It doesn't have to be that bad. These people want a product; make sure that's all they get. No one says you have to sell your soul — at least, not yet. If the terms aren't acceptable, walk.
I don't think that's what they're looking for. Perhaps you missed this: "without millions of lines of code". PostgreSQL is great (I use it every day) but it is a huge, unmaintainable pig of a database. There are very few "lightweight" database engines out there, and even fewer that offer a reasonable level of flexibility and power. PostgreSQL isn't one of them, and neither is MySQL. The engine is part of the problem, but you'll notice they point at Microsoft and Oracle; so they're not just talking about the engine, most likely they're implying UI as well (which is something Access, for instance, pretty much has sewn up. It's a bit weird, but it is point and click to an astounding degree.) Nothing like that exists in working form for PostgreSQL, the one attempt I saw was so flawed as to be ludicrous.
house under water (although I have come close to this)
You know that little drain plug in the back of your boat? You're supposed to put that in before you put the boat in the water. Just a tip, don't bother to thank me.
I did not say that. You should treat your child as you determine is appropriate, based upon your mores, the child's ability to deal with the situation as you see it, and the give and take that results from the experience in a maturity-appropriate manner. You are responsible for the developmental curve of your child (unless, of course, you defer to TV and grade school like most American sheeple.) Any attempt to treat any one child like all other children is likely to result in a poor outcome, because all children are different and there is a relatively narrow window during which children develop at a very high rate. If you aren't aware of this, you're not particularly fit to be a parent yet, in my view, but then again, you can do what you want with your kids without hearing any objections from me. Just so long as you don't interfere with my family or physically damage your own.
One thing I've learned, and perhaps you're too young to know this yet
I have three boys. All three are entrepreneurs and millionaires as a result of their own efforts, strong charitable givers, atheists, PhD's, and extraordinary parents within their own families. They're all black belts, physically and mentally fit, all have travelled the world. They're healthy human beings and highly successful by any rational metric. Was I strict? Yes, I was — you have no idea. Stepping out of line resulted in strong correction, and they were forbidden broadcast television and all recreational drugs until they were 18. Did I teach them how to gamble with live funds? Yes, I certainly did. Among many other things. Do I regret it? Not one bit. Would you? Only if you gamble with them.
What you are describing in those who are infurated by the "mommy government" are most likely the people who need the government to prevent them from completely screwing themselves over... and becoming a burden to the rest of us in the process.
Sophist nonsense. No healthy human needs a mommy government until they've been trained to depend on one. There is no sufficient justification to hold down the rest of the population based upon the minimal performance standards of the lowest performance level of the population. As for being a burden, only if you let them.
Healthcare costs out of control... but why can someone limit me from smoking wherever and whenever I want?
The two are not related. You need to do some remedial work here. Healthcare costs are largely a consequence of the mommy problem, specifically lawyers. Your smoking may incur costs upon you, but that's because you're making a personal choice, and there is no need for society to protect you from yourself beyond warning you. If you can't learn, cancer is a perfectly appropriate outcome, and I feel no need whatsoever to "save you from yourself." You're an adult, you should have solved this problem already. Figure it out or die (or fund the doctors... and probably die anyway), and good riddance to you.
Sexually transmitted diseases spreading faster than ever
And this should be resolved by government?!?!?! Talk about a non-solution! As a parent, you can nail this particular problem to the wall, drop the odds for yourself and your kids to very near zero. Again, if you can't figure it out, evolution has people waiting to replace you.
Broken homes and broken children because parents have a gambling problem
Um-hmmm. And every other kind of problem. You are incredibly stupid if you think you can fix these things by legislating away the rights of the healthy. If the parents are determined to be physically damaging their kids, then they've proved they can't parent, and the solution is obvious. Otherwise, it is none of your business. "Broken" children a
So, what are you saying? Are you saying that because you have identified this behavior as a money grab, it's ok? If that's the case, why is it that you feel that the government has some inherent right to skim the gambling industry, I mean, aside from the fact that they claim they do?
Next, if a parent feels it is appropriate that they teach their minor child how to gamble -- with real money, if that's their decision -- exactly why is it somehow legitimate that the state steps in and interferes? I mean, again, aside from the fact that the state says they can?
You're simply describing the mechanics of an out of control government. I don't see any justification for either the intrusion into the family, or into the finances or pleasures of an adult. You know the only reason why so many people think they need a mommy? I maintain it is because they've never been able to make a move without thinking that the state is right there to hold their little, teeny-weeny hand. If you never treat a child like an adult, they're going to have a hell of a time getting there. For the more aggressive ones, eventually, they'll reject you and go out on their own anyway. That's the danger of a mommy government. It retards one segment of the population while pissing off the other.
On reason is that a neutral third party is needed to make sure both parties are getting a fair deal.
Yes, of course. Now, if only the government was neutral, we'd be OK. But instead, it uses these powers to stop commerce in the name of an ethically bankrupt, not to mention false, morality.
Another reason is when money changes hands, the effects of that transaction are not limited to the two parties involved. There is an aggregate effect on the entire economy. Your $100 gambling loss may not be significant by itself, but many millions of dollars leaving a state or country is.
