How many people who have been tased standing up (and lived), suffered arm and leg fractures, dislocations from an uncontrolled descent to the hard pavement, or cracked their head during a freefall from standing to pavement? Plenty.
Then maybe they should have surrendered peacefully instead of trying to resist arrest? I'm sorry but I don't have any sympathy. I was arrested a long time ago for a crime that I didn't even commit. Handcuffed and tossed into the back of a police cruiser in front of my friends, family and co-workers. Do you think that was an easy experience to go through? The thought of trying to resist arrest or make a break for it never entered my mind. That's what the courts are for.
Now do the same thing while you tackle/subdue/etc. someone physically. How many times are you going to see anything more than pulled muscles, abrasions and possibly bite marks (in the case of mental health patients) or minor dislocations (wrists, fingers)?
You see it all the time. Our regulatory agencies are in the process of phasing out the use of physical restraints because of the dangers involved. In the five years that I've worked in a non-direct care role I've personally observed three broken limbs on patients and a broken leg/dislocated back on a staff member. The direct-care workers have seen more of these incidents firsthand. Personally, I don't regard an injury as "minor" if the person winds up leaving on a gurney and going to the ER. There's also the danger of positional asphyxia with physical restraints, though thankfully I've never witnessed that in my professional life.
The bottom line is that both approaches involve some risk. The difference between the taser and the physical restraint is that the taser attempts to reduce the risk that the person wielding it is facing. I really don't see what the problem is. Why should the law enforcement officer have to place himself in harms way when the perp could end the encounter by putting his hands behind his back and going down on his knees?
Those who abuse them should be held to account of course. There's no excuse for tasing someone who is already secured yet we've seen this happen a number of times. IMHO those would do this should be treated in the same manner as those who would beat or kick someone who is already in custody. But you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and remove the tool from the toolbox because of a handful of people who abuse it.
Hey, I didn't say anything like that. What I was referring to is the landmark case in DC recently. In the opinion the Justices clearly state that the 2nd Amendment gives gun owners the right to use a gun in self-defense
No, Heller stated that individuals have the right to own firearms suitable for the lawful purpose of self defense (i.e: handguns) and the right to own firearms for protection against tyranny. The law that was challenged was a blanket ban on handgun ownership and the requirement that long guns be stored in a disassembled (i.e: worthless for self-defense) state. Self-defense was a competent of the case, nothing more, nothing less.
I'm not saying gun owners don't have a right to self-defense, merely that it doesn't derive from the 2nd Amendment
No, it doesn't derive from the 2nd Amendment. It's a natural right. All the 2nd amendment does is ensure that you have the right to self-defense using firearms. The right of self-defense is a rather empty one if the state can tell you that you can't have the tools you need in order to exercise it. How does a 5'1" 95 pound female defend herself against a 6'10" 300 pound male without a firearm?
The 2nd gives them a right to carry a firearm (and it "shall not be infringed") for the purpose of, and it should be clear because its the first words of the Amendment, for a "well regulated militia."
What do you think militia's are for? They aren't just for protection from tyranny. They also exist to protect people from violence. The store owners standing on top of their roofs during the LA Riots were arguably acting as a militia. The people in New Orleans who armed themselves after Katrina were arguably acting as a militia (until the state disarmed them at gunpoint, but that's another matter....) There are people in Pakistan who have formed militia's to protect themselves and their communities against the Taliban.
The concept of the militia as the framers understood it was that every able-bodied male could be required to bear arms in the defense of his country and/or community. This is still reflected in our laws -- according to Federal Law almost every able-bodied male between the age of 17 and 45 is a member of the militia of the United States.
I don't see why you think that the militia is limited to protecting the community from tyranny and not more mundane threats. I also don't see why you don't think that people have the right to defend themselves individually against violence using firearms. If you believe in the right of self-defense and the right to keep and bear arms then why would you say that people can't use those arms to save their lives when confronted with those who would take them away?
That's not artificial. There is a real cost that SOMEONE will have to pay eventually. These are called externalities.
A cost that you can't calculate and which is going to be handled by legislation that basically gives away the carbon permits to big well financed industry while shutting out the little guy. That's the net result of the current cap and tax legislation as passed by the US House. It's the net result of the legislation passed in the EU. It's a perfect demonstration of the folly of using Government to correct "imbalances" in the system. The mess that's created is almost always bigger than the one that you set out to address in the first place.
However, if you cut out the availability of Middle East Oil, you would see prices as they were in the 70s
Where did I say we should cut out the availability of it? All I suggested was placing the burden of keeping it available on those who need it the most.
If the cold war was really the driving force behind our military expenditure, whey didn't it dramatically fall after the CCCP collapsed?
Because for better or worse the United States made a policy decision after World War II to try and act as a stabilizing force on the world. You may not agree with all of the choices that we've made (nor do I) but the fact that we haven't yet fought World War III suggests that somebody is doing something right.
I flirt from time to time with the idea that the United States should withdraw back into our non-interventionist roots. Disband most of the standing army, save for a few professional components (air defense, artillery, etc.) Keep the Air Force and Navy around in some form as it takes too much time to train and equip them if hostilities break out. Our first line of defense becomes the armed population. Our last line of defense remains our nuclear deterrent. Think of it as Switzerland with oceans and nukes.
The problem with that is that nature abhors a vacuum and someone is going to take our place on the world stage. Who will it be? Is there another Democracy that could fill our shoes? If not do you really want to live in a world where the sole global superpower is a non-democratic state?
It's because corporations were handed the keys at all. If they have 95% coverage in an area, they do not give a shit about the last 5%.
