Really? I'm more familiar with the Canadian Greens, who are actually more of a classical conservative party -- outside of the fact that they place a heavy emphasis on enviromental protection, educational funding, and healthcare. These three issues do push them well into the left, but nevertheless, their other policies are supposedly quite conservative, and have been managing to take up to 10% of the popular vote in some elections. But the American Greens could be a totally different manner of beast, no doubt.
Hey, don't get me wrong -- I think Libertarians (real Libertarians, that is, not anarchists, neocons, marxists, classical conservatives, liberals, ultraliberals, or any of the other people that call themselves Libertarian and grossly outnumber number actual Libertarians) are idiots who are chasing a fantasy that is only slightly less practical than Communism (Marx's version -- and we all know how realistic that turned out to be).
Still, they're far closer to being genuinely conservative than any party in American politics today. The Republican party has degenerated into something resembling either Fascism or Communism (Stalin's version). Actually, I've heard that the Greens are actually quite conservative, in the classical sense, once you look past their enviromental policies. Still, conservative Americans hate everything about enviromentalism so strongly that they would never even consider the Green party even if the Greens promised to make Christianity the national religion and enforce it by giving the death sentence to heretics.
Besides -- "They want to fully hand over power to the leading corporations of the day" -- isn't that what the GOP is already doing?
"Emo hipsters in their 30's". Don't be ridiculous, emo people don't even vote . The metal studs on those tacky belts they wear get caught on the doors of the polling boths, and they can't get in. And that's assuming that they could stop sitting at home crying and reading Sartre, or cutting themselves to impress chicks.
I had this terrible sinking suspicion that the US would make the list. I haven't been this glad to be wrong since the time that my doctor assured me that it wasn't malignant.
Still, it's a great reminder that democracy and free speech are not things that you can take for granted. Given another decade or two of passivity on the part of American voters*, and the USA could wind up taking a place on lists like that. On the other hand, if Americans were to start taking ideas like liberty seriously, they could start using phrases like "Land of the Free" again, without everyone bursting into derisive laughter and then assaulting them with nerf weapons.
* (Am I really the only liberal that was disgusted that Americans actually voted for the Democrats as their progressive party?! Lame. Seriously lame. That party gave America the DMCA, which to this day stifles security research and technological advancement. They destroyed an aspirin factory using cruise missiles to distract people from the fact that th president was LYING UNDER OATH TO THE SUPREME COURT. That should be considered treason for a president. Why can't Americans start voting for a pair of rational parties; Green vs Libertarian would make for a great election, don't you think?)
== BALLOT ==
Jerkface Johnson: _____O
Libby the liberal: ____O
ChangeIsBad Charlie: __O
Barbara BanItAll: _____O
Kevin the Commie: _____O
Procedure:
Attempt to put a mark in the circle next to the name of the candidate for which you wish to vote.
If successful, put the ballot in box and go home. Comfort yourself with the knowledge that your IQ is at least in the double digits.
If unsuccessfull, you are in SERIOUS danger of choking to death on your own drool, and shouldn't be voting in the first place. Voting is for grown-ups. Go home and practice your voting skills by attempting to operate simpler devices like door-knobs, hammers, waste baskets, milk, and towels.
For the rest of the world, the above procedure works fine. Why are Americans the only people on the entire planet so goddam fucking stupid that they can consistently fuck it up? Is it something in the water? Some noxious chemical that literally rots the brain until check-boxes become an impenetrable mystery? Is it something to do with the schools? An educational program in which electrical-shock-aversion-therapy is used to induce an intense phobia of small circles with names next to them? For the love of God, what is wrong with this country?
Canada holds its federal elections using nothing more than hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. The entire vote takes three hours, and in the most recent election the results were known in slightly under 24 hours. That's 14.8 million votes (out of 22.8 million registered voters). If we can manage it, I'm sure a town of eighty people can scrounge up a few people with the necessary numeracy skills to successfully count the ballots. For that matter, the richest nation on Earth ought to be able to put together an election that isn't laughably broken. Sure, it would require centralized management -- which admittedly makes many Americans collapse into blubbering, weeping heaps of anarchistic cowardice -- but Americans could at least have some confidence that their nation is indeed a democracy.
Well, my current profession is petroleum retail specialist. IE: I work a cash register at a gas station. The code of conduct consists of: don't steal from the till, don't steal merchandise, don't punch customers (there's a special exemption made for punching SUV owners who gripe about the cost of gasoline), and don't start any fires unless you're sure that it would be really really funny. I've never violated it, and neither has any of my colleagues. And if they did, I'd report them.
My planned career is to be in the sciences. The code of conduct there? Don't falsify data. That's pretty much it. Somehow I think I'll manage to do those things. And exposing scientists who violate those rules is a VITAL aspect of science. That's the whole point of peer review and repeating the experiments of others -- to expose those who falsify data. So there again, anyone who violates the rules needs to be fucked over as hard as possible.
I'm not suggesting that cops be fired for violating their own silly little rules. I'm suggesting they be fired and jailed (and maybe hung) for BREAKING THE LAW THAT THEY SWORE TO UPHOLD. Why is having to obey the law considered so difficult for cops? Should I be able to get away with flagrantly breaking the law, just because I'm human and imperfect? No one gets in a fuss when lawyers are disbarred for even the slightest breech of their professional code of conduct. No gets in a fuss that doctors lose their license to practice medicine for violating their oaths. But when it's a cop, everyone is up and arms and defends their right to rape and assault people and then cover it up. Well fuck them. The fact that cops are held to a lower standard of behaviour than lawyers is frightening.
Every time a cop is held accountable for anything, it was because someone outside of the police force fought like a rabid weasel to make it happen. It almost always requires enormous media attention, enough so that the people at the top come to believe that their jobs may be on the line. It often takes years or decades to get any action taken at all. The police never take compaints against their officers seriously. I never suggested that cops always get away with things; they don't. But it takes outside action.
