Land "ownership" means that some government stole the land from its previous inhabitants
Yes, that's exactly what it means. So what?
The idea that government shouldn't interfere in land ownership is self-contradictory -- land ownership is created by government.
No, it's not contradictory at all. If the government can't parcel out that land and see to it that it has value, then the property has no value other than what the owner can enforce, which, in the face of government and neighbors, is nothing.
What you're confusing here is the idea of an initial theft, and the consequent transfer of ownership by force, against the now irrelevant claims of the now-evicted and property-less people who used to be there. Now that the land has more power backing its ownership, it is worth quite a bit more. I don't have to worry about the local tribes coming and trying to take my property.
They can, of course, attempt to get it back. The question is, having been defeated once (and quite easily, in the case of the native Americans), do they have, or can they gather, the power to take them back? The answer to that, of course, is no. So their land claims, including currently in-force treaties, have become essentially irrelevant. Just as my land ownership would become the moment the government decides to build a road, or the Chinese walk in here and take over. Power creates the system; members of the system exercise the rights they are handed. How that balances out... varies.
Any society that does not offer land ownership, *and* as much sovereignty for the land owner as possible, had better have something of higher value to trade for that lack, or they're likely to find themselves deposed, decaying, or outright dissapeared. Our government has steadily been making inroads on what land ownership actually confers. It remains to be seen if what it is trading that off for is valuable enough to keep it the arbiter of who owns what. King George thought he owned everything, and was willing to hand it out as grants, but failed to make that ownership valuable enough... and so began the fall of the English Empire, right to where it is now, a snotty little island about the size of Louisiana with a "Queen" who lives on a stipend and has no power, and a "Parliament" that makes our criminal class (you know, congress... but I repeat myself) look like a paragon of virtue.
Have you heard of the concept of "attractive nuisance"?
Sure. It's ridiculous. Anything else you want to know? Now, have you heard of the concept of raising children with supervision until they are capable enough to go unsupervised, and then letting them go unsupervised?
Perhaps more to the point, have you heard of the word "responsibility"?
Do you understand where responsibility lies with a parent and a child, and an innocent third party where your child, unsupervised, goes wandering in a manner demonstrating you raised them with insufficient care before letting them go unsupervised?
Do you understand that trespassing is a crime, and that if your kids are on my property without my permission, you, as the parent, should be liable for:
my pool cleaning
any injuries they might suffer
any injuries WE might suffer trying to retrieve and/or save them
trespassing
and should anyone in my family suffer emotional stress as a result of your kid drowning or being injured in my pool, that you should be 100% liable for those bills as well?
Why should *I* be responsible to fence my property in order to try and (inadequately and inappropriately and indirectly) parent your children for you?
If you want to have kids, you bear the responsibility for that decision. In every way. Not me. I didn't ask you to have kids, and I could care less if you do or not. Just keep them out of my yard and you, and I, will never have an issue. Think you can do that? If you can't, please abstain from having children. Thank you.
If I went randomly digging around my yard, I could very well take out my neighbor's plumbing or natural gas
Wow. I can dig anywhere on my lots and all I'll find is dirt. Well, and eventually, water. And bugs and worms and stuff.
Presuming you have described this right and I have understood you correctly, your property is just random pipes, no right of way... your property is really screwed up. No one called the utility company and said "we're going to subdivide here, it's going to affect your right of way, what's the plan, how soon can you get a surveyor and a lawyer out here?"
Yet you bought the house anyway. So now you have to live with Mario's Nightmare, level 42.
What do you mean "gets" split off? People split these things off; it's their responsibility to see to it that they know where the right of way is. There's no excuse for landowner A's utilities to traverse person B's land without a right of way. None at all.
My argument is land ownership and rights are the fundamental thing that are being diluted and that such is a very, very bad thing, best to be avoided at almost any cost by societies that are built upon liberty and freedom. You'd know that if your reading skills were above 3rd grade, or, of course if you actually have such skills, if you actually read the thread. However, this is slashdot, and I am both aware that I have to reach out and beat people like you with my clue-stick, and quite comfortable doing it.:o)
Jeremy, you need to learn the difference between a "strawman" and an accurate analogy employed for illustrative purposes. Analogies are what us literate types use to illustrate a concept that folks like you don't get first time around. Check 'em out online. Analogies are quite useful, presuming the recipient has enough mental horsepower to work them out.
Which may, of course, leave you out, just as it did the moderator, that highly-qualified individual slashdot randomly handed the power to apply censorship instead of response. BTW, that "highly qualified" portion was "sarcasm", another fine conversational mode you may not understand.
If you need more of a righteous beating, I'll be here all day, applying my clue-stick to stupid posts like yours with nothing less than glee.:)
If my neighbor built such a shitty pool that it couldn't pass inspection I know he can't cover the cost of damage to my property.
No, you don't know that at all. The one has nothing at all to do with the other -- you're just gluing them together trying to make a caricature of what you imagine, in your naivete, as a "villain."
