The specifics vary from state to state but law enforcement and civilian self-defense training usually teaches some variant of ability, opportunity and jeopardy:
Ability: The individual has the ability to harm you. This could mean he has a weapon of some sort or that a significant disparity of force exists as to enable him to seriously harm you without needing a weapon.
Opportunity: The individual has the opportunity to harm you. Someone with a knife at 100 yards is yet not a threat to you.
Jeopardy: The individual's actions or words provide you with a reasonable belief that he intends to kill or seriously injure you. Your girlfriend in the kitchen slicing up vegetables has ability (knife) and opportunity (close enough to use it) but hopefully hasn't expressed an intent to kill you.
If the three of those are present then the use of deadly force in self-defense is generally justified in most American jurisdictions. As for proving that it was unsafe to retreat, that's not as large of a hurdle as it sounds. It's clearly unsafe to turn your back on someone who has expressed an intent to kill you or inflict serious bodily injury upon you. I live in a state with a duty to retreat law and have never seen it used to send someone up the river in a self-defense case.
As an adult in most states, getting physical (even after you have been physically attacked) with a bully is going to win you a criminal record
Says who? I live in a left-wing politically correct state and I'm still allowed to respond with physical force to the threat or use of physical force.
"A person may, subject to the provisions of subdivision two, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he reasonably believes such to be necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by such other person"
The biggest debt producing thing Bush passed was Medicare part D
His tax cuts had some deficit implications as well. Not that I disagree with the notion of lower taxes, but it's rather stupid to lower taxes without cutting spending. The Congress had no motivation to do that and Bush didn't press the issue because his party was running the place.
then the explanation is simply that they invested in a company which took on an unmanagably large uninsured risk and is now bankrupt
If they go bankrupt as a result of the cleanup then you would have a point. Those are the breaks of investment. The post that I replied to was advocating nationalizing them as a punitive measure. That's not the same thing as a company that goes bankrupt because it ran out of money.
The Republican Party has purged most of its moderates
That's not fair. The Republican Party lost most of it's moderates because they lost the middle of this country. Moderates are easier to vote out of office than hard-core ideologues because moderates usually hail from balanced districts that aren't gerrymandered for partisan advantage.
When the Democrats get clobbered in November it's going to be all the blue dog moderate Democrats that get swept out of office. Nancy Pelosi and her ilk will still be there. Will you then claim that the Democrats "purged" the moderates from their party?
Clinton managed to balance the budget by cutting the fat
Clinton did that because he was too busy arguing with a GOP Congress to expand Government in a manner beneficial to his base. Do you really think he would have done the same if he had Pelosi and Reid running things? To flip it around, do you really think Bush would have driven our national checkbook into the red if he had to contend with an angry Democratic Congress instead of a sycophantic Republican one?
Divided Government is the only way to go as long as we are stuck with political parties that put duty to party ahead of duty to the country. You are a fool if you don't vote Republican for Congress in 2010.....
As a liberal, I am very, very upset with the man I voted for right now.
That makes you a bigger sucker than I am. Obama plainly telegraphed his intention to climb into bed with big business when he voted for telecom immunity, despite his promises to the contrary.
Your splitting hairs. You have the right to do whatever the hell you want, as long as it doesn't harm others. The Government has no right to tell you otherwise without according you due process of law.
The airline is perfectly free to refuse to do business with you (I have never maintained otherwise throughout this discussion) but I take issue with the Government telling them they can't do business with me.
So because they want cheap gas, it's okay for BP to wipe out their livelihood, right?
That's not really fair. BP didn't do this on purpose. The point that the GP was trying to make is that we all share some measure of blame for this. BP wouldn't be out there drilling for oil if there wasn't a demand for it.
Everything in life is a trade off. Do you want cheap transportation? The easiest way to do that with existing technology is via the combustion of hydrocarbons. Keep in mind that affordable transportation isn't limited to your daily commute to work -- it also brings you food and manufactured goods.
I think this is a sad and tragic affair but I'm growing weary of the grandstanding on the part of our political leaders.
