Limited warfare is mostly the norm today: you surrender, the aggressor stops fighting you to the death.
Total war doesn't mean that you fight to the death. It means that a society uses all available resources to try and win. When you can no longer win, surrender is a valid option. Generally, total war also means that civilians will be attacked, since the entire workforce is considered to be part of the war machine. This is not genocide, since the aim is to disrupt the enemy war machine and to terrorize the enemy into surrendering, not extermination. World war 2 is a good example. During the war, almost no civilian cars were produced in America since most industries were producing for the war. Also, the civilian population of various countries was attacked by rocket attacks, nukes, fire and carpet bombing. However, neither side committed genocide for war reasons (the Holocaust was ideologically driven, unrelated to the war, really). The war ended after the enemy surrendered. At that point there were acts of revenge (mostly by the Russians against the Germans), but no genocide.
In olden times, it was called retirement. Either your work now pays well enough now to save for it, or your employer sets up a pension. Employers decided they don't like spending money for pensions, so it is all up to us to carefully chose the investments that won't lose our life savings.
So why shouldn't musicians save for their retirement? Like you said, plenty of people have to do so.
Music may become something people only do because they love it and keep a day job to pay the bills.
Meanwhile in real life, there are many aspiring artists who cannot earn a living making music. This will always be the case, since many people enjoy making music, while the music-buying public can/will support only so many artists. If a musician cannot afford to save for his retirement, he should find a job that can support him.
Anyway, perhaps you should explain why professional tennis players still exist, since they do not get any royalties for their past performances. Clearly, Andy Roddick will die in debt.
You ignore 30 years of history with Iraq from about 1970 to shortly before the invasion. There's evidence, for example, that if Iraq had held off for a couple of years on invading Kuwait that they would have had nuclear weapons in 1993. They also have a history of using chemical weapons both on Iranian troops and on their own people. My take is that sure in 2003, Iraq didn't have a nuclear weapons program. But it is foolish to assume that they wouldn't restart it as soon as international pressure and observation went away.
I wasn't that familiar with that part of Iraqi's history, so I did some research. You are indeed correct that Saddam had a decent nuke program in 1992. The program would have taken at least 3 more years, so there would not be a weapon until 1995. A nuke in 1993 would only be possible if they seized the uranium that was under UN safeguards, which would have been a major incident that Saddam clearly didn't want (or he would have seized the uranium).
We are discussing the 2003 situation however. At that point all Iraqi uranium was safeguarded. Why would the UN ever stop safeguarding that uranium? The IAEA was created to monitor nations like Iraq.
They had the knowledge, they probably had a good portion of the equipment too, hidden away in Sudan or Syria, along with the other military assets (primarily their air force) they routinely shipped out before any war.
Do you have any evidence to prove that the air force and other military assets were shipped to Sudan or Syria? AFAIK that never happened, but was simply implied/assumed/made up by various untrustworthy people.
This just underlines my point. Iraq had invaded two neighbors in the past 30 years. They had a long history of developing WMDs including nuclear weapons. They had used chemical weapons and killed thousands. Nobody else in your list has invaded anyone in the past 50 years or used WMDs to kill.
The war with Iran was supported by the US, who also supplied WMD's to Iraq for use in that war. Saddam only began the war with Kuwait because he thought that the US wouldn't mind. He offered to withdraw later, on the condition that he was allowed sufficient time to keep his defensive front intact. This was disallowed by the US. So it seems clear to me that Saddam was receptive to western concerns and there is no reason to assume that Iraq could not be kept in check.
Also, you ignore the huge difference between the Iraq of 1980 vs 1991 vs 2003. In 1991, Iraq was virtually bankrupt. In 2003, Iraq couldn't start any major war or risk one by attacking a smaller neighbour. They had no useable WMD's. So what was the justification for attacking Iraq if it wasn't a threat.
And what punishment has the US faced for violating this "international law"? It's not a law, if there are no consequences for breaking it. This is the fundamental problem with current international law.
The US has been punished for WTO violations, where the WTO has authorized retaliatory tariffs. Various countries have been punished by UN security council resolutions, by instituting sanctions or authorizing war. Obviously, countries with a veto (such as the US) can never be punished there. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is very young and their first trial has only begun this year (of course, they punish individuals, not states). It is possible for US nationals (such as politicians) to be tried by that court under certain conditions. The penalty is jail time. The US has passed the American Service-Members' Protection Act authorizing the president to start a war against The Netherlands to free US personnel from ICC custody. It also instructs the government not to cooperate with the court (although the president can choose to do so). Of course, there have also been special courts, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which ha
The fundamental problem with Iraq has always been the program under Saddam Hussein to develop nuclear weapons.
What program? Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and India have got serious nuclear programs. Saddam never had. The only 'evidence' to the contrary were some crudely forged documents from Niger indicating that Iraq was buying yellowcake. Note that getting yellowcake is just the first step in getting nuclear weapons. At worst, Iraq was a decade from creating a functioning nuke (and they were making no real progress at the time). There was no credible evidence at all, let alone a smoking gun.
Unlike the other nutcase countries, like Iran and North Korea, that want nuclear weapons and have the capability to get them, Iraq has a history of invasion and has demonstrated that it is willing to develop and use weapons of mass destruction.
Wow, are you serious? North Korea famously attacked South Korea in 1950. They have a huge army and the only reason why they haven't tried again is because the US has made it clear that they will defend South Korea with nukes. Iran hasn't invaded any countries recently, instead they arm and support various paramilitary groups, such as Hezbollah. Pakistan and India have been at the brink of war several times. Pakistan has sold nuclear weapons technology to several nations. How are any of these nations less of a threat to our safety than a neutered Iraq?
At the time of the invasion in 2003, the sanctions against Iraq were close to dying (only through the consistent efforts of the US were they still in effect). My take is that within 20 years of the fall of sanctions, Saddam Hussein or his successor would not only have developed nuclear weapons, but would have used them in an invasion. In other words, sure Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat in 2003, but what about 2015 or 2020? How do you keep him from being a threat then?
How would anyone know? There is no way you can predict what will happen in 20 years with any accuracy. It's complete insanity to start a war to prevent something that might happen 20 years in the future. What about waiting and making the choice in 20 years. What is the hurry?
As it happens, the Bush administration found a way. This is the fundamental problem with nuclear proliferation and militarily aggressive nations. For a number of countries, there's a huge benefit to having nuclear weapons. And a fraction of those countries are also very aggressive. Iraq was the worst of the lot. The world simply is not prepared or willing to counter these countries. Even if we accept the commonly held premise that the US is itself a rogue, out of control country, who's willing to counter US military aggressiveness? Some insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US operates in a power vacuum. It does what it does because no one else is willing to take up that role.
The US doesn't operate in a vacuum, there are treaties and organizations that determine how civilized countries should act and those constitute a form of international law. Instead of trying to adhere to and strenghten international law, the US practices exceptionalism. In other words: 'We and our friends can do what we want. If we don't like what you are doing, change or you will be invaded'. The US wants a sort of police state at the global level, with the US as judge, jury and executioner. Understandably, many countries don't want to bow to the US and figured out that a good defense is to have nukes. The invasion of Iraq drove this point home extremely strongly. The US invaded a mostly harmless country just because they could, while leaving more dangerous countries like North Korea and Pakistan alone. Iran learned the question quickly and immediately ramped up their nuke program, while the US had their hands full.
Note that your country has treatened to invade mine if we ever dared to try an American for violating international la
So why spend trillions of dollars and cripple the world's economy when the problem can't be reversed anyway.
- Global climate change is not just a yes/no proposition. The magnitude (and effects) depends on our actions. - We are using an unsustainable amount of resources, so the current world economy cannot be sustained anyway. Why not adapt now, when we still have options, instead of trying to adapt later when we are already f**ked. - 'Crippling the world economy' is a pretty meaningless statement. Ultimately, what matters is how we can live happily. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to do that while using far fewer natural resources.
