I'd expect you to come back with more stupid comments and not even comprehend the replies I've made. These are for the thinking person who might happen to come across the thread. I'll not respond to your lunacy any more.
But more to the point, what makes you think aliens wouldn't want what we have. we have asian pron all over the interweb, what intelligent species can resist that?
So, Asians will be the only ones not eaten?
Falcon
Plants overcrowd neighbours and kill each other.
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Plants can also be beneficial for each other. For instance aphids are insects that love to feast on roses along with some food crops, however strawberries and a few other plants repel aphids away. Here are some more examples of plant combinations.
Falcon
Natural animals just aren't good enough
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You've obviously have never had gator tail or wild boar, if you have it was prepared badly.
Third (and we're getting lower on the probability scale here, but still) the transmission itself may contain immediately useful information for us. It could be anything. Make widgets like this. Don't go to the 3rd planet of Beta Centauri. Cut it out with the nukes, assholes. Efficient space drive drive works like so. Your Aishwara Rai, can we buy her?
It could be instructions on how the overlords want to be worshiped, or plans on they will invade.
42
No, 42 isn't the answer.
So if you really want to cut funds, I suggest that the place to do it is in funding, oh, I don't know, how about a certain war in the middle east?
But that would deprive mercenaries, private private defend contractors, and big oil of profits.
Maybe quit funding the "drug war" against our own citizens?
That would lead to the shutdown of the prison industrial complex.
It is entirely ludicrous to think that the low level of wage taxation paid by illegal aliens compensates for the pull they create on the social support structure. They are at the bottom of the wage scale which means they will draw from the system if the opportunity is presented.
I agree with the economic argument that removal of the profit would reduce the attractiveness for the producers of drugs. At the same time, a society has a responsibility to protect it's citizens from harm. Where do we draw the line?
You draw the line where the person begins. While government has the responsibility to protect it's citizens from harm, that does not include protecting them from themself. If a person knowingly and willfully decides to use drugs that is their decision and they should be able to make it. Some people, my sister did, will say "but they harm others". So do alcoholics but alcohol is legal. Hold the person under the influence responsible. Just as with drunks, if someone get pulled over when driving under the influence convict them and sentence to gaol, then make it difficult and expensive to get their license back.
Would you propose we let the country turn into a modern-day opium den a la the British drug war against China?
Opium used to be legal in the US yet it didn't lead to everyone being addicted to opium. Legalize and tax it. Then if an addict wants help escaping the addiction let them enter treatment. Some European countries are working on this, so that when an addict walks up to a police officer the officer will help them get therapy. The tax on drugs should be able to pay for the therapy with many people only being recreational users and not addicts. I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of recreational users, yet the first person I met who was addicted was an alcoholic I met in college. I met her when I stated tutoring her, she kept a cooler in her car filled with beer, wine coolers, or some such. After only meeting her a few tymes I had to stop tutoring her, I couldn't stand her being drunk when we met. Though I had tutored a number of people in chemistry and algebra she was the worst student I had to work with. As far as I was concerned her parents were wasting their money paying her college expenses. They could of spent money much wiser by putting her in therapy, demand she enter therapy or they would cut her off. Though I knew people who used acid, cocaine, ecstasy , LSD, marijuana, and opium I had never since anyone as bad as she was, before or after.
Think about what you are proposing. You propose to create addicts and use them as a means of funding the government. What adjectives can adequately describe that proposal?!?!
No I propose ending an insane drug war that's been fought for at least 70 years and has created the world's largest prison population, many of whom committed no violent crimes.
You don't really believe the government shouldn't tell people what to do with their bodies. Your posts contradict themselves.
Where's the contradiction? Can you point out wher I made contradictory statements?
All societies tell people what they can and can't do with their own bodies. All societies legislate morality. The government tells you every day in innumerable ways what you can and cannot do with y
Dude, we've all done the energy-saving lightbulbs thing,
No, most people don't use CFLs, I know people who don't have a single CFL in their homes.
It is human nature to want to discover new things and to progress. We will not do it with cutbacks and 19th century technology.
Wow, I didn't know solar PVs are 19th century tech. Here I always thought the first PVs were used by NASA in the 1960s, during the 20th century. And the PVs being manufactured today are more efficient than what NASA used, because of today's technology. Using algae to produce hydrogen is being done with new technology as well as new wind turbines.
You claim Mayan and then provide a link to Papago, which is what my wife is part of. Mayans may have had trade throughout North America, but their lands were in the Yucatan.
And why would a paper on Guatemalan weaving prove that Papgoes were Mayans?
So maybe I inappropriately used Mayans as an example but the example I posted a link to, the Tohono O'odham Nation, is an American Indian nation that straddles the US Mexican border which validates my argument that there are American Indians who live in both the US and Mexico.
No Spying on U.S. citizens unless they were actively engaged with terrorists or foreign powers.
So all of those people ATT and the other telecoms turned over records to the government were terrorists or agents for foreign powers? All of those who the NSA, No Such Agency, tapped the phones of were all guilty? I DON'T think so. If there had even been any suspension and they had had valid info it would have been easy to get a search warrant. The FISA court is there to rubber stamp such requests. FISA can even approve a warrant 24 hours after the fact. Did the Bush admin do any such thing? NO!