Many people on the right are trying to brand this event as "Obama's Katrina"
Why are you blaming that on "people on the right"? The first time I saw the "Obama's Katrina?" headline, it was on MSNBC. It's just the usual 24 hour news cycle media hype bullshit. It has nothing to do with a left or right wing bias.....
It's the Republican ideology of "Drill Baby Drill!" and it's the Democrats who have been against off-shore drilling. This disaster could only have helped Obama.
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
If I, as an owner of an plane, tell you your not allowed on my plane, for whatever reason, am I violating your rights? No.
We aren't talking about the airlines telling you that you can't fly. We are talking about the Government doing the same. When the Government deprives you of liberty without due process we have a problem....
I've read the entirety of the US Constitution and I can't see anything in it that would permit the Federal Government to deem that air travel (or anything else for that matter) is merely a "privilege".
You get arrested, you get fingerprinted. Period. It stays in the database forever.
Actually that depends on the state. I got fingerprinted when I was arrested. When the Grand Jury refused to indict me I received a court order compelling the relevant police agencies to destroy any and all copies of my fingerprints, photograph, DNA, etc.
Of course I later had to give up my fingerprints to the state to get a pistol license, but there you go.....
Slashdot Mirror
That's a pretty neat find. I wonder how Russia managed to beat us? Is Moscow the only part of the country with internet service?
therwise, I see other countries out innovate us all the time.
Yeah but we still out-innovate them in the blowing things up category. America, fuck yeah!
The specifics vary from state to state but law enforcement and civilian self-defense training usually teaches some variant of ability, opportunity and jeopardy:
Ability: The individual has the ability to harm you. This could mean he has a weapon of some sort or that a significant disparity of force exists as to enable him to seriously harm you without needing a weapon.
Opportunity: The individual has the opportunity to harm you. Someone with a knife at 100 yards is yet not a threat to you.
Jeopardy: The individual's actions or words provide you with a reasonable belief that he intends to kill or seriously injure you. Your girlfriend in the kitchen slicing up vegetables has ability (knife) and opportunity (close enough to use it) but hopefully hasn't expressed an intent to kill you.
If the three of those are present then the use of deadly force in self-defense is generally justified in most American jurisdictions. As for proving that it was unsafe to retreat, that's not as large of a hurdle as it sounds. It's clearly unsafe to turn your back on someone who has expressed an intent to kill you or inflict serious bodily injury upon you. I live in a state with a duty to retreat law and have never seen it used to send someone up the river in a self-defense case.
No, actually it depends on the Grand and Petit Juries.....
"They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue."
As an adult in most states, getting physical (even after you have been physically attacked) with a bully is going to win you a criminal record
Says who? I live in a left-wing politically correct state and I'm still allowed to respond with physical force to the threat or use of physical force.
"A person may, subject to the provisions of subdivision two, use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he reasonably believes such to be necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by such other person"
The biggest debt producing thing Bush passed was Medicare part D
His tax cuts had some deficit implications as well. Not that I disagree with the notion of lower taxes, but it's rather stupid to lower taxes without cutting spending. The Congress had no motivation to do that and Bush didn't press the issue because his party was running the place.
then the explanation is simply that they invested in a company which took on an unmanagably large uninsured risk and is now bankrupt
If they go bankrupt as a result of the cleanup then you would have a point. Those are the breaks of investment. The post that I replied to was advocating nationalizing them as a punitive measure. That's not the same thing as a company that goes bankrupt because it ran out of money.
If we nationalized just one company for screwing up
Good luck explaining to everybody with a 401(k) why you stole part of their hard earned money....
Its an appealing concept
Not if you value freedom and self-determination.....
because any communist revolution was always used as a vehicle to institute a tyrannical regime
Many revolutions wind up being used as a vehicle to institute tyranny. Not every revolutionary is a George Washington, unfortunately....