This reasoning is insidious, even poisonous. My personal behavior is not anyone's to modify so that it bulks up an average, society-wide behavior. If people are depending on controlling my personal tastes and interests in order to have the society they want, then what they want is immoral, not to mention impractical, and I will not comply with such coercion. If things are only "OK" if they serve the broad interest, then we'll be killing off low IQ citizens, ripping up handicapped ramps, and exiling the blind, deaf, dumb, and religious. That idea just won't float. If my actions do not directly assault you, your property, or your family, you have nothing left to say at all. Anything beyond that is "mommy", and mommy needs to be committed to the deepest, darkest dungeons -- she's not taken a correct step in decades. Because she's insane.
Sounds pretty good to me. Though as you say, there are probably many other ways to manage it. I agree with the violent assault, but people will generalize that to "felon", and felon is a term that has lost any meaning in terms of defining a person you would worry would do you harm, so I'd resist that (I do realize you didn't say that, I'm just thinking at the keyboard.)
What bothers me is, for instance, seeing the feds claim they can't help the people and infrastructure in New Orleans, but then they turn around and spend unbelievable amounts (and go into unbelievable debt) on raping Iraq. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a country ruled by a race of aliens instead of just plain incompetents. Build serious levies? Rebuild a vital US city? Ohhhh Noooo.... but, put more troops into Iraq? You GO, boy! And all this when I can't even really work up a belief that we actually need a standing army. Mmmmf.
What's your home address? I bet that I am a better shot than you are, especially at 3am when I am prepared to rob you, and you are asleep. Seeing as how you post on/., you probably have some cool toys that I would be interested in.
See, now here's a complete and utter moron who makes my point for me.
First of all, the cops do not prevent you from creeping up on my home; they come afterwards (assuming I survive to call them or an alarm system notifies them), and they may, or may not, be able to chase you down. Secondly, presuming they do catch you, you've already invaded my privacy, posed whatever threat you can. Which I doubt is significant — I'm a fifth degree black belt (what idiot threatens a guy with a URL like "blackbeltsystems, anyway? Are you 12 years old?) I'm also an expert marksman, I am always armed (concealed carry and accessible arms at home), and should I not be able to get to my weapons, I am a weapon, and I have a custom alarm system, which makes my house darned near impregnable, and most likely, I've already killed you anyway (in my state, cross my door without my permission, and your ass is mine.)
You see, unlike you, I've already thought this through and taken care of it as far as it is practical to do so. Attack me, and you'll find yourself with a serious problem. Invade my home, and you'd better be damned good at it and prepared to do me before I do you.
And where are the police you revere and think I ought to be paying for in all of this? Writing traffic tickets, that's where. Sitting at the town limits trying to catch some hapless out-of-towner speeding. Once an hour, they cruise by the banks, so as to make sure that the instruments of government debt (you know, "dollars"... they represent negative money, because the government is an inept bunch of thieves) have remained undisturbed. The cops don't patrol the neighborhoods. They are so rarely on scene when a crime is ongoing as to make it practical to rule the possibility right out, and should they even manage that awesome feat, there is absolutely no assurance that despite having been caught in the act, you'd see a jail sentence because those idiots (the government in general, cops as accomplices) have filled the jails with totally harmless people who smoke weed, of all things. Furthermore, should I report the crime, I'll spend more time filling out forms and screwing with insurance than I care to — frankly, it seems considerably more practical to bury you in a ditch and forget you ever showed up. Plus, I enjoy digging; I'm a rockhound. These skills could dovetail nicely.
The police benefit you just by being there; you don't have to see them beating-down a perp on your property for you to be deriving benefit.
That's drivel. The police benefit me in preventing crime not at all, and rarely anyone else. They might do some good if they were on foot and in the neighborhoods, but they're not, and every criminal in the country knows it. Including you, a moron who was dimwitted enough to threaten my household; if the cops were actually effective, I wouldn't need to be so able with regard to defending my family. The police, as presently constituted, are a waste of my funds. I'm not in the least interested in punishment by judge and jury; I'm interested in prevention, and cops are worthless for that.
Same goes true for the military. The soldiers who aren't being bled in stupid foreign entanglements, really are protecting our country from foreign invaders (who oddly enough have less respect for our Constitution than your current government).
I agree the government should have a military arm, certainly one able enough to deliver nukes on top of any invading force. A standing army, as in always-on-line in-a-camp foot-soldiers, is a waste of
Pretty funny how this went from +2 funny to -1 flamebait overnight. Guess we've got a real congressional page fan with mod points; five of my messages got modded down last night, after staying normal during the "heat" of the conversation. You gotta love slashdot's punitive moderators -- if your view is controversial, you'll be generally modded down by some IQ-bereft wack job. And truly, that's why I post here -- the opportunity to irritate the fundies is incomparable.:-)
By that same expectation I know that I am limited in my actions according to what society has deemed lawful.
The problem here is that many people think if it is lawful, it is "OK." Similarly, many people think that if it is unlawful, it is "not OK." This is simply self-deception.
It is not OK to burn down your house, presuming only that you have not burned down someone else's. Your right to swing your fist ends where the next person's nose begins. That principle arises more or less immediately in the attempt to get along in units of multiple individuals, no matter how you characterize the unit. That is one of the basic human rights; it uniformly works towards harmony, supports effort sharing, privacy, and much, much more.
