Did you not bother to read the section of the 5th amendment that I quoted? It's not infringement to take rights away from convicted felons. I agree with you that the feds and states have infringed on the RKBA in a variety of ways but the felon weapons ban is not one of them.
Why do felons retain the right of free speech, and the right to be free from quartering soldiers, but not the RKBA ?
Because that's the public policy position that we've decided to go with as a nation. They don't just lose the RKBA -- most US States take away their right to vote as well.
What I do find rather interesting is that the same people who vilify "Mexicans" don't understand that Mexico is the only land crossing into the United States
Let me guess, you took geography class in a public school?
Hint: I live in New York State. It shares a land border with another country not named Mexico.
Why don't you take your tinfoil hat off? If the news didn't come out now that their intended client was Venezuela it would certainly have come out at trial. Not everything is a US Government conspiracy ya know....
And what's with the quote marks around "traitors"? They are traitors. The fact that they got caught before they managed to do any damage doesn't mean they weren't attempting to commit treason and/or espionage.
I've heard stories that at least at one time or another the Manhattan project consumed as much as half of the GDP for the entire United States
You heard wrong. The Manhattan project cost around $2,000,000,000 in 1940s dollars. The US GDP in 1940 was right around $100,000,000,000.
This is why the people that say we need a "Manhattan project" for green energy have no idea what they are talking about. The US Department of Energy has an annual budget that's pretty damn close to what the Manhattan project cost when adjusted for inflation. This site says that $2,000,000,000 in 1945 dollars is worth $24,000,000,000 and change. DoE's FY2009 budget was $24,100,000,000.
All that notwithstanding, the Manhattan project did have some impressive statistics in other areas. Picking one off the top of my head, the uranium enrichment plants consumed around 10% of the total electrical production for the entire United States.
Actually, you'd need more than a Fat Man or Little Boy sized bomb to "wipe out" New York City. You could kill a lot of people with such a device but you could not wipe out New York City with one. If this site is to be believed you couldn't even wipe out Manhattan, though you could get a large portion of it.....
No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
It's perfectly constitutional to take gun rights away from convicted felons. I would prefer that it be something the Judge has the power to do at sentencing and not automatic, but either way the felon received due process before losing his rights.
Regarding crazy people, you can't lose your gun rights unless you've been involuntarily committed, which presumably requires due process (otherwise you'd just file for a writ of habeas corpus)
Europe, on the other hand until the last couple of centuries required everybody to be armed and made it a national obligation.
Europe? Are you sure about that? I know that the Swiss have had a militia tradition for a long time, as did the British, but I'm not aware of the same being true for many other European powers. Could you clarify? If the same was true in other European countries I'd be most interested in learning more about it.
You are rambling. Selling nuclear secrets is a crime. Period. It does not matter if you sell them to an enemy (Iran), a trading partner with a frosty relationship (Venezuela) or an ally (Israel).
Anybody with a general understanding of radioactive isotopes is likely going to be able to make something akin to the "Little Boy" or the "Fat Man" bombs that were used on Japan.
You wouldn't even need much knowledge about radioactive isotopes. If you can get your hands on fissionable material you can build a bomb. Getting your hands on the fissionable material is the hard part. The rest is just engineering.
The mandate is different though. Tobacco is taxed to make it more expensive and discourage the consumption thereof. High efficiency furnaces and insulation qualify for tax credits to offset the cost of making those worthwhile improvements to your home.
The Feds have never before penalized someone for NOT buying a product though. They don't raise your taxes if you decline to replace your boiler or buy a hybrid car. Less stick and more carrot. If the Feds had offered tax credits for people to buy health insurance I would not be raising these objections. That's perfectly fair -- buy this product and we'll offset the cost a bit.
They didn't want to do that though. They want to compel everybody to have health insurance because of some perceived notion of the "Greater Good". Never mind the fact that I can do far more for the greater good with my money than a scumsucking for-profit insurance company can.
The other rationalization also holds no water with me. "Uninsured people cost society money!" Yeah, so what? Every single person that defaults on their mortgage or credit cards raises the cost of using credit for the rest of us. I haven't heard any mainstream politicians suggesting that we ditch the bankruptcy code in favor of debtors prisons though.
Calling it a tax does not change the fact that the Federal Government is COMPELLING me to buy a product. Taxes on products that I DECIDE to buy are not a valid comparison no matter how you try to spin it.
