That is poppy cock and I think you know it. If China said "knock it off or we stop shipping you goods" North Korea would have to stop. It's not like they can import Oil, or in fact most other resources needed to fight a war, without China shipping it in. It's not like the slave labor in the coal mines is enough to heat the prison camps, let alone propel a vehicle.
While I agree it's a cult, cults are dependent on other members of society to survive.
China deals with the refugees the same way North Korea deals with defectors currently. Lets not kid ourselves here. If China was really worried about the inhumane treatment of people.. well, you know.. just look at what they do with their own people or those viscous monks from Tibet.
Come now, stop and think. What does North Korea have that can not be stopped at will, and don't you realize that those logistics have been worked out pretty consistently? Does North Korea have an Air Force? The answer is "NO", they do not. The few planes they have would be shot down within seconds of taking flight. Nothing they have compares with the US or South Korean planes.
Does North Korea have a Navy? The answer is "NO". They have a few small boats and subs, that like their military planes, would be neutralized within minutes of an engagement.
The few North Korean Soldiers on the border that lived after the first hour of engagement would be just like the Iraqi Army in Gulf 1 and 2. We would have more problems with refugees and surrendering troops than we would the N. Korean Military. ("We" being S. Korea more than the US)
We are not very worried about the few T72 tanks that NK has, so the only thing that may cost a few lives is the initial artillery fire. Air power would eliminate that artillery pretty quickly. Oh, and before you hype the short range rockets remember that those are worse than artillery. They are fire and forget with very poor range, extreme inaccuracy, and often don't even explode on impact.
The biggest rational fears are with the few scud missiles they have, which are inaccurate and slow. We have had Patriot batteries in South Korea from long before we saw them in the Gulf wars. Think about what they have been trying to hype on the News over the last couple days. "N. Korea has moved 1-3 medium range missiles to the east. Really, 1-3 missiles is a concern when they are scud type missiles? That is laughable if you stop and think about it! It would be sad of course if they were to hit someone with one and people died, don't get me wrong. But it is not a big military threat.
I have not quite figured out the game that's being played politically, but the hype of doom and gloom is grossly exaggerated. I have some speculations, but at present they are not very sound. Some considerations are "Why has China not stopped NK from threats?" China has that much power over NK, perhaps they want to be involved? Why has the US propaganda media (Fox/ABC/NBC) been hyping NK as a real military threat like they did the Iraqi Army? We know their capabilities, and have no reason to over play them unless our politicians (or perhaps more appropriately the people pulling their strings) want a war.
And lets not put this into terms like the propaganda machine might. We don't need to invade and capture North Korea to win and neither does South Korea. We take out anything in their military that "may" cause anyone else harm and leave them the fuck alone. Let the great leader sit in the sand box and cry because you took his shovel away for trying to hit other kids with it. If South Korea want's to drive up to the capital and make it official, that's fine but the US does not have too, and should not consider it.
There is no need for a long drawn out Gorilla war, and if we get into one it's our the politicians fault. Our politicians need to be dealt with harshly if that happens.
The prosecution did exactly what they were supposed to do, and they were pretty lenient about it: they charged him with only a subset of what they could have charged him with, assumed modest damage figures, and offered a plea bargain based on those modest damage figures.
What? No, the prosecutor did not perform their duties. The prosecutors job is to define a reasonable charge for the offense. For copying data on a network which was open, onto a laptop which was placed an an open room with open access to everyone, the charges are not at all reasonable at all.
Because it has become the status quot to stack charges until something sticks does not make it correct to do. In fact this is expressly forbidden under the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Go read them!
You are blaming half of the conspirators for the full conspiracy. It should be obvious if you bothered to consider it for any length of time. If I'm paying a bribe, I'm guilty of a crime just as the person accepting the bribe.
Politicians are currently accepting bribes, this is easy to show and prove. It's not clear who is actually paying these people off, but you can't simply let them off the hook because you don't know.
The opposite of what you said is to make every variable 0, which yields invalid results just like your infinite variables yield invalid results. It's fine to speculate some numbers, but you can't use zero or infinity as those speculated numbers. It simply does not work.
You are speculating again, which shows poor form. The prosecutor beefed up charges to present both him and the courts with a charges allowing a sentence of 35 years. Your speculation does not change either of those two facts. Your speculation does not make what the prosecutor did morally correct or honest. Your speculation does not change the outcome of the case, which was the suicide of a young person.
I'm not claiming the Swartz was innocent of a crime mind you, I'm claiming that the prosecutions handling was absolutely wrong. This same wrong action is taken by prosecutors all over the country regularly, and that should outrage you and every other citizen aware of the abuse of power.
I have read a bit about the conspiracy theories for this war, but ran into several road blocks. If you have a good reference, please point me in the correct direction.
My job changes my philosophical viewpoint somehow? Come now, you can't be that daft so I'm guessing that you are using a poor attempt at ad hominem.
That said, the term "fair" covers at least two contexts which are taxes and wealth disparity. The tax system up until the 1960s addressed wealth disparity by taxing millionaires at 90%. You can go look at the tax code at your leisure. By the 1980s, the tax was reduced to 35% and now millionaires pay 12-15%. The more you make, the less you pay.
That fact alone is enough to show how wealth disparity in the US has drastically increased in the US during the same time the tax rates started favoring the wealthy.
So we have two issues and neither are fair to the average citizen. First, the tax code is absolutely unfair. Wealthy people pay less in all taxes than those of middle class or poverty. The second, is that wealth disparity is absolutely uncontrolled currently.
Deregulation is the biggest cause of the unfairness. Until the 1970s, the monopoly laws gave some protection against people owning everything. Now monopoly is rarely prosecuted. If it is prosecuted, the punishment has not been to create a shared market, but levy a few fines and allow the monopoly to continue.
