Isn't protecting the borders exactly what the military are supposed to do?
What is the military protecting protecting the country from? If you mean drugs, drugs aren't a threat to freedom loving people, only those who want to limit freedom or want to make money.
Sorry, but immigrants don't have the "liberty" of invading this country and breeding it into crippling poverty like the failed states from whence they came. They have the priviledge of getting in line, entering through the front door and being integrated into our society.
So, what American Indian tribe are you a member of?
Look at the facts from the latest recession:
1) All major sectors of the economy contracting, except Education and Government.
Including technology, which illegal immigrant are not taking jobs away. However that does not address the cause of the recession, immigration did not cause it. Actually immigrants are more likely to start new businesses creating jobs than those born in the US. More jobs make for a better economy in general. The recession was caused by financial institutions giving mortgages to people who could not afford those mortgages.
Jails are filled with immigrant criminals and drug users supplied by foreign smugglers
The US, with the world's largest prison population, has more people in prison from drug convictions than from any other crime. Legalize drugs and release those convicted of non violent drug offenses. Not only would this reduce the costs of laws enforcement but it would reduce drug violence as well.
Borders are not racist. Unchecked immigration has crippled the US economy and is fueling the largest government expansion since that idiot Bush's failed war.
Borders may not be racist but immigration laws are.
Personally, I'm not seeing what the big deal is, its only being used outside of the US borders and its being used for national security, exactly what they're supposed to be used for.
Ever hear of mission creep? Government and law enforcement always expands, they don't contract.
Enforce and increase the penalties for hiring illegals and it will stop. Nobody's going to come here if they won't get a job.
What American Indian tribe are you a member of? If you're not American Indian what tribe signed your documents, or the ancestor of yours that immigrated here?
The first think I thought of and looked for, which didn't take long as it's in the url, is "drug". Legalize drugs and then watch as drug violence drops.
It's scary as hell! Maybe the US needs the technology to counter people like this--the drug cartel is running havoc.
No drug cartel, Mafia, or organized crime syndicate scares me as much as government. Not even terrorists. It's government that gave then power to begin with. In the US prior to Prohibition the Mafia didn't have much power. Afterwards they were powerful. Heck they couldn't even get Al Capone on charges related to alcohol, they had to get him on income-tax evasion. Drugs laws are only good to those who fight wars on drugs, both providers and law enforcement.
Alcoholics don't really count as well adjusted, at least, I don't count them that way.
Neither do I. However my point was that alcohol is worse than drugs that are illegal.
I've also known quite a few people who dabbled in various ways (and that isn't even a euphemism for myself) and the most involved ones have generally demonstrated the highest rate of bad decisions (outside of the decision to mess with drugs and whatnot).
Hint, nowhere. I said "racist laws". And yes anti-emigration laws are at least prejudice if not racist. There were the Know Nothings who in the 1840s and '50s wanted to make it illegal for Irish Catholics to emigrate to the US. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed to bar Chinese from immigrating. The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration from both eastern and southern Europe. Why even Benjamin Franklin wanted to restrict Dutch and German immigrants.
On the other hand the Bracero Treaty allowed millions of Mexicans to immigrate between 1942 and 1964.
When not in use for other things, why not use them to help fight crime?
What crimes can they used to fight? The War on Drugs? Legalize drugs. Besides getting rid of laws that deny liberty, that will also reduce violence. The economic and racist war on immigration? The ancestors of Central Americans were here before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. Even today American Indian tribes on both sides of the US Mexico, as well as the US Canadian, border have rights to cross the border. Such as the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Iroquois Confederacy.
Next, legalize opium... I mean, if people can grow it themselves, why buy from Arif the Taliban drug thug?
Exactly!
While I don't have a problem with what recreational drugs people partake of in the privacy of their own homes, operating a car, boat, train, or plane while under the influence should result in the permanent loss of one's license to operate said vehicle.
Driving under the influence is driving under the influence, whether it's alcohol or another drug. Actually marijuana, pot, may help prevent some accident, unlike where alcohol makes people careless high people drive slower and are more cautious.
I agree with you in principle, but this description of how it would play out borders on the hilarious.
I mean, what do you do with the hundreds of thousands of people who are currently in prison on drug charges?
Set them free. More people are in prison in the US, and the US has the highest highest prison population in the world, because of drugs than any other reason. And many of them are non violent.
Right now people in prison now for drug offenses are a drain on taxpayers when they could be taxpayers themselves.
Do you just let them out, or do you go further than that?
You apologize for falsely imprisoning them.
