All this means the police did have a valid reason to investigate the case. The officers may have behaved improperly, but the fact that they were investigating a crime and had a legitimate reason to be there still stands.
It depends if they had warrants or not. IIRC they didn't.
According to the state law, the homeowner did commit a felony if he recorded the officers' conversation without their knowledge and consent.
Ugh. Read the law. He was recording HIS conversation with another, which is only a misdemeanor. And its likely he had their consent; they say the signs, after all.
I do not think he's entitled to any compensation at all, what he did was to try to obstruct the investigation of his son's crimes.
Really? Not even because the police broke all the cameras they took, when taking evidence for his 'crime?' It didn't sound to me like he was obstructing and you certainly can't assume it. You have to assume he didn't know where his son was. You know, he's innocent until PROVEN guilty.. and I see no proof that he knew where his son was. Refusing to let police in without a warrant is not obstruction; its perfectly legal.
If I understood TFA well (and I *did* read it) the only reason why the wiretapping charges were dropped was because the city attorney thought that, given the public uproar on the case, a jury would be unlikely to find the homeowner guilty.
I don't think you understand the issues though.
Well, I hope that, if the son is really guilty of that mugging, the jury gives him his due punishment.
This is the only thing that I can agree with you on.
For the first problem, simply create a law so that unproven charges are never kept in any kind of permanate file.
If you were charged with something, but not convicted (and certainly if you never even got to court), why keep a record of it?
The second would be to have the state pay for your legal bills. That would do alot against police bringing charges against someone to harrase them. Better yet, take the money out of the arresting officer's paycheck.
I'm sorry, you CANNOT be more wrong. It is the DUTY of the jury to find someone innocent of a law they find unjust.
Citizens wanting laws off the books need only to time and again nullify the law when its presented. It may be difficult, but repeated nullification of the same law may be the only recourse (if the goverment is unwilling to remove the law, which is likely).
In this case the man's son was involved with the mugging!
Sorry, that doesn't make the officers actions any more right. Clearly the 15 year old doesn't own the house or the cameras attached to them, and just because their son is guilty of crimes does not mean the parents are.
Nevermind the stolen handgun part; the laws restricting the sale of handguns are unjust. Whoever owns it may have bought it for protection, but don't believe the government should have a record of every gun owner.
There does NOT need to be a balance when it comes to cops. They have a lot of power, and need to be put under more screwtiny and watched and have THEIR actions severely restricted. In case you don't remember, the balance of power is supposed to favor the people, NOT the government.
Here in the US, every table has multiple cameras, to watch dealers and players alike. I'm not sure what the tolerence level for mistakes is though... but casinos live by the motto: trust no one.
One other thing, they thought they wouldn't win in court because why? Was it against the law? No, if that's the case every gas station and 7/11 store in the state is violating the law. Have you ever see a big sign telling you that you are being videotaped at any store you've ever walked into? No you haven't and the reason is that it's not illegal in the first place. All that crap about videotaping being wiretapping is all bullshit. If it was true they would prosecute every gas station and convenience store in the whole state.
Whoa, slow down there. First off yes, most stores where I live DO post such a sign. Secondly, some even go so far as to show you by mounting a montior and having the sign attached, so you can clearly see yourself being taped as you enter the store.
Video taping is not wiretapping, I agree. But there may be laws about clandestine recording of others.
Personally, I think your house is your house, and you have a RIGHT to put as many cameras up as you want. If people don't like it, they can stay off your property. A cop doing his job has NO right not to be recorded.
I think it should ALWAYS be legal to record the actions of police officers. After all, what do they have to hide? (Notice that most people saying that only say it when its the government that is doing the recording).
I'm not so sure its a big win. The police and DA still think the broke the law (and still think the law is OK). They'd rather keep the status quo than risk having a court and jury say the guy IS allowed to do what he was doing, possibly invalidating the law.
Like it, don't like it, agree, disagree, fine...realize that there are probably more loopholes in federal code than even a lawyer knows about off the top of his/her head. I never said the SCOTUS is infallible, I said that they make the determination on what is/is not legal. The fact that they are often split, and very evenly split, means that our laws are open to interpretation by everybody. You're saying it's very cut and dry, these wiretaps et al are illegal. I'm saying recognize that there are plenty of learned people that disagree with you, and they aren't wrong.
If you accept that wiretaps are a search, as defined by the Constitution, then you must accept that wiretaps without warrants backed by reasonable suspecion are un-Consitutional. There's nothing wrong with the law you site, however, the NSA has not 1) gone through the FISA courts, and 2) approached the AG of the United States. So yes, it is pretty clear cut. You say these people are 'learned,' yet they fail still back the legality of the NSA's actions. I don't know what to tell you at that point, if you still insist that because they are well respected they may be right. Honsetly, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to draw these conclusions. Obviously than these people AREN'T as smart as others have preceived or they are pushing some other agenda. Just because someone came to be well respected doesn't mean they are deserving of that respect either (nor does it make their wrong opinions any more 'right').
