I wonder how much of the mocking of Christianity on late night TV stems from the fact that Christianity really is a religion of peace, and everyone, including the late night TV hosts, knows it?
What about the Reformation/Counter-Reformation, Inquisition, Witch-Trials, etc? George Bush claims to be a Christian, right? Then why all the war in the Middle East? Whatever happened to forgiving and turning the other cheek? For a "Christian Nation", the U.S. sure devotes a lot of resources to making war. Christianity is peaceful in theory, but not in practice.
The US Supreme Court... clearly stated that... "life of the author plus 70 years" did indeed meet the definition of "limited time" and was therefore constitutional.
You know, that's great. It must be nice to be the one party able to re-negotiate the terms of a contract. Does it work for banks? If you get a loan to purchase a home, and it comes time for your last payment, can the bank run to Congress or the courts and demand that you should continue your monthly payments for another 20 years? Name another contract that works that way.
It could be argued that life of the author plus 1e9 years is limited in the sense that it is bounded. The question is, is it excessive?
Good. You should think about using some. The social contract that you have implicitly entered into by being a citizen of said state forbids such activity to its citizens, and allows it, under a certain set of circumstances, to certain state employees. Now, as long as the state upholds its end of the deal, the citizens should uphold theirs.
In the matter of copyright law, we have a similar contract. However, the music industry has cleverly bankrolled legislation to make sure they don't have to uphold their end of the deal, to wit, placing the copyrighted material into the public domain after a limited time. Furthermore, they also use their near infinite resources to use the legal machinery as a tool to harass law-abiding citizens. MAFIAA, indeed.
Their parents certainly can't be bothered to teach them the small detail that school is a place to learn and not a social gathering hall.
In a way, you're right. But, they aren't there to learn the three R's. They are there to be acclimatized to the working world where they obey orders, schedule their time around the bell, and become dependent on their "superiors".
parents often see their own children's behavior through rose colored glasses.
Or yellow. (snicker).
I used to socialize with a married couple who had this monstrous little 5 year old brat. They were the "hands off" type. One day, Mommy was bathing Baby Boy, and he got it into his head to urinate in her face and laugh about it. I heard her say, in a hurt voice, "Why would you do that to Mommy? Don't do that". Daddy just sat there. If it had been my kid, I would've given him a thrashing so severe people 3 states away would've called DHS on me. I quit going over there.
That was 10 years ago --- that kid has probably killed them by now.
and drugs that are addictive that lead to severe bodily harm after constant use are definitely a concern (meth, LSD, PCP, etc.)
Here, you've gone off track. LSD is not addictive. It's chemical action is such that frequent use results in not getting high. You have to wait a few days between doses to achieve the same effect. Upping the dosage won't do it.
I agree that meth is addictive and harmful.
I don't know about addiction to PCP. That chemical garbage is so dangerous, it shouldn't even be taken once.
Yes, when parents don't feed their children because they need drug money, its a victimless crime, no one other than the parent is hurt!
By your standards, we should outlaw religion. Apparently, reading a holy script and attending a church, mosque, or synagogue causes some people to go out and beat, torture, or kill other people. Remember Andrea Yates? Look what happened to her kids.
As I pointed out to the other responder, I think it is somewhat ridiculous to try to compare:
Jihadist believer who kills people for his beliefs.
to
Anti drug beliver who snitches on drug dealers for his beliefs.
I do too. That wasn't the comparison I was making. Try instead: Jihadist who dies for his beliefs vs. DEA agent who dies for his beliefs. If you put your life on the line in the belief that a better good will be the result, without empirical evidence to support that belief, then you are a fool, and deserve what's coming to you.
Finally, your claim that fewer people would die under an all-drugs-legal regime is probably incorrect. More people would die from the long-term impacts of extended drug use, and from greater drug use due to legality.
