I find it interesting that they are claiming Title VII instead of violation of H1-B rules, presumably because this way they can point at a systematic exclusion of Americans on a non-technical basis.
You don't think it's because if they succeed under Title VII they can also recover attorney's fees?
The US badly needs a loser-pays system for civil cases. Also, if you are accused of a crime and are found not guilty, the government (local, state, or federal) which tried to prosecute you should pay in full all the costs you sustained, including legal fees, time lost from work, time away from family and loved ones if jailed, and travel expenses. This money should come out of the prosecutor's budget in the case of criminal trials.
Once again you live up to your handle - it's not about origin at all but instead current citizenship.
... which, unless you go to considerable time, effort, expense and maybe also some luck to change it, is in fact based on national origin. Think of national origin as the default state. It can be overcome, but otherwise, it is the default setting. For most people most of the time, they are a citizen of a nation because that is where they were born.
Everyone always eventually gets what they deserve, whether that is towards their benefit or their destruction. It's just that it usually takes a good god damned long time.
I'll add that the other powerful force destroying Western civilization (the US is merely the leading edge of this wave) is "how can I tell my neighbor how he should live, and back it with the police power of government while claiming that it's for safety or some other thinly veiled excuse?" It's just that this one has been around a long time. The idea that adult people must be protected from themselves is newer by comparison. Both ideologies require a powerful government with its fingers in everything, so the politicians are happy to endorse either.
What the fuck is wrong with "if you like Wild West and understand what that means, use our Bitcoin system. If you want nice and regulated, use standard currency"? In other words, why this one-size-must-fit-all mentality? Someone using a currency created for the very purpose of such anonymous transactions either understands what this means, or learns a valuable lesson about not diving into something before understanding it. Or decides that the learning and potential risk involved is not worthwhile and uses US dollars, Euros, or whatever else.
There is nothing wrong with that! This means a new option is available that wasn't there before. If you don't like the option, don't go out of your way to use it. No one is going to force you to use Bitcoin if you don't like (or understand) the terms under which it operates. This isn't broken. The effort to fix it will therefore fail and is likely to create additional problems.
It's subtle and there is a long sequence of events separating cause from effect, but this psychotic unwillingness to treat adult people like adults is the primary enabler for the US government's perpetual expansion of power and scope. That stupid, lazy, impetuous people who make bad decisions might hurt themselves is not a bug, it's a feature. It's the only thing preventing the takeover of widespread, institutionalized stupidity. It is not an injustice when adults who make poor decisions suffer the consequences. No one was coerced and there is no victim in that picture. The effort to prevent this is well-intentioned and tragically misguided, but happily and diabolically exploited by politicians in the business of protecting you from yourself because to them it means opportunity to grab power that will never be given back.
The problem is not greed. The problem is government dictating how people should run their lives.
Greed for money or goods is a material form of avarice. The lust to have and perpetually expand power at every opportunity is just a non-material form of greed. The latter is more dangerous by far because it is backed by the police power of government and there is no counter-force causing it to retreat. There is only incremental advancement.
This isn't a road or an essential utility or a national security issue. There is no real public interest here. Ergo, the correct solution would have been to dismiss the suit and tell the plaintiffs that they are free to form their own clone registry. The fact that the current registry is a monopoly would be immaterial because said monopoly excludes clones and thus wouldn't compete with a clone registry. The clone registry would probably find itself entirely without competition. Then those who are interested in cloned horses know where to look while those wanting horses bred the old-fashioned way also know where to look.
Apparently that's just not as fun as forcing people to do what they explicitly don't want to do.
Only if they include content from the original webpage, which it most likely will not. It'll probably be implemented as a DNS redirect, but they might get fancy and just redirect based on URL, but the later requires significantly more hardware, so I'm guessing it's the former. They see you are trying to access www.moviepiratesgalore.com and redirect you to www.mpaa.com instead.
Do you suppose they would also include a transparent HTTP proxy for people like me who run their own caching nameserver?
Way too big of segment of our populace has become completely nonproductive, yet richly living by gaming the system.
It remains that way because a much bigger segment has become completely oblivious. This is not mere ignorance. This is a self-protecting, oblivious, zombie-like sleep state. It includes an active hostility towards anyone who suggests that perhaps the increasingly centralized power and wealth of our society lends itself to being controlled by a small elite. You'll be called a tinfoil hatter no matter what evidence and reasoning you produce, not matter-of-factly either but often in an angry hostile fashion, because the zombies are deathly afraid of anything that might pierce a hole in their worldview of denial.
