Who was your friend? What position was he running for? How did he do in his race? What date was the event? How many people were shouting racist epithets? Did anyone object to it?
You have made alot of unfounded accusations, but you have yet to provide any real proof. It's just your word against mine, and I have plenty of video evidence to show that the majority of racism in Tea Party events is coming from leftist agitators.
Not to say that the locals where you are in "the South" (where, again?) aren't a bunch of racist hick jerks. But that doesn't redound to the Tea Party as a whole, and certainly isn't anything I've ever heard from a national platform.
If anything, you seem to be falling back on the "secret racism" argument I get from alot of leftists who frequently say (always without proof) that people on the right are just a bunch of racists, no matter what they say publicly.
It's a tactic, again, intended to De-legitimize the opposition without having to actually counter or address their arguments. You have been using it quite a bit here and it tends to make one look askance at your arguments. IE: It makes you look like a liar. (not saying you are a liar, just saying that crappy "secret racist" arguments make you look the part, no matter how incorrect it may be.)
Remember, you are accusing a national movement of millions of Americans (including myself) of being Racist based on your own personal experiences. It's up to YOU to provide the proof, and so far I've seen only anecdotes which I can easily counter with plenty of my own.
You've provided proof that some cops are racists. Not sure what that has to do with the Tea Party though. Some Cops are Racists. It sucks, but I think we all know it's true. You've managed to point out that some of the people at bars in your area are racists. Again, It has NOTHING to do with the Tea Party. In fact, you have yet to provide any proof that Racism is both rampant within, and a "secret" part of the Tea Party.
So please, answer my questions, provide some proof other than anecdotes or manufactured racism from leftist "Crash the Tea Party" types, and then we can talk. Otherwise I find it difficult to believe you.
While I can appreciate your position, your assumption that the founders set up the Republic to have limited government because of communications restrictions is specious at best.
I can prove it to you by simple extending your argument to the planet as a whole.
It used to take over a YEAR to travel around the globe. now one merely needs to hop on a plane, and with a few changes and layovers, you can circumnavigate the globe in a few days. if you have enough money, you can hitch a ride on a Russian rocket and circle the globe at several thousand miles an hour in LEO if you want.
Communications across the planet are now as instantaneous as talking across the room. I regularly have online discussions with complete strangers that I will probable never meet from foreign lands that I have never visited. Something the Founders could not have imagined even in their wildest dreams.
And yet, I hear no rational calls for One World Government. If the speed of communications and travel is the ONLY reason for a limited American government, why not extend that to the entire world? It's not as though the various countries of the world aren't in constant conflict with one another. Why not a large, strong central government to rule the whole world?
Of course, we already tried that. It was called Fascism, and then Communism. (Brother ideologies, really.) and both have been roundly defeated and are rightly now ridiculed as monstrous and evil.
Then of course, there are the actual writings of the Founders, who frequently stated their desire for a LIMITED government. Not because of communications, but because it was wise.
Behold their words:
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. -Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." - Patrick Henry
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare⦠The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America." - Alexander Hamilton
"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions. It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated. There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson
"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there
I'm sorry for the way your friend was treated. (Who was he? I'd like to know how he did in his race.) Was this the entire crowd booing him or was it just a few people? Where was the event, and do you remember the date?
Because I've been to several Tea Party events (A couple here in Buffalo NY, a couple in Rochester NY and one in Pittsburgh PA) and I've never seen anything like that.
In fact, I haven't seen ANY racism. I've seen a good mix of races, with white, black, asian and latino all standing together espousing the ideals of limited government, capitalism and Freedom. All protesting Obamacare, and mixing together freely and without reservation.
I have also seen the unbridled hate and invective that was thrown at us from the counter-protesters, seen leftists make "mock charges" at us to try and provoke a physical confrontation and have the Police have to warn them off, but I have not seen a single racist sign or epithet thrown from the Tea Party side.
Obviously your friend had a bad experience, and while I can't speak for all Tea Partiers, I can certainly say that kind of behavior would not be tolerated at any Tea Party rally I was at.
Yes. Evidence that the hate was coming from leftist infiltrator groups MUST be the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
Because WE ALL KNOW that Tea Party people MUST be racists, they oppose Obama! And No leftist could EVER be a racist, why, that's just impossible! Leftists just want love and peace and happiness and puppies for all!
*sigh*
I didn't say that NO Tea Party people are racists, I'm sure that there were a few out there. However, as per the evidence I've provided, MOST of the Tea Party people are not racists and NEARLY ALL the racist signs showing up at Tea Party rallies were the work of Leftist infiltrator groups.
Of course, for those such as yourself that are less interested in the substance of what I or Tea Party people have to say and are MORE interested in simply invalidating anything they say by hanging the "racist" label on them, then the evidence or rational discourse doesn't matter. For you it will always be one logical fallacy or another, regardless of whether it honestly applies or not.
