Well, it strikes me that if you have a (likely close to or more than) hundred thousand dollar asset then you aren't really "bankrupt", are you?
If you are going to screw your creditors, why shouldn't you have to liquidate your large assets? Why should someone getting away from their liabilities be able to keep their assets? Because often, forcing the sale of your home and car will not improve your financial situation, pay your creditors any more money, or get you back on your feet (the societal reason for bankruptcy protections). Bankruptcy protections allow you to (with the courts help) settle as much debt as you can with what you can while righting the downward spiral and getting you back to being a productive member of society again. Personal bankruptcy happens for a lot of reasons, often being more bad luck than anything.
If you are forced to sell your home, where do you live? Oh, that's right, you have more outgo than income and the worst credit possible: no lease for you! Now you also have to sell everything else you own in 60 days at a fire sale instead of actually getting good buyers (because you no longer have anywhere to store your possessions). Wanna buy a couch? Forced to sell your car, how do you work? Where do you live now that you don't have a back seat? There goes what income you had, the health insurance that was paying some of your emergency medical bills, your ability to find an alternative place to live, or to work out a lot of your other problems involving paperwork and bureaucracy.
Society has found that putting somebody already on a downward spiral into a tailspin and then lighting them on fire is not a good way to get money for the creditors -or_ to get someone put back together. Instead, people end up in cardboard boxes on the street when that happens and cannot get work because they do not have proper attire, hygiene, an address, etc., to get that $60,000 per year job they are actually qualified for. Yes, the system can be abused, but by and large it works and is there for a reason. If (as most people do), you want to ever have credit again, you will attempt to pay down what you can and sell protected assets voluntarily where it makes sense, but being able to freeze the process for a bit while things work out is *exactly the point* of bankruptcy.
P.S. -- Why should the fact that he's a veteran or 86-years old affect purely financial dealings? And why should his choice to get a reverse mortgage not affect him the way it would affect anyone else? This is a good question. I think the 86-year-old veteran bit was to point out that he was not a teenager with 20 bajillion credit cards going nuts. The reverse mortgage thing is a big problem. A lot of people do not understand bankruptcy and are threatened by immoral creditors: "I'll take your house! I'll sell your organs! Your children will be used for medical experimentation! Pay up! Pay up!" none of which they have any legal right to do. If your house is not encumbered, they cannot (or could not?) touch it. But people panic and take out a 2nd mortgage to pay their medical bills and then get their house taken when they cannot pay the mortgage. If they had just sat tight and ridden it out, they would have done better and had somewhere to negotiate from.
This is another point about bankruptcy protections: by giving the debtor some negotiating power, they make it in the creditor's interest to find a way to settle.
This case is special, however, since, morally and ethically, people cannot agree on the definition of 'person' here and the law cannot therefore determine who the rights are meant to protect.
Ahh but since so much of the constitution hinges on this question, the feds are the ones that have to make this determination, otherwise states could just as easily define a person as excluding blacks or hispanic, or gays. Even leaving this question up to the states, that definition still has to be based upon observable criteria and specifically not on religious beliefs, since it otherwise violates the constitutional separation of church and state. I've not seen a since anti-abortion law that defines a person in terms that are not based upon religious beliefs and explain what a person is and why a fetus qualifies, but my sperm, my kidney, or a pot bellied pig does not without resorting to religious arguments about souls or transparent, contrived criteria to hide that fact.
The decision on blacks (and women) was finally made by amending the Constitution, not by Congress. (Well, there's the whole proclamation thing, but it was a "military action" and did not grant any rights. Or something.) I also think this issue is much thornier than even the thorniest debates on "white man's burden" as to where to draw even a fuzzy line. The issue of viability for me is important but not decisive.
Not allowing religion to enter the debate can ironically violate the establishment clause by legislating away beliefs. People do have them, on both sides, and they are important. I think that religion with care, can and must enter the debate because ethics and morality are bankrupt without the foundation of a belief system, "religious" or otherwise. (Kant's arguments against circular religious morality apply equally well against his own "rational ethical system" for instance and even "pure utilitarianism" has deep flaws.) In the end, there is no completely rational argument for treating children as autonomous even at birth. There have been cultures who did not until the age of seven when they could actually begin to reason and care for themselves. I know anti-abortion atheists. Part of the issue is "abundance of caution": if you are not sure, why not err on the side of caution, and how much caution is irrational? All that being said, I do cautiously agree and I think that the religious rhetoric needs to step back in favor of listening a little more.
because in the endbut I agree that the law can not be made on that basis.
Absent that determination, the State has a responsibility to protect the freedoms of the mother.
Well, or the mother and to a lesser extent the father.
Agreed.
There is no rational way to decide that issue and if decided arbitrarily, a large portion of the population will strongly oppose it on deep moral grounds (to the point of violence).
Sure there is. You base the definition upon a conservatively agreed upon scientific consensus, as has already been done. It is illegal to ban abortions now, and there has been no large violent revolution as a result. There is violence, but it is on the same level or less of other violent acts committed by religious zealots against those they feel are "evil" because of different beliefs (like violence against gays and jews).
Science can only tell you what and how, not why. At some point in its development, the fetus can experience pain and record memories (however vague). Does it deserve protection at that point? Your pot-bellied pig is no different, but I can slaughter a pig without it being murder. But a pig is not capable of growing up into an adult human. Even after birth, a child does not develop certain mental/emotional traits for months or years. When are they "human"? What about a severely retarded child? Yes, I am being over the top, but the b
So basically nothing would get done for 4 years because he would veto everything?
I said two things: that he would be able to allow through some legislation which has not been able to get through because of either actual or threatened vetoes under Bush, and he would be able to veto legislation that Bush has been letting through without opposition. If it came down to it and Congress rains piss poor legislation on the oval office and does not compromise, then yes, nothing would get done, but is "something getting done" good if it is the wrong thing:-)? The system was set up with checks and balances to be deliberately conservative, to encourage the "governs least" part of the plan. Fiscally, if we don't put on the brakes, we won't be able to afford fences or bridges or police or Iraq/Afghanistan. Part of Dr. Paul's value, if nothing else, and I do not believe it is nothing else, is to act as a counter-balance to "prevailing wisdom". I have spent some time reading The Federalist Papers of late, and though I do not agree with everything, it is interesting just how much was anticipated and is still relevant to our current situation if the system is allowed to work.
As an aside: I have, by the way, continued reading up on the Darfur situation. What a mess. The problem of what to do with the large and largely corrupt contractors is interesting and an enormous mess in Iraq as well for somewhat different reasons. Having worked in that industry, it was not the Russians looking over my shoulder, but the other "Beltway Bandits" looking for a scoop. It turned my stomach. I did not leave because I disliked working with the military, but because of the civilians. Now that many of them are effectively multinational conglomerates, they can rob everybody blind regardless of who gets killed in the process. As to what to do... I will need to mull over. My comments on intervention were largely directed at the second bill you referenced.
"Besides, you don't think Ron Paul supporters have considered that problem?"
I don't know. What does that mean? They have a plan? What is it?
If I told you I would have to... I don't know, DDOS you? Seriously, though, as I said in a different thread, one election is not magic. Ron Paul is neither a saint nor a miracle worker, just one good man. If we are going to actually make changes in our country, we need to not make this a one shot effort and instead work on getting new people in at all levels along with bringing to the top new issues and new ideas--- not just Ron Paul's. Politics is too divisive and fragmented right now. We need to start looking at a swing back to more (actual) conservative and moderate candidates to reign in government growth and start looking at solutions which may not be ideal for everyone, but which large portions of the population can accept.
Right now we worry too much about our "side" winning and that swings us hard to extreme positions and bad decisions. In any case, this effort is bigger than Ron Paul. He said in the debate tonight that he was just part of it; he's an important one, but only part. People do not have to agree with everything he does (I don't), just accept that his basic principles are in line with what the country was built to do and, whether he is always right or not (who is?), he has a record of holding to them. As we get more voices in on that debate, that is when things will really happen in our country. My experience with many/most Ron Paul supporters is that they are a lot more thoughtful about rights, about political ideas, about history than your average voter or politician. So is Ron Paul and that is one of the things they recognize, that draws them, and makes them so loyal. On the balance, that type of thing needs to spread, even to people who disagree with us if we are to enjoy any of the next few decades. To a large extent, that won't happen; to some extent, though, it can and will.
As an obstetrician having delivered as many children as he has, Ron Paul would be a hypocrite to support abortion.
Wow. That's a pretty harsh statement and logically flawed. Delivering babies and performing abortions are not consistent with any world view? That is, in effect, what you are saying.
What if you don't consider a fetus to be a human until the second trimester? Then I think it's pretty clear that delivering a third-trimester baby and aborting a two-week-old fetus are morally consistent under that view.
I'm not saying I agree with that worldview, but I am saying that your assertion is flawed.
Not a flawed assertion so much as a strong statement clarified in the rest of the post. Obviously that was not clear, and, to that extent, I retract it, but the key word there for me was support. I certainly think that being an obstetrician and delivering babies as a career is inconsistent with an unrestricted or casual view of abortion or being in favor of abortion. Dr. Paul has, himself, dealt with non-viable tubal pregnancies, for instance, but that is a situation where there is essentially no alternative other than letting both mother and child die.
