That's exactly right. This price is no longer anywhere near the "hmmm, maybe I could switch" zone. And I say that as someone who really did encourage switching at the $499 price point. You could just barely justify it. No longer.
Also... bear in mind that $699 is the entry price. That machine, with 8 GB ram, 500 GB drive, and a 2.66 GHz CPU, is $1449.
It's a nice box, but like the rest of the Mac line these days, it's also a luxury box.
There's a recession, Steve. $700 isn't petty cash to most people, and that's not a feature-dependent issue.
Cities are subject to state law -- as are all other entities within a state.
The supreme court has ZERO authorized power to "interpret" the constitution. Go read article III. They assigned themselves this power, in an unauthorized grab. All they are authorized to do is say guilty or not guilty WRT constitutional lawbreaking. Not make new law, or pretend "shall not" means "shall" because it is convenient for them.
No we couldn't, not without using things that were intended to burn your whole face off and kill you, or burn your lungs out and kill you.
Sure we could. Even if you were right (you're not -- there have been many weapons, from slingshots on up, that were accurate enough to put out your eye, flaming or not), still, that means things are *better*, not worse. As in, I'd rather be blind, than be blind *and* have had my face burned off.
Using this new laser as a weapon, it's *only* able to maim.
So? You'd be ok with it if it killed? I'm not following you.
but, seriously, a little widget that can permanently blind anyone you don't like, or the pets of anyone you don't like, or random wildlife, or people flying a plane above or driving a car by, or anyone who just happens to be at the wrong place at the wrong time...
A BB gun can do most of that. So can a 22 short round. Or long, in the case of a flying target, need some velocity there. A 22 long could do all of it. From quite a distance, too.
not cool, not a protected use of the 2nd, and the "weapon intended primarily to blind" thing is even banned by treaty.
This can burn the skin, and consequently annoy the hell out of people. That's a perfectly valid use of a weapon. Doesn't have to be used to blind. Burn their hands enough, it'll be hard for *them* to use a weapon. Burn their skin every time they pop their head up, they won't be so willing to pop their head up. You're just not a tactical thinker, that's all. Of course, that whole "weapons that blind are bad..." that's just dimwitted anyway. What if I shoot you though your eye socket at an angle, tear the side of your face off and splatter your eye all over the place with a high velocity round? What if I do it to both sides of your face? You think that's *better*??? Good grief, man, use your head.
classing this as a weapon would get it banned. (Shaping it like a child's toy and then putting a "not for children" sticker on the box will probably also get it banned, heh). Using it in college lab experiments won't get it banned (they already have stuff powerful enough to hurt anyway). The first few blindings, accidental or intentional, will probably get this specific product banned.
Oh, no doubt it'll be the subject of legislation at the nanny/moron houses of congress. Heck, I can't buy *cough syrup* more than one bottle at a time, even though one bottle won't last me through a cold. I can't buy chemical glassware. We live in an age of poorly educated people (and by extension, legislators) who can't do critical thinking worth a damn, don't understand freedom (or honor), and shuffle about employing tons of prejudices and classism at the same time they cry for "equality under the law."
Does the right to bear arms cover arms which are for more awesome than ever conceived of by the writers of the constitution?
The 2nd amendment covers arms. If you use, or intend to use, this as a weapon, it's arms. So yes, it's covered.
At the time, "arms" consisted of the following (and more, and were being developed into new forms every day):
All manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and extremely hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, caltrops, mines, pits, biologically contaminated materials, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and pikes and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows... I could go on for pages.
Knowing this, and knowing that arms development and refinement went on all the time, what did they put in the constitution? They put "arms." No more, no less. So it's pretty darned clear they meant: "Tools you use to project violence."
Not that the USG pays much attention to the actual meaning and intent of the constitution.
As for "awesome", I don't think this is any more "awesome" than having a flaming arrow fired from a ballista 500 yards (or more) away arrive in your eye socket or your forearm. And that's been an available weapons technology for over 2,000 years.
Firestorms have always wreaked huge havoc; bio-weapons have been known, and used, for centuries; incoming chain shot, pitch, and barbed weapons, and worse were the rule of the day, and death and maiming has always been death and maiming. Though we do have better medical technology now, so that at least alleviates the previous almost-guarantee of death by peritonitis, gangrene, and similar. Presuming you survive the injury at all.