Do you have any support for that? Many, if not most, who die from illegal drugs, die because (a) the drug was more concentrated than they thought, or (b) the drug was contaminated with more harmful substances. Read up on it here. Much of that could be corrected through legalization and regulation.
To claim that you can't legitimately justify the war on drugs due to fears about the consequences of those drugs to society is just ridiculous.
You're twisting my words again. Remember, you brought up the point about people involved in drug enforcement... believe they are saving lives. So, let's back up to fatalities:
How many people died in Hurricane Katrina? ~1500? Let's outlaw living on the coast.
How many people die each year in the U.S. because of taking aspirin? 10,000? Let's outlaw Aspirin.
How many people die in automobile accidents in the U.S. each year? 43,000? Let's outlaw automobiles.
How many people die of cigarettes in the U.S. each year? 400,000? Folks, we have a winner!!!
Once again, anyone who resorts to body count as a justification for the war on drugs is liar and a fraud.
Surely whether you agree or not, you must believe that many of the people involved in drug enforcement are convinced that it is the right thing to do? That they believe they are saving lives? Do they deserve to die for that mistaken belief?
Do Islamic terrorists deserve to die for their mistaken belief that carrying out Jyhad is the correct thing to do? Do US soldiers deserve to die in Iraq for their mistaken belief that they are fighting for a good cause? Anytime you join up with some organization that may put your life on the line, you'd better do some deep thinking about your cause. I feel that most joiners don't --- they are brainwashed or swayed by demagogues. If you decide to play Russian Roulette, you deserve to die.
Whether or not people higher up in the drug trade are responsible for murders and other crimes, drugs do kill people directly (from overdose and other health artifacts).
Illegal drugs kill a miniscule fraction of the people killed by all drugs (including alcohol, nicotine, aspirin, etc.) If all drugs were legal, and manufactured under FDA restrictions, even fewer people would die. No one can legitimately justify the war on drugs by dragging out the drug casualties. Remember Prohibition? That worked out so well they repealed it.
Posting information about informants in a murder, rape, arson, theft case is reprehensible. But, I have no sympathy, none, nada for informants/undercover agents in drug cases. Drug laws are also reprehensible. And before anyone says "Well, a lot of the people higher up in the illegal drug trade are responsible for murder and other crimes", most of that would disappear, as well as a lot of money that funds organized crime, if drugs were made legal.
You speculate that people wouldn't do them because of the consequences, and that misses the point entirely as well as misunderstanding the whole concept of "not a taboo." People in western cultures think of those things as inherently wrong and bad because of our conditioning. It is almost impossible to understand a culture where this is not the case, as witnessed by your reply. You still see the actions as bad, and you still think that they would be regarded as bad by the society, just not "taboo."
Slow down there. Instead of jumping to conclusions about what behaviors I consider bad, let me enumerate some of them:
rape, murder and theft at the top of the list of bad things. Most cultures probably agree on these.
Adultery --- definitely depends on the culture.
Incest --- bad. There is a good genetic justification for not doing it, among other reasons.
Homosexuality --- I could care less what two consenting adults do together. I don't know why anyone else should.
In short, not only is society not a force that keeps people acting rationally, fairly, and equitably towards one another, it is a force that causes the evils it purports to fix.
I don't think so. Population has a tendency to grow, and people spread out. This brings conflict over land, water, animals, and other things. All of this happens before civilization. To prevent rampant killing and destruction, we come up with modern society --- a necessary evil to deal with the fact of a massive population.
Look at Jean Liedloff's book The Continuum Concept, in which she studies rain forest tribes unimpacted by western culture. Despite having no taboos against incest, adultery, and homosexuality, these happened less than in cultures that had those taboos.
Perhaps when people live in small groups, they are more co-dependent and less likely to injure one another. There is no anonymity. Everyone knows everyone. The consequences for bad behavior could be violence, shunning, or expulsion from the group. When the next nearest group is a long distance away, and there is a hostile wilderness in between, the people have ample incentive to be nice to each other.