PS. The latest estimates project major global climate change way before those 100 years of yours. Why not reduce our energy use, so we actually get 100 years to adapt?
...you don't need to bathe, or cut your fingernails, or brush your teeth, or see the doctor, or take prescription medication....
If flossing your teeth was important, you'd have been born with twine between your fingers!
Evolution shaped our brains, which get unhappy if our peers get upset over our smells. That is why we bathe so often. There is no major medical reason why should bathe though. During the renaissance, bathing was considered to be dangerous and many people didn't bathe at all (because they were afraid of getting diseases from the water).
Cutting our fingernails is not really needed if you are doing hard physical labor, since your nails will erode automatically. Similarly, brushing our teeth was far less needed in more primitive times, before we added sugar to most of our food. Flossing is probably only performed by a few percent of the humans alive today, so I think we can do without.
On evolution alone, our life expectancy is about 35.
While that is true, most of that is due to people dying at a young age. Once he makes it to 15, the life expectancy of a hunter gatherer is about 55.
And a lot of things we evolved over a couple million years are no longer useful after the past couple thousand years of rapid changes.
The major evolutionary differences that set us apart from other beings is: - Our level of intelligence - Our ability to manipulate tools very well
These are the underpinnings of our advanced society and allowed us to shape our world, instead of reacting to the world around us. Aside from these traits that set us apart from other animals, we heavily depend on generic traits like our immune system, our digestive tracts, our ability to regulate body temperature in various ways, our social skills, etc, etc. Without these, there would be no human alive today. So what are the 'lots of things' that are 'are no longer useful'?
That is actually a very interesting example, because there is a lot of discussion on the usefulness of the appendix. One popular theory is that the appendix stores and protects colon bacteria. When humans have a colon infection, the body cleans the colon by giving you diarrhea. Supposedly, good bacteria will come out of the appendix and recolonize the colon. While this might not be that important to people in first world countries, there are 1.4 billion cases of diarrhea in third world countries just among children, with 'only' 2 million deaths. That is a pretty good recovery rate.
For a long time, medical science was very crude and determined the use of an organ by seeing what happened when you removed it. This works for straightforward organs like the liver or heart, but is ill-suited to organs that are part of the immune system, like tonsils, the thymus or the appendix. Personally I distrust anyone that declares an organ or other body part obsolete, because doctors have had many "o, that's what it's for" moments over the centuries.
(Which happens to relatively often kill people sans modern medicine.)
Actually, appendicitis happens far less often in third world countries than in first world countries, probably because they have a high-fiber diet. There is also some research linking it to air pollution. Thankfully we have modern medicine to (more than) compensate for our bad habits.
In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed simulated attacks on US military or civilian targets as a pretext for all-out war on Cuba. So I'm not sure that you want to give control to the military either.
Things are only impossible until they are not. There's no underlying law of physics that says you can't intercept an incoming ICBM warhead. To be sure, it's quite the technical challenge, but I have yet to be convinced of it's impossibility.
The real problem is that you can never be sure that your 'shield' works. As soon as you've got a working defensive missile, your opponent will come up with countermeasures (other trajectory, dummy warheads, dummy missiles, blinding detectors, flares/chaff, etc). The shield will probably be ineffective for a while every time the other side comes up with better countermeasures. This is the only time that they will contemplate attacking you (unless their hand is forced), so you will probably be attacked while your shield is non-working.
In other words, the shield can never guarantee your safety.
What's the point of further nuclear proliferation if you can't deliver your warheads onto their target?
It's unlikely that a shield is 100% effective, so some warheads will still make it through. So one countermeasure is to deploy more missiles so you can still expect a sufficient number of warheads to make it through.
The only one I'm aware of is the ABM treaty which contained a withdrawal provision (that we later exercised)
The Russians have threatened withdrawal from other treaties and to spend a lot more on their military technology. This more advanced technology will probably be sold to many countries, including Iran and other enemies of the US. Is that what you want?
The problem with your theory is that there is a huge worldwide 'lower class' and there is no magic way to move them all into the middle class (foreign aid nor liberalization have done the trick in many countries). When 10's to 1000's of millions of people are starving, you'll be still be sitting there smugly telling people that there is no food crisis. It won't help those people who are underfed, nor will it reduce the number of riots and refugees.
Your argument is pretty much the same as the claim that we'll never run out of oil. It just will become so expensive that we won't be able to afford it and have to find alternatives. Of course that is true and arguably the term 'oil running out' is false. However, oil will effectively 'run out' for large scale use in transport and heating, since most of the world will no longer be able to afford it. So we must imagine a world without oil and try to find alternatives. Similarly, we must imagine a world with 10 billion people and declining food production, because that is the direction that we are going. We have spend 50 years trying to improve the income of poor people and have only had partial success, mostly due to decisions by the countries themselves and big scale 'subsidies' (the economic well-being of many countries is completely dependent on oil/gas sales). Meanwhile, we've only gotten further away from a sustainable situation.
We have plenty of farm land that is not being used.
That strongly depends on the definition of farm land. Arguably you can grow food in the desert on bare rock, if you use closed trailers with imported soil, nutrients and water. However, if we are limited to realistic scenarios for feeding people, we can expect very little food production from most land that is currently not used for farming. Most of it is poorly suited to farming and can give only low yields. The rest is mostly under houses, roads, etc. The only real exception is Africa, where there is some good land that is unused (Zimbabwe is a prime example), but we are not going to get that much extra food out of it (compared to the growth of the world population).
On the other hand, there are huge treats to the current farm land. In the US, 1/5th of the wheat, corn, cotton, and cattle production depends on irrigation from the Ogallala Aquifer, which is running out. Rainforests are used for 'burn, grow and discard' farming, which is unsustainable in the long term (when we run out of rainforest to burn down). We are overfishing. Global warming means that currently arable land will become unusable. Phosphate is running out, so the single most important invention that allows us to feed 6 billion people in the first place, artificial fertilizer, is going to become scarce.
So where is this magic increase in food production going to come from? Even more overfishing? Using more phosphate so we'll run out faster? Those are the solutions a free market will come up with, while increasing the problems in the long run. However, we can also choose to push the market in the direction we want, so we can reach a sustainable situation sooner (and with fewer nasty side effects, like mass starvation, rioting, war, mass migration, etc).
So according to you there won't be a global lack of food until everyone in the world earns about the same and then people are starving? Do you realize how impossible that 'utopia' is to achieve? In reality, climbing out of poverty is quite difficult and a very slow process, which has been demonstrated in many countries in Asia and Africa. There will always be stragglers who will be hit first in a food crisis and cannot afford to make it the problem of someone else. Many of the poor will refuse to die quietly and will migrate to richer countries, who will then have a problem. We already have countries sending boats of refugees/migrants back to sea, hoping that they drown. In a serious food crisis we will have the same choice, help people and lose a lot of our wealth or be complicit in their deaths.
In your utopia we would be even more fucked, because the starving poor would be inside our borders (since there are no poorer countries to offload the problem to), so we cannot just keep them out. I don't think you'll like the mass rioting that will almost certainly happen.
In case you think that we can just use our better education to produce more food, you have to realize that our current food supply is heavily dependent on fertilizer produced from phosphate, which is rapidly running out. If anything, it is extremely likely that our food production will go down (especially if you consider other problems, such as overfishing and aquafiers that run dry).
PS. Do you realize that Saudi Arabia is one of the richest countries in the world with a fairly small population? We cannot supply 6 billion people with fresh water, just because 30 million people can afford desalination.