It's pure guess work determining to what extent the founders would want the 4th to go to. They didn't imagine communication on wires extending from their property across the state/country/world. IMO, what they intended was for limited search on their property only...if I want to conclude that an electronic message starting on my property and then travelling over 1000 other properties, including government owned land, does not constitute a private communication, that's my interpretation and opinion. The courts have, in some cases, leaned away from protection of privacy because of blurred lines; what constitutes unlawful search and seizure, and what constitutes private property? You're not the final word on that, and your opinion matters as much as mine; it's the courts' opinion that really matters.
This argument is brought up time and again. 'We don't know what they'd say today.' I would say we do. Their reasoning isn't based on what technology was or was not available at the time, its based on human nature, and human nature hasn't changed much at all in the past 200 years. The tendancy for goverments to abuse their power has not changed. If anything, we should be erring more on the side of privacy and individual rights. You claim that the criminals having more power via technolgy is a reason to give up some of these rights. The fact that the goverment has MORE access to such technology (and the money to buy it) I would argue we need to limit the goverment even more.
In the end, its the people's opinion that matters, NOT the courts. Remember, the founders say that when all else has failed, its the DUTY of the jury to disregard what the government has to say on the matter, which renders ther courts opinion as invalid. That's pretty powerful; the people can veto the actions of all branches of government in the jury box. Its pretty clear that its the people's opinion that matters most. Again, please read our founders thoughts on jury nullification. And try to realize WE tell the government what to do, not the other way around (at least, that's how this nation is supposed to work).
So you admit this measure does not significantly reduce the chances of someone I care about being killed, but you still think it is the best way to prevent it? Yeah, that makes sense.
Nope, since the people that would commit such crimes are a small minority, even putting one away makes a huge impact.
So taxing you for socialist programs for less money instead of taxing you for more money for the other costs associated with violent crime is too high of a price to pay?
You keep saying its less money. You don't have proof of that. You assume it will be cheaper.
Yes. It means we only have 10 times the violent crime Finland does instead of 11 times. How is this relevant?
Its relevent because its a trend that doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. By doing what we are doing now, violent crime will continue to drop. I'd like to know how the crime rate in Finland is relevent. They have a population of 5 million people, or 1.6% of the US population. Ever stop and think that our size has something to do with crime rates? The US is almost 6 million square miles, versus Finland which is 130,000 square miles. Many people are in cities, but there's also a pretty large rural area, with little police protection, and almost no one knows how to defend themselves. I think THAT has more to do with violent crime rates than anything else....But drastically more likely than if we took reasonable measures to reduce the incentives for crime. I still don't see how this is an argument against reducing the chances even further.
Crime rates are already falling, without implementing your changes. That's relevent, since you're whole argument seems to be based on the fact that there is crime. You're trying to claim that your methods are the only way to reduce crimes, when its clearly not true.
Yeah, we repealed prohibition and the organized crime families have been losing power since. More recently we legalized abortion preventing tens of thousands of people from growing up in the worst of conditions; conditions that coincidentally correlate exactly with the likelihood of committing crimes and crime started dropping again just as we reached the time when those people would have reached about 17 years of age. How does this argue that we should not take further steps to reduce crime?
Organized crime jumped to other illegal substances, like drugs. If they are really losing power I can't say. It certainly doesn't seem like they have much power anymore. The problem with your method is that it infringes on people's rights; removing prohibition was restoring people's rights. You're obsessed with a problem that IS being solved, but you seem to want some kind of quick fix (and there's no proof that socialism would fix the problem at all; violence seems to be a cultural problem more than its an economic one; the fact that we still have poverty and crime rates are dropping would suggest this).
Which tramples on your rights more, paying 25% of your income in taxes, much of which is spent on police, courts, and prisons, or paying 22% of your income in taxes, much of which is spent on preventing crime via socialist programs that also provide you personally with free food, clothing, and shelter?
You're assuming that most of those taxes are going to police courts etc when they are not. Most of that federal tax money goes to the defense department. Very little goes to socialist programs, and even if your socialist programs work (which they wouldn't) our taxes would likely go UP, since you're now spending money on everyone who's poor instead of just the ones few poor that are committing crime (surely you don't mean to say that all poor people are criminals, do you?).
I excused nothing. Taking action to remove a temptation does not imply in any way approval of those who give in to said temptation. Suppose in a society where clothing is very expensive, giving away clothing reduces rape by 50%. Does giving clothing a
I agree, but you're contradicting yourself, just like I warned you not to. If you're sharing even a single MP3 file, you're allowing other people to download it - unless not a single person whom your file eventually reaches would have bought the music if it were unavailable for free, you're depriving the artist of money - and even.05 cents is inexcusable theft deserving of death, right? Gosh, it's a real shame you feel so entitled to free music - I hope you'll end up with a bullet between your eyes.
I'm not contradicting myself. First, I never said it was ok to infringe someone else's copyright. Second, copyright infringement is NOT stealing. Its a seperate, distinct entity. For one, theft is criminal, copyright infringement is civil (historically). All I said was that its not right for you to take from the person who owns the wireless network just because he may be breaking some other law. Anyone with any intelligence knew that is exactly what I meant; your retard logic is trying to paint me as some kind of hippocrate, which is amusing, because its pretty obvious I'm not. I'll make it very clear to you what I meant: Two wrongs do not make a right. I hope your 5th grade understanding can at least comprehend that.