Similarly, you don't get to coerce me into doing things on your behalf I do not wish to do, because you are effectively "swinging your fist" by using coercion. And of course, vice-versa; I don't get to do this to you.
If we can agree that we should pursue a shared goal in some manner, that's fine, and our behavior should be governed by the form and extent of our agreement.
This is how I expect a society to be able to progress. Shared mutual interests. Shared mutual respect. Mutual agreements. The problem with a government of coercion is that there is no "mutual" characteristic, there is only force. Your agreement is not required. Hence, the ethics of the government are bankrupt.
On the other hand, tolerating a government like the US government is how I expect a society to regress. And unsurprisingly, that is exactly what we see today. Habeas corpus? Vanished. Right to speedy trial? Vanished. Torture? Order of the day. Privacy? Gone. Ex post facto revisionism and double jeopardy? Business as usual. Corruption, particularly financial, in government? Uniform and extraordinarily deep. Right to representation? Gone. Land and and monetary and property grabs? You bet, no problem, and no recourse. Suppression of the ability to pursue happiness (specifically, happiness that does not trample other person's toes)? Of course. Devaluation of currency? You bet — that dollar you hold is backed by trillions in debt, which means that every time you use it, you are devaluing your work and work product to a degree you can't even comprehend (which is why most people can't see the problem, of course.) This government has invaded other countries, utterly failed to deal with numerous problems at home that it is chartered to deal with, stepped all over literally thousands of issues it has absolutely no charter to legitimately be involved in at all (like marriage, drug use, mutual wagering etc., the government regularly lies to our faces about its goals, activities, and past performance... and sure, I could go on and on.
The government was constituted as a servant of the people. That was intuitive, cleverly done, and well thought out. Unfortunately, paper is not much of a controlling element, and the government has mutated itself into the all-powerful mother of the people, and mom is a frigid, grasping old hag with fangs, bad breath, and endless debt that sucks the very life from her (forcibly) adopted children.
Just because you didn't vote for anyone or enter into any specific contract doesn't mean you aren't bound by the rules of that society.
On the contrary, that's precisely what it means. No one gets to legitimately obligate anyone else by fiat. That is based in English common law (and Roman law before that.) It predates US law and is still the basis for it. I can't sign you up for a loan, and you can't sign me up for slavery. Further, the government can't sign me up for anything either, except by using coercion, because I do not consent. Does the government use coercion? You bet. Each and every day.
Part of the sacrifice of choosing to live in any community is that you must submit the the laws dictated by the beliefs of the masses.
(A) no it isn't, (B) I don't, and (C) the laws are not a consequence of the "belief of the masses." Our current laws are a consequence of a very small group of people who are completely out of control, in gross and extreme violation of their charter, essentially owned by corporations and PACs, and generally lower than pond scum.
Now, these may be people that you want to control your life by virtue of some imaginary nonsense you've cobbled up, but I decline. I do respect the power they wield and I am wary of it, and modify my behavior so as to not get caught in the gears, but that is in no way indicative of any respect I have for the government itself. Only its weapons and coercion have my respect, because frankly, they're the only things the government can offer that are worthy of respect.
If you dont like obeying laws you didn't have input on, go live somewhere where there aren't any laws, and see how peaceful your life is.
I'll do what I choose to do. That'd be because you have absolutely zero input on my choices. Are we clear?
Doesn't leave a lot of room for grownups, does it?
Well said. Further, if you look at the various founding documents, you can see that they were written with the idea in mind that citizens were indeed to be treated as grownups. The abandonment of the charter and the mental gymnastics performed by the government in order to achieve a position of "we're your mommy" are despicable acts that are, I think, intimately related. Next time, we need to put some teeth in the founding documents, I guess.
A) The government doesn't have to accept your money as legal tender. Expecially if they don't recognize you as a viable foreign governmen
That's fine. I'm not interested in giving them any, anyhow. They're not actually doing anything on my behalf. They only pretend to.
B) The money you are currently using daily is the property of the government.
Actually, that is not the case. You might want to look into alternative means of exchange as well.
C) The government can regulate its own property.
I have never entered into any agreement (signed, sworn, affirmed) with the government for the use of its presumptive property. Therefore, it has no legitimate hold over me to enforce any regulation whatsoever in that regard. What it has is power, as I said before. That said power is entirely illegitimate make it no less effective at this point in time.
My point being is that "rights" are a human construct; they do no exist outside of human experience.
There is no need for human rights to exist outside of human experience. They exist, nonetheless, and are no less critical for all of that. Rights come about as a consequence of one or more person's actions and possessions affecting another person or persons. They don't spring up fully formed from religion. Even the oldest religious tomes simply codify the human experience of the times. Often poorly, I might add.
How do you solve this paradox, that rights are "inalienable" without a God?
Serious answer: The obvious way, the usual way, is to kill you, imprison you, or take your property when you interfere with them. Certainly makes it more difficult for you to alienate them, doesn't it? And God never had to step in at all.