Also, the value of the neighbor's property is quite likely to cover your damages. Which, I might add, would be minimal if YOU built your property with any thought to safety and sanity, and which is ALSO your job. For instance, my home is fireproof; so while my neighbor may catch fire and burn right to the ground, I can just stand and watch. Likewise, should my neighbor flood for any reason - pool accident, pipes break, etc -- my first floor is four feet off the ground, and the basement was built with more than adequate pumping capacity to empty it even at very high incoming rates, presuming only that pumping water outside and into the storm drains in itself is not futile. I did this without my neighbor even *having* a pool. It's my duty to my family to see that they are as safe as possible. Not my neighbor's duty. Likewise, my power won't be cut off by a power company; the list goes on.
Let's make it real simple. There is a social aspect to risk, therefore there is a social responsibility to mitigate risk
Fine. So you're 100% ok with inspection by a professional of your junk, and your bloodstream, prior to each time you have sex; a full inspection of your hands before you are allowed to touch anything at all in a public restaurant, school or business; analysis of your breath before you are allowed to breathe the same air in a closed room as anyone outside your family; and of course, inspection by an editor and a defamation/libel specialist prior to each post you make here, right? RIGHT?
Oh, wait... you ARE prepared to take some risks, eh? Even when there are social aspects to them, and some of them, like HIV and the crap on your breath, might even kill the next person over.
Yeah, turns out you're just picking and choosing for your own convenience, perfectly willing to trade away another person's freedom(s) so YOU might have a little more (usually imaginary) security.
Well, you're winning, as there are a damned lot of you, but just so you know, that green glow you see way, way above you? That's where the pond scum lives.
Running a business where you deal with the public is entirely different from interfering with someone's private land and home. I would think that would be obvious; it's about responsibility.
If I invite you into my home, I become responsible for you. If you're a burglar or an unmonitored wandering child trespassing on my land, and you drown in my pool, my responsibility should be limited to the tone of laughter I use, and whether I go after you and yours for trespassing.
An open business is an open invitation. Responsibility goes with that. Pre-crime, however, does not.
In a sane world, if your kids drowned in my pool, on my property without my permission, you, as their parent, would be held responsible for trespassing, and that would be the end of my involvement in it, other than cleaning them out of my filter. Additionally, if your kids are too fucking stupid / incompetent to survive a swim, then perhaps its best if they die anyway... a neutering might be a good punishment for you as well, seeing that as a parent, you're a complete and utter failure.
Zoning and planning is what keeps your neighbor from putting a fireworks factory in his garage.
Nonsense. How would I know if my neighbor had a fireworks factory in their garage? How would the zoning board? And why should I care? He's already got several vehicles with tanks of explosive fuel in them that might blow me away, not to mention the propane tank on his grill, and a wood-frame house, and a gun cabinet full of weapons that can shoot right through my walls, and I don't worry about any of that, either.
If I *were* worried about it, then I should buy enough land to give me a safety margin with which I am comfortable, and/or employ construction techniques that ameliorate or obviate the issue I'm concerned with. That's my responsibility - not my neighbor's.
That's exactly how things should be. They aren't, of course, because we no longer have much liberty... the concept has been discarded in favor of the illusion of security. Still, I have the option to give myself safety margins, and in many ways, I've done that. Because I *knew* no one was actually going to solve the problem for me, and that the law only provides the illusion of security. So my home is fireproof from the outside; my power is absolutely steady and cannot be interrupted from the outside by any power company; and so on, for quite a few interesting (to me) points.
I think that I'd use the word 'demented' rather than 'radical'.
Oh, no doubt you would.:o) Get your sex-permit yet? Because you know, there are circumstances where you can do harm with that thing, so it really oughta be inspected before you're allowed to use it... each time, really... Best you run down to your zoning commission and 'splain it to them, Lucy. Sicherheit über allen, Ja?
First off, you have potentially dangerous chemicals involved.
And if you cause harm with them, you should be held responsible. Fine. But, should the department of pre-crime come in and assume you're going to cause harm to the point of interfering with you?
The there's the issue of the construction of the pool and any potential gas lines, power mains, etc. that would be affected.
You don't have the right to construct on utility right of way. That's what utility right of way is for. If you cut lines on property you own that is not utility right of way, then you've cut your own lines, and that's your problem, expense, and responsibility. If you cut lines (or even build something) on utility right of way, that's action on someone else's rights, and you should be held responsible. None of this militates for permits or licenses, though.
Laws don't happen in a vacuum. They exist because the general public cannot be trusted, and have likely proven such many times over.
Thinks about the average law... no, I'm just going to have to disagree. The evidence for empty heads is overwhelming. There's no way you can convince me that pre-crime laws are reasonable. Giving up freedom for security is unacceptable to me and always will be.
Normally in cases like this the licensee fee (in theory at least) goes towards the local inspection framework.
Yes, I understand how it works. And I think it's perfectly reasonable that a property owner might want to increase their property value and in some cases their own personal safety by paying a qualified inspector to come over and give them a valuable, informative report made from the perspective of a certified expert. What I don't think is reasonable is that the government is involved on a coercive level.
Much of this framework also comes from the assumption that one will not hold onto their property indefinitely
And again, it's reasonable to want to increase that value by having certification. It is not reasonable to be forced to do it.
If I go to buy your property, and you've not had [whatever construction] inspected, I would take that into account. You, as a property owner, should be anticipating that, and if you care about your property value (it's yours, after all... you decide if it's important to you, not me) then you might decide to go for that inspection just on that basis, even if you're dead certain your work is good.
