In the US, laws are enacted by voting, not by public discussion.
Why yes, they are. They are introduced into a bill by lawmakers discussing it, they then vote and pass it, if all goes well it will become law.
I'm not sure what your point is as Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, publicly calling to institute the fairness doctrine describes the start of that process pretty well.
Yes, Canada is doing fine with health-care. The finally made it legal for wait insurance and medical tourism where Canadians can go offshore for treatment without being penalized by the national system. It only took a few years and a Canadian supreme court case.
But you cannot compare the number of people not receiving health care directly to both those listed countries. The problem is the stats in the US are inflated because the poor already qualify for government medical coverage yet get lumped in with those without insurance.
You want to ensure that every child has access to some amount of education but not health care? Cognitive dissonance much?
You should really look into the facts before making completely false accusations. Every child in America has access to health care. Even if their parents do not qualify for the various government programs, if the child needs treatment, they kick in and then go back on the parents. Something that may surprise you is that roughly 53 percent or better of all health care in the US is government funded already. The majority of people without health care are those who chose not to get it for some reason or another. That leaves a minority of people who are disqualified for some reason or on the fringe income level where the legitimately don't make enough to pay for coverage.
the health care debate in the US is not about getting coverage for the most part, it's about not paying for it yourself.
It's one thing for you to not be able to take care of yourself. It's another for a government agency to demand they be allowed to do that, then purposely refuse to.
I'm sorry we are such a sad state of affairs that you think both of those are the same situation. Freedom is a lost cause anymore I guess. Well, cheers to the new generation who probably know more about more things then the last but lacks anything near the wisdom the last held.
Yes, she could have gone private. But then she would be flipping the entire bill for the cancer treatment as the UK doesn't allow you to be privately treated for something then go back onto the public dole for that illness except for emergency cases where government health care options are not available..
No he's just demonstrating that in less that 2 sentences he can flip your logic around. We could write out a sad story about a person who died because she couldn't get a lifesaving treatment in time because the monthly budget was allocated to unnecessary screening.
You know, the sad part of the story is that if the girl had the option to pay for the PAP herself, all of the above could have been saved. In the US, a pap smear, depending on where you get it, costs between $11 and $300 on average and that's including the extra $75-$100 lab work needed for the non-standard testing done when something looks abnormal.
Now in the US, there are organizations with funds to help lower income people and government grants cover some places too. But the bottom line is, at least in the US, the girl could have gotten the test she was so worried about in the first place. Under most government care options, this would either not be possible, or they would claim that you sought outside treatment and don't qualify for government care for the illness anymore.
I'm sure you can and will find pros and cons of both consumer pays and government pays(likely everything in between too), but ironically, they will all be used specifically to denounce the other and never to create the best of both worlds. Until the "all or nothing", "my way or the highway", "one solution solves everything", "We need to take your freedoms away to ensure your freedoms" approaches take a hard look at the reality of the situation, all that is happening is time being wasted.
I saw the headline and wondered what in the hell a Chinese phone maker would be doing with word perfect 7 and why it would be news for nerds or stuff that matter. Perhaps they were bringing back envoy, sidekicks or something for advanced functionality. I was excited to see old things made new again and run on hardware about the same power as the original.
Turns out, it's nothing to do with the aging and outdated WP7 at all. It is all about some Microsoft windows creation for phones. Well, seeing how I do not care about windows phone 7, I purpose that before we start reusing abbreviations for products that were available in our life time to mean other products, we stop and thinks is mpw7 or something else might be more efficient in it's understanding. I mean I could start calling everything a DOS or whatever too, but I know it would only confuse people.
But it is mostly the people who wouldn't know how to shoot a gun to save their own life and likely the ones who would be shot or starve to death who is making the comments seem like that.
Maybe that's where you are getting the un-sure-ness from.
I don't see how it's remotely close to "we shouldn't be teaching our children anything in schools at all, and definitely not ever testing them".
If anything, it would be closer to "We shouldn't discrimination against people who do no know the course work based on the incorrect answers they have".
