If you regard the terms "socialists", "Muslims", "Communists" and "Libs" to be derogatory, then, yes, I don't doubt that you see a lot of name calling against the left. In much the same way that people who call me by my given name are name calling "against" me.
What you're talking about is taking from poor people all the advantages of a modern society. The ability to heat and light their homes without regularly setting their homes (and themselves) ablaze. In fact, given current law in many modern cities, lighting fires to stay warm when they can't afford electricity is illegal. Computers? fuggedaboudit! refrigerators? You're kidding, right? Ovens? [howls of laughter].
Industry and the wealthy will be able to afford your higher prices while the "stupid and venal" voters will by freezing to death, burning to death when the fires that replace their electrical heaters get out of control, dying from food poisoning due to unrefrigerated or uncooked food, starving due to increased food prices or just plain dying prematurely due to a radically reduced standard of living. But that's OK, because they wont posses the means to communicate their plight or its cause to anyone else.
Thank god your "stupid and venal" voters are neither stupid nor venal enough to vote for political leaders who just want to kill them.
that doesn't stop my urban dwelling brother from obsessively locking his car
It's a good habit to be in and a bad habit to have lost, once you're back in the big smoke. Moreover, if you want to prevent opportunistic searches during traffic stops ("you don't mind if I search your car? You don't have anything to hide, do you?") Locking your doors once you get out is a great way to short circuit the officers smoothly choreographed and often practiced routine. He has to ask for your key or ask you to unlock the car at which point refusing to consent to the search is a lot simpler than trying to interrupt a cop who is already halfway into your car.
I can imagine such a state, what I'm having trouble imagining is an economic arrangement capable of creating this kind of wealth that isn't based at least in (large) part on free market principles.
He's referring to the angles required to get a laser beam into an aircraft cockpit. Stargazers aren't going to hit a cockpit by accident unless they're looking at stars close to the horizon; and airports tend to be significant sources of light pollution so if you want to gaze at stars on the horizon, you're much better off locating yourself someplace where there wont be an airport between you and your actual target.
Your argument that taxes paid by the employer prevent the employer from paying illegals lower wages than taxpayers rests on the assumption that the employer is paying his taxes. Someone looking for work doesn't care if his prospective employer pays his taxes or not but if the people competing with him for employment don't pay tax, his competitors can negotiate a lower wage yet enjoy the same standard of living.
An employer who cheats on his taxes but does not employ illegals creates no such downward pressure on wages.
"But they have to be making little enough that their salary plus whatever the employer has to pay in taxes on it add up to less than a regular employee would get anyway"
You're assuming the employer declares all of his income.
"On the subject of illegal immigrants paying taxes. It seems to me that lots of people don't seem to understand how taxes work. when an employer pays an employee, the employee pays taxes and the employer doesn't pay any tax on the money they've paid out. It's a business expense and is therefore not taxed. If they pay an employee under the table, then they can't claim that money as a business expense, so the employer ends up paying tax on the money. Since most illegals earn so little per hour, chances are that many of them would have a much lower tax rate than their employer. So, when illegal aliens are paid under the table, it actually means that more money is paid as taxes rather than less. So complaining that illegals don't pay taxes is pointless."
On the contrary, most of those who object to illegals failing to pay taxes do so not because because the federal government will get less money (they're really not all that enamored of big government after all). The problem is that because they don't pay taxes, they can survive on lower wages than a taxpayer can for a given standard of living. Which makes competing with them for employment a pain in the butt.
While this is as much the fault of people who employ illegals as it is the fault of the illegals themselves, politically speaking, going after campaign contributors is likely to be less effective than going after the illegals.
How many deserts do the UK and Germany have inside their borders? Comparing a nation which is compact because they don't have vast tracts of uninhabitable waste to a nation that does have such areas is an apple to orange comparison.
I don't own an SUV yet my electricity bills are set to rise by 22% by 2013 as a result of a carbon pollution reduction scheme. It's not people who can afford a monster truck who are going to be hurt by eco hysteria, it's people just barely scraping by who are going to have to choose between paying their rent, their electricity bill or buying their groceries. Add in a carbon trading scheme or a carbon tax on finished goods and you've got a recipe for shoving poor people out of the boat in job lots.
Bizarrely, the politicians who are pushing this process along the fastest are the politicians who purport to care about the fate of the economically disadvantaged.