"Compare either or both of them to say, the Libertarian party and you'll see what actual differences are."
Yes, the first two look sane. Libertarians are the flip side of Marxists. Nice dorm-room wankfests, but utter train wrecks in the real world.
The point was, that's a political party with actual differences from the ruling factions. They don't disagree on how to implement the same philosophy like the Democrats and Republicans. They disagree about the fundamental philosophy itself.
Also, be aware that there is a serious effort to misinform people about what libertarianism is. The effort is to equate all libertarian thought with anarcho-capitalism. This is intentional. As I said in a post below, when political types cannot logically argue against something, they do their best to portray its supporters as evil and heartless. To give an example, only those who can afford their own armed guards would have police protection under anarcho-capitalism.
I am, for the most part, a libertarian. I want a government that collects taxes. I want that government to regulate industries and stock markets, with the goal of eliminating force and fraud. I want there to be tax-funded firefighters and police. I want there to be something like an FDA, but its sole purpose would be to make sure that no fraud takes place (if you buy a container claiming to have X drug, it actually does contain pharmaceutically pure X drug). I otherwise believe all drugs should be legal with only crimes (such as DUI) being punished. I want all activities confined to consenting adults to be legal, but I want it to be a crime the second anyone who is not an adult or does not consent is affected by the activity. I want almost all of a citizens' experience of government to come from state and local levels, with only issues like national defense and interstate roads handled by the feds.
This "utter train wreck" is, as a poster below pointed out, extremely close to classical liberalism. This same "utter train wreck" is what the USA had during its early history. If that's a train wreck, please derail me.
Considering that modern libertarianism is the closest thing we have to the classic liberalism movement that founded the United States, I don't see where it's an utter train wreck in real world. There are some wings of the party, like anarcho-capitalism, that are clearly as unworkable as Marxism, but most libertarians recognize that a strong (but not large) government is necessary for a civil society.
It's fashionable to portray all libertarians as anarcho-capitalists. Make no mistake, this is not an accident. When those with pulpits cannot rationally argue against a philosophy, they try their level best to demonize it and make its supporters look as evil as possible. It's a standard and ancient tactic.
They argue about teachers' salaried while the kids graduating from high school are dumbasses with no willingness or ability to think independently, since following instructions is what they know. They argue about unresolvable (thus to them, perfect) debates like abortion while the republic crumbles, they may as well play the fiddle too like Nero did. They quibble about how many scraps should hit the floor instead of taking a hard look into why everyone doesn't have their own floor.
The differences exist but they are minimal and designed to give only an illusion of choice. One day something like abortion is demonized and made more difficult, another day this is reversed. Over the course of years and decades the status quo does not change; it only becomes more so. That's what matters.
You may not want to believe that a single entity with two factions has completely usurped all political power in the nation and locked it down like what the guilds of old did to trade, but it's a fact. Consider what Microsoft did to the PC market. That's what the Demican/Republicrats did to politics. Compare either or both of them to say, the Libertarian party and you'll see what actual differences are.
Wow. It must be nice to live your black and white world. Mine is so many confusing shades of gray that I find that I am just unable to put suitable labels on most people and things.
The point was that the world is a great many shades of grey, and is therefore not suitably represented by our black-and-white two-party system.
Reading comprehension is gravely on the decline. It's been replaced by an insatiable need to be right at someone else's expense, even if you have to put words in their mouths to do it.
I'll blame you for resorting to childish name calling, which makes your point completely disappear as people instantly flag you as just some other ranting lunatic.
Being hypersensitive and too easily offended makes you look like the ranting lunatic. Specifically, it looks like you just don't like the guy and are clutching at straws for some way of taking a jab at him. Whether or not that's actually the case. It also makes you appear to promote this phoney decorum and perfect inoffensiveness that no living human being actually embodies in real life.
Second... STOP USING FUCKING BOOK REFERENCE WHEN YOU UTTERLY FAILED TO UNDERSTAND THAT PLOT. God, the slashdot meme of all time is for people to reference 1984, while Animal Farm is closer, you still failed to get the actual point. Stop trying to reference it to look smarter.
He referenced a very specific part of it in order to make a joke about how incredibly similar the Democrats and Republicans are on any truly important issue (such as state surveillance). Getting hysterical about that makes him look like a goddamned genius compared to you.