That has nothing to do with the point that I made. I only have a single broadband provider to choose from because my local government made the decision that it was going to grant them a monopoly. It's literally illegal for me to attempt to start my own company to compete with them. That's not a free market and blaming the free market for this problem is disingenuous.
Your argument boils down to rural/underserved areas. This is a problem -- but why should a company have to serve an unprofitable market segment? Why should the rest of the country have to subsidize the phone/power/internet service for those areas? Stop picking winners and losers and let the market figure it out. If rural areas had to pay the actual cost of these services then they can charge more money for the products (food) that they provide urban areas. It will balance out in the end without Government messing everything up.
Medicare is an interesting example. It works so well that when they allowed private corporations to compete, they couldn't.
Of course they can't compete. Medicare doesn't have to pay the full cost of the services that it's members receive. How do you compete with that? It's gotten so bad that many doctors have stopped accepting medicare patients. And why should they if they lose money on every single one?
America pays 16% of GDP for it's healthcare. The rest of Europe pays less than 10% of GDP, and they are just as healthy, and they all have coverage. You're going to have to overcome that fact before yo
But as far as I'm concerned... I want to get myself a taser... and if a jumpy cop (who is not my cousin) pulls a taser on me, I'm pulling one on them.
If you are dealing with a jumpy cop your best bet is to shut the fuck up and start answering their questions with "Yes Sir" and "No Sir". Even the ACLU says this. Pulling a taser (or any weapon for that matter) on them is a one way ticket to the ER or morgue.
There was recently a case in Syracuse where a woman got tased. From the footage I've seen and the reports I've read she did not deserve to get tased. That said, it's also my belief that she contributed to the escalation of the situation and that wiser choices on her part would have brought the incident to a better conclusion. Getting out of the car during a traffic stop without being asked to do so is just going to put the officer on edge. Arguing with him and demanding to see his "evidence" is only going to make it worse. You don't argue with a police officer during a traffic stop -- you accept the ticket, plead not-guilty and fight it out in the court system.
Remember that a police officer is someone who has to worry about getting shot every single time he or she pulls someone over. Putting him or her on edge is just not a wise course of action. Do I think the officer in Syracuse overreacted? Undoubtedly. Would it have happened if he pulled me over? Nope. I would have accepted the ticket without argument and fought it in the courts.
but only recently has SCOTUS decided that "Sure, the 2nd means self-defense, too."
The concept of self-defense predates the 2nd amendment. It predates the invention of firearms. A firearm is just a tool to defend yourself with. You'd still have the right of self-defense without them -- you just wouldn't be able to protect yourself as effectively.
it's just that the Founders debated guns for self-defense, and intentionally left it out of there
So what? If you agree with the concept of self-defense (which I assume you do?) then I don't see why you'd take issue with someone using a legal tool to achieve that end.
but gun owners and the gun lobby is soooo powerful, they bent SCOTUS and bent the Constitution to say something it has never said before
No, they got it to say that the 2nd amendment protects an individual right to firearm ownership. Self-defense is just one reason why someone would want to own a firearm. There are others. Do you dispute that the 2nd amendment protects an individual right?
But I'll never carry a gun, nor use one against another, even if in self-defense
Good for you. Nobody is forcing you to carry a gun. Just don't try and tell me that I can't carry one or use it if my life is seconds away from ending.
And I'll pray that after a few more appointments to SCOTUS with an eye towards accuracy, and a special (perhaps contrived) case that comes before them, they will restore the true spirit of the 2nd (which is you have the right to carry a gun to protect everyone -but yourself- from a tyrannical government -- my paraphrase... but that's what militias are for)
So if the gestapo busts my neighbors door down I can shoot to defend him but if they bust my door down I have to surrender? I'm not following your logic here. I also think you've confused self-defense with the 2nd amendment. The laws of self-defense are generally regulated by the States. My state's laws don't even mention firearms. They define two types of force: physical force and deadly physical force. Deadly physical force is defined as force that is likely to cause serious injury or death. Physical force is defined as everything else. You can generally only use deadly physical force to defend yourself or another against the
Taser markets their weapons as appropriate for situations calling for non-lethal force
That's exactly what they are appropriate for. They clearly aren't appropriate for situations were no force is called for. I would go further and argue that they aren't appropriate for situations where deadly force is called for either.
and encourages their use without proper guidelines, training, or policies similar to the ones around police use of guns
Says who? Every police department in my area has a training program before it's officers can be certified to carry them. One officer that I spoke with said that he received more training before they let him carry a TASER than he did before they let him carry a gun. In any case I don't see how you can blame the manufacturer for what the end user does with it.
That's not appropriate for a tool which can kill people when used in the intended manner.
Pepper spray and mace can also kill. Where's the outrage directed against those products?
Of course, the small subset of incidents that result in 'Don't taze me, bro!' are the ones that get airtime. You never hear the story, 'suspect was successfully subdued by a taser after resisting arrest while wielding a knife.'
You also never see "Woman shoots would-be rapist with AIDS" or "Elderly woman shoots home invader" as a headline either. The media never bothers to report stories that aren't sensational.
Yeah, I'll mention that to a cop I know. She's 5'-2". I'm sure she'd much rather get into a physical fight with PCP-stoked guy twice her size than simply drop him, alive, like a sack of potatos. Though it sounds like you'd prefer she used a firearm in that situation.
I wouldn't mind at all if she used a firearm in that situation. The Taser isn't guaranteed to stop someone on PCP and if she misses she isn't going to have time to draw her firearm or reload the Taser. It's arguable that a disparity of force exists in such a situation (i.e: she'd legitimately fear for her life in a physical confrontation with such an individual) and she'd be perfectly justified in using deadly force.