Or you might be on the family homestead which has been in the family for 200 years, and know damn well the property isn't going anywhere during the lifetime of the construction in question, and not give a rat's ass for the inspector. All of which seems to me to be right in line with your liberty and property being very important to you, and my right to fuck with your liberty and property without you actually fucking with me first, being essentially non-existent.
Interesting, so if I bought all the property surrounding your abode, I could build 50 story buildings up to my property lines and basically block out the sky for you and you'd be ok with it?
Absolutely. If I want to ensure that I will always be able to see to the horizon without any structures in my way, I need to buy the land to the horizon. What's so difficult to understand about that? Should I have the right to tell some guy ten miles away that he can't build a corn silo or an office building or a giant statue of Homer Simpson? Because I could see it and it might block my view of the sunset? What's the difference between that and me telling you that you can't build those things on your property next door? If I want to control what's on your land, shouldn't I have to have a controlling property interest? What gives me the right to tell you what you can do over there, presuming you're not poisoning my grass or shining a 10 kw laser though my living room?
Well, you *could* steal my TV... I think we're going to need a permit for your use of your hands. Also, you can't use 'em until they're inspected. Because we know that in some cases, there will be stealing. So the department of pre-crime will be coming by to examine your hands, see if your fingerprints match any found on stolen tvs. Please keep your hands fully clasped unless your permit is issued.
Also, you *could* give people HIV... I think we're going to need a permit for you to have sex. Also, you can't have sex until you've been inspected. Because we know that in some cases, people will have HIV. So the department of pre-crime will *also* be coming by to examine your dick. Keep your dick to yourself unless your permit is issued.
Or... we can go with that whole innocent of doing harm until proven guilty thing, require probable cause before we generously gift costs, delays and interference on a person, eh? Whereas if there is a leak, we can hold them responsible (that word, you might have to look up.) Thereby only bothering folks who *actually* do harm. What a radical concept.
Oh, wait, that would mean freedom, liberty and stuff. You know, stuff that frightens libtards out of their minds, people who have spent their entire lives hanging from the piggy little teats of mommy government, thinking that any degree of safety is worth giving up any amount of freedom. Yeah, much better to assume you're a complete fuckup. I guess you'd better pack up your hands and dick.
Seriously? You live somewhere where the neighbor's power and gas lines go through YOUR yard? Do you not attach to them along a power/gas right-of-way, perhaps in an adjacent alley?
Here, my power and gas go straight back on my property to the utility right-of-way; the gas to a regulated manifold, the power lines to our step-down transformer; if I cut my lines, I only screw myself.
A utility right of way is what is supposed to give them the land rights to prevent exactly the kind of stupidity (on the part of the utility) you're talking about. Wiring (or plumbing) two properties in parallel through one property seems like the kind of thing only an idiot would do.
It's called zoning and planning, but what it is, is malignant interference with your liberties.
If it's your land, and what you do there does not physically affect anything beyond your land's boundaries (chemical, fire, high level sound waves, overhangs, undermining, water flow... the obvious things) then I really can't see the government having any role at all. Of course, I'm one of those crackpots that think land ownership should be meaningful, and that if you want to control something, you should have to own it first. Radical, I know.
I don't know, but the solution is simple enough. If Congress represented us, they'd say: "Oh, I see what you're saying. You can afford to worry about this because you don't have enough real criminals to catch. Gotcha. This is good news! It means we will cut your budget by 1/3 and we'll convene a committee to study the pony request, to which we will assign 8 congress-folk who know absolutely nothing about ponies, who will in turn assign the task to aides, who will consult with special interest groups, determining that there is nothing in the pony gift process that will benefit the congress-folk. After an interval corresponding most closely to the sunspot cycle (11 years), if all congress-folk are still in office, the aides will return a recommendation that the pony be altered to a certificate indicating VShael deserves a pony, and it will go to the president's desk for signature. Unfortunately, by this time, VShael will have expired in an unlikely but fatal Dvorak keyboard incident, so the certificate will go to the heirs, who will sell it on EBay for enough money to buy a small plastic snow-globe containing an even smaller plastic pony. If any congress folk lose their office during the process, it will be re-started or abandoned, depending upon how much money VShael donates to the appropriate congress folk's political war chests. Oh, and after one year we'll re-evaluate how this affects he FBI's choice of priorities. Who said federal bureaus can't learn to be more efficient?"
You make it sound like you're somehow outraged at the treatment of women in Islamic countries
No, that perception arrived courtesy your inability to parse English text. I pointed out that we are not in these wars to save the women and children; I pointed out where they are being abused by our general social standards, and where we are not at war on their behalf, and I tried to get across the idea that the reason that we are at war is "other." I never said anything indicating I thought we should be at war on their behalf, it's just that you only have grade school reading skills. If that.