Note that, as I say, recognizing the moral question and imposing that on others are two different issues. I believe that abortion even in the case of rape and incest is "wrong," but I would by no means wish to be faced with making that decision or weighing the possible opposing wrongs in that case. For me, that would seem to be between that individual, their conscience, and God. From society's point of view, whether to recognize that as "murder" is again, a very tough question and fraught with danger. I have heard the point of view in the case of both abortion in cases like that, in euthanasia(*), and jury nullification, that having the system make certain procedures illegal or at least difficult ensures that they are only done when the individual is driven by a moral concern which outweighs the legality. I do not know whether I support the position, but it certainly gives pause.
(*) I don't understand why everyone is so concerned about euthanasia! What is wrong with dealing with issues here? Aren't our own youth having problems enough?
Is it necessary for privacy for people to have the ability to be anonymous on the internet?
Absolutely. Our nation was founded on anonymous or pseudonymous political debate: Silence Dogood, The Federalist Papers, endless broadsides. This has continued throughout history. Without the ability to be anonymous, there is no freedom of speech. On the other hand, people have to realize that there are downsides to anonymous speech, that it is often hard to verify and rely on what it says. This is much more a personal responsibility and caveat lector problem than a regulation problem, however.
There is also the age-old problem of denying or chilling speech leads to underground or no speech. It is often much more useful to society to have crazy and hateful ideas expressed so that people can see them in the light of day, recognize them as crazy and hateful, and deal with underlying issues. Letting them fester in the dark is never a good idea. A crazy idea sounds much more sane to a rebellious disenfranchised soul who things he is getting in on something dark and secretive. Chilling speech re-enforces the nuts. Denying anonymity chills speech.
If IPv6 or any new protocol ever did take off, would people object to each person having their very own assigned IP address. Much like you get a driver's license, getting your own IP would be a big accomplishment.
I imagine it would be quite easy for people to misuse this new "unique" identifier much like social security numbers are misused.
This actually makes the Internet potentially much more peer-to-peer, allowing people to serve and create content much more readily. In line with the above, however, there must be a mechanism to allow privacy and anonymity somewhere.
The internet is about a public sharing of information. If you want privacy or even an expectation of it, then use encryption. The most likely attack on privacy will be an attack on encryption use by ordinary people.
Do not forget the utility of traffic analysis. Encryption is useless if nasty people can track the time and endpoints of the communication. If they know you posted to the blog, they can read the blog. If they know you sent an email to someone, they can bug or seize the computer, or just put it together from the person's response to the message. That is how criminals using encryption are sometimes caught. Unfortunately, the same techniques can also be used to poke into people's private lives for unsavory purposes, like stifling speech or tracking journalists. It's a hard thing to balance. Police do a hard job for our society and should be honored for that. On the other hand, it takes very few bad apples to ruin things and the same techniques the police use can be used by crooks without uniforms.
The veto, in both allowing bills recently vetoed and disallowing many that have been bludgeoned through; adjustment of executive fiefdoms that Congress has had so much difficulty regulating and overseeing the last few years (due to flat refusal by the Executive to cooperate). Besides, you don't think Ron Paul supporters have considered that problem?
Despite your denial, the Mexican War is a great example of a war of aggression on our part. The Americans living there asked permission of the Mexican government and were accepted as *guests* subject to Mexican law. They then brought slaves which were illegal in Mexico. When Mexico tried to actually enforce their laws against guests who had agreed to abide by them, that is when "Texans" voted for annexation. Not all Texans at the time are perhaps at fault, but the overall result was shameful. We invaded Mexico, annexed Texas, and adjusted our borders elsewhere as a result.
The Spanish-American war is largely considered unjust. We invaded and we gained territory as a result.
Post-Civil War, we invaded Native American territories en masse, even those with whom we had made treaties ceding land. The violation of some of these treaties is still bogged down in Federal Court, which has managed to consistently stall the proceedings for over a century. The slaughter of Native Americans, by any definition, was "genocide" and was openly supported as such by some members of Congress and military at the time.
The Civil War itself (good or bad) can be considered a territorial invasion. Secession may have been stupid in some sense, but it was the right of the states who decided to do so as decided by the Supreme Court. After the War, when the government tried to charge some Confederate leaders with treason, the high court found that there was nothing treasonable about secession--- the several states voluntarily joined the Union and could, one would suppose, voluntarily leave it, whether the reason was good or bad.
The Monroe Doctrine was essentially a declaration of a sphere of influence (a step down from colonialism). It specified that we claimed the right of influence over the American continents and others were to have their hands out. This was little different from other countries' statements over other parts of the world at the time.
We may have not "gained territory" in other interventions per se, but we certainly gained (or tried to gain) other benefits and overruled the sovereignty of other nations. We armed many of the extremists we now fight.
This is, of course, a devil's advocate and selective reading of history, but we are not a morally pure country by any stretch of the imagination. I do not hate my country, and, in fact, support its principles with a passion, but we do have a tendency toward arrogance. If we believe in what we say we believe in, that has to go.
Actually, having just read both your references and a bit more, I think his rationale is quite valid. Maybe not perfect, but certainly justifiable.
First, the economic intervention proposed *would* set a dangerous precedent of using pension money for political ends. Regardless of the current ends, the precedent and power *will be* misused. The action should not be taken without careful consideration, which was the main thing Dr. Paul argued in both places: don't be hasty.
In the case of the declaration of genocide and intervention, his argument was primarily that the bill was being rushed through with minimal thought, debate, and time for revision. This is not really arguable if you look at the timetable. He is not saying (there) that he will utterly oppose it, but that he is predisposed to oppose it and that it requires *very* careful consideration. Given the debacle we already have ourselves in, I cannot argue that point either and I doubt you can.
He points out the condition of the military and its existing commitments. Can we meet those commitments by themselves? How can we do more on top of it? Again, hard to argue. Are we going to invade Pakistan, Venezuela, Burma, etc., etc.?
As for the "confusion" over the issues in Darfur, I see no such confusion in his statements. Those issues would become very confused by any intervention on our part, economic or military. The fact that the situation is complex makes it very hard to intervene surgically and not inflame issues. International peace keepers in Africa are seeing that now as they take fire from multiple sides because they are seen as interfering, because they are simply in the wrong place, or even because they are being raided by rebels for equipment and arms. Relief supplies rarely get to the right people, and sanctions often backfire because combatants will simply keep or take what they need from those we try to protect. We are very quick to consider action these days but very reluctant to actually think it through and really decide what is best and, of the things that need correcting in the world (and they are many) which ones we should really commit to. That, most often, is Dr. Paul's argument, and, again, it is hard to refute out of hand. The fact that he is primarily non-interventionist is a good foil to the trigger-happy attitude which prevails. That is why we have balance of powers (nominally).
But of course, people have this misguided believe that all they have to do to change the world is place a vote. Why, if you place a vote, it will ALL change. Bullshit candidates will somehow become viable, despite shirking the establishment and they'll stay true to their word and everyone else will side with them, even though they don't push the agreed upon religious or union agendas. Of course, that's why things will never change. You and I are taught from birth that the bullshit which has been constant for generations is somehow only a vote away from changing. That we have the true power. That, why, one vote can suddenly stop the massive waves of people on the left and right who want to control every aspect of our lives and our thoughts.
This is true and important, but not fatal. The trick is, once you wake people up, to keep the momentum going. If, for instance, someone like Ron Paul is going to be successful in office, he will need support at other levels of government. However, once a large grass-roots organization is mobilized, that can be targeted at related campaigns. This is not so true of other political campaigns where they are rallied by expensive advertising blitzes. Volunteers and those making personal donations are dedicated and will stick around for a bit. You also need to raise the general awareness of those issues; doing so will start to change the platforms of even opposing candidates.
The big problem with politics right now is that it is much too divisive and polarized, to the extent that a rather moderate politician like Dr. Paul or a moderate voter like myself is suddenly "extreme". The platform that is generating so much attention is not really new or different, politicians have been running on it for a century or so and it once made up the core values of the Republican party. Remember Lincoln? Remember Grant (despite his other faults) paying down the war debt, stabilizing the economy and the currency? Grant's actions probably delayed the 1880's depression by some margin and would have gone farther if it were not for opposition in Congress derailing Reconstruction. Remember Jefferson who was the ideal of the Republican party? How about Reagan (despite his other faults)? These are not new ideas. On that note, we need to start getting moderates/actual conservatives of all stripes into office. We need to have a vigorous debate, work out solutions acceptable to a broad constituency (not ideal, perhaps, but acceptable), and generally go forward with our eyes open instead of playing a football game against "the other side" while our country disintegrates.
As for Dr. Paul becoming "another politician", I don't think so. He's not a saint, but he is stubborn about his ethics, and he has been in the House for ten terms without being corrupted yet. This will cause problems at points dealing with Congress, but again, we need to clean house there too, and much of the cleanup needs to happen in the Executive anyway.
The Abortion issues aside the idea of letting individual states decide on topics like this is a very good idea IMO.
I disagree. Now I'm a huge proponent of state's rights and shrinking the role of the federal government as well as federal taxes. Abortion and many other topics, however, need to be addressed federally because they are constitutional issues. States cannot be allowed to pass laws that violate the constitution, including the separation of church and state.
