Man, where you came up with that interpretation of his post I don't think I could ever understand.
Equating explaining to your child why you find certain sites objectionable and then letting them satisfy their curiousity with letting your child murder someone to satisfy their curiosity is absurd. KDan said nothing about encouraging the behaviour.
Making stupid mistakes is a part of learning and growing. Helping to prevent as many as you can through education is one thing. Attempting to control children so that they cannot make any mistakes is another entirely. It just sets them up for bigger mistakes when they no longer live in that sterile, controlled environment.
A biology example fits this point well. If you put someone in a biologically sterile environment from birth, and then throw them out into modern life at the age of 18, their chances of survival without serious repercussions are small. Healthy growth requires adversity, unless you plan on controlling the environment down to the smallest detail from birth to death.
Me to. I have no problem cheering on the underdogs, especially when they're fighting an occupying army funded by one of the last superpowers in the world with no signs of backing down.
They also wouldn't do it because we provide them with the military hardware that keeps them from being utterly destroyed by the people they forced out with their occupation and continually antagonize. Without US aid, Israel would be nothing more than a historical footnote. They don't have the capacity to stand on their own.
I love it when people get a chance to point out that the UK's complete ban on firearms is seriously taking its toll on their crime statistics.
Plus, if you want to break down the US statistics further, you find that areas with strict gun control (New York, D.C.) have vastly increased crime rates (especially violent crimes) that skew the US crime statistics upward. Areas with high gun ownership historically have almost no violent crime.
(Note, theses statements are from an American standpoint, based on American laws. Your mileage will vary if your country does.)
Driving (non-commercially) is a private activity in a public venue, much like walking through a public park. You have a reasonable expectation that the contents of your car (in the former) and person (in the latter) will remain private, barring a legitimately procurred court order or warrant to produce or search for (respectively) evidence.
Driving is considered a privilege, even though the common law considers it a right. Use of public rights-of-way in the common manner of the day are protected as a general right not to be interfered with, under the right-of-travel clause in the Constitution. However, this is not generally recognized today, as most people know nothing of historical precedence, and less about the law and its realistic and traditional boundaries.
Putting event recorders in a private setting is far different from putting police in a public venue. Putting event recorders in cars is no different from putting them in houses, something that is completely unconstitutional. Your right to privacy is guaranteed by the 5th, 9th, and 10th amendments. The only exception to that right to privacy is narrowly defined in the 5th.
Aircraft, locomotives, buses, and trucks fall under commercial regulation as permitted by several different sections of the Constitution. This regulation has much more legitimate basis. It is not "only natural" to be extended to private conveyances, as they are not public, commercial carriers.
Before expounding on the implications and extensions of the law, I suggest you procur a firm background in the issues you're discussing.
Bullshit. They contribute as much or more to local economies, because they are bringing in out-of-state dollars, the majority of which are then spent in-state, generating comparable tax revenue. Just because the state loses on one single transaction in the chain means absolutely squat.
Well, htey could make that argument, but it's clearly documented that the reason was to prevent states from engaging in economic warfare with one another.
And wouldn't it be great if the government couldn't afford to wage war, susidize farmers, or fund sweetheart deals? Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling.:)
You can apply the same argument to the states. Just because they used to get something for free doesn't mean they're entitled to remain getting it for free in the face of emerging technologies. The internet opened up trade between jurisdictions that was not as easy to perform before. States have no Constitutional authority over interstate trade (which is what this is). The majority of intrastate commerce via internet is already taxed, so that's not much of an issue. If states are worried about that, they need to start enforcing their own laws in their own juridictions. As far as interstate trade, they're going to have to amend the Constitution to remove the Commerce Clause to collect interstate taxes.
If people want to whine about lost revenue, look at exactly how state money is spent. State and federal spending could be cut in half tomorrow, and the only people who would be affected would be a few select special interests. Ask your local Congresscritter why they won't support that.
