Only an idiot would use this [pay for schooling you don't agree with] argument
Apparently, you do not realize that there are other alternatives, specifically supporting schooling one does agree with, for instance, where they concentrate on little issues like math, science, and critical thinking instead of football, track, and cheerleading. And who has the nicest bus. Oh, and by the way — next time you reply, if you can manage to keep the ad homonym to yourself, you'll get further. Name-calling isn't exactly a hallmark of advanced argument.
It is not necessary, and not a good idea, to consider congenital defects to be the same as incest.
Congenital genetic defects. It is precisely the same thing; and it is a very good (and accurate) idea to compare them. Your argument about gay marriage is even less sound and I have already destroyed it right here.
Don't breed with relatives such that recessive disorders occur.
Most people would not object to two people with a genetic disability falling in love, etc. The objection - the one you might make if you believe you have the right to tell two informed, consenting adults what to do, that is - is centered around breeding. Breeding can be controlled. The problem for society is those people on the left side of the gaussian who fail to exert such control... still, if we're not going to tell people with congenital defects they can't have relationships, it pretty much torpedos the rational arguments against incest and turns them into classed prejudice instead of reason.
We're talking about property tax. My county government - which is the entity I pay property taxes to - does not provide either a stable economy or military power. They provide other services, a very large number of which are of no interest or use to me, others of which I think are harmful (specifically, a huge focus on high school sports, while leaving academics in the dust, broadcast television via translators, some other things as well.)
Anyway, the local government collects property taxes. The feds and the state take my income and do things I don't want with it, the local government takes a valuation of my property and demands I give that valuation to them or they will instruct me on the use of the next level of coercion, which is punitive force with the sheriff as the point man.
We're comparing rent to property tax. The scope is limited. I welcome your opinion, but you at least have to talk about what we're talking about if you want to be relevant.
You have the ability to choose precisely to whom you pay rent. You can avoid really bad landlords, as well as landlords who would use, or you find out are using, your rent moneys in ways abhorrent to you. You have no such choice with the government. Additionally, when you pay rent, you receive in return a service you desire and are actively attempting to obtain (a place to stay.) When you pay property taxes, you receive what the government decides to give you; you have little (or no) control over your end. For instance, it is one thing for a taxpayer to receive the "service" of schooling if there are children in the house; it is entirely another when there aren't. It is one thing to pay a tax for television transponders if you watch broadcast television. It is entirely another if you don't. It is one thing to see religions exempted from property tax, thus increasing what you must pay, if you support religion. But if you don't... And so on.
So there are differences. The ability to do much about it, however, is questionable. The larger the area you live in, the less effective your vote is; likewise, the more you differ from the average citizen, the less powerful your vote is. Representative democracy as practiced in the US doesn't serve the minority except as an afterthought, or when cornered.
Still, you have to admit that a properly written C++ snippet doing the same would lack all the explicit machinery visible in the C snippet, while doing exactly the same things just as optimally.
Oh heck yes, I admit it, that's what I'm trying to avoid - hidden "gifts" from the compiler, particularly hidden gifts that pull in this, which in turn pulls in that, and soon my executable is bloated and I don't really have any good idea why. I want the compiler to do what I say. No more, no less. That is specifically what I value about a c compiler; if I do something, I pretty much know what the compiler will make of it, and that it won't make anything else of it.
BTW, one thing in your code I can't understand is, why GPID("functionname") (which I assume is a macro which expands to a funciton call with THISFILE) requires a function name? Why not use __FUNCTION__?
Because feeding it a string allows you to (a) just use the vanilla function name, (b) append variables and such by jamming a little sprintf() goodness onto a local array, (c) throw explicatory info about the function's purpose while under development.
No, I abandoned that line of thinking the first time I lost my balance on a ladder and gravity demonstrated its ability to accelerate me into a concrete floor about ten feet closer to the center of the planet. Well, after I woke up, that is.