It's completely possible for someone to believe in creationism or any other religious endeavor concerning evolution and (a)bio-genesis and still understand the concepts and material requirements the course is expecting. It's not like we don't see this adaptive compartmentalization happening every day already. We have children who can easily go from one video game system and controller to any other they have experience with with little more difficulty then picking the new controller up and turning the different console on. Why do you appear to think this same thing is not possible with people learning things in school?
Well, that's not really a fair statement as the social media and modern technology is basically building from our cold-war efforts. The internet certainly was a cold war project.
What is so complex about it? I thought you said you needed to see a bunch of studies or evidence before knowing anything about it.
But no, prostitution is not the same as breathing air. Breathing air is something that is done involuntarily for the most part. You can hold your breath, but not for long and you don't have to remember to breath. Being a prostitute involved a decision to do the act. It's made by people voluntarily else the act of sex would be considered rape.
Get yourself a funk and wagner's or webster's dictionary. It is a book that has words in it, and right beside those, are more words that tell you how the other words are defined. I suggest you browse through that at your leisure.
Dear tell, do you need links to studies to know that you are supposed to stop at red lights and go on green? Do you need links to studies showing that you breath air before you believe it? FFS, please note that common sense is not two pennies that more then one person finds on the street at the same time. Please find out what it actually is, then take advantage and use it.
Go to Vegas or Nevada in the US, Canada, Most of Europe, Most of South America, Australia, A large part of Asia, and New Zealand for your Citation and evidence . I wasn't aware that making statements about commonly known things was "making shit up".
I'm sorry that I didn't provide specific examples and draw pictures for you. I assumes you were like the majority of other people competent enough to go online and just knew prostitution was legal and just as voluntary as being a whopper flopper at Burger King or working at the Crab Shack in quite a few places. Of course there are some of what they call "Sex Salves" who have no choice in the matter, But since we were distinguishing between prostitution and slavery, I hope you can understand why I didn't include sex slaves in with prostitutes.
Please forgive me for giving you and others too much credit. I will try to not let it happen again.
Grammar nazi? That's the first time I have ever been called that. In fact, I'm betting there are at least 3 grammar problems with my reply in and of itself.
I know what the guy meant. What I was saying, that you somehow jumped over trying to avoid your knee from hitting your chin when it jerked so hard, was that he can still admire what he found good at one time because he noticed a change from that in the present time which makes it somehow different. The point being, don't give up on an ideal or concept because you don't like what it morphed into. I am saddened that you neglected your grammar skills for math and computers yet failed to see that simple logic.
The US never has been a democracy. It's always been a republic that uses democracy in electing it's representatives. The Federal government never was intended to be the government over the people outside of a handful or specific situations the US constitution explicitly states.
What has happened is that you have fallen victim to the liberalized idea of some romantic utopia called democracy which largely doesn't even exist in reality. But don't take that as something negative, a lot of the publicly educated masses in America does the same. It really is the result of a systematic and purposeful attempt to create discourse within the US. It started shortly after the communist overthrow attempts in early 1919 and the communists who weren't expelled from the country, diverged into the various socialist parties around and became part of a key components that made public a government duty. Except they had a better grasp of the situation then the idiots of today, they knew it was a state's responsibility, not the federal government which is why you see the federal government taking a hands off approach in education until the late 60's early 70's with the creation of the peace corps and the department of education (which has been a profound failure).
The version of democracy never was what you or most of the other people understand as democracy. It's never been about the government doing the bidding of the people, it's been about the government being selected by the people to run the state.
The difference between slavery and prostitution is that you can't back out of slavery when it's convenient and prostitution is largely voluntary. You would be better served comparing Obama or government in general for that matter, to a prostitute then a slave.
The US will never go all 'Egypt' on itself. Too many people just don't care about the things you and others do. Too many people have somewhat decent lives. If anything, there will be a couple small riots that only hurt the rioters, they will be put down by police using less then lethal means, and because a good portion of the US is property owners, they will cheer the cops on for helping protect their property.
The US is no where near the situation that made Egypt even viable let alone work.