Right, but that should be reserved for times when otherwise an officer would use a firearm to subdue the perp
Firearms are not used to subdue perps. Firearms are used to end a threat to the life of the officer or another innocent person. The only occasion I'm aware of where firearms are allowed to be used to "subdue" people is in the case of a prison guard shooting a prison escapee. Your regular beat cop is not allowed to use his firearm to "subdue" someone. He's only allowed to use it to save his own life or the life of another.
Tasers have expanded their role to include instances where the officer would have just hit the perp and been rough with them.
That's exactly what they are intended for. Situations where non-deadly force would have been used. Their role hasn't been expanded at all. What's been expanded is the willingness of officers to use force during inappropriate times. Tasing someone in handcuffs just because he said something nasty to the Judge is no more appropriate than hitting him would have been.
but in general, I think that most of your taser stories ('don't tase me bro' guy or the naked wizard) would be better handled by just cuffing them roughly.
Why? So you run the risk of injuring two people (the officer and the perp) instead of one? How is that better? Have you ever been trained in restraint techniques? I have been -- as part of my employment at a mental health facility. It's not that easy to take someone down without injuring them or yourself. How is injuring the perp while subduing him with your hands any better than injuring him while subduing him with a Taser?
Of course, when you have a dude covered in kerosene charging you with a lighter, a taser seems like a better alternative than an officer dying or needing to shoot the guy in the kneecaps.
You wouldn't shoot for the kneecaps in such a situation. You'd shoot center of mass. Shooting someone's legs/kneecaps/hand-holding-the-knife is a Hollywood myth. It's just too hard to pull off in the real world. If you shoot a 2" group with a handgun at the range with paper targets you are going to shoot a 10" group when being charged by some nutjob intent on ending your life. That's what happens when you get an adrenaline dump and your fine motor skills go to hell. That's why police officers are trained to shoot center of mass.
It is legal for a police officer to taze some one anytime they have a reason to place their hands on them, this IMHO is inappropriate and should be judged according to the situation.
Why is that inappropriate? If the police officer has reason to place his hands on me then why doesn't he have reason to use any other means of less-than-lethal (taser, spray, baton, etc.) force? If he doesn't have that justification then I really don't see how him placing his hands on me is any better than being tased. Both represent an abuse of force.
When such justification is present I have no problem with the police using tasers. Why should they have to get down and dirty and risk physical injury to themselves to subdue some asshole that is resisting arrest/committing a crime/etc?
They were originally intended to be used in cases where a gun would have been used.
No they weren't. Guns (deadly force) can't be used unless the life of the police officer or an innocent bystander is in imminent risk. No sane police officer whose life is seconds away from ending is going to reach for his TASER. The TASER is useless against multiple opponents, is useless against someone hopped up on drugs or with certain mental illnesses, only gives you one shot and has an limited range compared to handguns. In a scenario where his life or the life of another is in mortal danger the smart police officer is going to draw his firearm and squeeze the trigger as many times as are required to end the threat.
TASERs were intended as a replacement for the police baton. They were not intended as a replacement for deadly force. The use of deadly force (firearm, knife, claymore, etc) has an entirely different set of standards that need to be met than does regular force (fist, taser, mace, pepper spray, etc). Deadly force can only be used under specific circumstances, generally to save the life of the officer or another. Regular force can be used to affect an arrest, halt the commission of non-lethal crimes, halt the escape of a suspect, defend against the use of non-deadly force, etc.
These devices would never be used against people in the manner they now are in a truly free society.
That part I'd give you. It seems that there are quite a few incidents wherein police officers have reached for their TASER rather than reaching for their deescalation skills. I don't think you can blame this on the tool though -- you have to blame it on the operator. These same personalities would probably have wielded the police baton in the same inappropriate manner.
Solar power isn't profitable because coal isn't properly taxed for the amount of damage it does to the ecosystem, or when a slurry wall fails and kills a few hundred people directly.
So your argument is we need to artificially raise the cost of energy. That sounds like an economic winner.
Batteries are expensive because the cost of maintaining hegemony in the Middle East is hidden in our defense budget, and not tacked on to the price of a gallon of gas.
What does "hegemony" in the Middle East have to do with the price of a gallon of gas? The bulk of our imported oil comes from friendly Western hemisphere sources. Europe and China are much more reliant on Middle Eastern oil than we are -- perhaps we should let them try their hand at stabilizing the region?
You can simply look at the economic history of the last thirty years, and compare America to Canada, England, France, and Germany
All countries that don't have to pay the full cost of their own national defense, by virtue of being under the American umbrella. How much would England, Germany and France have spent on defense in the latter half of the 20th century if they had to build up the forces on their own to deter the Warsaw Pact?
There are many things that the market is piss poor at valuing. There are many services better considered as infrastructure than as a luxury, like transportation, health care, electricity, and telecommunications.
The market can value every one of those things just fine if people would stop interfering with it. The reason we have a piss poor last mile telecommunications infrastructure in this country is because of Government granted monopolies. One of the reasons our health care system is in shambles is because a huge health care customer (Uncle Sam, via Medicare) pays below-market rates for services rendered, thus leading to the rest of us being charged more to make up the difference. I want to scream at the TV every single time somebody mentions Medicare as a model because it has "lower costs" -- it's easy to have "lower costs" when you don't even pay a break-even price to the provider of the services you receive.