Contrast this with nations of millions employing an industrial/service economy. Local ties are severed as one moves on to greener pastures. Less emphasis is placed on social interaction in the quest for material possesions. If one violates the moral codes or laws, they can vanish into the crowd of a neighboring city and start over.
And again: threat of punishment is no foundation for any sort of real moral compass
And what I'm telling you is that most people don't have a moral compass anyway. The moral compass is the exception, not the rule. The rest of the people have to fear physical violence to deter them from crime. The ink of history books is blood.
the primary lesson corporal punishment teaches is "I'm bigger than you, so I get to tell you what to do."
How is that different from, "I have a gun, and you don't, so I get to tell you what to do", or "We can throw you in jail, so we get to tell you what to do"? That is the reality of adulthood. And I'm pretty sure that those are the reasons that most adults don't run amok doing whatever they want. Take copyright infringement, for instance. Issues of morality aside, it is currently illegal in the U.S. for someone to distribute copyrighted materials if they don't own the copyright. But, as regular readers of/. know, many people persist in doing it. Now, why is that? Is it because they don't know it's illegal? Or is it because the odds are in favor of them getting away with it?
police forces don't exist to punish, but rather to make sure criminals are apprehended so they can be punished
And how are they punished? Supposing fines don't work and the person persists in stealing, burning buildings down, or whatever --- they end up in jail, where the real barbarity begins. If a child commits these acts, their fate is much the same. Society apparently has no problem with locking people up in cages to be abused. You can call it punishment, or rehabilitation, or whatever. They still end up abused.
What are you on about? Let's try a different approach. Consider this scenario: Little Johnny aged 10 grabs some guns, enters a mall or school, and starts shooting people randomly. The police show up. Do they
(a) give little Johnny a time-out?
(b) give little Johnny a lecture about how to behave in public?
(c) blow little Johnny away?
Then, I take it, you are against officers of the law laying hands on anyone, including child molesters, rapists, and murderers. You should probably be opposed to prisons as well, because we all know what goes on in there. The death penalty is, of course, out of the question. If someone breaks into your home, steals your television, and rapes your significant other, you should just stand by because to physically harm them would be... what was that word again, oh yeah... barbaric. Where do you live again?
Right, because in the beginning, people lived in harmony with each other and with nature. No one took advantage of anyone, because then knew it was bad, bad, bad. Where did we go wrong and start the beating, stealing, and killing?
Do you honestly believe that most people choose to be good because it's morally correct? If that were the case, there would be no need for social contracts, police forces, and militaries. We have rules of law and enforcers precisely because the natural tendency of people is to do bad things. Why do you think most Christians worship? Is it because they really love God and their fellow human beings? Or is it because they want everlasting bliss as a reward for good behavior? Or is it because they fear burning in the pit of hell for being bad? To answer that, just watch how most of them behave. I don't mean to isolate Christianity as exceptional in this regard. Most people need a cosmic daddy to tell them what's right and wrong, and what the consequences are because they are incapable or unwilling to do the difficult thinking for themselves.
The plain and simple fact is, most people are plain and simple. They don't philosophize. They react. If they know they can get away with something, they'll do it. This is as true of adults as it is of children. The raising of children is not so much to instill an understanding of right and wrong, but rather to learn the consequences of bad behavior. If they end up actually doing deep thinking about morality, great. But don't hold your breath.
As soon as you resort to smacking, spanking, or hitting in any way, you've signaled your failure as a parent.
According to whom Doctor Spock? You? What makes you the expert? Where's the Ten Commandments of parenting given from on high that works in every possible situation? You're incredibly naive.
Slashdot Mirror
Awesome. I've been waiting years for a vorpal monitor.
I wonder how much of the mocking of Christianity on late night TV stems from the fact that Christianity really is a religion of peace, and everyone, including the late night TV hosts, knows it?