At the same time, tax benefits to the wealthy have allowed them to consume more and more of the market and pay less and less taxes.
The point I was making that you responded too is that the argument about how much something is used is foolish when dealing with public infrastructure. Idiotic in fact, because the same arguments could be made in the opposite direction. Neither deal with what public infrastructure is, nor how it should be maintained. Claiming "he uses more of that than I do" does not mean that a persons responsibility to Society changes. We all use public infrastructure, military, police, fire fighters. How much or how little we use them does not change their purposes.
Logically, and historically, a "fair" tax has been equally distributed by taxing a percentage of one's wealth. Claiming Joe paid a million dollars and Jerry paid five dollars is a pathetic argument when Joe has a billion dollars and Jerry has five thousand. Questioning how Joe was allowed to hoard that much money, possibly at the detriment to society, is a separate and valid question.
Let me change the tactic slightly by asking and answering a different set of questions. Q: Should I pay less in taxes because I have never been robbed, and you pay more because you were mugged in NYC? Q: Should you pay less in taxes because your home never caught on fire, and someone else pay more because of a lightning strike in a bad storm? Q: Should you pay more in taxes because you have more gold on hand than I do, and that puts you at higher risk requiring more soldiers on our borders?
All of those questions are rather foolish to ask. The purpose of the police is to prevent crimes, but not all crimes can be prevented or we would have no need for police at all. The job of a firefighter is not to prevent all fires, but put out fires when they occur. The job of the military is to protect all citizens, not just a few. The purpose of the roads is so that we can all use them as we need them.
Please go read what I wrote above responding to Kpt. Kangarooski. As them, you are arguing a second issue as if they are the same. Wealth disparity is a different problem than taxes. We are failing in both regards, so I won't discount the merit of your points. I'm simply pointing out that these are separate issues and can not be lumped together when discussing problems, causes, and remedies.
I don't have my books with me to give the exact pages nor book, but can summarize. Google did not show me much, so it's quicker to summarize than dig at work.
If the Republic allows an artisan to become too wealthy, they no longer fill their role in society. An artisan that makes a fortune from a piece of work, will be lax in his next piece of work. He will have excess money, which allows him to meddle into the affairs of others. No good can come of such, and the Republic is bound to protect society from this happening.
By the same token, if the Republic does not allow the artisan enough money for their work they will no longer be an artisan. If the artisan and his family are hungry, no matter how good his talent he must seek other opportunities in order to feed his family. He may even resort to criminal activities because the Republic was lacking in their duties.
The duty of the Republic is to ensure that no person gets paid too much or too little for their work. Those that produce well should be rewarded, but not so much that they no longer produce. Those that perform under what is expected should be encouraged to find other tasks they may be able to perform well, but not be punished or discouraged by the Republic for attempting to perform well.
The same conversation is very clear that a society requires numerous jobs to be successful. With too many bakers and no farmers, the bakers would have no wheat to make bread with and society would starve. With too many farmers and not enough cobblers, the crops would rot and the farmers would have no shoes. The duty of the Republic _and_ the members of the Republic are both responsible for ensuring that the Republic succeeds.
You are pointing out two distinct and separate problems. I only touched on one in my post. Before I go to that, I have to point out that tax is not intended to be a burden. It is intended to maintain public services. Nothing more, nothing less. The concept of taxes and public service goes back a few thousand years. Please don't confuse what I said so far with people that abuse power and use taxes for other purposes.
As to touching on the second issue: I pointed at the Allegory of the Artisan intentionally. If you understand that work, you understand my point of view. Note I stated two key sentences. What is unfair, is that someone holds the ability to make a billion dollars while other people in the same society starve. and I personally believe we should return to the 1960s tax laws, but don't mind "equal" as a starting point. Then again, I understand why Socrates presented that particular allegory.
So the second problem you point at I only hinted at, which is wealth disparity. This problem was improving from the 1800s until the 1960s, then we went the other direction. Since "Reaganomics" we have moved drastically in the wrong direction. The US currently ranks 150th in the world for wealth disparity.
It is easy to overlap or confuse the two arguments, but the are definitely not the same.
I served in the US Army, and used to be as delusional as you. I was gung ho, ready to shoot any commie bastard I saw. The brainwashing works pretty well, especially when you wear the Uniform. Then I started studying the world, and changed my view rather drastically.
How many wars can you study since the 1800s that are not based on bullshit? I count none passed the Civil war. I'll start with some easy ones for you to consider.
Hitler was funded by the Bush family, yes, you know the ones. They made a shitload of money from WW II. Many questions exist regarding the US entry, let alone how certain people were funding and making money from pre-war Germany. (Carnegie, Melon, Rockefeller, etc...) During the war, the Rockefeller institute provided Hitler with the scientists working on Eugenics and mass murder. If the US did not fund Hitler, would he have been able to afford an Army large enough to invade anyone else? If people were not providing him scientists willing to commit atrocities, would he have been able to fund the programs? Did you ever wonder why operation paperclip put at least thousands of SS Officers and Scientists in the US? Maybe you should think about it.
Vietnam was started on a lie, this has been proven. Go read some history. It also had nothing to do with your freedom. Sorry, that is what propaganda tells you. Korea, same thing. Those wars were about dominance and control, again making those in the military industrial complex metric assloads of cash on your tax dollar and our citizen's lives.
Iraq, based on a lie. Gulf 1, okay we defended a weak country from a prick. Gulf 2, fabrication and ego were the purpose. It also helped to make better servants of US citizens by removing their rights with the patriot act. Similarities to Reichstag should bother you, but you may not have learned much about that event.