By the way, I download music too. But I don't make myself feel better about myself by denying it's theft - I'm glad to deprive the RIAA's lawyers and middle managers of money.
Its not theft; ask any real lawyer. Copyright is at the whim of Congress. If they wanted to, they could just dispense with it completely. Its in our Consitution, which I'm sure you've never read. If you had, and had read the founders words on why they did certain things, you'd understand copyright infringement isn't theft. Its ok though, I know big words probably scare you.
Christ, take a logic class, or read a fucking book or something. I didn't say it was OK to steal in-use bandwidth because it was probably being used to steal, I was just warning you not to contradict yourself, but you did anyway.
Nope, that's not what you said at all. You implied the only way a user would be fully utilizing their link is by committing some crime. I think you're the one that needs a logic class. You also need to read more on wireless networking. Each connected client slows down every connected client. What happens when two people use the same frequency to broadcast different messages? They collide and interfere, destroying both messages. So even if the user is just downloading his email and you connect, you're interfering with the owner's wireless network.
Yes. I know it's hard for you to grasp personal responsibility, but that would be a good world. If I were walking through a dark alley late at night and got assraped because I didn't grab even a swiss army knife to protect myself, it would be my own damn fault. There are two possible worlds in which nobody gets raped - one in which everyone protects themselves (and their children), and one in which there are no rapists. Go ahead, try to get rid of every present and future rapist, I dare you. Let me know if you succeed.
Again, take a logic course. No one has a right to rape another person. You're excusing the rapists from THEIR personal responsibility to not harm someone else. Even if everyone protects themselves, there will be violent crimes. I'm pretty sure the two Israeli soldiers were armed and knew how to defend themselves, yet they were still taken. Its not always possible to defend yourself. Its a shame you never bumped into the BTK Killer; you may change your mind about warped world view. No one has a right to harm another, unless they are defending themselves from harm. Clearly a rapist or serial killer isn't defending themselves, since they instiaged the attack. So what about the four year old girl being raped by her father? Is that her fault too?
Finally, you have another logical error; that just because you can never be 100% rid of a problem, you conclude you sh
I dunno, I'm never disappointed by the graphics of older games... but maybe that's because I remember exactly how it looked back then, since I spent so much time staring at them.
If the law is upheld, you continue to break it until you win. Should the first people arrested in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s just gone home after their first arrest? Or should continue breaking the law until its changed? I think the latter is the only way to be successful.
Format shifting has fallen under fair use, unless I'm mistaken. What should it matter if someone performs the service for you (for a fee) or you do it yourself? Shouldn't they be able to charge for performing thier service? They are not creating a derivitive work (like the company sued by the directors guild), they're just making a copy for you.
And that will bring my mother or girlfriend back to life? And what about the children that person left behind? They are even poorer and even more likely to commit a crime in the future and kill off whichever of said people I mentioned was not already killed. PUTTING THAT PERSON IN JAIL HELPS ME NOT AT ALL. It is not a solution to the problem. It is too little too late.
No, it won't, but nothing will bring them back. Putting the criminal in jail is helping you; its one less person you have to worry about killing someone. You could stop crime by installing cameras in everyone's home too. Again, that doesn't mean its a solution we should use, because of the high cost (our freedoms).
Finally, since you seem to love statistics so much, you DO realize that violent crime rates have been dropping across the board since the 1970s, right? You're much less likely to be murdered or assulted now than 40 years ago. It doesn't feel like that because our nation news loves to tell us of killings across the US, but its the truth.
The problem is violence committed against those I care about. Whether some individual spends 10 years or 30 years or 40,000 years in prison is immaterial to the problem of stopping people in general from hurting those I care about. If you can't understand that, you need to seriously look into a book on critical thinking and logic. Unless you can show that people convicted of a crime spending more time in prison makes it less likely that violence will be committed then you've missed the point.
I have a pretty large network of family and friends, spread out all along the east coast. None of them have been victims of violent crime. If you can't understand that crime rates are dropping (since crime seems to be your motiviating factor for socialism), I think you need to look at your critial thinking skills. Something must be going right; crime dropping for 40 years isn't just some random occurance.
Please, shut up already about crime; you're trying to use fear of crime to change my belief to your point of view and its not going to work since I actually know the facts on crime rates. You have this illogical fear of being a victim of crime, when if you really DID look at the statistics you'd see there really ISN'T anything to worry about. Of course there are things you can do to make yourself less of a victim. For example, I know its not wise for me to ever be in North Philadelphia. So I stay in center city when I'm there. Haven't been shot or mugged to date.
Some are acting reasonably and some are simply reacting, but it makes no difference because we know how they are reacting and to what it correlates. Ignoring that and trying to use measures that have been shown not to change the behavior is just dumb.
Your measures though trample on other people's rights. Its not right to improve someone else's life by stealing the effort another put into theirs. You know, two wrongs don't make a right.