What do you do about the thousands of socially marginal people who just lost their jobs (yes, if you are willing to risk prison to distribute drugs, you are likely socially marginal; sorry.)? And so on.
Citation NEEDED!!! I dare you to find science studies that reach that conclusion.
I don't any now but I knew many people who bought, sold, and used illegal drugs and not one was worse than alcoholics I also knew. Those addicted to a legal drug are worse than those who use illegal drugs.
I know that it is sometimes called the war on drugs, but is it really so bad that it deserves to be called a war?
Calling it a war on drugs is nothing more than propaganda. If government really wanted to stop drug smuggling and gang, organized crime, violence they'd legalize drugs. Treat them just as one of the most dangerous drugs, alcohol, is treated. Legalize and tax them. If someone is under the influence when they commit a crime charge them for that crime. If they get pulled over while driving charge them with driving under the influence. Almost all deaths and harm caused by drugs is due to laws and the war on drugs.
Given how much of an authoritarian, centralizer, and advocate of the idea of broad implied government powers Hamilton turned out to be once the Constitution was in force (and, in fact, had already shown himself to be as a member of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation), one might reasonably take his rhetoric about why the Constitution shouldn't explicitly protect individual rights with a grain of salt.
Alexander Hamilton wasn't the only one to oppose Rights being included in the Constitution though. But he was an advocate of a strong central government as well. A good point is that he opposed slavery.
10.The Right to have free, uncensored speech on your own servers
Webspace providers don't have the right to censor either.
No, government does not have the right to censor, private entities should be able to control what is hosted on their own servers. If a webhost does not want to serve certain political speech, porn, or anything else they should have to right to refuse to host it. For every one that refuses to host some speech another will be willing to do so. Now those who shouldn't control content are the access, backbone, providers.
you have to buy something sometime. once you have done so, as long as you own the original licensed copy, you can replicate it on other gadgets for more convenient use. as long as you only use ONE at a time, and don't give any of it away to non-licensed users.
the Bill of Rights itself is the product of discussion, debate, and democratic process. Sure, they reflect a means of protecting what at least a significant portion of those discussing and debating thought were fundamental rights in natural law, but they were no less a product of political process than any other law.
Some Founding Fathers like Alexander Hamilton opposed Rights being included in the Constitution. So the Constitution was approved without them but with the understanding that a Bill of Rights would be added as an amendment. They believed that the protection of rights, Capital and small "r", was not needed. Hamilton argued "Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations."
But as a previous poster said the USA has moved from a country in which people enjoy "unalienable rights" to one where government has rights and grants them. And both Democrats and Republicans are responsible.
No wonder Democrats so frequently assume that the 2nd amendment means something that it doesn't--they believe (or at least, appear to believe) that rights and apparently human dignity are government-granted...!
Except Republicans oppose rights, small "r" not capital, as well. For instance Republicans support Three Strikes Laws and manditory minimum sentencing laws. Though some Democrats support them as well most Republicans love drug laws. During the 2008 presidential campaign only Republican Ron Paul wanted to get rid of these laws. Former Reform politician Jessy "The Body" Ventura has been vocal about getting rid of them too. A few days ago on CNN's Larry King show he said they should be legalized.
The government pays us to write the software. They are happy to pay cash money for development of Free software, because they need the functionality (which is not available elsewhere), and they believe the open source model will save them money in the long run.
Ah, the CDC, okay. I'd imagine some functionality would be unusual. Then again maybe not, others in health industries and science could use it as well.
most businesses are concerned about basically the same things: Will this software provide the functionality we need, and will it do so cost effectively? Free Software scores well on both those points, even if its a little challenging to shoehorn the olde-timey model for a software company into the new open source paradigm.
Ah but "free" and open source software isn't new. People have been writing free and open source software since the 1960s. Of course there weren't many uses back then for it. And it wasn't called open source but it was. Members of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT would write programs to run on mainframes then post the listings on the walls. People could take what one person programmed and try to reduce it's footprint, make it run faster, and or add things to it. They were among the true hackers.
Thanks for your anecdote, but your dad could have done the same if he just looked up some information in the library. I'd say his interest wasn't as great as yours, or he'd have found a way.
No he couldn't, he was colour blind whereas I am not. In the military, he was in the Army for 2 years then transferred to the Air Force and retired from it, he was denied electronics training because of his colour blindness.
Why should my tax money be spent GIVING kids laptops? A computer in a lab will last much longer, and be of use to many more students.
I see YOU DID NOT READ the article. A private organization was donating the laptops.
Thanks for pointing out obvious problems, which by the way is a waste of my tax money. I also think these problems will be more of a problem, and your dismissing these issues shows a huge lack of forethought.