I have also been to many rallies. And I have heard NO racism or hate whatsoever. Other than the invective spewed at the Tea Party people by the local leftist agitators out counter-protesting.
Oh, and the assaults and attempted assaults on Tea Party members by leftist and Union agitators.
It's not hard to find evidence of leftist hate against Tea Party people. Finding real evidence of widespread hate coming FROM the Tea Party is much harder. Which is why it had to be manufactured by leftist infiltrators.
I would imagine that FPV model plane flying has quite a bit to do with this. Most of the high-powered control systems you need to make FPV a reality require a HAM technician license. With the massive upswing in FPV flying I would expect to see a big boost in HAM license interest.
Umm... The person I was replying to was referring to adding ADDITIONAL oversight to our EXISTING government framework. They were implying that our system of checks and balances as stated in the Constitution was inadequate and we needed yet another layer of oversight to make it work.
My point was that adding more layers for oversight doesn't help because it doesn't fix the central issue: Too much central government.
If you read the Constitution and the writings of our founding fathers (Do you have your copy of the Federalist Papers? Thomas Payne's "Common Sense"? The combined writings of Thomas Jefferson? I have mine right here.) you would see that while they differed on some of the specifics, the founders envisioned a LIMITED central government who's role was kept at a minimum. Defending the country, ensuring peace and unimpeded economic traffic between the states (the infamous "commerce clause") and providing for jurisprudence over country-wide legal issues. that was it.
Our modern government has grown FAR beyond the original intent of a simple framework to hold the states together and into a behemoth that reaches tentacles into every aspect of our daily lives. One literally cannot do anything that is not in some way impacted by, regulated by or taxed by our monstrous, over sized, behemoth federal government. This is what needs fixing.
Ultimately, we must come to the realization that the promise of socialism; That the central government can fill every need, take away every want and create a utopian "socially just" society is a lie. It isn't possible, and it's high time that after 100 years of it in America we need to simply stop trying for it. If we don't, we each get to personally experience the reality of socialism's "end game". Financial collapse, widespread poverty, and Tyranny. We will all be equal. Equally poor, equally oppressed, and equally lost.
Better to have the "inequality" of Capitalism and get an "unequal" share of it's blessings, than have an equal share of the misery of socialism.
Ok, first of all, that's an email. Not a sign. Also, Marylin Davenport was roundly vilified by Tea Party members for that email, and was (if I remember correctly) asked to resign from her position. I don't know what ever came of it, but her's was a view that was NEVER mainstream among the tea party.
Also, there have been some blatantly racist signs at Tea Party rallies, but if you back the picture out a bit and get some context, you would discover that the horrible signs are being carried by people that aren't part of the Tea Party rally, and are often either fringe hanger-on groups, or left-wing infiltrators.
There is plenty of video out there of these people being shouted and chased out of the tea party rallies, while the MSM follows taking pictures only of the fringe people and ignoring the rest of the rally.
Heck, back when the rallies were in full swing there were several topics ongoing at KOS and SA about just that. Crashing the Tea Party rallies with racist signs to try and get press time.
The problem is that no amount of "oversight" will ever be enough because you are essentially asking the government to police itself. You simply cannot separate the oversight body from the rest of the government without creating a quasi-police state with a bunch of unelected people having "oversight" over the elected ones. That sounds very much like Tyranny to me.
Alternately, you could create an elected "oversight" body, but then why have the original governing body in the first place? Oversight is a black hole of ever growing government and ever disappearing money.
The solution is to shrink the size of government and take power OUT of it's hands until it is back to the teeny tiny size it was intended to be by the Founders. Most of it's current duties should be devolved back to the state, local, and personal level.
Simply put, our Government is too big. Big Governments are always inevitably corrupt. Making our government bigger (oversight) won't fix the problem of it's excessive size.
I didn't miss the point. The point wasn't about "elbow room" per-se, it was about colonization.
And investment groups would ABSOLUTELY invest in a long-term colonization project if the return was an entirely new planet NOT under the jurisdiction of any Earth government where they could build their business. No need to go anywhere for that, just send lots of other people in your name, and then go yourself once things are ready and if you want.
A side effect of mass interplanetary colonization for the people that remain is that there is automatically more "elbow room" left here due to the whole "a bunch of people just left" thing.
Yeah, let's ship a load of conmen, salesmen and bullshit artists into space, that will guarantee everything goes well.
Wow. I spend quite a fair amount of time online, and it's been awhile since I've seen such a brazen display of complete ignorance about a fundamental characteristic of human nature. I mean, that was just breathtaking.
Frankly, I far more trust the future of humanity in space to your average guy that wants to stake a claim and start a business (IE: an entrepreneur) than I ever would to a government bureaucrat flunky.