It's a moot point in any case. Even if the mandate survives Judaical review (unlikely) it will not survive a future Congress. The people won't stand for it. Nobody supports it outside of a handful of leftist partisans.
How easy or hard it would be is beyond the point. The point is that the Federal Government does not compel me to buy oil. They are going to compel me to buy health insurance. Your "quit your job and you won't have to pay the penalty" rationalization is absurd. What if I wanted to save up the money that I would otherwise spend on insurance and invest it into a business or other such venture?
The only tortured logic here is yours, as your comparison is patently absurd. I can live without oil -- the penalties that I endure for doing so are of my own making. Starting in 2014 I will not be able to live without health insurance without enduring penalties that are inflicted upon me by my Government. Saying that I can quit my job to escape those penalties rather misses the point I'm afraid.
So your theory is that I can quit my job and become a ward of the state (or my parents) to avoid the health care penalty? Yeah, that's compatible with freedom and liberty. Don't like what the Government is doing? Abandon your livelihood so they can't punish you!
I could find implied issues with the optical scanning.
We had issues at my polling place upstate -- the geniuses with the county board of elections gave us the wrong security keys for the tabulators and we couldn't turn them on -- but we just switched to our emergency ballot procedure until they were able to get us the right keys. It was no big deal.
The emergency ballots are the same as the regular ballots, they just get dropped into a separate locked compartment in the machine instead of being scanned. Once the machine is functional again the poll workers feed those ballots into the scanner for tabulation.
eVoting is just another scam foisted on America that will result in less representative democracy. Any politician in favor of it should be summarily executed.
I like how you bemoan the perceived loss of our democracy while simultaneously advocating for the violation of the 5th, 6th and 8th amendments......
Slashdot Mirror
Nobody is going to live like a rat in a hole
Then how do you explain New York City? ;)
I can't believe I was able to sit still so long.
Let me guess, American? ;)
Did you not bother to read the section of the 5th amendment that I quoted? It's not infringement to take rights away from convicted felons. I agree with you that the feds and states have infringed on the RKBA in a variety of ways but the felon weapons ban is not one of them.
Why do felons retain the right of free speech, and the right to be free from quartering soldiers, but not the RKBA ?
Because that's the public policy position that we've decided to go with as a nation. They don't just lose the RKBA -- most US States take away their right to vote as well.
What I do find rather interesting is that the same people who vilify "Mexicans" don't understand that Mexico is the only land crossing into the United States
Let me guess, you took geography class in a public school?
Hint: I live in New York State. It shares a land border with another country not named Mexico.
In the old days we used to call this "brinksmanship." The Russians haven't been playing that particular game for some time now
Threatening to target a neighboring country with nuclear weapons because you don't like what they are doing isn't brinksmanship?
Why don't you take your tinfoil hat off? If the news didn't come out now that their intended client was Venezuela it would certainly have come out at trial. Not everything is a US Government conspiracy ya know....
And what's with the quote marks around "traitors"? They are traitors. The fact that they got caught before they managed to do any damage doesn't mean they weren't attempting to commit treason and/or espionage.
NORAD's Deputy commanders have all been Canadian too....
I've heard stories that at least at one time or another the Manhattan project consumed as much as half of the GDP for the entire United States
You heard wrong. The Manhattan project cost around $2,000,000,000 in 1940s dollars. The US GDP in 1940 was right around $100,000,000,000.
This is why the people that say we need a "Manhattan project" for green energy have no idea what they are talking about. The US Department of Energy has an annual budget that's pretty damn close to what the Manhattan project cost when adjusted for inflation. This site says that $2,000,000,000 in 1945 dollars is worth $24,000,000,000 and change. DoE's FY2009 budget was $24,100,000,000.
All that notwithstanding, the Manhattan project did have some impressive statistics in other areas. Picking one off the top of my head, the uranium enrichment plants consumed around 10% of the total electrical production for the entire United States.
Actually, you'd need more than a Fat Man or Little Boy sized bomb to "wipe out" New York City. You could kill a lot of people with such a device but you could not wipe out New York City with one. If this site is to be believed you couldn't even wipe out Manhattan, though you could get a large portion of it.....
I'll trade you your pigeons for our Canadian Geese infestation.....
Yes, that applies to crazy people and felons.