Now, since you assumed, let me respond as if you'd actually asked: I *really* don't care how the Islamists treat each other. They can stew to a fine mush in their ridiculous superstitions and I'll just laugh. men, women, children, they're getting just what they deserve: stone-age living conditions from a stone-age book. They can learn and discard superstition, or they can die in diseased heaps, I honestly don't care either way. I have no urge to interfere, to "bring them Gee-Zuz" or even bring them books other than the Koran. But I care a great deal when they decide to strike at us. When they do, as they did on 9/11, my instinct is to turn around and crush them like bugs. Enough of them to make the message perfectly clear. I wouldn't mourn a single one of them.
you suggest that to "solve the problem" of terrorism it would be a good idea to bomb one of the largest peaceful meetings of innocent civilians you could think of off the top of your head because they happen to share a religion with a group fanatics
Do you think the people in the WTC were meeting there to plan a war against Islam? Why is it ok in your mind for them to do it, but we can't do it back? Do you think this is a game? They're out to kill you and yours. They're not kidding. Civilians, innocent... bullshit. They're attacking us at the level of our society, civilians, infrastructure, everything. 9/11 should be a clear enough indicator, except some people like you are glitchy and can't see what's happening right in front of their own face.
Their society is making war against ours. They strike not at military targets, but straight at our population and our culture. If you want to deter them from doing that, you need to (at a minimum) respond in kind. Only you'd better escalate, and demonstrate that acting against us is a losing proposition. It isn't, because our leaders, like you, are weak and simply do not understand what has happened.
As for Islamists being innocent, again, you demonstrate a degree of ignorance that is the very thing that keeps the Islamists in the business of terror. You come back when you've read the Koran. Until then, you're just another idiot. And I *know* you haven't read it, because if you had, you'd know exactly why Islam is the enemy of the entire world. Declared by their own perfect holy book, pal, complete with advice for almost every occasion, a great deal of which is of the nature "chop off the infidel's heads (the infidel would be you, by the way.) Nice poetry, though. I guess that makes it ok.
I really hope you don't decide one day that you dislike, say, the culture of the US, because you might think it a good idea to level a few buildings in New York to make a point. You know, that sounds rather familiar..
Are you really that stupid, or do you just play an idiot online? I didn't "just decide" I didn't like Islam. They dropped the WTC with thousands of my contrymen in it absent any reasonable provocation: so FUCK you, and the camel you rode in on.
You'll kill around 3 million Muslims who are friendly or neutral to the West, along with maybe a dozen of the 200 or so Muslim terrorists operating worldwide.
And how many "neutral" folk were killed in the WTC? Oh, yes, ALL of them.
The fact is, you are unable to understand what was done to us, so you can't understand what needs to be done in return.
In return, you'll hand several million recruits on a silver platter to the likes of Al Qaeda.
Really? Now that they know their families will pay, not just them? No, I don't think so. See, the way they've got people like you thinking is that there is no one to blame here. But there is.
These beliefs come straight from Islam. They're written down in black and white right there in the Koran. The Imams, the families... they're all complicit. They send those idiots out to die for their "virgins" *knowing* that the only cost to them is less grocery bills because YOU, and people like you, are unable to comprehend what is happening. Those guys don't just arise like magic from a dung pile. They are the produce of a religion of conquest that has learned a way to strike without being struck back. I'd like to see that end; I'd like the consequences known to be too terrible to contemplate.
But you don't get there by just "having" MOABs and FABs, you need the will to use them, and to be understood to have the will to use them.
Muslims have no fear of the USA, nor should they, as long as people like you are running things. You'll see us self-destruct rather than enter into sensible self-defense. And that's exactly what's happening.
We very little resemble the country we were before 9/11; and I can't think of a single political change that is for the good. And it's your fault, you and people like you, people who have not the stones to defend their homes, but instead would lay their heads right on the chopping block for the Islamists. Who, by the way, are perfectly happy to chop them off. The next time they blow something up - and it is coming, you may be assured - you'll be first in line whining about the injustice of it all, but you *still* won't have the sense to raise your hands to defend your family.
Then why the hell do you think blowing up Mecca will help?.
I propose that when the Islamists hit us, we hit them back harder; with maximum effect, and minimum cost. They do not have bombers; bombs; military worth consideration... etc. What they have are young men who will strap on bombs, go out, and with no effect on the family other than lowering their food bills, blow our shit up.
It is my opinion that we should extend the cost of those boys back to the families, and more to the point, to the religion, that is spawning them.
We have the capability to hit them much, much harder than they can hit us. We should use that capability.
As for "sacred monuments", I don't give a rat's ass about their superstitions, or yours. If they want to preserve their culture, they need to learn to not attack highly technological cultures with big weapons.
But that's not going to happen; because we're not at war to win: We're at war to make money.
...your second point is a call to kill tens of thousands of innocent people, just because they happen to be of the same religion as the people who attacked you.
No, it's a call to kill about 2 million people. As for why, it should sound familiar. Any particular attack made by the folks in the WTC against anyone? Did that stop the Islamists? You see, they *rely* on our inability to make resolute war. That's why they are winning. That's why your civil liberties are being sacrificed. That's why we have the abortion known as "homeland security." That's why we're bumbling about in Afghanistan.
If we want the Islamists to police the elements among them that take the Koran literally, then they're going to need a reason. I mean, one besides "respecting their beliefs."
You *do* realize that there is no particular punitive difference between killing a million in one shot and killing a million over the course of several years. They're still dead. Oh, wait. There is a difference. The administration's way costs a trillion dollars, and mine a million, also my way doesn't lose us our civil liberties, also doesn't drive us into a recession, also doesn't lose us 6000 soldiers.
Yeah, I guess your way, the administration's way, is better, yeah? With the death of our soldiers, and the costs, the stress on our economy, and the erosion of our liberties. That's your goal, yeah?