[snip]
In most cases, I would agree wholeheartedly. A state cannot pass laws banning free speech or the right to bear arms(*), for instance. This case is special, however, since, morally and ethically, people cannot agree on the definition of 'person' here and the law cannot therefore determine who the rights are meant to protect. Is a fetus a "person" under the law to which protections of life and liberty should apply? Since the unborn cannot protect themselves (they are minors), should the State(**) intervene on their behalf? Absent that determination, the State has a responsibility to protect the freedoms of the mother. There is no rational way to decide that issue and if decided arbitrarily, a large portion of the population will strongly oppose it on deep moral grounds (to the point of violence). There is no choice here but to kick the issue back down the hierarchy. Like-minded individuals need to debate and decide the issue in their communities, not at the federal level.
(*) or bare arms for that matter--- this would be especially bad in Texas where it gets awfully hot.
(**) Note that this is the capital-S State, national government, not the lower-case-s state.
It shouldn't matter whether or not you live in a state with laws with which you disagree. The only important question is whether the woman carrying the fetus is pro-life or pro-choice. Do you really want to live in a country where a young woman in Arkansas has to cross the border to Missouri to get an abortion? Or worse, would you want to live in a state where a doctor would be charged with murder if he were to perform an abortion?
In short, yes. I think this is entirely preferable for the woman than having abortion banned in the entire country and having to go to Canada, don't you? At the same time, a population with a more or less like mind being able to ban a practice they despise locally is preferable to them than having it universally allowed. By pushing highly controversial issues closer to the individual, it gives the individual more control over the issue. As an obstetrician having delivered as many children as he has, Ron Paul would be a hypocrite to support abortion. Given his views on the Constitution, he would be a hypocrite to try to impose that view on people at the Federal level. He has, however, dealt with dangerous tubal pregnancies which were not viable and a severe threat to the mother. My wife and I are both against abortion, but we recognize that beyond a certain level it is not right to impose that view on others. We also recognize that, beyond a certain level, everyone has a right to life.
The idea that life begins arbitrarily at birth is just as rationally questionable as the idea that life begins at conception and therefore both views, as well as the range in between are ethically supportable. There are identifiable stages where the fetus can be shown to recognize pain and is certainly viable. My daughter was premature. She is coloring with her crayons behind me as I type this. Was she "not a human" before a medical accident caused her to be born early? If that medical accident had not happened, would it have been OK to kill her? Pretending that this is not a moral question is equivalent to sticking your head in the sand.
I understand where you are coming from, but I disagree. For instance:
Lives and treasure have been flushed at a fantastic rate.
Treasure currently stands at about 1% of the GDP. I don't know that I would call that "a fantastic rate".
Lives currently stand at about 4000 over 4 years - again, not exactly what I would call "a fantastic rate".
Plus the increases in homeland security on federal, state, and local levels, the long-term costs of the war (we disagree here on accounting, as I consider Iraq fallout), such as veterans' benefits, loss of productivity due to workforce overseas, severe drawdown of military inventory which will have to be replaced, etc. We haven't begun paying the cost; that will fall to my kid(s). Even "1% of GDP" is quite a bit compared to what it could be used for.
As for lives, there are also some 30,000 wounded. Because of advances in defensive equipment, medical technology, and the nature of the conflict(s), a large chunk are maimed and/or have suffered head trauma. This will have a lasting effect. Compared to highway deaths, just like 9/11, this is a drop in the bucket; I admit that, but it is completely disproportionate to the issue that triggered it.
Terrorism is just a criminal justice problem.
Domestic terrorism, sure. But in Afghanistan Bin Laden was being sheltered by the Taliban - out of reach of our justice system. At that point, it becomes a foreign policy issue. For the record, we didn't get nearly as wound up about Timothy McVeigh or the Olympic bombing in Atlanta - they were both handled by the justice system.
Point taken. However, this is also where my comment on letters of Marque and Reprisal comes in. Whether they were used to authorize private or military action (some Constitutional disagreement), they provided a carefully tailored legal (recognized by international law), criminal mechanism specifically designed for the case: an non-governmental entity violating international law to inflict harm, difficult to wage direct war against, and possibly hiding behind the borders ("marque") of another nation. Afghanistan will end up costing much more than it should because we are not able to focus what we need on the problem. There is a giant Whoooossh as it gets sucked somewhere else. But, we don't seem to disagree on that, just how to label and account for it.
Reacting strongly to them gives them power. The trade center was bombed once by these same chuckleheads, and we didn't really react. So they came back and did it right the second time. I fail to see how inaction helped us.
It did not get them the effect they wanted. That is why they had to come back. We did take action, just did not scream it to the world. Under Clinton (note I am not making Clinton the hero here), limited, focused action was taken against Al Qaeda. Under Bush, that action was canned and we largely took our eyes off the ball before 9/11. Now we are running around screaming and I fail to see where that gets us. There is a comfortable (or uncomfortable) medium somewhere.
I don't really disagree with what you said about Iraq - but I reiterate that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the only connection was Bush's new policy of pre-emptive war that was spurred by 9/11.
Agreed in principle. It just seems important to me to underline that it was the public post-9/11 panic and need for revenge that made it easy to do. If people had slowed down just a touch, it would not have been. On that particular day, it did not take me long to fear the public/government reaction more than the attack itself. This is true of a lot of high-profile but extremely rare dangers. I lived through a school shooting, have kept an eye on a number of others, and see the same thing there. Not much trying to fix problems, a lot of hand-wringing, finger pointing, and security theater. But that is a complete gripe in and of itself.
Solar and wind power are fine to augment an exisiting energy policy but half the time it's dark and the wind is unpredictable and can drop to a small breeze incapable of powering the turbine. In particular global warming could well effect the world wind patterns to the extent that wind farms are no longer in windy areas and more or less useless.
This is true, but that is why a responsible alternative power scheme always 1) includes batteries or some other means to store energy, and 2) multiple sources of energy. Generally when it is not sunny during the day, for instance, it is because it is overcast, likely windy, and just possibly raining. Some active conservation and care in using the electricity also helps. Knowing when energy cost and availability are at their highest and planning accordingly helps. Sadly, few people care about the environment if it actually means affecting their lives or ways of doing anything. But we all adjust our driving and fueling according to the price at the pumps these days, so maybe awareness will bring change.
That being said, time is against us and some form of baseline power will always be necessary at least in urban areas, so we will need a mixed solution and, yes, that will probably include nuclear at least for a good bit.
The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
This part a lot of people miss. You need baseline power for two reasons: 1) to make sure you have some way to meet at least basic demand all of the time and 2) to even out dirty power. The mass of the turbines in nuclear, hydroelectric, and coal turbines (somewhat in that order) absorbs surges, problems with polarity, and so forth which might otherwise blow bulbs, reduce the lives of appliances, and maybe even start fires. Wind turbines, gas jets, and other generators do not come close.
In rural areas, it is much easier to get around this because you have more off-grid setups. If you create your own power or get it locally, it is much easier to monitor and respond to. There is also less of a cascade effect from other users/producers in the grid, like the domino effect which took out the grid in New York a bit ago. In a rural area, you can much more easily change your activities to match power availability. I can glance at the battery status to decide whether to run another load of wash, watch a movie, or just play cards with my wife. When battery status is high and the sun or wind is going, I can go crazy. Not hard to do and just becomes habit.
In the end, we need to build our energy policy around a lot of solutions: baseline power, local self-sufficiency, renewable energy, conservation, research. With a mixed solution, we have a better chance of hitting the right one and dealing with things that go wrong. If, as you say, wind shifts and a wind farm or two is left high and dry, we will be happy to have solar, and hydro, and methane plants, and, maybe a portable nuclear pile as well.
It sounds to me as though you have an irrational fear of nuclear power which is a shame because we're going to be seeing it utilised a lot more often now that governments are realising there simply is no other alternative.
Bingo. We have painted ourselves into a tight corner. Unless people are willing to do a crash-change to a fraction of our current consumption, the effect of aging plants coming off-line in the next few years will not be replaceable by anything else. I, personally, am not irrationally afraid of nuclear power, but I do not like the fact that we have been forced into a place where we have no option.
For the record, I agree that caution should be taken with projects like this, for a number of reasons, and you make some sensible points, but, there is a difference between proactive and self-destructive.
So, yes, we're obsessed with guns and nukes because you don't just sit around waiting for the next attack, you try to be proactive. The next attack probably isn't going to happen with airplanes, because no one is going to believe the next guy who stands up and says, "Do as I say and you will live!"
I've had two direct hits by tornadoes plus several other disasters. I am "proactive" in that I know where my supplies are, inventory and check them on occasion, and know where to go when weather gets dicey. But I am not "obsessed" with anything, and I do not live in fear of the weather. I know there is a risk and I deal with it. It does not take over my life.
Post 9/11, fear has been allowed to infect our politics, our foreign relations, and even our daily lives. Lives and treasure have been flushed at a fantastic rate. Major changes are being made or contemplated to our political system. This is unnecessary. Terrorists have existed for a long time. Some four hundred years ago a guy stuffed the British Parliament building full of powder. Several villages were exterminated during the Revolutionary War era by extremists as well as the smaller scale violence against civilians leading up to the conflict. Our system was set up with an understanding of what is possible. Some adjustment needs to be made for technology and times, but not a throw-our-hands-up-in-the-air and attack or distrust everything. I am not certain this is what you are conveying, but it is a narrow ledge. Life goes on. Some risk is well worth freedom.