It's certainly true that a diplomatic approach is probably better for the kid and it's certainly better if everyone would a bit more reasonable. However, in both the US and EU, kids have been increasingly criminalized in the last few decades. Punishments are more severe, cops are called more often and children are brought before a judge in situations that would have resulted in a stern talking to in the past. I strongly support having kids stand up for their rights and turning the tables on the aggressors/bullies, especially when teachers are stealing from children or otherwise going way out of line.
I cannot process complex information and take (extensive) notes at the same time. Probably because I'm a visual person, so I have to look at the teacher and his notes on the blackboard. If I was writing a 'novel' in college, I had given up on understanding the material that was presented. It's a major fail for the teacher.
Good teachers distribute all the material that is covered to the students (that means a separate binder if the book doesn't cover everything).
It's true you won't be left for dead if you cannot pay, but for those that aren't in risk of death the waiting lists become longer and longer as everyone wants to enjoy his share of healthcare and the system collapses. For many illnesses people cannot afford private practice (because it's scarce enough and has good paying customers) but cannot wait forever either. I see that drama every day. And what does the state do? Easy: throw it on our backs.
You perfectly described the US system. The only difference is that the waiting lists do not exist to such an extent. But what is a waiting list really? It consists of people who want health care, but do not get it when they want it. In the US, this 'waiting list' consists of people without health care or who have health care, but do not get coverage. Of course, those people still want health care, but they don't get it. Does it really matter whether you don't get health care for one reason or another?
Ultimately, health care costs money. Pay more, get more. Pay less, get less. If you are unwilling to pay an infinite amount of money, you have to ration health care. You can create waiting lists, reduce the coverage for expensive treatments or create a market system where the rich get health care. The latter is the least efficient option, because it results in undertreatment of the poor and overtreatment of the rich (because capitalist health care goes for the money and tries to get the rich to consume the maximum amount of health care they are willing to pay for, not the amount they need). The latter option is the one chosen by the US, with the resulting low average quality of health care at enormous cost.
the now leftist government is pushing a really aggressive agenda on euthanasia-no-questions-asked that most people fear will not be aimed at the wishes of the patients but the budget of the system
Sure. Of course they want to do that. In other news, welfare is aimed at keeping people away of jobs and taxes are intended to starve people to death. Do you have more right-wing straw men to contribute?
The draconian tobacco laws in Europe (I don't smoke, BTW) were put in place only to spare on social healthcare costs
No, they weren't. In my country, smoking in the workplace was banned after someone with asthma sued her company, because she couldn't keep working there. So the reason was to protect the workers. Bars and restaurants had an exception for a long time, but now they have to obey the same rules (to protect waiting staff). It is still possible to have separate smoking rooms as long as no staff goes in there.
Some things that come to mind include broken toes, sprained ankles, and a high fever caused, I believe, by the flu.
The flu can't give you a broken toe or a sprained ankle. Perhaps you were delirious from fever and hurt yourself. It is a interesting example though, because there is no good medicine for the flu. Only a moderately effective vaccine. So keeping young, non-chronically ill people from getting flu treatment isn't too bad. However, there are also plenty of diseases that become much harder and more expensive to treat if you go to the doctor late, instead of right away. So it's not a given that healthcare avoiding behavior actually reduces costs (also because ER aid is expensive).
One point that comes to mind is that tendency of (some?) people in Japan to go to the doctor on a very regular basis even though there isn't anything wrong with them. I don't believe it's hypochondria, but more of a situation where people are taking advantage of the resources available to them.
In Holland, regular breast exams (to check for cancer) are covered for women over a certain age. The same applies to flu vaccins for older people and other risk groups. However, the coverage of preventive healthcare is managed by a commission. Useless 'care' such as full-body checkups are not covered because they tend to kill as many people as they save, because the tests have a non-zero false-positive rate. So many people would get dangerous treatments for no reason. However, there are still people who pay for those themselves.
Anyway, it is nice to just make an appointment and go to the doctor when you have an issue, instead of having to figure out whether you can pay for it.
I don't know if you are a United States resident or not, but most people outside of the U.S. don't really understand how independent the states are. The vast majority of Law resides at the state level, as do all elections, even for president electors. You may disagree with that, but it's not archaic in any sense, no more than the separation of the legislative/judicial/executive branches is.
That is not a good defense of the current system. National elections are by definition about making laws for the entire country and there is no reason why strong state governments cannot co-exist with direct elections of national politicians (especially with a constitution that limits the power of the national government). The current system is extremely flawed. For example:
The only clear connection between a senator and his state is that he tries to get as much pork as possible diverted to his state. When it comes to actual legislation, nearly all senators vote with the party. Nationally elected senators have far less incentive to focus on pork and more incentive to actually produce good legislation.
Assume that there are three candidates running for president. Candidate Joe is loved by 51% of the people in rural states. Candidate Elite is loved by 51% of the people in urban states. Candidate Moderate is loved by 49% in all states. In a direct election, Moderate will win with 49% support. In the current system where nearly all states have a winner-takes-all system, one of the two extremist candidates will win with 25% support.
Let's assume that 10% of Americans support an alternative party (for instance, the Libertarian party). In a direct election, that party will get a some senators and can influence legislation. They can can gain experience and slowly grow into a major party. In the current system, those Americans either vote for parties that do not match many of their core beliefs or they stay at home (few Americans vote in elections, compared with other countries).
Right to bear arms. That's not archaic; it's based on principle, and that (by definition) doesn't change. The right of self-defense is as fundamental as the right of free speech or the right to be secure in your possessions.
The right to bear arms is completely different from the right for self-defense. Bearing arms is only one way to protect yourself. You can also protect yourself by placing mines around your house, but we don't recognize that as a right. The founding fathers decided that arms were the best way for people to protect their home, but many disagree. It is perfectly acceptable to disagree on this issue. That doesn't mean that those dissenters do not believe in the right of self-defense. It means that they don't think that allowing people to own guns is the best way for people to maintain their rights.
You have to keep in mind that a lot of things changed since the constitution was written. Alternative, less-lethal weapons such as pepper-spray are now available. Guns can now be had in fully automatic or in very small size, in contrast to the big, single shot rifles and pistols from the past. There is no way Americans can fight the US army in open combat today and IEDs seem to be a lot more effective than rifles in guerilla warfare. Ignoring these changes, instead of debating their impact and whether they require changes to the constitution is wrong. The founding fathers were the first to admit that their constitution cannot be suitable for all time:
"Whatever be the Constitution, great care must be taken to provide a mode of amendment when experience or change of circumstances shall have manifested that any part of it is unadapted to the good of the nation." --Thomas Jefferson
You sure about that? As I understand it, many states have their own welfare systems, so any laws signed by Bill Clinton wouldn't affect them.
The bill (PRWORA) grants money to states to implement their own welfare systems, as long as they meet federal requirements. I've told you some of those requirements.
Additionally, there are many, many people on "disability", getting paid to do nothing. These aren't people with genuine disabilities, but people taking advantage of the system, claiming they have some "mental problem" or somesuch so they don't have to work.
Those people are examined by doctors to determine their disabilities. Are you accusing those doctors of fraud? That is a very serious allegation, which you really should prove with a link.
Anyway, if someone is working, then why would they still receive welfare? Because they don't make enough?
Yes. Because we don't want them or their children to starve. Because we want them to send their children to school, instead of having them work. It is a right-wing fantasy that everyone can find work that pays a living wage. In reality, only communism was able to provide 'full employment'. Assuming you prefer capitalism, there are two choices: - Provide welfare - Let 'bad' workers starve
Then maybe they should cut their expenses, stop buying new TVs, etc
I doubt that many poor people buy a new $1000 big-screen TV every year. The substantial expenses are housing, food, a car and other necessities. I'm not claiming that all poor people are great at financial planning, but that wouldn't set them apart from the average American. It makes sense to think that they are worse than average, because smart people can often work themselves up to a decent-paying job. That doesn't mean that they deserve to starve IMHO. You also have to keep in mind that being poor is expensive and it is very easy to get in a deep hole:
If their job can't pay for them to live in their current area, then maybe they should move to someplace cheaper. Perhaps onto a farm, where they could pick crops.