Space will be won and owned by Capitalists. Mostly because Marxists and Big Govt. types will never be able to see the value in it beyond propaganda.
You want to know what our future in space will be? It won't be Star Trek and it won't be Star Wars. It'll be Firefly. Businessmen and ordinary people going out and selling Coke, Marlboros and Big Macs to the Aliens and staking claims on empty planets, moons and asteroids to make their fortune. Count on it.
Actually, if we are talking colonization, it is far more likely that NON privileged people will go first.
Why?
Hazards. Space is a dangerous place to go, and off-world colonization almost as dangerous as space itself. Why would the powerful and privileged leave the relative comfort of their lives here when they could just pay lots of other people to risk their lives building up new worlds?
Yes, some space tourism and expensive luxury "space hotels" may be built to serve wealthy clients, but I really don't see many George Soros or Koch Brother types deciding to just chuck it all here and take off for the stars. Far more likely they will FINANCE the trip via an investment group and then hire a crapload of poor/middle class people to take the real risks.
Of course, these people, in addition to taking the risks would also stand to reap huge benefits and end up moderately wealthy themselves if the mission was successful. That's the point. Otherwise who would go beyond some scientists in it for pure science reasons?
Personally, if I wasn't 40 already and responsible for a family I would absolutely sign up. I'm not poor, but I'm as much an entrepreneur as the next guy and space holds lots of opportunity once our technology is up to snuff.
Except that the chances of a robust economy destroying the environment so completely that the planet becomes uninhabitable are so utterly remote as to be the product of an enviro-nut fever dream. Simply put, a modern economy cannot "destroy" the environment. Period.
On the other hand, it is far simpler to obliterate a modern economy. Simply put enough taxation load on it and it will collapse on it's own.
Which, I suspect, is rather the point for many greenies. There is a reason the Russians refer to the greenies as "watermelons". Enviro green on the outside, Commie red on the inside.
Consider being nicer to nerds- you will probably end up working for one.
Unlikely. Most nerds don't go to business school to learn to run companies.
It's sad but true: "A students end up working under B students at a company run by C students."
Earning good grades in school or being super-smart isn't nearly as valuable in the long run as a finely honed set of social skills. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs may have been "nerds", but they learned social skills too and that made all the difference.
Well, yes. but not, perhaps, profitable "as hell".
To wit; the margins on Laptops are fairly thin, although not as razor thin as they are on commodity desktops.
The fat margins are in the mobile sphere. IE: smartphones and tablets. This is why Mark Hurd wanted Palm and WebOS in the first place. It was a smart move and would have paid off handsomely if HP's board wasn't a bunch of dickheads that decided they wanted to dump him over a fake scandal.
So instead the morons got Apotheker who proceed to immediately shit all over HP with his stupid "software and services" ideas and within 6 months had cost the company billions in stock price and profits. Not to mention likely killing off HP's one shot at making it in the mobile space.
Now Whitman's gotta pick up the pieces and I dare say she has her work cut out for her. the laptop and desktop divisions will likely survive, but I don't see how she's going to revive WebOS unless they strike a deal with Samsung or HTC to make handsets for them.
With most of the core talent in the WebOS programming group drained away to Apple and Google (Mathias Duarte, one of the main WebOS UI designers is now at Google, and lead designed the new Ice Cream Sandwich UI) they are also facing a lack of design talent and experience. They have a shell of Palm's programming and software design department left to rebuild an entire brand with. I don't see it happening.
Which sucks, because I really like WebOS. (Still rockin' my 2 YO Sprint Pre!)
To further your point, Do we really want a national wireless provider that would invariably have a total monopoly on wireless service and is run like the Post Office? Judging on how horribly the Post Office is run, I'd say not.
If anything, we have too MUCH regulation in place. The biggest one being the ability of wireless carriers to "buy" blocks of spectrum, thus locking out all other players. It's just another form of corporatism (Fascism without genocide) that our government has been engaging in for far too long.
If we must have regulation, let it be along the lines of "Here is the "cellular" block of spectrum. All carriers must operate within this spectrum, and no part of it is exclusive to any given carrier. Carriers may develop and use any technology that utilizes this spectrum in any way they see fit, provided it does not interfere with any other carrier's ability to use the same spectrum."
Make it a nice small block of spectrum, (I'll leave the specific ranges to the professionals) large enough to accommodate everyone, but small enough to free up spectrum currently locked up by the carriers for other uses (such as HAM and other private citizen uses, like private television broadcast and such) then let the carriers have at it.
The nice part about regulating in this manner is that it lowers the barriers to entry for new players, and allows for more competition, forcing prices down, without specifically punishing any one player or being a burden on anyone.
If the lack of pay phones are your best argument, then you really don't have much of one at all.
