I should point out to you that most rapes have nothing to do with how the woman looks. Most rapes (yes, including date rapes) are about power. The rapist needs to feel powerful and total control; dressing sexy has nothing to do with it. That's one of the main problems with this 'blame the victim' line of bullshit. That's why girls are raped no matter how they are dressed / look.
There's a HUGE problem with your reasoning. You're placing part of the blame on the victim, which implies that what her rapists did wasn't that bad (not as bad as raping a random passer by). Logically, since the victim is partially at fault, the rapists should receive a much lighter sentence. At the extreme, she should be locked up as well.
Whats the result of all this? The victim learns its her own fault, and thus deserved what happens. The rapist learns that it wasn't totally his fault, so its more acceptable that he rape in the same way again. After all, she was asking for it, that's why I'm out earlier.
For battered wives, this is exactly what happens; they come to believe they deserve it. The abuse gets worse, and she believes she's more and more at fault. So she doesn't leave; she continues to be abused, because she believes she deserves it. Telling children they are partially at fault re-enforces this behavior.
You're a dumbass. Reality when one person attacks another doesn't 'just happen.' One person CHOOSES to act violently toward someone else. That's reality. Reality is also that sometimes there just is nothing you can do to protect yourself.
Thanks for adding more criminals to our population. Please, before you spout off any more bullshit, ask a psychologist just what effect your 'philosphy' will have on your kids, and how they're likely to turn out.
Is one of your children a girl? Are you going to tell her its her fault if she's ever raped? Great parenting there...
Yes, you need to stand up for yourself, but doing so or not does not excuse the other person from their actions. Its not ok to violate someone's rights just because you don't think they'll fight back..
Wow, that explains why I suck at driving... there are no arrow keys for me to press!
And thanks to GTA, I never tire or need sleep. Also, I can keep a rocket launcher in my back pocket. And everyone drives with thier doors unlocked. And when I throw them out of the car, they'll look confused, then walk off.
I've playd violent video games growing up (and still do), yet I've never attempted anything I've done in the games.
When has 50+% of the population ever fought in a revolutionary war? That certainly didn't happen during the American Revolution. During the American Revolution, at most 10% of the population fought against the British (see here for the number of men who fought and here for the population figures).
Perhaps you missed part of my sentence, specifically the word 'if.'
It would take the participation of a lot more civilians to stand even the remotest of chances against a modern military. Remember: they can't just survive (as the Iraqi insurgents have), they have to defeat the sitting government. The latter is a much, much harder task.
Really? Why? There's an Iraqi government now. Does it matter how long the government is there? Do the government officals gain a -2 to thier THACO?
For a revolution against a sitting government to succeed, the revolutionaries would have to get a large part of the government's military on their side.
Some US military officals think civil war in Iraq is going to happen, even with US troops there. Does that statement also contracdict what you pointed out about the American Revolution?
Wow, amazing that a story about whether or not people believe in evolution, and a dicussion on why people believe evolution over something else (creationism) and its offtopic. Some religous wacko must have gotten mod points.
I took engineering. Molecular biology did not come up that much.
I took Computer Science; I still needed general interest subject matter, however. Physics, chemistry and biology were all options. FWIW, organic chem != molecular biology. Also, the part I was responding to was that 'science doesn't directly affect most americans lives.' My statement stands in refute to that.
Me either. But most people I know -- who got BA's in college and regular jobs -- couldn't forget that stuff fast enough, probably because they didn't care to understand it in the first place.
Doesn't matter that they forgot about it; it should matter that they are aware there is a process to science. I would hope they at least remember that.. but if they can't, can you really say they are educated?
That's a big, unproven "perhaps". It suggests that nations run by intelligent elites should have few problems, but the opposite is true in practice.
I'm not aware of any intelligent politicians, anywhere... so I don't know how you can say the opposite is true.
Also, you are confusing "intelligent" with "educated". We can't do anything about making our population more intelligent. But we're educating the hell out of them and still they don't want to learn chemistry. This means that even if they "believe" in evolution, it is fragile because they won't understand it. I say, let's just exclude it from the conversation, maybe we'll get more done.