So should states make it illegal to buy anything anywhere other than in-state, so as not to lose sales tax revenue? How about municipalities? When one has a lower tax rate, they tend to draw business from surrounding municipalities, thus reducing tax revenues for some. Should this be made illegal? Using that logic, we should just be given everything by some regulatory agency tha determines what we deserve, and spend the rest of the time working for the state.
Oh, I forgot. There's this little thing called the Constitution. It prevents states from meddling in the affairs of other states, and in the the affairs of citizens who travel into and do business in/with other states. States cannot tax out-of-state purchases, because they have no jurisdiction to do so. They have no authority over a transaction involving multiple interstate jurisdictions. That's why citizens from states without sales taxes can buy without being charged tax in most states with sales taxes.
States have no right to any revenue source. The only have the power to levy under specific circumstances: those provided for by law. If the law does not address it, they cannot collect revenue from it. They don't "deserve" anything. If you can legally circumvent a system of taxation, you are doing absolutely nothing wrong. Lost revenue is not a valid argument unless some sort of fraud or misrepresentation is involved.
Note, I am not talking about intrastate transactions, as those are technically covered by sales tax laws. However, most intrastate transactions completed over the internet have sales taxes added, so this is not really much an issue at all.
Natural rights are subjective as well. The entire basis of this is conceptions, beliefs, and opinions, all of which are subjective. The entire system is based upon belief. When you change the beliefs of enough people, those beliefs become "truth." It's not really an absolute truth, but something that is taken for truth and reinforced by people in uniforms wielding deadly force if necessary to "protect" these "truths."
A natural right is something that you can reasonably expect to defend against threat, duress, or coercion by another. Your life is the basis of natural rights, from that extending the right to reasonably sustain your life through work and accumulation of goods and property. To do as you please so long as you do not attempt to deny the same rights to anyone else, lest they or theirs deprive you of your life and/or property in return.
This entire dialog started because you took exception to my going over a distinction in the semantic terminology (based on two very fundamentally different ideologies: sovereign vs subject) of a comment. Yet you say semantics in the law is important. The law is based upon a general belief system (whichever one happens to hold sway at any given time), but is constrained by a prior belief system (fortunately, being the one that says government exists to serve, not to master). If the law is important, then the foundations of it are equally so.
I am still trying to determine what exactly it is that you actually take issue with, since there is no clear indication from your comments.
Nine days is a lot of time to elapse before a reply, I apologise.
I don't believe that the concept of morality ever entered my argument (though it will in a second). You first included it in you statement You can rant all you want about how God/Allah/Physics *gave* you that right... My inclusion of the slavery issue was not a moral argument, but was about the effects of semantics within the law. There was never an attempt to make those two equivalent, though you bring up a good point. Morality is not divorced from the law. Unfortunately, they have a seriously dysfunctional relationship.
Morality and the law have always been intertwined. Whose morality is what differs from time to time. Morals are subjective. There may be some absolute right-from-wrong, but I'm not arguing that now, nor will I in this forum. However, those in power tend to project their morality into the law, for good or ill.
The point about intrinsic rights is that the concept is what people are willing to fight for. Those who accept that they are subjects will not fight for themselves like those who believe in the concept of their own equality. It isn't about a moral code, per se, but about self-determination. The more people talk about "what they are granted" by the government, the more people become inured of the fact that they exist at the whim of those in power.
My last argument did not "correct" the suppostition that rights are not granted by the government (the original statement that you took issue with, saying it was subtle and unimportant).
You state:... the words in the law *are* important.
Reconcile that with this statement you made: The whole debate [on the legal basis of rights] doesn't matter in the slightest and [...] is actually harmful because it causes people to think about things that don't matter instead of concentrating on what the law [...]
This has been the consistent difference between yourself and I. I argue that it is important for people to hold a healthy concept of what their natural rights are. Those things that should be fought for even if they are currently illegal (like freedom, if you happened to be a slave). Or the right to vote (if you happened to be a woman told that she could not vote). Or if they pass a law banning firearms in order to defend yourself (which was in line with the statement I was originally replying to that you took issue with).