I'm 40 years old, and grew up with payphones all around me. I almost never used one except in an emergency.
If all you need is an emergency phone, buy a prepaid "burner" cell phone from your local drug store an/or buy a cheap unlimited "calls only" plan or prepaid plan from one of the large carriers. Problem solved.
Lack of payphones has little to do with complaints about the cost of data plans for cell phones.
Because without government education, you end up with a large uneducated class of people. When a bunch of uneducated people have voting rights, they will vote themselves so many government programs that you'll wish you'd bent your libertarian views just a smidgen.
Except that we have a large educated class of citizens...
Who have used that education to take advantage of the system and have voted themselves so many government programs that...
Hmm... I think I have found a flaw in your logic.
The point is, of course, that one cannot spend money on government programs in order to SAVE money on government programs. You just end up with more and more government programs that spend more and more money until the whole house of cards collapses in on itself.
To put it another way: You can never spend enough or legislate enough to make life fair or create "social justice". If you really want the best for all, just get government out of the way and let people sink or swim on their own. You do them no favors by taking from Peter to prop up Paul.
I hate to be the one to say this, mostly because I have no doubt I will get flamed and/or modded to hell for it, but I'm feeling adventurous this morning, so here goes:
*deep breath*
Nobody is forcing you to buy a cellular data plan, or indeed buy any cell plan at all. It is perfectly possible to live life in the modern age without any kind of cellphone, and still take part in all that modern life has to offer without having to live like the Amish. You simply have to decide what is important to you.
If having that smartphone with data plan is important to you, then so be it. Be prepared to deal with the companies that sell that type of plan in your area. If you don't like the selections of companies or the manner in which these companies conduct business, then you must decide if that is more important to you than having the phone.
If your principles are more important, then to be true to them you MUST cancel your smartphone plan and go back to a land line and/or VOIP using an answering machine. Or possibly a smartphone without a cell plan using Wifi and Google Voice.
If having that smartphone is most important, then I would say that while you still have the right to your principles and opinion, they hold significantly less weight and are worth little regard to others as you yourself clearly don't believe in them enough to alter your life to suit them. In which case you are little more than a ranting, grouchy troll.
That said, I don't entirely disagree with you, It certainly does seem that the prices for cellular data plans remain artificially high, and the dropping of unlimited plans is not something that customers should want. However, if one looks at the big picture, one realizes that prices have actually come down overall for these plans.
If you think about it, back just 25 years ago a $100 a month cell plan with unlimited talk time was utterly unheard of. The best you could do was something like 1000 minutes and the prices were closer to $200 a month. And data couldn't be had for any price. Now you can get a single person plan with unlimited talk, text and (in Sprint's case, data) for right around $100 a month. Now, you may say that it hasn't come down far enough, fast enough, but ultimately that's a function of the market. If you don't like the prices, don't take part. Cellphones are (despite the protestations of/. members) still a luxury item.
Leaving aside the logistical challenges of actually building an EM catapult launcher on the moon, we must remember that this is a LARGE device. Large as in "multiple miles long". Large as in "immovable once constructed." In other words, it isn't something you can AIM.
If you are using it to move raw materials off of the moon and into orbit between the moon and the Earth, ready for transport to a construction site, and you are concerned about the possibility of one of those objects striking the Earth, simply build it pointing in a direction that ensures that objects it fires will never enter into the path of the Earth. IE: Perpendicular to the Earth's orbit.
Yes, I have just eliminated the idea of using the EM catapult as a weapon by simply having the engineers point the thing North when they build it.
Perhaps start their own companies and hire some of their contemporaries? Maybe if we stopped assuming that companies existed to provide jobs for people and that a "living wage" was everyone's right (HINT: It isn't.) and indoctrinating our youth with Socialism and instead training them to be entrepreneurs, capitalists and business owners on their own then maybe the lack of jobs wouldn't be an issue.
Also, maybe if people weren't summarily kicked out the door at 65 due to mandatory retirement policies (to comply with SS legal requirements) we would be able to retain much of the experience that these people have gained and be able to use them to apprentice the newer people, passing along that knowledge and working to have a deeper and more solid earnings base rather than constantly chasing the next "flash in the pan" to keep the stock prices climbing.
The point is: The Welfare State, for all of it's good intentions, has ultimately become a burden upon us that must be lifted if we are to continue in anything resembling a modern, western society. If we persist in our current path, economic and social collapse, followed by anarchy, tyranny, poverty, and finally the slow starvation death of humanity will follow.
Don't believe it can happen? Look at first Greece, and then North Korea for two examples of our future if we do not change course NOW.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep. So where are the inflato-bot diggers and their awesome nightclub?
You still haven't answered my questions though.
Who was your friend? What position was he running for? How did he do in his race? What date was the event? How many people were shouting racist epithets? Did anyone object to it?