Since when does putting your life on the line make one worthy of respect? The junky put his life on the line too. Those soldiers who raped a teenage girl in Iraq and murdered her and her family -- they put their lives on the line just as much as their more honourable colleagues. Taking risks has ZERO correlation to deserving respect.
Yes, only some cops commit crimes. But the rest protect them and hide their crimes. That works out to a grand total of zero good cops. Well, there are always a few who do act as whistleblowers. They come along about once in a generation, so the percentage of cops sufficiently good as to not warrant hanging is still just slightly over 0%.
All cops would need to do to have my respect is this: fire and then arrest ANY cop who commits ANY crime whatsoever. Period. That's it. But it doesn't happen. Until it does, they're all scum; some of them are criminal scum, some of them are the scum that protects the criminal scum.
All homosexual men are attracted to little boys?
Wow... you've never actually studied reasoning, have you? I'll disprove those right now: one of my roommates is black, and he's quite peaceful. Disproven. One of my friends in university was Jewish, and she was quite generous. Disproven. I know two homosexual men, and neither is attracted to little boys. Disproven. You can totally make those claims -- it's just that they're easy to disprove. That's how reasoning works. Universal claims stand so long as there are no counterexamples, generalizations stand so long as counterexamples are comparatively rare. Existential claims (ie: there is at least one police officer who wouldn't look the other way while his partner beat the shit out of prostitutes for fun) require an example. An existential claim is one that says that something exists. I'm not making an existential claim. I'm making a generalization. You shouldn't toss around these terms without at least a bit of education about what they mean, you know.
Oh, and I'm still waiting for you to cite even a single police station on the entire planet that wouldn't cover up the crimes of its officers. Can you name even one counterexample?
I thought not. I've named several HUGE police forces that protect criminal officers as a matter of course. Basically, the RCMP and OPP constitute about 90% of all police officers in Canada. So at the very least, I can tell you that Canadian police officers are mostly criminals. Those who don't commit crimes still aid and abet the crimes of others. And I've yet to hear of ANY police force that doesn't protect its members from criminal charges. Are you suggesting that American police forces don't commit crimes? Are you suggesting that the blue wall doesn't exist in the US? In Europe? In Thailand? You're stretching.
This is getting seriously pathetic. This isn't a social sciences class. There is no requirement for proof that would hold up in a thesis defence. It's about what we both know is true -- that almost all police forces have criminal members (you know this) and that almost all police forces protect those members (you know this), making almost all cops criminals. I'm pointing out something that most people already know but are uncomfortable with. You want a 20 page essay with sources? Sorry, not going to happen. You could supply one yourself though, to defend cops from my heinous allegations.
People who make mistakes are still people. It's when the supposedly good cops start covering for the bad ones, when accountability is completely lost, when they can do ANYTHING they want with no reprecussions whatsoever, that they become monsters. I make mistakes -- and I own up to them. I don't cover for anyone's crimes. I'd turn in a coworker for stealing from the company without batting an eye (and probably quit immediately afterwards out of necessity). That's what separates me from cops. Cops will protect each other no matter what they've done. THAT'S monstrous. They're an unruly mob with licenses to kill and tax-payer supplied weapons and equipment.
Well, I also read. You know, newspapers and things. Every police force has incidents of corruption and crime among its officers. That's human nature. Can you actually name any police stations with NO incidents of crime by officers? Can you provide any numbers? I can make any universal claim I like about a group, so long as there are no counterexamples. So provide a counterexample or go home. And I can make any generalization I like so long as counterexamples are rare.
So lets have the counterexamples. Any of them. Police forces where the officers never commit crime, or the honest officers don't cover for the criminals. Isn't that easy? Provide ANY DATA WHATSOEVER. You don't have anecdotal data; you don't have broad social trends (newspapers throughout the world will confirm what I'm saying -- police forces are rife with crime and corruption). You have NOTHING. There isn't a single shred of evidence that police officers failing to cover for each others' crimes is anything but a rare and beautiful jewel in an ocean of shit.
Oh, and you can make inferences from small samples. For bi-valued data, a random sample of size 17 is enough to have about 95% confidence that your sample is representative. The VPD has 1000 officers. The RCMP has around 22000. The OPP has 5300. The Halifax police has 615 officers. All four of these police forces are VIGILANT about covering for their criminal officers. Whistleblowers are nearly unheard of. That's a sample of 29000 officers, who either commit crimes or are willing to cover for the crimes of others.
Now you go. List off the police officers who are willing to protect us from their criminal peers. The ones who stand up to corruption, rather than fighting and resisting overview at every turn. And include numbers.
So, the cop who searched all my belongings without a warrant, without probably cause, without permission, and while off the job (yet still wearing his uniform and carrying his badge and gun), did so because... I deserved it? For the heinous crime of being his daughter's roommate? Or what about the cop who was going to kill my dad for having an affair with his wife? Is that a form of provacation for which a police officer can legally use deadly force? Or what about the police officers who dropped a bag of pot at friend's party just so that they could shut it down? Just doing their jobs, right? Even though it was the cops who were criminal shitheads for carrying pot around? The cops I watched assaulting a schizophrenic homeless person the other day? He wasn't resisting. He didn't fight back. He didn't struggle. He just reacted slowly because he had no real idea what was going on. So the cops beat the shit out of him. He was on the ground, in the fetal position, and they kept beating him. Or the cop who raped a family friend who was in the witness relocation program and threatened to kill her husband if she told anyone? She must have just been a bad person... cops don't rape women unless provoked, eh? Not a single one of these cops was ever held to any level of accountability whatsoever. And hey, the cops in Manitoba who spent their winters going around picking up homeless people at night, driving them to the outskirts of town, and dropping them off to die in the -30 degree blizzards? Dozens of dead homeless, natives, and anyone else regarded as a troublemaker? They deserved to die? They brought it on themselves? The only two cops ever charged for that were suspended with pay. That's a reward, not a punishment. Rewarded for murdering people who had committed no crimes.
Sorry, no sale. Cops are evil, stupid, bullies. The ones who don't hurt people cover for the ones who do. They'll hurt you for nearly any reason, legitimate or otherwise.
