I agree that the sheer mass of law is a problem, but I don't think it fair to blame it entirely on self-interested lawyers/politicians. The complexity of law reflects the complexity of the system it is attempting to define. To pull a number out of my brown, circular reference source, 75% of law is boundary cases. "Don't steal" is a good law in two words; the next 4 million words define when exactly it is or is not stealing to acquire something you did not previously own. "It is not okay to take apples from your neighbor's tree, unless they fall off and roll onto your property, excepting you have induced said apples to either fall and/or roll onto your property."
But the tax code, yeah, complete bullshit. It is an imaginary system, it can be as simple as we want it to be. Some of it is attempts to use taxes as more than a revenue source for government; tax breaks to entice business into an area are a good example of this. However, I believe most of the complexity (especially in the Federal code) is there to enable the elite to wriggle through holes the average schmoe doesn't have the resources to discover or take advantage of.
Exactly!!! Why give up a job I enjoy that pays well for a job I hate that pays extremely well? Once you hit a certain level of comfort, more money != more happiness. The worst thing about my job is that I keep taking on more and more management-style responsibilities (we're a small shop, it's got to be done by somebody, blah blah blah). I can't imagine how miserable I would be if all I did all day was convince other people to do what I think needs to be done. I want to be the guy doing it, dammit!
Funny how everyone wants to impeach Bush for doing things that Clinton got away with:
...
Lying to the country....CHECK!
By all means, let's hold Bush to exactly the standard Clinton was - no more, no less. Clinton was impeached for lying. It was determined that his offense was not material enough to warrant removal. I assume you have no objection to impeaching Bush and letting Congress determine if his lies are material enough to warrant removal?
Wait, are you saying it is common practice in your neck of the woods for women to pee standing up? This seems, well, awkward to say the least. Proper aiming would seem to require a contortionist. Or maybe you have completely different toilet designs than I am familiar with (U.S.)?
Uh, you do realize that your anecdote does not disprove his assertion, right? Unless one of your Republicans switched to Democrat, all of your incumbents did not keep their seats.
I think it is completely obvious that the "money is speech" people just like to trot that out as an excuse to legitimize their desire to bribe political figures. I mean, only in politics does anyone even pretend that is true. Just imagine if money = speech was translated into any other area of law. There would be no legal difference between paying a prostitute and talking your girlfriend into having sex with you. Bribing a judge = making a legal argument. Money so obviously does not equal speech, it just baffles me that anyone can take that argument seriously.
Excellent post. If all religious people were as thoughtful about their faith as you seem to be, or if all atheists were as rational about their beliefs as they claim to to be, there would be much less friction between religion and science.
Presumably, because fundamentalist literalists do not see the Bible as being limited by the knowledge of the humans that wrote it. GOD inspired them (except the ones that wrote the books that were later discarded) to write what HE wanted written, which is of course the literal truth and nothing else. Because, why would God communicate in anything other than literal statements of fact? Just b/c that was His son's favorite teaching method (the parable), nope, no reason to suspect the Bible is anything other than an exact literal interpretation of God's divine knowledge and wisdom, passed down through human authors, unsullied by their mortal interpretation and understanding.
They often set out things like your warranty coverage and your rights to use software (your "license") that you otherwise wouldn't have the right
I'm pretty sure Microsoft giving me a copy of their software in exchange for my money gives me the right to use it without an EULA. I seriously doubt any court would favor any argument that using the product was not implied in my obtaining it.
You're right. I don't see a whole lot of statesmanship coming out of Washington anymore; over the top political posturing or bowing down to political expedience seem to be the two choices. Maybe they always were; history always takes on a shiny patina that today never has.
I suppose, between a feeding frenzy and silently waiting Bush out, the latter is the mature, responsible approach that is best for the nation. And unfortunately, I have to agree those are pretty much the two options. But it is damned galling.
Yeah, they weren't following the orders of their boss. Where'e the justice in firing disobediant underlings?
You mean the quite likely illegal orders of their boss to use their position to pursue his political agenda? I agree, where is the justice in firing them for that?