Terrorism is just a criminal justice problem. The British learned that: when they started treating terrorists like common, every day criminals, they got much less attention, did not look like martyrs, and did not recruit any where near as well. Reacting strongly to them gives them power.
Don't confuse the attack on Iraq with 9/11, because the only connection is that Bush found Americans in a surly enough mood that it seemed like a good time to go in. The only place that the US has gone out "and start[ed] fucking up as many muslims as [they] can" is Afghanistan, and you'll have a hard time convincing me that Afghanistan was unwarranted. Also, the US is fairly tame when it comes to rolling into a country. Look into the US in the Philippines (250,000 - 1,000,000 civilians dead) or Japan in China (20 - 35 million dead) for how nasty one can be.
The attack on Iraq should be connected with 9/11 because it was and still is for many people. 9/11 set the stage and was used, as you yourself point out, to make it happen. It was another knee-jerk reaction by the public out of fear and revenge with no backing of hard (or really any) facts. The other rationales presented were just a smokescreen to try to salve peoples' consciences for what I think many people knew was wrong from the beginning. This is why the US government structure was set up to be conservative. It was supposed to be difficult to go to war to prevent exactly these kinds of reactions. The proper action would have been a letter of Marque and Reprisal, just like has been used against organized piracy in the past--- an authorization for force directed against the extra-governmental entities directly responsible for the attack--- instead of handing the Executive a stack of blank checks. The morality of some of what we did can be argued; I do not think it arguable that we should have given a lot more thought and less emotion to the doing of it.
There are a number of things wrong with your defense of the act, but let me mainly focus on one, since the others mostly flow from it.
The military commissions act makes it possible for the US government to designate ANY PERSON an enemy combatant for terrorists acts or (more importantly) aiding or interacting with any other person who acts against the interests of the US. SIC.
That is wildly incorrect. See 928a.1. for the definition. The law provides that the government can only designate those as unlawful enemy combatants who have "engaged in hostilities or who have purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its allies, and who is NOT a member of any regular armed forces or militia of any government, recognized or unrecognized.
Except for the fact that is not the only way to end up before the tribunal system: "The following offense shall be triable by military commission under this chapter at any time without limitation..." (emphasis mine). Section 950v(b)(2) then goes on for pages to list triable offenses, including "any person" who, among other possibilities, is "in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States" (e.g., a citizen) and "knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States..." Also, this jewel, "Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission." Now, this might not sound too bad, obviously this is a bad person, right? Except that these are not people who have committed crimes being tried under this law (since they have not been tried yet), but people who have been accused of doing these things, and, if the accused person was always guilty, why would we need a court system at all?
There are similar problems with your defense of a person's rights under the tribunals. The law is complex, has many possible loopholes, and is not under the same oversight as the normal court system. You say that the process is appealable, but, effectively, it makes no difference: "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever... relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions." In other words, no interlocutory appeals, no complaints about the process itself; no appeals at all until all is said and done and you have been sentenced, years after you have been incarcerated. Habeas corpus is effectively denied since, once the process is started, you cannot challenge it. If forced to, they can accuse you of "conspiracy to molest a kangaroo in the support of terrorism" to bypass habeas and bog down the tribunal process essentially forever. Compare the number of people planned to be tried by the tribunals to the number of people actually held. The right to a "speedy trial" is in no way upheld.
If the tribunal process gave you the same process as the normal courts, why create a parallel system? They are doing the minimum they can at each stage when forced to by years-long Constitutional challenges. The assertion that it does not materially change the status of the accused is preposterous.
Somewhere in a D.C. building there's a public mural/sculpture with an encrypted message in it that has yet to be decrypted after how many years of people trying????? I don't have a link, if someone would please provide one that would be great.
Anyone can write such a message. All you need is a one time pad generated with truly random noise. Encrypt your message, burn the pad.
Things like this have been done in the past by sampling radio noise from deep space to generate the pads. The problem is protecting and distributing the pads. In this case, that would not be a problem, just destroy it.
Macintosh systems can do this at least as of 10.4; it is a System Preferences option. As another poster said, Linux can do so, Windows Vista has this as a built in option, and third party tools can do it on Windows XP.
Our toddler does this with the cats when they are passed out on the floor. She covers them with a blanket and brings over a stuffed animal. I think it is adorable. She also does this with the Tickle-Me-Elmo, incidentally, as long as it is off. She is terrified of the thing if it is turned on, to the extent that she will cower on the other end of the house. We have it out and off in the hopes she will eventually be accustomed to it. I really think the Tickle-Me-Elmo (My folks got her the "Extreme" edition.) is more of an adult toy anyway. It is funny to watch, but it is a lot for a toddler.
I dunno. I don't think searching carry on as a huge violation. Nor really a violation anyways. I don't have to fly. I could take a train, or drive myself. I CHOOSE to take a plane. Thus for my safety and the safety of others I respect the security requirements.
The 'security requirements' creep. Obviously some security must exist for the safety of all passengers, but where is the balance point? The amount of searching, not only of actual items carried, but of a person's identity, of their privacy, the number of false positives and the consequences to the innocent has increased dramatically over a very short time. Similarly, train and bus station security is increasing as well (so much for "don't have to fly"). I have no idea what checks are or are not being instituted for rental car agencies, but I do know that Real ID is being pushed as a kind of "Interstate Passport," such that your travel even by car can be tracked and restricted. If the push back does not start somewhere, the process will continue. This is not a theoretical slippery slope, it is happening now.
You might as well argue that the NSA and other DOD agencies doing background checks on employees is an "undue privacy violation."
I hold an inactive clearance and submitted to that process quite willingly as it was necessary to the job I wanted to perform. I did so again when dealing with highly sensitive information in a drug discovery environment. The need for a clearance was not unreasonable given what I was required to handle in my daily work. There were plenty of other jobs to choose from. Now, however, government agencies are requiring more and more stringent background checks for positions where classified information and sensitive facilities are not endangered, such as where scientists signed up on the condition that their work would be public and unclassified. Private entities are following suit, doing more background checks, drug tests, and so forth, as a condition of employment. If everyone offers the same conditions your ability to go somewhere else is diminished. At some point, reasonable rules of the road need to be specified. In any case, choosing to work on a classified project and choosing to visit Aunt Millie are two entirely different things. The right to travel unhindered was and is a cornerstone of our nation.
You have no right to fly. You have the right to free association. so walk. Flying is not a right. Neither is driving for that matter.
You're not giving up freedoms since you didn't have it in the first place. Just like smoking isn't a right either (hence the bans on it).
Well, if you bother to read the Constitution, you will find that we do, in fact, have those Rights, emphasis mine:
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Basically, anything the government is not explicitly empowered to enforce is retained by the people. The government has no rights, merely granted powers designed to preserve our rights.
And how do you EVER justify a search in your mind? I mean if we never look for weapons or dangerous goods, how are we supposed to find them? Be psychic?
Tom
I think the following is applicable, emphasis mine:
Amendment IV
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 probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is not that difficult to understand, and we have drifted a long way from it. There is a certain leeway for emergency measures and situations, but you must also remember that the Founders lived in a time of terrorism and insurrection, so the current situation would not be wholly unfamiliar to them or outside of their intent. There is a constant push toward a continual spiral of more invasive searches and measures. A strong countering push is entirely appropriate and patriotic. That is why checks and balances were built into the system. Searches and seizures should be limited, appropriate, based on effective techniques and probable cause. They should always be balanced by the need to preserve the dignity and privacy of the individual.
I would rather the small chance of getting blown up than live in constant fear. That is not living, and it was the clear intent of the Founders to preserve this attitude in the law. They themselves risked everything for freedom as have many people since then. Did they die for nothing?
In addition to the corrections other posters have made, by side-stepping FISA and other oversight (which is, in fact, Constitutionally required whenever a US citizen is *involved*, regardless of target), how in the world do we actually know what the actual issues are? The administration has done everything in its power (legally and otherwise) to forestall any legitimate investigation into the issues, so the bottom line is we really *have no idea* who was or was not being listened in on, aside from unverifiable and suspect assertion. And we do know that the technical means emplaced could be used for just about anything. How many times recently (e.g. NSLs) have we seen paperwork 'lost', 'misfiled', misreported, or powers otherwise routinely misused?
If nothing was being done against the law, why the evasion? Why the requests for immunity? Why the stream of requests for relaxing oversight? Is not the question the government constantly shoots at us "If you have nothing to hide why are you worried?" Perhaps the whole thing is legit, but it is certainly not above-board, and I will believe 'legit' when it is properly and thoroughly investigated, and when there proper oversight is again the norm, not the exception. 'Trust me,' doesn't cut it. If they cannot find the time and cause to get a warrant within 45 days *after* surveillance begins, there is a problem.
Why do you lack depth perception? I've only got one working eye and my depth perception past six feet is fine. You don't use binocular vision for depth perception past six feet. You use it for things like threading needles or leaping at prey. It is quite common for people to have problems with depth perception at night because you cannot use binocular vision at distance and you lose many of the visual cues you have during the day. In fact everyone loses most of their depth perception under certain conditions at night, particularly involving moving bright lights. This is a particular problem in archery where a traditional challenge is to shoot a candle in darkness or semi-darkness. You have to have a powerful bow to keep a very flat trajectory since you cannot adequately judge and compensate for the distance.