Transportation would also work better if Government would stop picking winners and losers. Why don't trucks have to pay full price for the damage they do to the roadways? Perhaps if they did other methods of moving goods around (trains, waterways, etc) would be more competitive. Instead we effectively subsidize the trucking industry with our taxes that go to rebuilding the roadways damaged by big rigs. Why don't big city residents have to pay full price for their mass transit networks? Why do I get to pay an MTA tax for the benefit of New York City when as a resident of Upstate New York I don't use any services provided by the MTA?
We have no way to create things that other people want to buy because we don't have a manufacturing sector
Aerospace, pharmaceutics, defense, grain, software, telecommunications and petrochemicals don't qualify as things that people want to buy? The notion that we don't have a manufacturing sector is a myth. The manufacturing sector in the United States has consistently grown since the 1980s. It hasn't grown as fast as the rest of the economy, which is cause for concern, but to say that we have "no manufacturing sector" is patently false. Take away the companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the key ones in my mind being Cisco, Boeing, Caterpillar, DuPont, General Electric, Intel, IBM and Microsoft) and let me know how the world economy looks. Take away the grain that we export to the rest of the world and let me know how many people starve to death.
Remove the corrective effects of good governance, and it turns into a nightmare.
I don't disagree. I just disagree that "good governance" requires the nationalization of key industries or sectors of the economy.
Westinghouse didn't waver when Edison was waging his FUD and lobbying campaign against them. The railroad industry was plagued with disasters and bad press for many years but kept building out their infrastructure and are still around today. The White Star line didn't stop building ships after the Titanic sunk.
There's three examples right off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of more.
Many hard problems are not profitable to solve, so all of our capital is flooding into financial services and marketing.
So make them profitable to solve. Want to help solve climate change? Get rid of the regulatory/legal processes that give an inordinate amount of power to the NIMBY/BANANA crowd. Why should I invest my capital in wind farms or a nuclear power plant when a handful of loud assholes can tie me up in court for years before I even get to break ground? Everybody wants green energy but nobody wants to look at a wind farm or cooling tower. Everybody wants good wireless service but nobody wants to look at a cell phone tower. If these people had always had this much power we'd still be reading by candlelight, relying on snail mail and using horse drawn carriages to get around.
I think that western society has correctly reassessed the value of life
Life is valuable but our efforts to protect it have gone too far in the other direction. We spend inordinate amounts of money trying to build a risk free world rather than accepting the fact that some activities/professions are inherently dangerous. We've created a society of sheep that scare easily and run crying to the nearest lawyer and/or politician whenever some reminder that life can actually still be dangerous smacks them across the face. To borrow one of the best/. sig's I've ever seen: If you spend all your time childproofing the world you aren't going to have any time to worldproof your child.
Some things are worth risking your life over. Would you volunteer to go into space if the opportunity presented itself? Would you volunteer to test an experimental AIDS or cancer vaccine? Would you assist a fellow citizen who was being victimized by some thug? Would you jump into the ocean to save a drowning person? Would you intervene if you saw someone being attacked by an animal?
So a better question is, do the astronauts have a right to hear the CORRECT figures, not the wild wishful-thinking executive estimates?
What makes you think they aren't aware of the true risks of what's involved? Who else would be in a better position to know them? I've always assumed the drivel that comes out of the NASA execs is intended for public consumption. The astronauts themselves are aware of what they are getting into.
The United States isn't a Democracy. It's a Republic. The 50 individual States retain their sovereignty and are not instruments of the Federal Government. Maybe next time you should learn something about a topic before you open your mouth.
It's because countries other than the US have decent privacy protection laws
I'm all in favor of privacy protection but I fail to see how a law that requires me to get your consent before I record my phone call with you advances privacy. If you tell me something then it seems to me that you've waived privacy. If you wanted to keep it private then why did you tell me? I fail to see how you protect yourself by making it illegal for me to record the phone call -- unless you intend to lie under oath (assuming it gets that far) when I testify about what you said.
Most states in the US are one-party states (meaning only one party to the conservation needs to consent to the recording) and I don't see any problem with that.
Maybe it's time to make the state pay for your defense when you're aquitted?
I don't know about that. The law of unintended consequences will rear it's ugly head. I don't have many ill feelings about my trip through the legal system. My case basically boiled down to a "he said/she said" situation and the DA used the only tool at his disposal (the grand jury) to try and figure out what had really transpired. Once it became apparent that the people testifying against me had an axe to grind and the "evidence" they offered the police wasn't worth the paper it was printed on the grand jury did the right thing and declined to indict me.
If anything my anger would be directed at the people who tried to send me up the river for a crime I didn't commit. If they had any money I would have sued them all once the criminal matter was concluded but they were all flat broke and it would have been a waste of my time. Nothing much to do about it other than put it down as a life lesson and choose my "friends" more carefully in the future.
It's easy to get indictments because 99% of the time the defendant doesn't testify before the grand jury. If you are a grand juror and you only hear one side of the story it's not very likely that you are going to refuse to hand down the indictment.
If the defendant testifies then they hear both sides of the story and can start to question the evidence offered. Of course if the defendant actually committed the crimes he's accused of then it would be the height of stupidity to testify in front of the grand jury -- you waive your right against self-incrimination and have to answer any and all questions that are asked. Any evidence collected can then be used against you at trial.
How does a Federal special prosecutor give immunity against State charges? I assume you are familiar with the 10th amendment and the concept of separation of powers?
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How many people who have been tased standing up (and lived), suffered arm and leg fractures, dislocations from an uncontrolled descent to the hard pavement, or cracked their head during a freefall from standing to pavement? Plenty.