Read my above sentence!
You're assuming the kids won't screw the laptop up more. I'd rather not have tax money be used to fund such an expensive lession, there are better ways to learn those skills... and I'd argue said skills are not necessary for general education.
I see no reason to continue this as you don't read, or understand what you do read, articles.
By that argument only the rich would be able to afford anything at all
No, this is silly. Not many things can be the cause of a business losing millions of dollars, other than bad business models and plans, but bad software can. Viruses are said to have cost businesses billions of dollars. If I buy software and I lose $1 million because it was bad, if the company that wrote it was liable they could end up paying millions.
Now I'm not saying software can't be well written so there's no bugs or easily exploitable security holes but writing software so that it is like this will drive up the price of software.
The problem with revenue based bonuses in the financial sector is that if you make $X million dollars for five years and then lose five times $X in the sixth year you end up with five bonuses.
Not if the bonus is based on the average, or if you don't get a bonus if you lose money. Another thing is that you don't get 5 bonuses one year. You get one bonus a year for 5 years. You can also make the delay 10 years or longer.
I even eat free fruits and berries while out hiking, because they taste a hell of a lot better than giant-but-tasteless garbage the industrial-ag market has tried to pass off as "food".
Put simply, I, and most people, like "free" precisely because of its standard definition - It doesn't cost us anything! As soon as you try to twist that, you haven't added a "trick", you've pissed us off.
I used to do the same but those berries aren't free either. You may not pay money for them but you then pay with your labor when picking them.
Those old phone books are occasionally useful. It's sometimes hard to find low-tech, small, local businesses (e.g., plumbers) online.
I've never used it but Angie's list helps here. It has reviews of plumbers as well as other pros from people who hired them. What I didn't know though, I've never been to the site, was that users have to join and pay a membership fee.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't protecting the borders exactly what the military are supposed to do?
What is the military protecting protecting the country from? If you mean drugs, drugs aren't a threat to freedom loving people, only those who want to limit freedom or want to make money.
Falcon
FUCK YOURSELF!!!
Falcon
Sorry, but immigrants don't have the "liberty" of invading this country and breeding it into crippling poverty like the failed states from whence they came. They have the priviledge of getting in line, entering through the front door and being integrated into our society.
So, what American Indian tribe are you a member of?
Look at the facts from the latest recession:
1) All major sectors of the economy contracting, except Education and Government.
Including technology, which illegal immigrant are not taking jobs away. However that does not address the cause of the recession, immigration did not cause it. Actually immigrants are more likely to start new businesses creating jobs than those born in the US. More jobs make for a better economy in general. The recession was caused by financial institutions giving mortgages to people who could not afford those mortgages.
Jails are filled with immigrant criminals and drug users supplied by foreign smugglers
The US, with the world's largest prison population, has more people in prison from drug convictions than from any other crime. Legalize drugs and release those convicted of non violent drug offenses. Not only would this reduce the costs of laws enforcement but it would reduce drug violence as well.
Borders are not racist. Unchecked immigration has crippled the US economy and is fueling the largest government expansion since that idiot Bush's failed war.
Borders may not be racist but immigration laws are.
Falcon
Personally, I'm not seeing what the big deal is, its only being used outside of the US borders and its being used for national security, exactly what they're supposed to be used for.
Ever hear of mission creep? Government and law enforcement always expands, they don't contract.
Falcon
Enforce and increase the penalties for hiring illegals and it will stop. Nobody's going to come here if they won't get a job.
What American Indian tribe are you a member of? If you're not American Indian what tribe signed your documents, or the ancestor of yours that immigrated here?
Falcon
I will be the fear monger here.
Read this shit
The first think I thought of and looked for, which didn't take long as it's in the url, is "drug". Legalize drugs and then watch as drug violence drops.
It's scary as hell! Maybe the US needs the technology to counter people like this--the drug cartel is running havoc.
No drug cartel, Mafia, or organized crime syndicate scares me as much as government. Not even terrorists. It's government that gave then power to begin with. In the US prior to Prohibition the Mafia didn't have much power. Afterwards they were powerful. Heck they couldn't even get Al Capone on charges related to alcohol, they had to get him on income-tax evasion. Drugs laws are only good to those who fight wars on drugs, both providers and law enforcement.
Falcon
Alcoholics don't really count as well adjusted, at least, I don't count them that way.
Neither do I. However my point was that alcohol is worse than drugs that are illegal.
I've also known quite a few people who dabbled in various ways (and that isn't even a euphemism for myself) and the most involved ones have generally demonstrated the highest rate of bad decisions (outside of the decision to mess with drugs and whatnot).