The only country that may threaten our borders currently is China. Used to be Russia. Neither country every attempted to invade the US. People tout the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s as proof that they would have attacked us. Funny that they didn't bother with any nation allied or friendly with the US, but went after the world leader in opium and heroin production. Your tax dollar helped repel them, then repelled the Taliban which had pretty much abolished production of Heroin and Opium. Now Afghanistan is once again the world's leading producer of Heroin and Opium.
Go listen to what Eisenhower was telling you before he died. Go listen to what Kennedy was telling you before he died. Start asking questions and stop accepting propaganda for answers.
When the Rich guy needs the police to come to their house, or the fire department, or an ambulance, or the mail van, or what ever the roads are the same. How much you personally use the road does not magically remove your dependance on them, nor does it change your personal responsibilities to help maintain them.
Public services are exactly that, and every member of society is expected to fairly fund them. Stop excusing people in society that refuse to do their fair share.
And yes, the percentage base tax is supposed to work here as well. If McDutty Billionaire did not have roads to get maids to his house, his wife would have to clean by herself. That would impact his wealth, as his wife would become unhappy. If those roads did not bring in his gardening staff and trash collectors, his house would be a condemned dump in a short time. There goes another chunk of his wealth. He would not be able to get food to his house to cook, so he'd eat McDonald's at the airport and become fat and sick. The other elitists at Egobastage Inc. would notice his failing health and demote him, or maybe sabotage him to sack him. His wealth relies on the roads just as much as yours does. Perhaps even more.
Tossing out numbers is idiotic at best, but since you fabricated numbers it's pure propaganda. The establishment of a tax system is based on percentages, not dollar amounts. Why? Because this is the only way to make the system fair. If I make 1 billion dollars and pay 10% tax, and you make 50 dollars and pay 10% tax, the system would be fair. What is unfair, is that someone holds the ability to make a billion dollars while other people in the same society starve.
I guess "The Allegory of the Artisan" is foreign to you, but your ignorance is no excuse for spreading propaganda.
In the US, we have over 65,000 pages of "Tax Law" which gives legal loopholes to the wealthy. No wealthy person currently pay's the same percentage of tax as someone of middle class or in poverty. Even with the legal loopholes, they act immorally and illegally to get more money while everyone else is expected to pay for them.
The people in society are not asking for 1960s laws to be returned which had income taxed at 90% for the wealthy (which is more in line with "The Allegory of the Artisan"), they are asking for a fair system in which everyone pays an equal share. I personally believe we should return to the 1960s tax laws, but don't mind "equal" as a starting point. Then again, I understand why Socrates presented that particular allegory.
Absolute rubbish, and here is why. People like you are complacent, and believe yourself to be a tool for the people abusing you. Not only do you have that belief, but you are advocating this belief to others. That complacency, and willingness is normal, but sad behavior.
The answer to the dilemma does come in time. Every so often, citizens behead the king and redistribute the wealth. Historically this is true, and the founding of the USA was an extreme example of this happening.
The USA was built to have peaceful mechanisms in place to make this transition. What it could not do however, is make people become active in forcing changes. Fifty years of brain washing has people like you believing that you have no power, no voice, and no choices. We still have the power in the Constitution to make changes peacefully, but people like you have to stop being complacent and advocating complacency.
Fortunately, there are people demanding changes and they will come eventually. I'm sure that you will be riding their coat tails when it happens to try and get a slice of the pie. Until that time you will sit on the coat tails of those currently abusing society happy to get their crumbs.
Study "The Republic" and learn some history and you will realize that I'm correct on all accounts.
Did you just read a book on how to make arguments from fallacy or something? Your arguments are not very good, but sure are fallacy.
1. The justice system is based on the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. You can speculate all you like about what people think, but your speculation is as useful as a "poopy flavored lolly pop" (quoting Pattrick O'Hoolihan).
2. Your speculation for the reason for a trial is idiotic. You are entitled to a trial with a jury of your peers by Constitutional Law. Your speculation is worth as much as you speculating what someone thinks.
Plea bargaining is a double edged sword. Since it is often used to deprive people of their constitutional rights, questioning it's legality is valid and prudent.
It's always easy to sit on the sidelines and tell people how the game should be played. What happens if they decide you should be playing? Here is a good read for you.
Stop lying. Maximum sentences are based on federal sentencing guidelines, and those are based on damages.
You are either ignorant or intentionally bending the truth. When prosecutors are beefing up charges in order to obtain a plea, they start stacking all charges that may relate to the same crime in order to get you for as much as possible.
An example is easy to find, but let me provide a basis. Slugger is arrested for manslaughter. He went into a rage after finding his wife having an affair, followed the guy home and killed him with a hammer. He pleads innocent, so what does the prosecutor do? Charges him with assault with a deadly weapon, breaking and entering the guys home, premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit murder when he finds out the hammer was borrowed from his brother, and of course arrests the brother for conspiracy. In addition, with a couple of juicy quotes from the cheating wife, he gets charged with spousal abuse. To top it all off, the guy he killed was 1 64th American Indian so he's charged with racial discrimination and hate crimes. So now, his 10 year sentence for manslaughter is up to 200 years in jail.
An idiot would argue "Well, if he gets parole he could be out in 30 years". A smart person says "What the fuck is that prosecutor doing by adding all of those trumped up charges on the guy?" Do you still wish to argue that it's no big deal when a prosecutor tries to get someone to plea?
Funny but that list is mostly emulators to connect to other servers so that you may actually be able to work (VNC clients, Putty, X emulation, etc..). A good chunk of those are *Nix utilities emulators like VIM.
I'm sorry, but in 2013 anyone touting Quake 2 as a port is laughable.