This works because the idea of an inalienable right is a very practical one for building an orderly social construct, such as a family, club, town, state, or nation. It doesn't hurt when you're trying to invent a religion, either.
By the way the Constitution is a social contract.
The constitution is a document that specifies how the government is to be (ready?) constituted.
The constitution is not, by any means, a "social contract." No individual or collection of people 200+ years ago can contract you — that is, sign you up — for anything. No matter how well-intentioned they were at the time. That would be illegal under laws that predate the constitution by centuries and still exist today, and it is also ridiculous in ethical terms. Only you can sign yourself up for such a thing, just as only you can sign yourself into marriage or slavery or debt or service obligation.
Consequently, unless you specifically signed something that says you will "comply with the terms of the constitution" or some such drivel, or sworn a public oath to that effect, or affirmed in writing the same, you are in no way bound by anything written in that document. What you are is subject to the power of the government, enforced by coercion when and if they decide you unacceptably non-compliant with the laws they have created. This is an issue of exercising power. No more, no less. Anything else you have in mind is purely sophist nonsense.
The idea was that the constitution would control how the government was constituted and thus, prevent abuses of the types that those people were subjected to from their current government (England's then-monarchy.) They did a very credible job, unfortunately, today's government pays only the barest attention to the constitution, making laws left and right that blatantly violate the terms that the government is constituted under. This, for any thinking person at least, shows that the government is no longer operating in compliance with the charter it was formed to hew to; which in turn (if it is even possible!) makes the laws created by said government even more doubtful as to legitimate ethical underpinnings.
The best that can be said of the American people today is that as a power-weilding group, they are woefully uninformed, dominated by a government that no one ever authorized, and that their liberties and human rights have been wholly swept away beneath a tide of charter-less lawmaking comparable only to Rome's last days, where manifestly similar lawmaking led directly to Rome's downfall.
It's a social compact whereby you delegate and/or give up certain rights to a governing body.
Funny, I didn't enter into any social compact. I've sworn no oath, signed no statement, affirmed no lord, master, or committee. You must be very confused in this regard.
Just prepare to be *justly* punished.
Hmm. OK, let me get this straight. A bunch of people I would never, ever have chosen to represent me, claim they do without any kind of authorization, direct or implicit, on my part. They make up laws based upon some metric I also have no truck with, and should these laws subsequently interfere with my pursuit of happiness, undertaken without harm to any other citizen, I will be "justly" punished?
The fact is, the ruling class embodied by the government enforces these ridiculous laws by exercise of overwhelming power, coercion at its finest. No more, no less. There is nothing "just" about it. Justice is a completely defrocked and humiliated concept in America.
That the government is not my mommy; ethically the government has no right to say what I can do with my own money until I directly use that money to hurt another citizen or it is extremely clear that I intend to do so; legally the government has no right to say anything at all with regard to gambling, because I never gave it any such right, nor have I authorized anyone to do so for me. The government is out of control, operating illegitimately, unconstitutionally, unethically, and "compliance enforcement" is in fact coercion backed by enormous, life-ruining power.
Building codes are there to insure the person paying for the construction doesn't get screwed.
Then why, in a building I own outright, and in which I am doing all the electrical and construction work, and for which I am paying every penny out of my own pocket, am I subject to building codes?
As near as I can tell, the building codes are spending a lot of effort screwing me. The codes are not up to date in the sense that they do not reflect how I use power, how I want to use the interior of my home, how I mean to escape in the case of emergency... despite the fact that my building and electrical methods are considerably safer than those the codes direct be used.
As near as I can tell, the building codes are there to fund the city. No more, no less.
The 4th Amendment is still a part of the Constitution, the "Law of the Land". Not even the President can overstep this.
Congratulations. You just won the "Not paying attention" award.
The 4th amendment is: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The government can tap your phone without a warrant (FISA). The government can search your home without a warrant (Patriot act.) The government can search your car without a warrant (your local cops will do this in a heartbeat.) The government can take everything you own (seizure) including your house, your money, your vehicles, your investments, and more. They can do this not only without a warrant, but they can do it without even winning in court (United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency.) With the passage of the legislation last week, arrests need no warrant, arrestees have no recourse to representation or haebus corpus (ability to contest the arrest) and have no hope of any guarantee that they will ever be released.
Really — you're simply not paying attention. The 4th amendment is, at present, a historical relic, no more, no less. Along with many of the other amendments and original constitutional constructs. If you want the constitution and its amendments to return to being a significant force in American law, you're going to have to see a lot of things change in the opposite direction they are changing now.
The problems are we can't mod moderations "retarded"; and moderation is secret. These have always been serious slashdot problems. Metamoderation is out of context (and extremely inconvenient to put into context... you know more about the thread when you're reading it than you do when you're metamoderating.)
Slashdot improvement ideas (other than cosmetic) here.
I thought the point of Sci-Fi was that you make up a piece of science and then go with it (Asimov -> Postitronic space, Star Trek -> Subspace/warp drive which is losely based on relativity
The thing about extrapolating a piece of science (or even carefully observing the science we already have) and then conforming to the possibilities thus exposed is that it isn't easy to do at all; if you fail to carefully understand the science we have, what you make up will not be probable, or even possible, based upon what we know.