You have made alot of unfounded accusations, but you have yet to provide any real proof. It's just your word against mine, and I have plenty of video evidence to show that the majority of racism in Tea Party events is coming from leftist agitators.
Not to say that the locals where you are in "the South" (where, again?) aren't a bunch of racist hick jerks. But that doesn't redound to the Tea Party as a whole, and certainly isn't anything I've ever heard from a national platform.
If anything, you seem to be falling back on the "secret racism" argument I get from alot of leftists who frequently say (always without proof) that people on the right are just a bunch of racists, no matter what they say publicly.
It's a tactic, again, intended to De-legitimize the opposition without having to actually counter or address their arguments. You have been using it quite a bit here and it tends to make one look askance at your arguments. IE: It makes you look like a liar. (not saying you are a liar, just saying that crappy "secret racist" arguments make you look the part, no matter how incorrect it may be.)
Remember, you are accusing a national movement of millions of Americans (including myself) of being Racist based on your own personal experiences. It's up to YOU to provide the proof, and so far I've seen only anecdotes which I can easily counter with plenty of my own.
You've provided proof that some cops are racists. Not sure what that has to do with the Tea Party though. Some Cops are Racists. It sucks, but I think we all know it's true. You've managed to point out that some of the people at bars in your area are racists. Again, It has NOTHING to do with the Tea Party. In fact, you have yet to provide any proof that Racism is both rampant within, and a "secret" part of the Tea Party.
So please, answer my questions, provide some proof other than anecdotes or manufactured racism from leftist "Crash the Tea Party" types, and then we can talk. Otherwise I find it difficult to believe you.
While I can appreciate your position, your assumption that the founders set up the Republic to have limited government because of communications restrictions is specious at best.
I can prove it to you by simple extending your argument to the planet as a whole.
It used to take over a YEAR to travel around the globe. now one merely needs to hop on a plane, and with a few changes and layovers, you can circumnavigate the globe in a few days. if you have enough money, you can hitch a ride on a Russian rocket and circle the globe at several thousand miles an hour in LEO if you want.
Communications across the planet are now as instantaneous as talking across the room. I regularly have online discussions with complete strangers that I will probable never meet from foreign lands that I have never visited. Something the Founders could not have imagined even in their wildest dreams.
And yet, I hear no rational calls for One World Government. If the speed of communications and travel is the ONLY reason for a limited American government, why not extend that to the entire world? It's not as though the various countries of the world aren't in constant conflict with one another. Why not a large, strong central government to rule the whole world?
Of course, we already tried that. It was called Fascism, and then Communism. (Brother ideologies, really.) and both have been roundly defeated and are rightly now ridiculed as monstrous and evil.
Then of course, there are the actual writings of the Founders, who frequently stated their desire for a LIMITED government. Not because of communications, but because it was wise.
Behold their words:
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
-Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." - Patrick Henry
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare⦠The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America." - Alexander Hamilton
"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.
It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated.
There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson
"With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there
I'm sorry for the way your friend was treated. (Who was he? I'd like to know how he did in his race.) Was this the entire crowd booing him or was it just a few people? Where was the event, and do you remember the date?
Because I've been to several Tea Party events (A couple here in Buffalo NY, a couple in Rochester NY and one in Pittsburgh PA) and I've never seen anything like that.
In fact, I haven't seen ANY racism. I've seen a good mix of races, with white, black, asian and latino all standing together espousing the ideals of limited government, capitalism and Freedom. All protesting Obamacare, and mixing together freely and without reservation.
I have also seen the unbridled hate and invective that was thrown at us from the counter-protesters, seen leftists make "mock charges" at us to try and provoke a physical confrontation and have the Police have to warn them off, but I have not seen a single racist sign or epithet thrown from the Tea Party side.
Obviously your friend had a bad experience, and while I can't speak for all Tea Partiers, I can certainly say that kind of behavior would not be tolerated at any Tea Party rally I was at.
Yes. Evidence that the hate was coming from leftist infiltrator groups MUST be the "No true Scotsman" fallacy.
Because WE ALL KNOW that Tea Party people MUST be racists, they oppose Obama! And No leftist could EVER be a racist, why, that's just impossible! Leftists just want love and peace and happiness and puppies for all!
*sigh*
I didn't say that NO Tea Party people are racists, I'm sure that there were a few out there. However, as per the evidence I've provided, MOST of the Tea Party people are not racists and NEARLY ALL the racist signs showing up at Tea Party rallies were the work of Leftist infiltrator groups.
Of course, for those such as yourself that are less interested in the substance of what I or Tea Party people have to say and are MORE interested in simply invalidating anything they say by hanging the "racist" label on them, then the evidence or rational discourse doesn't matter. For you it will always be one logical fallacy or another, regardless of whether it honestly applies or not.
