The USSR wasn't crazy enough to launch ballistic missiles at us either.
But that's not exactly the point here, for this one main reason:
The fact that North Korea may be able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile gives it enormous leverage in affairs vis-a-vis the United States, for it gaurantees that the United States will no longer dare to invade it. (This deterrance ability still holds even if, as you point out, we aren't sure if they actually have such a capability). Thus, behind the missile shield Pyongyang could be emboldened to pursue such activities as selling nuclear weapons to nonstate actors that could gravely harm US interests.
Here's one example why US policymakers of both Cold War and post-Cold War, Democratic and Republican, administrations have explored anti-missile defense technologies. Political scientists before have theorized that no state will dare sell nukes to terrorists because although the terrorists might not have a "return address," the supplying state itself might potentially be linked to a nuclear terrorist attack. And as a deterrent policy, the US has declared that it will consider retaliating with nuclear weapons against a nuclear attack.
However, if Pyongyang does have the capability to hit the United States with nukes,/or even if the United States merely believes that Pyongyang may have such a capability/, then this essentially becomes a problem similar to that of extended deterrence.
Because the US would fear further nuclear attack if it were to retaliate against North Korea, its deterrence threat would be dulled, and Pyongyang may thus feel that selling nuclear weapons to terrorists as a way of raising hard currency (which it is perilously low upon, given that it has a virtually closed economy, and which is needed to purchase military weapons and even civilian supplies like oil) is a safe option to explore. Hence, even if Pyongyang isn't crazy enough to launch nuclear weapons at the United States, US national security would still be placed at risk.
Of course, one could argue that the threat of nuclear terrorism is so remote that it doesn't justify the costs of a missile defense program. However, from the President's (and Congress', who approves funding for such programs) points of view, a nuclear terrorist incident is their worst nightmare and highest priority. (And though it may sound tired, it should also be noted that before 9/11 a terrorist attack on that scale was also viewed as almost zero probability).
Lastly, on a different tack altogether, North Korea's nuclear capability definitely threatens South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc., all of whom the US has sought to dissuade from pursuing nuclear programs. However, in the face of North Korea's threat the fear has grown that one of those nations may decide to pursue a nuclear crash course (which is well within all three's capabilities), thus sparking a regional nuclear arms race. One could also argue that because the US has urged Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei to refrain from nuclear development that could have safeguarded them against the North Korean nuclear threat, it now has the responsibility to do all it can to protect them from that threat.
The Kyoto Protocol was clearly badly flawed, and although I support environmental policies, I believe that ratifying the protocol in its current form would have been a mistake. However, I think the current administration should have continued negotiations over the Protocol to include China and other developing economies in some way instead of abandoning it entirely.
what about freedom to bear arms?
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Press freedom
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· Score: 2, Funny
i'm sure the united states would rank higher on that freedom than most european countries.
Re:Americans talk about freedom
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· Score: 1
we don't force children to pledge loyalty to god - i certainly never did when i was in high school. the pledge is said in class, but legally, it's up to each student whether or not to actually say the words. don't stretch the truth.
Lets not forget Belgium's law which allowed prosecution of accused war criminals anywhere in the world in Belgian courts. (The Belgian Parliament has since scaled back that legislation).
"we do not ever need a monopoly, that invites all sorts of problems we need to avoid."
that statement itself is simplistic, though i'll agree the parent post was also over-the-top. basically, regulated monopolies are efficient in some markets that have low variable costs but high fixed costs (whether electronic micro-payment services fits this description is another question entirely).
Because there will be smart opportunists out there practicing arbitrage, i.e., buying cheap music in poor economies and importing it into rich ones and taking advantage of the price differential to earn a profit.
This is one of the reasons why pharmaceutical companies are so reluctant to sell AIDS drugs for cheap in developing African nations. They know almost no one in African countries can pay full price for their drugs, but they're afraid that if they lower the costs of their drugs in these developing nations, people will buy drugs there and import it back into the first world, cutting into the margins they need to cover the costs of development and to underwrite further research.
[1] I'm curious -- can an economics major play devil's advocate and tell me why increased corporate profits from outsourcing is better for the US then decreased corporate profits and better jobs?
I don't have time for a long answer, but the short answer is because in addition to increasing producer surplus, outsourcing also reduces the price of products, which in turn increases the consumer surplus and hence the total societal (in this case, the US) surplus as well.
