Nonsense. Amazon has nothing even approaching a monopoly on entertainment, and there's no reason in the world that a capable and innovative group of people shouldn't pursue more than one line of business. Trotting out "anti-trust" under these conditions is about as accurate as saying "fascists" or any other completely incorrect word that the anti-business crown likes to use. So off base that there's no way the term was even meant honestly.
If they don't want to do it, then they can pay money instead.
They already do, or should. It's called taxes. The well-off people already pay almost all of them, but still.
Charge based on what an hour of their time is worth.
Let me guess, you'll be in charge of looking each person in the eye and, as Director Of The Ministry Of Worthiness, know how much that is?
I think if you have people have to spend a little time out in their community doing things like picking up trash, etc. that they'll be far less likely to do things like littering.
My observation is that the sort of jerks who throw trash in public places are actually MORE inclined to do so, out of pure resentment, if they are ever made to pick any of it up. That is a cultural problem, not forced labor problem.
Either we can pay for a minimum income or we can pay the cost of dealing the crime and other social problems created by having no way for a lot of people to make a living.
Yeah, because those are the only two options. Or, we could stop rewarding people with social graduation, food, housing, etc., for continuing to reproduce more kids in a culture that thinks that how things are. You know, not to be confused with holding those kids and their parents responsible for actually becoming educated and useful so that we don't have to bring in immigrants to make up for their uselessness.
That is what justice system is there for - to prevent crime against others.
No, that's what parents are for. The justice system exists to make people who decide to commit crimes pay for that decision. Crime prevention requires a complete police state, with a cop attending to every single action of every person.
If you harm yourself only it is only your problem.
Because the people who harm themselves by doing things like taking up crystal meth as their new hobby... they don't cost you a thing once they turn to the government for food, for a place to live, and for medicare for those few short years they're still functioning? Because when they have no more money or possessions to sell to buy their hobby chemical, the government will use some of your money to buy them more of it? Really?
We're talking about the GP's absurd contention that there's no real evidence that spending your life on things like, say, crystal meth, does anything to your cognitive abilities. The implication is that if we just left those people alone, everything would work out just fine. It doesn't work out just fine. Those people spend a short period of what's left of their life swirling the cognitive toilet while being kept alive and fed through crime or through money taken from other people by the government to fee and house them. All so that people like the GP can give the would-be meth addict some cover, and set them up for giving that drug a little test drive because, you know, it's all just a myth that it's a life destroying misery. And that people who say it's destructive are just cherry picking the dumb people when they point that out. You know, and I know, that that's complete BS.
But if someone who is NOT currently using meth, and thus not hooked on it, is sitting there thinking about whether their best friend (whose teeth are falling out) is really on to something about how cool it is, maybe if there wasn't a safety net for deciding to recreationally kill yourself over a period of months, and a way to have other people put a roof over your head and food in your mouth even after you've completely lost the ability to think straight and work, the casual culture surrounding the adoption of such drugs would begin to reverse. How many meth users do you personally feel you should feed and house? Or how many do you think I should? If you were sitting there right next to the kid thinking of trying it, and he looked at you and said, "If I can't make it through the next 24 hours after I first try this stuff without becoming addicted, you'll feed me and pay my rent from now on, right?"... what would you say to that kid?
This isn't about current addicts "magically" getting off because we suddenly change the rules. It's about countering people like the GP who - for inexplicable reasons - would like to diminish the impact of stupid personal decisions like picking meth as your new hobby, and who are implying that there's nothing really all that bad about it. There is, and you get to pay for it.
So what's your problem, exactly, with what I said? You obviously can't string a coherent thought together well enough to address the substance of the matter, only to hurl invective. That's usually a sign that the person bitching knows the person they're lamely countering with low-brow ad hominem is actually correct. As you know I am. Otherwise you'd be telling me that people who are hooked on crystal meth or on major opiates aren't in any way impacted, and don't ever reach the point where other people get to pay to keep them alive and fix their wreckage, right? Please, do illuminate the subject with your examples of fine hardworking meth heads who are and remain completely self-sufficient, including pulling their own weight on food, housing, and health care. I'd love to hear all about it.
The way it is now, only those stupid enough to be caught using drugs contribute to the data which causes the results to suggest that using drugs makes you stupid.
I totally agree. This whole notion that people who use meth or heroine all day are in any way impacted by those drugs is just The Man trying to keep us down. Substantial studies showing that young people who smoke dope end up dumber, more paranoid, and otherwise developmentally down the scale - that's all just BS (never mind that such studies line up perfectly with the observations any honest person will tell you they've made through their own experience). Yes, it's just like alcohol, I know. Which is a good argument for young people not being drunk all the time, too.