So, once you have marked a certain confidential information as confidential, it will do it automatically in other documents. Which means that for the low, low price of your time, you can submit a document with "fill-in the blanks" text until it redacts the same parts and BANG you know what the redacted section was...:D
And of course, context is utterly irrelevant. This thing redacts the clients name in a court document and automatically starts taking it out in invoices too. Hey! I want to find a law firm that uses this technology...
Wrong on that one. Condoms have been in use since ancient Egyptian times. The oldest known physical condom was found in 1640, made of animal intestine. I'd hardly call that high-tech.
I cannot find an online reference for this, but I read a (dead tree) journal article a good while back about archaeologists in China who found a (relatively) well preserved oiled-silk condom in the bottom of an old latrine on the order of a few thousand years old. There was speculation on whether it was effective for anything or used more as a fetish.
Come on, in classifying marijuana as a schedule I substance, they took the effect of the drug on society as a whole into account. It is the government's duty to do whatever it can to prevent another Cheech & Chong movie being made.
I don't know what part of the world you're in, but people don't kill each other over or from pot here. When I was growing up, the impact of pot as a "drug problem" versus, say, heroin, was not even on the radar. At college, where many drugs were accessible, pot was the absolute least of worries: still illegal, still a problem, but the difference in "effect on society as a whole" between marijuana and amphetamines is near incalculable. Besides that, there are clear criteria for what merits Schedule I status and they have been ignored. Movies have no basis in reality or law.
I have no problem with the existence of the drug schedules, the government's "duty," or on its face the illegal status of marijuana. I do have a serious problem with misuse of the system, and that misuse here, among other things, makes marijuana seem a valid stepping stone to much worse drugs. "It's no worse, right?" It also stifles a legitimate (non drug-related) industry. This is not the only such misclassified medication, just the most visible and politically sensitive.
Slashdot Mirror
If you are going to screw your creditors, why shouldn't you have to liquidate your large assets? Why should someone getting away from their liabilities be able to keep their assets? Because often, forcing the sale of your home and car will not improve your financial situation, pay your creditors any more money, or get you back on your feet (the societal reason for bankruptcy protections). Bankruptcy protections allow you to (with the courts help) settle as much debt as you can with what you can while righting the downward spiral and getting you back to being a productive member of society again. Personal bankruptcy happens for a lot of reasons, often being more bad luck than anything.
If you are forced to sell your home, where do you live? Oh, that's right, you have more outgo than income and the worst credit possible: no lease for you! Now you also have to sell everything else you own in 60 days at a fire sale instead of actually getting good buyers (because you no longer have anywhere to store your possessions). Wanna buy a couch? Forced to sell your car, how do you work? Where do you live now that you don't have a back seat? There goes what income you had, the health insurance that was paying some of your emergency medical bills, your ability to find an alternative place to live, or to work out a lot of your other problems involving paperwork and bureaucracy.
Society has found that putting somebody already on a downward spiral into a tailspin and then lighting them on fire is not a good way to get money for the creditors -or_ to get someone put back together. Instead, people end up in cardboard boxes on the street when that happens and cannot get work because they do not have proper attire, hygiene, an address, etc., to get that $60,000 per year job they are actually qualified for. Yes, the system can be abused, but by and large it works and is there for a reason. If (as most people do), you want to ever have credit again, you will attempt to pay down what you can and sell protected assets voluntarily where it makes sense, but being able to freeze the process for a bit while things work out is *exactly the point* of bankruptcy. P.S. -- Why should the fact that he's a veteran or 86-years old affect purely financial dealings? And why should his choice to get a reverse mortgage not affect him the way it would affect anyone else? This is a good question. I think the 86-year-old veteran bit was to point out that he was not a teenager with 20 bajillion credit cards going nuts. The reverse mortgage thing is a big problem. A lot of people do not understand bankruptcy and are threatened by immoral creditors: "I'll take your house! I'll sell your organs! Your children will be used for medical experimentation! Pay up! Pay up!" none of which they have any legal right to do. If your house is not encumbered, they cannot (or could not?) touch it. But people panic and take out a 2nd mortgage to pay their medical bills and then get their house taken when they cannot pay the mortgage. If they had just sat tight and ridden it out, they would have done better and had somewhere to negotiate from.
This is another point about bankruptcy protections: by giving the debtor some negotiating power, they make it in the creditor's interest to find a way to settle.
This case is special, however, since, morally and ethically, people cannot agree on the definition of 'person' here and the law cannot therefore determine who the rights are meant to protect.
Ahh but since so much of the constitution hinges on this question, the feds are the ones that have to make this determination, otherwise states could just as easily define a person as excluding blacks or hispanic, or gays. Even leaving this question up to the states, that definition still has to be based upon observable criteria and specifically not on religious beliefs, since it otherwise violates the constitutional separation of church and state. I've not seen a since anti-abortion law that defines a person in terms that are not based upon religious beliefs and explain what a person is and why a fetus qualifies, but my sperm, my kidney, or a pot bellied pig does not without resorting to religious arguments about souls or transparent, contrived criteria to hide that fact.
The decision on blacks (and women) was finally made by amending the Constitution, not by Congress. (Well, there's the whole proclamation thing, but it was a "military action" and did not grant any rights. Or something.) I also think this issue is much thornier than even the thorniest debates on "white man's burden" as to where to draw even a fuzzy line. The issue of viability for me is important but not decisive.
Not allowing religion to enter the debate can ironically violate the establishment clause by legislating away beliefs. People do have them, on both sides, and they are important. I think that religion with care, can and must enter the debate because ethics and morality are bankrupt without the foundation of a belief system, "religious" or otherwise. (Kant's arguments against circular religious morality apply equally well against his own "rational ethical system" for instance and even "pure utilitarianism" has deep flaws.) In the end, there is no completely rational argument for treating children as autonomous even at birth. There have been cultures who did not until the age of seven when they could actually begin to reason and care for themselves. I know anti-abortion atheists. Part of the issue is "abundance of caution": if you are not sure, why not err on the side of caution, and how much caution is irrational? All that being said, I do cautiously agree and I think that the religious rhetoric needs to step back in favor of listening a little more.
because in the endbut I agree that the law can not be made on that basis.
Absent that determination, the State has a responsibility to protect the freedoms of the mother.
Well, or the mother and to a lesser extent the father.
Agreed.
There is no rational way to decide that issue and if decided arbitrarily, a large portion of the population will strongly oppose it on deep moral grounds (to the point of violence).
Sure there is. You base the definition upon a conservatively agreed upon scientific consensus, as has already been done. It is illegal to ban abortions now, and there has been no large violent revolution as a result. There is violence, but it is on the same level or less of other violent acts committed by religious zealots against those they feel are "evil" because of different beliefs (like violence against gays and jews).
Science can only tell you what and how, not why. At some point in its development, the fetus can experience pain and record memories (however vague). Does it deserve protection at that point? Your pot-bellied pig is no different, but I can slaughter a pig without it being murder. But a pig is not capable of growing up into an adult human. Even after birth, a child does not develop certain mental/emotional traits for months or years. When are they "human"? What about a severely retarded child? Yes, I am being over the top, but the b
I said two things: that he would be able to allow through some legislation which has not been able to get through because of either actual or threatened vetoes under Bush, and he would be able to veto legislation that Bush has been letting through without opposition. If it came down to it and Congress rains piss poor legislation on the oval office and does not compromise, then yes, nothing would get done, but is "something getting done" good if it is the wrong thing :-)? The system was set up with checks and balances to be deliberately conservative, to encourage the "governs least" part of the plan. Fiscally, if we don't put on the brakes, we won't be able to afford fences or bridges or police or Iraq/Afghanistan. Part of Dr. Paul's value, if nothing else, and I do not believe it is nothing else, is to act as a counter-balance to "prevailing wisdom". I have spent some time reading The Federalist Papers of late, and though I do not agree with everything, it is interesting just how much was anticipated and is still relevant to our current situation if the system is allowed to work.
As an aside: I have, by the way, continued reading up on the Darfur situation. What a mess. The problem of what to do with the large and largely corrupt contractors is interesting and an enormous mess in Iraq as well for somewhat different reasons. Having worked in that industry, it was not the Russians looking over my shoulder, but the other "Beltway Bandits" looking for a scoop. It turned my stomach. I did not leave because I disliked working with the military, but because of the civilians. Now that many of them are effectively multinational conglomerates, they can rob everybody blind regardless of who gets killed in the process. As to what to do... I will need to mull over. My comments on intervention were largely directed at the second bill you referenced.
"Besides, you don't think Ron Paul supporters have considered that problem?"I don't know. What does that mean? They have a plan? What is it?
If I told you I would have to... I don't know, DDOS you? Seriously, though, as I said in a different thread, one election is not magic. Ron Paul is neither a saint nor a miracle worker, just one good man. If we are going to actually make changes in our country, we need to not make this a one shot effort and instead work on getting new people in at all levels along with bringing to the top new issues and new ideas--- not just Ron Paul's. Politics is too divisive and fragmented right now. We need to start looking at a swing back to more (actual) conservative and moderate candidates to reign in government growth and start looking at solutions which may not be ideal for everyone, but which large portions of the population can accept.
