So the deal can't be altered, through the legal process, over a century after the original deal was made?
I don't think anyone would want to go back to the state of law when the Constitution was framed. Things change; the nature of the relationship between state and federal governments has changed in many ways over time, and will continue to change in the future.
Frankly, you're enshrining vote inequity on grounds that I find very sketchy. Being a farmer isn't some kind of automatic sainting process, where you become more valuable and a better person. It's an occupation.
And, weirdly enough, not all of those low population states are agricultural (see Alaska), and not everyone in a high population state is a lawyer. Could we do without the top 5,000 scientists as easily as 5,000 farmers? How much of the relative population of farmers is 5,000, anyway?
One man, one vote, seems like a fairer way to do it to me.
Because the electoral college is demonstrably gameable in a way that the Senate isn't. See republican attempts to split electors in states with a Democratic majority, but not in states with a Republican majority.
In addition, there's no single, specified way that the colleges have to base the electors on the popular vote.
The electoral college has been unjust and badly designed since the beginning. It's one of the legacy problems that bring to mind Jefferson's intention that the Constitution be overhauled every so often.
I have two requests. First, think carefully, and come up with one way that voting does you actual, honest to goodness harm. I don't mean inconvenience, like "Oh, I had to wait in the polls" or some such. How does voting make your situation worse than not voting here. Second, drop the rape analogy. It's offensive, and it's making you come off like a jackass.
Have a driver's license? Use it to prove your identity?
Until you've moved out, you're participating in the system. Why are you keen to throw away the one part of that participation that consists of exerting power to change/affect that system?
Also, just putting rape in your analogy doesn't make it effective.
Well, just in case all 75% of those people thought like that;-)
Also, because the more people who vote their minds, the closer we come to having a post-election picture of what the country actually wanted out of the election.
I'm not anti-gun, but your argument is stupid. Clubs, knives, whatever, in a fight with any sort of weapon, even attackers that outnumber the victim are liable to be hurt, assuming parity of arms, skill, and resolve.
The differentiating factors of a gun is that the harm it can do is much greater, and spread over a greater physical range. It doesn't have any magic equalizing powers that make it more likely for one man to be effective against twenty. The scenario you put forth... it doesn't take into account terrain, level of training, type of gun (for instance, if the one has a shotgun, or a pisol).
Your argument fails against Japan and England. It's much harder for criminals to get ahold of guns when there are no legal, non-law-enforcement channels to get them. As for differences from drugs, well for one thing, it's harder to hide them.
Well, attempting to kill someone with a car results in danger to the person doing so.
Cars aren't usable inside buildings, aren't concealable, and are arguably easier to dodge.
There isn't currently a culture glorifying cars as a sign of manhoo--- well, ok, got me there. But there's less innate violence in the cultural reverence for cars.
Cars don't have 15 shots per clip.
Now, I'm not saying I don't believe in people being allowed to keep, and properly permitted, carry guns. But your argument here is naive at best. Guns are weapons designed to kill people, cars are devices that can be dangerous.
The founders also gave us a staggering amount of protected freedoms and legal mechanisms to fight tyranny. The reason being that armed insurrection is horrible, leads to much higher casualties on the side that isn't an established military, and is more likely to fail the more developed a society is. Not to mention that it leaves the country open to outside attack in a way nothing else does.
It's in everyone's interests to see that it doesn't come to that.
For one, the founders disagreed wildly on exactly who should have full citizenship and the vote. Where they agreed on, was that each citizen should have full human rights, including the right to full representation in the government that represents them. That's not a priviledge, because it's "We the people," not "We, the property of the government."
I find your argument especially flawed because, for YEARS now, the Republican party has aimed more and more of its efforts at portraying itself as anti-intellectual. I mean, it's not a mistake that we have a yale graduate who pretends to be a simple-minded cowboy, is it?
Also, I would imagine as many, if not more, people are voting for McCain on account of the color of his skin.
It's a REPUBLIC, not a democracy. What matters is to uphold the laws that ensure protection of the individual, not "majority rules".
It's a DEMOCRATIC republic, and one that operates (nominally) to enforce the will of the people. Such language is enshrined in the declaration of independence.
I don't think it's fair to place all the blame on the R's for the actions of ONE man (Bush).