Then maybe they should have surrendered peacefully instead of trying to resist arrest? I'm sorry but I don't have any sympathy. I was arrested a long time ago for a crime that I didn't even commit. Handcuffed and tossed into the back of a police cruiser in front of my friends, family and co-workers. Do you think that was an easy experience to go through? The thought of trying to resist arrest or make a break for it never entered my mind. That's what the courts are for.
Now do the same thing while you tackle/subdue/etc. someone physically. How many times are you going to see anything more than pulled muscles, abrasions and possibly bite marks (in the case of mental health patients) or minor dislocations (wrists, fingers)?
You see it all the time. Our regulatory agencies are in the process of phasing out the use of physical restraints because of the dangers involved. In the five years that I've worked in a non-direct care role I've personally observed three broken limbs on patients and a broken leg/dislocated back on a staff member. The direct-care workers have seen more of these incidents firsthand. Personally, I don't regard an injury as "minor" if the person winds up leaving on a gurney and going to the ER. There's also the danger of positional asphyxia with physical restraints, though thankfully I've never witnessed that in my professional life.
The bottom line is that both approaches involve some risk. The difference between the taser and the physical restraint is that the taser attempts to reduce the risk that the person wielding it is facing. I really don't see what the problem is. Why should the law enforcement officer have to place himself in harms way when the perp could end the encounter by putting his hands behind his back and going down on his knees?
Those who abuse them should be held to account of course. There's no excuse for tasing someone who is already secured yet we've seen this happen a number of times. IMHO those would do this should be treated in the same manner as those who would beat or kick someone who is already in custody. But you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater and remove the tool from the toolbox because of a handful of people who abuse it.
Hey, I didn't say anything like that. What I was referring to is the landmark case in DC recently. In the opinion the Justices clearly state that the 2nd Amendment gives gun owners the right to use a gun in self-defense
No, Heller stated that individuals have the right to own firearms suitable for the lawful purpose of self defense (i.e: handguns) and the right to own firearms for protection against tyranny. The law that was challenged was a blanket ban on handgun ownership and the requirement that long guns be stored in a disassembled (i.e: worthless for self-defense) state. Self-defense was a competent of the case, nothing more, nothing less.
I'm not saying gun owners don't have a right to self-defense, merely that it doesn't derive from the 2nd Amendment
No, it doesn't derive from the 2nd Amendment. It's a natural right. All the 2nd amendment does is ensure that you have the right to self-defense using firearms. The right of self-defense is a rather empty one if the state can tell you that you can't have the tools you need in order to exercise it. How does a 5'1" 95 pound female defend herself against a 6'10" 300 pound male without a firearm?
The 2nd gives them a right to carry a firearm (and it "shall not be infringed") for the purpose of, and it should be clear because its the first words of the Amendment, for a "well regulated militia."
What do you think militia's are for? They aren't just for protection from tyranny. They also exist to protect people from violence. The store owners standing on top of their roofs during the LA Riots were arguably acting as a militia. The people in New Orleans who armed themselves after Katrina were arguably acting as a militia (until the state disarmed them at gunpoint, but that's another matter....) There are people in Pakistan who have formed militia's to protect themselves and their communities against the Taliban.
The concept of the militia as the framers understood it was that every able-bodied male could be required to bear arms in the defense of his country and/or community. This is still reflected in our laws -- according to Federal Law almost every able-bodied male between the age of 17 and 45 is a member of the militia of the United States.
I don't see why you think that the militia is limited to protecting the community from tyranny and not more mundane threats. I also don't see why you don't think that people have the right to defend themselves individually against violence using firearms. If you believe in the right of self-defense and the right to keep and bear arms then why would you say that people can't use those arms to save their lives when confronted with those who would take them away?
That's not artificial. There is a real cost that SOMEONE will have to pay eventually. These are called externalities.
A cost that you can't calculate and which is going to be handled by legislation that basically gives away the carbon permits to big well financed industry while shutting out the little guy. That's the net result of the current cap and tax legislation as passed by the US House. It's the net result of the legislation passed in the EU. It's a perfect demonstration of the folly of using Government to correct "imbalances" in the system. The mess that's created is almost always bigger than the one that you set out to address in the first place.
However, if you cut out the availability of Middle East Oil, you would see prices as they were in the 70s
Where did I say we should cut out the availability of it? All I suggested was placing the burden of keeping it available on those who need it the most.
If the cold war was really the driving force behind our military expenditure, whey didn't it dramatically fall after the CCCP collapsed?
Because for better or worse the United States made a policy decision after World War II to try and act as a stabilizing force on the world. You may not agree with all of the choices that we've made (nor do I) but the fact that we haven't yet fought World War III suggests that somebody is doing something right.
I flirt from time to time with the idea that the United States should withdraw back into our non-interventionist roots. Disband most of the standing army, save for a few professional components (air defense, artillery, etc.) Keep the Air Force and Navy around in some form as it takes too much time to train and equip them if hostilities break out. Our first line of defense becomes the armed population. Our last line of defense remains our nuclear deterrent. Think of it as Switzerland with oceans and nukes.
The problem with that is that nature abhors a vacuum and someone is going to take our place on the world stage. Who will it be? Is there another Democracy that could fill our shoes? If not do you really want to live in a world where the sole global superpower is a non-democratic state?
It's because corporations were handed the keys at all. If they have 95% coverage in an area, they do not give a shit about the last 5%.
That has nothing to do with the point that I made. I only have a single broadband provider to choose from because my local government made the decision that it was going to grant them a monopoly. It's literally illegal for me to attempt to start my own company to compete with them. That's not a free market and blaming the free market for this problem is disingenuous.