Read about the case here, and here, and here. I'm sure you can find the case itself, given the dates and so forth; I'm not familiar with findlaw. I just pay attention to the rumblings in the news, particularly when there appears to be someone shitting on the constitution, and particularly when that someone is the supreme court.
The problem I have with that chart is this: few "strictly personal" matters are so easily defined
Nonsense.
A perfect example is country crack usage or crystal meth usage: is this purely personal?
Absolutely.
When more people in an area are using this stuff all sorts of other crimes go up - theft, personal invasion, child and spouse abuse, etc. Yes, these are already crimes
Exactly. Punish the crime. Meth use is a personal choice. Theft is a crime, abuse is a crime, etc. They all end up in the "there should be a law" box.
Problem is policing all that added crime means more court expenses, more beat officers, etc.
Good lord, man, what do you think policing all the personal choices costs? Are you insane? Can you not read the newspaper, or comprehend a statistic?
So, not placing laws against personal use of these sorts of drugs means more burden on the courts AND the people in the area where the crimes are taking place
No. It doesn't. Not policing drug use would relieve a HUGE burden from the system - financial, manpower, prison space, social costs, ruined families, lost jobs, criminal records. Your assertion is nonsensical.
I hate the nanny state - but pretending _any_ actions are purely personal requires taking a logical leap of faith that is every bit as beyond reason as a great many of our current nanny-laws. Whether I am sitting in my home gambling away my money and setting myself up for dependency on a welfare state,
Look here: If you gamble away your means of support, that's your choice. Period. If the state decides to support you, that is the choice of the state, through whatever medium it uses to make such choices. The fact that the state may decide to support you is not justification for the state to then decide it can forbid you. That is circular and despotic reasoning. It opens the door to every abuse you can think of. The state can decide it wants to support people who have lost home ownership, and then forbid them to take mortgages on their homes because they might lose their homes if that doesn't work out. It is 100% anti-liberty and you should be ashamed of yourself for even considering it seriously.
So where does that leave your flowchart of doom?
Every instance you name goes through that cart reasonable. If kids breathe your smoke, they are directly physically harmed. So no. Drinking - your choice. Failing to care for your minor dependents - causes direct physical harm, and appropriate laws exist to take them from you in that case. Surfing porn, your choice, so what. Utterly harmless. Taking anything to extremes may cause you to fail to deal with serious issues, and when that causes harm to others, there should be laws dealing with your failure. The chart works fine; it is your reasoning that isn't working.
So then, why hasn't the supreme court ruled most of the federal government's regulation of commerce unconstitutional?
One might as well ask, why has the supreme court allowed multiple ex post facto laws, although this is (ref 1, ref 2) explicitly unconstitutional at both the state and federal level? One might as well ask, why has the supreme court allowed wiretapping without a warrant, though this is, via telecommunications law, both illegal and unconstitutional (ref)? One might as well ask, why has the court allowed restrictions on the bearing of arms, though this is explicitly unconstitutional (ref)? One might as well ask, why has the court allowed the federal government to expand into powers that are not among the enumerated (ref), and further are explicitly assigned (ref 1, ref 2) to the states and the people? One might as well ask, why has the supreme court failed to knock down government sponsored religious expression (ref) (on coins, mottos, etc.)?
Why, indeed? The highest level answer is because the court is operating outside the legitimate authority granted by the constituting authority itself; they are exercising power without authority, acting as a ruling junta (a group ruling by force) without constraints with regard to what positions they may take. As is the executive branch with its pursuit of unconstitutional programs and actions, and both houses of congress with their numerous laws breaching constitutional prohibitions, and the federal government in general which has hugely overstepped the enumerated powers granted it by the constitution.
To expect the supreme court to fix things represents, unfortunately, a forlorn hope. They are every bit as corrupt as the rest of the government. The citizens, for their part, are both too comfortable to rise up against this government where they are aware of the issues, and further, for the most part, not even aware of the issues. If I had to describe the state of the average citizen's knowledge of how government is operating illegally (as the constitution is literally the highest law in the land (ref)), I'd say "woefully uninformed."
It's not that anything that happens within a state could happen among states.