"most Americans want more variety in their sources of news and entertainment."
Unless you can cite a scientific survey for this, it should be taken out from the question as it makes the questioner sound like he has an agenda going. An agenda isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in the context of a nationally televised presidential debate it's probably better to make questions as neutral as possible.
actually, janus was the god of beginnings and endings. yes, he had two faces, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. his two faces was often used to symbolize dichotomies in roman social and political life; e.g., the Janus Gate symbolized both peace and war, peace when it was closed (which was quite rare prior to the Pax Romana under Augustus) and war when it was open.
interpreting janus as a symbol of duplicitly is a more modern cast of the roman god.
And hacking is clearly a violation of the law. The police simply felt internal remedies was a better solution. That's something for them to recommend, but that doesn't change the fact that the law was broken.
Do you even know what "rule of law" means? It means NO ONE is above the law. Not the president, not the police, not even investigative journalists.
What the two students did was clearly in violation of university policy and criminal law, and need to be punished accordingly.
Yes, the fact that their primary intention was journalism should be considered as a mitigating factor, but I see no reason why it should get them off the hook for having committed several crimes.
If there's no way of knowing, you err on the side of caution. And caution from the United States' point of view was to nuke Japan.
People forget that, contrary to popular belief, the two nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not cause the most amount of casualties in the war. Dresden suffered a lot more, and even in Japan, Tokyo was damaged far more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki ever did.
Yet far fewer people question the idea of strategic conventional bombing, even though such bombing has ultimately killed many times more civilians during World War II than nuclear bombs ever did.
I think every generation thinks their Congress is the worst. Lets not forget the Charles Sumter incident.
Congress has always been a bitter, rancorous, partisan, uncivilized body that has bent every rule to the breaking point. There's numerous examples throughout history, starting with the Alien and Sedition Acts. And don't forget filibustering - that's something that hasn't changed.
This is true, but many other presidents have used the threat of the veto to pass their programs too. Such a tactic particularly underhanded, and Bush certainly isn't the only person to make use of them (or even the president to make the most use of them).
If we use your analysis, going back to the original analogy:
Police powers also enable the state to spy on citizens - it doesn't need the Patriot Act for that (the Patriot Act merely makes it easier). Hence, it is a short and unambigious causal relationship between giving the government police powers and giving the government the right to spy on people. Thus, the government should not be given police powers.
The end result, as you can see, is the same.
Actually, that's not true at all. The goal/is/ to prevent terrorists from traveling. This is why they don't just check for weapons, but they also check for your identity as well.
Having studied political science, I'm interested in knowing what evidence you have to support your assertion that a popular democracy is better than a responsible democracy, either in terms of a) the educated middle class, or b) the nation as a whole.
Actually, I never wrote that the GP said that the government should never have police powers. I used it as an example to show why the slippery slope argument he advanced was logically fallacious.
There are miles between the Patriot Act and 1984. Saying that the Patriot Act would shorlty lead to a police state, as you imply, is similar - and just as inaccurate - as declaring that developing nuclear weapons would shortly lead to a nuclear winter.
"The whole idea behind a representative gov't is that those who are sent should vote the way those that they represent would."
You speak this as fact, but in fact this isn't universally agreed upon by political scientists.
You presented the viewpoint of pure popular democracy, in which representatives are supposed to merely carry out the wishes of their constituents.
However, there's also the idea of a responsible democracy, in which representatives are supposed to use their judgement to do what is best for their constituency - they owe it to their constituents to do what is best, not merely what is popular. In fact, a responsible democracy - not a popular one, as you seem to ascribe to -was what the Founders intended (look at the original system for electing the President, for example).
When will they understand that airplanes are simply methods of public transportation? Would they be up in arms if they found out that terrorists were using airplanes to crash into tall buildings? Would there be heightened scrutiny of who boards airplanes?
Yes, and yes. And rightfully so.
No one's talking about the FBI here. I'm referring to the state. The facts are simple - if we stopped doing things because we legitimately feared the slippery slope, nothing would get done, and society would be a lot worse off as a result. If the government had no police powers because we were afraid of totalitarianism, we would have no police, and instead of the possibility of totalitarianism we would very likely have anarchy.
There are reasons to disapprove of the Patriot Act, but the "slippery slope" is not one of them.