A very limited one with an established procedure, yes.
we live in complex societies where a group of jerks can do terrible things if they have enough brains to organize themselves properly.
Yes, we call them politicians. In the past their own disagreements divided them, but they're all uniting under the monied banner of Big Brother.
This does not mean we should let the 'feds' do anything they want but we possibly need a method to do it so as to enable them to look for information when need be and at the same time guarantee privacy whenever that is possible. This all can be done in relatively satisfying way as long as the 'feds' do not want to eavesdrop on all of us real time all the time which apparently is what they want. Eventually we will have to find a common ground.
We have a satisfying way that works for everyone involved. It's called getting a warrant. It begins when the police have reason to suspect that someone has committed a crime. Next, they convince a judge that these reasons are real and not bullshit fishing expeditions. Finally, the judge agrees to provide the warrant and it specifies the persons/places to be searched and the items or activities they are looking for.
The problem is, this system prevents massive surveillance and massive fishing expeditions. That's precisely why the politicians don't like it. But it's a solved problem and has been for hundreds of years now. Don't be fooled by the phoney debate and the appearance of legitimacy (of two coequal sides) it tries to create. All of this is a power grab, pure and simple. It's not necessary to protect anyone and it's not necessary to catch criminals.
On the NZ shows they are almost placid - look up "always blow on the pie" to see what I mean. I am sure they have their rough and tumble, but the sort of assault and direct threats you see on COPS is not present, and even when they go against someone drunk and agro they try and talk their way down and only deploy capsicum spray or tasers as a last defence. The Australian cop shows are too heavy edited to show some of a heaviness the cops use here - I have do doubt they have certain groups they don't mind putting the boot into, but most of the confrontations you see on COPS would be resolved differently on the Aussie cop shows in similar situations.
Not coincidentally, I would assume the average New Zealander has much more genuine respect and admiration for the police than does the average American. Cops sincerely seem to wonder why they aren't respected and welcomed, why average people aren't glad to see them. I wouldn't be surprised if the law-abiding fear the police more than the criminals do.
I think shows like COPS though are the sort of thing that attract the wrong people to policing. The sort that like the power trip and the odd chance to rough someone up under the cover of a badge, rather than actually engaging and protecting the community.
That describes all cops without exception. A large number of cops are directly like this, while all the rest of the cops decide to indirectly be part of the problem by not doing anything about it, giving their own silent consent and approval. It happens so often that there is a term for it: the "blue wall of silence". The otherwise honest cops care about their crooked brethren more than they care about the civilians they're supposed to be protecting.
I forgot who said it, but a long time ago I read a post by another Slashdotter that summed it up. He said that in the minds of cops, there are three kinds of people: 1) Cops 2) Cops' families/friends 3) Suspects. The poster was not joking.
As a bystander who happened upon this thread, I say: bless you, sir!
It's gotten to the point where the moment I hear "racism", I immediately assume that whoever said it is completely full of shit until and unless proven otherwise. In years and years I have never once seen "racism" called when there was an actual instance wherein a person claimed that one race was inherently and genetically superior to another race. I have, however, seen many instances where it was a cheap, cowardly and dishonest manner of shutting down a debate that said person was losing.
When lawmakers tell police to go arrest bar-betters or marijuana growers, what do you expect them to do, say "that's a bullshit order" and go shoot the lawmaker instead? You wish!
I don't wish they would shoot the legislator (the non-dumbed-down version of "lawmaker" - the media deliberately aims at a 5th-grade reading level, this does not deserve to be emulated). But to say "that's a bullshit order" and refuse to follow it, yes I absolutely want that. The cop in question could then go to the media, or resign, or resign and go tell the media why. Then and only then would police officers EARN the respect they seem to want so badly.
Cops who are mindless myrmidons following any and all orders without question are definitely a big part of the problem. Perhaps they are the single biggest part of the problem. They're supposed to be peace officers who serve their community, not goons or hitmen or jack-booted thugs.
The other huge, glaring part of the problem is the insane idea that any activity confined to consenting adults should ever be considered a crime. The War on Drugs hasn't worked, isn't working, and isn't going to work if the goal is to reduce or eliminate drug use. It works fantastically well if the (unstated of course) goal is to create criminals, scare the public into voting for stricter laws that make no sense, and fill the coffers of the private prison industry, lobbyists, lawyers, and a whole chain of other parasites who profit from criminalizing victimless behavior.