This would be a compelling argument, if Bush was acting all on his own, yelling "WILDCARD, BITCHES!" He hasn't been. Last minute distancing on the part of McCain doesn't change the fact that Bush, for most of his terms, had a large and controlling majority of the GOP solidly behind him.
Especially since the Democrats/Republicans are equally complicit. The D's had two years control of Congress to withdraw from the war, but did not, so I hold both parties equally to blame for our continued presence in a foreign power.
Bullshit. Ever heard of a veto? Also, Congress only controls funding for this particular war, and I can see not wanting to risk pulling the funding out, only to have Bush leave the troops in, or have Iraq collapse like a house of cards on top of them. Also, is "not fixing a wrong" just as bad as "perpetrating new wrongs consistently and purposefully?" I don't think so.
Therefore that leaves my decision to be based upon philosophy. I don't support the philosophy of socialism, which is really wealth redistribution from the working middle class to the lazy bums. Therefore I can not in good conscience vote socialist/democrat.
This would be a fine argument if a socialist was running. As it is, it's showing that people are still susceptible to panic at the thought of any words attached to Soviet Russia, decades after the McCarthy era.
Seriously; the welfare queen never existed. And currently, the system is set up to draw the wealth OF the middle class and use it to subsidize business, the revenue of which is entirely focused at the top end of the companies. CEOs are making hundreds and thousands of times what the low-level employees are making. This is not normal; as recently as ten or twenty years ago, the gaps were much lower.
We've re-created the Gilded Age. Do we need another Great Depression before we stop this crap?
Well, how else would you advocate changing the system?
The only ways I can think of to actually change the system from outside are being a foreign nation with leverage over the country in question, or violent overthrow.
If you want to change a political system as a citizen/national, well, that means you work within the system.
Unless you're just rebelling as a fashion statement and never plan to have any actual effect, of course.
I will strongly assert, though, that mere possession of a sequence of bits on your hard drive should not be sufficient evidence to put you behind bars. There must be direct evidence that the person directly participated in the abuse of a child, or directly paid for those sequence of bits from the abuser or some "syndicate" or "cartel" involved with illegal exploitation of children. This will place the onus of the law and enforcement efforts where they actually belong -- in directly protecting children, and not in doing a moralistic song and dance claiming it's protecting children when it clearly does not.
Well, I'm not sure that I agree with you on "If they got kiddy porn for free, it's not a problem" angle, but regardless of position on that, it's currently a felony to look at kiddy porn. So, thus, law enforcement belongs there. Also, going after the people consuming kiddy porn seems to me to be a highly viable way of getting leads back to the producers, paid or not.
As far as the "nothing to hide" argument goes, we all have something to "hide" -- that is, in fact, what privacy is all about. It doesn't mean what you are doing is necessarily "illegal"; it With the less than perfect justice system we have, you should all the more insist on privacy lest some innocent, consensual thing you might be doing in private should fall prey to the political whims and sways of the day.
Again, I'm not making the "nothing to hide" argument. Never have been. I'm saying that, once you've been caught and a warrant for search has been legally issued, you don't have a right to conceal evidence requested by the law. Privacy laws aren't actually even involved here; this is evidence gathering that's pursuant from a criminal investigation already in progress, for which due cause is already proven.
If we were discussing a case in which, say, police illegally wiretapping someone found evidence of child pr0n, maybe your arguments would be relevant. But they aren't in the context we're working in.
Again, I think we agree that the primary purpose of the law should be to protect the innocent, and that abuses of the law are common. That doesn't change the fact that, under current law, giving up that password is covered under lawful search and seizure. Furthermore, I think it's worth pointing out that, unless there is evidence proving your guilt on that encrypted drive, the search can't hurt you.
I want to be very clear here: I am not saying "If you're so innocent, what are you hiding?!" I'm saying that this whole conversation takes place in a supposition of guilt; we are talking about what a criminal, specifically a kiddy-porn aficionado, might do to prevent access to an encrypted volume that is known to be his and has a warrant covering it. We are talking, then, about whether these actions are legal.
Outside of that; personal experiences aside, it's naive to put forth that no agency can ever be allowed to search and seize property as part of an investigation. Just doesn't work. I'd like to hear an alternate plan, that doesn't involve a complete absence of any law enforcement. Because if you look at places where the government has broken down, and law enforcement doesn't function, you will find them uniformly worse than here. As a historical example, look at crime in the eighteenth century in England, prior to the formation of the Bow Street Runners.