Slashdot Mirror
The USSR wasn't crazy enough to launch ballistic missiles at us either. /or even if the United States merely believes that Pyongyang may have such a capability/, then this essentially becomes a problem similar to that of extended deterrence.
But that's not exactly the point here, for this one main reason:
The fact that North Korea may be able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile gives it enormous leverage in affairs vis-a-vis the United States, for it gaurantees that the United States will no longer dare to invade it. (This deterrance ability still holds even if, as you point out, we aren't sure if they actually have such a capability). Thus, behind the missile shield Pyongyang could be emboldened to pursue such activities as selling nuclear weapons to nonstate actors that could gravely harm US interests.
Here's one example why US policymakers of both Cold War and post-Cold War, Democratic and Republican, administrations have explored anti-missile defense technologies. Political scientists before have theorized that no state will dare sell nukes to terrorists because although the terrorists might not have a "return address," the supplying state itself might potentially be linked to a nuclear terrorist attack. And as a deterrent policy, the US has declared that it will consider retaliating with nuclear weapons against a nuclear attack.
However, if Pyongyang does have the capability to hit the United States with nukes,
Because the US would fear further nuclear attack if it were to retaliate against North Korea, its deterrence threat would be dulled, and Pyongyang may thus feel that selling nuclear weapons to terrorists as a way of raising hard currency (which it is perilously low upon, given that it has a virtually closed economy, and which is needed to purchase military weapons and even civilian supplies like oil) is a safe option to explore. Hence, even if Pyongyang isn't crazy enough to launch nuclear weapons at the United States, US national security would still be placed at risk.
Of course, one could argue that the threat of nuclear terrorism is so remote that it doesn't justify the costs of a missile defense program. However, from the President's (and Congress', who approves funding for such programs) points of view, a nuclear terrorist incident is their worst nightmare and highest priority. (And though it may sound tired, it should also be noted that before 9/11 a terrorist attack on that scale was also viewed as almost zero probability).
Lastly, on a different tack altogether, North Korea's nuclear capability definitely threatens South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, etc., all of whom the US has sought to dissuade from pursuing nuclear programs. However, in the face of North Korea's threat the fear has grown that one of those nations may decide to pursue a nuclear crash course (which is well within all three's capabilities), thus sparking a regional nuclear arms race. One could also argue that because the US has urged Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei to refrain from nuclear development that could have safeguarded them against the North Korean nuclear threat, it now has the responsibility to do all it can to protect them from that threat.
Why was this labeled a troll? The point he rises is valid enough.
Out of interest, what grounds do you have for saying China "will be held to the same standards (Annex 1 country) within the decade - probably sooner"?
To be fair, when I tried it earlier in the day (around 6-7pm pst) the primary and mirrors 2-4 were down.
The Kyoto Protocol was clearly badly flawed, and although I support environmental policies, I believe that ratifying the protocol in its current form would have been a mistake. However, I think the current administration should have continued negotiations over the Protocol to include China and other developing economies in some way instead of abandoning it entirely.
i'm sure the united states would rank higher on that freedom than most european countries.
we don't force children to pledge loyalty to god - i certainly never did when i was in high school. the pledge is said in class, but legally, it's up to each student whether or not to actually say the words. don't stretch the truth.
Lets not forget Belgium's law which allowed prosecution of accused war criminals anywhere in the world in Belgian courts. (The Belgian Parliament has since scaled back that legislation).
"we do not ever need a monopoly, that invites all sorts of problems we need to avoid."
that statement itself is simplistic, though i'll agree the parent post was also over-the-top. basically, regulated monopolies are efficient in some markets that have low variable costs but high fixed costs (whether electronic micro-payment services fits this description is another question entirely).
Because there will be smart opportunists out there practicing arbitrage, i.e., buying cheap music in poor economies and importing it into rich ones and taking advantage of the price differential to earn a profit.
This is one of the reasons why pharmaceutical companies are so reluctant to sell AIDS drugs for cheap in developing African nations. They know almost no one in African countries can pay full price for their drugs, but they're afraid that if they lower the costs of their drugs in these developing nations, people will buy drugs there and import it back into the first world, cutting into the margins they need to cover the costs of development and to underwrite further research.
[1] I'm curious -- can an economics major play devil's advocate and tell me why increased corporate profits from outsourcing is better for the US then decreased corporate profits and better jobs? I don't have time for a long answer, but the short answer is because in addition to increasing producer surplus, outsourcing also reduces the price of products, which in turn increases the consumer surplus and hence the total societal (in this case, the US) surplus as well.