You know what? Use 'em. But cut off ALL health care paid for in any way by other people, and ALL public assistance when they can no longer hold a job because they're such mental train wrecks. Can't have it both ways. If you want the public to embrace the use of, say, crack or crystal meth, then the public also gets to be off the hook for buying those users a comfortable life at the expense of the people who don't do it, and keep producing. Yes, the same applies for drinking all day, or eating too much fried chicken or schnitzel.
So you are saying that none of the endless speechifying, blogging, interviews and other occasions he's used to explain EXACTLY that on the public record would be magically removed from history?
He had no interest in availing himself of the act's protections. He was showboating. Your cartoon fantasies about him dying by fake heart attack, etc., suggest you have exactly as immature and grandstanding-oriented as Snowden (who is clearly realizing what a mistake he made in thinking that treachery was going to count as "cool" for long enough to set him up for life in a place less crappy than Russia, where things are actually more like the cartoon fantasy evil empire crap he pretended to believe about the US).
There is no such thing as a fair trial when the prosecution can use any number of trump cards to ensure things go their way.
You mean, like the truth? The fact that person on trial not only admits what he did, but is on record crowing about it? What else there to even discuss?
He doesn't need to present the content of stuff he stole to defend himself, because he's on the record as explaining that he did it, when he did it, how it did it, and why he did it. Case closed. Unless you're going to suggest that he'll deny everything he's said?
Of course it would be a fair trial. And the trial would fairly convict him of exactly the crimes he committed. The reason he's elsewhere is that he knows a fair trial would result in a long prison sentence - exactly in keeping with the consequences to which he agreed when he decided to get into the sensitive work he betrayed.
Surely a person can wait five minutes to call the police to come in and arrest a criminal with a gun.
Actually no, surely one can't always do that. The last time we had a violent crazy person attacking our house in the middle of the night, it took the police almost half an hour to arrive. Most violent assaults (say, of the home invasion type) play out in far less time than that. We had to run him off by brandishing a gun. He was eventually caught at another house trying to beat their door down with a metal pipe. It took four cops to restrain him. You're preferring that someone like that be allowed to break down our door in the hopes that by offering him some tea, perhaps, he'd hold off on his violence for half an hour? No thanks. Especially if it had been my wife home by herself, I'd much prefer she had the ability to defend herself in such a situation instead of sacrificing herself to your sensibilities.
How nice for you, though, that you have a police officer living with you and able to appear instantly 24 hours a day to deal with violent people.
The only people I know who are crazed about them are the ones that think guns have the magical ability to make an innocent person pick it up and choose to kill someone, just because: gun. The people who think this are, indeed, magical thinking childlish crazies. The rest of us understand inanimate objects.
How many times do people have to be reminded not to go hunting with Dick Cheney?
Actually, the person who delivered that birdshot to MY face was a patrician-type Boston-ite. More of a John Kerry, only more liberal still, politically.
Now weight the primary purpose of a firearm (generally speaking: death/destruction), with its secondary effects (generally speaking: death/destruction) and some (!) people conclude that it's not worth it.
You are (deliberately, of course) using a false premise to try to make a point. The primary purpose of a gun is to shoot a projectile where want it to go. The primary reason for that, historically and today, is in the interests of self-defense, and in doing things like putting food on the table. Secondary would be things like sporting pleasure (just like archery, throwing darts, bowling, golf, etc - all "violent" sports, right, with components that involve striking, stabbing, piercing, whacking for no other reason than to be good at doing a challenging thing, right?).
How about razor-sharp chef's knives? Is their "primary purpose" the destruction of things? Yes. But no... the primary purpose is the creation of things (meals).
There are some who argue that firearms can be used for self-defence, which is true, but statistically they're more likely to be used against friend/family than an attacker.
Except you're deliberately ignoring the context in which such things take place... like domestic violence. You're also far more likely to get stabbed with a kitchen knife that's in your kitchen, where THE PERSON WHO HAS SNAPPED AND WANTS TO HURT YOU CAN GRAB IT. More often than not, that person - regardless of the tool they use - is a family member or regular visitor. Meanwhile, guns are used orders of magnitude more times each year to STOP violent crime and defend than they are by criminals to kill anybody. Even if you'd like to say that the academic studies that point that out are wrong by 400%, the self-defense and crime-stopping use of personally owned firearms still completely eclipses criminal use.
especially when it comes to a citizen 'militia'--that is the basis for the US Second Amendment
You've got that backwards. The Second Amendment grudgingly acknowledges (despite the fervent early wishes of the founders) that there's going to end up being at least some sort of standing military. They acknowledge this, and then after the semi-colon, make it clear that the existence of such does NOT give monopoly ownership/use of firearms to that militia, and says that the government may NOT infringe on the personal right to keep and bear arms. They'd just been through that with the British, and didn't want to see it happen again.