While there is certainly some wisdom to the idea of moving on, I hesitate in this case to espouse it. Nixon, while he didn't face charges, lost his position and faced universal condemnation. Bush, on the other hand, does not seem likely to face any real consequences from his flagrant abuses of power. If we as a nation do not call him out on his abuses in some manner, I predict more and more abuses of this nature cropping up in future administrations. Plus, as the GP indicated, a little bit of wrist-slapping might go a long way towards improving our public image abroad.
I didn't realize I came off as defensive earlier; I assure you, I did not take your post personally. I just responded to your post because you mentioned the "groupthink", which is an accusation I see with some regularity, on/. and elsewhere. And while I agree that this is certainly a common failing of human nature, I actually find it to be less pervasive on/. than other places. Of course, I wasn't really lumping karma whoring in with subscribing to groupthink. Although, as you and your sib point out, the two are related. But karma whoring is (obviously) very specific to the/. moderation system, while groupthink, as you point out, is not at all a/. specific phenomenon. I guess it's just that it sometimes seems that people accuse/. of being worse for groupthink than other places (such as real life), and I don't see that at all. I apologize if I read more into your comment than you intended.
I see this accusation of groupthink at/. a lot, and I'm honestly baffled by it. Yes, there are large numbers of people that think similarly on various topics, but often there are large groups of people that think otherwise on those same topics. There are pro and anti Apple/Microsoft/Global Warming/Christianity/Google/whatever. Why do you assume that just b/c I agree with these 1000 people, but not this other 1000 people, that I am somehow influenced by groupthink, as opposed to simply agreeing with the 1st 1000? Is it b/c you agree with the 2nd 1000?
My personal opinion is that groupthink accusations are just a holdover from years ago, when/. was a more homogeneous group. Back then, there were certain opinions that just about everybody held; it wasn't that I held opinion X b/c everybody else did, it was just that everybody that came to/. held opinion X. But these days,/. isn't just for old-school geeks; there is quite a diverse population participating, and there really is not any one opinion you can point to that is the/. position.
The US should amend the Constitution to get rid of the special status for tribal lands and simply make them property of the folks who live there.
This was tried, and was a failure. Tribal governments appealed to the US gov't to reverse the policy of allotment. Read up on the Dawes Act sometime.
Equality under the law should be the goal. It is long overdue.
It is the goal, and has been for a long time now. But it isn't that easy. Well, I guess equality under the law would be easy, but history suggests that it would result in the complete collapse of tribal culture, and possibly the extinction of the Native American as a population. Unfortunately, the easy solution is unlikely to be a good one.
I'm not sure what you were trying to link to, but your post itself gave me enough hints. Pretty interesting, the technical difference between a Commonwealth and a State (take THAT, British Empire!). Of course, as the context of your original post indicates, it's a pretty academic distinction; even the official web site for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts uses both terms.
Thanks! I always enjoy learning a bit of obscure trivia: Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Virginia are the 4 US Commonwealths. I can now annoy my friends by insisting there are actually 46 states:-)
Oh, I agree that free speech shouldn't be limitless. But the crucial point here is this is already public information. Law enforcement (or gov't) should not be able to selectively censor this data. If it is ok for some to publish it openly, then it is okay for all to publish it openly.
Would you gallantly sacrifice [your family] in the name of limitless free speech?
Of course not. But there is a big difference between me, a private citizen, breaking the law (which I would if I thought it were necessary to protect my family) and a governmental body breaking the law to protect its members. Which leads to
Also, by allowing law enforcement to do its job effectively, you also allow them to uphold the law.
But that's the point. This guy isn't doing anything illegal. Law enforcement using its power to do what's in the best interests of its personnel is NOT the same as upholding the law. And rewriting the laws to "allow" these sorts of actions is merely another form of abuse of power.
So what does that mean? You want the law to be optional?
No, but I don't want the people with the guns to arbitrarily decide what is and isn't legal based on their own perception of personal danger. The whole social contract is that we the people will forgo our "right" to solve our own damn problems with each other, and allow the gov't to do it for us. In theory, this is b/c the gov't (via law enforcement and the courts) are an objective 3rd party that can rule dispassionately on the right of the situation. If law enforcement and the courts start taking their own interest into account when determining what is right, why should I listen to them anymore than any other asshole that is just looking out for himself?