Except that if the safe is in your house and is guaranteed to be yours, they DO and SHOULD have the right, with warrant, to search the contents. Otherwise, any criminal with a safe is automatically exempted from justice. For that matter, by saying that you've forgotten the combination you've committed perjury, and I believe last access time for the software might very well be accessible, even if the information on the drive isn't.
No one ever claimed the justice system is perfect. No justice system ever is or will be. It's great when science can help make more accurate decisions possible; both in allowing the innocent to remain freed, and in allowing the guilty to be caught. Saying "Oh, sometimes convictions made with worse technology have been wrong, the justice system is completely broken" ignores the fact that, well, Ted Bundy was also caught and tried and convicted. So are a bunch of muggers, rapists, and gangsters. It's not a simple case of "good/bad," it's a complicated system that, yes, needs constant supervision and reform to operate well. But stripping any ability to do search and seizure AFTER probable cause is proved and a warrant is issued isn't in anyone's interest except criminals. Period.
It's similar because, honestly, my position is the same. You're still arguing for a fairly dystopian view of law enforcement in total, and I still don't buy it.
For instance, while I don't know if there is a particularly bad set of cops where you live, I've seen plenty of cops driving normally. I've also seen them speeding and/or ignoring traffic laws.
What I've seen much more often is them obeying traffic laws. But what's much more memorable is them not obeying traffic laws, because it stands out.
Also, I'm not seeing where I have been rude or irrational in this thread, and I'm sorry if you've felt yelled at.
That's a legally questionable interpretation of the 5th amendment. They've ruled that way in Vermont, sure, but it's almost sure to be invalidated on appeal, and can't be relied on. Discussion here
Much as hashing all of your files and comparing them to a list of known hashes is searching, asking you to acquiesce to a lawful search isn't compelling you to give testimony. It's the same principle as making you open your door when there's a subpoena.
Also, your having encrypted the volumes and refused to comply with discovery on them will likely be seen as suspicious action, and be admissible as evidence itself.
It's rare, but there have been instances of people as young as 9 giving birth. Also, what about the possibility of disease?
You weren't responsible about it - because you weren't old enough to know better. That's what competent means in a legal context, and what I mean by it.
I do have to say that this mentality IS a big problem in law enforcement, and does need to be dealt with. I'm just very uncomfortable with the "It's 100% of cops" aspect, and with viewpoints that only take into account the bad things police do, and ignore the actual services and benefits that police provide to citizens.
Slashdot Mirror
So the deal can't be altered, through the legal process, over a century after the original deal was made?
I don't think anyone would want to go back to the state of law when the Constitution was framed. Things change; the nature of the relationship between state and federal governments has changed in many ways over time, and will continue to change in the future.
Frankly, you're enshrining vote inequity on grounds that I find very sketchy. Being a farmer isn't some kind of automatic sainting process, where you become more valuable and a better person. It's an occupation.
And, weirdly enough, not all of those low population states are agricultural (see Alaska), and not everyone in a high population state is a lawyer. Could we do without the top 5,000 scientists as easily as 5,000 farmers? How much of the relative population of farmers is 5,000, anyway?
One man, one vote, seems like a fairer way to do it to me.
Because the electoral college is demonstrably gameable in a way that the Senate isn't. See republican attempts to split electors in states with a Democratic majority, but not in states with a Republican majority.
In addition, there's no single, specified way that the colleges have to base the electors on the popular vote.
The electoral college has been unjust and badly designed since the beginning. It's one of the legacy problems that bring to mind Jefferson's intention that the Constitution be overhauled every so often.
I've seen you around, and you seem a pretty with-it cat, so let me ask you something.
Why do low-population states deserve higher weight than their population supports?
What's the advantage to the country of giving each Wyoming citizen 2.3 times the value of each, say, Florida citizen?
Why is this good, as opposed to injustice?
Because... voting... hurts you?
I have two requests. First, think carefully, and come up with one way that voting does you actual, honest to goodness harm. I don't mean inconvenience, like "Oh, I had to wait in the polls" or some such. How does voting make your situation worse than not voting here. Second, drop the rape analogy. It's offensive, and it's making you come off like a jackass.
Do you live and work in the U.S.?
Then you participate in the system.
Have a driver's license? Use it to prove your identity?
Until you've moved out, you're participating in the system. Why are you keen to throw away the one part of that participation that consists of exerting power to change/affect that system?