What torture? There has only been sensory depravation. Nothing wrong with that at all. Oh, maybe you meant waterboarding.
According to the Geneva Convention, of which the US is a signatory, waterboarding is torture. Geneva also disallows inhumane treatments and if waterboarding to make someone think they're going to be drowned is humane to you I wonder what is inhumane.
Funny thing about Abu Gharab, that's where Saddam had one of his torture centers (you know, real torture where people are actually mained and killed.)
Funny thing, NOT!!!, Saddam was torturing and using chemical weapons, those WMDs, when Reagan and Bush Sr supported Saddam. Before he invaded Kuwait, a Sheikdom not a democracy, Saddam could do no wrong. Use chemical weapons against Kurds, March Arabs, and others in Iraq, check. Use the same weapons against Iran, check. It was only after the invasion of Kuwait when he did something bad. Now why did Saddam invade Kuwait? Because Kuwait was Directional or slant drilling into Iraq's Rumailah Oil Field. Kuwait was basically stealing oil from Iraq.
Habeas Corpus? Isn't that for American citizens and American soil?
Jose Padilla is a US citizen, and he was arrested in Chicago not Afghanistan or Iraq. As for aliens, in Hamdan v Rumsfeld the USSC ruled 5 to 3 that congress couldn't strip prisoners at Guantánamo Bay of habeas corpus.
It's a little off balance to say everything the Federal Government does is the sole impetus of the President. He's not a dictator, he's the highest governmetn executive.
But he acts like whatever he wants better be done. Spy on US citizens, done. Use torture, done. Round up and deny people's Habeas Corpus, done. Bush acts more like an emperor than previous presidents have. Bush has even issued hundreds of Signing statements when signing bills into law. In 4 years in office he signed 232 statements whereas Clinton only signed 140 in 8 years.
I served a tour in the Air Force in South Dakota. There were periodic protests and such from some of the Lakotas about how their land had been taken.
I served in the Army, spent most of my tyme stationed in Georgia but also went to Wisconsin, Florida, Alaska, Panama, and Germany. I don't know if I was ever on Lakota land while in, maybe in Wisconsin but I don't know. However I currently live on Lakota land, in Minneapolis, MN. Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) was one of the first treaties signed with the Sioux. However the US broke that one and forced the Sioux to sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) which created the Great Sioux reservation. This one was broken as well. Eventually the Sioux were left with a few isolated reservations scattered throughout the Upper Midwest. Where the Great Sioux Reservation once was most of Minnesota, and both of the Dakotas here are now only small pockets here and there.
One of the most important reasons we had so many ICBMs there was it's location as the center of the country which would give more time to respond to an incoming attack and also the land was predominantly shale which would shatter and absorb force.
As stated above, the Sioux lost most of their land way before ICBMs were even dreamed of.
I don't have sufficient knowledge to know if the commonly-repeated statement that every treaty with the Indians was broken.
Snager, the founder of Planned Parenthood was big in the eugenics movement. That really started in the U.S. but the victor in war writes the history so that's been less public because we had to blame the evil Germans
The NAZIs went beyond eugenics. And I'd bet Nietzsche was rolling in his grave when the NAZI used him. It's been a while and because of bad memory I don't recall much of his writing but he wouldn't have approved of the NAZIs.
I have worked with an Italain man whose mother was pregnant with him during WWII. Her husband had been in a German prison camp when she got pregnant. The Nazis went into their village and lined all the people along a wall and started to machine gun them from one end to the other. This man's mother was on the opposite end. She ran around the corner and kept running. She survived.
Yea, in college I met and talked with a concentration camp survivor. Some 40 years later I saw the numbers on her arm.
That was my point. The US was built and is ruled by immigrants who conquered and massacred those already here. They came, now their descendants are complaining about the "Others" coming, even when the new arrivals aren't massacring those already here.
No culture or society can survive an overwhelming influx of illiterate, unskilled people for a sustained period. The vast majority of the people coming here illegally from Mexico create a huge expense for the U.S. citizens, financially and also when viewed from public safety and societal cohesion viewpoints.
So did those Irish Catholics. Most if not all of those "illegal immigrants" from Mexico pay taxes. They all may not pay income tax, though about 8 million do, but they either rent or own property and owners of said property have to pay property tax. Then when they go shopping they are paying sales taxes. By allowing the illegals to legally work in the US they will be paying more taxes, as well as helping to keep Social Security running. Those 8 million have paid more than $50 billion into SS. Imagine if they all paid into SS? Require them to pay into it but without them being able to collect any unless they become citizens, then SS will be kept solvent. As for any illegals collecting SS now, that's a problem with the SSA. They need to check and make sure anyone collecting SS is eligible to collect it.