You don't live in fear precisely because you are protected.
Heh, that's quite an assumption you make. There is a significant portion of the American population that would list police as the #1 threat to their safety, and would laugh if you suggested the police are there to protect them. It's true, I am a middle-class white male, so I can't speak to how I would feel if I were not, but I have heard others speak that are not.
Why, exactly, do you want such a list to be public? What's in it for you? What's in it for anyone who isn't interested in hunting down and murdering the people on the list? I'm guessing you have no use for the list at all, yet you feel the list should be public just because it makes you feel better, even if it endangers other people.
I don't particularly want the list to be public; as you say, there is nothing in it for me. And while the list itself does not make me "feel better", the idea that we as a society should censor citizens from publishing public information in a clear violation of their free speech makes me feel bad. And yes, I would still support this if it were me that this list endangered.
You don't have to protect [law enforcement], but you don't have to endanger and hinder them either.
Ah, but you are saying I should sacrifice my right to free speech in order to protect them. You are not appealing to me as a person to not do something stupid and dangerous; you are advocating the government, via threat of force, prevent me from doing something I have a right to do. Or this other guy, actually, not me. Making personal sacrifices on behalf of law enforcement safety sounds an awful lot like me giving up something of value to me to protect them.
So let's say they all quit. Then what? Who's going to protect you then? I guess it'll be time for martial law after that.
First of all, if law enforcement is allowed to break the law and curtail the rights of citizens for no reason other than their own interest, then we already have martial law. I'll admit this particular incident is not that outrageous of an abuse, but the precedent remains. Secondly, I don't live in such fear that I particularly feel the need to be protected; I certainly would like the opportunity to negotiate the price of such "protection", rather than have the terms of service dictated to me by those who also dictate I must use their protection services.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree that the sheer mass of law is a problem, but I don't think it fair to blame it entirely on self-interested lawyers/politicians. The complexity of law reflects the complexity of the system it is attempting to define. To pull a number out of my brown, circular reference source, 75% of law is boundary cases. "Don't steal" is a good law in two words; the next 4 million words define when exactly it is or is not stealing to acquire something you did not previously own. "It is not okay to take apples from your neighbor's tree, unless they fall off and roll onto your property, excepting you have induced said apples to either fall and/or roll onto your property."
But the tax code, yeah, complete bullshit. It is an imaginary system, it can be as simple as we want it to be. Some of it is attempts to use taxes as more than a revenue source for government; tax breaks to entice business into an area are a good example of this. However, I believe most of the complexity (especially in the Federal code) is there to enable the elite to wriggle through holes the average schmoe doesn't have the resources to discover or take advantage of.
Exactly!!! Why give up a job I enjoy that pays well for a job I hate that pays extremely well? Once you hit a certain level of comfort, more money != more happiness. The worst thing about my job is that I keep taking on more and more management-style responsibilities (we're a small shop, it's got to be done by somebody, blah blah blah). I can't imagine how miserable I would be if all I did all day was convince other people to do what I think needs to be done. I want to be the guy doing it, dammit!
Dude, spoiler alert warning next time!!!! Some of us like the figure out games on our own. Sheesh.
Funny how everyone wants to impeach Bush for doing things that Clinton got away with:
...
Lying to the country....CHECK!
By all means, let's hold Bush to exactly the standard Clinton was - no more, no less. Clinton was impeached for lying. It was determined that his offense was not material enough to warrant removal. I assume you have no objection to impeaching Bush and letting Congress determine if his lies are material enough to warrant removal?
Wow. I can't figure out if that is really deep, or just a mangling of the famous Cobain quote. Either way, I like it :-)
Wait, are you saying it is common practice in your neck of the woods for women to pee standing up? This seems, well, awkward to say the least. Proper aiming would seem to require a contortionist. Or maybe you have completely different toilet designs than I am familiar with (U.S.)?
There is already enough facts discovered by humanity to prove that all religions is bullshit
That's quite an assertion; care to back it up with any references?
what's a "ntic"?
Very similar to a tic, it just takes an extra byte to store.
Oh, sorry, I didn't see that post. I need to remember to refresh the page more often before posting...