The jobs can't be found there either. Farmers don't want 50 year old women to pick their crops, they want 25 year old Mexicans, who can work twice as hard.
Most people who receive welfare are actually working. You have to work after being unemployed for two years (signed into law by Bill Clinton). So you are arguing against a system of welfare that no longer exists.
I'm not much of a protester, but it's hard to deny that politicians and companies sometimes do respond to protests and change their ways. Large protests also get reported on in the media, where the main point generally gets across (X people care about Y enough to protest). It's a pretty clear message that there is a large voter/consumer block that's not happy.
Protesting is often one of the few ways for outsiders to get their message out. It's wrong to argue that good PR is better. News media are at best heavily hype oriented, at worst, they censor and deny access. For example, the media continuously portray(ed) the Americans who want to impeach Bush as fringe idiots, until there were some big protests. Then polls were done to show that more than half of the US population wants impeachment. It took the protests to break through the preconceived notions in the media. In countries like Zimbabwe, Burma or China, an opposition standpoint will never be published in a national newspaper and protests that get international attention can be hugely important. As an example, Serbia got rid of Milosevic after mass protests.
participation in such events is just a way to prove to your fellow believers that you're really one of them. Your arguments basically boils down to: I have never been convinced of anything by a protest, so protesters must do it for social reasons. This argument is flawed because:
- Your experience does not mean that other people aren't convinced or at least energized to find out more. - The goal may not be to directly convince people, but to put pressure on politicians or CEO's (they do not need to be convinced); or the goal may be access to the media. - Being ineffective at attaining a goal doesn't mean that it wasn't there. You can't know what people think without actually finding out. Arguing that people can't possibly believe something because it is stupid to think so is silly. Many people have incredibly stupid beliefs.
Peer pressure. It works.... And the non-thugs secretly like that too, because the result is an image that then contributes to their narrative about Teh Evil Corporatist Fascocracy, etc. Your problem is that you see all liberals as one united family who care about each others opinion and respect one another. In practice, the groups who use violence hate the non-violent protestors and vice versa. The peers of the violent protestors are other violent protestors.
Quit calling the cops that are there to deal with idiots like that "fascists" and worse. Walk over to the police on the scene and explain who you just saw walk up to the back of the crowd with a duffle bag full of pvc pipe, chains, and gas masks. Sometimes that works. Sometimes the police will ignore you because they've been ordered to stop the protest and are waiting for an excuse. There have been several cases where violent protestors were taped or photographed and later identified as police infiltrators.
When these people spend the three weeks following their disruption of such an event having a big ol' YouTube orgy and blogfest showing how cool they were, trashing something, take the time you'd spend on every other post here on slashdot hitting, instead, their own blogs. Explain to them that they're a bunch of spoiled kids who have no idea how lucky they are, and that they're not impressing anybody.... Liberals like to aim all of their creative writing skills and ability to generate media coverage at conservatives and others they don't like, but they seem mysteriously uninterested in quieting these useful idiots. Maybe it's not actually mysterious after all. As a conservative, do you go to anti-abortion sites to explain that violence against abortion doctors is stupid? Or do you secretly like the violence/murders because it discourages abortion doctors from practicing?
Many protests do actually have their own police force to eject violence protesters. This is especially important since a favorite police tactic is to have a mole start trouble to give the police an excuse to break up the protest. However, there is little the protestors can do to prevent thugs from being violent a few blocks away from the protest.
However, in general I don't believe in vigilantism. The police is trained to deal with these kind of situations. What you are asking is for demonstrators to prove that they are non-violent by using violence against others, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Why I'd be annoyed by this is that I think I should get my own code for free, not a discount!
Obviously you are paying for the improvements they made. If those were not worth the costs of the software, you'd be using your own free software. Let's say that x is the price of your code, y the price of their code and $ the money you were willing to spend for the entire package. Obviously x + y = $. Since x = 0, this becomes 0 + y = $. More succinctly y = $. You are only paying for their improvements. QED.
Ideally, I'd like it to be a fair exchange.
So what you really care about is direct compensation. Fair enough. But please don't pretend that there is no compensation already. Giving away code that can be used freely by proprietary developers may have any of the following effects:
Voluntary retributions out of conviction or guilt induced by using free software.
Better quality (assuming the reused code is better than a new implementation).
More commercial products. Since production costs are lower, more products can make a profit. This can result in more employment and also in more happy users (assuming that different variants optimize for different user groups).
Lower price for the commercial software (if cost to produce is a factor in the price).
A good example is the various commercial versions of Apache. This doesn't hurt anyone that is content with the free version (most of us), but the commercial buyers do finance some additional development on the free version that everyone profits from. So you have 1, 2 and 3 and possibly also 4.
Mainly because it would irk me to no end if I bought a piece of software from someone else, and it turned out to have my code in it!
I really don't understand this argument. If someone uses free code in proprietary software, that software costs less to build and is better tested. So if anything, you pay less for better software. Personally I would be more frustrated if the software I bought was buggy and overly expensive because they were reinventing the wheel.
From a ordoliberal view it is not a constitutional objective to tell the consumer what he or she has to consume.
Sure, but why would a disagreement with ordoliberalism mean that the constitution is a piece of crap? Ordoliberalism does not address market limitations beyond the instability of free markets. Real problems that are not addressed are the tragedy of the commons, limited information availability and the limited decision making of most consumers (often not going much beyond price and quality, ignoring many production variables, such as child workers and pollution).
I have no problem at all with a (democratic) government who 'tells' the consumer what he has to consume by heavily taxing such goods as cigarettes, alcohol & gasoline and who outlaws certain practices (like child workers). At the moment I know of no country that does not do such things so you are comparing the constitution to a utopian doctrine. Calling something a piece of crap because it fails to compare to a utopia is not exactly reasonable criticism.
So basically what you are getting at is whether rape was specifically called for as an instrument of degradation and demoralization, in the manner that it was in the Bosnian conflict. I would doubt that there was a specific "rape order" issued just for Nanjing, in addition to the "kill everyone brutally order" that obviously was in force, but it seems to me that this policy had been made clear to the Japanese occupation troops early on.
I think you keep misunderstanding the issue. A policy of rape does not mean that rape was used 'as an instrument of degradation and demoralization'. That is a question of intent and not of the deed itself. Compare it to the killing of an afro-american by a caucasian. It's only a hate crime if the skin color was a motive, not if it was a botched robbery. In both cases there is a killing and both murders may be equally horrible in execution, but yet they are considered (and punished) different.
Now, AFAIK it's pretty clear that Japan used 'comfort women' to entertain troops and nothing more. There was simply no consideration of the degradation and demoralization that these women experienced. The Japanese soldiers obviously carried this mentality over into Nanjing.
The Japanese of the time were very obedient to authority, and prided themselves on their personal control. I doubt they would have read much of anything into their orders that wasn't given explicitly, especially when it came to running amok.
When soldiers are ordered to kill, it does not seem to be a stretch for them to add rape. Especially so when they have learned that it is ok to rape women of other nationalities. Also, just because the Japanese value self-control and obedience very highly, does not mean that they won't improvise. I wouldn't be surprised if medium/low-level commanders decided that this was a good opportunity for their soldiers to 'have fun'. I presume that soldiers only rarely had access to comfort women, so a commander might decide that this was a good opportunity for 'entertainment'. This does not mean that the high command ordered this or even knew about it. Also, this explanation again does not show rape used as 'as an instrument of degradation and demoralization'. I don't see the government policy of using rape as a torture device, which is supposedly what your link to Nanjing should elucidate (if you look at that section in Wikipedia).