Look, I won't attack you first. But if you punch me, I'm *not* going to just punch you back. I'm going to knock you the fuck down, bleeding from your ears with your eyes swollen shut. It's going to *really* hurt, and you will remember it for years. When you wake up, I'll be right there, staring you directly in the eye, and you *will* think about it before you decide to swing at me again. You probably won't be that stupid, because in fact, you haven't got the chops to stand toe to toe with me -- just like the Islamists. You think these things can escalate forever -- no. You... and the Islamics... don't have the resources to escalate. But I - and we - do.
Carry a big stick, and pass your time shining it. Only use it if someone comes after you. That's my philosophy, and it's a good one. People or nations.
Now I know there are plenty of simple folk like you who have absolutely no conception of what conflict really is, or what deterrence is, much less what can serve in that role, so I don't hold it against you. But please, don't think I respect your opinion. It isn't worth spit on the ground in any actual conflict. I'm old, I'm mean, I'm trained, and I've been there. You don't play nice with someone who attacks you. You take them down. That's the only reasonable answer. Appeasement is for idiots.
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Yes, that's exactly what it means. So what?
No, it's not contradictory at all. If the government can't parcel out that land and see to it that it has value, then the property has no value other than what the owner can enforce, which, in the face of government and neighbors, is nothing.
What you're confusing here is the idea of an initial theft, and the consequent transfer of ownership by force, against the now irrelevant claims of the now-evicted and property-less people who used to be there. Now that the land has more power backing its ownership, it is worth quite a bit more. I don't have to worry about the local tribes coming and trying to take my property.
They can, of course, attempt to get it back. The question is, having been defeated once (and quite easily, in the case of the native Americans), do they have, or can they gather, the power to take them back? The answer to that, of course, is no. So their land claims, including currently in-force treaties, have become essentially irrelevant. Just as my land ownership would become the moment the government decides to build a road, or the Chinese walk in here and take over. Power creates the system; members of the system exercise the rights they are handed. How that balances out... varies.
Any society that does not offer land ownership, *and* as much sovereignty for the land owner as possible, had better have something of higher value to trade for that lack, or they're likely to find themselves deposed, decaying, or outright dissapeared. Our government has steadily been making inroads on what land ownership actually confers. It remains to be seen if what it is trading that off for is valuable enough to keep it the arbiter of who owns what. King George thought he owned everything, and was willing to hand it out as grants, but failed to make that ownership valuable enough... and so began the fall of the English Empire, right to where it is now, a snotty little island about the size of Louisiana with a "Queen" who lives on a stipend and has no power, and a "Parliament" that makes our criminal class (you know, congress... but I repeat myself) look like a paragon of virtue.
Sure. It's ridiculous. Anything else you want to know? Now, have you heard of the concept of raising children with supervision until they are capable enough to go unsupervised, and then letting them go unsupervised?
Perhaps more to the point, have you heard of the word "responsibility"?
Why should *I* be responsible to fence my property in order to try and (inadequately and inappropriately and indirectly) parent your children for you?
If you want to have kids, you bear the responsibility for that decision. In every way. Not me. I didn't ask you to have kids, and I could care less if you do or not. Just keep them out of my yard and you, and I, will never have an issue. Think you can do that? If you can't, please abstain from having children. Thank you.
Wow. I can dig anywhere on my lots and all I'll find is dirt. Well, and eventually, water. And bugs and worms and stuff.
Presuming you have described this right and I have understood you correctly, your property is just random pipes, no right of way... your property is really screwed up. No one called the utility company and said "we're going to subdivide here, it's going to affect your right of way, what's the plan, how soon can you get a surveyor and a lawyer out here?"
Yet you bought the house anyway. So now you have to live with Mario's Nightmare, level 42.
Pardon me while I laugh at you. :o)
What do you mean "gets" split off? People split these things off; it's their responsibility to see to it that they know where the right of way is. There's no excuse for landowner A's utilities to traverse person B's land without a right of way. None at all.
My argument is land ownership and rights are the fundamental thing that are being diluted and that such is a very, very bad thing, best to be avoided at almost any cost by societies that are built upon liberty and freedom. You'd know that if your reading skills were above 3rd grade, or, of course if you actually have such skills, if you actually read the thread. However, this is slashdot, and I am both aware that I have to reach out and beat people like you with my clue-stick, and quite comfortable doing it. :o)
Jeremy, you need to learn the difference between a "strawman" and an accurate analogy employed for illustrative purposes. Analogies are what us literate types use to illustrate a concept that folks like you don't get first time around. Check 'em out online. Analogies are quite useful, presuming the recipient has enough mental horsepower to work them out.
Which may, of course, leave you out, just as it did the moderator, that highly-qualified individual slashdot randomly handed the power to apply censorship instead of response. BTW, that "highly qualified" portion was "sarcasm", another fine conversational mode you may not understand.
If you need more of a righteous beating, I'll be here all day, applying my clue-stick to stupid posts like yours with nothing less than glee. :)
No, you don't know that at all. The one has nothing at all to do with the other -- you're just gluing them together trying to make a caricature of what you imagine, in your naivete, as a "villain."