Your argument boils down to rural/underserved areas. This is a problem -- but why should a company have to serve an unprofitable market segment? Why should the rest of the country have to subsidize the phone/power/internet service for those areas? Stop picking winners and losers and let the market figure it out. If rural areas had to pay the actual cost of these services then they can charge more money for the products (food) that they provide urban areas. It will balance out in the end without Government messing everything up.
Medicare is an interesting example. It works so well that when they allowed private corporations to compete, they couldn't.
Of course they can't compete. Medicare doesn't have to pay the full cost of the services that it's members receive. How do you compete with that? It's gotten so bad that many doctors have stopped accepting medicare patients. And why should they if they lose money on every single one?
America pays 16% of GDP for it's healthcare. The rest of Europe pays less than 10% of GDP, and they are just as healthy, and they all have coverage. You're going to have to overcome that fact before yo
But as far as I'm concerned... I want to get myself a taser... and if a jumpy cop (who is not my cousin) pulls a taser on me, I'm pulling one on them.
If you are dealing with a jumpy cop your best bet is to shut the fuck up and start answering their questions with "Yes Sir" and "No Sir". Even the ACLU says this. Pulling a taser (or any weapon for that matter) on them is a one way ticket to the ER or morgue.
There was recently a case in Syracuse where a woman got tased. From the footage I've seen and the reports I've read she did not deserve to get tased. That said, it's also my belief that she contributed to the escalation of the situation and that wiser choices on her part would have brought the incident to a better conclusion. Getting out of the car during a traffic stop without being asked to do so is just going to put the officer on edge. Arguing with him and demanding to see his "evidence" is only going to make it worse. You don't argue with a police officer during a traffic stop -- you accept the ticket, plead not-guilty and fight it out in the court system.
Remember that a police officer is someone who has to worry about getting shot every single time he or she pulls someone over. Putting him or her on edge is just not a wise course of action. Do I think the officer in Syracuse overreacted? Undoubtedly. Would it have happened if he pulled me over? Nope. I would have accepted the ticket without argument and fought it in the courts.
but only recently has SCOTUS decided that "Sure, the 2nd means self-defense, too."
The concept of self-defense predates the 2nd amendment. It predates the invention of firearms. A firearm is just a tool to defend yourself with. You'd still have the right of self-defense without them -- you just wouldn't be able to protect yourself as effectively.
it's just that the Founders debated guns for self-defense, and intentionally left it out of there
So what? If you agree with the concept of self-defense (which I assume you do?) then I don't see why you'd take issue with someone using a legal tool to achieve that end.
but gun owners and the gun lobby is soooo powerful, they bent SCOTUS and bent the Constitution to say something it has never said before
No, they got it to say that the 2nd amendment protects an individual right to firearm ownership. Self-defense is just one reason why someone would want to own a firearm. There are others. Do you dispute that the 2nd amendment protects an individual right?
But I'll never carry a gun, nor use one against another, even if in self-defense
Good for you. Nobody is forcing you to carry a gun. Just don't try and tell me that I can't carry one or use it if my life is seconds away from ending.
And I'll pray that after a few more appointments to SCOTUS with an eye towards accuracy, and a special (perhaps contrived) case that comes before them, they will restore the true spirit of the 2nd (which is you have the right to carry a gun to protect everyone -but yourself- from a tyrannical government -- my paraphrase... but that's what militias are for)
So if the gestapo busts my neighbors door down I can shoot to defend him but if they bust my door down I have to surrender? I'm not following your logic here. I also think you've confused self-defense with the 2nd amendment. The laws of self-defense are generally regulated by the States. My state's laws don't even mention firearms. They define two types of force: physical force and deadly physical force. Deadly physical force is defined as force that is likely to cause serious injury or death. Physical force is defined as everything else. You can generally only use deadly physical force to defend yourself or another against the
Taser markets their weapons as appropriate for situations calling for non-lethal force
That's exactly what they are appropriate for. They clearly aren't appropriate for situations were no force is called for. I would go further and argue that they aren't appropriate for situations where deadly force is called for either.
and encourages their use without proper guidelines, training, or policies similar to the ones around police use of guns
Says who? Every police department in my area has a training program before it's officers can be certified to carry them. One officer that I spoke with said that he received more training before they let him carry a TASER than he did before they let him carry a gun. In any case I don't see how you can blame the manufacturer for what the end user does with it.
That's not appropriate for a tool which can kill people when used in the intended manner.
Pepper spray and mace can also kill. Where's the outrage directed against those products?
Of course, the small subset of incidents that result in 'Don't taze me, bro!' are the ones that get airtime. You never hear the story, 'suspect was successfully subdued by a taser after resisting arrest while wielding a knife.'
You also never see "Woman shoots would-be rapist with AIDS" or "Elderly woman shoots home invader" as a headline either. The media never bothers to report stories that aren't sensational.
The police baton is less likely to result in death.
Citation needed.
You can't blame it on the tool, but you most certainly can blame it on the company making it and their marketing tactics, in addition to the users.
You must be one of those people that thinks it's ok to sue Smith and Wesson if some thug blows away your child using one of their guns.
Yeah, I'll mention that to a cop I know. She's 5'-2". I'm sure she'd much rather get into a physical fight with PCP-stoked guy twice her size than simply drop him, alive, like a sack of potatos. Though it sounds like you'd prefer she used a firearm in that situation.
I wouldn't mind at all if she used a firearm in that situation. The Taser isn't guaranteed to stop someone on PCP and if she misses she isn't going to have time to draw her firearm or reload the Taser. It's arguable that a disparity of force exists in such a situation (i.e: she'd legitimately fear for her life in a physical confrontation with such an individual) and she'd be perfectly justified in using deadly force.