For instance, Ram-scoop drives appear to be reasonable extrapolations, given that we simply apply enough effort (and treasure) to the problem of creating them. Ion drives work too. Stories carefully written about these drives (see Niven, for example) can never stray from the possible, yet invoke an amazing sense of future, of possibility, of potential. The technology is possible — that is something you can keep your head wrapped around without having to suspend your critical faculties, something not possible with Trek's warp drive or Stargate's gates or Firefly's transitions out of normal space. In those cases, you have to shrug and go "OK" because science doesn't provide support for those ideas — at least, at this time. Somehow, one has to deal with relativistic issues in a reasonable (meaning, scientific) fashion. It can be done; Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero" is a work of just that kind, rife with human stories wrapped around literally galaxy spanning space travel that does relativity proud.
There are plenty of writers out there who have often gone to great effort to try and nail the science when consciously writing science fiction; Gregory Benford, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, James P. Hogan, William Gibson, Neil Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Forward and so on. Some of these writers also do fantasy; but they've done some toe-the-line science fiction that demonstrates the technique quite well, too.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't have to be that bad. These people want a product; make sure that's all they get. No one says you have to sell your soul — at least, not yet. If the terms aren't acceptable, walk.
I don't think that's what they're looking for. Perhaps you missed this: "without millions of lines of code". PostgreSQL is great (I use it every day) but it is a huge, unmaintainable pig of a database. There are very few "lightweight" database engines out there, and even fewer that offer a reasonable level of flexibility and power. PostgreSQL isn't one of them, and neither is MySQL. The engine is part of the problem, but you'll notice they point at Microsoft and Oracle; so they're not just talking about the engine, most likely they're implying UI as well (which is something Access, for instance, pretty much has sewn up. It's a bit weird, but it is point and click to an astounding degree.) Nothing like that exists in working form for PostgreSQL, the one attempt I saw was so flawed as to be ludicrous.
New here, then?
This should entertain you: Slashdot mod problems, and suggested solutions.
You know that little drain plug in the back of your boat? You're supposed to put that in before you put the boat in the water. Just a tip, don't bother to thank me.
I did not say that. You should treat your child as you determine is appropriate, based upon your mores, the child's ability to deal with the situation as you see it, and the give and take that results from the experience in a maturity-appropriate manner. You are responsible for the developmental curve of your child (unless, of course, you defer to TV and grade school like most American sheeple.) Any attempt to treat any one child like all other children is likely to result in a poor outcome, because all children are different and there is a relatively narrow window during which children develop at a very high rate. If you aren't aware of this, you're not particularly fit to be a parent yet, in my view, but then again, you can do what you want with your kids without hearing any objections from me. Just so long as you don't interfere with my family or physically damage your own.
I have three boys. All three are entrepreneurs and millionaires as a result of their own efforts, strong charitable givers, atheists, PhD's, and extraordinary parents within their own families. They're all black belts, physically and mentally fit, all have travelled the world. They're healthy human beings and highly successful by any rational metric. Was I strict? Yes, I was — you have no idea. Stepping out of line resulted in strong correction, and they were forbidden broadcast television and all recreational drugs until they were 18. Did I teach them how to gamble with live funds? Yes, I certainly did. Among many other things. Do I regret it? Not one bit. Would you? Only if you gamble with them.
Sophist nonsense. No healthy human needs a mommy government until they've been trained to depend on one. There is no sufficient justification to hold down the rest of the population based upon the minimal performance standards of the lowest performance level of the population. As for being a burden, only if you let them.
The two are not related. You need to do some remedial work here. Healthcare costs are largely a consequence of the mommy problem, specifically lawyers. Your smoking may incur costs upon you, but that's because you're making a personal choice, and there is no need for society to protect you from yourself beyond warning you. If you can't learn, cancer is a perfectly appropriate outcome, and I feel no need whatsoever to "save you from yourself." You're an adult, you should have solved this problem already. Figure it out or die (or fund the doctors... and probably die anyway), and good riddance to you.
And this should be resolved by government?!?!?! Talk about a non-solution! As a parent, you can nail this particular problem to the wall, drop the odds for yourself and your kids to very near zero. Again, if you can't figure it out, evolution has people waiting to replace you.
Um-hmmm. And every other kind of problem. You are incredibly stupid if you think you can fix these things by legislating away the rights of the healthy. If the parents are determined to be physically damaging their kids, then they've proved they can't parent, and the solution is obvious. Otherwise, it is none of your business. "Broken" children a
So, what are you saying? Are you saying that because you have identified this behavior as a money grab, it's ok? If that's the case, why is it that you feel that the government has some inherent right to skim the gambling industry, I mean, aside from the fact that they claim they do?
Next, if a parent feels it is appropriate that they teach their minor child how to gamble -- with real money, if that's their decision -- exactly why is it somehow legitimate that the state steps in and interferes? I mean, again, aside from the fact that the state says they can?
You're simply describing the mechanics of an out of control government. I don't see any justification for either the intrusion into the family, or into the finances or pleasures of an adult. You know the only reason why so many people think they need a mommy? I maintain it is because they've never been able to make a move without thinking that the state is right there to hold their little, teeny-weeny hand. If you never treat a child like an adult, they're going to have a hell of a time getting there. For the more aggressive ones, eventually, they'll reject you and go out on their own anyway. That's the danger of a mommy government. It retards one segment of the population while pissing off the other.