Weapons aren't nice. The sudden realization of the panic-stricken that they might be hurt by deployment of a weapon doesn't really change anything except one's state of mind. Before lasers, we could still burn your eyes out from a distance. Before nukes, we could still burn you (and tens of square miles around you) out at thousands of degrees, leaving all manner of chemical poisons lying around in the aftermath, and leaving people on the periphery with all manner of creative types of injuries. Google the Berlin and Tokyo firestorms for examples. Before anthrax, we could still infect you and yours with all kinds of things; see General Jeffery Amherst's letters ca. ~1763 for some bio-weapons history. Before airplanes, we could still deliver explosives and fire by air. And in the end, if your legs terminate at the mid-femur, the question of how it happened - sword, grenade, flying masonary, 50 cal. bullet, infection, weapons shrapnel, mine... that's kind of beside the point. It all sucks about the same.
I think you're confused. You seem to think the point of having troops in Afghanistan is to achieve some lofty goal, like ridding them of the Taliban (impossible) or "bringing Democracy to them" (laughable, see the history of how well the soviets did "bringing Socialism to them.")
No. The reason we're there - the only reason - is so that the money pump can operate transferring cash from USG coffers into the pockets of the military industrial complex. That's the whole thing, right there. Everything else is purest propaganda. We're not being "saved" from terrorism, the Afghanis have zero interest in our culture, the Taliban (if not by name, then certainly by culture) has a complete and utter lock on the region and the more we beat on them, the more sympathy they get. Which works great, because then we pump more dollars into the war, and the beat goes on.
The Afghan war represents the longest single conflict the US has actively been involved in (that means actually fighting.) The cost (profit) of the Afghan war so far has been 277,444,750,000 as I write this, it's more now by quite a bit. Follow the link, take a look. Remember: Every dollar spent goes into someone's pocket. They're not burning up, being lost or otherwise leaving the economy. They go directly from the US government into the pockets of the military and those that supply the military. Primarily the latter.
And what does the average person on the street here in the US benefit from this nearly 300 billion dollar corporate welfare program? Well, if you're employed by the defense industry, quite a bit. Otherwise, nothing. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are much more likely to produce terrorists now than they were before. Which, from the point of view of the MIC, is good, because that means more -- more wars, more airport scanners, more "security", etc. From the POV of the politicians, it means more erosion of the constitution ("emergencies", y'know), and more and more power focused in federal hands.
Our society has become the world's poison pill. I wish it weren't; I wish we had managed to make a constitutional republic work, it does seem like the optimum model, but we never really got close, and now... now I think it's too late. There is so little of either an honest republic, or a constitutional basis underlying what does exist... and our "democracy" is so twisted into a two-parties-not-of-the-people model... I can't see how we can pull back from the brink here.
You have an unrealistic view of the world if you can't see why a single sentence from over 200 years ago must be interpreted within the context of our modern society. The founding fathers planned for that, which is why the Judicial Branch exists within the checks and balances of the government. The Judicial Branch's job is to interpret laws and the constitution in the context of a given situation.
Absolutely, completely wrong. That's why article five (amendment) exists. The judicial branch has ONE power WRT cases arising under the constitution, and that is decide pro or con, violation or not, under the terms of the document. NOWHERE are they given the power to revise the document itself. Go read article three. It's very short and to the point. In fact, lemme go get the relevant portions for you:
Article III - The Judicial Branch Note
...
Section 2 - Trial by Jury, Original Jurisdiction, Jury Trials
The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority; to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.
Then, the 11th amendment simply adds:
Amendment 11 - Judicial Limits.
The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.
None of what you said. None of it. The supreme court is not the "revision and rewrite department for the constitution." They get to sit in judgment, meaning, they get to say "guilty" or "not guilty", and if the former, they get to say "the following consequences obtain", if in fact, by law, they do.
Taken literally, that means that the states can make such laws, cities can make such laws, hell, even the President or Court or any other government agency could make such a law if they are permitted to make such laws.
See the 14th amendment, and research 14th amendment state incorporation of the bill of rights. Doesn't look to me that the states can make any such law. It's this line that generally is considered to cause the transfer of restrictions:
No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States
except that there are plenty of laws abridging the right to free speech. some are not trivial like the "fire in a crowded theater" laws.
Not trivial? Perhaps. Unauthorized, though. Also completely unnecessary. There are already reasonable and authorized laws against trampling people, hurting them, etc.; and shouting fire in a crowded school, full of our "precious children" is ok, we call it a "fire drill." The whole "thou shall not shout fire in a crowded theater" argument is stupid. Fire drills are good. The problems, when and if there are any, lie elsewhere, and we already have laws for those problems.
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech" is 100%, sterling clear. Any such federal law is unauthorized use of power. Period. If you'd like to argue 14th amendment incorporation, then the states can't do it, either. But the theater thing... that's just our legislature and courts, running wild.
The problem with that line of thinking is that no where else in bill of rights is there any sort of explanation attached.
There are explanations elsewhere in the document, though; the preamble, for one. In any case, he explanation is not the instructions. The instructions are perfectly clear.