My argument is, additionally, that rights supercede the law, whether or not the law says so. If enough people believe that, it will be the truth. If enough people stop believing it, it will no longer be the truth. Saying it doesn't matter which is the case is simply an abdication of choice, so you really don't have a say in the matter until you choose.
What may not be interesting can have an enormous impact.
Again, your head is in the right place, but your reasoning is flawed.
It matters because semantics are everything in the law. Absolutely everything. You may choose to use two dissimilar terms interchangeably. People may understand what you mean. It doesn't mean that you are using the terms correctly, or that your words don't have other or additional signifigance to those who actually use the terms for what they mean. People who dumb down word choice when speaking in legal terms put themselves at a disadvantage. Semantics are the difference between the people who think they are subject to the government and people who think the government is subject to them. They are the difference between those who thought they were right to keep slaves and those who thought slaves should have rights. Substituting one single word for another can mean the difference between a nation of subjects and a nation of sovereigns. Don't tell me that word choice is unimportant until you go and ask a local lawyer or judge if word choice is important to the law.
If you don't want me to tell you, I won't. Saying something is so, and something actually being so aren't the same thing, so it doesn't really matter. Perhaps you should use a comprehensive dictionary and some logic (oh, and all of the historical documents pertaining to the style of goverment created in this country). The argument really is very one sided. A mountain of evidence on one side, a couple of pathetic but, but, but, arguments on the other. No, they are not mutually exclusive. They share one point: supreme power vested in the people. Aside from that one point they are mutually exclusive.
A very good point. I prefer my method though, because the common (though undefendable) rebuttal to that type of statement is "but we're a different kind of socialist state."
Unfortunately, many educated people don't think socialism is bad. However, education does not necessarily equate wisdom. It just means you can regurgitate facts spewed at you by an already-socialist education system. The US public education system has a vested interest in indoctrinating socialist ideals, in order to perpetuate itself. It is in and of itself a socialist system, being derived from the Prussian enforced-indoctrination models that were popular when public schooling initially became mandatory (in, of all places, the socialist mecca of Taxachusetts).
That's what I thought, though I did not want to make that assumption, being only an observer of the Canadian health care system.
The result, though, is that everyone has been brought down to a lower level than necessary, even though better is possible. This is what happens when you socialize anything.
Socialism by its very nature must be protected by an oppressive government, because there will always be people who don't want to be forced to settle. Social programs will always be less than is possible.
In Canada, what is it like to try and get health care that is not government-run? Cost, availability, etc. If you choose strictly private health-care, can you stop supporting the public healthcare system? If not, you can get more, but you have to pay much more than you would other places to get it, because you are still required to support a system you don't use.
Oppression != corruption. It's about how many rights you can exercise. It's about being able to choose. The above example, if even marginally correct, is a form of oppression, bet not necessarily corruption.
It's their job. They're no better than anyone else in a dangerous job. They chose that line of work, they should live with the consequences. If individuals want to go out of their way to praise them, that's their business, but police certainly don't deserve elevated legal status just because they chose a specific job.
Well, he would still be eligible for the death penalty, but it's probably mandatory for killing a FIBBIE. I agree with you totally, though I would have used the term stupid rather than silly.
Primarily designed to kill, yes. Statistically, more crimes are prevented by simply displaying a firearm than actually discharging it. Most defense of life and property involving firearms is done by private individuals. The police can't protect everyone. Nor are the police even legally required to protect anyone. If you want me to list the Supreme Court precedents for the preceding statement, let me know and I'll dig them up to prove the point.
Firearms and other dangerous weapons (and physical defense knowledge) form the basis for a basic human right: self-defense. Without a right to self-defense, you have no real right to life. Anyone who is determined will kill you, and you have no means of self-defense. As the world becomes more technically-oriented, protection of rights must likewise become more technical.