Yes — it specifically is. Witness the California law that allowed for the growing, distribution, and use of medical marijuana within the state. Which is what they were doing — there was no interstate commerce of any kind going on, or being contemplated.
The feds came in and arrested people doing this legally on the basis that they had authority under the interstate commerce clause because it "could" have been interstate commerce.
Unless you consider rational economic policy to be an important factor. Returning to the bloody gold standard?
Yes. What a radical, crazy idea, to tie US money to the value of something real. [shakes head] It really is much better to pretend it represents something other than trillions of dollars in debt because it is being traded back and forth, isn't it? Hmmm?
If we cut and run from Iraq, we'll leave the area in turmoil
The iraqis want it in turmoil. They're working hard to keep it in turmoil. We're wasting - yes, WASTING - young lives, ours and theirs - every day we stay there. We shouldn't have gone there, we shouldn't have stayed there, and we need to get the heck out, long ago. Every day we stay accomplishes nothing but loss of life. It's a clusterfuck and there is NO solution that involves us playing nanny. It isn't complicated in the least. Turn around, walk away. If they do something positive, reward them. If they don't, ignore them. End of story.
If you believe that people should be free to make an individual choice of where to live and work and travel without government imposed restrictions then Ron Paul is definitely not your guy.
Don't blame me. I didn't create this situation. The only "shenanigans" you're going to find are in their Bill of Rights, Declaration of Rights, and their constitutions.
Most [atheists] haven't really thought it through.
I have. I'm rock-solid atheist, that is the literal meaning of atheism, one without belief in a god or gods. Care to try to find any cracks in my decision-making? Or was that comment a throwaway for the sake of flaming?
No. You've misunderstood how funding works. Until a bill passes, it doesn't leave the house. Until a funding bill passes, there is no funding. The Democrats can control the house; therefore, all they have to do is not pass a funding bill, and the troops will then have to stop fighting. War cannot be made without considerable funding. The Democrats can stop the war. Or they could have, before they passed the funding bill. They didn't; we can legitimately blame them for that.
...ultimately medical care is a personal right that does not fall on the state
The constitution says:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
That's as close as we get to defining where medical care falls, because to provide a service, you must have a power. So Ron Paul is exactly right. If you want this changed, you need to get the constitution modified (which Ron Paul also supports, because that's a constitutional provision.) If you allow the feds to do things - good or bad - that are not constitutionally in its purview, then you are saying that the constitution is "just a piece of paper" and that's not a good idea, because no matter how good the good thing was you were pushing for, there's a bad thing you have set the precedent to allow.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, you do not realize that there are other alternatives, specifically supporting schooling one does agree with, for instance, where they concentrate on little issues like math, science, and critical thinking instead of football, track, and cheerleading. And who has the nicest bus. Oh, and by the way — next time you reply, if you can manage to keep the ad homonym to yourself, you'll get further. Name-calling isn't exactly a hallmark of advanced argument.
Congenital genetic defects. It is precisely the same thing; and it is a very good (and accurate) idea to compare them. Your argument about gay marriage is even less sound and I have already destroyed it right here.
Most people would not object to two people with a genetic disability falling in love, etc. The objection - the one you might make if you believe you have the right to tell two informed, consenting adults what to do, that is - is centered around breeding. Breeding can be controlled. The problem for society is those people on the left side of the gaussian who fail to exert such control... still, if we're not going to tell people with congenital defects they can't have relationships, it pretty much torpedos the rational arguments against incest and turns them into classed prejudice instead of reason.
We're talking about property tax. My county government - which is the entity I pay property taxes to - does not provide either a stable economy or military power. They provide other services, a very large number of which are of no interest or use to me, others of which I think are harmful (specifically, a huge focus on high school sports, while leaving academics in the dust, broadcast television via translators, some other things as well.)
Anyway, the local government collects property taxes. The feds and the state take my income and do things I don't want with it, the local government takes a valuation of my property and demands I give that valuation to them or they will instruct me on the use of the next level of coercion, which is punitive force with the sheriff as the point man.