Looking at a couple laws out of the hundreds and hundreds passed during the time in office is foolish is it not? Pointing at 3 black hairs on a white cat does not make the cat black does it?
From a quick google search, the Cheney connection is simple to find. While not the current owner he was the initial owner and board chief until he stepped down due to pressure from the public. He still makes assloads of money off of them. I believe it would be fair to speculate he consults with them in addition to being a major share holder. Believing otherwise is pretty comical in my opinion.
No, it's a Woody Harrelson documentary. You won't look most likely, it's easier to believe what you are told than to investigate.
No, you are repeating propaganda that someone told you and you believe. That is very different from being factual. I don't accuse you of using empty rhetoric, I accused you of believing propaganda. It's easier to live in ignorance than suffer cognitive dissonance and see reality. That was known as far back as recorded history, and was repeated often by Socrates.
Bush's own oil company sure, because that is obvious. You think that the Bush family has no holdings in other Oil companies? Come now, you can't be that thick. There is a cool graph that shows connections of the players somewhere. I'm too sleepy to go digging for it (currently trying to recover from pneumonia) but you can go find it. The Bush and Cheney families have lost absolutely no money, and gained in wealth since 9/11. So have many others that are considered "theirs". Kerry, Kissinger, Rockefeller, etc.. etc... The rest of us have lost while they gained. Another easy stat to look up is wealth disparity in the US 60s to today, or perhaps tax rates between the 60s and today.
There is no fiction involved, just your ignorance. This is kind of interesting here. When you stop believing the rhetoric and start looking at the world, the world looks quite difference.
I gave you the answer. Look at how much money Bush made from the Oil. Look how private military companies (such as Blackwater which is owned by Cheney) profited.
Everything else you state, I literally laugh at. Why? You believe rhetoric, not facts. No different than people still believing that Obama want's more transparency in Government. You listen to the words media tells you, and never look at what they did or what they do. Look at deregulation under Bush, look at tax reductions under Bush. It sure as hell did not benefit the citizens, it benefited him and his.
Let me demonstrate how your logic fails. Long ago we thought eating arsenic was good for you. We learned that it's not such a good thing after all, and now we don't allow high levels of arsenic in food and water. We used to believe playing with mercury was not only cool, but good for a persons health. Again, we learned it was not so healthy so found substitutes. Lead was used for all kinds of things, and again was not seen as unhealthy. Well, now we are 0 for 3 so maybe you see where the thoughts should go next.
As society gains knowledge, we gain alternatives and information that allow us to do things better. Nobody in their right mind would tell you that the industrial revolution didn't require fossil fuels. That said, only an idiot (or extremely ignorant person) would claim there is no harm in using them. That's right, millionaires and billionaires move as far away as possible from industry because it's unhealthy. If you think it's just for more land, why do none of them take a few adjacent vacant blocks in some downtown area for cheap!
Because we have viable alternatives today, we can reduce our dependencies on fossil fuels, if..
1)The Government keeps people with money from meddling. See the bogus claims about wind turbines killing nature at a higher rate than fossil fuels as an easy example (paid for by big oil companies)
2)The Government subsidizes the industry for growth. Possibly using the revenue of those fossil fuel companies that refuse to spend any of their record profits to reinvest in a new energy form? Seems sensible to many of us.
I never stated that it was not a necessary stepping stone, I said that fossil fuels are harmful. We know that to be true, and have proven it over and over and over again. Failing to believe facts causes at least some level of cognitive dissonance, and I'm happy that you can live with yours. You go on thinking what some guy with billions of dollars wants you to think and be happy.
Personally, I think it all comes down to an utter disregard for taxpayer money. It's like play money to them and if buying way more ammo than they need fills out their budget, then so be it.
I just wanted to point out that this is an opinion, just like a conspiracy investigation would be based on an opinion. We simply don't know, and neither opinion can be turned into fact without investigating and fact finding.
Wow you are thick. If I leave a bottle of poison on the table where my kid can reach it, who's fault is it if my child drank it and died? Mine of course, because I left the dangerous substance where the child could get it. What would happen to me? I would probably go to jail for neglect, involuntary manslaughter, etc...
If I leave a box of thumb tacks sitting open on the table and my kid eats them, who is at fault?
If I leave small magnets on the table and my kid eats them, who is at fault?
All of those things are identical problems. In each case, the parent is responsible. No case requires your bullshit argument of having to watch your kid 24/7/365 without rest. That is such a blatant fallacy that anyone should be able to see it, even if they lack rhetoric skills.
Your last argument is just as poorly crafted. A parent is in control of the environment a toddler grows up in. They put covers in open wall plugs, they put safety catches on cabinets, and know that the environment is safe enough for a young child to play and grow in. It is, in your words, "hopelessly naive and incredibly stupid" to blame someone else when you fail to perform your normal parental duties. If a parent neglects their child's environment and leaves a wall socket open, and a paper clip near by is it the electric companies fault when the child is electrocuted? Obviously that is the parent's fault.
When you take your toddler out of the "safe" home, you watch them closely. You expect that if they find a cat turd in the sand lot, they will eat it. You tell them to drop the cat turd ahead of that act because, you were being a parent and watching what they were doing. You don't let them walk from the park into traffic because as a parent, you supervise them. If you were flirting with someone instead of watching your kid and he walks into traffic, you are a horrible parent.
As to your other ludicrous question "So what do you tell people who have a dead child on their hands?" the obvious answer is "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of Law." and arrest them because they are at least guilty of neglect. You don't tell them "it's okay that you left little Johnny alone with razor blades, we'll go sue Gillette". Thinking that the latter is the correct response would indicate a severe level of mental illness.