Right, but that should be reserved for times when otherwise an officer would use a firearm to subdue the perp
Firearms are not used to subdue perps. Firearms are used to end a threat to the life of the officer or another innocent person. The only occasion I'm aware of where firearms are allowed to be used to "subdue" people is in the case of a prison guard shooting a prison escapee. Your regular beat cop is not allowed to use his firearm to "subdue" someone. He's only allowed to use it to save his own life or the life of another.
Tasers have expanded their role to include instances where the officer would have just hit the perp and been rough with them.
That's exactly what they are intended for. Situations where non-deadly force would have been used. Their role hasn't been expanded at all. What's been expanded is the willingness of officers to use force during inappropriate times. Tasing someone in handcuffs just because he said something nasty to the Judge is no more appropriate than hitting him would have been.
but in general, I think that most of your taser stories ('don't tase me bro' guy or the naked wizard) would be better handled by just cuffing them roughly.
Why? So you run the risk of injuring two people (the officer and the perp) instead of one? How is that better? Have you ever been trained in restraint techniques? I have been -- as part of my employment at a mental health facility. It's not that easy to take someone down without injuring them or yourself. How is injuring the perp while subduing him with your hands any better than injuring him while subduing him with a Taser?
Of course, when you have a dude covered in kerosene charging you with a lighter, a taser seems like a better alternative than an officer dying or needing to shoot the guy in the kneecaps.
You wouldn't shoot for the kneecaps in such a situation. You'd shoot center of mass. Shooting someone's legs/kneecaps/hand-holding-the-knife is a Hollywood myth. It's just too hard to pull off in the real world. If you shoot a 2" group with a handgun at the range with paper targets you are going to shoot a 10" group when being charged by some nutjob intent on ending your life. That's what happens when you get an adrenaline dump and your fine motor skills go to hell. That's why police officers are trained to shoot center of mass.
It is legal for a police officer to taze some one anytime they have a reason to place their hands on them, this IMHO is inappropriate and should be judged according to the situation.
Why is that inappropriate? If the police officer has reason to place his hands on me then why doesn't he have reason to use any other means of less-than-lethal (taser, spray, baton, etc.) force? If he doesn't have that justification then I really don't see how him placing his hands on me is any better than being tased. Both represent an abuse of force.
When such justification is present I have no problem with the police using tasers. Why should they have to get down and dirty and risk physical injury to themselves to subdue some asshole that is resisting arrest/committing a crime/etc?
They were originally intended to be used in cases where a gun would have been used.
No they weren't. Guns (deadly force) can't be used unless the life of the police officer or an innocent bystander is in imminent risk. No sane police officer whose life is seconds away from ending is going to reach for his TASER. The TASER is useless against multiple opponents, is useless against someone hopped up on drugs or with certain mental illnesses, only gives you one shot and has an limited range compared to handguns. In a scenario where his life or the life of another is in mortal danger the smart police officer is going to draw his firearm and squeeze the trigger as many times as are required to end the threat.
TASERs were intended as a replacement for the police baton. They were not intended as a replacement for deadly force. The use of deadly force (firearm, knife, claymore, etc) has an entirely different set of standards that need to be met than does regular force (fist, taser, mace, pepper spray, etc). Deadly force can only be used under specific circumstances, generally to save the life of the officer or another. Regular force can be used to affect an arrest, halt the commission of non-lethal crimes, halt the escape of a suspect, defend against the use of non-deadly force, etc.
These devices would never be used against people in the manner they now are in a truly free society.
That part I'd give you. It seems that there are quite a few incidents wherein police officers have reached for their TASER rather than reaching for their deescalation skills. I don't think you can blame this on the tool though -- you have to blame it on the operator. These same personalities would probably have wielded the police baton in the same inappropriate manner.
Yeah, because no other country ever uses TASERs. It's only the evil Americans that do that.
Go fuck yourself. Ignorant cocksucker
And there are benefits: what are we going to get out of the proposed mission?
The knowledge and wherewithal to eventually bootstrap our way off this rock and get some redundancy for the human race?
Solar power isn't profitable because coal isn't properly taxed for the amount of damage it does to the ecosystem, or when a slurry wall fails and kills a few hundred people directly.
So your argument is we need to artificially raise the cost of energy. That sounds like an economic winner.
Batteries are expensive because the cost of maintaining hegemony in the Middle East is hidden in our defense budget, and not tacked on to the price of a gallon of gas.
What does "hegemony" in the Middle East have to do with the price of a gallon of gas? The bulk of our imported oil comes from friendly Western hemisphere sources. Europe and China are much more reliant on Middle Eastern oil than we are -- perhaps we should let them try their hand at stabilizing the region?
You can simply look at the economic history of the last thirty years, and compare America to Canada, England, France, and Germany
All countries that don't have to pay the full cost of their own national defense, by virtue of being under the American umbrella. How much would England, Germany and France have spent on defense in the latter half of the 20th century if they had to build up the forces on their own to deter the Warsaw Pact?
There are many things that the market is piss poor at valuing. There are many services better considered as infrastructure than as a luxury, like transportation, health care, electricity, and telecommunications.
The market can value every one of those things just fine if people would stop interfering with it. The reason we have a piss poor last mile telecommunications infrastructure in this country is because of Government granted monopolies. One of the reasons our health care system is in shambles is because a huge health care customer (Uncle Sam, via Medicare) pays below-market rates for services rendered, thus leading to the rest of us being charged more to make up the difference. I want to scream at the TV every single time somebody mentions Medicare as a model because it has "lower costs" -- it's easy to have "lower costs" when you don't even pay a break-even price to the provider of the services you receive.