We're comparing rent to property tax. The scope is limited. I welcome your opinion, but you at least have to talk about what we're talking about if you want to be relevant.
Thanks - you saved me the time of debunking that reply. Much appreciated.
You have the ability to choose precisely to whom you pay rent. You can avoid really bad landlords, as well as landlords who would use, or you find out are using, your rent moneys in ways abhorrent to you. You have no such choice with the government. Additionally, when you pay rent, you receive in return a service you desire and are actively attempting to obtain (a place to stay.) When you pay property taxes, you receive what the government decides to give you; you have little (or no) control over your end. For instance, it is one thing for a taxpayer to receive the "service" of schooling if there are children in the house; it is entirely another when there aren't. It is one thing to pay a tax for television transponders if you watch broadcast television. It is entirely another if you don't. It is one thing to see religions exempted from property tax, thus increasing what you must pay, if you support religion. But if you don't... And so on.
So there are differences. The ability to do much about it, however, is questionable. The larger the area you live in, the less effective your vote is; likewise, the more you differ from the average citizen, the less powerful your vote is. Representative democracy as practiced in the US doesn't serve the minority except as an afterthought, or when cornered.
Oh heck yes, I admit it, that's what I'm trying to avoid - hidden "gifts" from the compiler, particularly hidden gifts that pull in this, which in turn pulls in that, and soon my executable is bloated and I don't really have any good idea why. I want the compiler to do what I say. No more, no less. That is specifically what I value about a c compiler; if I do something, I pretty much know what the compiler will make of it, and that it won't make anything else of it.
Because feeding it a string allows you to (a) just use the vanilla function name, (b) append variables and such by jamming a little sprintf() goodness onto a local array, (c) throw explicatory info about the function's purpose while under development.
No, I abandoned that line of thinking the first time I lost my balance on a ladder and gravity demonstrated its ability to accelerate me into a concrete floor about ten feet closer to the center of the planet. Well, after I woke up, that is.
done.
Read about the case here, and here, and here. I'm sure you can find the case itself, given the dates and so forth; I'm not familiar with findlaw. I just pay attention to the rumblings in the news, particularly when there appears to be someone shitting on the constitution, and particularly when that someone is the supreme court.
Nonsense.
Absolutely.
Exactly. Punish the crime. Meth use is a personal choice. Theft is a crime, abuse is a crime, etc. They all end up in the "there should be a law" box.
Good lord, man, what do you think policing all the personal choices costs? Are you insane? Can you not read the newspaper, or comprehend a statistic?
No. It doesn't. Not policing drug use would relieve a HUGE burden from the system - financial, manpower, prison space, social costs, ruined families, lost jobs, criminal records. Your assertion is nonsensical.
Look here: If you gamble away your means of support, that's your choice. Period. If the state decides to support you, that is the choice of the state, through whatever medium it uses to make such choices. The fact that the state may decide to support you is not justification for the state to then decide it can forbid you. That is circular and despotic reasoning. It opens the door to every abuse you can think of. The state can decide it wants to support people who have lost home ownership, and then forbid them to take mortgages on their homes because they might lose their homes if that doesn't work out. It is 100% anti-liberty and you should be ashamed of yourself for even considering it seriously.
Every instance you name goes through that cart reasonable. If kids breathe your smoke, they are directly physically harmed. So no. Drinking - your choice. Failing to care for your minor dependents - causes direct physical harm, and appropriate laws exist to take them from you in that case. Surfing porn, your choice, so what. Utterly harmless. Taking anything to extremes may cause you to fail to deal with serious issues, and when that causes harm to others, there should be laws dealing with your failure. The chart works fine; it is your reasoning that isn't working.