Slashdot Mirror
That is poppy cock and I think you know it. If China said "knock it off or we stop shipping you goods" North Korea would have to stop. It's not like they can import Oil, or in fact most other resources needed to fight a war, without China shipping it in. It's not like the slave labor in the coal mines is enough to heat the prison camps, let alone propel a vehicle.
While I agree it's a cult, cults are dependent on other members of society to survive.
China deals with the refugees the same way North Korea deals with defectors currently. Lets not kid ourselves here. If China was really worried about the inhumane treatment of people.. well, you know.. just look at what they do with their own people or those viscous monks from Tibet.
Come now, stop and think. What does North Korea have that can not be stopped at will, and don't you realize that those logistics have been worked out pretty consistently? Does North Korea have an Air Force? The answer is "NO", they do not. The few planes they have would be shot down within seconds of taking flight. Nothing they have compares with the US or South Korean planes.
Does North Korea have a Navy? The answer is "NO". They have a few small boats and subs, that like their military planes, would be neutralized within minutes of an engagement.
The few North Korean Soldiers on the border that lived after the first hour of engagement would be just like the Iraqi Army in Gulf 1 and 2. We would have more problems with refugees and surrendering troops than we would the N. Korean Military. ("We" being S. Korea more than the US)
We are not very worried about the few T72 tanks that NK has, so the only thing that may cost a few lives is the initial artillery fire. Air power would eliminate that artillery pretty quickly. Oh, and before you hype the short range rockets remember that those are worse than artillery. They are fire and forget with very poor range, extreme inaccuracy, and often don't even explode on impact.
The biggest rational fears are with the few scud missiles they have, which are inaccurate and slow. We have had Patriot batteries in South Korea from long before we saw them in the Gulf wars. Think about what they have been trying to hype on the News over the last couple days. "N. Korea has moved 1-3 medium range missiles to the east. Really, 1-3 missiles is a concern when they are scud type missiles? That is laughable if you stop and think about it! It would be sad of course if they were to hit someone with one and people died, don't get me wrong. But it is not a big military threat.
I have not quite figured out the game that's being played politically, but the hype of doom and gloom is grossly exaggerated. I have some speculations, but at present they are not very sound. Some considerations are "Why has China not stopped NK from threats?" China has that much power over NK, perhaps they want to be involved? Why has the US propaganda media (Fox/ABC/NBC) been hyping NK as a real military threat like they did the Iraqi Army? We know their capabilities, and have no reason to over play them unless our politicians (or perhaps more appropriately the people pulling their strings) want a war.
And lets not put this into terms like the propaganda machine might. We don't need to invade and capture North Korea to win and neither does South Korea. We take out anything in their military that "may" cause anyone else harm and leave them the fuck alone. Let the great leader sit in the sand box and cry because you took his shovel away for trying to hit other kids with it. If South Korea want's to drive up to the capital and make it official, that's fine but the US does not have too, and should not consider it.
There is no need for a long drawn out Gorilla war, and if we get into one it's our the politicians fault. Our politicians need to be dealt with harshly if that happens.
The prosecution did exactly what they were supposed to do, and they were pretty lenient about it: they charged him with only a subset of what they could have charged him with, assumed modest damage figures, and offered a plea bargain based on those modest damage figures.
What? No, the prosecutor did not perform their duties. The prosecutors job is to define a reasonable charge for the offense. For copying data on a network which was open, onto a laptop which was placed an an open room with open access to everyone, the charges are not at all reasonable at all.
Because it has become the status quot to stack charges until something sticks does not make it correct to do. In fact this is expressly forbidden under the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Go read them!
You are blaming half of the conspirators for the full conspiracy. It should be obvious if you bothered to consider it for any length of time. If I'm paying a bribe, I'm guilty of a crime just as the person accepting the bribe.
Politicians are currently accepting bribes, this is easy to show and prove. It's not clear who is actually paying these people off, but you can't simply let them off the hook because you don't know.
The opposite of what you said is to make every variable 0, which yields invalid results just like your infinite variables yield invalid results. It's fine to speculate some numbers, but you can't use zero or infinity as those speculated numbers. It simply does not work.
You are speculating again, which shows poor form. The prosecutor beefed up charges to present both him and the courts with a charges allowing a sentence of 35 years. Your speculation does not change either of those two facts. Your speculation does not make what the prosecutor did morally correct or honest. Your speculation does not change the outcome of the case, which was the suicide of a young person.
I'm not claiming the Swartz was innocent of a crime mind you, I'm claiming that the prosecutions handling was absolutely wrong. This same wrong action is taken by prosecutors all over the country regularly, and that should outrage you and every other citizen aware of the abuse of power.
I have read a bit about the conspiracy theories for this war, but ran into several road blocks. If you have a good reference, please point me in the correct direction.
My job changes my philosophical viewpoint somehow? Come now, you can't be that daft so I'm guessing that you are using a poor attempt at ad hominem.
That said, the term "fair" covers at least two contexts which are taxes and wealth disparity. The tax system up until the 1960s addressed wealth disparity by taxing millionaires at 90%. You can go look at the tax code at your leisure. By the 1980s, the tax was reduced to 35% and now millionaires pay 12-15%. The more you make, the less you pay.
That fact alone is enough to show how wealth disparity in the US has drastically increased in the US during the same time the tax rates started favoring the wealthy.
So we have two issues and neither are fair to the average citizen. First, the tax code is absolutely unfair. Wealthy people pay less in all taxes than those of middle class or poverty. The second, is that wealth disparity is absolutely uncontrolled currently.
Deregulation is the biggest cause of the unfairness. Until the 1970s, the monopoly laws gave some protection against people owning everything. Now monopoly is rarely prosecuted. If it is prosecuted, the punishment has not been to create a shared market, but levy a few fines and allow the monopoly to continue.