Turn it around: name one police force on the planet that wouldn't immediately deny any accusations against its members. If a civilian is accused of a crime, the police start investigating. If a police officer is accused of a crime, the police deploy their public relations officers and do investigating of any kind.
Seriously -- name a police force that is either above reproach (no such thing -- we're talking about Humans here) or totally committed to investigating the crimes of its members. Name one for each police force denies every allegation against one of its members. You KNOW which number will be much larger.
Oh, another good one: one of my past roommates was the daughter of a cop. One day her father came to visit her, and decided to do an impromptu search through all of my belongings. No warrant, no probable cause, just the psychotic paranoia and sense of entitlement that go with the badge.
Or, and this one is particularly good, my Dad's affair; the woman's husband was a high-ranking, highly-decorated detective. When they both decided to divorce their current partners, this pinnacle of the community, this man of honour and justice, came to kill my dad. Fortunately my father and his bride-to-be had made haste out of town, because they were pretty sure that he would do exactly that. Funny how a man so willing to commit murder would rise so high in the police... he later took custody of his children illegally, and spent the next decade convincing them that their mother was pure evil. And of course, being a cop, he was never held accountable for any of it and was able to have the custody made official (judges hate cheating women; oddly enough, cheating men seem to do just fine in court:roll: ).
Suffice to say, no cops have ever stood up for me or my rights. They shut down parties that I go to. They've ignored me the few times I've needed to call the police for thefts at my store. They spend 90% of their time hunting down grow-ops -- and then they auction off the siezed hyrdoponics equipment to line their pockets, putting it back in the hands of drug producers. Then they do nothing about the heroin dealers who operate in the open on Main and Hastings. Everyone knows they are there, you can watch deals go down as you drive past. You'll step on needles as you walk through the area if you're not careful (not to mention tripping over the junkies sprawled everywhere). The cops do nothing, other than to lobby the government to shut down treatment programs. Yes, you read that right. They lobby the government to shut down treatment programs. These are evil, evil men and women.
I could go on and on... examples of police corruption shouldn't be this easy to find! They should be rare aberrations! Not the status quo.
I don't hate all cops. I just hate cops that allow each other to get away with crimes. Show me a police force that either --
a) has no members that commit crimes or abuse their power --
or
b) doesn't try to cover up the crimes of its members, and invites independent public inquiry to eliminate corruption because they actually respect laws and justice --
and I'll respect its members. In fact, show me a whistle-blower cop, and I'll respect him or her. They exist... they're just an extremely rare breed. I'm sure there are a few neonazis out there that respect other races. There are at least one or two Christians in the world who actually respect the freedoms and rights of others. Anything is possible. And I respect those people. But they're hideously rare. The local cops? They protect each other. No whistleblowers. Not a single one of them has a spine. I'm not generalizing -- I'm referring to precisely those cops that either commit crimes or protect those that commit crimes. Covering up a crime is itself a crime -- and you know that. So you also know that every single cop who turns a blind eye to corruption is also a criminal.
I'm not suggesting we get rid of the police. I'm suggesting complete and independent oversight of their actions by the public, and that any cop who commits a crime (including abetting the crimes of others) while on duty be tried for treason. Any cop who doesn't want to obey the law should quit. Abdicate their responsibility?! Good, if they throw in the towel on their own, so much the better. If they didn't it would have to be stripped from them by force.
Do you really think that it would be bad if criminals were removed from the police force? Of course you don't. No one wants to give criminals guns and body armor and a license to kill at will. Just keep in mind that abetting a crime is itself a crime. Conspiracy is a crime. And so most cops are in every legal sense criminals.
So where are the "good" cops when their peers are being corrupt scum? Oh, that's right -- maintaining the "blue wall", protecting the slime and covering up their crimes. That doesn't exactly make them pinnacles of morality. Tolerating evil, protecting it, turning a blind eye -- that's hardly better than getting out there and assaulting prostitutes for kicks yourself. When I see cops testify against cops, when they scrutinize each other and hold each other to a high moral standard, I'll stand up and show some respect. Until then, they're subhuman.
One winter back in the 1990s in Manitoba, there were some cops who picked up a local teenager, drove him to the outskirts of town, and left him there. It's important to note at this point that during a Manitoba winter, the temperature gets down to -30 celsius and the wind chill can easily bring it further down to -50. Unsurprisingly, the kid froze to death and died. Guess who covered it up? Every single cop in the entire city. No heroes, no whistleblowers, just a blue wall of evil, evil people.
Then it turned out that they did this regularly with anyone who was homeless, perceived as a troublemaker, or "First Nations". It took an extensive public inquiry to determine what happened and collect enough evidence to make a case. A good, decent, honourable cop would have spearheaded the investigation and crucified his colleagues for committing such a heinous act in inhumanity. A shitty evil cop would avoid doing an investigation because he doesn't give even the slightest thought to justice, the law, or even Human life.
So what was the final outcome? The officers responsible were suspended WITH PAY, and the family got an apology from the current police chief. That's what a Human life is worth to the police: early retirement and some hollow words from someone who has nothing to do with the situation whatsoever.
Heh, I'd vote for your law, and subscribe to your newsletter.
Jail time for politicians who break their campaign promises? That would be so fucking sweet that I'm getting diabetes thinking about it. Elections would actually mean something. Politicians might have to... gasp... make reasonable promises and argue sensibly and rationally!
You know, I actually read a newspaper article about a group of law school students (in Toronto, I think) who formed a legal aid society to press lawsuits against cops. The trick was that they did it exclusively in small-claims court, where the burden of proof is much lower. And if you lose, the amount that you can be forced to pay to cover your opponents legal costs is quite small, making it the society more economically viable. Getting cops put in jail is virtually impossible; taking a few thousand dollars out of the station's pockets (plus legal fees) and generating massive amounts of bad publicity for the police sends a dire message. They had actually won a number of cases, and established some (admittedly minor) precedents for suing police officers. They had a whole archive tracking greviances against various cops. Pretty impressive for a bunch of students. I bet they'll have no trouble making top dollar in their own practices someday. I wish I had a link to post to the story.