Also, just putting rape in your analogy doesn't make it effective.
Well, just in case all 75% of those people thought like that ;-)
Also, because the more people who vote their minds, the closer we come to having a post-election picture of what the country actually wanted out of the election.
I'm not anti-gun, but your argument is stupid. Clubs, knives, whatever, in a fight with any sort of weapon, even attackers that outnumber the victim are liable to be hurt, assuming parity of arms, skill, and resolve.
The differentiating factors of a gun is that the harm it can do is much greater, and spread over a greater physical range. It doesn't have any magic equalizing powers that make it more likely for one man to be effective against twenty. The scenario you put forth... it doesn't take into account terrain, level of training, type of gun (for instance, if the one has a shotgun, or a pisol).
Your argument fails against Japan and England. It's much harder for criminals to get ahold of guns when there are no legal, non-law-enforcement channels to get them. As for differences from drugs, well for one thing, it's harder to hide them.
Well, attempting to kill someone with a car results in danger to the person doing so.
Cars aren't usable inside buildings, aren't concealable, and are arguably easier to dodge.
There isn't currently a culture glorifying cars as a sign of manhoo--- well, ok, got me there. But there's less innate violence in the cultural reverence for cars.
Cars don't have 15 shots per clip.
Now, I'm not saying I don't believe in people being allowed to keep, and properly permitted, carry guns. But your argument here is naive at best. Guns are weapons designed to kill people, cars are devices that can be dangerous.
The founders also gave us a staggering amount of protected freedoms and legal mechanisms to fight tyranny. The reason being that armed insurrection is horrible, leads to much higher casualties on the side that isn't an established military, and is more likely to fail the more developed a society is. Not to mention that it leaves the country open to outside attack in a way nothing else does.
It's in everyone's interests to see that it doesn't come to that.
Although, as GORE-BUSH-2000 shows, such a system is not immune to fraud.
Lassiez-faire doesn't mean what you think it means. You want "apathetic."
I disagree here.
For one, the founders disagreed wildly on exactly who should have full citizenship and the vote. Where they agreed on, was that each citizen should have full human rights, including the right to full representation in the government that represents them. That's not a priviledge, because it's "We the people," not "We, the property of the government."
I find your argument especially flawed because, for YEARS now, the Republican party has aimed more and more of its efforts at portraying itself as anti-intellectual. I mean, it's not a mistake that we have a yale graduate who pretends to be a simple-minded cowboy, is it?
Also, I would imagine as many, if not more, people are voting for McCain on account of the color of his skin.
It's a DEMOCRATIC republic, and one that operates (nominally) to enforce the will of the people. Such language is enshrined in the declaration of independence.
This would be a compelling argument, if Bush was acting all on his own, yelling "WILDCARD, BITCHES!" He hasn't been. Last minute distancing on the part of McCain doesn't change the fact that Bush, for most of his terms, had a large and controlling majority of the GOP solidly behind him.
Bullshit. Ever heard of a veto? Also, Congress only controls funding for this particular war, and I can see not wanting to risk pulling the funding out, only to have Bush leave the troops in, or have Iraq collapse like a house of cards on top of them. Also, is "not fixing a wrong" just as bad as "perpetrating new wrongs consistently and purposefully?" I don't think so.
This would be a fine argument if a socialist was running. As it is, it's showing that people are still susceptible to panic at the thought of any words attached to Soviet Russia, decades after the McCarthy era.
Seriously; the welfare queen never existed. And currently, the system is set up to draw the wealth OF the middle class and use it to subsidize business, the revenue of which is entirely focused at the top end of the companies. CEOs are making hundreds and thousands of times what the low-level employees are making. This is not normal; as recently as ten or twenty years ago, the gaps were much lower.
We've re-created the Gilded Age. Do we need another Great Depression before we stop this crap?
Well, how else would you advocate changing the system?
The only ways I can think of to actually change the system from outside are being a foreign nation with leverage over the country in question, or violent overthrow.
If you want to change a political system as a citizen/national, well, that means you work within the system.
Unless you're just rebelling as a fashion statement and never plan to have any actual effect, of course.
Well, I'm not sure that I agree with you on "If they got kiddy porn for free, it's not a problem" angle, but regardless of position on that, it's currently a felony to look at kiddy porn. So, thus, law enforcement belongs there. Also, going after the people consuming kiddy porn seems to me to be a highly viable way of getting leads back to the producers, paid or not.