I've seen some interesting ideas to help curb the drug money
Drug money? Drugs should be legalized period. The government should not be telling people what to do with their own bodies. Instead legalize and tax drugs. This alone would cut down dramatically of crime. With only 5% of the world population the US has 25% of the world's prison population. Half of them in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. With drugs legalized and taxed, not only would there be taxes collected from drugs but all, well must anyway, of those people in prison for drug offenses would also be employed and pay income tax. Then with legal drugs street drugs will cost less which will reduce crimes such as muggings, theft, and murder. "Foreign Policy" magazine had a good article in the September/October 2007 issue on ending drug prohibition and looking for it online I found 13 articles on drugs. The one I have goes into how the Taliban in Afghanistan are benefiting, profiting, from illegal opium. Make it legal and you take away their profits from opium. There's more to it however I'll just end it on the note that the government shouldn't be telling people what they can do with their own bodies, the only thing it should be concerned about is if a person is harming or violating the rights of another.
There's also the aspect of non-citizens drawing on the social support system paid for by taxes on citizens.
As stated above that's a problem with the Social Security Administration, SSA, not immigrants receiving SS. The SSA needs to make sure, from the first filling for benefits, the person is eligible to receive SS. For other costs such as medical care, that's not just a problem with illegals. Something like half of US citizens don't have health insurance either. As many say about capitalism driving wages down, I say let freemarket capitalism drive health care cost down as well. First, the AMA has a pretty good lock on healthcare. Open up healthcare. Child birth is a bit expensive, most happen in hospitals. Next a lot of child births are done by C section. Both of which drive up prices. Allow Midwives to deliver babies at home, this one step will reduce costs. Then, of those who have health insurance most get it through their employer. Employers get a tax brea
I don't use grievances from multiple generations past in my family as justification for racist hatred and neither should you.
I don't use anything as justification for racist hatred, although I admit I am biased I try not to be. I try to judge people by their abilities and motives not by their skin colour. As I've told others my ethnicity is Heinz 57 as in 57 varieties. I have French Canadian blood as well as Welsh and American Indian blood. Multiple generations? As in the past? As late as the 1970s, which is part my personal past, the US government was forcibly sterilizing American Indian Women. This was the policy of the Indian Health Service. And it wasn't just used again the American Indians but also against Latinoes. Today, president Bush wants to open up Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site. However Yucca was promised by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley to the Western Shoshone Nation, as was most of the Nevada Nuclear test Site. If Bush has his way another treaty the US has signed will be broken along with a string of similarly broken treaties.
Innocent until proven guilty applies only to sentencing in a court of law. It does not mean law enforcement and national security are prohibited from discovery. If a cop pulls your car over and asks for your license, the law requires you to provide legal identification.
Being able to drive is a privilege not a right and for being granted the privilege you're required to show your drivers license when you are driving.
You might want to check your facts before stating that Mayans ever inhabited what is called USA.
You may want to check your facts. Fact is is the Mayans weren't one tribe but was more than one tribe and some lived in northern Mexico and southern US. The Tohono O'odham Nation lives on both sides of the border, in northern Mexico and in Arizona, and they have rights to cross the border anytime. Here's the wiki page on how they can cross the border. You might also want to check out the Pre-Columbian trade. Maize, corn, is native to Mexico yet when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock the local Indians were already growing corn as a crop. That was one of the food stuffs Indians shared with the Pilgrims when they were starving, I hope you know that's what Thanksgiving Day is all about. Quite simply there was a flow of people and goods throughout the Americas in the Pre-Columbian days.
I'm curious, what should the government do? If they shouldn't run security at the airports, how about security on the streets? Do you disagree with traffic cops?
Streets and traffic are overlooked by local police or other law enforcement officers. As such they answer to the local populace. It's much easier to work with someone local than it is someone in a distant office.
How about security at nuclear plants
I'd rather not go there, but here goes. ALL nuclear power plants should be shut down. There is no need for any of them. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind power to provide all of the lower 48 states with electricity. Other states with good wind resources are both North and South Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in the upper Midwest. Heading south, western Texas has excellent wind resources. Now head west, California is another state with good resources for wind. When CA had those rolling blackouts several years ago, CA even had a wind farm sitting idle, why? Because no one would string up the power cables needed to deliver the electricity the farm could produce. Also let's look as solar power, CA also has good solar potential, as does AZ, NM, TX again, and FL. Next, look at conservation. If each building in the US were to replace one incandescent light bulb with an energy efficient Compact Florescent Light bulb, one not all lights, the energy saved would be enough to shut down more than one power plant. All of this could be done cheaper than what a nuclear power plant would cost, and there would be no dangerous, nuclear or toxic, waste left over.
how does the government know that the citizen in question is law abiding if they don't even know who the citizen is?
Government doesn't have to know. What, you think passengers would allow people to hijack a plane now? Flight 93 showed people aren't so willing to roll over anymore, as did those on the flight from France who stopped the "shoe bomber". Alert and brave people is what's needed not a massive government the populous looks at as a nanny. And that's exactly what happens with REAL ID ids checked, despite the fact that it's been shown these ids can be forged, false ones issued, or otherwise faked, people will have the attitude they are invulnerable. All the REAL ID does is provide a false sense of safety, and I'd rather not give up any liberty so someone else can "feel safe". You want to be a puppet or feel safer, move and do it somewhere else.