Well, there was the one that actually raped a family friend. Does that count?
Or the local police station where the officers would have drinking parties in the station, and then drive home completely piss drunk. Then they covered it up.
There was the incident with the two drug dealers who, rather than being arrested, were taken to Stanley Park by the cops, beaten, and then released (way to protect us, assholes; they're free still free, and will probably arm themselves).
I actually saw two cops assaulting a homeless man. I witnessed the entire event -- they began beating him for not responding to their commands fast enough. Very heroic. Meanwhile there were drug dealers less than thirty feet away. To make it extra stupid, they were transit cops, and were doing this outside of transit grounds where they had no authority whatsoever.
Of the small number of women I know who've been raped, not one ever got any help from the police. Yet the police had more than enough time to throw my roommate in jail overnight for being drunk in public. They also had enough time to go to a friend's party and "find" (ie: plant) a bag of pot.
Oh, and when I lived in Maple Ridge, the noble RCMP would spend hours at a time in Tim Hortons drinking complimentary donuts. Maple Ridge has the highest murder rate in the entire province, a horrendous drug problem with crystal meth labs all over the place, and entire little communities of teenage date-rape moms. Yet free coffee was their top priority, night after night.
I respect the need for police, very much so. But bad, shitty cops are NOT rare. Policing is treated like any other job -- most people do the bare minimum amount of work necessary to avoid being fired, and abuse their position for the "perks" they can get.
They CHOSE that job. It's like if you apply for a job letting tarantulas bite you. You don't really get to bitch about it. Just get a new job, and slap yourself in the face as hard as you can for being stupid enough to take a job letting tarantulas bite you in the first place.
If you apply for a job pissing people off and harassing them, assaulting teenagers for the heinous crime of loitering, ignoring rape victims while using deadly force to deal with noise complaints, well, you really can't expect people not to judge you for it.
Exactly. Ask ANYONE who does customer service how hard it is to not punch the occasional customer's face in, let alone not yell at people or tell them to fuck off (in all fairness, I've heard that this is just a Canadian thing. Other cultures frown much more strongly on casual, friendly usage of the phrase "fuck off". What can I say, we love our casual profanity).
Do they ever do it? Almost never, and if they did they would lose their job as the absolutely best-case scenario. More likely, they get fired, get sued, never work again, and have to spend the rest of their life giving handjobs to support their crack addiction. What makes cops think they're above that? Firing cops who abuse their power is the very least that should happen to them.
It's arguably closer to treason, since they're abusing a sacred trust that has been placed in them. The power to use violence is a very serious one, and it is not casually that we've waived the right to claim our own justice with vigilanteism and lynch-mobs. The whole point is for police officers to be better than vigilantes and mobs -- otherwise, how are they worth the tremedous price? Why entrusting them with anything if we can't actually trust them?
It was a really, really long day... Actually, I made the post at the very start of the day, at which point it was still a very very short day. But it's still a valid excuse; I was being proactive with my crankiness. Proactive is good. Ergo, I rule.
Yeah, and the whole impetus behind studying the elements was to turn lead into gold. But not anymore.
How much power gets used by computers, TVs, air conditioners, and other appliances that operate mostly during the day? What about industry? Commerce? Office towers use most of their power during the day. Many factories shut down at night.
Daytime is when most electricity gets used. That's part of the reason solar makes so much sense once it is affordable.
Solar towers are indeed neat -- operating even it's overcast, and purifying water as a free bonus. But the massive size seems to make them a sub-optimal solution. My money's in engineers finding better ways to produce solar cells, and in stirling generators.
Are we there yet with solar? No, but I think the tipping point is coming. The fact that there is some serious private investment in solar is the biggest sign. Some businesses are getting some massive investment based on new patents that threaten to bring the price of solar cells way down. Stirling generators are just superb for plopping down on your roof.
I always wonder how much it would cost to lease people's roofs. Basically, it's like a whole bunch of land that you could put solar generators on, produce power, and sell it. Most of these systems are supposed to generate more power than an average house uses, right? So, in exchange for a portion of the power, Joe- and Jane-homeowner lease you their roof, you pay for a fixed proportion of their monthly wattage, and you get to sell the rest to local commerce and industry. Because you operate at a large scale, you can make the generators, batteries, and electrician-hours much more affordable than the homeowners can. Everyone gets cheaper power, roofs look more interesting, industry benefits because of cheap local power, etc.
Building solar power plants seems to be missing the point -- solar's ability to be widely distributed should be taken advantage of.
You've "read"? Check the fucking budget. You listen to some nutjob anarchists and you just assume that they're telling the truth? The government itself claims that the military constitutes 68% of all government spending. Frankly, they would -- if anything -- be prone to claim that it's less than it really is. Welfare is a pitifully small budget expenditure in the US. It's amazing how low it is. But don't take my word for it -- download yourself a copy of the US budget and your state's budget (get the municipal budget too if you like). Check it out. It would be very informative I'm sure.
It's odd that you would try to say anything about what most "libertarians" believe, since most libertarians vote Republican and thus favour BIG government, HUGE military expenditures, and VAST government interference. A bigger group of idiots there never was... well, maybe communists living in non-communist nations (they should know better).
Ultimately, let it come down to this: I say that America is a democracy and that majority rules -- regardless of what the constitution says. You say that America is a republic and that the majority does not rule -- despite vast evidence to the contrary. Does the majority NOT get to vote for things like taking money from the rich to feed the poor? America HAS welfare programs. Many states DO have healthcare programs, and I heard that Massachussets is actually implementing universal healthcare. Cities can take your land as long as they say they really really want it. So do you believe the idealistic fantasy, or the real world? The fantasy that the majority can't impose it's will on minorities, or the reality that it happens routinely and casually?