Enjoy your decline into irrelevance and the dark ages. I used to greatly admire what America stood for.
Seeing how Stood is past tense, you still can admire what America "Stood" for (whatever you think that was).
However, if you think that this is the only thing the government is concerned with or doing at the moment, or that it's even the biggest priority you would be sorely mistaken. You see, I can say "I want X, Y, and Z, done, oh yea, do A also" and it wouldn't make A a priority. However, because A is something you are concerned with, you might hear about it by itself. It still doesn't make it a priority of government.
Now I understand that it might ultimately be a higher priority then what you want to happen. But that's really a indication of your priorities, not the governments.
that line gets trotted out so many times it's almost funny (if it didn't want to make you cry).
Here is the problem, who defines a serious crime? Can jaywalking be a serious crime? If you can lose constitutional rights because of a law you violated, then any law can be made to take your constitutional rights from you. How about no rights to due process if you have been cited for jaywalking. Or how about losing your right to free speech for speeding or speaking out against a political candidate when not in the declared free speech zone.
Tough shit. Should have thought of that before hurting society. Payback's a bitch, ain't it?
The are called constitutional rights for a reason. It's because they are rights set above and beyond laws, they are rights guaranteed to people by limiting the ability of government to infringe on them. If that doesn't mean anything, then ever single right is up for grabs as soon as someone finds it politically advantageous. Is tough shit really the response you are expecting when it happens to something you actually care about?
You can only run afoul of that clause by "intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health." If that clause, as written, is broad enough to include what you're doing, then you are violating human rights.
No they are not. The problem is that society defines human rights and is the sole arbitrator of rights (unless you subscribe to some divine power). It's up to the society in which the practice is happening to determine if it's against human rights or not. If a society says something is OK, then there are very rare exceptions to that. If you step in from the outside and say all the sudden that the treatment of women in this Islamic nation is a human rights violation, not only have you tread on their sovereign rights as a nation, but prosecuting people for it is completely post facto. There is not one definition of human rights, there is nothing in international law that spells out specific actions that would be considered a violation. It's all up to whoever's interpretation after the fact.
People claim that capitol punishment is a violation of human rights. It's possible that the ICC could charge leaders in a country for allowing capitol punishment to exist.
No, it does not matter where the person was apprehended or what they were doing. Torture is always a human rights violation and that is just the definition of torture.
What in the hell are you talking about? Torture is just that. It doesn't have anything to do with human rights.
You mean it just makes you feel good about your rationalization?
You see, there is a difference between allowing foreign nations in a country to work and being a citizen of the country. The founding fathers were very much citizens of the nation or colonies they fought to free from the crown. They weren't visitors looking to cash in on a job because they couldn't find the same work in the shit hole they call home.
And you seem to completely miss the entire problem that made taxation without representation an issue. It was because they would have to leave their homes, travel thousands of miles, and set up citizenship in a new land in order to get representation. With immigrants, They are doing the complete opposite, they are knowingly leaving an area they have representation in, and going to one knowing that they will not but will be taxed just the same.
If you can somehow equate being born and living your entire life somewhere with making a choice while knowing all the consequences, I would like to know how. It simply isn't the same and anyone who spend minutes thinking about it should be able to see that.
And yet, in the US shortly after the revolution, residing (and paying taxes) in most states for 6 months to 1 year, depending on the state, would make one a citizen - no other credentials needed.
Actually, just establishing a residence in one of the states or the constitutional territory of the US would have made you a citizen until congress changed the laws. And this specific issue was dealt with by the US constitution too. In fact, it is specifically listed as one of the power congress is supposed to have in article 1 section 8 of the US constitution so it should be something you know about.
The US constitution gives congress specific rights to declare who is a citizen if they weren't born here.
Hey, I just realized - all those "amnesty for illegal immigrants" programs are just restoring US to the good old days of the Founding Fathers! Bring in the Tea Party pro-amnesty rallies!
You should really look up what you are talking about before spouting off like an idiot. I mean seriously, if you can post to this site, you have the internet and copies of the constitution at your fingertips.. There really is no excuse for that last comment.