Firearms have a perfectly legitimate place in society: to scare, intimidate, wound, and/or kill people. Some may not like that, but those are perfectly legitimate means to perfectly legitimate ends. There are those who use firearms in illegitimate ways. There are also people who use explosives, knives, hammers, axes, automobiles, airplanes, water, rope, wire, rat poison, carbon monoxide, gasoline, fists, feet, and many other things in illegitimate ways. That doesn't mean all those things should be banned. It means that those who use them for illegitimate means should be punished. Banning tools won't prevent people bent on committing crimes from committing crimes.
Video games have less precedential ground to stand on, because the 9th and 10th amendments (those that protect more rights than every other amendment and prohibition in the Constitution combined) have been ground more firmly into the dirt than any other because they don't enumerate specific rights.
Rights are not granted by the government through the Constitution. If you believe that, you're severely lacking in your civic education. The Constitution is a document by the citizenry granting the government limited powers. Where it is not granting powers, it is limiting the use of those powers by the government. Anything not so granted or limited to the states and the people are rights retained by the people.
Ergo, if it's not mentioned in the federal (or your state's) constitution, it is a right retained by all people. Regulation of violent video games is not a power delegated to the government in any Constitution I know of (Interstate transport and trade of them notwithstanding). Therefore, enjoying violent videogames is a right (literally) held by the people. Guns are a little different. They can be held in even higher regard because they are specifically protected from governmental prohibition. There's been a lot of debate about the specific wording, but the basic idea was to enable the public to help repel foreign invaders and domestic usurpers. At the heart of it is the basic human right to self defense. As technology progresses, firearms are often necessary to protect this basic right. Without them, many people are unable to affect this protection without help from others. Therefore, the right to bear arms is, in fact, a basic human right.
Your head seems to be in the right place, but the basic reasoning behind your statement is what is so dangerous. It is lack of knowledge and understanding of these issues by everday people that will eventually lead to major curtailing of rights, followed by an extended and bloody revolution.
Last I checked, Wall Street is an area centering around economics. Hence, an attack on Wall Street is a strike at the economy. It may not have been the only motive (and I don't believe it was the only one), but the example you gave reinforced the initial point. It just restated it in slightly different terms.
Fear of being financially ruined is often as strong as fear of death, if applied in the appropriate manner. Look at the Great Depression. Causing financial chaos is as destructive to a socio-economic group as killing several thousand people at a time, just in a different way.
If you have a product that cannot be sold outside your own state (even to people in other states where it is legal, because it crosses a state boundry) then you are going to have a hell of a time trying to become anything other than a very small company. Therefore if the feds disallow it, people won't want to bother getting into the market (well, not legally anyway). So it DOES affect what is done in the state, even locally.
Economics was not a part of my point, hence I did not discuss economic viability. I was speaking of the law. However, your point is not necessarily valid. Anything illegal federally that is not locally will bring in business proportional to the demand. For example, if a state legalized marijuana for general sale, there would be an appropriate influx of business, irregardless of that state's inability to trade that commodity with other states. The federal government's only avenue to get their way would be to withhold funds.
There is very little that doesn't involve transactions. Consider the case of Alchohol prohibition. Posession of alchohol was perfectly legal. It was technically the SALE, and transport with intent to sell, that was illegal. But that was enough to make it effectively illegal to possess it as well.
Sorry, I should have been explicit, since you can't seem to understand implicit issues. Interstate transactions. Laws that apply to individual behaviour (as opposed to commercial behaviour) are almost without exception on an intrastate nature, and thus (with the exception of those instances stated explicitly in the Constitution) exempt from federal jurisdiction. Period. Any commercial transaction that occurs between parties within one state are likewise exempt. Anything that does not directly involve an interstate transaction is exempt. Period. I don't consider that very little. I guess you do though.
The case of Prohibition has little to do with this. It was a Constitutional amendment, and thus without limiting language, applicable everywhere. Try again.
Your haughty tone is undeserved.
It was a simple request. You appeared (and still appear) to make no attempt to apply any considerable amount of relevancy to your replies in this thread.
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Man, where you came up with that interpretation of his post I don't think I could ever understand.
Equating explaining to your child why you find certain sites objectionable and then letting them satisfy their curiousity with letting your child murder someone to satisfy their curiosity is absurd. KDan said nothing about encouraging the behaviour.