In the Massachusetts, adults may serve alcohol to their own children or underage spouse in a private setting (i.e. Not in a bar). It is probably the same in many, if not all, other states.
From California:
" SUMMARY : Creates a new misdemeanor for any parent or guardian who knowingly permits his or her minor child and others, as specified, to drink alcohol or consume a controlled substance at his or her home."
In Virginia:
"Even if the above negative situations do not occur, you may face legal charges for providing or allowing alcohol to be used by minors in your home (including your own teen). For example, it is against state law to allow (aid or abet) underage persons to possess or consume alcohol. This is a Class 1 misdemeanor and is punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a $2,500 fine. Purchasing, aiding and abetting or giving alcohol to minors is against the law."
Notice the part about "including your own teen". In Minnesota:
"7: Can Parents Or Social Hosts Face Criminal Charges? Yes, any adult who supplies a minor with alcohol could face charges of contributing which carries a maximum fine of $3,000, 1 year in jail, or both." And "Could Parents Be Held Liable If Their Minor Child Consumes Alcohol Obtained From Their Home? The parents could be liable in a civil lawsuit. If the parents knowingly and willingly provide the alcohol to the minor, the outcome of the lawsuit would be very predictable."
Admittedly they are different but in each case a parent can be held liable for giving or allowing their children to drink alcohol.
No Ron Paul doesn't want Roe V Wade overturned to make it law a woman has to carry a fetus 'til birth, the USA Constitution says nothing about it and since it doesn't the 10th amendment leaves it to the states or the people.
If you will recall the issue ended up in the SC because the states already decided to ban it. In 70s. In NY (the liberal state mentioned above).
If I recall right the SC overturned state laws outlawing abortion on a privacy basis. The First Amendment says people have the right to remain anonymous, though not directly. Instead it's based on the right to free speech, if a person can't reasonably expect to remain anonymous then (s)he can't exercise free speech for fear of repercussions. Though I don't recall the year or case in the 1810s a SC made a ruling using this reasoning in the decision. I think John Marshall was the Chief Justice. Since then there have been other SC rulings along the same vein, the last one before Roe V Wade in 1969.
As for me, I believe abortion should be legal. I don't believe government should have in the books or pass any law restricting what people do with their own bodies, whether that's having an abortion, taking drugs, or ending their life, ie committing suicide.
In British Columbia, the government runs the auto insurance. You can't register a vehicle (i.e. get a license plate) without insurance. Driving without insurance is illegal. Thus, almost everybody has insurance. This also makes "underinsured motorist" coverage dirt cheap, around $25/year, which gives you full coverage whether or not "the other guy" has any insurance or not.
Every state in the US I've lived does the same thing, they require auto insurance for a license plate, and the insurance companies have to report if a policy is canceled or lapses. If this happens the license plate is revoked. And our under and uninsured coverage is more expensive than that, at least I've never seen it that low.
after entering the country illegally, driving without insurance is small potatoes.
Most in the US illegally are illegal not because they are criminals but because they can't get green cards to be here legally. If so called illegal immigrants were given a chance to stay here legally they'd jump at it. Most of them don't want to be illegal but they will do what they need to survive. Oh, and if you're not a member of a Native American Indian tribe yet you're in the US then you're illegal too seeing as how no Native American Indian tribes issued documents for immigrants. Instead they were massacred by European settlers who colonized the Americas.
I don't care if they drive without a license, if the license doesn't prove anything. I'd rather they go home so we can export the jobs that are exportable to them in their country rather than taking over the non-exportable jobs here at lower wages.
And what of the businesses immigrants start? Close them and put the legal workers out of a job? You do realize more immigrants start businesses in the US than native US citizens don't you?
Better still, when the illegals show up to claim their latest 'benefit' of being in this country (their shiny new driver's license) grab 'em and ship 'em home. For Pete's sake, why call them illegals if we're not going to treat them as such?
Let's start with you. What Native American Indian tribe are you a member of? Prove it. If not, you're an illegal immigrant so let's ship you back to Europe or wherever your ancestors came from.
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It isn't just private entities that send money to SETI, the US Government has a stake in it as well.
TFA said congress pulled the plug on funding SETI in 1993. Maybe you missed it though, I sometimes do this.
FalconI'd expect you to come back with more stupid comments and not even comprehend the replies I've made. These are for the thinking person who might happen to come across the thread. I'll not respond to your lunacy any more.
I've provided examples whereas you've provided nothing, who've showing lunacy?
FalconBut more to the point, what makes you think aliens wouldn't want what we have. we have asian pron all over the interweb, what intelligent species can resist that?
So, Asians will be the only ones not eaten?
FalconPlants can also be beneficial for each other. For instance aphids are insects that love to feast on roses along with some food crops, however strawberries and a few other plants repel aphids away. Here are some more examples of plant combinations.
FalconYou've obviously have never had gator tail or wild boar, if you have it was prepared badly.
FalconThird (and we're getting lower on the probability scale here, but still) the transmission itself may contain immediately useful information for us. It could be anything. Make widgets like this. Don't go to the 3rd planet of Beta Centauri. Cut it out with the nukes, assholes. Efficient space drive drive works like so. Your Aishwara Rai, can we buy her?