You assume that there are people which simply cannot understand a topic. I do not think that is the case. More likely, people don't CARE to understand a topic. How to make them care is another matter, but an important one. If we had more logically thinking people in the world, it would be a better place.
Notice though I never said the most intelligent should rule, just that if we raise the bar so that we get more intelligent people that we'd be better off. And we likely would.
Nothing you point out is really 'wrong.' Science came up with a model, and the model was right for all observable behaviors at the time. As we can observe more, the models becomes more accurate. Newton wasn't 'totally off' he got it right quite a bit. This is why Newtonian physics is still taught; its simpler, and actually DOES work properly in many cases. If you need more accuracy however, you may need to switch to Relativity. The model of the atom works much the same; earlier models are not as acurate, but not totally wrong either.
Creationism and evolution do clash however. One is a bedtime story, the other is science. Where do we see any evidence that mammals such as lions and reptiles such as snakes just came into being one day? We don't see that, we see simplier, earlier versions which are similar, but not the same.
Any attempt to merge creationism and evolution is an attempt to hold on to ones faith when confronted with overwhelming evidence that their beliefs are wrong. It seems its easier for people to attempt to 'blend' the two, than admit they are wrong. Creationism according to the bible means god just whipped up a lion; creationism + evolution is 'god put down a cell and coxed it to become a lion.' They still cling to the notion of god, for which there is no evidence, but are trying to accept evolution, for which we do have evidence.
Indeed, the vast majority of the American public will never deal with science directly in their working lives. So what difference does it make what they believe?
Really? Not in science class, which you have for probably about 8 years or more? Not even in science classes you take in college (assuming you go)?
I may not remember all my organic chem, but that doesn't mean I'll stop believing in what can be done using that knowledge.
What people believe makes a huge difference; people with stupid, ill-founded beliefs are the ones trying to outlaw abortion, ban federal funding for fetal stem cell research, and want a police state to make them 'safe.' If people were more intelligent, perhaps we wouldn't have many of the problems that we face today.
The worst thing about it is that once you lose your liberties in this way, you almost never get them back except through bloody revolution, which is something that can no longer succeed thanks to the technological situation (which concentrates much more killing power in the hands of the government than it did back in the 1700's when most of the democratic revolutions took place). That means the loss is essentially permanent.
Yes, that's why the US has been so sucessful stopping the insergency in Iraq. Also, that's just what every facist state wants, to eliminate all of the citizens. No, its never permantely lost. I think if 150 million people decided to actively fight, they'd overcome, dispite the fact that the other half has nukes. Indeed, just the willingness to use nukes against your own 'brothers' may cause more to defect to the other side.
If you believe that people have rights (and that belief can be derived logically), then ethical behavior is behavior which does not violate the rights of another.
I pretty much never use cash anymore, and haven't had a problem using my check card for everything. I've never encountered a rogue ATM, and if paying by telling the cashier credit, VISA protects you against fraud.
The grocery store I use has a very quick link to the network; using my card + pin is typically faster than handing the cashier cash and waiting for him to count change.
I even lost my card once (forgot to get it out of the ATM). Fortunatly I found out pretty quick, but the card was gone (the machine didn't eat it, because I never answered the prompt 'do you want another transaction.'). My credit union immediately canceled the card and sent me one with a new number.
Limiting your liability makes sense, but be aware that ther are protections in place which do so on your behalf already. Most of your liability comes from those CC offers and throwing away personal information. My wife hates that I have all my receipts, bills, bank/cc statements from 2001, but OTOH no one has any of the numbers from my cards.
And what of the people who died? I'm pretty sure they'd rather still be alive than just have the offender punished. But, oh, gee -- it's too late for that.
They don't care at all, they are dead. I'm sorry you don't understand this, but people die. Sometimes at the hands of someone else, being careless or malevolent. That fact that a very small number of people might harm someone else is not proper justification for taking away rights... sorry.
Fair enough. But I can say that "B is more likely to occur after A has happened". Why do you think we have speed limits on the road? Death is more likely to occur when people are speeding. Similarly, death is more likely to occur when people are intoxicated. People do both things for their own personal pleasure, and both things put other people at a higher risk of injury.