If this is what you're looking for, however, then the Abu Gharib scandal would certainly not count. As much as I'd like to be proven wrong, we all know Rummy never signed a "put 'em in a manpile and make them suck each other off order". The troops were simply told that the prisoners should be made miserable, and the outcome is just good ol' American ingenuity come to the fore.
Making the prisoners feel substantially miserable is commonly known as torture (to people who are not apologists). If you are responsible for taking care of prisoners, you are not just guilty of torture if you order it, but also if you let it happen. The Stanford Prison Experiment has sufficiently shown that guards cannot be trusted to properly care for prisoners (without stricts rules and checks) and may exhibit extreme sadism. So the most friendly explanation of Abu Ghraib is that Rumsfeld and his staff are incompetent. A less friendly explanation is that with the official policy of sending out prisoners to other countries to be tortured, loosening the definition of torture and ignoring the Geneva conventions can all be considered an official policy of using torture. It seems that mild sexual abuse as practiced in Guantanamo was also acceptable to Rumsfeld (like showing nudity to orthodox muslims), but since Rumsfeld clearly didn't order rape, Abu Ghraib is also a bad link for that section IMO.
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Limited warfare is mostly the norm today: you surrender, the aggressor stops fighting you to the death.
Total war doesn't mean that you fight to the death. It means that a society uses all available resources to try and win. When you can no longer win, surrender is a valid option. Generally, total war also means that civilians will be attacked, since the entire workforce is considered to be part of the war machine. This is not genocide, since the aim is to disrupt the enemy war machine and to terrorize the enemy into surrendering, not extermination. World war 2 is a good example. During the war, almost no civilian cars were produced in America since most industries were producing for the war. Also, the civilian population of various countries was attacked by rocket attacks, nukes, fire and carpet bombing. However, neither side committed genocide for war reasons (the Holocaust was ideologically driven, unrelated to the war, really). The war ended after the enemy surrendered. At that point there were acts of revenge (mostly by the Russians against the Germans), but no genocide.
So why shouldn't musicians save for their retirement? Like you said, plenty of people have to do so.
Meanwhile in real life, there are many aspiring artists who cannot earn a living making music. This will always be the case, since many people enjoy making music, while the music-buying public can/will support only so many artists. If a musician cannot afford to save for his retirement, he should find a job that can support him.
Anyway, perhaps you should explain why professional tennis players still exist, since they do not get any royalties for their past performances. Clearly, Andy Roddick will die in debt.
You ignore 30 years of history with Iraq from about 1970 to shortly before the invasion. There's evidence, for example, that if Iraq had held off for a couple of years on invading Kuwait that they would have had nuclear weapons in 1993. They also have a history of using chemical weapons both on Iranian troops and on their own people. My take is that sure in 2003, Iraq didn't have a nuclear weapons program. But it is foolish to assume that they wouldn't restart it as soon as international pressure and observation went away.
I wasn't that familiar with that part of Iraqi's history, so I did some research. You are indeed correct that Saddam had a decent nuke program in 1992. The program would have taken at least 3 more years, so there would not be a weapon until 1995. A nuke in 1993 would only be possible if they seized the uranium that was under UN safeguards, which would have been a major incident that Saddam clearly didn't want (or he would have seized the uranium).
We are discussing the 2003 situation however. At that point all Iraqi uranium was safeguarded. Why would the UN ever stop safeguarding that uranium? The IAEA was created to monitor nations like Iraq.
They had the knowledge, they probably had a good portion of the equipment too, hidden away in Sudan or Syria, along with the other military assets (primarily their air force) they routinely shipped out before any war.
Do you have any evidence to prove that the air force and other military assets were shipped to Sudan or Syria? AFAIK that never happened, but was simply implied/assumed/made up by various untrustworthy people.
This just underlines my point. Iraq had invaded two neighbors in the past 30 years. They had a long history of developing WMDs including nuclear weapons. They had used chemical weapons and killed thousands. Nobody else in your list has invaded anyone in the past 50 years or used WMDs to kill.
The war with Iran was supported by the US, who also supplied WMD's to Iraq for use in that war. Saddam only began the war with Kuwait because he thought that the US wouldn't mind. He offered to withdraw later, on the condition that he was allowed sufficient time to keep his defensive front intact. This was disallowed by the US. So it seems clear to me that Saddam was receptive to western concerns and there is no reason to assume that Iraq could not be kept in check.
Also, you ignore the huge difference between the Iraq of 1980 vs 1991 vs 2003. In 1991, Iraq was virtually bankrupt. In 2003, Iraq couldn't start any major war or risk one by attacking a smaller neighbour. They had no useable WMD's. So what was the justification for attacking Iraq if it wasn't a threat.
And what punishment has the US faced for violating this "international law"? It's not a law, if there are no consequences for breaking it. This is the fundamental problem with current international law.
The US has been punished for WTO violations, where the WTO has authorized retaliatory tariffs. Various countries have been punished by UN security council resolutions, by instituting sanctions or authorizing war. Obviously, countries with a veto (such as the US) can never be punished there. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is very young and their first trial has only begun this year (of course, they punish individuals, not states). It is possible for US nationals (such as politicians) to be tried by that court under certain conditions. The penalty is jail time. The US has passed the American Service-Members' Protection Act authorizing the president to start a war against The Netherlands to free US personnel from ICC custody. It also instructs the government not to cooperate with the court (although the president can choose to do so). Of course, there have also been special courts, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which ha
The fundamental problem with Iraq has always been the program under Saddam Hussein to develop nuclear weapons.
What program? Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and India have got serious nuclear programs. Saddam never had. The only 'evidence' to the contrary were some crudely forged documents from Niger indicating that Iraq was buying yellowcake. Note that getting yellowcake is just the first step in getting nuclear weapons. At worst, Iraq was a decade from creating a functioning nuke (and they were making no real progress at the time). There was no credible evidence at all, let alone a smoking gun.
Unlike the other nutcase countries, like Iran and North Korea, that want nuclear weapons and have the capability to get them, Iraq has a history of invasion and has demonstrated that it is willing to develop and use weapons of mass destruction.
Wow, are you serious? North Korea famously attacked South Korea in 1950. They have a huge army and the only reason why they haven't tried again is because the US has made it clear that they will defend South Korea with nukes. Iran hasn't invaded any countries recently, instead they arm and support various paramilitary groups, such as Hezbollah. Pakistan and India have been at the brink of war several times. Pakistan has sold nuclear weapons technology to several nations. How are any of these nations less of a threat to our safety than a neutered Iraq?
At the time of the invasion in 2003, the sanctions against Iraq were close to dying (only through the consistent efforts of the US were they still in effect). My take is that within 20 years of the fall of sanctions, Saddam Hussein or his successor would not only have developed nuclear weapons, but would have used them in an invasion. In other words, sure Saddam Hussein wasn't a threat in 2003, but what about 2015 or 2020? How do you keep him from being a threat then?
How would anyone know? There is no way you can predict what will happen in 20 years with any accuracy. It's complete insanity to start a war to prevent something that might happen 20 years in the future. What about waiting and making the choice in 20 years. What is the hurry?
As it happens, the Bush administration found a way. This is the fundamental problem with nuclear proliferation and militarily aggressive nations. For a number of countries, there's a huge benefit to having nuclear weapons. And a fraction of those countries are also very aggressive. Iraq was the worst of the lot. The world simply is not prepared or willing to counter these countries. Even if we accept the commonly held premise that the US is itself a rogue, out of control country, who's willing to counter US military aggressiveness? Some insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US operates in a power vacuum. It does what it does because no one else is willing to take up that role.