Welcome to the real world -- the US is a democracy; it is the very MODEL of a democracy. Warts and all. The republic was cast aside shortly after it was conceived of. The constitution is barely better than a used coffee filter. Need a final example? The law forbidding you from masturbating or engaging in any sexual act that isn't intercourse for reproductive purposes was only recently struck down. How did a republic with limited government power allow such an abominable and tyrannical law to stand for so long?! WHY DOES INCOME TAX EVEN EXIST IN YOUR "REPUBLIC"?
It's odd that you can believe in a man that no one can see, hear, or feel, but have trouble with the idea of a universal morality -- which is really nothing other than god without any anthropomorphization.
Anyway, this has basically become quite dull. Like most hypocrites, you can't even consider the possibility that you may be wrong. Like most irrational people, you never under any circumstances question your assumptions. Like most self-righteous people, you assume that anyone who doesn't believe as you do must be evil and wrong. If you can't consider the possibility that you are mistaken, if you can't consider what an alternate viewpoint would be like, why bother having discussions at all? I walked your path for 24 years with all the diligence and faithfullness that I could, until doubt and real world evidence showed me that I was wrong. Seeing christians, ministers and reverends even, advocating murder and execution and the abandonment of homeless to their ultimate deaths... how could I possibly think that religion had any positive effect on their behaviour whatsoever? Meanwhile, the people that were fighting for Human rights, opposing war, and encouraging love and acceptance of all people were mostly atheists. The people who tried the hardest to help me were not people of faith. If want to be taken seriously, try walking my path. Try to consider life from the eyes of the faithless -- for real I mean, not your caricature of them. Try to actually empathize with them and understand why they feel the way they do. Try questioning your assumptions and circular reasoning. See if doubting God's existence makes you suddenly feel open to commiting rape and murder. I'll wager that you'll find that you retain your disinclination towards harming others, regardless of whether you believe in invisible judges.
Also, an important note: the bible doesn't say anything about heaven or hell. It says that when you die, you're dead. God may raise some people on judgement day, but the rest just stay dead. That's why the bible says that Christ saves you from death, not hell. That's why Jews don't drone on and on about hell and demons and Satan being out to get you. Hell is mostly something that later Christians dreamed up to scare people into converting. It isn't much better than conversion by the sword, if you think about it.
My morality does pre-exist me and will exist when I'm gone -- it's encoded into our genetics. Altruism is a natural consequence of being a social species, and evolutionary psychology has made very strong arguments about that. So yes, morality can be pre-existing, fairly universal and consistent, and I can simply KNOW it. That's the hallmark of instinct, not magical flying men that smite babies for no reason.
Oh, and did you read the "Know Your Bible" page? Good stuff there, good stuff. I suppose you're off to Iraq now to murder some children of Babylon? That is what is demanded of you, after all. Not that you follow a bible -- the bible commands you (a woman I presume based your ID) not to teach (1 Timothy 2:11). Yet here you are, violating the word of god and trying to teach me about the nature of faith. For shame, sinner.
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I guess you'd be pretty fucked. Of course, libertarians and greens are totally fucked right now anyway, so if anything it would be a step up.
Really? I'm more familiar with the Canadian Greens, who are actually more of a classical conservative party -- outside of the fact that they place a heavy emphasis on enviromental protection, educational funding, and healthcare. These three issues do push them well into the left, but nevertheless, their other policies are supposedly quite conservative, and have been managing to take up to 10% of the popular vote in some elections. But the American Greens could be a totally different manner of beast, no doubt.
Still, they're far closer to being genuinely conservative than any party in American politics today. The Republican party has degenerated into something resembling either Fascism or Communism (Stalin's version). Actually, I've heard that the Greens are actually quite conservative, in the classical sense, once you look past their enviromental policies. Still, conservative Americans hate everything about enviromentalism so strongly that they would never even consider the Green party even if the Greens promised to make Christianity the national religion and enforce it by giving the death sentence to heretics.
Besides -- "They want to fully hand over power to the leading corporations of the day" -- isn't that what the GOP is already doing?
"Emo hipsters in their 30's". Don't be ridiculous, emo people don't even vote . The metal studs on those tacky belts they wear get caught on the doors of the polling boths, and they can't get in. And that's assuming that they could stop sitting at home crying and reading Sartre, or cutting themselves to impress chicks.
Still, it's a great reminder that democracy and free speech are not things that you can take for granted. Given another decade or two of passivity on the part of American voters*, and the USA could wind up taking a place on lists like that. On the other hand, if Americans were to start taking ideas like liberty seriously, they could start using phrases like "Land of the Free" again, without everyone bursting into derisive laughter and then assaulting them with nerf weapons.
* (Am I really the only liberal that was disgusted that Americans actually voted for the Democrats as their progressive party?! Lame. Seriously lame. That party gave America the DMCA, which to this day stifles security research and technological advancement. They destroyed an aspirin factory using cruise missiles to distract people from the fact that th president was LYING UNDER OATH TO THE SUPREME COURT. That should be considered treason for a president. Why can't Americans start voting for a pair of rational parties; Green vs Libertarian would make for a great election, don't you think?)
Jerkface Johnson: _____O
Libby the liberal: ____O
ChangeIsBad Charlie: __O
Barbara BanItAll: _____O
Kevin the Commie: _____O
Procedure:
For the rest of the world, the above procedure works fine. Why are Americans the only people on the entire planet so goddam fucking stupid that they can consistently fuck it up? Is it something in the water? Some noxious chemical that literally rots the brain until check-boxes become an impenetrable mystery? Is it something to do with the schools? An educational program in which electrical-shock-aversion-therapy is used to induce an intense phobia of small circles with names next to them? For the love of God, what is wrong with this country?
Canada holds its federal elections using nothing more than hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. The entire vote takes three hours, and in the most recent election the results were known in slightly under 24 hours. That's 14.8 million votes (out of 22.8 million registered voters). If we can manage it, I'm sure a town of eighty people can scrounge up a few people with the necessary numeracy skills to successfully count the ballots. For that matter, the richest nation on Earth ought to be able to put together an election that isn't laughably broken. Sure, it would require centralized management -- which admittedly makes many Americans collapse into blubbering, weeping heaps of anarchistic cowardice -- but Americans could at least have some confidence that their nation is indeed a democracy.