At the same time, tax benefits to the wealthy have allowed them to consume more and more of the market and pay less and less taxes.
The point I was making that you responded too is that the argument about how much something is used is foolish when dealing with public infrastructure. Idiotic in fact, because the same arguments could be made in the opposite direction. Neither deal with what public infrastructure is, nor how it should be maintained. Claiming "he uses more of that than I do" does not mean that a persons responsibility to Society changes. We all use public infrastructure, military, police, fire fighters. How much or how little we use them does not change their purposes.
Logically, and historically, a "fair" tax has been equally distributed by taxing a percentage of one's wealth. Claiming Joe paid a million dollars and Jerry paid five dollars is a pathetic argument when Joe has a billion dollars and Jerry has five thousand. Questioning how Joe was allowed to hoard that much money, possibly at the detriment to society, is a separate and valid question.
Let me change the tactic slightly by asking and answering a different set of questions. Q: Should I pay less in taxes because I have never been robbed, and you pay more because you were mugged in NYC? Q: Should you pay less in taxes because your home never caught on fire, and someone else pay more because of a lightning strike in a bad storm? Q: Should you pay more in taxes because you have more gold on hand than I do, and that puts you at higher risk requiring more soldiers on our borders?
All of those questions are rather foolish to ask. The purpose of the police is to prevent crimes, but not all crimes can be prevented or we would have no need for police at all. The job of a firefighter is not to prevent all fires, but put out fires when they occur. The job of the military is to protect all citizens, not just a few. The purpose of the roads is so that we can all use them as we need them.
Please go read what I wrote above responding to Kpt. Kangarooski. As them, you are arguing a second issue as if they are the same. Wealth disparity is a different problem than taxes. We are failing in both regards, so I won't discount the merit of your points. I'm simply pointing out that these are separate issues and can not be lumped together when discussing problems, causes, and remedies.
I don't have my books with me to give the exact pages nor book, but can summarize. Google did not show me much, so it's quicker to summarize than dig at work.
If the Republic allows an artisan to become too wealthy, they no longer fill their role in society. An artisan that makes a fortune from a piece of work, will be lax in his next piece of work. He will have excess money, which allows him to meddle into the affairs of others. No good can come of such, and the Republic is bound to protect society from this happening.
By the same token, if the Republic does not allow the artisan enough money for their work they will no longer be an artisan. If the artisan and his family are hungry, no matter how good his talent he must seek other opportunities in order to feed his family. He may even resort to criminal activities because the Republic was lacking in their duties.
The duty of the Republic is to ensure that no person gets paid too much or too little for their work. Those that produce well should be rewarded, but not so much that they no longer produce. Those that perform under what is expected should be encouraged to find other tasks they may be able to perform well, but not be punished or discouraged by the Republic for attempting to perform well.
The same conversation is very clear that a society requires numerous jobs to be successful. With too many bakers and no farmers, the bakers would have no wheat to make bread with and society would starve. With too many farmers and not enough cobblers, the crops would rot and the farmers would have no shoes. The duty of the Republic _and_ the members of the Republic are both responsible for ensuring that the Republic succeeds.
You are pointing out two distinct and separate problems. I only touched on one in my post. Before I go to that, I have to point out that tax is not intended to be a burden. It is intended to maintain public services. Nothing more, nothing less. The concept of taxes and public service goes back a few thousand years. Please don't confuse what I said so far with people that abuse power and use taxes for other purposes.
As to touching on the second issue: I pointed at the Allegory of the Artisan intentionally. If you understand that work, you understand my point of view. Note I stated two key sentences. What is unfair, is that someone holds the ability to make a billion dollars while other people in the same society starve. and I personally believe we should return to the 1960s tax laws, but don't mind "equal" as a starting point. Then again, I understand why Socrates presented that particular allegory.
So the second problem you point at I only hinted at, which is wealth disparity. This problem was improving from the 1800s until the 1960s, then we went the other direction. Since "Reaganomics" we have moved drastically in the wrong direction. The US currently ranks 150th in the world for wealth disparity.
It is easy to overlap or confuse the two arguments, but the are definitely not the same.
I served in the US Army, and used to be as delusional as you. I was gung ho, ready to shoot any commie bastard I saw. The brainwashing works pretty well, especially when you wear the Uniform. Then I started studying the world, and changed my view rather drastically.
How many wars can you study since the 1800s that are not based on bullshit? I count none passed the Civil war. I'll start with some easy ones for you to consider.
Hitler was funded by the Bush family, yes, you know the ones. They made a shitload of money from WW II. Many questions exist regarding the US entry, let alone how certain people were funding and making money from pre-war Germany. (Carnegie, Melon, Rockefeller, etc...) During the war, the Rockefeller institute provided Hitler with the scientists working on Eugenics and mass murder. If the US did not fund Hitler, would he have been able to afford an Army large enough to invade anyone else? If people were not providing him scientists willing to commit atrocities, would he have been able to fund the programs? Did you ever wonder why operation paperclip put at least thousands of SS Officers and Scientists in the US? Maybe you should think about it.
Vietnam was started on a lie, this has been proven. Go read some history. It also had nothing to do with your freedom. Sorry, that is what propaganda tells you. Korea, same thing. Those wars were about dominance and control, again making those in the military industrial complex metric assloads of cash on your tax dollar and our citizen's lives.
Iraq, based on a lie. Gulf 1, okay we defended a weak country from a prick. Gulf 2, fabrication and ego were the purpose. It also helped to make better servants of US citizens by removing their rights with the patriot act. Similarities to Reichstag should bother you, but you may not have learned much about that event.