I've already addressed this. In summary, speed limits have nothing to do with safety; they are soley used to generate revenue for the state. You've been told to think that whatever limit is on the road is the safe limit; many cases, this is not the case, and the limit is actually dangerously low.
Just because someone may have the right to do something (and I would agree driving while intoxicated is not a right, although the two seperately are) does not excuse them from the consequences of their actions, should something happen.
Sounds to me like you're theorizing a situation where this ban was very poorly implemented and not adequately enforced -- much like the situation we have in the world today.
Not theorizing at all; have you done any research on prohibition at all? Of course, you never stop to consider that there is no possible way to implement the system that would ever work. The more you attempt to enforce your ban, the more violent the black market supplying the banned item becomes. Also, human nature as it is, you also increase the number of people that want that item, just because its illegal and taboo. Its human nature, pure and simple.
Did you ever wonder why Catholics are the mostly likely to do every sexually deviant thing there is? (There's plenty of studies which prove this.) Its because Catholics are some of the most repressed sexually.
I take comfort in the fact that you see my type of thinking as a serious threat to the sort of world that you envision. If you didn't, you wouldn't be suggesting that I commit suicide before these thoughts spread.
Those that would take away freedom are always a threat. I'm not sure why you take comfort in that. I wish all members of the KKK, Nazi, or any extemist religons would kill themselves as well. It would make the world a much better place to live, if everyone actually respected others people's rights, and accepted that death is a part of life.
This may surprise you, but "human rights" is not an absolute constant in the universe. It's a totally arbitrary concept, invented by some humans. And not everyone agrees that people should have the multitudes of rights that they have in many parts of the world. Because the definition is arbitrary, you can't prove that your definition of human rights is any more correct than anyone else's.
Actually a fair number of philosophers have used logic to derive human rights. I'm sure there are people that don't agree, that think facism or communism or totalitarism are the 'right' way to go. That's the exteme end if your line of thinking. They can think that too.
So while you may be right, the fact is that THIS country is founded on the basis of human rights and freedoms. If you don't agree with that basic philosphy, you are free to move to another country that more fits your ideals.
Yes, I suppose this would also require the ban of alcohol. We shouldn't really be treating alcohol and drugs differently.
Good, lets try that again. I'm sure the mob will be happy to have their oldest revenue stream back. Good job, not only do you still have drunk drivers, you have mob violence as well! I love how none of you 'lets ban it' assholes ever respond to that part of the equation. Of course you have to say 'yes' here, no matter how you really feel.. because otherwise you'd rightly be called a hippocrate.
It's not legal to drive above the speed limit. Why?
Because the state needs all the sources of revenue it can get. In many places, speed limits are set artifically low. Whats the problem? The problem is that setting the speed below the 90th percentile determined by an engineering traffic study is actually more dangerous than the higher speed limit! Ask any civil engineer, I'm sure they'll back me up.
So, people have been challenging the limits. Apparently in VT, they were so sucessful that there's now a law saying that if a speed is set lower than found in the study, but no one challenges it for five years, the limit may no longer be challenged based on the study. In other words, most limits are now set too low, resulting in a MORE dangerous situation, and you can't fight the unsafe limit! If the state was really concerned with safety, wouldn't they ALWAYS set limits according to such studies?
After all, doing so doesn't guarantee that anyone will die. It increases the likelyhood that someone will die, but then again, so will being intoxicated. The point is: we limit what people may legally do to prevent unnecessary injury/death. Unfortunately, people are convinced that doing drugs is a human right and can therefore not be revoked.
Again here, civil engineering is against you. Higher limits increase the probability that the accident will be fatal to a party involved. However, higher limits have no effect on the accident rate, so you're no more likely to be in an accident than you were before the speed limit.
Doing drugs is a human right; its the right to do what you want with your body. Driving (travel using the common means of the day) is also a right, no matter how brainwashed you might be. You see, people have rights. Those rights can be dangerous, to the person exercising them, or to others. However, having rights does not mean you are free of consequences. If you get high, and in that drug induced high murder someone, you get to go to jail for life. I'm sure there are plenty of peopl though that do get high and don't hurt anyone.. a much higher precentage (ruling out the violence caused because drugs are illegal) than those that hurt someone. Just like everything else. Most people hit nails with a hammer; some hit others in the head. Yet we don't ban the hammer.