What about the Reformation/Counter-Reformation, Inquisition, Witch-Trials, etc? George Bush claims to be a Christian, right? Then why all the war in the Middle East? Whatever happened to forgiving and turning the other cheek? For a "Christian Nation", the U.S. sure devotes a lot of resources to making war. Christianity is peaceful in theory, but not in practice.
So, mocking is now considered an attack?
Much like the Christian majority defending against the "attack on Christianity" here in the States.
The US Supreme Court ... clearly stated that ... "life of the author plus 70 years" did indeed meet the definition of "limited time" and was therefore constitutional.
You know, that's great. It must be nice to be the one party able to re-negotiate the terms of a contract. Does it work for banks? If you get a loan to purchase a home, and it comes time for your last payment, can the bank run to Congress or the courts and demand that you should continue your monthly payments for another 20 years? Name another contract that works that way.
It could be argued that life of the author plus 1e9 years is limited in the sense that it is bounded. The question is, is it excessive?
God I love sound logic !!
Good. You should think about using some. The social contract that you have implicitly entered into by being a citizen of said state forbids such activity to its citizens, and allows it, under a certain set of circumstances, to certain state employees. Now, as long as the state upholds its end of the deal, the citizens should uphold theirs.
In the matter of copyright law, we have a similar contract. However, the music industry has cleverly bankrolled legislation to make sure they don't have to uphold their end of the deal, to wit, placing the copyrighted material into the public domain after a limited time. Furthermore, they also use their near infinite resources to use the legal machinery as a tool to harass law-abiding citizens. MAFIAA, indeed.
Their parents certainly can't be bothered to teach them the small detail that school is a place to learn and not a social gathering hall.
In a way, you're right. But, they aren't there to learn the three R's. They are there to be acclimatized to the working world where they obey orders, schedule their time around the bell, and become dependent on their "superiors".
parents often see their own children's behavior through rose colored glasses.
Or yellow. (snicker).
I used to socialize with a married couple who had this monstrous little 5 year old brat. They were the "hands off" type. One day, Mommy was bathing Baby Boy, and he got it into his head to urinate in her face and laugh about it. I heard her say, in a hurt voice, "Why would you do that to Mommy? Don't do that". Daddy just sat there. If it had been my kid, I would've given him a thrashing so severe people 3 states away would've called DHS on me. I quit going over there.
That was 10 years ago --- that kid has probably killed them by now.
and drugs that are addictive that lead to severe bodily harm after constant use are definitely a concern (meth, LSD, PCP, etc.)
Here, you've gone off track. LSD is not addictive. It's chemical action is such that frequent use results in not getting high. You have to wait a few days between doses to achieve the same effect. Upping the dosage won't do it.
I agree that meth is addictive and harmful.
I don't know about addiction to PCP. That chemical garbage is so dangerous, it shouldn't even be taken once.
Yes, when parents don't feed their children because they need drug money, its a victimless crime, no one other than the parent is hurt!
By your standards, we should outlaw religion. Apparently, reading a holy script and attending a church, mosque, or synagogue causes some people to go out and beat, torture, or kill other people. Remember Andrea Yates? Look what happened to her kids.
You should really try a little harder than that.
As I pointed out to the other responder, I think it is somewhat ridiculous to try to compare: Jihadist believer who kills people for his beliefs. to Anti drug beliver who snitches on drug dealers for his beliefs.
... believe they are saving lives. So, let's back up to fatalities:
I do too. That wasn't the comparison I was making. Try instead: Jihadist who dies for his beliefs vs. DEA agent who dies for his beliefs. If you put your life on the line in the belief that a better good will be the result, without empirical evidence to support that belief, then you are a fool, and deserve what's coming to you.
Finally, your claim that fewer people would die under an all-drugs-legal regime is probably incorrect. More people would die from the long-term impacts of extended drug use, and from greater drug use due to legality.
Do you have any support for that? Many, if not most, who die from illegal drugs, die because (a) the drug was more concentrated than they thought, or (b) the drug was contaminated with more harmful substances. Read up on it here. Much of that could be corrected through legalization and regulation.