What, no cigar? Oh, so it's like selectively quoting Bible by religious funding to prove their point. Never mind.
It's more like complete ignorance combined with diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.. Perhaps you could tell us more seeing how you are completely wrong. The founding fathers very much intended on congress to have the power to limit or control who became a citizen or else they never would have specifically listed it as a power of the federal government inside the constitution that create this great nation.
If the revolutions mantra of "No taxation without representation" is true then why are Green Card holders taxed?
Because they have no other right to be in the country outside that granted to them by the government who also taxes them.
But you have to also remember, the people who started "No taxation without representation" were stating it as citizens, not guests temporarily allowed to work in the country.
The ICC does not make ex post facto laws, only applies laws that are already part of the international legal system.
Yes, it does. It does so because of the specific reason you listed. You see, international laws, which are basically a collections of treaties countries may have signed but enough have and they have been around long enough that it's expected to be the norm in the world community. The problem comes because they do not spell out specific infractions, they spell out specific results of actions. Take crimes again humanity which is fully included in the ICC jurisdictional mandate for instance, It has an open ended clause that states
"Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health."
That is specifically open to interpretation. It is specifically, people sitting around and deciding that something that's happening, is all the sudden not acceptable. And instead working by treaty or other diplomatic means to create an end to it or show them how degrading the acts are, the ICC can issue indictments and hold charges for something that was not against any specific written law until it was imagined to be a violation. This has already happened with Bahr Abu Garda who ended up getting the charges dropped. There are other instances, but when someone is charged in the ICC, the indictment does not read, violation of ordinance 222.02 whatever, it reads act done (like organizing a rebellion that failed and turned bloody) which is now interpreted as crimes against humanity or war crimes. The problem is, people generally see civil war as a right of the populous, not a bad thing in which we punish the loser.
The ICC also has no jurisdiction over countries not party to the Statute of Rome, unless a the country willingly subjects to it for the duration and scope of the case in question. This latter means that no unrelated accusations can be brought against the country in question or weaseled into the case. Also, it is solely additional to national systems: it can exercise its jurisdiction only when national courts are unwilling or unable to investigate or prosecute such crimes.
You are partly right. The ICC can get inferred jurisdiction by referral from the UN whether a country agreed, signed or not. It's also not additional to the national system entirely. If the court determines, that the national system isn't addressing the problem satisfactorily enough, it can prosecute on it's own. This also brings in the failing concepts of twice put in jeopardy where someone could be trialed and acquitted in their national system and the ICC could step in with fresh proceedings over the same acts. That's a major fail in my book. The idea of justice is not shopping around until you can find a court that will convict. If they run the gauntlet once, whatever happens is sufficient.
As for human rights, would you mind telling me exactly which ones does the ICC, a body established by the United Nations, the supreme body safeguarding human rights in the world, violates?
Subjecting people to post facto law, subjecting people to Double jeopardy, just to name a few.
But seriously, you are actually sitting there with a straight face claiming the UN is the supreme body safeguarding human rights in the world? They sat on their hands and counted the warts on their knuckles when innocent people were being slaughtered in Rwanda and Uganda. They sat there and tolerated humanitarian aid shipments being intercepted by war lords in Somalia letting the people intended to be helped starve until they decided to attack the aid workers directly. The UN said just a few words but refused to do anything else (protecting) when China machine gunned up to 8 hundred civilians protesting a crappy life in Tienanmen Square. The UN, or rather participants in the UN, includi
As for mercenaries, naturally, the US took advantage of them to augment its military, namely the Blackwater private military company (renamed Xe Services in the aftermath of a severe humanitarian law violation during the Iraq War). However, even US forces have to answer to a court, as well as any terrorists they apprehend, despite Bush's 'unsigning' of the Treaty of Rome, signing "The Hague Invasion Act" in its stead, as President Obama has stated his intent to again cooperate with the ICC. So no, no terrorists. And don't say "it's all business", without knowing the legal and historical backgrounds for the incident!