It backs it up with the exception of the increased expenses might not be enough to offset the cost. I apoligise for being so long winded this time. I just want to explain a few things about how it work here.
Not all costs are measured in numbers. I'd prefer to keep all my fingers. How do you measure the cost there? This arguement could be used to remove all reasonable safety featuers, because there'd always be someone willing to do the job for some amount of money. Of course then you have the work conditions of the early 1900s... not really where we want to be as a society, I'd think.
Your example isn't that great; it encourages the employer to just not test the equipment regularly. Why someone thinks that should absolve the employer is beyond me. To me, its prefectly reasonable to test the air quality meter. Now, if it failed two days after it was tested, fine, I can accept that as an accident. If it hadn't been tested in over a year, that's negligent (IMO) and should be the fault of the employer. Obviously sending someone in without taking a reading at all is reckless.
Again, your reasoning sounds fine regarding the water heaters. There is one problem though; no one has gotten sick taking a bath or shower with the hot water. I've only lived in VT for three years, and the only times I gotten sick were from co-workers (by the way, any ass that goes to work with a cold, knock it off. Stay home until you're over it.. the rest of us don't need to share your experience).
Another point you should be aware of regarding our water; we get it directly from the lake. The water works does not add anything to the water except add flourine. I guess the bacteria that is present isn't really that harmful.
Finally, whats wrong with just giving the home owner the facts, and letting them decide? My waterheater has a temperature setting, and we set it to what we want (I believe we upped it from 130 to 150 a while ago, just because we wanted hotter water). There have been no problems with the current system, yet I'll have to buy a more expensive heater (or pay more to have it installed), and the water is now going to come out colder than we've ever had it? No thanks.
First... Do you think the Jim Crow South was tolerant of the rights blacks?
I don't appriciate you attempting to label me as some kind of racist. If you read my post, you'd see that I've heard people say the same which you say about the it, and I've heard just as many say it claims the opposite.
I think you missed that in my post.. two sets of people are saying the same book says the same thing. Perhaps this is one of those things like in the bible... some claim that it says homosexuality is ok ('knowing' someone supposedly means slept with) others say it does not..
The Qur'an on the other hand recognizes the other theistic religions - Judaism and Christianity - and mandates tolerance towards them.
Hmm.. I've heard this both ways now. Some claim as you, others claim that it says you must first try to convert, then make a slave of (if they refuse to convert), and then finally kill (if they refused to become a slave) anyone that doesn't believe as they do.
Too bad I don't know the language its written in..
Hmm... nothing you really posted contradicts what I said as much as it backs it up. In the end, an unsafe workplace will cost the company money, directly or indirectly. I'm not sure what you mean by 'negligence isn't an exception' when discussing if an employee can sue a company over an injury. It would seem to me that if you follow all safety codes and get hurt on the job, you could still sue.
As far as your personal table saws... likely you wouldn't be forced to replace them, but new ones could be required to have the device.
In VT, we just had something similar to this (although this is totally stupid). Any new water heaters MUST heat the water to 140F, but that would cause scalding. So when hot water leaves the tank, it now needs a mixing valve (which isn't present on most models here I guess) to force it back down to 120F. So what does it mean in the end? Nothing except a more expensive water heater.
The 'logic' behind it is to kill bacteria... but I guess if you drink cold water you're just SOL.
For instance, in some states, Dr. Pepper is actually bottled in Coca-Cola facilities.
Which I suppose is why I thought Dr. Pepper was owned by Coke, since the labels here indicate this and cold DP only be found in Coca Cola coolers. I'm in VT, I never noticed one way or the other in PA.
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I should point out to you that most rapes have nothing to do with how the woman looks. Most rapes (yes, including date rapes) are about power. The rapist needs to feel powerful and total control; dressing sexy has nothing to do with it. That's one of the main problems with this 'blame the victim' line of bullshit. That's why girls are raped no matter how they are dressed / look.