Right now we worry too much about our "side" winning and that swings us hard to extreme positions and bad decisions. In any case, this effort is bigger than Ron Paul. He said in the debate tonight that he was just part of it; he's an important one, but only part. People do not have to agree with everything he does (I don't), just accept that his basic principles are in line with what the country was built to do and, whether he is always right or not (who is?), he has a record of holding to them. As we get more voices in on that debate, that is when things will really happen in our country. My experience with many/most Ron Paul supporters is that they are a lot more thoughtful about rights, about political ideas, about history than your average voter or politician. So is Ron Paul and that is one of the things they recognize, that draws them, and makes them so loyal. On the balance, that type of thing needs to spread, even to people who disagree with us if we are to enjoy any of the next few decades. To a large extent, that won't happen; to some extent, though, it can and will.
What if you don't consider a fetus to be a human until the second trimester? Then I think it's pretty clear that delivering a third-trimester baby and aborting a two-week-old fetus are morally consistent under that view.
I'm not saying I agree with that worldview, but I am saying that your assertion is flawed.
Not a flawed assertion so much as a strong statement clarified in the rest of the post. Obviously that was not clear, and, to that extent, I retract it, but the key word there for me was support. I certainly think that being an obstetrician and delivering babies as a career is inconsistent with an unrestricted or casual view of abortion or being in favor of abortion. Dr. Paul has, himself, dealt with non-viable tubal pregnancies, for instance, but that is a situation where there is essentially no alternative other than letting both mother and child die.
Note that, as I say, recognizing the moral question and imposing that on others are two different issues. I believe that abortion even in the case of rape and incest is "wrong," but I would by no means wish to be faced with making that decision or weighing the possible opposing wrongs in that case. For me, that would seem to be between that individual, their conscience, and God. From society's point of view, whether to recognize that as "murder" is again, a very tough question and fraught with danger. I have heard the point of view in the case of both abortion in cases like that, in euthanasia(*), and jury nullification, that having the system make certain procedures illegal or at least difficult ensures that they are only done when the individual is driven by a moral concern which outweighs the legality. I do not know whether I support the position, but it certainly gives pause.
(*) I don't understand why everyone is so concerned about euthanasia! What is wrong with dealing with issues here? Aren't our own youth having problems enough?
Aha! The topic at hand!
Is it necessary for privacy for people to have the ability to be anonymous on the internet?Absolutely. Our nation was founded on anonymous or pseudonymous political debate: Silence Dogood, The Federalist Papers, endless broadsides. This has continued throughout history. Without the ability to be anonymous, there is no freedom of speech. On the other hand, people have to realize that there are downsides to anonymous speech, that it is often hard to verify and rely on what it says. This is much more a personal responsibility and caveat lector problem than a regulation problem, however.
There is also the age-old problem of denying or chilling speech leads to underground or no speech. It is often much more useful to society to have crazy and hateful ideas expressed so that people can see them in the light of day, recognize them as crazy and hateful, and deal with underlying issues. Letting them fester in the dark is never a good idea. A crazy idea sounds much more sane to a rebellious disenfranchised soul who things he is getting in on something dark and secretive. Chilling speech re-enforces the nuts. Denying anonymity chills speech.
If IPv6 or any new protocol ever did take off, would people object to each person having their very own assigned IP address. Much like you get a driver's license, getting your own IP would be a big accomplishment.
I imagine it would be quite easy for people to misuse this new "unique" identifier much like social security numbers are misused.
This actually makes the Internet potentially much more peer-to-peer, allowing people to serve and create content much more readily. In line with the above, however, there must be a mechanism to allow privacy and anonymity somewhere.
The internet is about a public sharing of information. If you want privacy or even an expectation of it, then use encryption. The most likely attack on privacy will be an attack on encryption use by ordinary people.
Do not forget the utility of traffic analysis. Encryption is useless if nasty people can track the time and endpoints of the communication. If they know you posted to the blog, they can read the blog. If they know you sent an email to someone, they can bug or seize the computer, or just put it together from the person's response to the message. That is how criminals using encryption are sometimes caught. Unfortunately, the same techniques can also be used to poke into people's private lives for unsavory purposes, like stifling speech or tracking journalists. It's a hard thing to balance. Police do a hard job for our society and should be honored for that. On the other hand, it takes very few bad apples to ruin things and the same techniques the police use can be used by crooks without uniforms.
The veto, in both allowing bills recently vetoed and disallowing many that have been bludgeoned through; adjustment of executive fiefdoms that Congress has had so much difficulty regulating and overseeing the last few years (due to flat refusal by the Executive to cooperate). Besides, you don't think Ron Paul supporters have considered that problem?
Despite your denial, the Mexican War is a great example of a war of aggression on our part. The Americans living there asked permission of the Mexican government and were accepted as *guests* subject to Mexican law. They then brought slaves which were illegal in Mexico. When Mexico tried to actually enforce their laws against guests who had agreed to abide by them, that is when "Texans" voted for annexation. Not all Texans at the time are perhaps at fault, but the overall result was shameful. We invaded Mexico, annexed Texas, and adjusted our borders elsewhere as a result.
The Spanish-American war is largely considered unjust. We invaded and we gained territory as a result.
Post-Civil War, we invaded Native American territories en masse, even those with whom we had made treaties ceding land. The violation of some of these treaties is still bogged down in Federal Court, which has managed to consistently stall the proceedings for over a century. The slaughter of Native Americans, by any definition, was "genocide" and was openly supported as such by some members of Congress and military at the time.
The Civil War itself (good or bad) can be considered a territorial invasion. Secession may have been stupid in some sense, but it was the right of the states who decided to do so as decided by the Supreme Court. After the War, when the government tried to charge some Confederate leaders with treason, the high court found that there was nothing treasonable about secession--- the several states voluntarily joined the Union and could, one would suppose, voluntarily leave it, whether the reason was good or bad.
The Monroe Doctrine was essentially a declaration of a sphere of influence (a step down from colonialism). It specified that we claimed the right of influence over the American continents and others were to have their hands out. This was little different from other countries' statements over other parts of the world at the time.
We may have not "gained territory" in other interventions per se, but we certainly gained (or tried to gain) other benefits and overruled the sovereignty of other nations. We armed many of the extremists we now fight.
This is, of course, a devil's advocate and selective reading of history, but we are not a morally pure country by any stretch of the imagination. I do not hate my country, and, in fact, support its principles with a passion, but we do have a tendency toward arrogance. If we believe in what we say we believe in, that has to go.
Actually, having just read both your references and a bit more, I think his rationale is quite valid. Maybe not perfect, but certainly justifiable.
First, the economic intervention proposed *would* set a dangerous precedent of using pension money for political ends. Regardless of the current ends, the precedent and power *will be* misused. The action should not be taken without careful consideration, which was the main thing Dr. Paul argued in both places: don't be hasty.
In the case of the declaration of genocide and intervention, his argument was primarily that the bill was being rushed through with minimal thought, debate, and time for revision. This is not really arguable if you look at the timetable. He is not saying (there) that he will utterly oppose it, but that he is predisposed to oppose it and that it requires *very* careful consideration. Given the debacle we already have ourselves in, I cannot argue that point either and I doubt you can.
He points out the condition of the military and its existing commitments. Can we meet those commitments by themselves? How can we do more on top of it? Again, hard to argue. Are we going to invade Pakistan, Venezuela, Burma, etc., etc.?
As for the "confusion" over the issues in Darfur, I see no such confusion in his statements. Those issues would become very confused by any intervention on our part, economic or military. The fact that the situation is complex makes it very hard to intervene surgically and not inflame issues. International peace keepers in Africa are seeing that now as they take fire from multiple sides because they are seen as interfering, because they are simply in the wrong place, or even because they are being raided by rebels for equipment and arms. Relief supplies rarely get to the right people, and sanctions often backfire because combatants will simply keep or take what they need from those we try to protect. We are very quick to consider action these days but very reluctant to actually think it through and really decide what is best and, of the things that need correcting in the world (and they are many) which ones we should really commit to. That, most often, is Dr. Paul's argument, and, again, it is hard to refute out of hand. The fact that he is primarily non-interventionist is a good foil to the trigger-happy attitude which prevails. That is why we have balance of powers (nominally).
This is true and important, but not fatal. The trick is, once you wake people up, to keep the momentum going. If, for instance, someone like Ron Paul is going to be successful in office, he will need support at other levels of government. However, once a large grass-roots organization is mobilized, that can be targeted at related campaigns. This is not so true of other political campaigns where they are rallied by expensive advertising blitzes. Volunteers and those making personal donations are dedicated and will stick around for a bit. You also need to raise the general awareness of those issues; doing so will start to change the platforms of even opposing candidates.
The big problem with politics right now is that it is much too divisive and polarized, to the extent that a rather moderate politician like Dr. Paul or a moderate voter like myself is suddenly "extreme". The platform that is generating so much attention is not really new or different, politicians have been running on it for a century or so and it once made up the core values of the Republican party. Remember Lincoln? Remember Grant (despite his other faults) paying down the war debt, stabilizing the economy and the currency? Grant's actions probably delayed the 1880's depression by some margin and would have gone farther if it were not for opposition in Congress derailing Reconstruction. Remember Jefferson who was the ideal of the Republican party? How about Reagan (despite his other faults)? These are not new ideas. On that note, we need to start getting moderates/actual conservatives of all stripes into office. We need to have a vigorous debate, work out solutions acceptable to a broad constituency (not ideal, perhaps, but acceptable), and generally go forward with our eyes open instead of playing a football game against "the other side" while our country disintegrates.