Yes, of course. Now, if only the government was neutral, we'd be OK. But instead, it uses these powers to stop commerce in the name of an ethically bankrupt, not to mention false, morality.
This reasoning is insidious, even poisonous. My personal behavior is not anyone's to modify so that it bulks up an average, society-wide behavior. If people are depending on controlling my personal tastes and interests in order to have the society they want, then what they want is immoral, not to mention impractical, and I will not comply with such coercion. If things are only "OK" if they serve the broad interest, then we'll be killing off low IQ citizens, ripping up handicapped ramps, and exiling the blind, deaf, dumb, and religious. That idea just won't float. If my actions do not directly assault you, your property, or your family, you have nothing left to say at all. Anything beyond that is "mommy", and mommy needs to be committed to the deepest, darkest dungeons -- she's not taken a correct step in decades. Because she's insane.
Sounds pretty good to me. Though as you say, there are probably many other ways to manage it. I agree with the violent assault, but people will generalize that to "felon", and felon is a term that has lost any meaning in terms of defining a person you would worry would do you harm, so I'd resist that (I do realize you didn't say that, I'm just thinking at the keyboard.)
What bothers me is, for instance, seeing the feds claim they can't help the people and infrastructure in New Orleans, but then they turn around and spend unbelievable amounts (and go into unbelievable debt) on raping Iraq. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a country ruled by a race of aliens instead of just plain incompetents. Build serious levies? Rebuild a vital US city? Ohhhh Noooo.... but, put more troops into Iraq? You GO, boy! And all this when I can't even really work up a belief that we actually need a standing army. Mmmmf.
See, now here's a complete and utter moron who makes my point for me.
First of all, the cops do not prevent you from creeping up on my home; they come afterwards (assuming I survive to call them or an alarm system notifies them), and they may, or may not, be able to chase you down. Secondly, presuming they do catch you, you've already invaded my privacy, posed whatever threat you can. Which I doubt is significant — I'm a fifth degree black belt (what idiot threatens a guy with a URL like "blackbeltsystems, anyway? Are you 12 years old?) I'm also an expert marksman, I am always armed (concealed carry and accessible arms at home), and should I not be able to get to my weapons, I am a weapon, and I have a custom alarm system, which makes my house darned near impregnable, and most likely, I've already killed you anyway (in my state, cross my door without my permission, and your ass is mine.)
You see, unlike you, I've already thought this through and taken care of it as far as it is practical to do so. Attack me, and you'll find yourself with a serious problem. Invade my home, and you'd better be damned good at it and prepared to do me before I do you.
And where are the police you revere and think I ought to be paying for in all of this? Writing traffic tickets, that's where. Sitting at the town limits trying to catch some hapless out-of-towner speeding. Once an hour, they cruise by the banks, so as to make sure that the instruments of government debt (you know, "dollars"... they represent negative money, because the government is an inept bunch of thieves) have remained undisturbed. The cops don't patrol the neighborhoods. They are so rarely on scene when a crime is ongoing as to make it practical to rule the possibility right out, and should they even manage that awesome feat, there is absolutely no assurance that despite having been caught in the act, you'd see a jail sentence because those idiots (the government in general, cops as accomplices) have filled the jails with totally harmless people who smoke weed, of all things. Furthermore, should I report the crime, I'll spend more time filling out forms and screwing with insurance than I care to — frankly, it seems considerably more practical to bury you in a ditch and forget you ever showed up. Plus, I enjoy digging; I'm a rockhound. These skills could dovetail nicely.
That's drivel. The police benefit me in preventing crime not at all, and rarely anyone else. They might do some good if they were on foot and in the neighborhoods, but they're not, and every criminal in the country knows it. Including you, a moron who was dimwitted enough to threaten my household; if the cops were actually effective, I wouldn't need to be so able with regard to defending my family. The police, as presently constituted, are a waste of my funds. I'm not in the least interested in punishment by judge and jury; I'm interested in prevention, and cops are worthless for that.
I agree the government should have a military arm, certainly one able enough to deliver nukes on top of any invading force. A standing army, as in always-on-line in-a-camp foot-soldiers, is a waste of
Pretty funny how this went from +2 funny to -1 flamebait overnight. Guess we've got a real congressional page fan with mod points; five of my messages got modded down last night, after staying normal during the "heat" of the conversation. You gotta love slashdot's punitive moderators -- if your view is controversial, you'll be generally modded down by some IQ-bereft wack job. And truly, that's why I post here -- the opportunity to irritate the fundies is incomparable. :-)
The problem here is that many people think if it is lawful, it is "OK." Similarly, many people think that if it is unlawful, it is "not OK." This is simply self-deception.
It is not OK to burn down your house, presuming only that you have not burned down someone else's. Your right to swing your fist ends where the next person's nose begins. That principle arises more or less immediately in the attempt to get along in units of multiple individuals, no matter how you characterize the unit. That is one of the basic human rights; it uniformly works towards harmony, supports effort sharing, privacy, and much, much more.