The US doesn't operate in a vacuum, there are treaties and organizations that determine how civilized countries should act and those constitute a form of international law. Instead of trying to adhere to and strenghten international law, the US practices exceptionalism. In other words: 'We and our friends can do what we want. If we don't like what you are doing, change or you will be invaded'. The US wants a sort of police state at the global level, with the US as judge, jury and executioner. Understandably, many countries don't want to bow to the US and figured out that a good defense is to have nukes. The invasion of Iraq drove this point home extremely strongly. The US invaded a mostly harmless country just because they could, while leaving more dangerous countries like North Korea and Pakistan alone. Iran learned the question quickly and immediately ramped up their nuke program, while the US had their hands full.
Note that your country has treatened to invade mine if we ever dared to try an American for violating international la
So why spend trillions of dollars and cripple the world's economy when the problem can't be reversed anyway.
- Global climate change is not just a yes/no proposition. The magnitude (and effects) depends on our actions.
- We are using an unsustainable amount of resources, so the current world economy cannot be sustained anyway. Why not adapt now, when we still have options, instead of trying to adapt later when we are already f**ked.
- 'Crippling the world economy' is a pretty meaningless statement. Ultimately, what matters is how we can live happily. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to do that while using far fewer natural resources.
PS. The latest estimates project major global climate change way before those 100 years of yours. Why not reduce our energy use, so we actually get 100 years to adapt?
...you don't need to bathe, or cut your fingernails, or brush your teeth, or see the doctor, or take prescription medication....
If flossing your teeth was important, you'd have been born with twine between your fingers!
Evolution shaped our brains, which get unhappy if our peers get upset over our smells. That is why we bathe so often. There is no major medical reason why should bathe though. During the renaissance, bathing was considered to be dangerous and many people didn't bathe at all (because they were afraid of getting diseases from the water).
Cutting our fingernails is not really needed if you are doing hard physical labor, since your nails will erode automatically. Similarly, brushing our teeth was far less needed in more primitive times, before we added sugar to most of our food. Flossing is probably only performed by a few percent of the humans alive today, so I think we can do without.
On evolution alone, our life expectancy is about 35.
While that is true, most of that is due to people dying at a young age. Once he makes it to 15, the life expectancy of a hunter gatherer is about 55.
And a lot of things we evolved over a couple million years are no longer useful after the past couple thousand years of rapid changes.
The major evolutionary differences that set us apart from other beings is:
- Our level of intelligence
- Our ability to manipulate tools very well
These are the underpinnings of our advanced society and allowed us to shape our world, instead of reacting to the world around us. Aside from these traits that set us apart from other animals, we heavily depend on generic traits like our immune system, our digestive tracts, our ability to regulate body temperature in various ways, our social skills, etc, etc. Without these, there would be no human alive today. So what are the 'lots of things' that are 'are no longer useful'?
Oh, like the appendix?
That is actually a very interesting example, because there is a lot of discussion on the usefulness of the appendix. One popular theory is that the appendix stores and protects colon bacteria. When humans have a colon infection, the body cleans the colon by giving you diarrhea. Supposedly, good bacteria will come out of the appendix and recolonize the colon. While this might not be that important to people in first world countries, there are 1.4 billion cases of diarrhea in third world countries just among children, with 'only' 2 million deaths. That is a pretty good recovery rate.
For a long time, medical science was very crude and determined the use of an organ by seeing what happened when you removed it. This works for straightforward organs like the liver or heart, but is ill-suited to organs that are part of the immune system, like tonsils, the thymus or the appendix. Personally I distrust anyone that declares an organ or other body part obsolete, because doctors have had many "o, that's what it's for" moments over the centuries.
(Which happens to relatively often kill people sans modern medicine.)
Actually, appendicitis happens far less often in third world countries than in first world countries, probably because they have a high-fiber diet. There is also some research linking it to air pollution. Thankfully we have modern medicine to (more than) compensate for our bad habits.
In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed simulated attacks on US military or civilian targets as a pretext for all-out war on Cuba. So I'm not sure that you want to give control to the military either.
Things are only impossible until they are not. There's no underlying law of physics that says you can't intercept an incoming ICBM warhead. To be sure, it's quite the technical challenge, but I have yet to be convinced of it's impossibility.
The real problem is that you can never be sure that your 'shield' works. As soon as you've got a working defensive missile, your opponent will come up with countermeasures (other trajectory, dummy warheads, dummy missiles, blinding detectors, flares/chaff, etc). The shield will probably be ineffective for a while every time the other side comes up with better countermeasures. This is the only time that they will contemplate attacking you (unless their hand is forced), so you will probably be attacked while your shield is non-working.
In other words, the shield can never guarantee your safety.
What's the point of further nuclear proliferation if you can't deliver your warheads onto their target?
It's unlikely that a shield is 100% effective, so some warheads will still make it through. So one countermeasure is to deploy more missiles so you can still expect a sufficient number of warheads to make it through.
The only one I'm aware of is the ABM treaty which contained a withdrawal provision (that we later exercised)
The Russians have threatened withdrawal from other treaties and to spend a lot more on their military technology. This more advanced technology will probably be sold to many countries, including Iran and other enemies of the US. Is that what you want?
The problem with your theory is that there is a huge worldwide 'lower class' and there is no magic way to move them all into the middle class (foreign aid nor liberalization have done the trick in many countries). When 10's to 1000's of millions of people are starving, you'll be still be sitting there smugly telling people that there is no food crisis. It won't help those people who are underfed, nor will it reduce the number of riots and refugees.
Your argument is pretty much the same as the claim that we'll never run out of oil. It just will become so expensive that we won't be able to afford it and have to find alternatives. Of course that is true and arguably the term 'oil running out' is false. However, oil will effectively 'run out' for large scale use in transport and heating, since most of the world will no longer be able to afford it. So we must imagine a world without oil and try to find alternatives. Similarly, we must imagine a world with 10 billion people and declining food production, because that is the direction that we are going. We have spend 50 years trying to improve the income of poor people and have only had partial success, mostly due to decisions by the countries themselves and big scale 'subsidies' (the economic well-being of many countries is completely dependent on oil/gas sales). Meanwhile, we've only gotten further away from a sustainable situation.
We have plenty of farm land that is not being used.
That strongly depends on the definition of farm land. Arguably you can grow food in the desert on bare rock, if you use closed trailers with imported soil, nutrients and water. However, if we are limited to realistic scenarios for feeding people, we can expect very little food production from most land that is currently not used for farming. Most of it is poorly suited to farming and can give only low yields. The rest is mostly under houses, roads, etc. The only real exception is Africa, where there is some good land that is unused (Zimbabwe is a prime example), but we are not going to get that much extra food out of it (compared to the growth of the world population).
On the other hand, there are huge treats to the current farm land. In the US, 1/5th of the wheat, corn, cotton, and cattle production depends on irrigation from the Ogallala Aquifer, which is running out. Rainforests are used for 'burn, grow and discard' farming, which is unsustainable in the long term (when we run out of rainforest to burn down). We are overfishing. Global warming means that currently arable land will become unusable. Phosphate is running out, so the single most important invention that allows us to feed 6 billion people in the first place, artificial fertilizer, is going to become scarce.
So where is this magic increase in food production going to come from? Even more overfishing? Using more phosphate so we'll run out faster? Those are the solutions a free market will come up with, while increasing the problems in the long run. However, we can also choose to push the market in the direction we want, so we can reach a sustainable situation sooner (and with fewer nasty side effects, like mass starvation, rioting, war, mass migration, etc).