My planned career is to be in the sciences. The code of conduct there? Don't falsify data. That's pretty much it. Somehow I think I'll manage to do those things. And exposing scientists who violate those rules is a VITAL aspect of science. That's the whole point of peer review and repeating the experiments of others -- to expose those who falsify data. So there again, anyone who violates the rules needs to be fucked over as hard as possible.
I'm not suggesting that cops be fired for violating their own silly little rules. I'm suggesting they be fired and jailed (and maybe hung) for BREAKING THE LAW THAT THEY SWORE TO UPHOLD. Why is having to obey the law considered so difficult for cops? Should I be able to get away with flagrantly breaking the law, just because I'm human and imperfect? No one gets in a fuss when lawyers are disbarred for even the slightest breech of their professional code of conduct. No gets in a fuss that doctors lose their license to practice medicine for violating their oaths. But when it's a cop, everyone is up and arms and defends their right to rape and assault people and then cover it up. Well fuck them. The fact that cops are held to a lower standard of behaviour than lawyers is frightening.
Every time a cop is held accountable for anything, it was because someone outside of the police force fought like a rabid weasel to make it happen. It almost always requires enormous media attention, enough so that the people at the top come to believe that their jobs may be on the line. It often takes years or decades to get any action taken at all. The police never take compaints against their officers seriously. I never suggested that cops always get away with things; they don't. But it takes outside action.
Yes, only some cops commit crimes. But the rest protect them and hide their crimes. That works out to a grand total of zero good cops. Well, there are always a few who do act as whistleblowers. They come along about once in a generation, so the percentage of cops sufficiently good as to not warrant hanging is still just slightly over 0%.
All cops would need to do to have my respect is this: fire and then arrest ANY cop who commits ANY crime whatsoever. Period. That's it. But it doesn't happen. Until it does, they're all scum; some of them are criminal scum, some of them are the scum that protects the criminal scum.
All black people are violent?
All Jews are greedy?
All homosexual men are attracted to little boys? Wow... you've never actually studied reasoning, have you? I'll disprove those right now: one of my roommates is black, and he's quite peaceful. Disproven. One of my friends in university was Jewish, and she was quite generous. Disproven. I know two homosexual men, and neither is attracted to little boys. Disproven. You can totally make those claims -- it's just that they're easy to disprove. That's how reasoning works. Universal claims stand so long as there are no counterexamples, generalizations stand so long as counterexamples are comparatively rare. Existential claims (ie: there is at least one police officer who wouldn't look the other way while his partner beat the shit out of prostitutes for fun) require an example. An existential claim is one that says that something exists. I'm not making an existential claim. I'm making a generalization. You shouldn't toss around these terms without at least a bit of education about what they mean, you know.
Oh, and I'm still waiting for you to cite even a single police station on the entire planet that wouldn't cover up the crimes of its officers. Can you name even one counterexample?
I thought not. I've named several HUGE police forces that protect criminal officers as a matter of course. Basically, the RCMP and OPP constitute about 90% of all police officers in Canada. So at the very least, I can tell you that Canadian police officers are mostly criminals. Those who don't commit crimes still aid and abet the crimes of others. And I've yet to hear of ANY police force that doesn't protect its members from criminal charges. Are you suggesting that American police forces don't commit crimes? Are you suggesting that the blue wall doesn't exist in the US? In Europe? In Thailand? You're stretching.
This is getting seriously pathetic. This isn't a social sciences class. There is no requirement for proof that would hold up in a thesis defence. It's about what we both know is true -- that almost all police forces have criminal members (you know this) and that almost all police forces protect those members (you know this), making almost all cops criminals. I'm pointing out something that most people already know but are uncomfortable with. You want a 20 page essay with sources? Sorry, not going to happen. You could supply one yourself though, to defend cops from my heinous allegations.
People who make mistakes are still people. It's when the supposedly good cops start covering for the bad ones, when accountability is completely lost, when they can do ANYTHING they want with no reprecussions whatsoever, that they become monsters. I make mistakes -- and I own up to them. I don't cover for anyone's crimes. I'd turn in a coworker for stealing from the company without batting an eye (and probably quit immediately afterwards out of necessity). That's what separates me from cops. Cops will protect each other no matter what they've done. THAT'S monstrous. They're an unruly mob with licenses to kill and tax-payer supplied weapons and equipment.
So lets have the counterexamples. Any of them. Police forces where the officers never commit crime, or the honest officers don't cover for the criminals. Isn't that easy? Provide ANY DATA WHATSOEVER. You don't have anecdotal data; you don't have broad social trends (newspapers throughout the world will confirm what I'm saying -- police forces are rife with crime and corruption). You have NOTHING. There isn't a single shred of evidence that police officers failing to cover for each others' crimes is anything but a rare and beautiful jewel in an ocean of shit.
Oh, and you can make inferences from small samples. For bi-valued data, a random sample of size 17 is enough to have about 95% confidence that your sample is representative. The VPD has 1000 officers. The RCMP has around 22000. The OPP has 5300. The Halifax police has 615 officers. All four of these police forces are VIGILANT about covering for their criminal officers. Whistleblowers are nearly unheard of. That's a sample of 29000 officers, who either commit crimes or are willing to cover for the crimes of others.
Now you go. List off the police officers who are willing to protect us from their criminal peers. The ones who stand up to corruption, rather than fighting and resisting overview at every turn. And include numbers.
Sorry, no sale. Cops are evil, stupid, bullies. The ones who don't hurt people cover for the ones who do. They'll hurt you for nearly any reason, legitimate or otherwise.
Seriously -- name a police force that is either above reproach (no such thing -- we're talking about Humans here) or totally committed to investigating the crimes of its members. Name one for each police force denies every allegation against one of its members. You KNOW which number will be much larger.