Note the wording here refers very specifically to a State - and not a Nation. Given that the Constitution defines and limits the powers of Federal Government, one should not get so hung up on the militia part that one ignores the State and People.
This is actually the only part of the 2nd that is unclear. Your interpretation is one possibility; another is that it is referring to the state of freedom as applied to the individuals; this interpretation is supported in that this is how the rest of the bill of rights is written, as addressing the conditions of the citizens.
Neither interpretation changes the instructions to the government in the second phrase in the least. There are no conditions.
So if the fact of regular citizens owning guns no longer has a bearing on the militia
No. In the context of the 2nd, the "regular citizens" are the militia. The militia, as the term is used there, is not an organization like the national guard is today, it means "able-bodied male of an age able to fight." Any argument that presumes that the 2nd refers to a force of the government is incorrect. The militia - armed and fighting men - are necessary to secure either a free political state or the state of individual freedom (arguable.) Either way, this clause contains zero instructions; it is explicatory. The clause that contains the instructions is crystal clear, and contains no waffling about any kind of conditions.
Individual citizens still (perhaps more than ever) need to protect our access, and ensure our ability to maintain, a free state. Either way you'd like to define it.
Well regulated, at the time, The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Congress went so far as to further define it, WRT the militia, as showing up with X amount of shot, dry powder, etc. (see below.) It isn't in the least bit unclear if you simply study a little. Seek contemporaneous use. Not the interpretation of someone terrified of weapons.
Here's congresses implementation of "well regulated", ca 1792:
...a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder; and shall appear, so armed, accoutred and provided, when called out to exercise, or into service, except, that when called out on company days to exercise only, he may appear without a knapsack.
If fact, the only portion of the second amendment that is unclear is the fragment "free state." No one knows if they meant a political entity that embodied freedom as a core concept, as in "the constitution is a document of the state", or if they were referring to the state of freedom as applies to citizens, as seems quite likely as individual conditions are what everything else in the bill of rights is talking about.
what constitutes arms
Also very clear. See This post. Arguments that it is unclear are specious, or simply based upon ignorance of the objective facts.
If logical fallacies and misdirection is all you have. then you don't really know what you are talking about.
This part of the 2nd amendment is a prefatory phrase. It explains; it in no way directs. The second phrase contains the instructions, and they in turn are in no way unclear. There are no ifs, ands, buts or exceptions, except in the arguments of the uninformed or the pernicious.
No. "small" isn't mentioned, either. At the time, "arms" consisted of the following (and more, and were being developed into new forms every day):
All manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and extremely hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, caltrops, mines, pits, biologically contaminated materials, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and pikes and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows... I could go on for pages.
Knowing this, and knowing that arms development and refinement went on all the time, what did they put in the constitution? They put "arms." No more, no less. So it's pretty darned clear they meant: "Tools you use to project violence."
I will grant you that they didn't anticipate nuclear weapons specifically, but they were aware of bio-weaponry (it had even been considered on this continent, see General Jeffery Amherst's letters ca. ~1763), and the havoc that a plague represented; they were aware of firestorms (ref. the destruction of a large part of London, ca 1666), they built their dwellings and storehouses almost exclusively out of wood, and so directly had experience with, and recognized the danger of, mass destruction... and yet they still said "arms."
So. If we don't want ownership of nukes to be legal, we need to amend the constitution. Rather than let the government run wild and make laws it is not authorized to make. because once we decide that's ok, there is no law they cannot make.
By your logic, people should be allowed to own nuclear weapons!
No. The constitution says that the people have the right to keep and bear nuclear weapons. So we should ask: Should people have that right? Probably not. This is what article five (amendment) is for; to adapt the constitution when social and technological changes exceed the scope it was designed to address.
The fact that it hasn't been so amended (and bio-weapons forbidden to both the people and the government as well as nuclear) is a reflection of the failure of the legislature to do their duty, and a failure of the people to hold the legislature to their oaths.
Laws that are made, contrary to the authorization(s) of the constitution, are unauthorized laws. They (the government) would like you to think they're perfectly good laws unless the supreme court strikes them down... but they aren't. They're no good right out of the gate, because there is no authorization for the feds to make them.
The constitution says arms, and that's what it means. If we don't want it to be that general, we need to amend it via the only authorized path, article five. Until we do, what it means is perfectly clear, and there is no authorized power that allows the government to change that meaning.
What they are doing now is using unauthorized power to coerce the population by threat of force, violence, imprisonment.
There's a general mention to the blessings of liberty - referring to God - in the preamble as well; does that not establish God as a fundamental component of our Government
No. These "blessings" are something we must secure for ourselves, just as it says. They are not a gift from anyone, real or imaginary. Notably, there is not even one mention of "God" in the constitution. They got it right. They left it up to the legislature to misinterpret and get it wrong, and oh, brother, have they ever.