To claim that you can't legitimately justify the war on drugs due to fears about the consequences of those drugs to society is just ridiculous.
You're twisting my words again. Remember, you brought up the point about people involved in drug enforcement
How many people died in Hurricane Katrina? ~1500? Let's outlaw living on the coast.
How many people die each year in the U.S. because of taking aspirin? 10,000? Let's outlaw Aspirin.
How many people die in automobile accidents in the U.S. each year? 43,000? Let's outlaw automobiles.
How many people die of cigarettes in the U.S. each year? 400,000? Folks, we have a winner!!!
Once again, anyone who resorts to body count as a justification for the war on drugs is liar and a fraud.
Surely whether you agree or not, you must believe that many of the people involved in drug enforcement are convinced that it is the right thing to do? That they believe they are saving lives? Do they deserve to die for that mistaken belief?
Do Islamic terrorists deserve to die for their mistaken belief that carrying out Jyhad is the correct thing to do? Do US soldiers deserve to die in Iraq for their mistaken belief that they are fighting for a good cause? Anytime you join up with some organization that may put your life on the line, you'd better do some deep thinking about your cause. I feel that most joiners don't --- they are brainwashed or swayed by demagogues. If you decide to play Russian Roulette, you deserve to die.
Whether or not people higher up in the drug trade are responsible for murders and other crimes, drugs do kill people directly (from overdose and other health artifacts).
Illegal drugs kill a miniscule fraction of the people killed by all drugs (including alcohol, nicotine, aspirin, etc.) If all drugs were legal, and manufactured under FDA restrictions, even fewer people would die. No one can legitimately justify the war on drugs by dragging out the drug casualties. Remember Prohibition? That worked out so well they repealed it.
Posting information about informants in a murder, rape, arson, theft case is reprehensible. But, I have no sympathy, none, nada for informants/undercover agents in drug cases. Drug laws are also reprehensible. And before anyone says "Well, a lot of the people higher up in the illegal drug trade are responsible for murder and other crimes", most of that would disappear, as well as a lot of money that funds organized crime, if drugs were made legal.
You speculate that people wouldn't do them because of the consequences, and that misses the point entirely as well as misunderstanding the whole concept of "not a taboo." People in western cultures think of those things as inherently wrong and bad because of our conditioning. It is almost impossible to understand a culture where this is not the case, as witnessed by your reply. You still see the actions as bad, and you still think that they would be regarded as bad by the society, just not "taboo."
Slow down there. Instead of jumping to conclusions about what behaviors I consider bad, let me enumerate some of them:
rape, murder and theft at the top of the list of bad things. Most cultures probably agree on these.
Adultery --- definitely depends on the culture.
Incest --- bad. There is a good genetic justification for not doing it, among other reasons.
Homosexuality --- I could care less what two consenting adults do together. I don't know why anyone else should.
In short, not only is society not a force that keeps people acting rationally, fairly, and equitably towards one another, it is a force that causes the evils it purports to fix.
I don't think so. Population has a tendency to grow, and people spread out. This brings conflict over land, water, animals, and other things. All of this happens before civilization. To prevent rampant killing and destruction, we come up with modern society --- a necessary evil to deal with the fact of a massive population.
You raise an interesting point:
Look at Jean Liedloff's book The Continuum Concept, in which she studies rain forest tribes unimpacted by western culture. Despite having no taboos against incest, adultery, and homosexuality, these happened less than in cultures that had those taboos.
Perhaps when people live in small groups, they are more co-dependent and less likely to injure one another. There is no anonymity. Everyone knows everyone. The consequences for bad behavior could be violence, shunning, or expulsion from the group. When the next nearest group is a long distance away, and there is a hostile wilderness in between, the people have ample incentive to be nice to each other.