"most Americans want more variety in their sources of news and entertainment."
Unless you can cite a scientific survey for this, it should be taken out from the question as it makes the questioner sound like he has an agenda going. An agenda isn't necessarily a bad thing, but in the context of a nationally televised presidential debate it's probably better to make questions as neutral as possible.
actually, janus was the god of beginnings and endings. yes, he had two faces, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. his two faces was often used to symbolize dichotomies in roman social and political life; e.g., the Janus Gate symbolized both peace and war, peace when it was closed (which was quite rare prior to the Pax Romana under Augustus) and war when it was open.
interpreting janus as a symbol of duplicitly is a more modern cast of the roman god.
And hacking is clearly a violation of the law. The police simply felt internal remedies was a better solution. That's something for them to recommend, but that doesn't change the fact that the law was broken.
Do you even know what "rule of law" means? It means NO ONE is above the law. Not the president, not the police, not even investigative journalists.
What the two students did was clearly in violation of university policy and criminal law, and need to be punished accordingly.
Yes, the fact that their primary intention was journalism should be considered as a mitigating factor, but I see no reason why it should get them off the hook for having committed several crimes.
If there's no way of knowing, you err on the side of caution. And caution from the United States' point of view was to nuke Japan. People forget that, contrary to popular belief, the two nukes dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not cause the most amount of casualties in the war. Dresden suffered a lot more, and even in Japan, Tokyo was damaged far more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki ever did. Yet far fewer people question the idea of strategic conventional bombing, even though such bombing has ultimately killed many times more civilians during World War II than nuclear bombs ever did.
I think every generation thinks their Congress is the worst. Lets not forget the Charles Sumter incident. Congress has always been a bitter, rancorous, partisan, uncivilized body that has bent every rule to the breaking point. There's numerous examples throughout history, starting with the Alien and Sedition Acts. And don't forget filibustering - that's something that hasn't changed.
This is true, but many other presidents have used the threat of the veto to pass their programs too. Such a tactic particularly underhanded, and Bush certainly isn't the only person to make use of them (or even the president to make the most use of them).
If we use your analysis, going back to the original analogy: Police powers also enable the state to spy on citizens - it doesn't need the Patriot Act for that (the Patriot Act merely makes it easier). Hence, it is a short and unambigious causal relationship between giving the government police powers and giving the government the right to spy on people. Thus, the government should not be given police powers. The end result, as you can see, is the same.
Actually, that's not true at all. The goal /is/ to prevent terrorists from traveling. This is why they don't just check for weapons, but they also check for your identity as well.
Having studied political science, I'm interested in knowing what evidence you have to support your assertion that a popular democracy is better than a responsible democracy, either in terms of a) the educated middle class, or b) the nation as a whole.
Actually, I never wrote that the GP said that the government should never have police powers. I used it as an example to show why the slippery slope argument he advanced was logically fallacious. There are miles between the Patriot Act and 1984. Saying that the Patriot Act would shorlty lead to a police state, as you imply, is similar - and just as inaccurate - as declaring that developing nuclear weapons would shortly lead to a nuclear winter.
"The whole idea behind a representative gov't is that those who are sent should vote the way those that they represent would." You speak this as fact, but in fact this isn't universally agreed upon by political scientists.
You presented the viewpoint of pure popular democracy, in which representatives are supposed to merely carry out the wishes of their constituents.
However, there's also the idea of a responsible democracy, in which representatives are supposed to use their judgement to do what is best for their constituency - they owe it to their constituents to do what is best, not merely what is popular. In fact, a responsible democracy - not a popular one, as you seem to ascribe to -was what the Founders intended (look at the original system for electing the President, for example).
When will they understand that airplanes are simply methods of public transportation? Would they be up in arms if they found out that terrorists were using airplanes to crash into tall buildings? Would there be heightened scrutiny of who boards airplanes? Yes, and yes. And rightfully so.
No one's talking about the FBI here. I'm referring to the state. The facts are simple - if we stopped doing things because we legitimately feared the slippery slope, nothing would get done, and society would be a lot worse off as a result. If the government had no police powers because we were afraid of totalitarianism, we would have no police, and instead of the possibility of totalitarianism we would very likely have anarchy. There are reasons to disapprove of the Patriot Act, but the "slippery slope" is not one of them.