If there is one policy that has made the United States a worse place to live, it's public education.
I smell sarcasm. If I got it right, then to you, sir:
THIS is what the current k-12 public educational system is creating. A pestilent, persistent, broad-spectrum ignorance that the victims think is 100% ok.
Either our k-12 system needs a complete rework (that's my feeling) or it needs to be outright replaced with something that works better.
Remember, slashdot is for the most part a self-selected community of the intelligent. The people on the street — you know, the ones that have made Fox News the most popular news outlet — they are the typical product of the current k-12 educational system, and my friend, they are nothing to brag about.
Pertinent to the topic at hand, they wouldn't be able to tell you much, if anything, about the constitution, never mind make a cogent argument for or against anything in it or based upon it.
And more to the point, at least in the US, where does the right to tell people what they can do with their own computers and bandwidth come from? There's no such right assigned in the constitution, and there are an awful lot of statements that seem to imply otherwise.
If I decide it's ok for others to use my wifi, and my bandwidth, that should be my decision.
As for needing keys and so forth... no, not really. Buy a second hotspot, they're like $40 or something like that. Make one open, tell your router what the QOS is for it, make the other closed, and give yourself whatever permissions/QOS you want. You could take an old machine, drop linux on it, and make it do all manner of network duties that control what the second hotspot can do. Or better yet, get an entirely separate connection and put the guest router on that. Keeps people completely off your network and out of your hair. A little money for 100% security.
It is important to remember that the majority of problems we have with this are government created -- they didn't exist until the legislators decided they did. Can't have someone else downloading "bad stuff" on your network... that's because they decided you were accountable (even though the IPSs aren't.... hmmm.... lobbyists, anyone?) and because they're looking at intermediate legislation to solve other problems (like possession of glassware being illegal, as if making drugs illegal wasn't sufficient to re-implement the lunacy of prohibition.) IOW it's already illegal to possess CP and intellectual property you have no rights to, no need to also make it illegal for the bits to fly around. That's just counter productive. Can't have an open wifi spot... because they say so. Government, as usual, taking a perfectly good thing and screwing it up royally. For little to no reason, though they'll bloviate and tell you otherwise.
Yes, you're on the Internet, writing; and your presumed writing skills are not in evidence. Why is that?
Using slang and improper punctuation on a social news site doesn't make me illiterate.
No, it makes your posts illiterate. There is also the matter of your ID; not clever, not edgy — simply childish. Sadly enough, it is through your posts that we form our impression of you.
While you think that over, here's something for you to watch:
Tell me what you think. Are they like you, simply unwilling to bring skills to bear, or are they just what they seem to be?
You're probably one of those whiny guys that walks around correcting everyone who says "Me and my friends" instead of "My friends and I." God, that's so annoying.
No, generally I say nothing at all, except to my students, from whom I expect more than I do from you, or others I randomly encounter. Interestingly, that particular error is not simply a grammar error, it is a failure of politeness. Others before yourself... that's a basic courtesy. She and I; he and I; my parents and I... and so on. Open doors, encourage others to pass before you. Same general sensibility. Consequently, when I note that error, I don't simply think "grammar fail", I think "manners fail."
You should thank your lucky stars for being in the country you're claiming is falling apart. You wouldn't survive a day outside of the protective bubble they provide for you. Time to wake up buddy, there's a real world out there and you're missing out on it. Bigtime.
If you're going to sling vile imprecations about with an air of authority, you might want to take the time to ensure your target is who, and what, you imagine them to be. I take no offense — truly, I do consider the source — but it is sad to watch you flounder about here.
Frameworks trade the time needed to learn the framework for time writing your own code. The presumption that you will learn the framework as well as your own code is questionable at best. Odds are you won't need everything in the framework. The benefits of a wide community using the framework, and, if the framework is well maintained, having it tweaked as the community reports problems, is a big plus; but it is counter-featured by problems and vulnerabilities affecting wide swaths of users (until fixed or patched) and by input from users that becomes less significant as the size of the community grows, as well as a noise factor where requests for features and fixes begin to cost significant time just to figure out which ones are worthwhile, and which ones are not. Finally, bugs in a widely used framework may go unfixed for considerable lengths of time, or may never be fixed.
If you're a good enough programmer, languages like python make writing server-side functionality pretty much a doddle. We're a long way from the obfuscatory nightmare of perl on the interpreted side of things. C still provides the "big dog" of speed and power, providing that you have decent memory management and string handling available to you in your own collection of source (and I think most C programmers should have such tools... I sure do.) If you're a client-side person, there are certainly various options, but I'm not qualified to talk about them, as I am not a fan of client-side processing at all. As far as I'm concerned, the compatibility benefits of server-side processing trump anything the client side has to offer.