There's a HUGE problem with your reasoning. You're placing part of the blame on the victim, which implies that what her rapists did wasn't that bad (not as bad as raping a random passer by). Logically, since the victim is partially at fault, the rapists should receive a much lighter sentence. At the extreme, she should be locked up as well.
Whats the result of all this? The victim learns its her own fault, and thus deserved what happens. The rapist learns that it wasn't totally his fault, so its more acceptable that he rape in the same way again. After all, she was asking for it, that's why I'm out earlier.
For battered wives, this is exactly what happens; they come to believe they deserve it. The abuse gets worse, and she believes she's more and more at fault. So she doesn't leave; she continues to be abused, because she believes she deserves it. Telling children they are partially at fault re-enforces this behavior.
You're a dumbass. Reality when one person attacks another doesn't 'just happen.' One person CHOOSES to act violently toward someone else. That's reality. Reality is also that sometimes there just is nothing you can do to protect yourself.
Thanks for adding more criminals to our population. Please, before you spout off any more bullshit, ask a psychologist just what effect your 'philosphy' will have on your kids, and how they're likely to turn out.
Is one of your children a girl? Are you going to tell her its her fault if she's ever raped? Great parenting there...
Yes, you need to stand up for yourself, but doing so or not does not excuse the other person from their actions. Its not ok to violate someone's rights just because you don't think they'll fight back..
So is Risk; do the scouts ban that game too?
Wow, that explains why I suck at driving... there are no arrow keys for me to press!
And thanks to GTA, I never tire or need sleep. Also, I can keep a rocket launcher in my back pocket. And everyone drives with thier doors unlocked. And when I throw them out of the car, they'll look confused, then walk off.
I've playd violent video games growing up (and still do), yet I've never attempted anything I've done in the games.
You're an idiot, please shut up.
When has 50+% of the population ever fought in a revolutionary war? That certainly didn't happen during the American Revolution. During the American Revolution, at most 10% of the population fought against the British (see here for the number of men who fought and here for the population figures).
Perhaps you missed part of my sentence, specifically the word 'if.'
It would take the participation of a lot more civilians to stand even the remotest of chances against a modern military. Remember: they can't just survive (as the Iraqi insurgents have), they have to defeat the sitting government. The latter is a much, much harder task.
Really? Why? There's an Iraqi government now. Does it matter how long the government is there? Do the government officals gain a -2 to thier THACO?
For a revolution against a sitting government to succeed, the revolutionaries would have to get a large part of the government's military on their side.
Some US military officals think civil war in Iraq is going to happen, even with US troops there. Does that statement also contracdict what you pointed out about the American Revolution?
Wow, amazing that a story about whether or not people believe in evolution, and a dicussion on why people believe evolution over something else (creationism) and its offtopic. Some religous wacko must have gotten mod points.
I took engineering. Molecular biology did not come up that much.
I took Computer Science; I still needed general interest subject matter, however. Physics, chemistry and biology were all options. FWIW, organic chem != molecular biology. Also, the part I was responding to was that 'science doesn't directly affect most americans lives.' My statement stands in refute to that.
Me either. But most people I know -- who got BA's in college and regular jobs -- couldn't forget that stuff fast enough, probably because they didn't care to understand it in the first place.
Doesn't matter that they forgot about it; it should matter that they are aware there is a process to science. I would hope they at least remember that.. but if they can't, can you really say they are educated?
That's a big, unproven "perhaps". It suggests that nations run by intelligent elites should have few problems, but the opposite is true in practice.
I'm not aware of any intelligent politicians, anywhere... so I don't know how you can say the opposite is true.
Also, you are confusing "intelligent" with "educated". We can't do anything about making our population more intelligent. But we're educating the hell out of them and still they don't want to learn chemistry. This means that even if they "believe" in evolution, it is fragile because they won't understand it. I say, let's just exclude it from the conversation, maybe we'll get more done.
You assume that there are people which simply cannot understand a topic. I do not think that is the case. More likely, people don't CARE to understand a topic. How to make them care is another matter, but an important one. If we had more logically thinking people in the world, it would be a better place.