Whereas alcoholics are good decision makers?
Falcon
Where did I say anything about racist jobs?
Hint, nowhere. I said "racist laws". And yes anti-emigration laws are at least prejudice if not racist. There were the Know Nothings who in the 1840s and '50s wanted to make it illegal for Irish Catholics to emigrate to the US. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed to bar Chinese from immigrating. The Immigration Act of 1924 restricted immigration from both eastern and southern Europe. Why even Benjamin Franklin wanted to restrict Dutch and German immigrants.
On the other hand the Bracero Treaty allowed millions of Mexicans to immigrate between 1942 and 1964.
Falcon
When not in use for other things, why not use them to help fight crime?
What crimes can they used to fight? The War on Drugs? Legalize drugs. Besides getting rid of laws that deny liberty, that will also reduce violence. The economic and racist war on immigration? The ancestors of Central Americans were here before the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock. Even today American Indian tribes on both sides of the US Mexico, as well as the US Canadian, border have rights to cross the border. Such as the Tohono O'odham Nation and the Iroquois Confederacy.
Falcon
Next, legalize opium... I mean, if people can grow it themselves, why buy from Arif the Taliban drug thug?
Exactly!
While I don't have a problem with what recreational drugs people partake of in the privacy of their own homes, operating a car, boat, train, or plane while under the influence should result in the permanent loss of one's license to operate said vehicle.
Driving under the influence is driving under the influence, whether it's alcohol or another drug. Actually marijuana, pot, may help prevent some accident, unlike where alcohol makes people careless high people drive slower and are more cautious.
Falcon
I agree with you in principle, but this description of how it would play out borders on the hilarious.
I mean, what do you do with the hundreds of thousands of people who are currently in prison on drug charges?
Set them free. More people are in prison in the US, and the US has the highest highest prison population in the world, because of drugs than any other reason. And many of them are non violent.
Right now people in prison now for drug offenses are a drain on taxpayers when they could be taxpayers themselves.
Do you just let them out, or do you go further than that?
You apologize for falsely imprisoning them.
What do you do about the thousands of socially marginal people who just lost their jobs (yes, if you are willing to risk prison to distribute drugs, you are likely socially marginal; sorry.)? And so on.
Citation NEEDED!!! I dare you to find science studies that reach that conclusion.
I don't any now but I knew many people who bought, sold, and used illegal drugs and not one was worse than alcoholics I also knew. Those addicted to a legal drug are worse than those who use illegal drugs.
Falcon
Really, electronic fencing with video based surveillance is all you really need with camps every few miles or so.
No, what's really needed is to get rid of stupid, liberty denying, racist laws.
Falcon
I know that it is sometimes called the war on drugs, but is it really so bad that it deserves to be called a war?
Calling it a war on drugs is nothing more than propaganda. If government really wanted to stop drug smuggling and gang, organized crime, violence they'd legalize drugs. Treat them just as one of the most dangerous drugs, alcohol, is treated. Legalize and tax them. If someone is under the influence when they commit a crime charge them for that crime. If they get pulled over while driving charge them with driving under the influence. Almost all deaths and harm caused by drugs is due to laws and the war on drugs.
Given how much of an authoritarian, centralizer, and advocate of the idea of broad implied government powers Hamilton turned out to be once the Constitution was in force (and, in fact, had already shown himself to be as a member of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation), one might reasonably take his rhetoric about why the Constitution shouldn't explicitly protect individual rights with a grain of salt.
Alexander Hamilton wasn't the only one to oppose Rights being included in the Constitution though. But he was an advocate of a strong central government as well. A good point is that he opposed slavery.
Falcon
10.The Right to have free, uncensored speech on your own servers
Webspace providers don't have the right to censor either.
No, government does not have the right to censor, private entities should be able to control what is hosted on their own servers. If a webhost does not want to serve certain political speech, porn, or anything else they should have to right to refuse to host it. For every one that refuses to host some speech another will be willing to do so. Now those who shouldn't control content are the access, backbone, providers.
Falcon
At worst, you destroy the images/videos and write them a ticket.
No, at worse in movies they made teens should be given a lecture.
Falcon
you have to buy something sometime. once you have done so, as long as you own the original licensed copy, you can replicate it on other gadgets for more convenient use. as long as you only use ONE at a time, and don't give any of it away to non-licensed users.
Except the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has made fair use illegal in some cases. Look at the ruckus caused by DeCSS.