Making stupid mistakes is a part of learning and growing. Helping to prevent as many as you can through education is one thing. Attempting to control children so that they cannot make any mistakes is another entirely. It just sets them up for bigger mistakes when they no longer live in that sterile, controlled environment.
A biology example fits this point well. If you put someone in a biologically sterile environment from birth, and then throw them out into modern life at the age of 18, their chances of survival without serious repercussions are small. Healthy growth requires adversity, unless you plan on controlling the environment down to the smallest detail from birth to death.
Me to. I have no problem cheering on the underdogs, especially when they're fighting an occupying army funded by one of the last superpowers in the world with no signs of backing down.
They also wouldn't do it because we provide them with the military hardware that keeps them from being utterly destroyed by the people they forced out with their occupation and continually antagonize. Without US aid, Israel would be nothing more than a historical footnote. They don't have the capacity to stand on their own.
Bravo, old chap, bravo!
I love it when people get a chance to point out that the UK's complete ban on firearms is seriously taking its toll on their crime statistics.
Plus, if you want to break down the US statistics further, you find that areas with strict gun control (New York, D.C.) have vastly increased crime rates (especially violent crimes) that skew the US crime statistics upward. Areas with high gun ownership historically have almost no violent crime.
(Note, theses statements are from an American standpoint, based on American laws. Your mileage will vary if your country does.)
Driving (non-commercially) is a private activity in a public venue, much like walking through a public park. You have a reasonable expectation that the contents of your car (in the former) and person (in the latter) will remain private, barring a legitimately procurred court order or warrant to produce or search for (respectively) evidence.
Driving is considered a privilege, even though the common law considers it a right. Use of public rights-of-way in the common manner of the day are protected as a general right not to be interfered with, under the right-of-travel clause in the Constitution. However, this is not generally recognized today, as most people know nothing of historical precedence, and less about the law and its realistic and traditional boundaries.
Putting event recorders in a private setting is far different from putting police in a public venue. Putting event recorders in cars is no different from putting them in houses, something that is completely unconstitutional. Your right to privacy is guaranteed by the 5th, 9th, and 10th amendments. The only exception to that right to privacy is narrowly defined in the 5th.
Aircraft, locomotives, buses, and trucks fall under commercial regulation as permitted by several different sections of the Constitution. This regulation has much more legitimate basis. It is not "only natural" to be extended to private conveyances, as they are not public, commercial carriers.
Before expounding on the implications and extensions of the law, I suggest you procur a firm background in the issues you're discussing.
They don't contribute to local economies at all
Bullshit. They contribute as much or more to local economies, because they are bringing in out-of-state dollars, the majority of which are then spent in-state, generating comparable tax revenue. Just because the state loses on one single transaction in the chain means absolutely squat.
Well, htey could make that argument, but it's clearly documented that the reason was to prevent states from engaging in economic warfare with one another.
And wouldn't it be great if the government couldn't afford to wage war, susidize farmers, or fund sweetheart deals? Gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. :)
You can apply the same argument to the states. Just because they used to get something for free doesn't mean they're entitled to remain getting it for free in the face of emerging technologies. The internet opened up trade between jurisdictions that was not as easy to perform before. States have no Constitutional authority over interstate trade (which is what this is). The majority of intrastate commerce via internet is already taxed, so that's not much of an issue. If states are worried about that, they need to start enforcing their own laws in their own juridictions. As far as interstate trade, they're going to have to amend the Constitution to remove the Commerce Clause to collect interstate taxes.
If people want to whine about lost revenue, look at exactly how state money is spent. State and federal spending could be cut in half tomorrow, and the only people who would be affected would be a few select special interests. Ask your local Congresscritter why they won't support that.
So should states make it illegal to buy anything anywhere other than in-state, so as not to lose sales tax revenue? How about municipalities? When one has a lower tax rate, they tend to draw business from surrounding municipalities, thus reducing tax revenues for some. Should this be made illegal? Using that logic, we should just be given everything by some regulatory agency tha determines what we deserve, and spend the rest of the time working for the state.