Notice though I never said the most intelligent should rule, just that if we raise the bar so that we get more intelligent people that we'd be better off. And we likely would.
Nothing you point out is really 'wrong.' Science came up with a model, and the model was right for all observable behaviors at the time. As we can observe more, the models becomes more accurate. Newton wasn't 'totally off' he got it right quite a bit. This is why Newtonian physics is still taught; its simpler, and actually DOES work properly in many cases. If you need more accuracy however, you may need to switch to Relativity. The model of the atom works much the same; earlier models are not as acurate, but not totally wrong either.
Creationism and evolution do clash however. One is a bedtime story, the other is science. Where do we see any evidence that mammals such as lions and reptiles such as snakes just came into being one day? We don't see that, we see simplier, earlier versions which are similar, but not the same.
Any attempt to merge creationism and evolution is an attempt to hold on to ones faith when confronted with overwhelming evidence that their beliefs are wrong. It seems its easier for people to attempt to 'blend' the two, than admit they are wrong. Creationism according to the bible means god just whipped up a lion; creationism + evolution is 'god put down a cell and coxed it to become a lion.' They still cling to the notion of god, for which there is no evidence, but are trying to accept evolution, for which we do have evidence.
Indeed, the vast majority of the American public will never deal with science directly in their working lives. So what difference does it make what they believe?
Really? Not in science class, which you have for probably about 8 years or more? Not even in science classes you take in college (assuming you go)?
I may not remember all my organic chem, but that doesn't mean I'll stop believing in what can be done using that knowledge.
What people believe makes a huge difference; people with stupid, ill-founded beliefs are the ones trying to outlaw abortion, ban federal funding for fetal stem cell research, and want a police state to make them 'safe.' If people were more intelligent, perhaps we wouldn't have many of the problems that we face today.
Here would be the North East.
The worst thing about it is that once you lose your liberties in this way, you almost never get them back except through bloody revolution, which is something that can no longer succeed thanks to the technological situation (which concentrates much more killing power in the hands of the government than it did back in the 1700's when most of the democratic revolutions took place). That means the loss is essentially permanent.
Yes, that's why the US has been so sucessful stopping the insergency in Iraq. Also, that's just what every facist state wants, to eliminate all of the citizens. No, its never permantely lost. I think if 150 million people decided to actively fight, they'd overcome, dispite the fact that the other half has nukes. Indeed, just the willingness to use nukes against your own 'brothers' may cause more to defect to the other side.
The 1st amendment only applies to free expression and art that middle class Christians approve of!
Um, what? This thread is about a UK law, and thus has nothing to do with the American First amendment.
Obviously a crime went into the making of the file.
Obviously? What about an image which is 100% computer generated?
If you believe that people have rights (and that belief can be derived logically), then ethical behavior is behavior which does not violate the rights of another.
I pretty much never use cash anymore, and haven't had a problem using my check card for everything. I've never encountered a rogue ATM, and if paying by telling the cashier credit, VISA protects you against fraud.
The grocery store I use has a very quick link to the network; using my card + pin is typically faster than handing the cashier cash and waiting for him to count change.
I even lost my card once (forgot to get it out of the ATM). Fortunatly I found out pretty quick, but the card was gone (the machine didn't eat it, because I never answered the prompt 'do you want another transaction.'). My credit union immediately canceled the card and sent me one with a new number.
Limiting your liability makes sense, but be aware that ther are protections in place which do so on your behalf already. Most of your liability comes from those CC offers and throwing away personal information. My wife hates that I have all my receipts, bills, bank/cc statements from 2001, but OTOH no one has any of the numbers from my cards.
Um, perhaps you're not aware.. but annual means 'once a year.' So you can get your credit report free ONE time a year...
And what of the people who died? I'm pretty sure they'd rather still be alive than just have the offender punished. But, oh, gee -- it's too late for that.
They don't care at all, they are dead. I'm sorry you don't understand this, but people die. Sometimes at the hands of someone else, being careless or malevolent. That fact that a very small number of people might harm someone else is not proper justification for taking away rights... sorry.