It could be instructions on how the overlords want to be worshiped, or plans on they will invade.
42
No, 42 isn't the answer.
So if you really want to cut funds, I suggest that the place to do it is in funding, oh, I don't know, how about a certain war in the middle east?
But that would deprive mercenaries, private private defend contractors, and big oil of profits.
Maybe quit funding the "drug war" against our own citizens?
That would lead to the shutdown of the prison industrial complex.
FalconIt is entirely ludicrous to think that the low level of wage taxation paid by illegal aliens compensates for the pull they create on the social support structure. They are at the bottom of the wage scale which means they will draw from the system if the opportunity is presented.
Darn, I thought I mentioned how immigrants were more likely to start a business that employees others but going over my post you replied to I see I didn't, so I will now. Almost everything I've read about citizens, immigrants and entrepreneurship, including studies have concluded that immigrants are more likely to start a new business employing citizens. Here's an article from "American Sociological Review" on "Immigrant Self-Employment: The Family as Social Capital and the Value of Human Capital". Unfortunately this only offers an abstract, the article itself cost $14.
I agree with the economic argument that removal of the profit would reduce the attractiveness for the producers of drugs. At the same time, a society has a responsibility to protect it's citizens from harm. Where do we draw the line?
You draw the line where the person begins. While government has the responsibility to protect it's citizens from harm, that does not include protecting them from themself. If a person knowingly and willfully decides to use drugs that is their decision and they should be able to make it. Some people, my sister did, will say "but they harm others". So do alcoholics but alcohol is legal. Hold the person under the influence responsible. Just as with drunks, if someone get pulled over when driving under the influence convict them and sentence to gaol, then make it difficult and expensive to get their license back.
Would you propose we let the country turn into a modern-day opium den a la the British drug war against China?
Opium used to be legal in the US yet it didn't lead to everyone being addicted to opium. Legalize and tax it. Then if an addict wants help escaping the addiction let them enter treatment. Some European countries are working on this, so that when an addict walks up to a police officer the officer will help them get therapy. The tax on drugs should be able to pay for the therapy with many people only being recreational users and not addicts. I grew up in a neighborhood with a lot of recreational users, yet the first person I met who was addicted was an alcoholic I met in college. I met her when I stated tutoring her, she kept a cooler in her car filled with beer, wine coolers, or some such. After only meeting her a few tymes I had to stop tutoring her, I couldn't stand her being drunk when we met. Though I had tutored a number of people in chemistry and algebra she was the worst student I had to work with. As far as I was concerned her parents were wasting their money paying her college expenses. They could of spent money much wiser by putting her in therapy, demand she enter therapy or they would cut her off. Though I knew people who used acid, cocaine, ecstasy , LSD, marijuana, and opium I had never since anyone as bad as she was, before or after.
Think about what you are proposing. You propose to create addicts and use them as a means of funding the government. What adjectives can adequately describe that proposal?!?!
No I propose ending an insane drug war that's been fought for at least 70 years and has created the world's largest prison population, many of whom committed no violent crimes.
You don't really believe the government shouldn't tell people what to do with their bodies. Your posts contradict themselves.
Where's the contradiction? Can you point out wher I made contradictory statements?
All societies tell people what they can and can't do with their own bodies. All societies legislate morality. The government tells you every day in innumerable ways what you can and cannot do with y
Dude, we've all done the energy-saving lightbulbs thing,
No, most people don't use CFLs, I know people who don't have a single CFL in their homes.
It is human nature to want to discover new things and to progress. We will not do it with cutbacks and 19th century technology.
Wow, I didn't know solar PVs are 19th century tech. Here I always thought the first PVs were used by NASA in the 1960s, during the 20th century. And the PVs being manufactured today are more efficient than what NASA used, because of today's technology. Using algae to produce hydrogen is being done with new technology as well as new wind turbines.
FalconYou claim Mayan and then provide a link to Papago, which is what my wife is part of. Mayans may have had trade throughout North America, but their lands were in the Yucatan.
And why would a paper on Guatemalan weaving prove that Papgoes were Mayans?
So maybe I inappropriately used Mayans as an example but the example I posted a link to, the Tohono O'odham Nation, is an American Indian nation that straddles the US Mexican border which validates my argument that there are American Indians who live in both the US and Mexico.
FalconYour California link is not a law, but a bill. Was it passed?
Yes it was a bill but the other two links I provided were for laws. As for whether the bill was passed I don't know.
FalconNo Spying on U.S. citizens unless they were actively engaged with terrorists or foreign powers.
So all of those people ATT and the other telecoms turned over records to the government were terrorists or agents for foreign powers? All of those who the NSA, No Such Agency, tapped the phones of were all guilty? I DON'T think so. If there had even been any suspension and they had had valid info it would have been easy to get a search warrant. The FISA court is there to rubber stamp such requests. FISA can even approve a warrant 24 hours after the fact. Did the Bush admin do any such thing? NO!
What torture? There has only been sensory depravation. Nothing wrong with that at all. Oh, maybe you meant waterboarding.