So according to you there won't be a global lack of food until everyone in the world earns about the same and then people are starving? Do you realize how impossible that 'utopia' is to achieve? In reality, climbing out of poverty is quite difficult and a very slow process, which has been demonstrated in many countries in Asia and Africa. There will always be stragglers who will be hit first in a food crisis and cannot afford to make it the problem of someone else. Many of the poor will refuse to die quietly and will migrate to richer countries, who will then have a problem. We already have countries sending boats of refugees/migrants back to sea, hoping that they drown. In a serious food crisis we will have the same choice, help people and lose a lot of our wealth or be complicit in their deaths.
In your utopia we would be even more fucked, because the starving poor would be inside our borders (since there are no poorer countries to offload the problem to), so we cannot just keep them out. I don't think you'll like the mass rioting that will almost certainly happen.
In case you think that we can just use our better education to produce more food, you have to realize that our current food supply is heavily dependent on fertilizer produced from phosphate, which is rapidly running out. If anything, it is extremely likely that our food production will go down (especially if you consider other problems, such as overfishing and aquafiers that run dry).
PS. Do you realize that Saudi Arabia is one of the richest countries in the world with a fairly small population? We cannot supply 6 billion people with fresh water, just because 30 million people can afford desalination.
It's certainly true that a diplomatic approach is probably better for the kid and it's certainly better if everyone would a bit more reasonable. However, in both the US and EU, kids have been increasingly criminalized in the last few decades. Punishments are more severe, cops are called more often and children are brought before a judge in situations that would have resulted in a stern talking to in the past. I strongly support having kids stand up for their rights and turning the tables on the aggressors/bullies, especially when teachers are stealing from children or otherwise going way out of line.
I cannot process complex information and take (extensive) notes at the same time. Probably because I'm a visual person, so I have to look at the teacher and his notes on the blackboard. If I was writing a 'novel' in college, I had given up on understanding the material that was presented. It's a major fail for the teacher.
Good teachers distribute all the material that is covered to the students (that means a separate binder if the book doesn't cover everything).
It's true you won't be left for dead if you cannot pay, but for those that aren't in risk of death the waiting lists become longer and longer as everyone wants to enjoy his share of healthcare and the system collapses.
For many illnesses people cannot afford private practice (because it's scarce enough and has good paying customers) but cannot wait forever either. I see that drama every day. And what does the state do? Easy: throw it on our backs.
You perfectly described the US system. The only difference is that the waiting lists do not exist to such an extent. But what is a waiting list really? It consists of people who want health care, but do not get it when they want it. In the US, this 'waiting list' consists of people without health care or who have health care, but do not get coverage. Of course, those people still want health care, but they don't get it. Does it really matter whether you don't get health care for one reason or another?
Ultimately, health care costs money. Pay more, get more. Pay less, get less. If you are unwilling to pay an infinite amount of money, you have to ration health care. You can create waiting lists, reduce the coverage for expensive treatments or create a market system where the rich get health care. The latter is the least efficient option, because it results in undertreatment of the poor and overtreatment of the rich (because capitalist health care goes for the money and tries to get the rich to consume the maximum amount of health care they are willing to pay for, not the amount they need). The latter option is the one chosen by the US, with the resulting low average quality of health care at enormous cost.
the now leftist government is pushing a really aggressive agenda on euthanasia-no-questions-asked that most people fear will not be aimed at the wishes of the patients but the budget of the system
Sure. Of course they want to do that. In other news, welfare is aimed at keeping people away of jobs and taxes are intended to starve people to death. Do you have more right-wing straw men to contribute?
The draconian tobacco laws in Europe (I don't smoke, BTW) were put in place only to spare on social healthcare costs
No, they weren't. In my country, smoking in the workplace was banned after someone with asthma sued her company, because she couldn't keep working there. So the reason was to protect the workers. Bars and restaurants had an exception for a long time, but now they have to obey the same rules (to protect waiting staff). It is still possible to have separate smoking rooms as long as no staff goes in there.
Some things that come to mind include broken toes, sprained ankles, and a high fever caused, I believe, by the flu.
The flu can't give you a broken toe or a sprained ankle. Perhaps you were delirious from fever and hurt yourself. It is a interesting example though, because there is no good medicine for the flu. Only a moderately effective vaccine. So keeping young, non-chronically ill people from getting flu treatment isn't too bad. However, there are also plenty of diseases that become much harder and more expensive to treat if you go to the doctor late, instead of right away. So it's not a given that healthcare avoiding behavior actually reduces costs (also because ER aid is expensive).
One point that comes to mind is that tendency of (some?) people in Japan to go to the doctor on a very regular basis even though there isn't anything wrong with them. I don't believe it's hypochondria, but more of a situation where people are taking advantage of the resources available to them.
In Holland, regular breast exams (to check for cancer) are covered for women over a certain age. The same applies to flu vaccins for older people and other risk groups. However, the coverage of preventive healthcare is managed by a commission. Useless 'care' such as full-body checkups are not covered because they tend to kill as many people as they save, because the tests have a non-zero false-positive rate. So many people would get dangerous treatments for no reason. However, there are still people who pay for those themselves.
Anyway, it is nice to just make an appointment and go to the doctor when you have an issue, instead of having to figure out whether you can pay for it.
I don't know if you are a United States resident or not, but most people outside of the U.S. don't really understand how independent the states are. The vast majority of Law resides at the state level, as do all elections, even for president electors. You may disagree with that, but it's not archaic in any sense, no more than the separation of the legislative/judicial/executive branches is.
That is not a good defense of the current system. National elections are by definition about making laws for the entire country and there is no reason why strong state governments cannot co-exist with direct elections of national politicians (especially with a constitution that limits the power of the national government). The current system is extremely flawed. For example:
Right to bear arms. That's not archaic; it's based on principle, and that (by definition) doesn't change. The right of self-defense is as fundamental as the right of free speech or the right to be secure in your possessions.
The right to bear arms is completely different from the right for self-defense. Bearing arms is only one way to protect yourself. You can also protect yourself by placing mines around your house, but we don't recognize that as a right. The founding fathers decided that arms were the best way for people to protect their home, but many disagree. It is perfectly acceptable to disagree on this issue. That doesn't mean that those dissenters do not believe in the right of self-defense. It means that they don't think that allowing people to own guns is the best way for people to maintain their rights.
You have to keep in mind that a lot of things changed since the constitution was written. Alternative, less-lethal weapons such as pepper-spray are now available. Guns can now be had in fully automatic or in very small size, in contrast to the big, single shot rifles and pistols from the past. There is no way Americans can fight the US army in open combat today and IEDs seem to be a lot more effective than rifles in guerilla warfare. Ignoring these changes, instead of debating their impact and whether they require changes to the constitution is wrong. The founding fathers were the first to admit that their constitution cannot be suitable for all time:
"Whatever be the Constitution, great care must be taken to provide a mode of amendment when experience or change of circumstances shall have manifested that any part of it is unadapted to the good of the nation." --Thomas Jefferson
You sure about that? As I understand it, many states have their own welfare systems, so any laws signed by Bill Clinton wouldn't affect them.
The bill (PRWORA) grants money to states to implement their own welfare systems, as long as they meet federal requirements. I've told you some of those requirements.
Additionally, there are many, many people on "disability", getting paid to do nothing. These aren't people with genuine disabilities, but people taking advantage of the system, claiming they have some "mental problem" or somesuch so they don't have to work.
Those people are examined by doctors to determine their disabilities. Are you accusing those doctors of fraud? That is a very serious allegation, which you really should prove with a link.
Anyway, if someone is working, then why would they still receive welfare? Because they don't make enough?