Similarly, you don't get to coerce me into doing things on your behalf I do not wish to do, because you are effectively "swinging your fist" by using coercion. And of course, vice-versa; I don't get to do this to you.
If we can agree that we should pursue a shared goal in some manner, that's fine, and our behavior should be governed by the form and extent of our agreement.
This is how I expect a society to be able to progress. Shared mutual interests. Shared mutual respect. Mutual agreements. The problem with a government of coercion is that there is no "mutual" characteristic, there is only force. Your agreement is not required. Hence, the ethics of the government are bankrupt.
On the other hand, tolerating a government like the US government is how I expect a society to regress. And unsurprisingly, that is exactly what we see today. Habeas corpus? Vanished. Right to speedy trial? Vanished. Torture? Order of the day. Privacy? Gone. Ex post facto revisionism and double jeopardy? Business as usual. Corruption, particularly financial, in government? Uniform and extraordinarily deep. Right to representation? Gone. Land and and monetary and property grabs? You bet, no problem, and no recourse. Suppression of the ability to pursue happiness (specifically, happiness that does not trample other person's toes)? Of course. Devaluation of currency? You bet — that dollar you hold is backed by trillions in debt, which means that every time you use it, you are devaluing your work and work product to a degree you can't even comprehend (which is why most people can't see the problem, of course.) This government has invaded other countries, utterly failed to deal with numerous problems at home that it is chartered to deal with, stepped all over literally thousands of issues it has absolutely no charter to legitimately be involved in at all (like marriage, drug use, mutual wagering etc., the government regularly lies to our faces about its goals, activities, and past performance... and sure, I could go on and on.
The government was constituted as a servant of the people. That was intuitive, cleverly done, and well thought out. Unfortunately, paper is not much of a controlling element, and the government has mutated itself into the all-powerful mother of the people, and mom is a frigid, grasping old hag with fangs, bad breath, and endless debt that sucks the very life from her (forcibly) adopted children.
On the contrary, that's precisely what it means. No one gets to legitimately obligate anyone else by fiat. That is based in English common law (and Roman law before that.) It predates US law and is still the basis for it. I can't sign you up for a loan, and you can't sign me up for slavery. Further, the government can't sign me up for anything either, except by using coercion, because I do not consent. Does the government use coercion? You bet. Each and every day.
(A) no it isn't, (B) I don't, and (C) the laws are not a consequence of the "belief of the masses." Our current laws are a consequence of a very small group of people who are completely out of control, in gross and extreme violation of their charter, essentially owned by corporations and PACs, and generally lower than pond scum.
Now, these may be people that you want to control your life by virtue of some imaginary nonsense you've cobbled up, but I decline. I do respect the power they wield and I am wary of it, and modify my behavior so as to not get caught in the gears, but that is in no way indicative of any respect I have for the government itself. Only its weapons and coercion have my respect, because frankly, they're the only things the government can offer that are worthy of respect.
I'll do what I choose to do. That'd be because you have absolutely zero input on my choices. Are we clear?
Well said. Further, if you look at the various founding documents, you can see that they were written with the idea in mind that citizens were indeed to be treated as grownups. The abandonment of the charter and the mental gymnastics performed by the government in order to achieve a position of "we're your mommy" are despicable acts that are, I think, intimately related. Next time, we need to put some teeth in the founding documents, I guess.
That's fine. I'm not interested in giving them any, anyhow. They're not actually doing anything on my behalf. They only pretend to.
Actually, that is not the case. You might want to look into alternative means of exchange as well.
I have never entered into any agreement (signed, sworn, affirmed) with the government for the use of its presumptive property. Therefore, it has no legitimate hold over me to enforce any regulation whatsoever in that regard. What it has is power, as I said before. That said power is entirely illegitimate make it no less effective at this point in time.
The way I heard it was: "The lottery is a tax only applied to the math-impaired."
There is no need for human rights to exist outside of human experience. They exist, nonetheless, and are no less critical for all of that. Rights come about as a consequence of one or more person's actions and possessions affecting another person or persons. They don't spring up fully formed from religion. Even the oldest religious tomes simply codify the human experience of the times. Often poorly, I might add.
Serious answer: The obvious way, the usual way, is to kill you, imprison you, or take your property when you interfere with them. Certainly makes it more difficult for you to alienate them, doesn't it? And God never had to step in at all.
This works because the idea of an inalienable right is a very practical one for building an orderly social construct, such as a family, club, town, state, or nation. It doesn't hurt when you're trying to invent a religion, either.
The constitution is a document that specifies how the government is to be (ready?) constituted.
The constitution is not, by any means, a "social contract." No individual or collection of people 200+ years ago can contract you — that is, sign you up — for anything. No matter how well-intentioned they were at the time. That would be illegal under laws that predate the constitution by centuries and still exist today, and it is also ridiculous in ethical terms. Only you can sign yourself up for such a thing, just as only you can sign yourself into marriage or slavery or debt or service obligation.
Consequently, unless you specifically signed something that says you will "comply with the terms of the constitution" or some such drivel, or sworn a public oath to that effect, or affirmed in writing the same, you are in no way bound by anything written in that document. What you are is subject to the power of the government, enforced by coercion when and if they decide you unacceptably non-compliant with the laws they have created. This is an issue of exercising power. No more, no less. Anything else you have in mind is purely sophist nonsense.