Fair enough. But I can say that "B is more likely to occur after A has happened". Why do you think we have speed limits on the road? Death is more likely to occur when people are speeding. Similarly, death is more likely to occur when people are intoxicated. People do both things for their own personal pleasure, and both things put other people at a higher risk of injury.
I've already addressed this. In summary, speed limits have nothing to do with safety; they are soley used to generate revenue for the state. You've been told to think that whatever limit is on the road is the safe limit; many cases, this is not the case, and the limit is actually dangerously low.
Just because someone may have the right to do something (and I would agree driving while intoxicated is not a right, although the two seperately are) does not excuse them from the consequences of their actions, should something happen.
Sounds to me like you're theorizing a situation where this ban was very poorly implemented and not adequately enforced -- much like the situation we have in the world today.
Not theorizing at all; have you done any research on prohibition at all? Of course, you never stop to consider that there is no possible way to implement the system that would ever work. The more you attempt to enforce your ban, the more violent the black market supplying the banned item becomes. Also, human nature as it is, you also increase the number of people that want that item, just because its illegal and taboo. Its human nature, pure and simple.
Did you ever wonder why Catholics are the mostly likely to do every sexually deviant thing there is? (There's plenty of studies which prove this.) Its because Catholics are some of the most repressed sexually.
I take comfort in the fact that you see my type of thinking as a serious threat to the sort of world that you envision. If you didn't, you wouldn't be suggesting that I commit suicide before these thoughts spread.
Those that would take away freedom are always a threat. I'm not sure why you take comfort in that. I wish all members of the KKK, Nazi, or any extemist religons would kill themselves as well. It would make the world a much better place to live, if everyone actually respected others people's rights, and accepted that death is a part of life.
This may surprise you, but "human rights" is not an absolute constant in the universe. It's a totally arbitrary concept, invented by some humans. And not everyone agrees that people should have the multitudes of rights that they have in many parts of the world. Because the definition is arbitrary, you can't prove that your definition of human rights is any more correct than anyone else's.
Actually a fair number of philosophers have used logic to derive human rights. I'm sure there are people that don't agree, that think facism or communism or totalitarism are the 'right' way to go. That's the exteme end if your line of thinking. They can think that too.
So while you may be right, the fact is that THIS country is founded on the basis of human rights and freedoms. If you don't agree with that basic philosphy, you are free to move to another country that more fits your ideals.
Yes, I suppose this would also require the ban of alcohol. We shouldn't really be treating alcohol and drugs differently.
Good, lets try that again. I'm sure the mob will be happy to have their oldest revenue stream back. Good job, not only do you still have drunk drivers, you have mob violence as well! I love how none of you 'lets ban it' assholes ever respond to that part of the equation. Of course you have to say 'yes' here, no matter how you really feel.. because otherwise you'd rightly be called a hippocrate.
It's not legal to drive above the speed limit. Why?
Because the state needs all the sources of revenue it can get. In many places, speed limits are set artifically low. Whats the problem? The problem is that setting the speed below the 90th percentile determined by an engineering traffic study is actually more dangerous than the higher speed limit! Ask any civil engineer, I'm sure they'll back me up.
So, people have been challenging the limits. Apparently in VT, they were so sucessful that there's now a law saying that if a speed is set lower than found in the study, but no one challenges it for five years, the limit may no longer be challenged based on the study. In other words, most limits are now set too low, resulting in a MORE dangerous situation, and you can't fight the unsafe limit! If the state was really concerned with safety, wouldn't they ALWAYS set limits according to such studies?
After all, doing so doesn't guarantee that anyone will die. It increases the likelyhood that someone will die, but then again, so will being intoxicated. The point is: we limit what people may legally do to prevent unnecessary injury/death. Unfortunately, people are convinced that doing drugs is a human right and can therefore not be revoked.
Again here, civil engineering is against you. Higher limits increase the probability that the accident will be fatal to a party involved. However, higher limits have no effect on the accident rate, so you're no more likely to be in an accident than you were before the speed limit.