You are 100% wrong. I'm not blaming society and I'm not blaming drugs and I'm not blaming god or physics or human nature. I'm not blaming anyone or anything. I'm just looking at what actions are likely to be most effective in stopping the problem because that is what I care about. Obviously it is not what you care about. You'd rather blame people than solve the problem which makes you part of the problem.
You're excusing violent behavior; that makes you the biggest problem this country has every seen. You want to make things better by wronging a set of people. You say 'they wouldnt act violent if they had food.' Well, sorry, but that's a copout, and excusing violent behavior no matter how much you don't want it to be.
There are plenty of places where everyone is well armed and trained. Guess what, that means criminals are too. Since they have the element of surprise, they still have an advantage. Training them in self defense is a good idea and if it is universal it will result in a decrease in violent crime, by up
Heh... if you like him, why not just get XM radio, since he's the Dj on BPM, which is the show you're downloading anyway. Then you can just eliminate the step of recording an burning. Personally I like The System better. Oh ya, O&A party rock!
If an act is immoral, but bringing it to light would violate laws, the person should still be prosecuted. Ignoring laws for the sake of not impugning your sense of morality is not how I want the country run. We have laws for reasons, you may disagree with them, but that doesn't mean we can ignore them.
Laws which would make illuminating immoral acts are immoral in and of themselves. And yes, it is our duty as citizens of a free country to ignore laws which are immoral. The Civil Rights movement utilized this tactic; those arrested for resisting immoral laws have been wronged and have had their freedoms trampled.
Futhermore, ignoring laws which people consider immoral is defined as acceptable by our Founding fathers. Read what why thought about jury nullification. Even if the jury believes that the defendant DID violate the law, they may choose to vote Not guilty (effectively ignoring the law) if they believe the law is immoral. The founders believed that when on a jury, you must follow your heart more than anything else.
Get off your high horse. The SCOTUS splits evenly on most cases. Bright legal minds of all types can have different opinions and judge a case two completely different ways. Because *you* think something is clearly wrong does not make it so.
You claim to want to be ruled by law, and yet ignore the highest law on the land. A wiretap has been ruled a search. A wiretap on American citizens without a warrant is an illegal search. Any attempt to say otherwise is simply wrong, and smacks of orwellian doublespeak. (Good is bad, etc etc). There are very few clear cuts in this world, however the NSA wiretaps are one of them.
Good god man, listen to yourself! There are opinions out there that differ from yours; they aren't wrong, they're just different. Judges never ignore the 4th amendment, they interpret it to mean something different from what you believe it means. That doesn't mena they're wrong, it means through their education and legal career they've come upon reasons to believe it should be implemented a certain way.
My thinking is in line with the founders of this nation, you can find that out yourself by reading the many works they left behind for us. Judges HAVE ignored the 4th amendment; find proof simply by finding appelete courts which overturned rulings from lower courts and cited a violation of 4th amendment rights as the reason. There are plenty of such cases on the books.
My thinking may be wrong if you don't want to live in a free society and don't believe that everyone has equal rights under the law. But if you don't agree with that philosphy, perhaps you should find another country to live in.
Education and legal career may lead you to believe that processes should be implemented a certain way, but when that way is in clear violation of the intent of the system of government we have, then yes, it is wrong. I'm sorry, but this 'everyone is right, everything is relative' just doesn't wash with me. We have a system of government which is intended to work a certain way, and trying to say that X goes hand in hand with that system when it clearly doesn't makes you wrong. Sorry, that's just how it is. Some people are right, others are wrong.
The overarching tone of your reply is that your opinion is right, other people are *clearly* wrong. That's an incredibly self-centered and bigoted world view.
The overarching tone of your reply is that anyone with an opinion is right, that the SCOTUS is infallible. Nobody can ever be wrong, because we have to be sensitive to everyone's opinion, no matter how assinine it may be. If you think I'm self-centered and bigoted because I believe the government of the former Soviet Union was "wrong" because it violated peoples rights, so be it. You may not care about personal freedom. I can respect that. You are entitled to your opinion. However, when you try to tell me that its ok for MY rights to be violated, you've crossed a line. To me, that's very
Actually my home stereo is my home theather receiver; my dvd player supports cds, mp3 cds, sacds, in addition to DVDs. I'd think a large number of people have a similar setup. most of the receivers I've seen do allow for audio only devices, and have AM / FM tuners built in.
If it is reasonably priced, people may actually like it. Does anybody still use a cd player anyway?
I do, but no so much since i have satillite radio. A lot of people have cd players built into their car now (mine is even a 6 disc changer) or their home stereos; I doubt many would want to replace those things yet again. People DO listen to music other than with headphones.
I can't think of other places were an iPod or whatever would not be prefered over a CD / DVD.
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All this means the police did have a valid reason to investigate the case. The officers may have behaved improperly, but the fact that they were investigating a crime and had a legitimate reason to be there still stands.
It depends if they had warrants or not. IIRC they didn't.
According to the state law, the homeowner did commit a felony if he recorded the officers' conversation without their knowledge and consent.