You're right. That typo definitely nullifies the point I was making. I appreciate your thoughtful discussion of the actual substance of the matter at hand.
Headwind? Tailwind? Did you get pellets directly in the eye? Plenty of anecdotes to go around. #8 shot certainly does slow down more quickly than, say #6.
Shall we start listing the actual number of deaths caused in hunting accidents at the hands of people who happened to be Democrats? No? What's your point?
Firing a shotgun with birdshot into the air is fairly safe.
WAY too broad a statement. I've caught a face-full of bird shot that someone sent into the air (pointed above their treeline) over 100 yards away. I'd be blind right now if I hadn't been wearing eye protection. I've shot untold hundreds of birds out of the air (and into the freezer). I never pull the trigger unless I know what's downrange for at least 300 yards, even with very light birdshot. In a suburban area when my life or my family's life isn't at risk? Never. If some local kid is being reckless with his toy quadcopter below tree-top level over my property, I can completely avoid harm to myself by: stepping inside. Then I can walk next door and light him up about manners. Shoot it down? Total BS.
Yeah, birdshot is safe to fire into the air, so there goes *that* argument)
Ever caught some birdshot in the face, after someone fired it up (above a treeline)? No? I have, from over 100 yards away. If I hadn't been wearing eye protection, I'd be blind right now. This is not as cut and dry as you're making it out to be. Not even close.
OK then, never mind the shovel. How about the car. As we just saw the other day: crazy woman decides to cause some mayhem, and with the twitch of her foot and her hands, kills multiple people and injures dozens in seconds at a parade site. Are cars evil? No. It's still about the person, not the tool.
No, +1 for property rights. Something for which drone operators have no respect.
Yup, just like "Linux users" have no respect for other people's privacy, because they're using that "FOSS" stuff, which sounds sort of mysterious and scary, right? Uh huh.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not necessary. The science is Settled.
Just wait a little while. It's coming. It always does.
Small time used car shops sell all types of cars, manufacture branded dealerships do not.
I keep looking for that "Factually Incorrect" mod option, and I can never find it.
You say that like it's a good thing. Why?
Nonsense. Amazon has nothing even approaching a monopoly on entertainment, and there's no reason in the world that a capable and innovative group of people shouldn't pursue more than one line of business. Trotting out "anti-trust" under these conditions is about as accurate as saying "fascists" or any other completely incorrect word that the anti-business crown likes to use. So off base that there's no way the term was even meant honestly.
If they don't want to do it, then they can pay money instead.
They already do, or should. It's called taxes. The well-off people already pay almost all of them, but still.
Charge based on what an hour of their time is worth.
Let me guess, you'll be in charge of looking each person in the eye and, as Director Of The Ministry Of Worthiness, know how much that is?
I think if you have people have to spend a little time out in their community doing things like picking up trash, etc. that they'll be far less likely to do things like littering.
My observation is that the sort of jerks who throw trash in public places are actually MORE inclined to do so, out of pure resentment, if they are ever made to pick any of it up. That is a cultural problem, not forced labor problem.
Either we can pay for a minimum income or we can pay the cost of dealing the crime and other social problems created by having no way for a lot of people to make a living.
Yeah, because those are the only two options. Or, we could stop rewarding people with social graduation, food, housing, etc., for continuing to reproduce more kids in a culture that thinks that how things are. You know, not to be confused with holding those kids and their parents responsible for actually becoming educated and useful so that we don't have to bring in immigrants to make up for their uselessness.
That is what justice system is there for - to prevent crime against others.
No, that's what parents are for. The justice system exists to make people who decide to commit crimes pay for that decision. Crime prevention requires a complete police state, with a cop attending to every single action of every person.
If you harm yourself only it is only your problem.
Because the people who harm themselves by doing things like taking up crystal meth as their new hobby ... they don't cost you a thing once they turn to the government for food, for a place to live, and for medicare for those few short years they're still functioning? Because when they have no more money or possessions to sell to buy their hobby chemical, the government will use some of your money to buy them more of it? Really?
What is there that you do not understand?
You've got that exactly backwards.
And what do you expect these people to do then?