Or, and this one is particularly good, my Dad's affair; the woman's husband was a high-ranking, highly-decorated detective. When they both decided to divorce their current partners, this pinnacle of the community, this man of honour and justice, came to kill my dad. Fortunately my father and his bride-to-be had made haste out of town, because they were pretty sure that he would do exactly that. Funny how a man so willing to commit murder would rise so high in the police... he later took custody of his children illegally, and spent the next decade convincing them that their mother was pure evil. And of course, being a cop, he was never held accountable for any of it and was able to have the custody made official (judges hate cheating women; oddly enough, cheating men seem to do just fine in court :roll: ).
Suffice to say, no cops have ever stood up for me or my rights. They shut down parties that I go to. They've ignored me the few times I've needed to call the police for thefts at my store. They spend 90% of their time hunting down grow-ops -- and then they auction off the siezed hyrdoponics equipment to line their pockets, putting it back in the hands of drug producers. Then they do nothing about the heroin dealers who operate in the open on Main and Hastings. Everyone knows they are there, you can watch deals go down as you drive past. You'll step on needles as you walk through the area if you're not careful (not to mention tripping over the junkies sprawled everywhere). The cops do nothing, other than to lobby the government to shut down treatment programs. Yes, you read that right. They lobby the government to shut down treatment programs. These are evil, evil men and women.
I could go on and on... examples of police corruption shouldn't be this easy to find! They should be rare aberrations! Not the status quo.
a) has no members that commit crimes or abuse their power --
or
b) doesn't try to cover up the crimes of its members, and invites independent public inquiry to eliminate corruption because they actually respect laws and justice --
and I'll respect its members. In fact, show me a whistle-blower cop, and I'll respect him or her. They exist ... they're just an extremely rare breed. I'm sure there are a few neonazis out there that respect other races. There are at least one or two Christians in the world who actually respect the freedoms and rights of others. Anything is possible. And I respect those people. But they're hideously rare. The local cops? They protect each other. No whistleblowers. Not a single one of them has a spine. I'm not generalizing -- I'm referring to precisely those cops that either commit crimes or protect those that commit crimes. Covering up a crime is itself a crime -- and you know that. So you also know that every single cop who turns a blind eye to corruption is also a criminal.
I'm not suggesting we get rid of the police. I'm suggesting complete and independent oversight of their actions by the public, and that any cop who commits a crime (including abetting the crimes of others) while on duty be tried for treason. Any cop who doesn't want to obey the law should quit. Abdicate their responsibility?! Good, if they throw in the towel on their own, so much the better. If they didn't it would have to be stripped from them by force.
Do you really think that it would be bad if criminals were removed from the police force? Of course you don't. No one wants to give criminals guns and body armor and a license to kill at will. Just keep in mind that abetting a crime is itself a crime. Conspiracy is a crime. And so most cops are in every legal sense criminals.
One winter back in the 1990s in Manitoba, there were some cops who picked up a local teenager, drove him to the outskirts of town, and left him there. It's important to note at this point that during a Manitoba winter, the temperature gets down to -30 celsius and the wind chill can easily bring it further down to -50. Unsurprisingly, the kid froze to death and died. Guess who covered it up? Every single cop in the entire city. No heroes, no whistleblowers, just a blue wall of evil, evil people.
Then it turned out that they did this regularly with anyone who was homeless, perceived as a troublemaker, or "First Nations". It took an extensive public inquiry to determine what happened and collect enough evidence to make a case. A good, decent, honourable cop would have spearheaded the investigation and crucified his colleagues for committing such a heinous act in inhumanity. A shitty evil cop would avoid doing an investigation because he doesn't give even the slightest thought to justice, the law, or even Human life.
Stonechild Scandal.
So what was the final outcome? The officers responsible were suspended WITH PAY, and the family got an apology from the current police chief. That's what a Human life is worth to the police: early retirement and some hollow words from someone who has nothing to do with the situation whatsoever.
Jail time for politicians who break their campaign promises? That would be so fucking sweet that I'm getting diabetes thinking about it. Elections would actually mean something. Politicians might have to ... gasp ... make reasonable promises and argue sensibly and rationally!
You know, I actually read a newspaper article about a group of law school students (in Toronto, I think) who formed a legal aid society to press lawsuits against cops. The trick was that they did it exclusively in small-claims court, where the burden of proof is much lower. And if you lose, the amount that you can be forced to pay to cover your opponents legal costs is quite small, making it the society more economically viable. Getting cops put in jail is virtually impossible; taking a few thousand dollars out of the station's pockets (plus legal fees) and generating massive amounts of bad publicity for the police sends a dire message. They had actually won a number of cases, and established some (admittedly minor) precedents for suing police officers. They had a whole archive tracking greviances against various cops. Pretty impressive for a bunch of students. I bet they'll have no trouble making top dollar in their own practices someday. I wish I had a link to post to the story.
Or the local police station where the officers would have drinking parties in the station, and then drive home completely piss drunk. Then they covered it up.
There was the incident with the two drug dealers who, rather than being arrested, were taken to Stanley Park by the cops, beaten, and then released (way to protect us, assholes; they're free still free, and will probably arm themselves).
I actually saw two cops assaulting a homeless man. I witnessed the entire event -- they began beating him for not responding to their commands fast enough. Very heroic. Meanwhile there were drug dealers less than thirty feet away. To make it extra stupid, they were transit cops, and were doing this outside of transit grounds where they had no authority whatsoever.
Of the small number of women I know who've been raped, not one ever got any help from the police. Yet the police had more than enough time to throw my roommate in jail overnight for being drunk in public. They also had enough time to go to a friend's party and "find" (ie: plant) a bag of pot.
Oh, and when I lived in Maple Ridge, the noble RCMP would spend hours at a time in Tim Hortons drinking complimentary donuts. Maple Ridge has the highest murder rate in the entire province, a horrendous drug problem with crystal meth labs all over the place, and entire little communities of teenage date-rape moms. Yet free coffee was their top priority, night after night.