Ugh. Read the law. He was recording HIS conversation with another, which is only a misdemeanor. And its likely he had their consent; they say the signs, after all.
I do not think he's entitled to any compensation at all, what he did was to try to obstruct the investigation of his son's crimes.
Really? Not even because the police broke all the cameras they took, when taking evidence for his 'crime?' It didn't sound to me like he was obstructing and you certainly can't assume it. You have to assume he didn't know where his son was. You know, he's innocent until PROVEN guilty.. and I see no proof that he knew where his son was. Refusing to let police in without a warrant is not obstruction; its perfectly legal.
If I understood TFA well (and I *did* read it) the only reason why the wiretapping charges were dropped was because the city attorney thought that, given the public uproar on the case, a jury would be unlikely to find the homeowner guilty.
I don't think you understand the issues though.
Well, I hope that, if the son is really guilty of that mugging, the jury gives him his due punishment.
This is the only thing that I can agree with you on.
For the first problem, simply create a law so that unproven charges are never kept in any kind of permanate file.
If you were charged with something, but not convicted (and certainly if you never even got to court), why keep a record of it?
The second would be to have the state pay for your legal bills. That would do alot against police bringing charges against someone to harrase them. Better yet, take the money out of the arresting officer's paycheck.
I'm sorry, you CANNOT be more wrong. It is the DUTY of the jury to find someone innocent of a law they find unjust.
Citizens wanting laws off the books need only to time and again nullify the law when its presented. It may be difficult, but repeated nullification of the same law may be the only recourse (if the goverment is unwilling to remove the law, which is likely).
In this case the man's son was involved with the mugging!
Sorry, that doesn't make the officers actions any more right. Clearly the 15 year old doesn't own the house or the cameras attached to them, and just because their son is guilty of crimes does not mean the parents are.
Nevermind the stolen handgun part; the laws restricting the sale of handguns are unjust. Whoever owns it may have bought it for protection, but don't believe the government should have a record of every gun owner.
There does NOT need to be a balance when it comes to cops. They have a lot of power, and need to be put under more screwtiny and watched and have THEIR actions severely restricted. In case you don't remember, the balance of power is supposed to favor the people, NOT the government.
Here in the US, every table has multiple cameras, to watch dealers and players alike. I'm not sure what the tolerence level for mistakes is though... but casinos live by the motto: trust no one.
The law says it is illegal if it is covert. He did have signs on his home but the police claim that they where not large enough.
How would they know they were not large enough if they didn't see them?
That's what I find amusing about all of this.
One other thing, they thought they wouldn't win in court because why? Was it against the law? No, if that's the case every gas station and 7/11 store in the state is violating the law. Have you ever see a big sign telling you that you are being videotaped at any store you've ever walked into? No you haven't and the reason is that it's not illegal in the first place. All that crap about videotaping being wiretapping is all bullshit. If it was true they would prosecute every gas station and convenience store in the whole state.
Whoa, slow down there. First off yes, most stores where I live DO post such a sign. Secondly, some even go so far as to show you by mounting a montior and having the sign attached, so you can clearly see yourself being taped as you enter the store.
Video taping is not wiretapping, I agree. But there may be laws about clandestine recording of others.
Personally, I think your house is your house, and you have a RIGHT to put as many cameras up as you want. If people don't like it, they can stay off your property. A cop doing his job has NO right not to be recorded.
I think it should ALWAYS be legal to record the actions of police officers. After all, what do they have to hide? (Notice that most people saying that only say it when its the government that is doing the recording).
Its pretty widely known that cops here carry a gun to plant as well. The exact term they use escapes me at the moment.
I'm not so sure its a big win. The police and DA still think the broke the law (and still think the law is OK). They'd rather keep the status quo than risk having a court and jury say the guy IS allowed to do what he was doing, possibly invalidating the law.
Like it, don't like it, agree, disagree, fine...realize that there are probably more loopholes in federal code than even a lawyer knows about off the top of his/her head. I never said the SCOTUS is infallible, I said that they make the determination on what is/is not legal. The fact that they are often split, and very evenly split, means that our laws are open to interpretation by everybody. You're saying it's very cut and dry, these wiretaps et al are illegal. I'm saying recognize that there are plenty of learned people that disagree with you, and they aren't wrong.
If you accept that wiretaps are a search, as defined by the Constitution, then you must accept that wiretaps without warrants backed by reasonable suspecion are un-Consitutional. There's nothing wrong with the law you site, however, the NSA has not 1) gone through the FISA courts, and 2) approached the AG of the United States. So yes, it is pretty clear cut. You say these people are 'learned,' yet they fail still back the legality of the NSA's actions. I don't know what to tell you at that point, if you still insist that because they are well respected they may be right. Honsetly, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to draw these conclusions. Obviously than these people AREN'T as smart as others have preceived or they are pushing some other agenda. Just because someone came to be well respected doesn't mean they are deserving of that respect either (nor does it make their wrong opinions any more 'right').