Also, the value of the neighbor's property is quite likely to cover your damages. Which, I might add, would be minimal if YOU built your property with any thought to safety and sanity, and which is ALSO your job. For instance, my home is fireproof; so while my neighbor may catch fire and burn right to the ground, I can just stand and watch. Likewise, should my neighbor flood for any reason - pool accident, pipes break, etc -- my first floor is four feet off the ground, and the basement was built with more than adequate pumping capacity to empty it even at very high incoming rates, presuming only that pumping water outside and into the storm drains in itself is not futile. I did this without my neighbor even *having* a pool. It's my duty to my family to see that they are as safe as possible. Not my neighbor's duty. Likewise, my power won't be cut off by a power company; the list goes on.
Fine. So you're 100% ok with inspection by a professional of your junk, and your bloodstream, prior to each time you have sex; a full inspection of your hands before you are allowed to touch anything at all in a public restaurant, school or business; analysis of your breath before you are allowed to breathe the same air in a closed room as anyone outside your family; and of course, inspection by an editor and a defamation/libel specialist prior to each post you make here, right? RIGHT?
Oh, wait... you ARE prepared to take some risks, eh? Even when there are social aspects to them, and some of them, like HIV and the crap on your breath, might even kill the next person over.
Yeah, turns out you're just picking and choosing for your own convenience, perfectly willing to trade away another person's freedom(s) so YOU might have a little more (usually imaginary) security.
Well, you're winning, as there are a damned lot of you, but just so you know, that green glow you see way, way above you? That's where the pond scum lives.
Running a business where you deal with the public is entirely different from interfering with someone's private land and home. I would think that would be obvious; it's about responsibility.
If I invite you into my home, I become responsible for you. If you're a burglar or an unmonitored wandering child trespassing on my land, and you drown in my pool, my responsibility should be limited to the tone of laughter I use, and whether I go after you and yours for trespassing.
An open business is an open invitation. Responsibility goes with that. Pre-crime, however, does not.
In a sane world, if your kids drowned in my pool, on my property without my permission, you, as their parent, would be held responsible for trespassing, and that would be the end of my involvement in it, other than cleaning them out of my filter. Additionally, if your kids are too fucking stupid / incompetent to survive a swim, then perhaps its best if they die anyway... a neutering might be a good punishment for you as well, seeing that as a parent, you're a complete and utter failure.
Nonsense. How would I know if my neighbor had a fireworks factory in their garage? How would the zoning board? And why should I care? He's already got several vehicles with tanks of explosive fuel in them that might blow me away, not to mention the propane tank on his grill, and a wood-frame house, and a gun cabinet full of weapons that can shoot right through my walls, and I don't worry about any of that, either.
If I *were* worried about it, then I should buy enough land to give me a safety margin with which I am comfortable, and/or employ construction techniques that ameliorate or obviate the issue I'm concerned with. That's my responsibility - not my neighbor's.
That's exactly how things should be. They aren't, of course, because we no longer have much liberty... the concept has been discarded in favor of the illusion of security. Still, I have the option to give myself safety margins, and in many ways, I've done that. Because I *knew* no one was actually going to solve the problem for me, and that the law only provides the illusion of security. So my home is fireproof from the outside; my power is absolutely steady and cannot be interrupted from the outside by any power company; and so on, for quite a few interesting (to me) points.
Oh, no doubt you would. :o) Get your sex-permit yet? Because you know, there are circumstances where you can do harm with that thing, so it really oughta be inspected before you're allowed to use it... each time, really... Best you run down to your zoning commission and 'splain it to them, Lucy. Sicherheit über allen, Ja?
And if you cause harm with them, you should be held responsible. Fine. But, should the department of pre-crime come in and assume you're going to cause harm to the point of interfering with you?
You don't have the right to construct on utility right of way. That's what utility right of way is for. If you cut lines on property you own that is not utility right of way, then you've cut your own lines, and that's your problem, expense, and responsibility. If you cut lines (or even build something) on utility right of way, that's action on someone else's rights, and you should be held responsible. None of this militates for permits or licenses, though.
Thinks about the average law... no, I'm just going to have to disagree. The evidence for empty heads is overwhelming. There's no way you can convince me that pre-crime laws are reasonable. Giving up freedom for security is unacceptable to me and always will be.
Flamebait! Awesome!!!! Look, I dragged a libtard mod out of the closet!
Yes, I understand how it works. And I think it's perfectly reasonable that a property owner might want to increase their property value and in some cases their own personal safety by paying a qualified inspector to come over and give them a valuable, informative report made from the perspective of a certified expert. What I don't think is reasonable is that the government is involved on a coercive level.
And again, it's reasonable to want to increase that value by having certification. It is not reasonable to be forced to do it.
If I go to buy your property, and you've not had [whatever construction] inspected, I would take that into account. You, as a property owner, should be anticipating that, and if you care about your property value (it's yours, after all... you decide if it's important to you, not me) then you might decide to go for that inspection just on that basis, even if you're dead certain your work is good.
Or you might be on the family homestead which has been in the family for 200 years, and know damn well the property isn't going anywhere during the lifetime of the construction in question, and not give a rat's ass for the inspector. All of which seems to me to be right in line with your liberty and property being very important to you, and my right to fuck with your liberty and property without you actually fucking with me first, being essentially non-existent.