The only country that may threaten our borders currently is China. Used to be Russia. Neither country every attempted to invade the US. People tout the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 80s as proof that they would have attacked us. Funny that they didn't bother with any nation allied or friendly with the US, but went after the world leader in opium and heroin production. Your tax dollar helped repel them, then repelled the Taliban which had pretty much abolished production of Heroin and Opium. Now Afghanistan is once again the world's leading producer of Heroin and Opium.
Go listen to what Eisenhower was telling you before he died. Go listen to what Kennedy was telling you before he died. Start asking questions and stop accepting propaganda for answers.
When the Rich guy needs the police to come to their house, or the fire department, or an ambulance, or the mail van, or what ever the roads are the same. How much you personally use the road does not magically remove your dependance on them, nor does it change your personal responsibilities to help maintain them.
Public services are exactly that, and every member of society is expected to fairly fund them. Stop excusing people in society that refuse to do their fair share.
And yes, the percentage base tax is supposed to work here as well. If McDutty Billionaire did not have roads to get maids to his house, his wife would have to clean by herself. That would impact his wealth, as his wife would become unhappy. If those roads did not bring in his gardening staff and trash collectors, his house would be a condemned dump in a short time. There goes another chunk of his wealth. He would not be able to get food to his house to cook, so he'd eat McDonald's at the airport and become fat and sick. The other elitists at Egobastage Inc. would notice his failing health and demote him, or maybe sabotage him to sack him. His wealth relies on the roads just as much as yours does. Perhaps even more.
Tossing out numbers is idiotic at best, but since you fabricated numbers it's pure propaganda. The establishment of a tax system is based on percentages, not dollar amounts. Why? Because this is the only way to make the system fair. If I make 1 billion dollars and pay 10% tax, and you make 50 dollars and pay 10% tax, the system would be fair. What is unfair, is that someone holds the ability to make a billion dollars while other people in the same society starve.
I guess "The Allegory of the Artisan" is foreign to you, but your ignorance is no excuse for spreading propaganda.
In the US, we have over 65,000 pages of "Tax Law" which gives legal loopholes to the wealthy. No wealthy person currently pay's the same percentage of tax as someone of middle class or in poverty. Even with the legal loopholes, they act immorally and illegally to get more money while everyone else is expected to pay for them.
The people in society are not asking for 1960s laws to be returned which had income taxed at 90% for the wealthy (which is more in line with "The Allegory of the Artisan"), they are asking for a fair system in which everyone pays an equal share. I personally believe we should return to the 1960s tax laws, but don't mind "equal" as a starting point. Then again, I understand why Socrates presented that particular allegory.
Absolute rubbish, and here is why. People like you are complacent, and believe yourself to be a tool for the people abusing you. Not only do you have that belief, but you are advocating this belief to others. That complacency, and willingness is normal, but sad behavior.
The answer to the dilemma does come in time. Every so often, citizens behead the king and redistribute the wealth. Historically this is true, and the founding of the USA was an extreme example of this happening.
The USA was built to have peaceful mechanisms in place to make this transition. What it could not do however, is make people become active in forcing changes. Fifty years of brain washing has people like you believing that you have no power, no voice, and no choices. We still have the power in the Constitution to make changes peacefully, but people like you have to stop being complacent and advocating complacency.
Fortunately, there are people demanding changes and they will come eventually. I'm sure that you will be riding their coat tails when it happens to try and get a slice of the pie. Until that time you will sit on the coat tails of those currently abusing society happy to get their crumbs.
Study "The Republic" and learn some history and you will realize that I'm correct on all accounts.
Did you just read a book on how to make arguments from fallacy or something? Your arguments are not very good, but sure are fallacy.
1. The justice system is based on the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty. You can speculate all you like about what people think, but your speculation is as useful as a "poopy flavored lolly pop" (quoting Pattrick O'Hoolihan).
2. Your speculation for the reason for a trial is idiotic. You are entitled to a trial with a jury of your peers by Constitutional Law. Your speculation is worth as much as you speculating what someone thinks.
Plea bargaining is a double edged sword. Since it is often used to deprive people of their constitutional rights, questioning it's legality is valid and prudent.
It's always easy to sit on the sidelines and tell people how the game should be played. What happens if they decide you should be playing? Here is a good read for you.
Stop lying. Maximum sentences are based on federal sentencing guidelines, and those are based on damages.
You are either ignorant or intentionally bending the truth. When prosecutors are beefing up charges in order to obtain a plea, they start stacking all charges that may relate to the same crime in order to get you for as much as possible.
An example is easy to find, but let me provide a basis. Slugger is arrested for manslaughter. He went into a rage after finding his wife having an affair, followed the guy home and killed him with a hammer. He pleads innocent, so what does the prosecutor do? Charges him with assault with a deadly weapon, breaking and entering the guys home, premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit murder when he finds out the hammer was borrowed from his brother, and of course arrests the brother for conspiracy. In addition, with a couple of juicy quotes from the cheating wife, he gets charged with spousal abuse. To top it all off, the guy he killed was 1 64th American Indian so he's charged with racial discrimination and hate crimes. So now, his 10 year sentence for manslaughter is up to 200 years in jail.
An idiot would argue "Well, if he gets parole he could be out in 30 years". A smart person says "What the fuck is that prosecutor doing by adding all of those trumped up charges on the guy?" Do you still wish to argue that it's no big deal when a prosecutor tries to get someone to plea?
Funny but that list is mostly emulators to connect to other servers so that you may actually be able to work (VNC clients, Putty, X emulation, etc..). A good chunk of those are *Nix utilities emulators like VIM.
I'm sorry, but in 2013 anyone touting Quake 2 as a port is laughable.