One might as well ask, why has the supreme court allowed multiple ex post facto laws, although this is (ref 1, ref 2) explicitly unconstitutional at both the state and federal level? One might as well ask, why has the supreme court allowed wiretapping without a warrant, though this is, via telecommunications law, both illegal and unconstitutional (ref)? One might as well ask, why has the court allowed restrictions on the bearing of arms, though this is explicitly unconstitutional (ref)? One might as well ask, why has the court allowed the federal government to expand into powers that are not among the enumerated (ref), and further are explicitly assigned (ref 1, ref 2) to the states and the people? One might as well ask, why has the supreme court failed to knock down government sponsored religious expression (ref) (on coins, mottos, etc.)?
Why, indeed? The highest level answer is because the court is operating outside the legitimate authority granted by the constituting authority itself; they are exercising power without authority, acting as a ruling junta (a group ruling by force) without constraints with regard to what positions they may take. As is the executive branch with its pursuit of unconstitutional programs and actions, and both houses of congress with their numerous laws breaching constitutional prohibitions, and the federal government in general which has hugely overstepped the enumerated powers granted it by the constitution.
To expect the supreme court to fix things represents, unfortunately, a forlorn hope. They are every bit as corrupt as the rest of the government. The citizens, for their part, are both too comfortable to rise up against this government where they are aware of the issues, and further, for the most part, not even aware of the issues. If I had to describe the state of the average citizen's knowledge of how government is operating illegally (as the constitution is literally the highest law in the land (ref)), I'd say "woefully uninformed."
You're completely wrong.
Yes — it specifically is. Witness the California law that allowed for the growing, distribution, and use of medical marijuana within the state. Which is what they were doing — there was no interstate commerce of any kind going on, or being contemplated.
The feds came in and arrested people doing this legally on the basis that they had authority under the interstate commerce clause because it "could" have been interstate commerce.
Look it up; those are the facts.
Yes. What a radical, crazy idea, to tie US money to the value of something real. [shakes head] It really is much better to pretend it represents something other than trillions of dollars in debt because it is being traded back and forth, isn't it? Hmmm?
The iraqis want it in turmoil. They're working hard to keep it in turmoil. We're wasting - yes, WASTING - young lives, ours and theirs - every day we stay there. We shouldn't have gone there, we shouldn't have stayed there, and we need to get the heck out, long ago. Every day we stay accomplishes nothing but loss of life. It's a clusterfuck and there is NO solution that involves us playing nanny. It isn't complicated in the least. Turn around, walk away. If they do something positive, reward them. If they don't, ignore them. End of story.
And you make these assertions based upon... what?
Then you need a constitutional amendment. It's as simple as that, and as difficult.
Ron Paul - hands down.
Here you go.
Don't blame me. I didn't create this situation. The only "shenanigans" you're going to find are in their Bill of Rights, Declaration of Rights, and their constitutions.
Yes, I accept your apology.
I have. I'm rock-solid atheist, that is the literal meaning of atheism, one without belief in a god or gods. Care to try to find any cracks in my decision-making? Or was that comment a throwaway for the sake of flaming?
No. You've misunderstood how funding works. Until a bill passes, it doesn't leave the house. Until a funding bill passes, there is no funding. The Democrats can control the house; therefore, all they have to do is not pass a funding bill, and the troops will then have to stop fighting. War cannot be made without considerable funding. The Democrats can stop the war. Or they could have, before they passed the funding bill. They didn't; we can legitimately blame them for that.
The constitution says:
That's as close as we get to defining where medical care falls, because to provide a service, you must have a power. So Ron Paul is exactly right. If you want this changed, you need to get the constitution modified (which Ron Paul also supports, because that's a constitutional provision.) If you allow the feds to do things - good or bad - that are not constitutionally in its purview, then you are saying that the constitution is "just a piece of paper" and that's not a good idea, because no matter how good the good thing was you were pushing for, there's a bad thing you have set the precedent to allow.
The constitution says, in article 1, section 8, paragraph 3, (emphasis mine):
It does not say:
The supreme court has ruled that "among" essentially means "within" because (ready?) anything that happens "within" could have happened "among."
Seriously. Look it up.
Yes, I am. These states: AR, MA, MD, NC, PA, SC, TN and TX all have such provisions. See this page.
Amazing, isn't it?