Absolutely. If I want to ensure that I will always be able to see to the horizon without any structures in my way, I need to buy the land to the horizon. What's so difficult to understand about that? Should I have the right to tell some guy ten miles away that he can't build a corn silo or an office building or a giant statue of Homer Simpson? Because I could see it and it might block my view of the sunset? What's the difference between that and me telling you that you can't build those things on your property next door? If I want to control what's on your land, shouldn't I have to have a controlling property interest? What gives me the right to tell you what you can do over there, presuming you're not poisoning my grass or shining a 10 kw laser though my living room?
Well, you *could* steal my TV... I think we're going to need a permit for your use of your hands. Also, you can't use 'em until they're inspected. Because we know that in some cases, there will be stealing. So the department of pre-crime will be coming by to examine your hands, see if your fingerprints match any found on stolen tvs. Please keep your hands fully clasped unless your permit is issued.
Also, you *could* give people HIV... I think we're going to need a permit for you to have sex. Also, you can't have sex until you've been inspected. Because we know that in some cases, people will have HIV. So the department of pre-crime will *also* be coming by to examine your dick. Keep your dick to yourself unless your permit is issued.
Or... we can go with that whole innocent of doing harm until proven guilty thing, require probable cause before we generously gift costs, delays and interference on a person, eh? Whereas if there is a leak, we can hold them responsible (that word, you might have to look up.) Thereby only bothering folks who *actually* do harm. What a radical concept.
Oh, wait, that would mean freedom, liberty and stuff. You know, stuff that frightens libtards out of their minds, people who have spent their entire lives hanging from the piggy little teats of mommy government, thinking that any degree of safety is worth giving up any amount of freedom. Yeah, much better to assume you're a complete fuckup. I guess you'd better pack up your hands and dick.
Seriously? You live somewhere where the neighbor's power and gas lines go through YOUR yard? Do you not attach to them along a power/gas right-of-way, perhaps in an adjacent alley?
Here, my power and gas go straight back on my property to the utility right-of-way; the gas to a regulated manifold, the power lines to our step-down transformer; if I cut my lines, I only screw myself.
A utility right of way is what is supposed to give them the land rights to prevent exactly the kind of stupidity (on the part of the utility) you're talking about. Wiring (or plumbing) two properties in parallel through one property seems like the kind of thing only an idiot would do.
It's called zoning and planning, but what it is, is malignant interference with your liberties.
If it's your land, and what you do there does not physically affect anything beyond your land's boundaries (chemical, fire, high level sound waves, overhangs, undermining, water flow... the obvious things) then I really can't see the government having any role at all. Of course, I'm one of those crackpots that think land ownership should be meaningful, and that if you want to control something, you should have to own it first. Radical, I know.
It works like this:
I don't know, but the solution is simple enough. If Congress represented us, they'd say: "Oh, I see what you're saying. You can afford to worry about this because you don't have enough real criminals to catch. Gotcha. This is good news! It means we will cut your budget by 1/3 and we'll convene a committee to study the pony request, to which we will assign 8 congress-folk who know absolutely nothing about ponies, who will in turn assign the task to aides, who will consult with special interest groups, determining that there is nothing in the pony gift process that will benefit the congress-folk. After an interval corresponding most closely to the sunspot cycle (11 years), if all congress-folk are still in office, the aides will return a recommendation that the pony be altered to a certificate indicating VShael deserves a pony, and it will go to the president's desk for signature. Unfortunately, by this time, VShael will have expired in an unlikely but fatal Dvorak keyboard incident, so the certificate will go to the heirs, who will sell it on EBay for enough money to buy a small plastic snow-globe containing an even smaller plastic pony. If any congress folk lose their office during the process, it will be re-started or abandoned, depending upon how much money VShael donates to the appropriate congress folk's political war chests. Oh, and after one year we'll re-evaluate how this affects he FBI's choice of priorities. Who said federal bureaus can't learn to be more efficient?"
No, that perception arrived courtesy your inability to parse English text. I pointed out that we are not in these wars to save the women and children; I pointed out where they are being abused by our general social standards, and where we are not at war on their behalf, and I tried to get across the idea that the reason that we are at war is "other." I never said anything indicating I thought we should be at war on their behalf, it's just that you only have grade school reading skills. If that.
Now, since you assumed, let me respond as if you'd actually asked: I *really* don't care how the Islamists treat each other. They can stew to a fine mush in their ridiculous superstitions and I'll just laugh. men, women, children, they're getting just what they deserve: stone-age living conditions from a stone-age book. They can learn and discard superstition, or they can die in diseased heaps, I honestly don't care either way. I have no urge to interfere, to "bring them Gee-Zuz" or even bring them books other than the Koran. But I care a great deal when they decide to strike at us. When they do, as they did on 9/11, my instinct is to turn around and crush them like bugs. Enough of them to make the message perfectly clear. I wouldn't mourn a single one of them.
Do you think the people in the WTC were meeting there to plan a war against Islam? Why is it ok in your mind for them to do it, but we can't do it back? Do you think this is a game? They're out to kill you and yours. They're not kidding. Civilians, innocent... bullshit. They're attacking us at the level of our society, civilians, infrastructure, everything. 9/11 should be a clear enough indicator, except some people like you are glitchy and can't see what's happening right in front of their own face.
Their society is making war against ours. They strike not at military targets, but straight at our population and our culture. If you want to deter them from doing that, you need to (at a minimum) respond in kind. Only you'd better escalate, and demonstrate that acting against us is a losing proposition. It isn't, because our leaders, like you, are weak and simply do not understand what has happened.