Doing drugs is a human right; its the right to do what you want with your body. Driving (travel using the common means of the day) is also a right, no matter how brainwashed you might be. You see, people have rights. Those rights can be dangerous, to the person exercising them, or to others. However, having rights does not mean you are free of consequences. If you get high, and in that drug induced high murder someone, you get to go to jail for life. I'm sure there are plenty of peopl though that do get high and don't hurt anyone.. a much higher precentage (ruling out the violence caused because drugs are illegal) than those that hurt someone. Just like everything else. Most people hit nails with a hammer; some hit others in the head. Yet we don't ban the hammer.
It backs it up with the exception of the increased expenses might not be enough to offset the cost. I apoligise for being so long winded this time. I just want to explain a few things about how it work here.
Not all costs are measured in numbers. I'd prefer to keep all my fingers. How do you measure the cost there? This arguement could be used to remove all reasonable safety featuers, because there'd always be someone willing to do the job for some amount of money. Of course then you have the work conditions of the early 1900s... not really where we want to be as a society, I'd think.
Your example isn't that great; it encourages the employer to just not test the equipment regularly. Why someone thinks that should absolve the employer is beyond me. To me, its prefectly reasonable to test the air quality meter. Now, if it failed two days after it was tested, fine, I can accept that as an accident. If it hadn't been tested in over a year, that's negligent (IMO) and should be the fault of the employer. Obviously sending someone in without taking a reading at all is reckless.
Again, your reasoning sounds fine regarding the water heaters. There is one problem though; no one has gotten sick taking a bath or shower with the hot water. I've only lived in VT for three years, and the only times I gotten sick were from co-workers (by the way, any ass that goes to work with a cold, knock it off. Stay home until you're over it.. the rest of us don't need to share your experience).
Another point you should be aware of regarding our water; we get it directly from the lake. The water works does not add anything to the water except add flourine. I guess the bacteria that is present isn't really that harmful.
Finally, whats wrong with just giving the home owner the facts, and letting them decide? My waterheater has a temperature setting, and we set it to what we want (I believe we upped it from 130 to 150 a while ago, just because we wanted hotter water). There have been no problems with the current system, yet I'll have to buy a more expensive heater (or pay more to have it installed), and the water is now going to come out colder than we've ever had it? No thanks.
First... Do you think the Jim Crow South was tolerant of the rights blacks?
I don't appriciate you attempting to label me as some kind of racist. If you read my post, you'd see that I've heard people say the same which you say about the it, and I've heard just as many say it claims the opposite.
I think you missed that in my post.. two sets of people are saying the same book says the same thing. Perhaps this is one of those things like in the bible... some claim that it says homosexuality is ok ('knowing' someone supposedly means slept with) others say it does not..
The Qur'an on the other hand recognizes the other theistic religions - Judaism and Christianity - and mandates tolerance towards them.
Hmm.. I've heard this both ways now. Some claim as you, others claim that it says you must first try to convert, then make a slave of (if they refuse to convert), and then finally kill (if they refused to become a slave) anyone that doesn't believe as they do.
Too bad I don't know the language its written in..
Hmm... nothing you really posted contradicts what I said as much as it backs it up. In the end, an unsafe workplace will cost the company money, directly or indirectly. I'm not sure what you mean by 'negligence isn't an exception' when discussing if an employee can sue a company over an injury. It would seem to me that if you follow all safety codes and get hurt on the job, you could still sue.
As far as your personal table saws... likely you wouldn't be forced to replace them, but new ones could be required to have the device.
In VT, we just had something similar to this (although this is totally stupid). Any new water heaters MUST heat the water to 140F, but that would cause scalding. So when hot water leaves the tank, it now needs a mixing valve (which isn't present on most models here I guess) to force it back down to 120F. So what does it mean in the end? Nothing except a more expensive water heater.
The 'logic' behind it is to kill bacteria... but I guess if you drink cold water you're just SOL.
For instance, in some states, Dr. Pepper is actually bottled in Coca-Cola facilities.
Which I suppose is why I thought Dr. Pepper was owned by Coke, since the labels here indicate this and cold DP only be found in Coca Cola coolers. I'm in VT, I never noticed one way or the other in PA.