Transportation would also work better if Government would stop picking winners and losers. Why don't trucks have to pay full price for the damage they do to the roadways? Perhaps if they did other methods of moving goods around (trains, waterways, etc) would be more competitive. Instead we effectively subsidize the trucking industry with our taxes that go to rebuilding the roadways damaged by big rigs. Why don't big city residents have to pay full price for their mass transit networks? Why do I get to pay an MTA tax for the benefit of New York City when as a resident of Upstate New York I don't use any services provided by the MTA?
We have no way to create things that other people want to buy because we don't have a manufacturing sector
Aerospace, pharmaceutics, defense, grain, software, telecommunications and petrochemicals don't qualify as things that people want to buy? The notion that we don't have a manufacturing sector is a myth. The manufacturing sector in the United States has consistently grown since the 1980s. It hasn't grown as fast as the rest of the economy, which is cause for concern, but to say that we have "no manufacturing sector" is patently false. Take away the companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (the key ones in my mind being Cisco, Boeing, Caterpillar, DuPont, General Electric, Intel, IBM and Microsoft) and let me know how the world economy looks. Take away the grain that we export to the rest of the world and let me know how many people starve to death.
Remove the corrective effects of good governance, and it turns into a nightmare.
I don't disagree. I just disagree that "good governance" requires the nationalization of key industries or sectors of the economy.
Westinghouse didn't waver when Edison was waging his FUD and lobbying campaign against them. The railroad industry was plagued with disasters and bad press for many years but kept building out their infrastructure and are still around today. The White Star line didn't stop building ships after the Titanic sunk.
There's three examples right off the top of my head. I'm sure others can think of more.
Many hard problems are not profitable to solve, so all of our capital is flooding into financial services and marketing.
So make them profitable to solve. Want to help solve climate change? Get rid of the regulatory/legal processes that give an inordinate amount of power to the NIMBY/BANANA crowd. Why should I invest my capital in wind farms or a nuclear power plant when a handful of loud assholes can tie me up in court for years before I even get to break ground? Everybody wants green energy but nobody wants to look at a wind farm or cooling tower. Everybody wants good wireless service but nobody wants to look at a cell phone tower. If these people had always had this much power we'd still be reading by candlelight, relying on snail mail and using horse drawn carriages to get around.
I think that western society has correctly reassessed the value of life
Life is valuable but our efforts to protect it have gone too far in the other direction. We spend inordinate amounts of money trying to build a risk free world rather than accepting the fact that some activities/professions are inherently dangerous. We've created a society of sheep that scare easily and run crying to the nearest lawyer and/or politician whenever some reminder that life can actually still be dangerous smacks them across the face. To borrow one of the best /. sig's I've ever seen: If you spend all your time childproofing the world you aren't going to have any time to worldproof your child.
Some things are worth risking your life over. Would you volunteer to go into space if the opportunity presented itself? Would you volunteer to test an experimental AIDS or cancer vaccine? Would you assist a fellow citizen who was being victimized by some thug? Would you jump into the ocean to save a drowning person? Would you intervene if you saw someone being attacked by an animal?
So a better question is, do the astronauts have a right to hear the CORRECT figures, not the wild wishful-thinking executive estimates?
What makes you think they aren't aware of the true risks of what's involved? Who else would be in a better position to know them? I've always assumed the drivel that comes out of the NASA execs is intended for public consumption. The astronauts themselves are aware of what they are getting into.
The United States isn't a Democracy. It's a Republic. The 50 individual States retain their sovereignty and are not instruments of the Federal Government. Maybe next time you should learn something about a topic before you open your mouth.
It's because countries other than the US have decent privacy protection laws
I'm all in favor of privacy protection but I fail to see how a law that requires me to get your consent before I record my phone call with you advances privacy. If you tell me something then it seems to me that you've waived privacy. If you wanted to keep it private then why did you tell me? I fail to see how you protect yourself by making it illegal for me to record the phone call -- unless you intend to lie under oath (assuming it gets that far) when I testify about what you said.
Most states in the US are one-party states (meaning only one party to the conservation needs to consent to the recording) and I don't see any problem with that.
Maybe it's time to make the state pay for your defense when you're aquitted?
I don't know about that. The law of unintended consequences will rear it's ugly head. I don't have many ill feelings about my trip through the legal system. My case basically boiled down to a "he said/she said" situation and the DA used the only tool at his disposal (the grand jury) to try and figure out what had really transpired. Once it became apparent that the people testifying against me had an axe to grind and the "evidence" they offered the police wasn't worth the paper it was printed on the grand jury did the right thing and declined to indict me.
If anything my anger would be directed at the people who tried to send me up the river for a crime I didn't commit. If they had any money I would have sued them all once the criminal matter was concluded but they were all flat broke and it would have been a waste of my time. Nothing much to do about it other than put it down as a life lesson and choose my "friends" more carefully in the future.
It's easy to get indictments because 99% of the time the defendant doesn't testify before the grand jury. If you are a grand juror and you only hear one side of the story it's not very likely that you are going to refuse to hand down the indictment.
If the defendant testifies then they hear both sides of the story and can start to question the evidence offered. Of course if the defendant actually committed the crimes he's accused of then it would be the height of stupidity to testify in front of the grand jury -- you waive your right against self-incrimination and have to answer any and all questions that are asked. Any evidence collected can then be used against you at trial.
How does a Federal special prosecutor give immunity against State charges? I assume you are familiar with the 10th amendment and the concept of separation of powers?