Falcon
the Bill of Rights itself is the product of discussion, debate, and democratic process. Sure, they reflect a means of protecting what at least a significant portion of those discussing and debating thought were fundamental rights in natural law, but they were no less a product of political process than any other law.
Some Founding Fathers like Alexander Hamilton opposed Rights being included in the Constitution. So the Constitution was approved without them but with the understanding that a Bill of Rights would be added as an amendment. They believed that the protection of rights, Capital and small "r", was not needed. Hamilton argued "Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain everything, they have no need of particular reservations."
But as a previous poster said the USA has moved from a country in which people enjoy "unalienable rights" to one where government has rights and grants them. And both Democrats and Republicans are responsible.
Falcon
No wonder Democrats so frequently assume that the 2nd amendment means something that it doesn't--they believe (or at least, appear to believe) that rights and apparently human dignity are government-granted...!
Except Republicans oppose rights, small "r" not capital, as well. For instance Republicans support Three Strikes Laws and manditory minimum sentencing laws. Though some Democrats support them as well most Republicans love drug laws. During the 2008 presidential campaign only Republican Ron Paul wanted to get rid of these laws. Former Reform politician Jessy "The Body" Ventura has been vocal about getting rid of them too. A few days ago on CNN's Larry King show he said they should be legalized.
Falcon
The government pays us to write the software. They are happy to pay cash money for development of Free software, because they need the functionality (which is not available elsewhere), and they believe the open source model will save them money in the long run.
Ah, the CDC, okay. I'd imagine some functionality would be unusual. Then again maybe not, others in health industries and science could use it as well.
most businesses are concerned about basically the same things: Will this software provide the functionality we need, and will it do so cost effectively? Free Software scores well on both those points, even if its a little challenging to shoehorn the olde-timey model for a software company into the new open source paradigm.
Ah but "free" and open source software isn't new. People have been writing free and open source software since the 1960s. Of course there weren't many uses back then for it. And it wasn't called open source but it was. Members of the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT would write programs to run on mainframes then post the listings on the walls. People could take what one person programmed and try to reduce it's footprint, make it run faster, and or add things to it. They were among the true hackers.
Falcon
Thanks for your anecdote, but your dad could have done the same if he just looked up some information in the library. I'd say his interest wasn't as great as yours, or he'd have found a way.
No he couldn't, he was colour blind whereas I am not. In the military, he was in the Army for 2 years then transferred to the Air Force and retired from it, he was denied electronics training because of his colour blindness.
Why should my tax money be spent GIVING kids laptops? A computer in a lab will last much longer, and be of use to many more students.
I see YOU DID NOT READ the article. A private organization was donating the laptops.
Thanks for pointing out obvious problems, which by the way is a waste of my tax money. I also think these problems will be more of a problem, and your dismissing these issues shows a huge lack of forethought.
Read my above sentence!
You're assuming the kids won't screw the laptop up more. I'd rather not have tax money be used to fund such an expensive lession, there are better ways to learn those skills... and I'd argue said skills are not necessary for general education.
I see no reason to continue this as you don't read, or understand what you do read, articles.
Falcon
By that argument only the rich would be able to afford anything at all
No, this is silly. Not many things can be the cause of a business losing millions of dollars, other than bad business models and plans, but bad software can. Viruses are said to have cost businesses billions of dollars. If I buy software and I lose $1 million because it was bad, if the company that wrote it was liable they could end up paying millions.
Now I'm not saying software can't be well written so there's no bugs or easily exploitable security holes but writing software so that it is like this will drive up the price of software.
Falcon
The problem with revenue based bonuses in the financial sector is that if you make $X million dollars for five years and then lose five times $X in the sixth year you end up with five bonuses.
Not if the bonus is based on the average, or if you don't get a bonus if you lose money. Another thing is that you don't get 5 bonuses one year. You get one bonus a year for 5 years. You can also make the delay 10 years or longer.
Falcon
I even eat free fruits and berries while out hiking, because they taste a hell of a lot better than giant-but-tasteless garbage the industrial-ag market has tried to pass off as "food".
Put simply, I, and most people, like "free" precisely because of its standard definition - It doesn't cost us anything! As soon as you try to twist that, you haven't added a "trick", you've pissed us off.
I used to do the same but those berries aren't free either. You may not pay money for them but you then pay with your labor when picking them.
Falcon
Those old phone books are occasionally useful. It's sometimes hard to find low-tech, small, local businesses (e.g., plumbers) online.
I've never used it but Angie's list helps here. It has reviews of plumbers as well as other pros from people who hired them. What I didn't know though, I've never been to the site, was that users have to join and pay a membership fee.
Falcon