Oh, I forgot. There's this little thing called the Constitution. It prevents states from meddling in the affairs of other states, and in the the affairs of citizens who travel into and do business in/with other states. States cannot tax out-of-state purchases, because they have no jurisdiction to do so. They have no authority over a transaction involving multiple interstate jurisdictions. That's why citizens from states without sales taxes can buy without being charged tax in most states with sales taxes.
States have no right to any revenue source. The only have the power to levy under specific circumstances: those provided for by law. If the law does not address it, they cannot collect revenue from it. They don't "deserve" anything. If you can legally circumvent a system of taxation, you are doing absolutely nothing wrong. Lost revenue is not a valid argument unless some sort of fraud or misrepresentation is involved.
Note, I am not talking about intrastate transactions, as those are technically covered by sales tax laws. However, most intrastate transactions completed over the internet have sales taxes added, so this is not really much an issue at all.
What if you happened to be in the minority of those not allowed to vote? It's always alright until it's you that gets the shaft.
Elections in the North, that is.
Much like he freed the slaves. Only in the South, that is.
Natural rights are subjective as well. The entire basis of this is conceptions, beliefs, and opinions, all of which are subjective. The entire system is based upon belief. When you change the beliefs of enough people, those beliefs become "truth." It's not really an absolute truth, but something that is taken for truth and reinforced by people in uniforms wielding deadly force if necessary to "protect" these "truths."
A natural right is something that you can reasonably expect to defend against threat, duress, or coercion by another. Your life is the basis of natural rights, from that extending the right to reasonably sustain your life through work and accumulation of goods and property. To do as you please so long as you do not attempt to deny the same rights to anyone else, lest they or theirs deprive you of your life and/or property in return.
This entire dialog started because you took exception to my going over a distinction in the semantic terminology (based on two very fundamentally different ideologies: sovereign vs subject) of a comment. Yet you say semantics in the law is important. The law is based upon a general belief system (whichever one happens to hold sway at any given time), but is constrained by a prior belief system (fortunately, being the one that says government exists to serve, not to master). If the law is important, then the foundations of it are equally so.
I am still trying to determine what exactly it is that you actually take issue with, since there is no clear indication from your comments.
Nine days is a lot of time to elapse before a reply, I apologise.
... My inclusion of the slavery issue was not a moral argument, but was about the effects of semantics within the law. There was never an attempt to make those two equivalent, though you bring up a good point. Morality is not divorced from the law. Unfortunately, they have a seriously dysfunctional relationship.
... the words in the law *are* important.
I don't believe that the concept of morality ever entered my argument (though it will in a second). You first included it in you statement You can rant all you want about how God/Allah/Physics *gave* you that right
Morality and the law have always been intertwined. Whose morality is what differs from time to time. Morals are subjective. There may be some absolute right-from-wrong, but I'm not arguing that now, nor will I in this forum. However, those in power tend to project their morality into the law, for good or ill.
The point about intrinsic rights is that the concept is what people are willing to fight for. Those who accept that they are subjects will not fight for themselves like those who believe in the concept of their own equality. It isn't about a moral code, per se, but about self-determination. The more people talk about "what they are granted" by the government, the more people become inured of the fact that they exist at the whim of those in power.
My last argument did not "correct" the suppostition that rights are not granted by the government (the original statement that you took issue with, saying it was subtle and unimportant).
You state:
Reconcile that with this statement you made: The whole debate [on the legal basis of rights] doesn't matter in the slightest and [...] is actually harmful because it causes people to think about things that don't matter instead of concentrating on what the law [...]
This has been the consistent difference between yourself and I. I argue that it is important for people to hold a healthy concept of what their natural rights are. Those things that should be fought for even if they are currently illegal (like freedom, if you happened to be a slave). Or the right to vote (if you happened to be a woman told that she could not vote). Or if they pass a law banning firearms in order to defend yourself (which was in line with the statement I was originally replying to that you took issue with).