I have also been to many rallies. And I have heard NO racism or hate whatsoever. Other than the invective spewed at the Tea Party people by the local leftist agitators out counter-protesting.
Oh, and the assaults and attempted assaults on Tea Party members by leftist and Union agitators.
It's not hard to find evidence of leftist hate against Tea Party people. Finding real evidence of widespread hate coming FROM the Tea Party is much harder. Which is why it had to be manufactured by leftist infiltrators.
Heh. Either they goofed up a decimal place somewhere, or these 'bots are following a very crooked path to their destination.
I would imagine that FPV model plane flying has quite a bit to do with this. Most of the high-powered control systems you need to make FPV a reality require a HAM technician license. With the massive upswing in FPV flying I would expect to see a big boost in HAM license interest.
Umm... The person I was replying to was referring to adding ADDITIONAL oversight to our EXISTING government framework. They were implying that our system of checks and balances as stated in the Constitution was inadequate and we needed yet another layer of oversight to make it work.
My point was that adding more layers for oversight doesn't help because it doesn't fix the central issue: Too much central government.
If you read the Constitution and the writings of our founding fathers (Do you have your copy of the Federalist Papers? Thomas Payne's "Common Sense"? The combined writings of Thomas Jefferson? I have mine right here.) you would see that while they differed on some of the specifics, the founders envisioned a LIMITED central government who's role was kept at a minimum. Defending the country, ensuring peace and unimpeded economic traffic between the states (the infamous "commerce clause") and providing for jurisprudence over country-wide legal issues. that was it.
Our modern government has grown FAR beyond the original intent of a simple framework to hold the states together and into a behemoth that reaches tentacles into every aspect of our daily lives. One literally cannot do anything that is not in some way impacted by, regulated by or taxed by our monstrous, over sized, behemoth federal government. This is what needs fixing.
Ultimately, we must come to the realization that the promise of socialism; That the central government can fill every need, take away every want and create a utopian "socially just" society is a lie. It isn't possible, and it's high time that after 100 years of it in America we need to simply stop trying for it. If we don't, we each get to personally experience the reality of socialism's "end game". Financial collapse, widespread poverty, and Tyranny. We will all be equal. Equally poor, equally oppressed, and equally lost.
Better to have the "inequality" of Capitalism and get an "unequal" share of it's blessings, than have an equal share of the misery of socialism.
Ok, first of all, that's an email. Not a sign. Also, Marylin Davenport was roundly vilified by Tea Party members for that email, and was (if I remember correctly) asked to resign from her position. I don't know what ever came of it, but her's was a view that was NEVER mainstream among the tea party.
Also, there have been some blatantly racist signs at Tea Party rallies, but if you back the picture out a bit and get some context, you would discover that the horrible signs are being carried by people that aren't part of the Tea Party rally, and are often either fringe hanger-on groups, or left-wing infiltrators.
There is plenty of video out there of these people being shouted and chased out of the tea party rallies, while the MSM follows taking pictures only of the fringe people and ignoring the rest of the rally.
Heck, back when the rallies were in full swing there were several topics ongoing at KOS and SA about just that. Crashing the Tea Party rallies with racist signs to try and get press time.
At least among the left, it worked.
The problem is that no amount of "oversight" will ever be enough because you are essentially asking the government to police itself. You simply cannot separate the oversight body from the rest of the government without creating a quasi-police state with a bunch of unelected people having "oversight" over the elected ones. That sounds very much like Tyranny to me.
Alternately, you could create an elected "oversight" body, but then why have the original governing body in the first place? Oversight is a black hole of ever growing government and ever disappearing money.
The solution is to shrink the size of government and take power OUT of it's hands until it is back to the teeny tiny size it was intended to be by the Founders. Most of it's current duties should be devolved back to the state, local, and personal level.
Simply put, our Government is too big. Big Governments are always inevitably corrupt. Making our government bigger (oversight) won't fix the problem of it's excessive size.
I didn't miss the point. The point wasn't about "elbow room" per-se, it was about colonization.
And investment groups would ABSOLUTELY invest in a long-term colonization project if the return was an entirely new planet NOT under the jurisdiction of any Earth government where they could build their business. No need to go anywhere for that, just send lots of other people in your name, and then go yourself once things are ready and if you want.
A side effect of mass interplanetary colonization for the people that remain is that there is automatically more "elbow room" left here due to the whole "a bunch of people just left" thing.
Wow. I spend quite a fair amount of time online, and it's been awhile since I've seen such a brazen display of complete ignorance about a fundamental characteristic of human nature. I mean, that was just breathtaking.
Frankly, I far more trust the future of humanity in space to your average guy that wants to stake a claim and start a business (IE: an entrepreneur) than I ever would to a government bureaucrat flunky.