The economic consequences of responding to climate models whose results vary wildly from model to model are routinely handwaved by people who can afford to tighten their belt a notch or two, but the social consequences of deliberately crushing (albeit for a "noble" cause) those at the very bottom of the social pyramid might easily be more significant and considerably nearer term than the consequences of climate change.
That's exactly what this weapon does... in a roundabout fashion. The obvious alternatives to this weapon are mortars, artillery or an air strike (this last is killing a fly with a hand grenade, but anyways) all of which entail far higher risk to non combatants and friendly combatants than this weapon. It represents significantly less destructive power delivered far more accurately. This makes avoiding collateral damage considerably easier.
"technology that will help us find them"
I believe you're referring to NODs, spy satellites and various intelligence activities, so it's not like we're not already researching exactly that sort of tech. Walk. Chew Gum. SIMULTANEOUSLY!?!???
"prevent their attacks"
the TSA is all over that one (yes, that is tongue in cheeck)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon baseless suspicion, supported by trickery and deceit, and stating after the search the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
So if there is an action with two possible outcomes where if you do A then 1 person dies and if you do B then 10 persons die, then you'd be a retard or a sadistic psychopath to do B.
We're not talking about neat, clean and simple euphemisms like "A" or "B" here, we're talking about killing someone who has done nothing to deserve it or not killing them. I'm quite certain I'm not comfortable letting someone who is that comfortable with the prospect of killing me make my choices for me and I'm even more certain that someone who chooses not to commit murder is neither retarded nor sadistic.
So not only did you just support the introduction of compulsory car cell phone jamming systems, you introduced legislation to ban radios, CD Players, CB Radios, children and nagging wives from cars. hmmm maybe you're onto something.
What makes you think that the people who support the car cellphone jammer don't also think that banning bacon cheeseburgers is a great idea that can't come soon enough?
Slashdot Mirror
Or you expect to be one of the ones with power
"unaccountable cops"... tautology?
It has a lot more to do with Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution. See also "natural born citizen"
If you regard the terms "socialists", "Muslims", "Communists" and "Libs" to be derogatory, then, yes, I don't doubt that you see a lot of name calling against the left. In much the same way that people who call me by my given name are name calling "against" me.
You, you.... you scot4875 you!
What you're talking about is taking from poor people all the advantages of a modern society. The ability to heat and light their homes without regularly setting their homes (and themselves) ablaze. In fact, given current law in many modern cities, lighting fires to stay warm when they can't afford electricity is illegal. Computers? fuggedaboudit! refrigerators? You're kidding, right? Ovens? [howls of laughter].
Industry and the wealthy will be able to afford your higher prices while the "stupid and venal" voters will by freezing to death, burning to death when the fires that replace their electrical heaters get out of control, dying from food poisoning due to unrefrigerated or uncooked food, starving due to increased food prices or just plain dying prematurely due to a radically reduced standard of living. But that's OK, because they wont posses the means to communicate their plight or its cause to anyone else.
Thank god your "stupid and venal" voters are neither stupid nor venal enough to vote for political leaders who just want to kill them.
Who says the government will be buying anything? When it's so much easier just to make car owners buy bazillions of fancy devices?
Who knows, maybe the BC is fake but accurate.
that doesn't stop my urban dwelling brother from obsessively locking his car
It's a good habit to be in and a bad habit to have lost, once you're back in the big smoke. Moreover, if you want to prevent opportunistic searches during traffic stops ("you don't mind if I search your car? You don't have anything to hide, do you?") Locking your doors once you get out is a great way to short circuit the officers smoothly choreographed and often practiced routine. He has to ask for your key or ask you to unlock the car at which point refusing to consent to the search is a lot simpler than trying to interrupt a cop who is already halfway into your car.
So you would respond to the loss of freedom that these drugs impose upon the users by... taking freedom away from the users? Say what?
Perhaps. However, atheists clearly have difficulty discerning description from prescription.
I can imagine such a state, what I'm having trouble imagining is an economic arrangement capable of creating this kind of wealth that isn't based at least in (large) part on free market principles.
He's referring to the angles required to get a laser beam into an aircraft cockpit. Stargazers aren't going to hit a cockpit by accident unless they're looking at stars close to the horizon; and airports tend to be significant sources of light pollution so if you want to gaze at stars on the horizon, you're much better off locating yourself someplace where there wont be an airport between you and your actual target.