As for Dr. Paul becoming "another politician", I don't think so. He's not a saint, but he is stubborn about his ethics, and he has been in the House for ten terms without being corrupted yet. This will cause problems at points dealing with Congress, but again, we need to clean house there too, and much of the cleanup needs to happen in the Executive anyway.
I disagree. Now I'm a huge proponent of state's rights and shrinking the role of the federal government as well as federal taxes. Abortion and many other topics, however, need to be addressed federally because they are constitutional issues. States cannot be allowed to pass laws that violate the constitution, including the separation of church and state.
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In most cases, I would agree wholeheartedly. A state cannot pass laws banning free speech or the right to bear arms(*), for instance. This case is special, however, since, morally and ethically, people cannot agree on the definition of 'person' here and the law cannot therefore determine who the rights are meant to protect. Is a fetus a "person" under the law to which protections of life and liberty should apply? Since the unborn cannot protect themselves (they are minors), should the State(**) intervene on their behalf? Absent that determination, the State has a responsibility to protect the freedoms of the mother. There is no rational way to decide that issue and if decided arbitrarily, a large portion of the population will strongly oppose it on deep moral grounds (to the point of violence). There is no choice here but to kick the issue back down the hierarchy. Like-minded individuals need to debate and decide the issue in their communities, not at the federal level.
(*) or bare arms for that matter--- this would be especially bad in Texas where it gets awfully hot.
(**) Note that this is the capital-S State, national government, not the lower-case-s state.
In short, yes. I think this is entirely preferable for the woman than having abortion banned in the entire country and having to go to Canada, don't you? At the same time, a population with a more or less like mind being able to ban a practice they despise locally is preferable to them than having it universally allowed. By pushing highly controversial issues closer to the individual, it gives the individual more control over the issue. As an obstetrician having delivered as many children as he has, Ron Paul would be a hypocrite to support abortion. Given his views on the Constitution, he would be a hypocrite to try to impose that view on people at the Federal level. He has, however, dealt with dangerous tubal pregnancies which were not viable and a severe threat to the mother. My wife and I are both against abortion, but we recognize that beyond a certain level it is not right to impose that view on others. We also recognize that, beyond a certain level, everyone has a right to life.
The idea that life begins arbitrarily at birth is just as rationally questionable as the idea that life begins at conception and therefore both views, as well as the range in between are ethically supportable. There are identifiable stages where the fetus can be shown to recognize pain and is certainly viable. My daughter was premature. She is coloring with her crayons behind me as I type this. Was she "not a human" before a medical accident caused her to be born early? If that medical accident had not happened, would it have been OK to kill her? Pretending that this is not a moral question is equivalent to sticking your head in the sand.
Treasure currently stands at about 1% of the GDP. I don't know that I would call that "a fantastic rate".
Lives currently stand at about 4000 over 4 years - again, not exactly what I would call "a fantastic rate".
Plus the increases in homeland security on federal, state, and local levels, the long-term costs of the war (we disagree here on accounting, as I consider Iraq fallout), such as veterans' benefits, loss of productivity due to workforce overseas, severe drawdown of military inventory which will have to be replaced, etc. We haven't begun paying the cost; that will fall to my kid(s). Even "1% of GDP" is quite a bit compared to what it could be used for.
As for lives, there are also some 30,000 wounded. Because of advances in defensive equipment, medical technology, and the nature of the conflict(s), a large chunk are maimed and/or have suffered head trauma. This will have a lasting effect. Compared to highway deaths, just like 9/11, this is a drop in the bucket; I admit that, but it is completely disproportionate to the issue that triggered it.
Terrorism is just a criminal justice problem.Domestic terrorism, sure. But in Afghanistan Bin Laden was being sheltered by the Taliban - out of reach of our justice system. At that point, it becomes a foreign policy issue. For the record, we didn't get nearly as wound up about Timothy McVeigh or the Olympic bombing in Atlanta - they were both handled by the justice system.
Point taken. However, this is also where my comment on letters of Marque and Reprisal comes in. Whether they were used to authorize private or military action (some Constitutional disagreement), they provided a carefully tailored legal (recognized by international law), criminal mechanism specifically designed for the case: an non-governmental entity violating international law to inflict harm, difficult to wage direct war against, and possibly hiding behind the borders ("marque") of another nation. Afghanistan will end up costing much more than it should because we are not able to focus what we need on the problem. There is a giant Whoooossh as it gets sucked somewhere else. But, we don't seem to disagree on that, just how to label and account for it.
Reacting strongly to them gives them power. The trade center was bombed once by these same chuckleheads, and we didn't really react. So they came back and did it right the second time. I fail to see how inaction helped us.It did not get them the effect they wanted. That is why they had to come back. We did take action, just did not scream it to the world. Under Clinton (note I am not making Clinton the hero here), limited, focused action was taken against Al Qaeda. Under Bush, that action was canned and we largely took our eyes off the ball before 9/11. Now we are running around screaming and I fail to see where that gets us. There is a comfortable (or uncomfortable) medium somewhere.
I don't really disagree with what you said about Iraq - but I reiterate that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the only connection was Bush's new policy of pre-emptive war that was spurred by 9/11.Agreed in principle. It just seems important to me to underline that it was the public post-9/11 panic and need for revenge that made it easy to do. If people had slowed down just a touch, it would not have been. On that particular day, it did not take me long to fear the public/government reaction more than the attack itself. This is true of a lot of high-profile but extremely rare dangers. I lived through a school shooting, have kept an eye on a number of others, and see the same thing there. Not much trying to fix problems, a lot of hand-wringing, finger pointing, and security theater. But that is a complete gripe in and of itself.
This is true, but that is why a responsible alternative power scheme always 1) includes batteries or some other means to store energy, and 2) multiple sources of energy. Generally when it is not sunny during the day, for instance, it is because it is overcast, likely windy, and just possibly raining. Some active conservation and care in using the electricity also helps. Knowing when energy cost and availability are at their highest and planning accordingly helps. Sadly, few people care about the environment if it actually means affecting their lives or ways of doing anything. But we all adjust our driving and fueling according to the price at the pumps these days, so maybe awareness will bring change.
That being said, time is against us and some form of baseline power will always be necessary at least in urban areas, so we will need a mixed solution and, yes, that will probably include nuclear at least for a good bit.
The only reliable means we have of producing energy are fuel powered reactors/power stations and hydro-electric plants and these are what a country should base it's energy policy on.
This part a lot of people miss. You need baseline power for two reasons: 1) to make sure you have some way to meet at least basic demand all of the time and 2) to even out dirty power. The mass of the turbines in nuclear, hydroelectric, and coal turbines (somewhat in that order) absorbs surges, problems with polarity, and so forth which might otherwise blow bulbs, reduce the lives of appliances, and maybe even start fires. Wind turbines, gas jets, and other generators do not come close.
In rural areas, it is much easier to get around this because you have more off-grid setups. If you create your own power or get it locally, it is much easier to monitor and respond to. There is also less of a cascade effect from other users/producers in the grid, like the domino effect which took out the grid in New York a bit ago. In a rural area, you can much more easily change your activities to match power availability. I can glance at the battery status to decide whether to run another load of wash, watch a movie, or just play cards with my wife. When battery status is high and the sun or wind is going, I can go crazy. Not hard to do and just becomes habit.
In the end, we need to build our energy policy around a lot of solutions: baseline power, local self-sufficiency, renewable energy, conservation, research. With a mixed solution, we have a better chance of hitting the right one and dealing with things that go wrong. If, as you say, wind shifts and a wind farm or two is left high and dry, we will be happy to have solar, and hydro, and methane plants, and, maybe a portable nuclear pile as well.
It sounds to me as though you have an irrational fear of nuclear power which is a shame because we're going to be seeing it utilised a lot more often now that governments are realising there simply is no other alternative.
Bingo. We have painted ourselves into a tight corner. Unless people are willing to do a crash-change to a fraction of our current consumption, the effect of aging plants coming off-line in the next few years will not be replaceable by anything else. I, personally, am not irrationally afraid of nuclear power, but I do not like the fact that we have been forced into a place where we have no option.
For the record, I agree that caution should be taken with projects like this, for a number of reasons, and you make some sensible points, but, there is a difference between proactive and self-destructive.
So, yes, we're obsessed with guns and nukes because you don't just sit around waiting for the next attack, you try to be proactive. The next attack probably isn't going to happen with airplanes, because no one is going to believe the next guy who stands up and says, "Do as I say and you will live!"I've had two direct hits by tornadoes plus several other disasters. I am "proactive" in that I know where my supplies are, inventory and check them on occasion, and know where to go when weather gets dicey. But I am not "obsessed" with anything, and I do not live in fear of the weather. I know there is a risk and I deal with it. It does not take over my life.
Post 9/11, fear has been allowed to infect our politics, our foreign relations, and even our daily lives. Lives and treasure have been flushed at a fantastic rate. Major changes are being made or contemplated to our political system. This is unnecessary. Terrorists have existed for a long time. Some four hundred years ago a guy stuffed the British Parliament building full of powder. Several villages were exterminated during the Revolutionary War era by extremists as well as the smaller scale violence against civilians leading up to the conflict. Our system was set up with an understanding of what is possible. Some adjustment needs to be made for technology and times, but not a throw-our-hands-up-in-the-air and attack or distrust everything. I am not certain this is what you are conveying, but it is a narrow ledge. Life goes on. Some risk is well worth freedom.