It's pure guess work determining to what extent the founders would want the 4th to go to. They didn't imagine communication on wires extending from their property across the state/country/world. IMO, what they intended was for limited search on their property only...if I want to conclude that an electronic message starting on my property and then travelling over 1000 other properties, including government owned land, does not constitute a private communication, that's my interpretation and opinion. The courts have, in some cases, leaned away from protection of privacy because of blurred lines; what constitutes unlawful search and seizure, and what constitutes private property? You're not the final word on that, and your opinion matters as much as mine; it's the courts' opinion that really matters.
This argument is brought up time and again. 'We don't know what they'd say today.' I would say we do. Their reasoning isn't based on what technology was or was not available at the time, its based on human nature, and human nature hasn't changed much at all in the past 200 years. The tendancy for goverments to abuse their power has not changed. If anything, we should be erring more on the side of privacy and individual rights. You claim that the criminals having more power via technolgy is a reason to give up some of these rights. The fact that the goverment has MORE access to such technology (and the money to buy it) I would argue we need to limit the goverment even more.
In the end, its the people's opinion that matters, NOT the courts. Remember, the founders say that when all else has failed, its the DUTY of the jury to disregard what the government has to say on the matter, which renders ther courts opinion as invalid. That's pretty powerful; the people can veto the actions of all branches of government in the jury box. Its pretty clear that its the people's opinion that matters most. Again, please read our founders thoughts on jury nullification. And try to realize WE tell the government what to do, not the other way around (at least, that's how this nation is supposed to work).
So you admit this measure does not significantly reduce the chances of someone I care about being killed, but you still think it is the best way to prevent it? Yeah, that makes sense.
...But drastically more likely than if we took reasonable measures to reduce the incentives for crime. I still don't see how this is an argument against reducing the chances even further.
Nope, since the people that would commit such crimes are a small minority, even putting one away makes a huge impact.
So taxing you for socialist programs for less money instead of taxing you for more money for the other costs associated with violent crime is too high of a price to pay?
You keep saying its less money. You don't have proof of that. You assume it will be cheaper.
Yes. It means we only have 10 times the violent crime Finland does instead of 11 times. How is this relevant?
Its relevent because its a trend that doesn't seem to be slowing down at all. By doing what we are doing now, violent crime will continue to drop. I'd like to know how the crime rate in Finland is relevent. They have a population of 5 million people, or 1.6% of the US population. Ever stop and think that our size has something to do with crime rates? The US is almost 6 million square miles, versus Finland which is 130,000 square miles. Many people are in cities, but there's also a pretty large rural area, with little police protection, and almost no one knows how to defend themselves. I think THAT has more to do with violent crime rates than anything else.
Crime rates are already falling, without implementing your changes. That's relevent, since you're whole argument seems to be based on the fact that there is crime. You're trying to claim that your methods are the only way to reduce crimes, when its clearly not true.
Yeah, we repealed prohibition and the organized crime families have been losing power since. More recently we legalized abortion preventing tens of thousands of people from growing up in the worst of conditions; conditions that coincidentally correlate exactly with the likelihood of committing crimes and crime started dropping again just as we reached the time when those people would have reached about 17 years of age. How does this argue that we should not take further steps to reduce crime?
Organized crime jumped to other illegal substances, like drugs. If they are really losing power I can't say. It certainly doesn't seem like they have much power anymore. The problem with your method is that it infringes on people's rights; removing prohibition was restoring people's rights. You're obsessed with a problem that IS being solved, but you seem to want some kind of quick fix (and there's no proof that socialism would fix the problem at all; violence seems to be a cultural problem more than its an economic one; the fact that we still have poverty and crime rates are dropping would suggest this).
Which tramples on your rights more, paying 25% of your income in taxes, much of which is spent on police, courts, and prisons, or paying 22% of your income in taxes, much of which is spent on preventing crime via socialist programs that also provide you personally with free food, clothing, and shelter?
You're assuming that most of those taxes are going to police courts etc when they are not. Most of that federal tax money goes to the defense department. Very little goes to socialist programs, and even if your socialist programs work (which they wouldn't) our taxes would likely go UP, since you're now spending money on everyone who's poor instead of just the ones few poor that are committing crime (surely you don't mean to say that all poor people are criminals, do you?).
I excused nothing. Taking action to remove a temptation does not imply in any way approval of those who give in to said temptation. Suppose in a society where clothing is very expensive, giving away clothing reduces rape by 50%. Does giving clothing a
I agree, but you're contradicting yourself, just like I warned you not to. If you're sharing even a single MP3 file, you're allowing other people to download it - unless not a single person whom your file eventually reaches would have bought the music if it were unavailable for free, you're depriving the artist of money - and even .05 cents is inexcusable theft deserving of death, right? Gosh, it's a real shame you feel so entitled to free music - I hope you'll end up with a bullet between your eyes.
I'm not contradicting myself. First, I never said it was ok to infringe someone else's copyright. Second, copyright infringement is NOT stealing. Its a seperate, distinct entity. For one, theft is criminal, copyright infringement is civil (historically). All I said was that its not right for you to take from the person who owns the wireless network just because he may be breaking some other law. Anyone with any intelligence knew that is exactly what I meant; your retard logic is trying to paint me as some kind of hippocrate, which is amusing, because its pretty obvious I'm not. I'll make it very clear to you what I meant: Two wrongs do not make a right. I hope your 5th grade understanding can at least comprehend that.