Looking at a couple laws out of the hundreds and hundreds passed during the time in office is foolish is it not? Pointing at 3 black hairs on a white cat does not make the cat black does it?
From a quick google search, the Cheney connection is simple to find. While not the current owner he was the initial owner and board chief until he stepped down due to pressure from the public. He still makes assloads of money off of them. I believe it would be fair to speculate he consults with them in addition to being a major share holder. Believing otherwise is pretty comical in my opinion.
No, it's a Woody Harrelson documentary. You won't look most likely, it's easier to believe what you are told than to investigate.
No, you are repeating propaganda that someone told you and you believe. That is very different from being factual. I don't accuse you of using empty rhetoric, I accused you of believing propaganda. It's easier to live in ignorance than suffer cognitive dissonance and see reality. That was known as far back as recorded history, and was repeated often by Socrates.
Bush's own oil company sure, because that is obvious. You think that the Bush family has no holdings in other Oil companies? Come now, you can't be that thick. There is a cool graph that shows connections of the players somewhere. I'm too sleepy to go digging for it (currently trying to recover from pneumonia) but you can go find it. The Bush and Cheney families have lost absolutely no money, and gained in wealth since 9/11. So have many others that are considered "theirs". Kerry, Kissinger, Rockefeller, etc.. etc... The rest of us have lost while they gained. Another easy stat to look up is wealth disparity in the US 60s to today, or perhaps tax rates between the 60s and today.
There is no fiction involved, just your ignorance. This is kind of interesting here. When you stop believing the rhetoric and start looking at the world, the world looks quite difference.
I gave you the answer. Look at how much money Bush made from the Oil. Look how private military companies (such as Blackwater which is owned by Cheney) profited.
Everything else you state, I literally laugh at. Why? You believe rhetoric, not facts. No different than people still believing that Obama want's more transparency in Government. You listen to the words media tells you, and never look at what they did or what they do. Look at deregulation under Bush, look at tax reductions under Bush. It sure as hell did not benefit the citizens, it benefited him and his.
I toss your last sentence right back at you.
We agree. Thanks for taking a civil tone and logical approach to the discussion!
Let me demonstrate how your logic fails. Long ago we thought eating arsenic was good for you. We learned that it's not such a good thing after all, and now we don't allow high levels of arsenic in food and water. We used to believe playing with mercury was not only cool, but good for a persons health. Again, we learned it was not so healthy so found substitutes. Lead was used for all kinds of things, and again was not seen as unhealthy. Well, now we are 0 for 3 so maybe you see where the thoughts should go next.
As society gains knowledge, we gain alternatives and information that allow us to do things better. Nobody in their right mind would tell you that the industrial revolution didn't require fossil fuels. That said, only an idiot (or extremely ignorant person) would claim there is no harm in using them. That's right, millionaires and billionaires move as far away as possible from industry because it's unhealthy. If you think it's just for more land, why do none of them take a few adjacent vacant blocks in some downtown area for cheap!
Because we have viable alternatives today, we can reduce our dependencies on fossil fuels, if..
1)The Government keeps people with money from meddling. See the bogus claims about wind turbines killing nature at a higher rate than fossil fuels as an easy example (paid for by big oil companies)
2)The Government subsidizes the industry for growth. Possibly using the revenue of those fossil fuel companies that refuse to spend any of their record profits to reinvest in a new energy form? Seems sensible to many of us.
I never stated that it was not a necessary stepping stone, I said that fossil fuels are harmful. We know that to be true, and have proven it over and over and over again. Failing to believe facts causes at least some level of cognitive dissonance, and I'm happy that you can live with yours. You go on thinking what some guy with billions of dollars wants you to think and be happy.
Personally, I think it all comes down to an utter disregard for taxpayer money. It's like play money to them and if buying way more ammo than they need fills out their budget, then so be it.
I just wanted to point out that this is an opinion, just like a conspiracy investigation would be based on an opinion. We simply don't know, and neither opinion can be turned into fact without investigating and fact finding.
Wow you are thick. If I leave a bottle of poison on the table where my kid can reach it, who's fault is it if my child drank it and died? Mine of course, because I left the dangerous substance where the child could get it. What would happen to me? I would probably go to jail for neglect, involuntary manslaughter, etc...
If I leave a box of thumb tacks sitting open on the table and my kid eats them, who is at fault?
If I leave small magnets on the table and my kid eats them, who is at fault?
All of those things are identical problems. In each case, the parent is responsible. No case requires your bullshit argument of having to watch your kid 24/7/365 without rest. That is such a blatant fallacy that anyone should be able to see it, even if they lack rhetoric skills.
Your last argument is just as poorly crafted. A parent is in control of the environment a toddler grows up in. They put covers in open wall plugs, they put safety catches on cabinets, and know that the environment is safe enough for a young child to play and grow in. It is, in your words, "hopelessly naive and incredibly stupid" to blame someone else when you fail to perform your normal parental duties. If a parent neglects their child's environment and leaves a wall socket open, and a paper clip near by is it the electric companies fault when the child is electrocuted? Obviously that is the parent's fault.
When you take your toddler out of the "safe" home, you watch them closely. You expect that if they find a cat turd in the sand lot, they will eat it. You tell them to drop the cat turd ahead of that act because, you were being a parent and watching what they were doing. You don't let them walk from the park into traffic because as a parent, you supervise them. If you were flirting with someone instead of watching your kid and he walks into traffic, you are a horrible parent.
As to your other ludicrous question "So what do you tell people who have a dead child on their hands?" the obvious answer is "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of Law." and arrest them because they are at least guilty of neglect. You don't tell them "it's okay that you left little Johnny alone with razor blades, we'll go sue Gillette". Thinking that the latter is the correct response would indicate a severe level of mental illness.