Yes. Because we don't want them or their children to starve. Because we want them to send their children to school, instead of having them work. It is a right-wing fantasy that everyone can find work that pays a living wage. In reality, only communism was able to provide 'full employment'. Assuming you prefer capitalism, there are two choices:
- Provide welfare
- Let 'bad' workers starve
Then maybe they should cut their expenses, stop buying new TVs, etc
I doubt that many poor people buy a new $1000 big-screen TV every year. The substantial expenses are housing, food, a car and other necessities. I'm not claiming that all poor people are great at financial planning, but that wouldn't set them apart from the average American. It makes sense to think that they are worse than average, because smart people can often work themselves up to a decent-paying job. That doesn't mean that they deserve to starve IMHO. You also have to keep in mind that being poor is expensive and it is very easy to get in a deep hole:
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2006/0723california_fellowes.aspx
http://www.usdin.net/wordpress/2005/06/26/being-poor-is-expensive/
If their job can't pay for them to live in their current area, then maybe they should move to someplace cheaper. Perhaps onto a farm, where they could pick crops.
The jobs can't be found there either. Farmers don't want 50 year old women to pick their crops, they want 25 year old Mexicans, who can work twice as hard.
Most people who receive welfare are actually working. You have to work after being unemployed for two years (signed into law by Bill Clinton). So you are arguing against a system of welfare that no longer exists.
Protesting is often one of the few ways for outsiders to get their message out. It's wrong to argue that good PR is better. News media are at best heavily hype oriented, at worst, they censor and deny access. For example, the media continuously portray(ed) the Americans who want to impeach Bush as fringe idiots, until there were some big protests. Then polls were done to show that more than half of the US population wants impeachment. It took the protests to break through the preconceived notions in the media. In countries like Zimbabwe, Burma or China, an opposition standpoint will never be published in a national newspaper and protests that get international attention can be hugely important. As an example, Serbia got rid of Milosevic after mass protests. participation in such events is just a way to prove to your fellow believers that you're really one of them. Your arguments basically boils down to: I have never been convinced of anything by a protest, so protesters must do it for social reasons. This argument is flawed because:
- Your experience does not mean that other people aren't convinced or at least energized to find out more.
- The goal may not be to directly convince people, but to put pressure on politicians or CEO's (they do not need to be convinced); or the goal may be access to the media.
- Being ineffective at attaining a goal doesn't mean that it wasn't there. You can't know what people think without actually finding out. Arguing that people can't possibly believe something because it is stupid to think so is silly. Many people have incredibly stupid beliefs.
You see, I too can play that game.
Many protests do actually have their own police force to eject violence protesters. This is especially important since a favorite police tactic is to have a mole start trouble to give the police an excuse to break up the protest. However, there is little the protestors can do to prevent thugs from being violent a few blocks away from the protest.
However, in general I don't believe in vigilantism. The police is trained to deal with these kind of situations. What you are asking is for demonstrators to prove that they are non-violent by using violence against others, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Obviously you are paying for the improvements they made. If those were not worth the costs of the software, you'd be using your own free software. Let's say that x is the price of your code, y the price of their code and $ the money you were willing to spend for the entire package. Obviously x + y = $. Since x = 0, this becomes 0 + y = $. More succinctly y = $. You are only paying for their improvements. QED.
Ideally, I'd like it to be a fair exchange.
So what you really care about is direct compensation. Fair enough. But please don't pretend that there is no compensation already. Giving away code that can be used freely by proprietary developers may have any of the following effects:
- Voluntary retributions out of conviction or guilt induced by using free software.
- Better quality (assuming the reused code is better than a new implementation).
- More commercial products. Since production costs are lower, more products can make a profit. This can result in more employment and also in more happy users (assuming that different variants optimize for different user groups).
- Lower price for the commercial software (if cost to produce is a factor in the price).
A good example is the various commercial versions of Apache. This doesn't hurt anyone that is content with the free version (most of us), but the commercial buyers do finance some additional development on the free version that everyone profits from. So you have 1, 2 and 3 and possibly also 4.Mainly because it would irk me to no end if I bought a piece of software from someone else, and it turned out to have my code in it!
I really don't understand this argument. If someone uses free code in proprietary software, that software costs less to build and is better tested. So if anything, you pay less for better software. Personally I would be more frustrated if the software I bought was buggy and overly expensive because they were reinventing the wheel.
From a ordoliberal view it is not a constitutional objective to tell the consumer what he or she has to consume.
Sure, but why would a disagreement with ordoliberalism mean that the constitution is a piece of crap? Ordoliberalism does not address market limitations beyond the instability of free markets. Real problems that are not addressed are the tragedy of the commons, limited information availability and the limited decision making of most consumers (often not going much beyond price and quality, ignoring many production variables, such as child workers and pollution).
I have no problem at all with a (democratic) government who 'tells' the consumer what he has to consume by heavily taxing such goods as cigarettes, alcohol & gasoline and who outlaws certain practices (like child workers). At the moment I know of no country that does not do such things so you are comparing the constitution to a utopian doctrine. Calling something a piece of crap because it fails to compare to a utopia is not exactly reasonable criticism.
So basically what you are getting at is whether rape was specifically called for as an instrument of degradation and demoralization, in the manner that it was in the Bosnian conflict. I would doubt that there was a specific "rape order" issued just for Nanjing, in addition to the "kill everyone brutally order" that obviously was in force, but it seems to me that this policy had been made clear to the Japanese occupation troops early on.
I think you keep misunderstanding the issue. A policy of rape does not mean that rape was used 'as an instrument of degradation and demoralization'. That is a question of intent and not of the deed itself. Compare it to the killing of an afro-american by a caucasian. It's only a hate crime if the skin color was a motive, not if it was a botched robbery. In both cases there is a killing and both murders may be equally horrible in execution, but yet they are considered (and punished) different.
Now, AFAIK it's pretty clear that Japan used 'comfort women' to entertain troops and nothing more. There was simply no consideration of the degradation and demoralization that these women experienced. The Japanese soldiers obviously carried this mentality over into Nanjing.
The Japanese of the time were very obedient to authority, and prided themselves on their personal control. I doubt they would have read much of anything into their orders that wasn't given explicitly, especially when it came to running amok.
When soldiers are ordered to kill, it does not seem to be a stretch for them to add rape. Especially so when they have learned that it is ok to rape women of other nationalities. Also, just because the Japanese value self-control and obedience very highly, does not mean that they won't improvise. I wouldn't be surprised if medium/low-level commanders decided that this was a good opportunity for their soldiers to 'have fun'. I presume that soldiers only rarely had access to comfort women, so a commander might decide that this was a good opportunity for 'entertainment'. This does not mean that the high command ordered this or even knew about it. Also, this explanation again does not show rape used as 'as an instrument of degradation and demoralization'. I don't see the government policy of using rape as a torture device, which is supposedly what your link to Nanjing should elucidate (if you look at that section in Wikipedia).
If this is what you're looking for, however, then the Abu Gharib scandal would certainly not count. As much as I'd like to be proven wrong, we all know Rummy never signed a "put 'em in a manpile and make them suck each other off order". The troops were simply told that the prisoners should be made miserable, and the outcome is just good ol' American ingenuity come to the fore.
Making the prisoners feel substantially miserable is commonly known as torture (to people who are not apologists). If you are responsible for taking care of prisoners, you are not just guilty of torture if you order it, but also if you let it happen. The Stanford Prison Experiment has sufficiently shown that guards cannot be trusted to properly care for prisoners (without stricts rules and checks) and may exhibit extreme sadism. So the most friendly explanation of Abu Ghraib is that Rumsfeld and his staff are incompetent. A less friendly explanation is that with the official policy of sending out prisoners to other countries to be tortured, loosening the definition of torture and ignoring the Geneva conventions can all be considered an official policy of using torture. It seems that mild sexual abuse as practiced in Guantanamo was also acceptable to Rumsfeld (like showing nudity to orthodox muslims), but since Rumsfeld clearly didn't order rape, Abu Ghraib is also a bad link for that section IMO.