Again, I'm not making the "nothing to hide" argument. Never have been. I'm saying that, once you've been caught and a warrant for search has been legally issued, you don't have a right to conceal evidence requested by the law. Privacy laws aren't actually even involved here; this is evidence gathering that's pursuant from a criminal investigation already in progress, for which due cause is already proven.
If we were discussing a case in which, say, police illegally wiretapping someone found evidence of child pr0n, maybe your arguments would be relevant. But they aren't in the context we're working in.
Since when are "boring", "letter", or "figure" compound words or words with prefixes?
Mod parent motherfscking hilarious!
Again, I think we agree that the primary purpose of the law should be to protect the innocent, and that abuses of the law are common. That doesn't change the fact that, under current law, giving up that password is covered under lawful search and seizure. Furthermore, I think it's worth pointing out that, unless there is evidence proving your guilt on that encrypted drive, the search can't hurt you.
I want to be very clear here: I am not saying "If you're so innocent, what are you hiding?!" I'm saying that this whole conversation takes place in a supposition of guilt; we are talking about what a criminal, specifically a kiddy-porn aficionado, might do to prevent access to an encrypted volume that is known to be his and has a warrant covering it. We are talking, then, about whether these actions are legal.
Outside of that; personal experiences aside, it's naive to put forth that no agency can ever be allowed to search and seize property as part of an investigation. Just doesn't work. I'd like to hear an alternate plan, that doesn't involve a complete absence of any law enforcement. Because if you look at places where the government has broken down, and law enforcement doesn't function, you will find them uniformly worse than here. As a historical example, look at crime in the eighteenth century in England, prior to the formation of the Bow Street Runners.
Glad to hear it.
Occasionally my desire to inject humorous phrasing into my slashdotting backlashes on me ;-)
Except that if the safe is in your house and is guaranteed to be yours, they DO and SHOULD have the right, with warrant, to search the contents. Otherwise, any criminal with a safe is automatically exempted from justice. For that matter, by saying that you've forgotten the combination you've committed perjury, and I believe last access time for the software might very well be accessible, even if the information on the drive isn't.
No one ever claimed the justice system is perfect. No justice system ever is or will be. It's great when science can help make more accurate decisions possible; both in allowing the innocent to remain freed, and in allowing the guilty to be caught. Saying "Oh, sometimes convictions made with worse technology have been wrong, the justice system is completely broken" ignores the fact that, well, Ted Bundy was also caught and tried and convicted. So are a bunch of muggers, rapists, and gangsters. It's not a simple case of "good/bad," it's a complicated system that, yes, needs constant supervision and reform to operate well. But stripping any ability to do search and seizure AFTER probable cause is proved and a warrant is issued isn't in anyone's interest except criminals. Period.
It's similar because, honestly, my position is the same. You're still arguing for a fairly dystopian view of law enforcement in total, and I still don't buy it.
For instance, while I don't know if there is a particularly bad set of cops where you live, I've seen plenty of cops driving normally. I've also seen them speeding and/or ignoring traffic laws.
What I've seen much more often is them obeying traffic laws. But what's much more memorable is them not obeying traffic laws, because it stands out.
Also, I'm not seeing where I have been rude or irrational in this thread, and I'm sorry if you've felt yelled at.
That's a legally questionable interpretation of the 5th amendment. They've ruled that way in Vermont, sure, but it's almost sure to be invalidated on appeal, and can't be relied on. Discussion here
Much as hashing all of your files and comparing them to a list of known hashes is searching, asking you to acquiesce to a lawful search isn't compelling you to give testimony. It's the same principle as making you open your door when there's a subpoena.
Also, your having encrypted the volumes and refused to comply with discovery on them will likely be seen as suspicious action, and be admissible as evidence itself.
And that's my freaking point.
It's rare, but there have been instances of people as young as 9 giving birth. Also, what about the possibility of disease?
You weren't responsible about it - because you weren't old enough to know better. That's what competent means in a legal context, and what I mean by it.
And for some of us, that's already Linux ;-)
I do have to say that this mentality IS a big problem in law enforcement, and does need to be dealt with. I'm just very uncomfortable with the "It's 100% of cops" aspect, and with viewpoints that only take into account the bad things police do, and ignore the actual services and benefits that police provide to citizens.