I hate to say it but it's hard to name a body of people more stupid than the American public. Prohibition was the lesson here. In their mindlessness, the American public missed the principle and learned a lesson only about alcohol.
In terms of why not let juries hear evidence? Well because it may not be relevant and it may bias them. Just because someone did X that people do not like it does not also follow that they did Y. That is why you can't generally mention a defendant's prior bad acts unless they somehow relate to the particular case. So if someone was convicted of robbery in the past, you can't bring it up in an unrelated murder case just to try and make them look like a bad guy.
In your example there, true a previous robbery does not mean a person commited a murder. But it does demonstrate that this person has little or no regard for the law and has a history of committing serious crimes.
They own the jail. And the courts. And the legislature. And if you want to run for office you take their money and probably not directly from their hands.
So no, none of them in jail.
Atypical/. poster that doesn't know the difference between illegal, and unethical. In turn, doesn't know that many of said changes were made by government in the first place which allowed things to happen. Following with that, banks used the system in place. So you end up with: Illegal no, unethical yes.
Actually the point was that we would have a stronger nation and a better world if there were more overlap and less distinction between illegal and unethical.
And you may wish to brush up on your own history there. The bankers have a long history of trying to control the nation's currency, beginning with Andrew Jackson (who was shot in a pointless duel), again with Abe Lincoln (who was assassinated after issuing interest-free greenbacks), and finally succeeded with the current Federal Reserve system. Incidentally, Kennedy wanted to revert back to government-issued currency.
Banks funded the politicians who put the system in place. You're an asshole to read my post in the most hostile he-must-be-a-total-idiot manner possible and then assume ignorance on my part because of your assumption. This kind of shit and the way it's become so fashionable lately is why intelligent adult discussion on this site is becoming such a rarity.
True, bipartisan support is hard to find since the rise of the Tea Party
Yes, that's because "bipartisan" is usually code for "time for Republicans to acquiesce to the demands of the Democrats". Unlike most Republicans who just want to appeal to their base and do whatever is politically expedient to get re-elected, the Tea Partiers generally operate on a belief system. This is why lots of more mainstream Republicans don't like them, because they will say and do things perceived to hurt the Republican party's election odds.
For some reason people here just love to assume things that were never said, and read meanings into posts that are simply not there, so I'll reluctantly add: I don't like either major party one damned bit. I wish we had more of a parliamentary system where third, fourth, and fifth options were viable. But what I observed remains true. The Democrats have lots of support in the media and are effective at portraying their postions as mainstream and normal, with any dissenters branded as "racist" or otherwise bigoted, which many Republicans are afraid of and don't know how to stand up to.
Why is it gun owners in internet threads so often find it necessary to convert almost any discussion about the government to gun control? Are there people at banging on your doors demanding your weapons while simultaneously threatening to shoot you? The days of the Wild West are over. When are people going to get it?
Why is it that one cannot mention a clear, simple, easy-to-understand example in order to illustrate a point without the small-minded becoming obsessively hung-up on the example while missing the point being made with it?
The example I gave would be valid and legitimate whether or not I believed anyone should own a gun. The hypocrisy was the point. In fact I salute the way several European countries do things: they ban citizens from having guns AND the police (generally, with some exceptions) don't have guns either. That's how you do it without being a hypocrite about it.
I personally do like gun ownership, yes, but it is you who are trying to convert this into a gun-control debate. You are emotionally reactive and small-minded, unable to use reason to understand the distinction between a useful example and the point being made. I hope that one day you realize the self-limitation this represents, for that realization alone will overcome said shortcoming.
Where's the news? As soon as some politicians notice that some "illegal" tool, device, substance or whatever is useful to them, suddenly it's no longer illegal.
That's actually a bit unusual.
A more typical example would be the anti-gun politicians who really don't want any private ownership of firearms at all... but their own guards are armed. Usually the politicians are complete hypocrites about it because they think they're special and the rules for everyone else shouldn't apply to them.
They own the jail. And the courts. And the legislature. And if you want to run for office you take their money and probably not directly from their hands.
Slashdot Mirror
You don't think it's because if they succeed under Title VII they can also recover attorney's fees?