Actually, no it doesn't. From the 5th amendment:
No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
It's perfectly constitutional to take gun rights away from convicted felons. I would prefer that it be something the Judge has the power to do at sentencing and not automatic, but either way the felon received due process before losing his rights.
Regarding crazy people, you can't lose your gun rights unless you've been involuntarily committed, which presumably requires due process (otherwise you'd just file for a writ of habeas corpus)
Europe, on the other hand until the last couple of centuries required everybody to be armed and made it a national obligation.
Europe? Are you sure about that? I know that the Swiss have had a militia tradition for a long time, as did the British, but I'm not aware of the same being true for many other European powers. Could you clarify? If the same was true in other European countries I'd be most interested in learning more about it.
You are rambling. Selling nuclear secrets is a crime. Period. It does not matter if you sell them to an enemy (Iran), a trading partner with a frosty relationship (Venezuela) or an ally (Israel).
MICE.
Money
Ideology
Coercion
Ego
Anybody with a general understanding of radioactive isotopes is likely going to be able to make something akin to the "Little Boy" or the "Fat Man" bombs that were used on Japan.
You wouldn't even need much knowledge about radioactive isotopes. If you can get your hands on fissionable material you can build a bomb. Getting your hands on the fissionable material is the hard part. The rest is just engineering.
The mandate is different though. Tobacco is taxed to make it more expensive and discourage the consumption thereof. High efficiency furnaces and insulation qualify for tax credits to offset the cost of making those worthwhile improvements to your home.
The Feds have never before penalized someone for NOT buying a product though. They don't raise your taxes if you decline to replace your boiler or buy a hybrid car. Less stick and more carrot. If the Feds had offered tax credits for people to buy health insurance I would not be raising these objections. That's perfectly fair -- buy this product and we'll offset the cost a bit.
They didn't want to do that though. They want to compel everybody to have health insurance because of some perceived notion of the "Greater Good". Never mind the fact that I can do far more for the greater good with my money than a scumsucking for-profit insurance company can.
The other rationalization also holds no water with me. "Uninsured people cost society money!" Yeah, so what? Every single person that defaults on their mortgage or credit cards raises the cost of using credit for the rest of us. I haven't heard any mainstream politicians suggesting that we ditch the bankruptcy code in favor of debtors prisons though.
Calling it a tax does not change the fact that the Federal Government is COMPELLING me to buy a product. Taxes on products that I DECIDE to buy are not a valid comparison no matter how you try to spin it.
It's a moot point in any case. Even if the mandate survives Judaical review (unlikely) it will not survive a future Congress. The people won't stand for it. Nobody supports it outside of a handful of leftist partisans.
I understand perfectly. You are making a bullshit comparison between Governmental imposed hardships and personally chosen hardships.
You aren't making any sense whatsoever.
How easy or hard it would be is beyond the point. The point is that the Federal Government does not compel me to buy oil. They are going to compel me to buy health insurance. Your "quit your job and you won't have to pay the penalty" rationalization is absurd. What if I wanted to save up the money that I would otherwise spend on insurance and invest it into a business or other such venture?
The only tortured logic here is yours, as your comparison is patently absurd. I can live without oil -- the penalties that I endure for doing so are of my own making. Starting in 2014 I will not be able to live without health insurance without enduring penalties that are inflicted upon me by my Government. Saying that I can quit my job to escape those penalties rather misses the point I'm afraid.
So your theory is that I can quit my job and become a ward of the state (or my parents) to avoid the health care penalty? Yeah, that's compatible with freedom and liberty. Don't like what the Government is doing? Abandon your livelihood so they can't punish you!
I could find implied issues with the optical scanning.
We had issues at my polling place upstate -- the geniuses with the county board of elections gave us the wrong security keys for the tabulators and we couldn't turn them on -- but we just switched to our emergency ballot procedure until they were able to get us the right keys. It was no big deal.
The emergency ballots are the same as the regular ballots, they just get dropped into a separate locked compartment in the machine instead of being scanned. Once the machine is functional again the poll workers feed those ballots into the scanner for tabulation.
eVoting is just another scam foisted on America that will result in less representative democracy. Any politician in favor of it should be summarily executed.
I like how you bemoan the perceived loss of our democracy while simultaneously advocating for the violation of the 5th, 6th and 8th amendments......