Terrorism is just a criminal justice problem. The British learned that: when they started treating terrorists like common, every day criminals, they got much less attention, did not look like martyrs, and did not recruit any where near as well. Reacting strongly to them gives them power.
Don't confuse the attack on Iraq with 9/11, because the only connection is that Bush found Americans in a surly enough mood that it seemed like a good time to go in. The only place that the US has gone out "and start[ed] fucking up as many muslims as [they] can" is Afghanistan, and you'll have a hard time convincing me that Afghanistan was unwarranted. Also, the US is fairly tame when it comes to rolling into a country. Look into the US in the Philippines (250,000 - 1,000,000 civilians dead) or Japan in China (20 - 35 million dead) for how nasty one can be.
The attack on Iraq should be connected with 9/11 because it was and still is for many people. 9/11 set the stage and was used, as you yourself point out, to make it happen. It was another knee-jerk reaction by the public out of fear and revenge with no backing of hard (or really any) facts. The other rationales presented were just a smokescreen to try to salve peoples' consciences for what I think many people knew was wrong from the beginning. This is why the US government structure was set up to be conservative. It was supposed to be difficult to go to war to prevent exactly these kinds of reactions. The proper action would have been a letter of Marque and Reprisal, just like has been used against organized piracy in the past--- an authorization for force directed against the extra-governmental entities directly responsible for the attack--- instead of handing the Executive a stack of blank checks. The morality of some of what we did can be argued; I do not think it arguable that we should have given a lot more thought and less emotion to the doing of it.
That is wildly incorrect. See 928a.1. for the definition. The law provides that the government can only designate those as unlawful enemy combatants who have "engaged in hostilities or who have purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or its allies, and who is NOT a member of any regular armed forces or militia of any government, recognized or unrecognized.
Except for the fact that is not the only way to end up before the tribunal system: "The following offense shall be triable by military commission under this chapter at any time without limitation..." (emphasis mine). Section 950v(b)(2) then goes on for pages to list triable offenses, including "any person" who, among other possibilities, is "in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States" (e.g., a citizen) and "knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States..." Also, this jewel, "Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission." Now, this might not sound too bad, obviously this is a bad person, right? Except that these are not people who have committed crimes being tried under this law (since they have not been tried yet), but people who have been accused of doing these things, and, if the accused person was always guilty, why would we need a court system at all?
There are similar problems with your defense of a person's rights under the tribunals. The law is complex, has many possible loopholes, and is not under the same oversight as the normal court system. You say that the process is appealable, but, effectively, it makes no difference: "no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever ... relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions." In other words, no interlocutory appeals, no complaints about the process itself; no appeals at all until all is said and done and you have been sentenced, years after you have been incarcerated. Habeas corpus is effectively denied since, once the process is started, you cannot challenge it. If forced to, they can accuse you of "conspiracy to molest a kangaroo in the support of terrorism" to bypass habeas and bog down the tribunal process essentially forever. Compare the number of people planned to be tried by the tribunals to the number of people actually held. The right to a "speedy trial" is in no way upheld.
If the tribunal process gave you the same process as the normal courts, why create a parallel system? They are doing the minimum they can at each stage when forced to by years-long Constitutional challenges. The assertion that it does not materially change the status of the accused is preposterous.
Anyone can write such a message. All you need is a one time pad generated with truly random noise. Encrypt your message, burn the pad.
Things like this have been done in the past by sampling radio noise from deep space to generate the pads. The problem is protecting and distributing the pads. In this case, that would not be a problem, just destroy it.
Macintosh systems can do this at least as of 10.4; it is a System Preferences option. As another poster said, Linux can do so, Windows Vista has this as a built in option, and third party tools can do it on Windows XP.
Our toddler does this with the cats when they are passed out on the floor. She covers them with a blanket and brings over a stuffed animal. I think it is adorable. She also does this with the Tickle-Me-Elmo, incidentally, as long as it is off. She is terrified of the thing if it is turned on, to the extent that she will cower on the other end of the house. We have it out and off in the hopes she will eventually be accustomed to it. I really think the Tickle-Me-Elmo (My folks got her the "Extreme" edition.) is more of an adult toy anyway. It is funny to watch, but it is a lot for a toddler.
The 'security requirements' creep. Obviously some security must exist for the safety of all passengers, but where is the balance point? The amount of searching, not only of actual items carried, but of a person's identity, of their privacy, the number of false positives and the consequences to the innocent has increased dramatically over a very short time. Similarly, train and bus station security is increasing as well (so much for "don't have to fly"). I have no idea what checks are or are not being instituted for rental car agencies, but I do know that Real ID is being pushed as a kind of "Interstate Passport," such that your travel even by car can be tracked and restricted. If the push back does not start somewhere, the process will continue. This is not a theoretical slippery slope, it is happening now.
You might as well argue that the NSA and other DOD agencies doing background checks on employees is an "undue privacy violation."I hold an inactive clearance and submitted to that process quite willingly as it was necessary to the job I wanted to perform. I did so again when dealing with highly sensitive information in a drug discovery environment. The need for a clearance was not unreasonable given what I was required to handle in my daily work. There were plenty of other jobs to choose from. Now, however, government agencies are requiring more and more stringent background checks for positions where classified information and sensitive facilities are not endangered, such as where scientists signed up on the condition that their work would be public and unclassified. Private entities are following suit, doing more background checks, drug tests, and so forth, as a condition of employment. If everyone offers the same conditions your ability to go somewhere else is diminished. At some point, reasonable rules of the road need to be specified. In any case, choosing to work on a classified project and choosing to visit Aunt Millie are two entirely different things. The right to travel unhindered was and is a cornerstone of our nation.
You're not giving up freedoms since you didn't have it in the first place. Just like smoking isn't a right either (hence the bans on it).
Well, if you bother to read the Constitution, you will find that we do, in fact, have those Rights, emphasis mine:
Amendment IXThe enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Basically, anything the government is not explicitly empowered to enforce is retained by the people. The government has no rights, merely granted powers designed to preserve our rights.
And how do you EVER justify a search in your mind? I mean if we never look for weapons or dangerous goods, how are we supposed to find them? Be psychic?
Tom
I think the following is applicable, emphasis mine:
Amendment IVThe 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 probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
It is not that difficult to understand, and we have drifted a long way from it. There is a certain leeway for emergency measures and situations, but you must also remember that the Founders lived in a time of terrorism and insurrection, so the current situation would not be wholly unfamiliar to them or outside of their intent. There is a constant push toward a continual spiral of more invasive searches and measures. A strong countering push is entirely appropriate and patriotic. That is why checks and balances were built into the system. Searches and seizures should be limited, appropriate, based on effective techniques and probable cause. They should always be balanced by the need to preserve the dignity and privacy of the individual.
I would rather the small chance of getting blown up than live in constant fear. That is not living, and it was the clear intent of the Founders to preserve this attitude in the law. They themselves risked everything for freedom as have many people since then. Did they die for nothing?
In addition to the corrections other posters have made, by side-stepping FISA and other oversight (which is, in fact, Constitutionally required whenever a US citizen is *involved*, regardless of target), how in the world do we actually know what the actual issues are? The administration has done everything in its power (legally and otherwise) to forestall any legitimate investigation into the issues, so the bottom line is we really *have no idea* who was or was not being listened in on, aside from unverifiable and suspect assertion. And we do know that the technical means emplaced could be used for just about anything. How many times recently (e.g. NSLs) have we seen paperwork 'lost', 'misfiled', misreported, or powers otherwise routinely misused?
If nothing was being done against the law, why the evasion? Why the requests for immunity? Why the stream of requests for relaxing oversight? Is not the question the government constantly shoots at us "If you have nothing to hide why are you worried?" Perhaps the whole thing is legit, but it is certainly not above-board, and I will believe 'legit' when it is properly and thoroughly investigated, and when there proper oversight is again the norm, not the exception. 'Trust me,' doesn't cut it. If they cannot find the time and cause to get a warrant within 45 days *after* surveillance begins, there is a problem.
And of course, context is utterly irrelevant. This thing redacts the clients name in a court document and automatically starts taking it out in invoices too. Hey! I want to find a law firm that uses this technology...
I cannot find an online reference for this, but I read a (dead tree) journal article a good while back about archaeologists in China who found a (relatively) well preserved oiled-silk condom in the bottom of an old latrine on the order of a few thousand years old. There was speculation on whether it was effective for anything or used more as a fetish.
I don't know what part of the world you're in, but people don't kill each other over or from pot here. When I was growing up, the impact of pot as a "drug problem" versus, say, heroin, was not even on the radar. At college, where many drugs were accessible, pot was the absolute least of worries: still illegal, still a problem, but the difference in "effect on society as a whole" between marijuana and amphetamines is near incalculable. Besides that, there are clear criteria for what merits Schedule I status and they have been ignored. Movies have no basis in reality or law.
I have no problem with the existence of the drug schedules, the government's "duty," or on its face the illegal status of marijuana. I do have a serious problem with misuse of the system, and that misuse here, among other things, makes marijuana seem a valid stepping stone to much worse drugs. "It's no worse, right?" It also stifles a legitimate (non drug-related) industry. This is not the only such misclassified medication, just the most visible and politically sensitive.