Space will be won and owned by Capitalists. Mostly because Marxists and Big Govt. types will never be able to see the value in it beyond propaganda.
You want to know what our future in space will be? It won't be Star Trek and it won't be Star Wars. It'll be Firefly. Businessmen and ordinary people going out and selling Coke, Marlboros and Big Macs to the Aliens and staking claims on empty planets, moons and asteroids to make their fortune. Count on it.
Actually, if we are talking colonization, it is far more likely that NON privileged people will go first.
Why?
Hazards. Space is a dangerous place to go, and off-world colonization almost as dangerous as space itself. Why would the powerful and privileged leave the relative comfort of their lives here when they could just pay lots of other people to risk their lives building up new worlds?
Yes, some space tourism and expensive luxury "space hotels" may be built to serve wealthy clients, but I really don't see many George Soros or Koch Brother types deciding to just chuck it all here and take off for the stars. Far more likely they will FINANCE the trip via an investment group and then hire a crapload of poor/middle class people to take the real risks.
Of course, these people, in addition to taking the risks would also stand to reap huge benefits and end up moderately wealthy themselves if the mission was successful. That's the point. Otherwise who would go beyond some scientists in it for pure science reasons?
Personally, if I wasn't 40 already and responsible for a family I would absolutely sign up. I'm not poor, but I'm as much an entrepreneur as the next guy and space holds lots of opportunity once our technology is up to snuff.
I'm waiting for the "whatcouldpossiblygowrong" tag to show up on this story.
Fully programmable cells?
And what happens when someone programs them to break down any biological material and then to use that broken down material to replicate indefinitely?
Grey Goo disaster anyone?
Except that the chances of a robust economy destroying the environment so completely that the planet becomes uninhabitable are so utterly remote as to be the product of an enviro-nut fever dream. Simply put, a modern economy cannot "destroy" the environment. Period.
On the other hand, it is far simpler to obliterate a modern economy. Simply put enough taxation load on it and it will collapse on it's own.
Which, I suspect, is rather the point for many greenies. There is a reason the Russians refer to the greenies as "watermelons". Enviro green on the outside, Commie red on the inside.
Unlikely. Most nerds don't go to business school to learn to run companies.
It's sad but true: "A students end up working under B students at a company run by C students."
Earning good grades in school or being super-smart isn't nearly as valuable in the long run as a finely honed set of social skills. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs may have been "nerds", but they learned social skills too and that made all the difference.
I know it won't be a popular sentiment around here, but nobody should be able to hide from Justice.
Assange should be extradited and have his day in court. This is a good decision. Well done, British court system.
So it's profitable.
Well, yes. but not, perhaps, profitable "as hell".
To wit; the margins on Laptops are fairly thin, although not as razor thin as they are on commodity desktops.
The fat margins are in the mobile sphere. IE: smartphones and tablets. This is why Mark Hurd wanted Palm and WebOS in the first place. It was a smart move and would have paid off handsomely if HP's board wasn't a bunch of dickheads that decided they wanted to dump him over a fake scandal.
So instead the morons got Apotheker who proceed to immediately shit all over HP with his stupid "software and services" ideas and within 6 months had cost the company billions in stock price and profits. Not to mention likely killing off HP's one shot at making it in the mobile space.
Now Whitman's gotta pick up the pieces and I dare say she has her work cut out for her. the laptop and desktop divisions will likely survive, but I don't see how she's going to revive WebOS unless they strike a deal with Samsung or HTC to make handsets for them.
With most of the core talent in the WebOS programming group drained away to Apple and Google (Mathias Duarte, one of the main WebOS UI designers is now at Google, and lead designed the new Ice Cream Sandwich UI) they are also facing a lack of design talent and experience. They have a shell of Palm's programming and software design department left to rebuild an entire brand with. I don't see it happening.
Which sucks, because I really like WebOS. (Still rockin' my 2 YO Sprint Pre!)
To further your point, Do we really want a national wireless provider that would invariably have a total monopoly on wireless service and is run like the Post Office? Judging on how horribly the Post Office is run, I'd say not.
If anything, we have too MUCH regulation in place. The biggest one being the ability of wireless carriers to "buy" blocks of spectrum, thus locking out all other players. It's just another form of corporatism (Fascism without genocide) that our government has been engaging in for far too long.
If we must have regulation, let it be along the lines of "Here is the "cellular" block of spectrum. All carriers must operate within this spectrum, and no part of it is exclusive to any given carrier. Carriers may develop and use any technology that utilizes this spectrum in any way they see fit, provided it does not interfere with any other carrier's ability to use the same spectrum."
Make it a nice small block of spectrum, (I'll leave the specific ranges to the professionals) large enough to accommodate everyone, but small enough to free up spectrum currently locked up by the carriers for other uses (such as HAM and other private citizen uses, like private television broadcast and such) then let the carriers have at it.