Neither Bush nor Obama can remove or commit the US to any treaty. All treaties need to be ratified by the US congress (senate) before the US can be committed or removed. This ratification process is well known and almost all treaties make a provision for signing with intent to ratify.
The ICC is a complete loser in my opinion and the opinion of the US ever since it's creation. The reason why is because it intends to violate fundamental human rights by making law post facto and applicable by governments outside the competent jurisdiction of those subject to it. Those are two concepts that violate the very principles that lead to the separation from England and the forming of the United States. Other countries might be open to that, they certainly have the right to be. They can even become a fascists communist cross dressing dictatorship monarchy for all I care, as it's their right of their society. But what isn't their right is the ability to force others into that same mind set through an international criminal court that picks and chooses what laws it is willing to enforce as criminal without the implicit authorization by laws existing on the books of the country in which the person is a citizen of or within the jurisdiction of. No country should give up it's right of sovereignty in the manner at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Why yes, they are. They are introduced into a bill by lawmakers discussing it, they then vote and pass it, if all goes well it will become law.
I'm not sure what your point is as Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, publicly calling to institute the fairness doctrine describes the start of that process pretty well.
Yes, Canada is doing fine with health-care. The finally made it legal for wait insurance and medical tourism where Canadians can go offshore for treatment without being penalized by the national system. It only took a few years and a Canadian supreme court case.
But you cannot compare the number of people not receiving health care directly to both those listed countries. The problem is the stats in the US are inflated because the poor already qualify for government medical coverage yet get lumped in with those without insurance.
You should really look into the facts before making completely false accusations. Every child in America has access to health care. Even if their parents do not qualify for the various government programs, if the child needs treatment, they kick in and then go back on the parents. Something that may surprise you is that roughly 53 percent or better of all health care in the US is government funded already. The majority of people without health care are those who chose not to get it for some reason or another. That leaves a minority of people who are disqualified for some reason or on the fringe income level where the legitimately don't make enough to pay for coverage.
the health care debate in the US is not about getting coverage for the most part, it's about not paying for it yourself.
It's one thing for you to not be able to take care of yourself. It's another for a government agency to demand they be allowed to do that, then purposely refuse to.
I'm sorry we are such a sad state of affairs that you think both of those are the same situation. Freedom is a lost cause anymore I guess. Well, cheers to the new generation who probably know more about more things then the last but lacks anything near the wisdom the last held.
Yes, she could have gone private. But then she would be flipping the entire bill for the cancer treatment as the UK doesn't allow you to be privately treated for something then go back onto the public dole for that illness except for emergency cases where government health care options are not available..
You know, the sad part of the story is that if the girl had the option to pay for the PAP herself, all of the above could have been saved. In the US, a pap smear, depending on where you get it, costs between $11 and $300 on average and that's including the extra $75-$100 lab work needed for the non-standard testing done when something looks abnormal.
Now in the US, there are organizations with funds to help lower income people and government grants cover some places too. But the bottom line is, at least in the US, the girl could have gotten the test she was so worried about in the first place. Under most government care options, this would either not be possible, or they would claim that you sought outside treatment and don't qualify for government care for the illness anymore.
I'm sure you can and will find pros and cons of both consumer pays and government pays(likely everything in between too), but ironically, they will all be used specifically to denounce the other and never to create the best of both worlds. Until the "all or nothing", "my way or the highway", "one solution solves everything", "We need to take your freedoms away to ensure your freedoms" approaches take a hard look at the reality of the situation, all that is happening is time being wasted.
I saw the headline and wondered what in the hell a Chinese phone maker would be doing with word perfect 7 and why it would be news for nerds or stuff that matter. Perhaps they were bringing back envoy, sidekicks or something for advanced functionality. I was excited to see old things made new again and run on hardware about the same power as the original.
Turns out, it's nothing to do with the aging and outdated WP7 at all. It is all about some Microsoft windows creation for phones. Well, seeing how I do not care about windows phone 7, I purpose that before we start reusing abbreviations for products that were available in our life time to mean other products, we stop and thinks is mpw7 or something else might be more efficient in it's understanding. I mean I could start calling everything a DOS or whatever too, but I know it would only confuse people.