Uh, you do realize that your anecdote does not disprove his assertion, right? Unless one of your Republicans switched to Democrat, all of your incumbents did not keep their seats.
I think it is completely obvious that the "money is speech" people just like to trot that out as an excuse to legitimize their desire to bribe political figures. I mean, only in politics does anyone even pretend that is true. Just imagine if money = speech was translated into any other area of law. There would be no legal difference between paying a prostitute and talking your girlfriend into having sex with you. Bribing a judge = making a legal argument. Money so obviously does not equal speech, it just baffles me that anyone can take that argument seriously.
Excellent post. If all religious people were as thoughtful about their faith as you seem to be, or if all atheists were as rational about their beliefs as they claim to to be, there would be much less friction between religion and science.
Presumably, because fundamentalist literalists do not see the Bible as being limited by the knowledge of the humans that wrote it. GOD inspired them (except the ones that wrote the books that were later discarded) to write what HE wanted written, which is of course the literal truth and nothing else. Because, why would God communicate in anything other than literal statements of fact? Just b/c that was His son's favorite teaching method (the parable), nope, no reason to suspect the Bible is anything other than an exact literal interpretation of God's divine knowledge and wisdom, passed down through human authors, unsullied by their mortal interpretation and understanding.
They often set out things like your warranty coverage and your rights to use software (your "license") that you otherwise wouldn't have the right
I'm pretty sure Microsoft giving me a copy of their software in exchange for my money gives me the right to use it without an EULA. I seriously doubt any court would favor any argument that using the product was not implied in my obtaining it.
You're right. I don't see a whole lot of statesmanship coming out of Washington anymore; over the top political posturing or bowing down to political expedience seem to be the two choices. Maybe they always were; history always takes on a shiny patina that today never has.
I suppose, between a feeding frenzy and silently waiting Bush out, the latter is the mature, responsible approach that is best for the nation. And unfortunately, I have to agree those are pretty much the two options. But it is damned galling.
Yeah, they weren't following the orders of their boss. Where'e the justice in firing disobediant underlings?
You mean the quite likely illegal orders of their boss to use their position to pursue his political agenda? I agree, where is the justice in firing them for that?
While there is certainly some wisdom to the idea of moving on, I hesitate in this case to espouse it. Nixon, while he didn't face charges, lost his position and faced universal condemnation. Bush, on the other hand, does not seem likely to face any real consequences from his flagrant abuses of power. If we as a nation do not call him out on his abuses in some manner, I predict more and more abuses of this nature cropping up in future administrations. Plus, as the GP indicated, a little bit of wrist-slapping might go a long way towards improving our public image abroad.
I didn't realize I came off as defensive earlier; I assure you, I did not take your post personally. I just responded to your post because you mentioned the "groupthink", which is an accusation I see with some regularity, on /. and elsewhere. And while I agree that this is certainly a common failing of human nature, I actually find it to be less pervasive on /. than other places. Of course, I wasn't really lumping karma whoring in with subscribing to groupthink. Although, as you and your sib point out, the two are related. But karma whoring is (obviously) very specific to the /. moderation system, while groupthink, as you point out, is not at all a /. specific phenomenon. I guess it's just that it sometimes seems that people accuse /. of being worse for groupthink than other places (such as real life), and I don't see that at all. I apologize if I read more into your comment than you intended.
I see this accusation of groupthink at /. a lot, and I'm honestly baffled by it. Yes, there are large numbers of people that think similarly on various topics, but often there are large groups of people that think otherwise on those same topics. There are pro and anti Apple/Microsoft/Global Warming/Christianity/Google/whatever. Why do you assume that just b/c I agree with these 1000 people, but not this other 1000 people, that I am somehow influenced by groupthink, as opposed to simply agreeing with the 1st 1000? Is it b/c you agree with the 2nd 1000?
/. was a more homogeneous group. Back then, there were certain opinions that just about everybody held; it wasn't that I held opinion X b/c everybody else did, it was just that everybody that came to /. held opinion X. But these days, /. isn't just for old-school geeks; there is quite a diverse population participating, and there really is not any one opinion you can point to that is the /. position.
My personal opinion is that groupthink accusations are just a holdover from years ago, when
The US should amend the Constitution to get rid of the special status for tribal lands and simply make them property of the folks who live there.