The Republican Party has purged most of its moderates
That's not fair. The Republican Party lost most of it's moderates because they lost the middle of this country. Moderates are easier to vote out of office than hard-core ideologues because moderates usually hail from balanced districts that aren't gerrymandered for partisan advantage.
When the Democrats get clobbered in November it's going to be all the blue dog moderate Democrats that get swept out of office. Nancy Pelosi and her ilk will still be there. Will you then claim that the Democrats "purged" the moderates from their party?
Clinton managed to balance the budget by cutting the fat
Clinton did that because he was too busy arguing with a GOP Congress to expand Government in a manner beneficial to his base. Do you really think he would have done the same if he had Pelosi and Reid running things? To flip it around, do you really think Bush would have driven our national checkbook into the red if he had to contend with an angry Democratic Congress instead of a sycophantic Republican one?
Divided Government is the only way to go as long as we are stuck with political parties that put duty to party ahead of duty to the country. You are a fool if you don't vote Republican for Congress in 2010.....
As a liberal, I am very, very upset with the man I voted for right now.
That makes you a bigger sucker than I am. Obama plainly telegraphed his intention to climb into bed with big business when he voted for telecom immunity, despite his promises to the contrary.
Your splitting hairs. You have the right to do whatever the hell you want, as long as it doesn't harm others. The Government has no right to tell you otherwise without according you due process of law.
The airline is perfectly free to refuse to do business with you (I have never maintained otherwise throughout this discussion) but I take issue with the Government telling them they can't do business with me.
a connotation of incompetence above and beyond the normal standard we expect from politicians, an event that permanently soured the electorate on him
If that's the standard than the Health Care bill was Obama's Katrina......
We all need gold, but does that give mining companies a free pass on dumping mercury and other poisons into streams?
See, I have a hard time getting behind that analogy, because it implies that BP did this on purpose.
then BP should pay, without caps, to repair the damage
I don't think there should be caps, but I also don't think we should be passing ex post facto laws to correct a mistake made by a previous Congress.
So because they want cheap gas, it's okay for BP to wipe out their livelihood, right?
That's not really fair. BP didn't do this on purpose. The point that the GP was trying to make is that we all share some measure of blame for this. BP wouldn't be out there drilling for oil if there wasn't a demand for it.
Everything in life is a trade off. Do you want cheap transportation? The easiest way to do that with existing technology is via the combustion of hydrocarbons. Keep in mind that affordable transportation isn't limited to your daily commute to work -- it also brings you food and manufactured goods.
I think this is a sad and tragic affair but I'm growing weary of the grandstanding on the part of our political leaders.
Many people on the right are trying to brand this event as "Obama's Katrina"
Why are you blaming that on "people on the right"? The first time I saw the "Obama's Katrina?" headline, it was on MSNBC. It's just the usual 24 hour news cycle media hype bullshit. It has nothing to do with a left or right wing bias.....
It's the Republican ideology of "Drill Baby Drill!" and it's the Democrats who have been against off-shore drilling. This disaster could only have helped Obama.
How soon we forget.....
Are you a stakeholder in the corporation?
If you have a 401(k) the odds are decent that you are a stakeholder in BP.....
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
If I, as an owner of an plane, tell you your not allowed on my plane, for whatever reason, am I violating your rights? No.
We aren't talking about the airlines telling you that you can't fly. We are talking about the Government doing the same. When the Government deprives you of liberty without due process we have a problem....
Arguably, however, the constitution was drafted in much simpler times.
If only there was a process by which we could amend it..... Nah, why do that when it's easier to just ignore it?
I've read the entirety of the US Constitution and I can't see anything in it that would permit the Federal Government to deem that air travel (or anything else for that matter) is merely a "privilege".
You get arrested, you get fingerprinted. Period. It stays in the database forever.
Actually that depends on the state. I got fingerprinted when I was arrested. When the Grand Jury refused to indict me I received a court order compelling the relevant police agencies to destroy any and all copies of my fingerprints, photograph, DNA, etc.
Of course I later had to give up my fingerprints to the state to get a pistol license, but there you go.....