No it's not just you.
But it is mostly the people who wouldn't know how to shoot a gun to save their own life and likely the ones who would be shot or starve to death who is making the comments seem like that.
Maybe that's where you are getting the un-sure-ness from.
I don't see how it's remotely close to "we shouldn't be teaching our children anything in schools at all, and definitely not ever testing them".
If anything, it would be closer to "We shouldn't discrimination against people who do no know the course work based on the incorrect answers they have".
It's completely possible for someone to believe in creationism or any other religious endeavor concerning evolution and (a)bio-genesis and still understand the concepts and material requirements the course is expecting. It's not like we don't see this adaptive compartmentalization happening every day already. We have children who can easily go from one video game system and controller to any other they have experience with with little more difficulty then picking the new controller up and turning the different console on. Why do you appear to think this same thing is not possible with people learning things in school?
Words have meaning. when they are used within those meanings, often a dictionary is the most you need to understand those words.
Please, do yourself a favor and look some of them up.
Well, that's not really a fair statement as the social media and modern technology is basically building from our cold-war efforts. The internet certainly was a cold war project.
What is so complex about it? I thought you said you needed to see a bunch of studies or evidence before knowing anything about it.
But no, prostitution is not the same as breathing air. Breathing air is something that is done involuntarily for the most part. You can hold your breath, but not for long and you don't have to remember to breath. Being a prostitute involved a decision to do the act. It's made by people voluntarily else the act of sex would be considered rape.
Get yourself a funk and wagner's or webster's dictionary. It is a book that has words in it, and right beside those, are more words that tell you how the other words are defined. I suggest you browse through that at your leisure.
No, I'm not a john, but I play one on TV.
Dear tell, do you need links to studies to know that you are supposed to stop at red lights and go on green? Do you need links to studies showing that you breath air before you believe it? FFS, please note that common sense is not two pennies that more then one person finds on the street at the same time. Please find out what it actually is, then take advantage and use it.
Go to Vegas or Nevada in the US, Canada, Most of Europe, Most of South America, Australia, A large part of Asia, and New Zealand for your Citation and evidence . I wasn't aware that making statements about commonly known things was "making shit up".
I'm sorry that I didn't provide specific examples and draw pictures for you. I assumes you were like the majority of other people competent enough to go online and just knew prostitution was legal and just as voluntary as being a whopper flopper at Burger King or working at the Crab Shack in quite a few places. Of course there are some of what they call "Sex Salves" who have no choice in the matter, But since we were distinguishing between prostitution and slavery, I hope you can understand why I didn't include sex slaves in with prostitutes.
Please forgive me for giving you and others too much credit. I will try to not let it happen again.
Grammar nazi? That's the first time I have ever been called that. In fact, I'm betting there are at least 3 grammar problems with my reply in and of itself.
I know what the guy meant. What I was saying, that you somehow jumped over trying to avoid your knee from hitting your chin when it jerked so hard, was that he can still admire what he found good at one time because he noticed a change from that in the present time which makes it somehow different. The point being, don't give up on an ideal or concept because you don't like what it morphed into. I am saddened that you neglected your grammar skills for math and computers yet failed to see that simple logic.
The US never has been a democracy. It's always been a republic that uses democracy in electing it's representatives. The Federal government never was intended to be the government over the people outside of a handful or specific situations the US constitution explicitly states.
What has happened is that you have fallen victim to the liberalized idea of some romantic utopia called democracy which largely doesn't even exist in reality. But don't take that as something negative, a lot of the publicly educated masses in America does the same. It really is the result of a systematic and purposeful attempt to create discourse within the US. It started shortly after the communist overthrow attempts in early 1919 and the communists who weren't expelled from the country, diverged into the various socialist parties around and became part of a key components that made public a government duty. Except they had a better grasp of the situation then the idiots of today, they knew it was a state's responsibility, not the federal government which is why you see the federal government taking a hands off approach in education until the late 60's early 70's with the creation of the peace corps and the department of education (which has been a profound failure).