The benefits of rolling your own are pretty significant. Bug? Not only do you "know the programmer", you're the Most Important User, so you get to set the priorities. Want a feature? No one knows better than you just how to make it fit with the existing codebase. Hacking? No one sees your code but you, and you can ensure that everything, and I mean everything, goes through "washer" functions limiting length and character set and range. Security by obscurity can really be extremely effective.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with using a framework; but I am saying that it is quite wrong to consider rolling your own as "right out." It is fairly easy to do, builds you a toolkit that is all yours (and consequently something you will know very well how to use), offers a measure of security unavailable in a public framework as well as any type of security the public framework might use, puts your priorities right up front, hones your programming skills at a higher level than using canned functions does, and it is very rewarding in the general sense -- there's something valuable to be said for "I wrote that."
Slashdot Mirror
We... we've got to make more porn! Right now, there's a 2/3 chance I won't see porn when surfing! This is CRITICAL!
But... Do you think they will?
That's exactly right. This price is no longer anywhere near the "hmmm, maybe I could switch" zone. And I say that as someone who really did encourage switching at the $499 price point. You could just barely justify it. No longer.
Also... bear in mind that $699 is the entry price. That machine, with 8 GB ram, 500 GB drive, and a 2.66 GHz CPU, is $1449.
It's a nice box, but like the rest of the Mac line these days, it's also a luxury box.
There's a recession, Steve. $700 isn't petty cash to most people, and that's not a feature-dependent issue.
Cities are subject to state law -- as are all other entities within a state.
The supreme court has ZERO authorized power to "interpret" the constitution. Go read article III. They assigned themselves this power, in an unauthorized grab. All they are authorized to do is say guilty or not guilty WRT constitutional lawbreaking. Not make new law, or pretend "shall not" means "shall" because it is convenient for them.
They're out of control. Plain and simple.
Sure we could. Even if you were right (you're not -- there have been many weapons, from slingshots on up, that were accurate enough to put out your eye, flaming or not), still, that means things are *better*, not worse. As in, I'd rather be blind, than be blind *and* have had my face burned off.
So? You'd be ok with it if it killed? I'm not following you.
A BB gun can do most of that. So can a 22 short round. Or long, in the case of a flying target, need some velocity there. A 22 long could do all of it. From quite a distance, too.
This can burn the skin, and consequently annoy the hell out of people. That's a perfectly valid use of a weapon. Doesn't have to be used to blind. Burn their hands enough, it'll be hard for *them* to use a weapon. Burn their skin every time they pop their head up, they won't be so willing to pop their head up. You're just not a tactical thinker, that's all. Of course, that whole "weapons that blind are bad..." that's just dimwitted anyway. What if I shoot you though your eye socket at an angle, tear the side of your face off and splatter your eye all over the place with a high velocity round? What if I do it to both sides of your face? You think that's *better*??? Good grief, man, use your head.
Oh, no doubt it'll be the subject of legislation at the nanny/moron houses of congress. Heck, I can't buy *cough syrup* more than one bottle at a time, even though one bottle won't last me through a cold. I can't buy chemical glassware. We live in an age of poorly educated people (and by extension, legislators) who can't do critical thinking worth a damn, don't understand freedom (or honor), and shuffle about employing tons of prejudices and classism at the same time they cry for "equality under the law."
The 2nd amendment covers arms. If you use, or intend to use, this as a weapon, it's arms. So yes, it's covered.
At the time, "arms" consisted of the following (and more, and were being developed into new forms every day): All manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and extremely hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, caltrops, mines, pits, biologically contaminated materials, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and pikes and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows... I could go on for pages.
Knowing this, and knowing that arms development and refinement went on all the time, what did they put in the constitution? They put "arms." No more, no less. So it's pretty darned clear they meant: "Tools you use to project violence."
Not that the USG pays much attention to the actual meaning and intent of the constitution.
As for "awesome", I don't think this is any more "awesome" than having a flaming arrow fired from a ballista 500 yards (or more) away arrive in your eye socket or your forearm. And that's been an available weapons technology for over 2,000 years.
Firestorms have always wreaked huge havoc; bio-weapons have been known, and used, for centuries; incoming chain shot, pitch, and barbed weapons, and worse were the rule of the day, and death and maiming has always been death and maiming. Though we do have better medical technology now, so that at least alleviates the previous almost-guarantee of death by peritonitis, gangrene, and similar. Presuming you survive the injury at all.