We're talking about the GP's absurd contention that there's no real evidence that spending your life on things like, say, crystal meth, does anything to your cognitive abilities. The implication is that if we just left those people alone, everything would work out just fine. It doesn't work out just fine. Those people spend a short period of what's left of their life swirling the cognitive toilet while being kept alive and fed through crime or through money taken from other people by the government to fee and house them. All so that people like the GP can give the would-be meth addict some cover, and set them up for giving that drug a little test drive because, you know, it's all just a myth that it's a life destroying misery. And that people who say it's destructive are just cherry picking the dumb people when they point that out. You know, and I know, that that's complete BS.
... what would you say to that kid?
But if someone who is NOT currently using meth, and thus not hooked on it, is sitting there thinking about whether their best friend (whose teeth are falling out) is really on to something about how cool it is, maybe if there wasn't a safety net for deciding to recreationally kill yourself over a period of months, and a way to have other people put a roof over your head and food in your mouth even after you've completely lost the ability to think straight and work, the casual culture surrounding the adoption of such drugs would begin to reverse. How many meth users do you personally feel you should feed and house? Or how many do you think I should? If you were sitting there right next to the kid thinking of trying it, and he looked at you and said, "If I can't make it through the next 24 hours after I first try this stuff without becoming addicted, you'll feed me and pay my rent from now on, right?"
This isn't about current addicts "magically" getting off because we suddenly change the rules. It's about countering people like the GP who - for inexplicable reasons - would like to diminish the impact of stupid personal decisions like picking meth as your new hobby, and who are implying that there's nothing really all that bad about it. There is, and you get to pay for it.
So what's your problem, exactly, with what I said? You obviously can't string a coherent thought together well enough to address the substance of the matter, only to hurl invective. That's usually a sign that the person bitching knows the person they're lamely countering with low-brow ad hominem is actually correct. As you know I am. Otherwise you'd be telling me that people who are hooked on crystal meth or on major opiates aren't in any way impacted, and don't ever reach the point where other people get to pay to keep them alive and fix their wreckage, right? Please, do illuminate the subject with your examples of fine hardworking meth heads who are and remain completely self-sufficient, including pulling their own weight on food, housing, and health care. I'd love to hear all about it.
The way it is now, only those stupid enough to be caught using drugs contribute to the data which causes the results to suggest that using drugs makes you stupid.
I totally agree. This whole notion that people who use meth or heroine all day are in any way impacted by those drugs is just The Man trying to keep us down. Substantial studies showing that young people who smoke dope end up dumber, more paranoid, and otherwise developmentally down the scale - that's all just BS (never mind that such studies line up perfectly with the observations any honest person will tell you they've made through their own experience). Yes, it's just like alcohol, I know. Which is a good argument for young people not being drunk all the time, too.
You know what? Use 'em. But cut off ALL health care paid for in any way by other people, and ALL public assistance when they can no longer hold a job because they're such mental train wrecks. Can't have it both ways. If you want the public to embrace the use of, say, crack or crystal meth, then the public also gets to be off the hook for buying those users a comfortable life at the expense of the people who don't do it, and keep producing. Yes, the same applies for drinking all day, or eating too much fried chicken or schnitzel.
So you are saying that none of the endless speechifying, blogging, interviews and other occasions he's used to explain EXACTLY that on the public record would be magically removed from history?
He should be safe under the whistleblower act
He had no interest in availing himself of the act's protections. He was showboating. Your cartoon fantasies about him dying by fake heart attack, etc., suggest you have exactly as immature and grandstanding-oriented as Snowden (who is clearly realizing what a mistake he made in thinking that treachery was going to count as "cool" for long enough to set him up for life in a place less crappy than Russia, where things are actually more like the cartoon fantasy evil empire crap he pretended to believe about the US).
There is no such thing as a fair trial when the prosecution can use any number of trump cards to ensure things go their way.
You mean, like the truth? The fact that person on trial not only admits what he did, but is on record crowing about it? What else there to even discuss?
He doesn't need to present the content of stuff he stole to defend himself, because he's on the record as explaining that he did it, when he did it, how it did it, and why he did it. Case closed. Unless you're going to suggest that he'll deny everything he's said?
Of course it would be a fair trial. And the trial would fairly convict him of exactly the crimes he committed. The reason he's elsewhere is that he knows a fair trial would result in a long prison sentence - exactly in keeping with the consequences to which he agreed when he decided to get into the sensitive work he betrayed.
Surely a person can wait five minutes to call the police to come in and arrest a criminal with a gun.
Actually no, surely one can't always do that. The last time we had a violent crazy person attacking our house in the middle of the night, it took the police almost half an hour to arrive. Most violent assaults (say, of the home invasion type) play out in far less time than that. We had to run him off by brandishing a gun. He was eventually caught at another house trying to beat their door down with a metal pipe. It took four cops to restrain him. You're preferring that someone like that be allowed to break down our door in the hopes that by offering him some tea, perhaps, he'd hold off on his violence for half an hour? No thanks. Especially if it had been my wife home by herself, I'd much prefer she had the ability to defend herself in such a situation instead of sacrificing herself to your sensibilities.