According to the Geneva Convention, of which the US is a signatory, waterboarding is torture. Geneva also disallows inhumane treatments and if waterboarding to make someone think they're going to be drowned is humane to you I wonder what is inhumane.
Funny thing about Abu Gharab, that's where Saddam had one of his torture centers (you know, real torture where people are actually mained and killed.)
Funny thing, NOT!!!, Saddam was torturing and using chemical weapons, those WMDs, when Reagan and Bush Sr supported Saddam. Before he invaded Kuwait, a Sheikdom not a democracy, Saddam could do no wrong. Use chemical weapons against Kurds, March Arabs, and others in Iraq, check. Use the same weapons against Iran, check. It was only after the invasion of Kuwait when he did something bad. Now why did Saddam invade Kuwait? Because Kuwait was Directional or slant drilling into Iraq's Rumailah Oil Field. Kuwait was basically stealing oil from Iraq.
Habeas Corpus? Isn't that for American citizens and American soil?
Jose Padilla is a US citizen, and he was arrested in Chicago not Afghanistan or Iraq. As for aliens, in Hamdan v Rumsfeld the USSC ruled 5 to 3 that congress couldn't strip prisoners at Guantánamo Bay of habeas corpus.
FalconIt's a little off balance to say everything the Federal Government does is the sole impetus of the President. He's not a dictator, he's the highest governmetn executive.
But he acts like whatever he wants better be done. Spy on US citizens, done. Use torture, done. Round up and deny people's Habeas Corpus, done. Bush acts more like an emperor than previous presidents have. Bush has even issued hundreds of Signing statements when signing bills into law. In 4 years in office he signed 232 statements whereas Clinton only signed 140 in 8 years.
I served a tour in the Air Force in South Dakota. There were periodic protests and such from some of the Lakotas about how their land had been taken.
I served in the Army, spent most of my tyme stationed in Georgia but also went to Wisconsin, Florida, Alaska, Panama, and Germany. I don't know if I was ever on Lakota land while in, maybe in Wisconsin but I don't know. However I currently live on Lakota land, in Minneapolis, MN. Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) was one of the first treaties signed with the Sioux. However the US broke that one and forced the Sioux to sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) which created the Great Sioux reservation. This one was broken as well. Eventually the Sioux were left with a few isolated reservations scattered throughout the Upper Midwest. Where the Great Sioux Reservation once was most of Minnesota, and both of the Dakotas here are now only small pockets here and there.
One of the most important reasons we had so many ICBMs there was it's location as the center of the country which would give more time to respond to an incoming attack and also the land was predominantly shale which would shatter and absorb force.
As stated above, the Sioux lost most of their land way before ICBMs were even dreamed of.
I don't have sufficient knowledge to know if the commonly-repeated statement that every treaty with the Indians was broken.
I don't say every treaty was broken but a lot were. Good references are "Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation versus the United States, 1775 to the Present", "Documents of United States Indian Policy: Third Edition", I've got the second edition, and "Tribes, Treaties, and Constitutional Tribulations". Though I've got others I don't see them on my book shelves.
Snager, the founder of Planned Parenthood was big in the eugenics movement. That really started in the U.S. but the victor in war writes the history so that's been less public because we had to blame the evil Germans
The NAZIs went beyond eugenics. And I'd bet Nietzsche was rolling in his grave when the NAZI used him. It's been a while and because of bad memory I don't recall much of his writing but he wouldn't have approved of the NAZIs.
I have worked with an Italain man whose mother was pregnant with him during WWII. Her husband had been in a German prison camp when she got pregnant. The Nazis went into their village and lined all the people along a wall and started to machine gun them from one end to the other. This man's mother was on the opposite end. She ran around the corner and kept running. She survived.
Yea, in college I met and talked with a concentration camp survivor. Some 40 years later I saw the numbers on her arm.
We have lots of Mung people here.
That was my point. The US was built and is ruled by immigrants who conquered and massacred those already here. They came, now their descendants are complaining about the "Others" coming, even when the new arrivals aren't massacring those already here.
FalconThat's why so many things we tend to take for granted exist, such as safety glass in automobiles.
Safety glass for windshields have been required by federal law since 1966.
No culture or society can survive an overwhelming influx of illiterate, unskilled people for a sustained period. The vast majority of the people coming here illegally from Mexico create a huge expense for the U.S. citizens, financially and also when viewed from public safety and societal cohesion viewpoints.
So did those Irish Catholics. Most if not all of those "illegal immigrants" from Mexico pay taxes. They all may not pay income tax, though about 8 million do, but they either rent or own property and owners of said property have to pay property tax. Then when they go shopping they are paying sales taxes. By allowing the illegals to legally work in the US they will be paying more taxes, as well as helping to keep Social Security running. Those 8 million have paid more than $50 billion into SS. Imagine if they all paid into SS? Require them to pay into it but without them being able to collect any unless they become citizens, then SS will be kept solvent. As for any illegals collecting SS now, that's a problem with the SSA. They need to check and make sure anyone collecting SS is eligible to collect it.