Weapons aren't nice. The sudden realization of the panic-stricken that they might be hurt by deployment of a weapon doesn't really change anything except one's state of mind. Before lasers, we could still burn your eyes out from a distance. Before nukes, we could still burn you (and tens of square miles around you) out at thousands of degrees, leaving all manner of chemical poisons lying around in the aftermath, and leaving people on the periphery with all manner of creative types of injuries. Google the Berlin and Tokyo firestorms for examples. Before anthrax, we could still infect you and yours with all kinds of things; see General Jeffery Amherst's letters ca. ~1763 for some bio-weapons history. Before airplanes, we could still deliver explosives and fire by air. And in the end, if your legs terminate at the mid-femur, the question of how it happened - sword, grenade, flying masonary, 50 cal. bullet, infection, weapons shrapnel, mine... that's kind of beside the point. It all sucks about the same.
I think you're confused. You seem to think the point of having troops in Afghanistan is to achieve some lofty goal, like ridding them of the Taliban (impossible) or "bringing Democracy to them" (laughable, see the history of how well the soviets did "bringing Socialism to them.")
No. The reason we're there - the only reason - is so that the money pump can operate transferring cash from USG coffers into the pockets of the military industrial complex. That's the whole thing, right there. Everything else is purest propaganda. We're not being "saved" from terrorism, the Afghanis have zero interest in our culture, the Taliban (if not by name, then certainly by culture) has a complete and utter lock on the region and the more we beat on them, the more sympathy they get. Which works great, because then we pump more dollars into the war, and the beat goes on.
The Afghan war represents the longest single conflict the US has actively been involved in (that means actually fighting.) The cost (profit) of the Afghan war so far has been 277,444,750,000 as I write this, it's more now by quite a bit. Follow the link, take a look. Remember: Every dollar spent goes into someone's pocket. They're not burning up, being lost or otherwise leaving the economy. They go directly from the US government into the pockets of the military and those that supply the military. Primarily the latter.
And what does the average person on the street here in the US benefit from this nearly 300 billion dollar corporate welfare program? Well, if you're employed by the defense industry, quite a bit. Otherwise, nothing. Both Iraq and Afghanistan are much more likely to produce terrorists now than they were before. Which, from the point of view of the MIC, is good, because that means more -- more wars, more airport scanners, more "security", etc. From the POV of the politicians, it means more erosion of the constitution ("emergencies", y'know), and more and more power focused in federal hands.
Our society has become the world's poison pill. I wish it weren't; I wish we had managed to make a constitutional republic work, it does seem like the optimum model, but we never really got close, and now... now I think it's too late. There is so little of either an honest republic, or a constitutional basis underlying what does exist... and our "democracy" is so twisted into a two-parties-not-of-the-people model... I can't see how we can pull back from the brink here.
Absolutely, completely wrong. That's why article five (amendment) exists. The judicial branch has ONE power WRT cases arising under the constitution, and that is decide pro or con, violation or not, under the terms of the document. NOWHERE are they given the power to revise the document itself. Go read article three. It's very short and to the point. In fact, lemme go get the relevant portions for you:
Then, the 11th amendment simply adds:
None of what you said. None of it. The supreme court is not the "revision and rewrite department for the constitution." They get to sit in judgment, meaning, they get to say "guilty" or "not guilty", and if the former, they get to say "the following consequences obtain", if in fact, by law, they do.
See the 14th amendment, and research 14th amendment state incorporation of the bill of rights. Doesn't look to me that the states can make any such law. It's this line that generally is considered to cause the transfer of restrictions:
Not trivial? Perhaps. Unauthorized, though. Also completely unnecessary. There are already reasonable and authorized laws against trampling people, hurting them, etc.; and shouting fire in a crowded school, full of our "precious children" is ok, we call it a "fire drill." The whole "thou shall not shout fire in a crowded theater" argument is stupid. Fire drills are good. The problems, when and if there are any, lie elsewhere, and we already have laws for those problems.
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech" is 100%, sterling clear. Any such federal law is unauthorized use of power. Period. If you'd like to argue 14th amendment incorporation, then the states can't do it, either. But the theater thing... that's just our legislature and courts, running wild.
There are explanations elsewhere in the document, though; the preamble, for one. In any case, he explanation is not the instructions. The instructions are perfectly clear.
This is actually the only part of the 2nd that is unclear. Your interpretation is one possibility; another is that it is referring to the state of freedom as applied to the individuals; this interpretation is supported in that this is how the rest of the bill of rights is written, as addressing the conditions of the citizens.
Neither interpretation changes the instructions to the government in the second phrase in the least. There are no conditions.