How nice for you, though, that you have a police officer living with you and able to appear instantly 24 hours a day to deal with violent people.
The only people I know who are crazed about them are the ones that think guns have the magical ability to make an innocent person pick it up and choose to kill someone, just because: gun. The people who think this are, indeed, magical thinking childlish crazies. The rest of us understand inanimate objects.
How many times do people have to be reminded not to go hunting with Dick Cheney?
Actually, the person who delivered that birdshot to MY face was a patrician-type Boston-ite. More of a John Kerry, only more liberal still, politically.
Now weight the primary purpose of a firearm (generally speaking: death/destruction), with its secondary effects (generally speaking: death/destruction) and some (!) people conclude that it's not worth it.
You are (deliberately, of course) using a false premise to try to make a point. The primary purpose of a gun is to shoot a projectile where want it to go. The primary reason for that, historically and today, is in the interests of self-defense, and in doing things like putting food on the table. Secondary would be things like sporting pleasure (just like archery, throwing darts, bowling, golf, etc - all "violent" sports, right, with components that involve striking, stabbing, piercing, whacking for no other reason than to be good at doing a challenging thing, right?).
... the primary purpose is the creation of things (meals).
How about razor-sharp chef's knives? Is their "primary purpose" the destruction of things? Yes. But no
There are some who argue that firearms can be used for self-defence, which is true, but statistically they're more likely to be used against friend/family than an attacker.
Except you're deliberately ignoring the context in which such things take place ... like domestic violence. You're also far more likely to get stabbed with a kitchen knife that's in your kitchen, where THE PERSON WHO HAS SNAPPED AND WANTS TO HURT YOU CAN GRAB IT. More often than not, that person - regardless of the tool they use - is a family member or regular visitor. Meanwhile, guns are used orders of magnitude more times each year to STOP violent crime and defend than they are by criminals to kill anybody. Even if you'd like to say that the academic studies that point that out are wrong by 400%, the self-defense and crime-stopping use of personally owned firearms still completely eclipses criminal use.
especially when it comes to a citizen 'militia'--that is the basis for the US Second Amendment
You've got that backwards. The Second Amendment grudgingly acknowledges (despite the fervent early wishes of the founders) that there's going to end up being at least some sort of standing military. They acknowledge this, and then after the semi-colon, make it clear that the existence of such does NOT give monopoly ownership/use of firearms to that militia, and says that the government may NOT infringe on the personal right to keep and bear arms. They'd just been through that with the British, and didn't want to see it happen again.
You're right. That typo definitely nullifies the point I was making. I appreciate your thoughtful discussion of the actual substance of the matter at hand.
Headwind? Tailwind? Did you get pellets directly in the eye? Plenty of anecdotes to go around. #8 shot certainly does slow down more quickly than, say #6.
Shall we start listing the actual number of deaths caused in hunting accidents at the hands of people who happened to be Democrats? No? What's your point?
Firing a shotgun with birdshot into the air is fairly safe.
WAY too broad a statement. I've caught a face-full of bird shot that someone sent into the air (pointed above their treeline) over 100 yards away. I'd be blind right now if I hadn't been wearing eye protection. I've shot untold hundreds of birds out of the air (and into the freezer). I never pull the trigger unless I know what's downrange for at least 300 yards, even with very light birdshot. In a suburban area when my life or my family's life isn't at risk? Never. If some local kid is being reckless with his toy quadcopter below tree-top level over my property, I can completely avoid harm to myself by: stepping inside. Then I can walk next door and light him up about manners. Shoot it down? Total BS.
Yeah, birdshot is safe to fire into the air, so there goes *that* argument)
Ever caught some birdshot in the face, after someone fired it up (above a treeline)? No? I have, from over 100 yards away. If I hadn't been wearing eye protection, I'd be blind right now. This is not as cut and dry as you're making it out to be. Not even close.
OK then, never mind the shovel. How about the car. As we just saw the other day: crazy woman decides to cause some mayhem, and with the twitch of her foot and her hands, kills multiple people and injures dozens in seconds at a parade site. Are cars evil? No. It's still about the person, not the tool.
No, +1 for property rights. Something for which drone operators have no respect.
Yup, just like "Linux users" have no respect for other people's privacy, because they're using that "FOSS" stuff, which sounds sort of mysterious and scary, right? Uh huh.