Contrast this with nations of millions employing an industrial/service economy. Local ties are severed as one moves on to greener pastures. Less emphasis is placed on social interaction in the quest for material possesions. If one violates the moral codes or laws, they can vanish into the crowd of a neighboring city and start over.
And again: threat of punishment is no foundation for any sort of real moral compass
And what I'm telling you is that most people don't have a moral compass anyway. The moral compass is the exception, not the rule. The rest of the people have to fear physical violence to deter them from crime. The ink of history books is blood.
the primary lesson corporal punishment teaches is "I'm bigger than you, so I get to tell you what to do."
/. know, many people persist in doing it. Now, why is that? Is it because they don't know it's illegal? Or is it because the odds are in favor of them getting away with it?
How is that different from, "I have a gun, and you don't, so I get to tell you what to do", or "We can throw you in jail, so we get to tell you what to do"? That is the reality of adulthood. And I'm pretty sure that those are the reasons that most adults don't run amok doing whatever they want. Take copyright infringement, for instance. Issues of morality aside, it is currently illegal in the U.S. for someone to distribute copyrighted materials if they don't own the copyright. But, as regular readers of
police forces don't exist to punish, but rather to make sure criminals are apprehended so they can be punished
And how are they punished? Supposing fines don't work and the person persists in stealing, burning buildings down, or whatever --- they end up in jail, where the real barbarity begins. If a child commits these acts, their fate is much the same. Society apparently has no problem with locking people up in cages to be abused. You can call it punishment, or rehabilitation, or whatever. They still end up abused.
What are you on about? Let's try a different approach. Consider this scenario: Little Johnny aged 10 grabs some guns, enters a mall or school, and starts shooting people randomly. The police show up. Do they
(a) give little Johnny a time-out?
(b) give little Johnny a lecture about how to behave in public?
(c) blow little Johnny away?
Not at all. I'm comparing using force on children with using force on adults. Why is one acceptable, and the other not acceptable?
Because it's barbaric!
... what was that word again, oh yeah ... barbaric. Where do you live again?
Then, I take it, you are against officers of the law laying hands on anyone, including child molesters, rapists, and murderers. You should probably be opposed to prisons as well, because we all know what goes on in there. The death penalty is, of course, out of the question. If someone breaks into your home, steals your television, and rapes your significant other, you should just stand by because to physically harm them would be
Right, because in the beginning, people lived in harmony with each other and with nature. No one took advantage of anyone, because then knew it was bad, bad, bad. Where did we go wrong and start the beating, stealing, and killing?
Q: But what if your child grows up to be Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, Al Capone, or Jim Jones?
A: Stop seeing these people as "just plain evil", and start looking for solutions to their problems. Oh, and you were a bad parent.
Do you honestly believe that most people choose to be good because it's morally correct? If that were the case, there would be no need for social contracts, police forces, and militaries. We have rules of law and enforcers precisely because the natural tendency of people is to do bad things. Why do you think most Christians worship? Is it because they really love God and their fellow human beings? Or is it because they want everlasting bliss as a reward for good behavior? Or is it because they fear burning in the pit of hell for being bad? To answer that, just watch how most of them behave. I don't mean to isolate Christianity as exceptional in this regard. Most people need a cosmic daddy to tell them what's right and wrong, and what the consequences are because they are incapable or unwilling to do the difficult thinking for themselves.
The plain and simple fact is, most people are plain and simple. They don't philosophize. They react. If they know they can get away with something, they'll do it. This is as true of adults as it is of children. The raising of children is not so much to instill an understanding of right and wrong, but rather to learn the consequences of bad behavior. If they end up actually doing deep thinking about morality, great. But don't hold your breath.
As soon as you resort to smacking, spanking, or hitting in any way, you've signaled your failure as a parent.
According to whom Doctor Spock? You? What makes you the expert? Where's the Ten Commandments of parenting given from on high that works in every possible situation? You're incredibly naive.
Yeah. We wouldn't want to give them the idea that when they reach adulthood, bad behavior will result in physical threatening.