Your argument that taxes paid by the employer prevent the employer from paying illegals lower wages than taxpayers rests on the assumption that the employer is paying his taxes. Someone looking for work doesn't care if his prospective employer pays his taxes or not but if the people competing with him for employment don't pay tax, his competitors can negotiate a lower wage yet enjoy the same standard of living.
An employer who cheats on his taxes but does not employ illegals creates no such downward pressure on wages.
You're assuming the employer declares all of his income.
"On the subject of illegal immigrants paying taxes. It seems to me that lots of people don't seem to understand how taxes work. when an employer pays an employee, the employee pays taxes and the employer doesn't pay any tax on the money they've paid out. It's a business expense and is therefore not taxed. If they pay an employee under the table, then they can't claim that money as a business expense, so the employer ends up paying tax on the money. Since most illegals earn so little per hour, chances are that many of them would have a much lower tax rate than their employer. So, when illegal aliens are paid under the table, it actually means that more money is paid as taxes rather than less. So complaining that illegals don't pay taxes is pointless."
On the contrary, most of those who object to illegals failing to pay taxes do so not because because the federal government will get less money (they're really not all that enamored of big government after all). The problem is that because they don't pay taxes, they can survive on lower wages than a taxpayer can for a given standard of living. Which makes competing with them for employment a pain in the butt.
While this is as much the fault of people who employ illegals as it is the fault of the illegals themselves, politically speaking, going after campaign contributors is likely to be less effective than going after the illegals.
How many deserts do the UK and Germany have inside their borders? Comparing a nation which is compact because they don't have vast tracts of uninhabitable waste to a nation that does have such areas is an apple to orange comparison.
I don't own an SUV yet my electricity bills are set to rise by 22% by 2013 as a result of a carbon pollution reduction scheme. It's not people who can afford a monster truck who are going to be hurt by eco hysteria, it's people just barely scraping by who are going to have to choose between paying their rent, their electricity bill or buying their groceries. Add in a carbon trading scheme or a carbon tax on finished goods and you've got a recipe for shoving poor people out of the boat in job lots.
Bizarrely, the politicians who are pushing this process along the fastest are the politicians who purport to care about the fate of the economically disadvantaged.
The economic consequences of responding to climate models whose results vary wildly from model to model are routinely handwaved by people who can afford to tighten their belt a notch or two, but the social consequences of deliberately crushing (albeit for a "noble" cause) those at the very bottom of the social pyramid might easily be more significant and considerably nearer term than the consequences of climate change.
This is certainly true. It's hardly confined to the skeptics camp however
"or better protect those targeted by them."
That's exactly what this weapon does... in a roundabout fashion. The obvious alternatives to this weapon are mortars, artillery or an air strike (this last is killing a fly with a hand grenade, but anyways) all of which entail far higher risk to non combatants and friendly combatants than this weapon. It represents significantly less destructive power delivered far more accurately. This makes avoiding collateral damage considerably easier.
"technology that will help us find them"
I believe you're referring to NODs, spy satellites and various intelligence activities, so it's not like we're not already researching exactly that sort of tech. Walk. Chew Gum. SIMULTANEOUSLY!?!???
"prevent their attacks"
the TSA is all over that one (yes, that is tongue in cheeck)
It was mentioned in the first post of the discussion. (Although I think the troll mod was unnecessarily harsh)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon baseless suspicion, supported by trickery and deceit, and stating after the search the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
FTFY
So you're saying it would make recruitment more difficult? I'm starting to like this plan :)
We're not talking about neat, clean and simple euphemisms like "A" or "B" here, we're talking about killing someone who has done nothing to deserve it or not killing them. I'm quite certain I'm not comfortable letting someone who is that comfortable with the prospect of killing me make my choices for me and I'm even more certain that someone who chooses not to commit murder is neither retarded nor sadistic.
So not only did you just support the introduction of compulsory car cell phone jamming systems, you introduced legislation to ban radios, CD Players, CB Radios, children and nagging wives from cars. hmmm maybe you're onto something.
What makes you think that the people who support the car cellphone jammer don't also think that banning bacon cheeseburgers is a great idea that can't come soon enough?