My argument is, additionally, that rights supercede the law, whether or not the law says so. If enough people believe that, it will be the truth. If enough people stop believing it, it will no longer be the truth. Saying it doesn't matter which is the case is simply an abdication of choice, so you really don't have a say in the matter until you choose.
What may not be interesting can have an enormous impact.
Again, your head is in the right place, but your reasoning is flawed.
It matters because semantics are everything in the law. Absolutely everything. You may choose to use two dissimilar terms interchangeably. People may understand what you mean. It doesn't mean that you are using the terms correctly, or that your words don't have other or additional signifigance to those who actually use the terms for what they mean. People who dumb down word choice when speaking in legal terms put themselves at a disadvantage. Semantics are the difference between the people who think they are subject to the government and people who think the government is subject to them. They are the difference between those who thought they were right to keep slaves and those who thought slaves should have rights. Substituting one single word for another can mean the difference between a nation of subjects and a nation of sovereigns. Don't tell me that word choice is unimportant until you go and ask a local lawyer or judge if word choice is important to the law.
If you don't want me to tell you, I won't. Saying something is so, and something actually being so aren't the same thing, so it doesn't really matter. Perhaps you should use a comprehensive dictionary and some logic (oh, and all of the historical documents pertaining to the style of goverment created in this country). The argument really is very one sided. A mountain of evidence on one side, a couple of pathetic but, but, but, arguments on the other. No, they are not mutually exclusive. They share one point: supreme power vested in the people. Aside from that one point they are mutually exclusive.
A very good point. I prefer my method though, because the common (though undefendable) rebuttal to that type of statement is "but we're a different kind of socialist state."
Unfortunately, many educated people don't think socialism is bad. However, education does not necessarily equate wisdom. It just means you can regurgitate facts spewed at you by an already-socialist education system. The US public education system has a vested interest in indoctrinating socialist ideals, in order to perpetuate itself. It is in and of itself a socialist system, being derived from the Prussian enforced-indoctrination models that were popular when public schooling initially became mandatory (in, of all places, the socialist mecca of Taxachusetts).
That's what I thought, though I did not want to make that assumption, being only an observer of the Canadian health care system.
The result, though, is that everyone has been brought down to a lower level than necessary, even though better is possible. This is what happens when you socialize anything.
Socialism by its very nature must be protected by an oppressive government, because there will always be people who don't want to be forced to settle. Social programs will always be less than is possible.
In Canada, what is it like to try and get health care that is not government-run? Cost, availability, etc. If you choose strictly private health-care, can you stop supporting the public healthcare system? If not, you can get more, but you have to pay much more than you would other places to get it, because you are still required to support a system you don't use.
Oppression != corruption. It's about how many rights you can exercise. It's about being able to choose. The above example, if even marginally correct, is a form of oppression, bet not necessarily corruption.
It's their job. They're no better than anyone else in a dangerous job. They chose that line of work, they should live with the consequences. If individuals want to go out of their way to praise them, that's their business, but police certainly don't deserve elevated legal status just because they chose a specific job.
Well, he would still be eligible for the death penalty, but it's probably mandatory for killing a FIBBIE. I agree with you totally, though I would have used the term stupid rather than silly.
Primarily designed to kill, yes.
Statistically, more crimes are prevented by simply displaying a firearm than actually discharging it. Most defense of life and property involving firearms is done by private individuals. The police can't protect everyone. Nor are the police even legally required to protect anyone. If you want me to list the Supreme Court precedents for the preceding statement, let me know and I'll dig them up to prove the point.
Firearms and other dangerous weapons (and physical defense knowledge) form the basis for a basic human right: self-defense. Without a right to self-defense, you have no real right to life. Anyone who is determined will kill you, and you have no means of self-defense. As the world becomes more technically-oriented, protection of rights must likewise become more technical.