No. In the context of the 2nd, the "regular citizens" are the militia. The militia, as the term is used there, is not an organization like the national guard is today, it means "able-bodied male of an age able to fight." Any argument that presumes that the 2nd refers to a force of the government is incorrect. The militia - armed and fighting men - are necessary to secure either a free political state or the state of individual freedom (arguable.) Either way, this clause contains zero instructions; it is explicatory. The clause that contains the instructions is crystal clear, and contains no waffling about any kind of conditions.
Individual citizens still (perhaps more than ever) need to protect our access, and ensure our ability to maintain, a free state. Either way you'd like to define it.
You're not thinking clearly. See this post.
Well regulated, at the time, The phrase "well-regulated" was in common use long before 1789, and remained so for a century thereafter. It referred to the property of something being in proper working order. Something that was well-regulated was calibrated correctly, functioning as expected. Congress went so far as to further define it, WRT the militia, as showing up with X amount of shot, dry powder, etc. (see below.) It isn't in the least bit unclear if you simply study a little. Seek contemporaneous use. Not the interpretation of someone terrified of weapons.
Here's congresses implementation of "well regulated", ca 1792:
If fact, the only portion of the second amendment that is unclear is the fragment "free state." No one knows if they meant a political entity that embodied freedom as a core concept, as in "the constitution is a document of the state", or if they were referring to the state of freedom as applies to citizens, as seems quite likely as individual conditions are what everything else in the bill of rights is talking about.
Also very clear. See This post. Arguments that it is unclear are specious, or simply based upon ignorance of the objective facts.
This part of the 2nd amendment is a prefatory phrase. It explains; it in no way directs. The second phrase contains the instructions, and they in turn are in no way unclear. There are no ifs, ands, buts or exceptions, except in the arguments of the uninformed or the pernicious.
No. "small" isn't mentioned, either. At the time, "arms" consisted of the following (and more, and were being developed into new forms every day):
All manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and extremely hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, caltrops, mines, pits, biologically contaminated materials, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and pikes and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows... I could go on for pages.
Knowing this, and knowing that arms development and refinement went on all the time, what did they put in the constitution? They put "arms." No more, no less. So it's pretty darned clear they meant: "Tools you use to project violence."
I will grant you that they didn't anticipate nuclear weapons specifically, but they were aware of bio-weaponry (it had even been considered on this continent, see General Jeffery Amherst's letters ca. ~1763), and the havoc that a plague represented; they were aware of firestorms (ref. the destruction of a large part of London, ca 1666), they built their dwellings and storehouses almost exclusively out of wood, and so directly had experience with, and recognized the danger of, mass destruction... and yet they still said "arms."
So. If we don't want ownership of nukes to be legal, we need to amend the constitution. Rather than let the government run wild and make laws it is not authorized to make. because once we decide that's ok, there is no law they cannot make.
No. The constitution says that the people have the right to keep and bear nuclear weapons. So we should ask: Should people have that right? Probably not. This is what article five (amendment) is for; to adapt the constitution when social and technological changes exceed the scope it was designed to address.
The fact that it hasn't been so amended (and bio-weapons forbidden to both the people and the government as well as nuclear) is a reflection of the failure of the legislature to do their duty, and a failure of the people to hold the legislature to their oaths.
Laws that are made, contrary to the authorization(s) of the constitution, are unauthorized laws. They (the government) would like you to think they're perfectly good laws unless the supreme court strikes them down... but they aren't. They're no good right out of the gate, because there is no authorization for the feds to make them.
The constitution says arms, and that's what it means. If we don't want it to be that general, we need to amend it via the only authorized path, article five. Until we do, what it means is perfectly clear, and there is no authorized power that allows the government to change that meaning.
What they are doing now is using unauthorized power to coerce the population by threat of force, violence, imprisonment.
No. These "blessings" are something we must secure for ourselves, just as it says. They are not a gift from anyone, real or imaginary. Notably, there is not even one mention of "God" in the constitution. They got it right. They left it up to the legislature to misinterpret and get it wrong, and oh, brother, have they ever.
I smell sarcasm. If I got it right, then to you, sir:
THIS is what the current k-12 public educational system is creating. A pestilent, persistent, broad-spectrum ignorance that the victims think is 100% ok.
Either our k-12 system needs a complete rework (that's my feeling) or it needs to be outright replaced with something that works better.
Remember, slashdot is for the most part a self-selected community of the intelligent. The people on the street — you know, the ones that have made Fox News the most popular news outlet — they are the typical product of the current k-12 educational system, and my friend, they are nothing to brag about.
Pertinent to the topic at hand, they wouldn't be able to tell you much, if anything, about the constitution, never mind make a cogent argument for or against anything in it or based upon it.
And more to the point, at least in the US, where does the right to tell people what they can do with their own computers and bandwidth come from? There's no such right assigned in the constitution, and there are an awful lot of statements that seem to imply otherwise.