As for Islamists being innocent, again, you demonstrate a degree of ignorance that is the very thing that keeps the Islamists in the business of terror. You come back when you've read the Koran. Until then, you're just another idiot. And I *know* you haven't read it, because if you had, you'd know exactly why Islam is the enemy of the entire world. Declared by their own perfect holy book, pal, complete with advice for almost every occasion, a great deal of which is of the nature "chop off the infidel's heads (the infidel would be you, by the way.) Nice poetry, though. I guess that makes it ok.
Are you really that stupid, or do you just play an idiot online? I didn't "just decide" I didn't like Islam. They dropped the WTC with thousands of my contrymen in it absent any reasonable provocation: so FUCK you, and the camel you rode in on.
And how many "neutral" folk were killed in the WTC? Oh, yes, ALL of them.
The fact is, you are unable to understand what was done to us, so you can't understand what needs to be done in return.
Really? Now that they know their families will pay, not just them? No, I don't think so. See, the way they've got people like you thinking is that there is no one to blame here. But there is.
These beliefs come straight from Islam. They're written down in black and white right there in the Koran. The Imams, the families... they're all complicit. They send those idiots out to die for their "virgins" *knowing* that the only cost to them is less grocery bills because YOU, and people like you, are unable to comprehend what is happening. Those guys don't just arise like magic from a dung pile. They are the produce of a religion of conquest that has learned a way to strike without being struck back. I'd like to see that end; I'd like the consequences known to be too terrible to contemplate.
But you don't get there by just "having" MOABs and FABs, you need the will to use them, and to be understood to have the will to use them.
Muslims have no fear of the USA, nor should they, as long as people like you are running things. You'll see us self-destruct rather than enter into sensible self-defense. And that's exactly what's happening.
We very little resemble the country we were before 9/11; and I can't think of a single political change that is for the good. And it's your fault, you and people like you, people who have not the stones to defend their homes, but instead would lay their heads right on the chopping block for the Islamists. Who, by the way, are perfectly happy to chop them off. The next time they blow something up - and it is coming, you may be assured - you'll be first in line whining about the injustice of it all, but you *still* won't have the sense to raise your hands to defend your family.
I propose that when the Islamists hit us, we hit them back harder; with maximum effect, and minimum cost. They do not have bombers; bombs; military worth consideration... etc. What they have are young men who will strap on bombs, go out, and with no effect on the family other than lowering their food bills, blow our shit up.
It is my opinion that we should extend the cost of those boys back to the families, and more to the point, to the religion, that is spawning them.
We have the capability to hit them much, much harder than they can hit us. We should use that capability.
As for "sacred monuments", I don't give a rat's ass about their superstitions, or yours. If they want to preserve their culture, they need to learn to not attack highly technological cultures with big weapons.
But that's not going to happen; because we're not at war to win: We're at war to make money.
No, it's a call to kill about 2 million people. As for why, it should sound familiar. Any particular attack made by the folks in the WTC against anyone? Did that stop the Islamists? You see, they *rely* on our inability to make resolute war. That's why they are winning. That's why your civil liberties are being sacrificed. That's why we have the abortion known as "homeland security." That's why we're bumbling about in Afghanistan.
If we want the Islamists to police the elements among them that take the Koran literally, then they're going to need a reason. I mean, one besides "respecting their beliefs."
I simply propose to give them one.
You *do* realize that there is no particular punitive difference between killing a million in one shot and killing a million over the course of several years. They're still dead. Oh, wait. There is a difference. The administration's way costs a trillion dollars, and mine a million, also my way doesn't lose us our civil liberties, also doesn't drive us into a recession, also doesn't lose us 6000 soldiers.
Yeah, I guess your way, the administration's way, is better, yeah? With the death of our soldiers, and the costs, the stress on our economy, and the erosion of our liberties. That's your goal, yeah?
Look, I won't attack you first. But if you punch me, I'm *not* going to just punch you back. I'm going to knock you the fuck down, bleeding from your ears with your eyes swollen shut. It's going to *really* hurt, and you will remember it for years. When you wake up, I'll be right there, staring you directly in the eye, and you *will* think about it before you decide to swing at me again. You probably won't be that stupid, because in fact, you haven't got the chops to stand toe to toe with me -- just like the Islamists. You think these things can escalate forever -- no. You... and the Islamics... don't have the resources to escalate. But I - and we - do.
Carry a big stick, and pass your time shining it. Only use it if someone comes after you. That's my philosophy, and it's a good one. People or nations.
Now I know there are plenty of simple folk like you who have absolutely no conception of what conflict really is, or what deterrence is, much less what can serve in that role, so I don't hold it against you. But please, don't think I respect your opinion. It isn't worth spit on the ground in any actual conflict. I'm old, I'm mean, I'm trained, and I've been there. You don't play nice with someone who attacks you. You take them down. That's the only reasonable answer. Appeasement is for idiots.
My pleasure.
It just means I get to take more pictures like these.
I wrote an application that keeps track of auroral potential WRT photography. It's public domain, and you can get the latest version of the project here. Linux, OSX. Nothing for windows, sorry. At least, not without substantial linux-like underpinnings. Love to hear about it if you did get it running under windows, of course.