This was tried, and was a failure. Tribal governments appealed to the US gov't to reverse the policy of allotment. Read up on the Dawes Act sometime.
Equality under the law should be the goal. It is long overdue.
It is the goal, and has been for a long time now. But it isn't that easy. Well, I guess equality under the law would be easy, but history suggests that it would result in the complete collapse of tribal culture, and possibly the extinction of the Native American as a population. Unfortunately, the easy solution is unlikely to be a good one.
I'm not sure what you were trying to link to, but your post itself gave me enough hints. Pretty interesting, the technical difference between a Commonwealth and a State (take THAT, British Empire!). Of course, as the context of your original post indicates, it's a pretty academic distinction; even the official web site for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts uses both terms.
:-)
Thanks! I always enjoy learning a bit of obscure trivia: Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Virginia are the 4 US Commonwealths. I can now annoy my friends by insisting there are actually 46 states
I'm curious; what is incorrect about the term "State of Massachusetts"?
Oh, I agree that free speech shouldn't be limitless. But the crucial point here is this is already public information. Law enforcement (or gov't) should not be able to selectively censor this data. If it is ok for some to publish it openly, then it is okay for all to publish it openly.
Would you gallantly sacrifice [your family] in the name of limitless free speech?
Of course not. But there is a big difference between me, a private citizen, breaking the law (which I would if I thought it were necessary to protect my family) and a governmental body breaking the law to protect its members. Which leads to
Also, by allowing law enforcement to do its job effectively, you also allow them to uphold the law.
But that's the point. This guy isn't doing anything illegal. Law enforcement using its power to do what's in the best interests of its personnel is NOT the same as upholding the law. And rewriting the laws to "allow" these sorts of actions is merely another form of abuse of power.
So what does that mean? You want the law to be optional?
No, but I don't want the people with the guns to arbitrarily decide what is and isn't legal based on their own perception of personal danger. The whole social contract is that we the people will forgo our "right" to solve our own damn problems with each other, and allow the gov't to do it for us. In theory, this is b/c the gov't (via law enforcement and the courts) are an objective 3rd party that can rule dispassionately on the right of the situation. If law enforcement and the courts start taking their own interest into account when determining what is right, why should I listen to them anymore than any other asshole that is just looking out for himself?
You don't live in fear precisely because you are protected.
Heh, that's quite an assumption you make. There is a significant portion of the American population that would list police as the #1 threat to their safety, and would laugh if you suggested the police are there to protect them. It's true, I am a middle-class white male, so I can't speak to how I would feel if I were not, but I have heard others speak that are not.
Why, exactly, do you want such a list to be public? What's in it for you? What's in it for anyone who isn't interested in hunting down and murdering the people on the list? I'm guessing you have no use for the list at all, yet you feel the list should be public just because it makes you feel better, even if it endangers other people.
I don't particularly want the list to be public; as you say, there is nothing in it for me. And while the list itself does not make me "feel better", the idea that we as a society should censor citizens from publishing public information in a clear violation of their free speech makes me feel bad. And yes, I would still support this if it were me that this list endangered.
You don't have to protect [law enforcement], but you don't have to endanger and hinder them either.
Ah, but you are saying I should sacrifice my right to free speech in order to protect them. You are not appealing to me as a person to not do something stupid and dangerous; you are advocating the government, via threat of force, prevent me from doing something I have a right to do. Or this other guy, actually, not me. Making personal sacrifices on behalf of law enforcement safety sounds an awful lot like me giving up something of value to me to protect them.
So let's say they all quit. Then what? Who's going to protect you then? I guess it'll be time for martial law after that.
First of all, if law enforcement is allowed to break the law and curtail the rights of citizens for no reason other than their own interest, then we already have martial law. I'll admit this particular incident is not that outrageous of an abuse, but the precedent remains. Secondly, I don't live in such fear that I particularly feel the need to be protected; I certainly would like the opportunity to negotiate the price of such "protection", rather than have the terms of service dictated to me by those who also dictate I must use their protection services.
Please tell me some of the other conspiracies from your rich internal life.
For some reason, this phrase conjured pictures of his spleen plotting against his pancreas...