I've seen some interesting ideas to help curb the drug money
Drug money? Drugs should be legalized period. The government should not be telling people what to do with their own bodies. Instead legalize and tax drugs. This alone would cut down dramatically of crime. With only 5% of the world population the US has 25% of the world's prison population. Half of them in prison for nonviolent drug offenses. With drugs legalized and taxed, not only would there be taxes collected from drugs but all, well must anyway, of those people in prison for drug offenses would also be employed and pay income tax. Then with legal drugs street drugs will cost less which will reduce crimes such as muggings, theft, and murder. "Foreign Policy" magazine had a good article in the September/October 2007 issue on ending drug prohibition and looking for it online I found 13 articles on drugs. The one I have goes into how the Taliban in Afghanistan are benefiting, profiting, from illegal opium. Make it legal and you take away their profits from opium. There's more to it however I'll just end it on the note that the government shouldn't be telling people what they can do with their own bodies, the only thing it should be concerned about is if a person is harming or violating the rights of another.
There's also the aspect of non-citizens drawing on the social support system paid for by taxes on citizens.
As stated above that's a problem with the Social Security Administration, SSA, not immigrants receiving SS. The SSA needs to make sure, from the first filling for benefits, the person is eligible to receive SS. For other costs such as medical care, that's not just a problem with illegals. Something like half of US citizens don't have health insurance either. As many say about capitalism driving wages down, I say let freemarket capitalism drive health care cost down as well. First, the AMA has a pretty good lock on healthcare. Open up healthcare. Child birth is a bit expensive, most happen in hospitals. Next a lot of child births are done by C section. Both of which drive up prices. Allow Midwives to deliver babies at home, this one step will reduce costs. Then, of those who have health insurance most get it through their employer. Employers get a tax brea
I don't use grievances from multiple generations past in my family as justification for racist hatred and neither should you.
I don't use anything as justification for racist hatred, although I admit I am biased I try not to be. I try to judge people by their abilities and motives not by their skin colour. As I've told others my ethnicity is Heinz 57 as in 57 varieties. I have French Canadian blood as well as Welsh and American Indian blood. Multiple generations? As in the past? As late as the 1970s, which is part my personal past, the US government was forcibly sterilizing American Indian Women. This was the policy of the Indian Health Service. And it wasn't just used again the American Indians but also against Latinoes. Today, president Bush wants to open up Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site. However Yucca was promised by the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley to the Western Shoshone Nation, as was most of the Nevada Nuclear test Site. If Bush has his way another treaty the US has signed will be broken along with a string of similarly broken treaties.
Innocent until proven guilty applies only to sentencing in a court of law. It does not mean law enforcement and national security are prohibited from discovery. If a cop pulls your car over and asks for your license, the law requires you to provide legal identification.
Being able to drive is a privilege not a right and for being granted the privilege you're required to show your drivers license when you are driving.
FalconYou might want to check your facts before stating that Mayans ever inhabited what is called USA.
You may want to check your facts. Fact is is the Mayans weren't one tribe but was more than one tribe and some lived in northern Mexico and southern US. The Tohono O'odham Nation lives on both sides of the border, in northern Mexico and in Arizona, and they have rights to cross the border anytime. Here's the wiki page on how they can cross the border. You might also want to check out the Pre-Columbian trade. Maize, corn, is native to Mexico yet when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock the local Indians were already growing corn as a crop. That was one of the food stuffs Indians shared with the Pilgrims when they were starving, I hope you know that's what Thanksgiving Day is all about. Quite simply there was a flow of people and goods throughout the Americas in the Pre-Columbian days.
FalconWe own this country now and we decide who's allowed in.
That's right the conquerors makes the rules. Might equals right. NOT!!!
FalconI'm curious, what should the government do? If they shouldn't run security at the airports, how about security on the streets? Do you disagree with traffic cops?
Streets and traffic are overlooked by local police or other law enforcement officers. As such they answer to the local populace. It's much easier to work with someone local than it is someone in a distant office.
How about security at nuclear plants
I'd rather not go there, but here goes. ALL nuclear power plants should be shut down. There is no need for any of them. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough wind power to provide all of the lower 48 states with electricity. Other states with good wind resources are both North and South Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in the upper Midwest. Heading south, western Texas has excellent wind resources. Now head west, California is another state with good resources for wind. When CA had those rolling blackouts several years ago, CA even had a wind farm sitting idle, why? Because no one would string up the power cables needed to deliver the electricity the farm could produce. Also let's look as solar power, CA also has good solar potential, as does AZ, NM, TX again, and FL. Next, look at conservation. If each building in the US were to replace one incandescent light bulb with an energy efficient Compact Florescent Light bulb, one not all lights, the energy saved would be enough to shut down more than one power plant. All of this could be done cheaper than what a nuclear power plant would cost, and there would be no dangerous, nuclear or toxic, waste left over.
how does the government know that the citizen in question is law abiding if they don't even know who the citizen is?