By the way, I download music too. But I don't make myself feel better about myself by denying it's theft - I'm glad to deprive the RIAA's lawyers and middle managers of money.
Its not theft; ask any real lawyer. Copyright is at the whim of Congress. If they wanted to, they could just dispense with it completely. Its in our Consitution, which I'm sure you've never read. If you had, and had read the founders words on why they did certain things, you'd understand copyright infringement isn't theft. Its ok though, I know big words probably scare you.
Christ, take a logic class, or read a fucking book or something. I didn't say it was OK to steal in-use bandwidth because it was probably being used to steal, I was just warning you not to contradict yourself, but you did anyway.
Nope, that's not what you said at all. You implied the only way a user would be fully utilizing their link is by committing some crime. I think you're the one that needs a logic class. You also need to read more on wireless networking. Each connected client slows down every connected client. What happens when two people use the same frequency to broadcast different messages? They collide and interfere, destroying both messages. So even if the user is just downloading his email and you connect, you're interfering with the owner's wireless network.
Yes. I know it's hard for you to grasp personal responsibility, but that would be a good world. If I were walking through a dark alley late at night and got assraped because I didn't grab even a swiss army knife to protect myself, it would be my own damn fault. There are two possible worlds in which nobody gets raped - one in which everyone protects themselves (and their children), and one in which there are no rapists. Go ahead, try to get rid of every present and future rapist, I dare you. Let me know if you succeed.
Again, take a logic course. No one has a right to rape another person. You're excusing the rapists from THEIR personal responsibility to not harm someone else. Even if everyone protects themselves, there will be violent crimes. I'm pretty sure the two Israeli soldiers were armed and knew how to defend themselves, yet they were still taken. Its not always possible to defend yourself. Its a shame you never bumped into the BTK Killer; you may change your mind about warped world view. No one has a right to harm another, unless they are defending themselves from harm. Clearly a rapist or serial killer isn't defending themselves, since they instiaged the attack. So what about the four year old girl being raped by her father? Is that her fault too?
Finally, you have another logical error; that just because you can never be 100% rid of a problem, you conclude you sh
Star Control 2
:-)
Thank god, I wasn't the only one to play that game.
I remember Clouds of Xeen being fun, but never finished it. i think it'd still be fun to play today.
Also, Star Control 1 and 2 are still fun to play today as well.
I dunno, I'm never disappointed by the graphics of older games... but maybe that's because I remember exactly how it looked back then, since I spent so much time staring at them.
I thought 202 was a NYC area code..
If the law is upheld, you continue to break it until you win. Should the first people arrested in the Civil Rights movement of the 60s just gone home after their first arrest? Or should continue breaking the law until its changed? I think the latter is the only way to be successful.
Format shifting has fallen under fair use, unless I'm mistaken. What should it matter if someone performs the service for you (for a fee) or you do it yourself? Shouldn't they be able to charge for performing thier service? They are not creating a derivitive work (like the company sued by the directors guild), they're just making a copy for you.
And that will bring my mother or girlfriend back to life? And what about the children that person left behind? They are even poorer and even more likely to commit a crime in the future and kill off whichever of said people I mentioned was not already killed. PUTTING THAT PERSON IN JAIL HELPS ME NOT AT ALL. It is not a solution to the problem. It is too little too late.
No, it won't, but nothing will bring them back. Putting the criminal in jail is helping you; its one less person you have to worry about killing someone. You could stop crime by installing cameras in everyone's home too. Again, that doesn't mean its a solution we should use, because of the high cost (our freedoms).
Finally, since you seem to love statistics so much, you DO realize that violent crime rates have been dropping across the board since the 1970s, right? You're much less likely to be murdered or assulted now than 40 years ago. It doesn't feel like that because our nation news loves to tell us of killings across the US, but its the truth.
The problem is violence committed against those I care about. Whether some individual spends 10 years or 30 years or 40,000 years in prison is immaterial to the problem of stopping people in general from hurting those I care about. If you can't understand that, you need to seriously look into a book on critical thinking and logic. Unless you can show that people convicted of a crime spending more time in prison makes it less likely that violence will be committed then you've missed the point.
I have a pretty large network of family and friends, spread out all along the east coast. None of them have been victims of violent crime. If you can't understand that crime rates are dropping (since crime seems to be your motiviating factor for socialism), I think you need to look at your critial thinking skills. Something must be going right; crime dropping for 40 years isn't just some random occurance.
Please, shut up already about crime; you're trying to use fear of crime to change my belief to your point of view and its not going to work since I actually know the facts on crime rates. You have this illogical fear of being a victim of crime, when if you really DID look at the statistics you'd see there really ISN'T anything to worry about. Of course there are things you can do to make yourself less of a victim. For example, I know its not wise for me to ever be in North Philadelphia. So I stay in center city when I'm there. Haven't been shot or mugged to date.
Some are acting reasonably and some are simply reacting, but it makes no difference because we know how they are reacting and to what it correlates. Ignoring that and trying to use measures that have been shown not to change the behavior is just dumb.