The US badly needs a loser-pays system for civil cases. Also, if you are accused of a crime and are found not guilty, the government (local, state, or federal) which tried to prosecute you should pay in full all the costs you sustained, including legal fees, time lost from work, time away from family and loved ones if jailed, and travel expenses. This money should come out of the prosecutor's budget in the case of criminal trials.
Once again you live up to your handle - it's not about origin at all but instead current citizenship.
... which, unless you go to considerable time, effort, expense and maybe also some luck to change it, is in fact based on national origin. Think of national origin as the default state. It can be overcome, but otherwise, it is the default setting. For most people most of the time, they are a citizen of a nation because that is where they were born.
Everyone always eventually gets what they deserve, whether that is towards their benefit or their destruction. It's just that it usually takes a good god damned long time.
And that's the problem.
I'll add that the other powerful force destroying Western civilization (the US is merely the leading edge of this wave) is "how can I tell my neighbor how he should live, and back it with the police power of government while claiming that it's for safety or some other thinly veiled excuse?" It's just that this one has been around a long time. The idea that adult people must be protected from themselves is newer by comparison. Both ideologies require a powerful government with its fingers in everything, so the politicians are happy to endorse either.
What the fuck is wrong with "if you like Wild West and understand what that means, use our Bitcoin system. If you want nice and regulated, use standard currency"? In other words, why this one-size-must-fit-all mentality? Someone using a currency created for the very purpose of such anonymous transactions either understands what this means, or learns a valuable lesson about not diving into something before understanding it. Or decides that the learning and potential risk involved is not worthwhile and uses US dollars, Euros, or whatever else.
There is nothing wrong with that! This means a new option is available that wasn't there before. If you don't like the option, don't go out of your way to use it. No one is going to force you to use Bitcoin if you don't like (or understand) the terms under which it operates. This isn't broken. The effort to fix it will therefore fail and is likely to create additional problems.
It's subtle and there is a long sequence of events separating cause from effect, but this psychotic unwillingness to treat adult people like adults is the primary enabler for the US government's perpetual expansion of power and scope. That stupid, lazy, impetuous people who make bad decisions might hurt themselves is not a bug, it's a feature. It's the only thing preventing the takeover of widespread, institutionalized stupidity. It is not an injustice when adults who make poor decisions suffer the consequences. No one was coerced and there is no victim in that picture. The effort to prevent this is well-intentioned and tragically misguided, but happily and diabolically exploited by politicians in the business of protecting you from yourself because to them it means opportunity to grab power that will never be given back.
The problem is not greed. The problem is government dictating how people should run their lives.
Greed for money or goods is a material form of avarice. The lust to have and perpetually expand power at every opportunity is just a non-material form of greed. The latter is more dangerous by far because it is backed by the police power of government and there is no counter-force causing it to retreat. There is only incremental advancement.
This isn't a road or an essential utility or a national security issue. There is no real public interest here. Ergo, the correct solution would have been to dismiss the suit and tell the plaintiffs that they are free to form their own clone registry. The fact that the current registry is a monopoly would be immaterial because said monopoly excludes clones and thus wouldn't compete with a clone registry. The clone registry would probably find itself entirely without competition. Then those who are interested in cloned horses know where to look while those wanting horses bred the old-fashioned way also know where to look.
Apparently that's just not as fun as forcing people to do what they explicitly don't want to do.
Only if they include content from the original webpage, which it most likely will not. It'll probably be implemented as a DNS redirect, but they might get fancy and just redirect based on URL, but the later requires significantly more hardware, so I'm guessing it's the former. They see you are trying to access www.moviepiratesgalore.com and redirect you to www.mpaa.com instead.
Do you suppose they would also include a transparent HTTP proxy for people like me who run their own caching nameserver?
Way too big of segment of our populace has become completely nonproductive, yet richly living by gaming the system.
It remains that way because a much bigger segment has become completely oblivious. This is not mere ignorance. This is a self-protecting, oblivious, zombie-like sleep state. It includes an active hostility towards anyone who suggests that perhaps the increasingly centralized power and wealth of our society lends itself to being controlled by a small elite. You'll be called a tinfoil hatter no matter what evidence and reasoning you produce, not matter-of-factly either but often in an angry hostile fashion, because the zombies are deathly afraid of anything that might pierce a hole in their worldview of denial.
I can't understandy why the FCC allows Comcast to exist as it does today
For the same reason that the FDA allows aspartame despite the mountains of scientific evidence that it's toxic: money.