Firearms have a perfectly legitimate place in society: to scare, intimidate, wound, and/or kill people. Some may not like that, but those are perfectly legitimate means to perfectly legitimate ends. There are those who use firearms in illegitimate ways. There are also people who use explosives, knives, hammers, axes, automobiles, airplanes, water, rope, wire, rat poison, carbon monoxide, gasoline, fists, feet, and many other things in illegitimate ways. That doesn't mean all those things should be banned. It means that those who use them for illegitimate means should be punished. Banning tools won't prevent people bent on committing crimes from committing crimes.
Video games have less precedential ground to stand on, because the 9th and 10th amendments (those that protect more rights than every other amendment and prohibition in the Constitution combined) have been ground more firmly into the dirt than any other because they don't enumerate specific rights.
Rights are not granted by the government through the Constitution. If you believe that, you're severely lacking in your civic education. The Constitution is a document by the citizenry granting the government limited powers. Where it is not granting powers, it is limiting the use of those powers by the government. Anything not so granted or limited to the states and the people are rights retained by the people.
Ergo, if it's not mentioned in the federal (or your state's) constitution, it is a right retained by all people. Regulation of violent video games is not a power delegated to the government in any Constitution I know of (Interstate transport and trade of them notwithstanding). Therefore, enjoying violent videogames is a right (literally) held by the people. Guns are a little different. They can be held in even higher regard because they are specifically protected from governmental prohibition. There's been a lot of debate about the specific wording, but the basic idea was to enable the public to help repel foreign invaders and domestic usurpers. At the heart of it is the basic human right to self defense. As technology progresses, firearms are often necessary to protect this basic right. Without them, many people are unable to affect this protection without help from others. Therefore, the right to bear arms is, in fact, a basic human right.
Your head seems to be in the right place, but the basic reasoning behind your statement is what is so dangerous. It is lack of knowledge and understanding of these issues by everday people that will eventually lead to major curtailing of rights, followed by an extended and bloody revolution.
Last I checked, Wall Street is an area centering around economics. Hence, an attack on Wall Street is a strike at the economy. It may not have been the only motive (and I don't believe it was the only one), but the example you gave reinforced the initial point. It just restated it in slightly different terms.
Fear of being financially ruined is often as strong as fear of death, if applied in the appropriate manner. Look at the Great Depression. Causing financial chaos is as destructive to a socio-economic group as killing several thousand people at a time, just in a different way.
If you have a product that cannot be sold outside your own state (even to people in other states where it is legal, because it crosses a state boundry) then you are going to have a hell of a time trying to become anything other than a very small company. Therefore if the feds disallow it, people won't want to bother getting into the market (well, not legally anyway). So it DOES affect what is done in the state, even locally.
Economics was not a part of my point, hence I did not discuss economic viability. I was speaking of the law. However, your point is not necessarily valid. Anything illegal federally that is not locally will bring in business proportional to the demand. For example, if a state legalized marijuana for general sale, there would be an appropriate influx of business, irregardless of that state's inability to trade that commodity with other states. The federal government's only avenue to get their way would be to withhold funds.
There is very little that doesn't involve transactions. Consider the case of Alchohol prohibition. Posession of alchohol was perfectly legal. It was technically the SALE, and transport with intent to sell, that was illegal. But that was enough to make it effectively illegal to possess it as well.
Sorry, I should have been explicit, since you can't seem to understand implicit issues. Interstate transactions.
Laws that apply to individual behaviour (as opposed to commercial behaviour) are almost without exception on an intr a state nature, and thus (with the exception of those instances stated explicitly in the Constitution) exempt from federal jurisdiction. Period. Any commercial transaction that occurs between parties within one state are likewise exempt. Anything that does not directly involve an interstate transaction is exempt. Period. I don't consider that very little. I guess you do though.
The case of Prohibition has little to do with this. It was a Constitutional amendment, and thus without limiting language, applicable everywhere. Try again.
Your haughty tone is undeserved.
It was a simple request. You appeared (and still appear) to make no attempt to apply any considerable amount of relevancy to your replies in this thread.
Yup. Hopefully we have a favorable decision in Brown v. FEC, and get rid of McCain-Feingold.