Government doesn't have to know. What, you think passengers would allow people to hijack a plane now? Flight 93 showed people aren't so willing to roll over anymore, as did those on the flight from France who stopped the "shoe bomber". Alert and brave people is what's needed not a massive government the populous looks at as a nanny. And that's exactly what happens with REAL ID ids checked, despite the fact that it's been shown these ids can be forged, false ones issued, or otherwise faked, people will have the attitude they are invulnerable. All the REAL ID does is provide a false sense of safety, and I'd rather not give up any liberty so someone else can "feel safe". You want to be a puppet or feel safer, move and do it somewhere else.
FalconIn the Massachusetts, adults may serve alcohol to their own children or underage spouse in a private setting (i.e. Not in a bar). It is probably the same in many, if not all, other states.
From California:
" SUMMARY : Creates a new misdemeanor for any parent or guardian who knowingly permits his or her minor child and others, as specified, to drink alcohol or consume a controlled substance at his or her home."
In Virginia:
"Even if the above negative situations do not occur, you may face legal charges for providing or allowing alcohol to be used by minors in your home (including your own teen). For example, it is against state law to allow (aid or abet) underage persons to possess or consume alcohol. This is a Class 1 misdemeanor and is punishable by up to one year in jail and/or a $2,500 fine. Purchasing, aiding and abetting or giving alcohol to minors is against the law."
Notice the part about "including your own teen". In Minnesota:
"7: Can Parents Or Social Hosts Face Criminal Charges? Yes, any adult who supplies a minor with alcohol could face charges of contributing which carries a maximum fine of $3,000, 1 year in jail, or both." And "Could Parents Be Held Liable If Their Minor Child Consumes Alcohol Obtained From Their Home? The parents could be liable in a civil lawsuit. If the parents knowingly and willingly provide the alcohol to the minor, the outcome of the lawsuit would be very predictable."
Admittedly they are different but in each case a parent can be held liable for giving or allowing their children to drink alcohol.
FalconNo Ron Paul doesn't want Roe V Wade overturned to make it law a woman has to carry a fetus 'til birth, the USA Constitution says nothing about it and since it doesn't the 10th amendment leaves it to the states or the people.
If you will recall the issue ended up in the SC because the states already decided to ban it. In 70s. In NY (the liberal state mentioned above).
If I recall right the SC overturned state laws outlawing abortion on a privacy basis. The First Amendment says people have the right to remain anonymous, though not directly. Instead it's based on the right to free speech, if a person can't reasonably expect to remain anonymous then (s)he can't exercise free speech for fear of repercussions. Though I don't recall the year or case in the 1810s a SC made a ruling using this reasoning in the decision. I think John Marshall was the Chief Justice. Since then there have been other SC rulings along the same vein, the last one before Roe V Wade in 1969.
Looking for the case John Marshall heard, I stumbled across this article: "Ron Paul: Take abortion out of federal courts". Here's another about the SC taking up a case on anonymity, in 2001: Supreme Court Roundup; Justices Revisit Anonymity In Door-to-Door Canvassing. Unfortunately after spending more than an hour I haven't refound any of the cases as related to anonymity and abortion yet. I guess I should buy some external hdds to use as backups.
As for me, I believe abortion should be legal. I don't believe government should have in the books or pass any law restricting what people do with their own bodies, whether that's having an abortion, taking drugs, or ending their life, ie committing suicide.
FalconIn British Columbia, the government runs the auto insurance. You can't register a vehicle (i.e. get a license plate) without insurance. Driving without insurance is illegal. Thus, almost everybody has insurance. This also makes "underinsured motorist" coverage dirt cheap, around $25/year, which gives you full coverage whether or not "the other guy" has any insurance or not.
Every state in the US I've lived does the same thing, they require auto insurance for a license plate, and the insurance companies have to report if a policy is canceled or lapses. If this happens the license plate is revoked. And our under and uninsured coverage is more expensive than that, at least I've never seen it that low.
FalconAre you ignoring the 10 million or so mexicans that never had a visa of any kind?
You mean the Mayans whose ancestors were here before Europeans came and started massacring those already here?
Falconafter entering the country illegally, driving without insurance is small potatoes.
Most in the US illegally are illegal not because they are criminals but because they can't get green cards to be here legally. If so called illegal immigrants were given a chance to stay here legally they'd jump at it. Most of them don't want to be illegal but they will do what they need to survive. Oh, and if you're not a member of a Native American Indian tribe yet you're in the US then you're illegal too seeing as how no Native American Indian tribes issued documents for immigrants. Instead they were massacred by European settlers who colonized the Americas.
FalconI don't care if they drive without a license, if the license doesn't prove anything. I'd rather they go home so we can export the jobs that are exportable to them in their country rather than taking over the non-exportable jobs here at lower wages.
And what of the businesses immigrants start? Close them and put the legal workers out of a job? You do realize more immigrants start businesses in the US than native US citizens don't you?
FalconBetter still, when the illegals show up to claim their latest 'benefit' of being in this country (their shiny new driver's license) grab 'em and ship 'em home. For Pete's sake, why call them illegals if we're not going to treat them as such?
Let's start with you. What Native American Indian tribe are you a member of? Prove it. If not, you're an illegal immigrant so let's ship you back to Europe or wherever your ancestors came from.
Falcon