You just haven't greased the correct palms. If you did, I'm sure you'd have their full support.
"Compare either or both of them to say, the Libertarian party and you'll see what actual differences are."
Yes, the first two look sane. Libertarians are the flip side of Marxists. Nice dorm-room wankfests, but utter train wrecks in the real world.
The point was, that's a political party with actual differences from the ruling factions. They don't disagree on how to implement the same philosophy like the Democrats and Republicans. They disagree about the fundamental philosophy itself.
Also, be aware that there is a serious effort to misinform people about what libertarianism is. The effort is to equate all libertarian thought with anarcho-capitalism. This is intentional. As I said in a post below, when political types cannot logically argue against something, they do their best to portray its supporters as evil and heartless. To give an example, only those who can afford their own armed guards would have police protection under anarcho-capitalism.
I am, for the most part, a libertarian. I want a government that collects taxes. I want that government to regulate industries and stock markets, with the goal of eliminating force and fraud. I want there to be tax-funded firefighters and police. I want there to be something like an FDA, but its sole purpose would be to make sure that no fraud takes place (if you buy a container claiming to have X drug, it actually does contain pharmaceutically pure X drug). I otherwise believe all drugs should be legal with only crimes (such as DUI) being punished. I want all activities confined to consenting adults to be legal, but I want it to be a crime the second anyone who is not an adult or does not consent is affected by the activity. I want almost all of a citizens' experience of government to come from state and local levels, with only issues like national defense and interstate roads handled by the feds.
This "utter train wreck" is, as a poster below pointed out, extremely close to classical liberalism. This same "utter train wreck" is what the USA had during its early history. If that's a train wreck, please derail me.
Considering that modern libertarianism is the closest thing we have to the classic liberalism movement that founded the United States, I don't see where it's an utter train wreck in real world. There are some wings of the party, like anarcho-capitalism, that are clearly as unworkable as Marxism, but most libertarians recognize that a strong (but not large) government is necessary for a civil society.
It's fashionable to portray all libertarians as anarcho-capitalists. Make no mistake, this is not an accident. When those with pulpits cannot rationally argue against a philosophy, they try their level best to demonize it and make its supporters look as evil as possible. It's a standard and ancient tactic.
They argue about teachers' salaried while the kids graduating from high school are dumbasses with no willingness or ability to think independently, since following instructions is what they know. They argue about unresolvable (thus to them, perfect) debates like abortion while the republic crumbles, they may as well play the fiddle too like Nero did. They quibble about how many scraps should hit the floor instead of taking a hard look into why everyone doesn't have their own floor.
The differences exist but they are minimal and designed to give only an illusion of choice. One day something like abortion is demonized and made more difficult, another day this is reversed. Over the course of years and decades the status quo does not change; it only becomes more so. That's what matters.
You may not want to believe that a single entity with two factions has completely usurped all political power in the nation and locked it down like what the guilds of old did to trade, but it's a fact. Consider what Microsoft did to the PC market. That's what the Demican/Republicrats did to politics. Compare either or both of them to say, the Libertarian party and you'll see what actual differences are.
Wow. It must be nice to live your black and white world. Mine is so many confusing shades of gray that I find that I am just unable to put suitable labels on most people and things.
The point was that the world is a great many shades of grey, and is therefore not suitably represented by our black-and-white two-party system.
Reading comprehension is gravely on the decline. It's been replaced by an insatiable need to be right at someone else's expense, even if you have to put words in their mouths to do it.
I'll blame you for resorting to childish name calling, which makes your point completely disappear as people instantly flag you as just some other ranting lunatic.
Being hypersensitive and too easily offended makes you look like the ranting lunatic. Specifically, it looks like you just don't like the guy and are clutching at straws for some way of taking a jab at him. Whether or not that's actually the case. It also makes you appear to promote this phoney decorum and perfect inoffensiveness that no living human being actually embodies in real life.
Second ... STOP USING FUCKING BOOK REFERENCE WHEN YOU UTTERLY FAILED TO UNDERSTAND THAT PLOT. God, the slashdot meme of all time is for people to reference 1984, while Animal Farm is closer, you still failed to get the actual point. Stop trying to reference it to look smarter.