If I decide it's ok for others to use my wifi, and my bandwidth, that should be my decision.
As for needing keys and so forth... no, not really. Buy a second hotspot, they're like $40 or something like that. Make one open, tell your router what the QOS is for it, make the other closed, and give yourself whatever permissions/QOS you want. You could take an old machine, drop linux on it, and make it do all manner of network duties that control what the second hotspot can do. Or better yet, get an entirely separate connection and put the guest router on that. Keeps people completely off your network and out of your hair. A little money for 100% security.
It is important to remember that the majority of problems we have with this are government created -- they didn't exist until the legislators decided they did. Can't have someone else downloading "bad stuff" on your network... that's because they decided you were accountable (even though the IPSs aren't.... hmmm.... lobbyists, anyone?) and because they're looking at intermediate legislation to solve other problems (like possession of glassware being illegal, as if making drugs illegal wasn't sufficient to re-implement the lunacy of prohibition.) IOW it's already illegal to possess CP and intellectual property you have no rights to, no need to also make it illegal for the bits to fly around. That's just counter productive. Can't have an open wifi spot... because they say so. Government, as usual, taking a perfectly good thing and screwing it up royally. For little to no reason, though they'll bloviate and tell you otherwise.
Yes, you're on the Internet, writing; and your presumed writing skills are not in evidence. Why is that?
No, it makes your posts illiterate. There is also the matter of your ID; not clever, not edgy — simply childish. Sadly enough, it is through your posts that we form our impression of you.
While you think that over, here's something for you to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&playnext_from=TL&videos=fbHM11yL9TE#
Tell me what you think. Are they like you, simply unwilling to bring skills to bear, or are they just what they seem to be?
No, generally I say nothing at all, except to my students, from whom I expect more than I do from you, or others I randomly encounter. Interestingly, that particular error is not simply a grammar error, it is a failure of politeness. Others before yourself... that's a basic courtesy. She and I; he and I; my parents and I... and so on. Open doors, encourage others to pass before you. Same general sensibility. Consequently, when I note that error, I don't simply think "grammar fail", I think "manners fail."
If you're going to sling vile imprecations about with an air of authority, you might want to take the time to ensure your target is who, and what, you imagine them to be. I take no offense — truly, I do consider the source — but it is sad to watch you flounder about here.
"Second straight rocket failure for South Korea"
But would bent rockets work any better?
The ship in Poul Andersen's The Makeshift Rocket uses beer for propellant.
You can't top that. You're always on the right heading, see? Heading froth into the stars!
Solar sails, indeed. [sniff!]
Frameworks trade the time needed to learn the framework for time writing your own code. The presumption that you will learn the framework as well as your own code is questionable at best. Odds are you won't need everything in the framework. The benefits of a wide community using the framework, and, if the framework is well maintained, having it tweaked as the community reports problems, is a big plus; but it is counter-featured by problems and vulnerabilities affecting wide swaths of users (until fixed or patched) and by input from users that becomes less significant as the size of the community grows, as well as a noise factor where requests for features and fixes begin to cost significant time just to figure out which ones are worthwhile, and which ones are not. Finally, bugs in a widely used framework may go unfixed for considerable lengths of time, or may never be fixed.
If you're a good enough programmer, languages like python make writing server-side functionality pretty much a doddle. We're a long way from the obfuscatory nightmare of perl on the interpreted side of things. C still provides the "big dog" of speed and power, providing that you have decent memory management and string handling available to you in your own collection of source (and I think most C programmers should have such tools... I sure do.) If you're a client-side person, there are certainly various options, but I'm not qualified to talk about them, as I am not a fan of client-side processing at all. As far as I'm concerned, the compatibility benefits of server-side processing trump anything the client side has to offer.
The benefits of rolling your own are pretty significant. Bug? Not only do you "know the programmer", you're the Most Important User, so you get to set the priorities. Want a feature? No one knows better than you just how to make it fit with the existing codebase. Hacking? No one sees your code but you, and you can ensure that everything, and I mean everything, goes through "washer" functions limiting length and character set and range. Security by obscurity can really be extremely effective.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with using a framework; but I am saying that it is quite wrong to consider rolling your own as "right out." It is fairly easy to do, builds you a toolkit that is all yours (and consequently something you will know very well how to use), offers a measure of security unavailable in a public framework as well as any type of security the public framework might use, puts your priorities right up front, hones your programming skills at a higher level than using canned functions does, and it is very rewarding in the general sense -- there's something valuable to be said for "I wrote that."
no, full metal panic is anime, which has zero appeal for me. I'm talking about realistic presentation, like avatar's mechs.