I respect the need for police, very much so. But bad, shitty cops are NOT rare. Policing is treated like any other job -- most people do the bare minimum amount of work necessary to avoid being fired, and abuse their position for the "perks" they can get.
If you apply for a job pissing people off and harassing them, assaulting teenagers for the heinous crime of loitering, ignoring rape victims while using deadly force to deal with noise complaints, well, you really can't expect people not to judge you for it.
Do they ever do it? Almost never, and if they did they would lose their job as the absolutely best-case scenario. More likely, they get fired, get sued, never work again, and have to spend the rest of their life giving handjobs to support their crack addiction. What makes cops think they're above that? Firing cops who abuse their power is the very least that should happen to them.
It's arguably closer to treason, since they're abusing a sacred trust that has been placed in them. The power to use violence is a very serious one, and it is not casually that we've waived the right to claim our own justice with vigilanteism and lynch-mobs. The whole point is for police officers to be better than vigilantes and mobs -- otherwise, how are they worth the tremedous price? Why entrusting them with anything if we can't actually trust them?
It was a really, really long day ... Actually, I made the post at the very start of the day, at which point it was still a very very short day. But it's still a valid excuse; I was being proactive with my crankiness. Proactive is good. Ergo, I rule.
How much power gets used by computers, TVs, air conditioners, and other appliances that operate mostly during the day? What about industry? Commerce? Office towers use most of their power during the day. Many factories shut down at night.
Daytime is when most electricity gets used. That's part of the reason solar makes so much sense once it is affordable.
Are we there yet with solar? No, but I think the tipping point is coming. The fact that there is some serious private investment in solar is the biggest sign. Some businesses are getting some massive investment based on new patents that threaten to bring the price of solar cells way down. Stirling generators are just superb for plopping down on your roof.
I always wonder how much it would cost to lease people's roofs. Basically, it's like a whole bunch of land that you could put solar generators on, produce power, and sell it. Most of these systems are supposed to generate more power than an average house uses, right? So, in exchange for a portion of the power, Joe- and Jane-homeowner lease you their roof, you pay for a fixed proportion of their monthly wattage, and you get to sell the rest to local commerce and industry. Because you operate at a large scale, you can make the generators, batteries, and electrician-hours much more affordable than the homeowners can. Everyone gets cheaper power, roofs look more interesting, industry benefits because of cheap local power, etc.
Building solar power plants seems to be missing the point -- solar's ability to be widely distributed should be taken advantage of.
It's odd that you would try to say anything about what most "libertarians" believe, since most libertarians vote Republican and thus favour BIG government, HUGE military expenditures, and VAST government interference. A bigger group of idiots there never was... well, maybe communists living in non-communist nations (they should know better).
Ultimately, let it come down to this: I say that America is a democracy and that majority rules -- regardless of what the constitution says. You say that America is a republic and that the majority does not rule -- despite vast evidence to the contrary. Does the majority NOT get to vote for things like taking money from the rich to feed the poor? America HAS welfare programs. Many states DO have healthcare programs, and I heard that Massachussets is actually implementing universal healthcare. Cities can take your land as long as they say they really really want it. So do you believe the idealistic fantasy, or the real world? The fantasy that the majority can't impose it's will on minorities, or the reality that it happens routinely and casually?
Welcome to the real world -- the US is a democracy; it is the very MODEL of a democracy. Warts and all. The republic was cast aside shortly after it was conceived of. The constitution is barely better than a used coffee filter. Need a final example? The law forbidding you from masturbating or engaging in any sexual act that isn't intercourse for reproductive purposes was only recently struck down. How did a republic with limited government power allow such an abominable and tyrannical law to stand for so long?! WHY DOES INCOME TAX EVEN EXIST IN YOUR "REPUBLIC"?
Anyway, this has basically become quite dull. Like most hypocrites, you can't even consider the possibility that you may be wrong. Like most irrational people, you never under any circumstances question your assumptions. Like most self-righteous people, you assume that anyone who doesn't believe as you do must be evil and wrong. If you can't consider the possibility that you are mistaken, if you can't consider what an alternate viewpoint would be like, why bother having discussions at all? I walked your path for 24 years with all the diligence and faithfullness that I could, until doubt and real world evidence showed me that I was wrong. Seeing christians, ministers and reverends even, advocating murder and execution and the abandonment of homeless to their ultimate deaths ... how could I possibly think that religion had any positive effect on their behaviour whatsoever? Meanwhile, the people that were fighting for Human rights, opposing war, and encouraging love and acceptance of all people were mostly atheists. The people who tried the hardest to help me were not people of faith. If want to be taken seriously, try walking my path. Try to consider life from the eyes of the faithless -- for real I mean, not your caricature of them. Try to actually empathize with them and understand why they feel the way they do. Try questioning your assumptions and circular reasoning. See if doubting God's existence makes you suddenly feel open to commiting rape and murder. I'll wager that you'll find that you retain your disinclination towards harming others, regardless of whether you believe in invisible judges.
Also, an important note: the bible doesn't say anything about heaven or hell. It says that when you die, you're dead. God may raise some people on judgement day, but the rest just stay dead. That's why the bible says that Christ saves you from death, not hell. That's why Jews don't drone on and on about hell and demons and Satan being out to get you. Hell is mostly something that later Christians dreamed up to scare people into converting. It isn't much better than conversion by the sword, if you think about it.
My morality does pre-exist me and will exist when I'm gone -- it's encoded into our genetics. Altruism is a natural consequence of being a social species, and evolutionary psychology has made very strong arguments about that. So yes, morality can be pre-existing, fairly universal and consistent, and I can simply KNOW it. That's the hallmark of instinct, not magical flying men that smite babies for no reason.
Oh, and did you read the "Know Your Bible" page? Good stuff there, good stuff. I suppose you're off to Iraq now to murder some children of Babylon? That is what is demanded of you, after all. Not that you follow a bible -- the bible commands you (a woman I presume based your ID) not to teach (1 Timothy 2:11). Yet here you are, violating the word of god and trying to teach me about the nature of faith. For shame, sinner.