He referenced a very specific part of it in order to make a joke about how incredibly similar the Democrats and Republicans are on any truly important issue (such as state surveillance). Getting hysterical about that makes him look like a goddamned genius compared to you.
well there is a need to watch people
A very limited one with an established procedure, yes.
we live in complex societies where a group of jerks can do terrible things if they have enough brains to organize themselves properly.
Yes, we call them politicians. In the past their own disagreements divided them, but they're all uniting under the monied banner of Big Brother.
This does not mean we should let the 'feds' do anything they want but we possibly need a method to do it so as to enable them to look for information when need be and at the same time guarantee privacy whenever that is possible. This all can be done in relatively satisfying way as long as the 'feds' do not want to eavesdrop on all of us real time all the time which apparently is what they want. Eventually we will have to find a common ground.
We have a satisfying way that works for everyone involved. It's called getting a warrant. It begins when the police have reason to suspect that someone has committed a crime. Next, they convince a judge that these reasons are real and not bullshit fishing expeditions. Finally, the judge agrees to provide the warrant and it specifies the persons/places to be searched and the items or activities they are looking for.
The problem is, this system prevents massive surveillance and massive fishing expeditions. That's precisely why the politicians don't like it. But it's a solved problem and has been for hundreds of years now. Don't be fooled by the phoney debate and the appearance of legitimacy (of two coequal sides) it tries to create. All of this is a power grab, pure and simple. It's not necessary to protect anyone and it's not necessary to catch criminals.
On the NZ shows they are almost placid - look up "always blow on the pie" to see what I mean. I am sure they have their rough and tumble, but the sort of assault and direct threats you see on COPS is not present, and even when they go against someone drunk and agro they try and talk their way down and only deploy capsicum spray or tasers as a last defence. The Australian cop shows are too heavy edited to show some of a heaviness the cops use here - I have do doubt they have certain groups they don't mind putting the boot into, but most of the confrontations you see on COPS would be resolved differently on the Aussie cop shows in similar situations.
Not coincidentally, I would assume the average New Zealander has much more genuine respect and admiration for the police than does the average American. Cops sincerely seem to wonder why they aren't respected and welcomed, why average people aren't glad to see them. I wouldn't be surprised if the law-abiding fear the police more than the criminals do.
I think shows like COPS though are the sort of thing that attract the wrong people to policing. The sort that like the power trip and the odd chance to rough someone up under the cover of a badge, rather than actually engaging and protecting the community.
That describes all cops without exception. A large number of cops are directly like this, while all the rest of the cops decide to indirectly be part of the problem by not doing anything about it, giving their own silent consent and approval. It happens so often that there is a term for it: the "blue wall of silence". The otherwise honest cops care about their crooked brethren more than they care about the civilians they're supposed to be protecting.
I forgot who said it, but a long time ago I read a post by another Slashdotter that summed it up. He said that in the minds of cops, there are three kinds of people: 1) Cops 2) Cops' families/friends 3) Suspects. The poster was not joking.
As a bystander who happened upon this thread, I say: bless you, sir!
It's gotten to the point where the moment I hear "racism", I immediately assume that whoever said it is completely full of shit until and unless proven otherwise. In years and years I have never once seen "racism" called when there was an actual instance wherein a person claimed that one race was inherently and genetically superior to another race. I have, however, seen many instances where it was a cheap, cowardly and dishonest manner of shutting down a debate that said person was losing.
When lawmakers tell police to go arrest bar-betters or marijuana growers, what do you expect them to do, say "that's a bullshit order" and go shoot the lawmaker instead? You wish!
I don't wish they would shoot the legislator (the non-dumbed-down version of "lawmaker" - the media deliberately aims at a 5th-grade reading level, this does not deserve to be emulated). But to say "that's a bullshit order" and refuse to follow it, yes I absolutely want that. The cop in question could then go to the media, or resign, or resign and go tell the media why. Then and only then would police officers EARN the respect they seem to want so badly.
Cops who are mindless myrmidons following any and all orders without question are definitely a big part of the problem. Perhaps they are the single biggest part of the problem. They're supposed to be peace officers who serve their community, not goons or hitmen or jack-booted thugs.
The other huge, glaring part of the problem is the insane idea that any activity confined to consenting adults should ever be considered a crime. The War on Drugs hasn't worked, isn't working, and isn't going to work if the goal is to reduce or eliminate drug use. It works fantastically well if the (unstated of course) goal is to create criminals, scare the public into voting for stricter laws that make no sense, and fill the coffers of the private prison industry, lobbyists, lawyers, and a whole chain of other parasites who profit from criminalizing victimless behavior.