The nice part about regulating in this manner is that it lowers the barriers to entry for new players, and allows for more competition, forcing prices down, without specifically punishing any one player or being a burden on anyone.
If the lack of pay phones are your best argument, then you really don't have much of one at all.
I'm 40 years old, and grew up with payphones all around me. I almost never used one except in an emergency.
If all you need is an emergency phone, buy a prepaid "burner" cell phone from your local drug store an/or buy a cheap unlimited "calls only" plan or prepaid plan from one of the large carriers. Problem solved.
Lack of payphones has little to do with complaints about the cost of data plans for cell phones.
Except that we have a large educated class of citizens...
Who have used that education to take advantage of the system and have voted themselves so many government programs that...
Hmm... I think I have found a flaw in your logic.
The point is, of course, that one cannot spend money on government programs in order to SAVE money on government programs. You just end up with more and more government programs that spend more and more money until the whole house of cards collapses in on itself.
To put it another way: You can never spend enough or legislate enough to make life fair or create "social justice". If you really want the best for all, just get government out of the way and let people sink or swim on their own. You do them no favors by taking from Peter to prop up Paul.
I hate to be the one to say this, mostly because I have no doubt I will get flamed and/or modded to hell for it, but I'm feeling adventurous this morning, so here goes:
*deep breath*
Nobody is forcing you to buy a cellular data plan, or indeed buy any cell plan at all. It is perfectly possible to live life in the modern age without any kind of cellphone, and still take part in all that modern life has to offer without having to live like the Amish. You simply have to decide what is important to you.
If having that smartphone with data plan is important to you, then so be it. Be prepared to deal with the companies that sell that type of plan in your area. If you don't like the selections of companies or the manner in which these companies conduct business, then you must decide if that is more important to you than having the phone.
If your principles are more important, then to be true to them you MUST cancel your smartphone plan and go back to a land line and/or VOIP using an answering machine. Or possibly a smartphone without a cell plan using Wifi and Google Voice.
If having that smartphone is most important, then I would say that while you still have the right to your principles and opinion, they hold significantly less weight and are worth little regard to others as you yourself clearly don't believe in them enough to alter your life to suit them. In which case you are little more than a ranting, grouchy troll.
That said, I don't entirely disagree with you, It certainly does seem that the prices for cellular data plans remain artificially high, and the dropping of unlimited plans is not something that customers should want. However, if one looks at the big picture, one realizes that prices have actually come down overall for these plans.
If you think about it, back just 25 years ago a $100 a month cell plan with unlimited talk time was utterly unheard of. The best you could do was something like 1000 minutes and the prices were closer to $200 a month. And data couldn't be had for any price. Now you can get a single person plan with unlimited talk, text and (in Sprint's case, data) for right around $100 a month. Now, you may say that it hasn't come down far enough, fast enough, but ultimately that's a function of the market. If you don't like the prices, don't take part. Cellphones are (despite the protestations of /. members) still a luxury item.
Actually, it's not wrong.
Leaving aside the logistical challenges of actually building an EM catapult launcher on the moon, we must remember that this is a LARGE device. Large as in "multiple miles long". Large as in "immovable once constructed." In other words, it isn't something you can AIM.
If you are using it to move raw materials off of the moon and into orbit between the moon and the Earth, ready for transport to a construction site, and you are concerned about the possibility of one of those objects striking the Earth, simply build it pointing in a direction that ensures that objects it fires will never enter into the path of the Earth. IE: Perpendicular to the Earth's orbit.
Yes, I have just eliminated the idea of using the EM catapult as a weapon by simply having the engineers point the thing North when they build it.
You are welcome.
Perhaps start their own companies and hire some of their contemporaries? Maybe if we stopped assuming that companies existed to provide jobs for people and that a "living wage" was everyone's right (HINT: It isn't.) and indoctrinating our youth with Socialism and instead training them to be entrepreneurs, capitalists and business owners on their own then maybe the lack of jobs wouldn't be an issue.
Also, maybe if people weren't summarily kicked out the door at 65 due to mandatory retirement policies (to comply with SS legal requirements) we would be able to retain much of the experience that these people have gained and be able to use them to apprentice the newer people, passing along that knowledge and working to have a deeper and more solid earnings base rather than constantly chasing the next "flash in the pan" to keep the stock prices climbing.
The point is: The Welfare State, for all of it's good intentions, has ultimately become a burden upon us that must be lifted if we are to continue in anything resembling a modern, western society. If we persist in our current path, economic and social collapse, followed by anarchy, tyranny, poverty, and finally the slow starvation death of humanity will follow.
Don't believe it can happen? Look at first Greece, and then North Korea for two examples of our future if we do not change course NOW.