The version of democracy never was what you or most of the other people understand as democracy. It's never been about the government doing the bidding of the people, it's been about the government being selected by the people to run the state.
The difference between slavery and prostitution is that you can't back out of slavery when it's convenient and prostitution is largely voluntary. You would be better served comparing Obama or government in general for that matter, to a prostitute then a slave.
The US will never go all 'Egypt' on itself. Too many people just don't care about the things you and others do. Too many people have somewhat decent lives. If anything, there will be a couple small riots that only hurt the rioters, they will be put down by police using less then lethal means, and because a good portion of the US is property owners, they will cheer the cops on for helping protect their property.
The US is no where near the situation that made Egypt even viable let alone work.
Seeing how Stood is past tense, you still can admire what America "Stood" for (whatever you think that was).
However, if you think that this is the only thing the government is concerned with or doing at the moment, or that it's even the biggest priority you would be sorely mistaken. You see, I can say "I want X, Y, and Z, done, oh yea, do A also" and it wouldn't make A a priority. However, because A is something you are concerned with, you might hear about it by itself. It still doesn't make it a priority of government.
Now I understand that it might ultimately be a higher priority then what you want to happen. But that's really a indication of your priorities, not the governments.
that line gets trotted out so many times it's almost funny (if it didn't want to make you cry).
Here is the problem, who defines a serious crime? Can jaywalking be a serious crime? If you can lose constitutional rights because of a law you violated, then any law can be made to take your constitutional rights from you. How about no rights to due process if you have been cited for jaywalking. Or how about losing your right to free speech for speeding or speaking out against a political candidate when not in the declared free speech zone.
Tough shit. Should have thought of that before hurting society. Payback's a bitch, ain't it?
The are called constitutional rights for a reason. It's because they are rights set above and beyond laws, they are rights guaranteed to people by limiting the ability of government to infringe on them. If that doesn't mean anything, then ever single right is up for grabs as soon as someone finds it politically advantageous. Is tough shit really the response you are expecting when it happens to something you actually care about?
No they are not. The problem is that society defines human rights and is the sole arbitrator of rights (unless you subscribe to some divine power). It's up to the society in which the practice is happening to determine if it's against human rights or not. If a society says something is OK, then there are very rare exceptions to that. If you step in from the outside and say all the sudden that the treatment of women in this Islamic nation is a human rights violation, not only have you tread on their sovereign rights as a nation, but prosecuting people for it is completely post facto. There is not one definition of human rights, there is nothing in international law that spells out specific actions that would be considered a violation. It's all up to whoever's interpretation after the fact.
People claim that capitol punishment is a violation of human rights. It's possible that the ICC could charge leaders in a country for allowing capitol punishment to exist.
What in the hell are you talking about? Torture is just that. It doesn't have anything to do with human rights.
You mean it just makes you feel good about your rationalization?
You see, there is a difference between allowing foreign nations in a country to work and being a citizen of the country. The founding fathers were very much citizens of the nation or colonies they fought to free from the crown. They weren't visitors looking to cash in on a job because they couldn't find the same work in the shit hole they call home.
And you seem to completely miss the entire problem that made taxation without representation an issue. It was because they would have to leave their homes, travel thousands of miles, and set up citizenship in a new land in order to get representation. With immigrants, They are doing the complete opposite, they are knowingly leaving an area they have representation in, and going to one knowing that they will not but will be taxed just the same.
If you can somehow equate being born and living your entire life somewhere with making a choice while knowing all the consequences, I would like to know how. It simply isn't the same and anyone who spend minutes thinking about it should be able to see that.
And yet, in the US shortly after the revolution, residing (and paying taxes) in most states for 6 months to 1 year, depending on the state, would make one a citizen - no other credentials needed.
Actually, just establishing a residence in one of the states or the constitutional territory of the US would have made you a citizen until congress changed the laws. And this specific issue was dealt with by the US constitution too. In fact, it is specifically listed as one of the power congress is supposed to have in article 1 section 8 of the US constitution so it should be something you know about.