The idea was that the constitution would control how the government was constituted and thus, prevent abuses of the types that those people were subjected to from their current government (England's then-monarchy.) They did a very credible job, unfortunately, today's government pays only the barest attention to the constitution, making laws left and right that blatantly violate the terms that the government is constituted under. This, for any thinking person at least, shows that the government is no longer operating in compliance with the charter it was formed to hew to; which in turn (if it is even possible!) makes the laws created by said government even more doubtful as to legitimate ethical underpinnings.
The best that can be said of the American people today is that as a power-weilding group, they are woefully uninformed, dominated by a government that no one ever authorized, and that their liberties and human rights have been wholly swept away beneath a tide of charter-less lawmaking comparable only to Rome's last days, where manifestly similar lawmaking led directly to Rome's downfall.
Funny, I didn't enter into any social compact. I've sworn no oath, signed no statement, affirmed no lord, master, or committee. You must be very confused in this regard.
Hmm. OK, let me get this straight. A bunch of people I would never, ever have chosen to represent me, claim they do without any kind of authorization, direct or implicit, on my part. They make up laws based upon some metric I also have no truck with, and should these laws subsequently interfere with my pursuit of happiness, undertaken without harm to any other citizen, I will be "justly" punished?
The fact is, the ruling class embodied by the government enforces these ridiculous laws by exercise of overwhelming power, coercion at its finest. No more, no less. There is nothing "just" about it. Justice is a completely defrocked and humiliated concept in America.
Yeah. Guess they've been "thinking of the children" a little too hard.
Hypocritical fucktards.
Actually, the issues are:
That the government is not my mommy; ethically the government has no right to say what I can do with my own money until I directly use that money to hurt another citizen or it is extremely clear that I intend to do so; legally the government has no right to say anything at all with regard to gambling, because I never gave it any such right, nor have I authorized anyone to do so for me. The government is out of control, operating illegitimately, unconstitutionally, unethically, and "compliance enforcement" is in fact coercion backed by enormous, life-ruining power.
Churches.
Then why, in a building I own outright, and in which I am doing all the electrical and construction work, and for which I am paying every penny out of my own pocket, am I subject to building codes?
As near as I can tell, the building codes are spending a lot of effort screwing me. The codes are not up to date in the sense that they do not reflect how I use power, how I want to use the interior of my home, how I mean to escape in the case of emergency... despite the fact that my building and electrical methods are considerably safer than those the codes direct be used.
As near as I can tell, the building codes are there to fund the city. No more, no less.
Congratulations. You just won the "Not paying attention" award.
The 4th amendment is: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The government can tap your phone without a warrant (FISA). The government can search your home without a warrant (Patriot act.) The government can search your car without a warrant (your local cops will do this in a heartbeat.) The government can take everything you own (seizure) including your house, your money, your vehicles, your investments, and more. They can do this not only without a warrant, but they can do it without even winning in court (United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency.) With the passage of the legislation last week, arrests need no warrant, arrestees have no recourse to representation or haebus corpus (ability to contest the arrest) and have no hope of any guarantee that they will ever be released.
Really — you're simply not paying attention. The 4th amendment is, at present, a historical relic, no more, no less. Along with many of the other amendments and original constitutional constructs. If you want the constitution and its amendments to return to being a significant force in American law, you're going to have to see a lot of things change in the opposite direction they are changing now.
The problems are we can't mod moderations "retarded"; and moderation is secret. These have always been serious slashdot problems. Metamoderation is out of context (and extremely inconvenient to put into context... you know more about the thread when you're reading it than you do when you're metamoderating.)
Slashdot improvement ideas (other than cosmetic) here.
Temporal order does not create a familial relationship.
The thing about extrapolating a piece of science (or even carefully observing the science we already have) and then conforming to the possibilities thus exposed is that it isn't easy to do at all; if you fail to carefully understand the science we have, what you make up will not be probable, or even possible, based upon what we know.
For instance, Ram-scoop drives appear to be reasonable extrapolations, given that we simply apply enough effort (and treasure) to the problem of creating them. Ion drives work too. Stories carefully written about these drives (see Niven, for example) can never stray from the possible, yet invoke an amazing sense of future, of possibility, of potential. The technology is possible — that is something you can keep your head wrapped around without having to suspend your critical faculties, something not possible with Trek's warp drive or Stargate's gates or Firefly's transitions out of normal space. In those cases, you have to shrug and go "OK" because science doesn't provide support for those ideas — at least, at this time. Somehow, one has to deal with relativistic issues in a reasonable (meaning, scientific) fashion. It can be done; Poul Anderson's "Tau Zero" is a work of just that kind, rife with human stories wrapped around literally galaxy spanning space travel that does relativity proud.
There are plenty of writers out there who have often gone to great effort to try and nail the science when consciously writing science fiction; Gregory Benford, Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, James P. Hogan, William Gibson, Neil Stephenson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Robert Forward and so on. Some of these writers also do fantasy; but they've done some toe-the-line science fiction that demonstrates the technique quite well, too.