I hate to say it but it's hard to name a body of people more stupid than the American public. Prohibition was the lesson here. In their mindlessness, the American public missed the principle and learned a lesson only about alcohol.
In terms of why not let juries hear evidence? Well because it may not be relevant and it may bias them. Just because someone did X that people do not like it does not also follow that they did Y. That is why you can't generally mention a defendant's prior bad acts unless they somehow relate to the particular case. So if someone was convicted of robbery in the past, you can't bring it up in an unrelated murder case just to try and make them look like a bad guy.
In your example there, true a previous robbery does not mean a person commited a murder. But it does demonstrate that this person has little or no regard for the law and has a history of committing serious crimes.
They own the jail. And the courts. And the legislature. And if you want to run for office you take their money and probably not directly from their hands.
So no, none of them in jail.
Atypical /. poster that doesn't know the difference between illegal, and unethical. In turn, doesn't know that many of said changes were made by government in the first place which allowed things to happen. Following with that, banks used the system in place. So you end up with: Illegal no, unethical yes.
Actually the point was that we would have a stronger nation and a better world if there were more overlap and less distinction between illegal and unethical.
And you may wish to brush up on your own history there. The bankers have a long history of trying to control the nation's currency, beginning with Andrew Jackson (who was shot in a pointless duel), again with Abe Lincoln (who was assassinated after issuing interest-free greenbacks), and finally succeeded with the current Federal Reserve system. Incidentally, Kennedy wanted to revert back to government-issued currency.
Banks funded the politicians who put the system in place. You're an asshole to read my post in the most hostile he-must-be-a-total-idiot manner possible and then assume ignorance on my part because of your assumption. This kind of shit and the way it's become so fashionable lately is why intelligent adult discussion on this site is becoming such a rarity.
True, bipartisan support is hard to find since the rise of the Tea Party
Yes, that's because "bipartisan" is usually code for "time for Republicans to acquiesce to the demands of the Democrats". Unlike most Republicans who just want to appeal to their base and do whatever is politically expedient to get re-elected, the Tea Partiers generally operate on a belief system. This is why lots of more mainstream Republicans don't like them, because they will say and do things perceived to hurt the Republican party's election odds.
For some reason people here just love to assume things that were never said, and read meanings into posts that are simply not there, so I'll reluctantly add: I don't like either major party one damned bit. I wish we had more of a parliamentary system where third, fourth, and fifth options were viable. But what I observed remains true. The Democrats have lots of support in the media and are effective at portraying their postions as mainstream and normal, with any dissenters branded as "racist" or otherwise bigoted, which many Republicans are afraid of and don't know how to stand up to.
Why is it gun owners in internet threads so often find it necessary to convert almost any discussion about the government to gun control? Are there people at banging on your doors demanding your weapons while simultaneously threatening to shoot you? The days of the Wild West are over. When are people going to get it?
Why is it that one cannot mention a clear, simple, easy-to-understand example in order to illustrate a point without the small-minded becoming obsessively hung-up on the example while missing the point being made with it?
The example I gave would be valid and legitimate whether or not I believed anyone should own a gun. The hypocrisy was the point. In fact I salute the way several European countries do things: they ban citizens from having guns AND the police (generally, with some exceptions) don't have guns either. That's how you do it without being a hypocrite about it.
I personally do like gun ownership, yes, but it is you who are trying to convert this into a gun-control debate. You are emotionally reactive and small-minded, unable to use reason to understand the distinction between a useful example and the point being made. I hope that one day you realize the self-limitation this represents, for that realization alone will overcome said shortcoming.
Where's the news? As soon as some politicians notice that some "illegal" tool, device, substance or whatever is useful to them, suddenly it's no longer illegal.
That's actually a bit unusual.
... but their own guards are armed. Usually the politicians are complete hypocrites about it because they think they're special and the rules for everyone else shouldn't apply to them.
A more typical example would be the anti-gun politicians who really don't want any private ownership of firearms at all
And still no senior bankers in jail.
They own the jail. And the courts. And the legislature. And if you want to run for office you take their money and probably not directly from their hands.
So no, none of them in jail.
Yeah it's a bit pavlovian, but it's not crushing anyone's spirit, it's teaching them personal responsibility.
So it's an instant quick-fix band-aid remedy for poor parenting?