The US constitution gives congress specific rights to declare who is a citizen if they weren't born here.
You should really look up what you are talking about before spouting off like an idiot. I mean seriously, if you can post to this site, you have the internet and copies of the constitution at your fingertips.. There really is no excuse for that last comment.
It's more like complete ignorance combined with diarrhea of the mouth and constipation of the brain.. Perhaps you could tell us more seeing how you are completely wrong. The founding fathers very much intended on congress to have the power to limit or control who became a citizen or else they never would have specifically listed it as a power of the federal government inside the constitution that create this great nation.
Because they have no other right to be in the country outside that granted to them by the government who also taxes them.
But you have to also remember, the people who started "No taxation without representation" were stating it as citizens, not guests temporarily allowed to work in the country.
Yes, it does. It does so because of the specific reason you listed. You see, international laws, which are basically a collections of treaties countries may have signed but enough have and they have been around long enough that it's expected to be the norm in the world community. The problem comes because they do not spell out specific infractions, they spell out specific results of actions. Take crimes again humanity which is fully included in the ICC jurisdictional mandate for instance, It has an open ended clause that states
That is specifically open to interpretation. It is specifically, people sitting around and deciding that something that's happening, is all the sudden not acceptable. And instead working by treaty or other diplomatic means to create an end to it or show them how degrading the acts are, the ICC can issue indictments and hold charges for something that was not against any specific written law until it was imagined to be a violation. This has already happened with Bahr Abu Garda who ended up getting the charges dropped. There are other instances, but when someone is charged in the ICC, the indictment does not read, violation of ordinance 222.02 whatever, it reads act done (like organizing a rebellion that failed and turned bloody) which is now interpreted as crimes against humanity or war crimes. The problem is, people generally see civil war as a right of the populous, not a bad thing in which we punish the loser.
You are partly right. The ICC can get inferred jurisdiction by referral from the UN whether a country agreed, signed or not. It's also not additional to the national system entirely. If the court determines, that the national system isn't addressing the problem satisfactorily enough, it can prosecute on it's own. This also brings in the failing concepts of twice put in jeopardy where someone could be trialed and acquitted in their national system and the ICC could step in with fresh proceedings over the same acts. That's a major fail in my book. The idea of justice is not shopping around until you can find a court that will convict. If they run the gauntlet once, whatever happens is sufficient.
Subjecting people to post facto law, subjecting people to Double jeopardy, just to name a few.
But seriously, you are actually sitting there with a straight face claiming the UN is the supreme body safeguarding human rights in the world? They sat on their hands and counted the warts on their knuckles when innocent people were being slaughtered in Rwanda and Uganda. They sat there and tolerated humanitarian aid shipments being intercepted by war lords in Somalia letting the people intended to be helped starve until they decided to attack the aid workers directly. The UN said just a few words but refused to do anything else (protecting) when China machine gunned up to 8 hundred civilians protesting a crappy life in Tienanmen Square. The UN, or rather participants in the UN, includi
Neither Bush nor Obama can remove or commit the US to any treaty. All treaties need to be ratified by the US congress (senate) before the US can be committed or removed. This ratification process is well known and almost all treaties make a provision for signing with intent to ratify.
The ICC is a complete loser in my opinion and the opinion of the US ever since it's creation. The reason why is because it intends to violate fundamental human rights by making law post facto and applicable by governments outside the competent jurisdiction of those subject to it. Those are two concepts that violate the very principles that lead to the separation from England and the forming of the United States. Other countries might be open to that, they certainly have the right to be. They can even become a fascists communist cross dressing dictatorship monarchy for all I care, as it's their right of their society. But what isn't their right is the ability to force others into that same mind set through an international criminal court that picks and chooses what laws it is willing to enforce as criminal without the implicit authorization by laws existing on the books of the country in which the person is a citizen of or within the jurisdiction of. No country should give up it's right of sovereignty in the manner at all.