly redundant. In addition, including it in a set of amendments designed specifically to alleviate fears about rights the Federal Government might take away from the States or the people should they not be explicitly protected would be incredibly illogical. If it means that, it is the ultimate non sequitur in the Constitution. The intent of the amendment is to protect the ownership of firearms that are designed primarily to kill people. If you want to ban firearms, repeal the amendment.
Nowhere in the previous comment was a statement made concerning failure to understand RoF differences. He said he's unfamiliar with a specific term that is not encountered amongst educated firearms users (except, possibly, in discussions about people who are not educated regarding firearms).
No, your last line of defence against criminals is the police.
You've apparently never lived in a rural area where the nearest police officer might take an hour to get to you at top speed assuming you can contact him the second you need him and he leaves immediately.
Leaving rural areas aside, there are never enough police anywhere to do much about preventing a determined criminal. Their limited presence may prevent random, petty crimes, or larger crimes of opportunity, but the police are never actually a line of defense against crime. Their primary job, everywhere in the world is to respond after something has happened and, if necessary, investigate and apprehend people who engaged in criminal activity at some point.
Police are fundamentally reactive, not proactive.
That you seem to be preparing yourself to kill another human, even in self defence, probably indicates that your family might need protection from you, rather than you protecting them.
Nice ad hominem. I'll tell that to the man down the next ridge who would've been gunned down at his door two years ago had he not answered with a loaded firearm in his hand. That he was a deputy sheriff is irrelevant, since the job doesn't magically make one more responsible than ordinary mortals. There are some nasty, brutal people out there. Being prepared to take another's life in self-defense does not make one dangerous. Honestly, I'm glad that most people who espouse that sort of opinion are anti-gun. If you believe you are more dangerous for owning a firearm, then please never, ever purchase one. Such beliefs seem to have a tendency to be self-fulfilling.
The difference in the murder rate has little to do with the relative availability of firearms that don't require manually cycling a bolt vs those that do (the only meaningful difference between those in your Scandinavian examples vs those in the US). It has everything to do with culture.
Things like this are actually pretty rare, and most firearm murders only entail the firing of a handful of rounds at most. That is as easily accomplished with a non-semi-auto as it is with a semi-auto. The addition of fully automatic or legally concealed weapons in the comment is wasted space, since the statistics on those are crystal clear even to most ardent anti-gun people of average or better intelligence. With auto weapons, the suppliers are typically corrupt personnel working police evidence lockers or corrupt supply chain workers in the US or foreign militaries.
Less so than most may think. After Palm nearly died out, RIM was the only viable game in town. Of course a new platform would primarily eat into their market share. The clone PC market ate into IBM's market share too. :)
Comparing iOS marketshare to other smartphone OSes is even worse than the method used in this story's article. It's like bringing up Windows Mobile #s and claiming they're doing better in the cellular market than they are because of the total installed base (which includes a huge number of non-phone devices).
If you limit it to the installed base of devices that are designed primarily for cellular voice networks, the numbers might actually provide a realistic means of comparison. With them included, it's a journalistic hack job.
While I support the leak, I think this response is either oversimplified or ill-informed.
NYT v US did not prevent the filing of criminal charges against parties who were involved in the actual procurement of documents. In fact, one of the Justices who joined the majority opinion (White, maybe?) went so far as to encourage the prosecution of all involved under other statutes. The decision was limited to whether the government could prevent publication, not whether they could criminally charge them with possession of classified material. The latter was still held to be within their power.
Additionally, if (and that's a big if) they can make a case that publication poses a threat of "direct, immediate, and irreparable harm to [the USA], or its people," then NYT v US does not apply.
Yes, they're apples-and-oranges cases (or perhaps a pallet of Red Delicious vs a mixed pallet of numerous types of apples).
On the flip side, the same thing happened with clones breaking away from IBM and with the current Mac-v-PC debate (to name just the two most relevant examples). When you have devices of two general classifications where one manufacturer controls one and the production of the other is spread amongst several manufacturers, there is no avoiding comparisons that might (in other circumstances) seem unfair.
I'll roll these both into one, since you stated a preference for the clarity of this post to the other.
On the above I'm entirely in agreement with you, excepting (as I have repeatedly in this, since each post seems to express it) the assumption that all disagreement necessarily means empty parroting of ideas with no actual principle or logic behind the opposition.
Yes, there are stupid fringe groups. I'd go so far as to say most mainstream groups are also lead by extremists of one stripe or another that have a particular agenda and use the movement as a vehicle to advance it.
However, that doesn't automatically mean that two people who argue a particular point are both idiots just because one of those people is a brain-dead parrot. Assume that and there's no point in debating anything, because even positions with a great deal of objective, empirical supporting evidence can be parroted by morons with no understanding of the facts.
At least change the line to "It is easier to do nothing and pretend all change is the wrong change than it is to attempt any change in the hope that it will improve society." I don't know anyone, especially fringe groups, who think we live in a perfect society. Most of them want far more radical change than anything proposed.
Some people don't have the time to exhaustively dissect issues on /. (I, as should now be apparent, am not one such person).