Your measures though trample on other people's rights. Its not right to improve someone else's life by stealing the effort another put into theirs. You know, two wrongs don't make a right.
You are 100% wrong. I'm not blaming society and I'm not blaming drugs and I'm not blaming god or physics or human nature. I'm not blaming anyone or anything. I'm just looking at what actions are likely to be most effective in stopping the problem because that is what I care about. Obviously it is not what you care about. You'd rather blame people than solve the problem which makes you part of the problem.
You're excusing violent behavior; that makes you the biggest problem this country has every seen. You want to make things better by wronging a set of people. You say 'they wouldnt act violent if they had food.' Well, sorry, but that's a copout, and excusing violent behavior no matter how much you don't want it to be.
There are plenty of places where everyone is well armed and trained. Guess what, that means criminals are too. Since they have the element of surprise, they still have an advantage. Training them in self defense is a good idea and if it is universal it will result in a decrease in violent crime, by up
Heh... if you like him, why not just get XM radio, since he's the Dj on BPM, which is the show you're downloading anyway. Then you can just eliminate the step of recording an burning. Personally I like The System better. Oh ya, O&A party rock!
If an act is immoral, but bringing it to light would violate laws, the person should still be prosecuted. Ignoring laws for the sake of not impugning your sense of morality is not how I want the country run. We have laws for reasons, you may disagree with them, but that doesn't mean we can ignore them.
Laws which would make illuminating immoral acts are immoral in and of themselves. And yes, it is our duty as citizens of a free country to ignore laws which are immoral. The Civil Rights movement utilized this tactic; those arrested for resisting immoral laws have been wronged and have had their freedoms trampled.
Futhermore, ignoring laws which people consider immoral is defined as acceptable by our Founding fathers. Read what why thought about jury nullification. Even if the jury believes that the defendant DID violate the law, they may choose to vote Not guilty (effectively ignoring the law) if they believe the law is immoral. The founders believed that when on a jury, you must follow your heart more than anything else.
Get off your high horse. The SCOTUS splits evenly on most cases. Bright legal minds of all types can have different opinions and judge a case two completely different ways. Because *you* think something is clearly wrong does not make it so.
You claim to want to be ruled by law, and yet ignore the highest law on the land. A wiretap has been ruled a search. A wiretap on American citizens without a warrant is an illegal search. Any attempt to say otherwise is simply wrong, and smacks of orwellian doublespeak. (Good is bad, etc etc). There are very few clear cuts in this world, however the NSA wiretaps are one of them.
Good god man, listen to yourself! There are opinions out there that differ from yours; they aren't wrong, they're just different. Judges never ignore the 4th amendment, they interpret it to mean something different from what you believe it means. That doesn't mena they're wrong, it means through their education and legal career they've come upon reasons to believe it should be implemented a certain way.
My thinking is in line with the founders of this nation, you can find that out yourself by reading the many works they left behind for us. Judges HAVE ignored the 4th amendment; find proof simply by finding appelete courts which overturned rulings from lower courts and cited a violation of 4th amendment rights as the reason. There are plenty of such cases on the books.
My thinking may be wrong if you don't want to live in a free society and don't believe that everyone has equal rights under the law. But if you don't agree with that philosphy, perhaps you should find another country to live in.
Education and legal career may lead you to believe that processes should be implemented a certain way, but when that way is in clear violation of the intent of the system of government we have, then yes, it is wrong. I'm sorry, but this 'everyone is right, everything is relative' just doesn't wash with me. We have a system of government which is intended to work a certain way, and trying to say that X goes hand in hand with that system when it clearly doesn't makes you wrong. Sorry, that's just how it is. Some people are right, others are wrong.
The overarching tone of your reply is that your opinion is right, other people are *clearly* wrong. That's an incredibly self-centered and bigoted world view.
The overarching tone of your reply is that anyone with an opinion is right, that the SCOTUS is infallible. Nobody can ever be wrong, because we have to be sensitive to everyone's opinion, no matter how assinine it may be. If you think I'm self-centered and bigoted because I believe the government of the former Soviet Union was "wrong" because it violated peoples rights, so be it. You may not care about personal freedom. I can respect that. You are entitled to your opinion. However, when you try to tell me that its ok for MY rights to be violated, you've crossed a line. To me, that's very
5.1 DTS is much less lossy though, which is why I prefer DTS DVDs to DD.
The only benefit I can think of is higher than CD quality, 5.1 sound.
Actually my home stereo is my home theather receiver; my dvd player supports cds, mp3 cds, sacds, in addition to DVDs. I'd think a large number of people have a similar setup. most of the receivers I've seen do allow for audio only devices, and have AM / FM tuners built in.
If it is reasonably priced, people may actually like it. Does anybody still use a cd player anyway?
I do, but no so much since i have satillite radio. A lot of people have cd players built into their car now (mine is even a 6 disc changer) or their home stereos; I doubt many would want to replace those things yet again. People DO listen to music other than with headphones.
I can't think of other places were an iPod or whatever would not be prefered over a CD / DVD.