Howling at the moon is perfectly reasonable for an incredibly large percentage of the population, because it's all they are capable of bringing to bear in a political discussion. Even those who have the time and inclination are usually shouted down by people who blindly support the measures proposed.
Arguing to not do this is not the same as arguing to do nothing at all. Claiming it is implied in a statement where no such clear implication exists is a common tactic used to discredit what may be an opinion held for perfectly valid reasons which were not elaborated on also for perfectly valid reasons. Immediately assuming the worst in things (particularly the motivations of others) is a particularly nasty human trait that needs to be exposed and stomped on wherever it is found. It causes unnecessary hardships in communication and consensus, and is really just ugly to watch.
I fail to see how I was supposed to infer you were not lumping me into your terse, two-sentence reply to me that is apparently a description of ... now I have no idea who you are actually referring to, so I don't even have a descriptor to use. You're apparently very anti-something, but I'm not exactly sure what that something is.
I'm so glad people have created the pejorative "teabagger" to apply to anyone who questions anything that's not approved by Godlike Leftist Figure X. The knee-jerk use of it to dismiss opposition is as what the Right has been doing through Beck and Limbaugh for years. We need both sides to be on the same intellectual playing field for the gladiatorial fight to the death.
The "letting a few..." comment is not necessarily directed narrowly at breath tests, and you write well enough that you should know better than to claim it is. It is in response to a comment you made referencing more than just a breath test, in an article about something more than just a breath test. Though I have my doubts whether you'll actually read it with an open mind, you may want to read this for a bit more perspective on why there might actually be some substance to concerns over the any means necessary approach to the problems with drunk drivers. Or, perhaps you don't have an issue with using any means necessary. If that's the case, please speak up and I'll stop bothering to reply to you.
Objecting to a rubber-stamp warrant on the side of the road, the publicly advertised purpose of which is to remove the ability to exercise a right, is akin to supporting a traitor? Interesting take on things certainly. Note, since they don't have to have probable cause at a checkpoint, they can do this to people who show absolutely no sign of being intoxicated. Have a legitimate concern about the accuracy of a breathalizer (in my city two years ago, they threw out a month's worth of cases because of faulty calibrations) and refuse even though you're provably not intoxicated? Sucks for you if the cop is a dick or having a bad day. "Oh, I'm sorry I rolled your vein 15 times. We only got 40 hours of training..." I've had a lots (probably nearing 3 digits) of veins stuck, and even people who have only been doing it every day for their first several months can cause serious pain. I don't know that the 40-hour peace officer IV cert is necessarily how they'll do it in Florida, but that's how Minnesota is planning it, so it's not some wild and crazy theory. People can be serious assholes, especially authority figures who think (rightly or wrongly) that someone is not respecting their authority by failing to submit immediately. Couple that with a procedure that can easily be very painful when done even a small bit incorrectly, and you have a recipe for major abuse. Letting a few drunk drivers slip is an acceptable price to pay in order to prevent that from happening. There are lots of other things that this money could go toward that actually have valid, scientific data to back up their efficacy. But arguing for that instead of this is anti-change, right? I wouldn't want to impede progress by asking that things change in that direction. That would be too much like complaining about change because I'm secretly longing for things to stay exactly as they are forever and ever because absolutely nothing is wrong with how the world is at exactly this moment. Or something...
For the record, patriotism is overrated. My arguments are not from a "patriotic" perspective, and I shudder almost every time the term is used since most people who use it have either proven themselves to be idiots or are getting ready to do so.
Interesting, so you believe that any attempt to fix something is automatically the right way to fix it, or at least some form of progress, no matter what the proposed fix is? Or is it just that you can't believe there is any possible logical reason to oppose this particular "solution" except fear of change? Seriously? You are so sure of yourself that any argument against this is baseless bullshit? You're that egotistical?
I'd make an ad hominem analogous to the one you just leveled against me about a remotely tangentially related extremist leftist group and how you must be one of them because I don't like your argument and linking you to them allows me to conveniently discard everything you say as baseless, but every time I start I have to stop because I can't bring myself to that level of ridiculousness without laughing.
I was willing to take you seriously until you made this post. Not anymore...
I don't conflate "this is the wrong way to fix issue A" with "there's nothing wrong, issue A is not an issue."
I also didn't mean my comment to be taken just within the context of this 8-indent thread. I meant the entire story and all of the comments in it.
I don't believe there's nothing wrong, and I could write you a novel regarding why I believe alcohol is one of the worst things that exist in human society. That opinion does not automatically relegate me to support the elimination of drunk driving by any means necessary. I do not think the ends justify the means in this case without reworking the legal framework of the USA. Change tho Constitution and allow summary execution of people with a BAC over 0.2. Fine with me.
If you're alright with this, it's not a stretch to mandate the implantation of a BARD port into every licensed driver, and requiring an actual BAC analyzer with a genetic steering lock in every vehicle in order to operate it.
<federal act> has more to do with giving people the ILLUSION that <act's advertised purpose> whilst making sure that <opposite of act's advertised purpose> happens.
There, boiler-plated it for you. :)
This. Thank you for summarizing the entirety of the salient points regarding this issue into three sentences.