Why is banning organized prayer or any religious instruction in schools called "freedom", but merely ALLOWING the teaching of ID called "imposing dogmatic beliefs on others"?
Academic freedom has nothing to do with the freedom to teach children whatever you choose. It has to do with the freedom of academics to RESEARCH,STUDY AND PUBLISH whatever they choose.
the curriculum for children is NOT free for individual teachers to decide. It HAS NEVER BEEN FREE for the teachers to decide, is decided collectively by society, and as long as the Constitution seperates church from state, and the state is paying the teachers wages and financing the school, religious instruction is OFF THE TABLE.
Why can't people recognize that "God" is a metaphorical reference to the universe which science is dedicated to studying?
The equations of a scientist are an abstract representation of the Personality of God, and the stories of religion are personified representations of the equations of a scientist. Everyone is talking about the same damned thing, and arguing about which metaphor they like the best.
yeah? tell me which story in the bible explains how to make a lithion ion battery, or how microwave ovens work.
You don't make phone calls on a telephone company. A telephone company is a legal entity.
You make phone calls on a telephone network. A physical piece of infrastructure that continues to exist regardless whether or not the owners are sent to the poor house and forced to sell it.
Unless you've prepay for phone service 5 years in advance, you have almost nothing to lose by your telephone company going bankrupt.
"If it takes our kids working in coal mines 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, so be it."
Pithy, frightening scenarios backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded no matter how frightening.
"The first goal of American government is to protect the profitability of domestic and foreign businesses"
Actually the first and only goal of the government should be to uphold the rights of its citizenry, but feel free to continue to mischaracterize.
When something like the industrial revolution and political economics is so widely documented there is no need for anyone to waste time rehashing the evidence on some online blog for the amusement of people who are too lazy to do their basic homework. Why don't you get your head out of Thomas Pains ass and pay attention to the actual world.
The poster was not saying what the goal of the American government SHOULD BE, he was saying what the goal of the American government ACTUALLY IS.
If America was so concerned about protecting human rights, it wouldn't spend so much time trying to privatize absolutely everything, deny global warming, and try to impose democracy with a gun on others. And and don't forget about preventing non-coalition countries from bidding on reconstruction contracts in Iraq. No.. that's not essentially a scheme to raise the cost of reconstruction and increase profits for american companies at the expense of Iraqi citizens.
In other words : it is not at all the docter that is "the cause of his death", but rather the choices made by the convicted individual. If the convicted individual in fact CHOSE these results, then there would be no need for a justice system whatsoever. We could simply leave these individuals to punish themselves. As they would certainly do in every case (in so far as this is apparently what they want).
In the real world there is a discretionary power to not prosecute and with that discretion comes moral responsibility.
As prosecution was not an inevitable consequence of the convicted individuals actions, it can not be deemed by some hand waving that the convicted individual chose to be prosecuted.
Likewise the convicted individual did not choose to be apprehended. They usually try to avoid being apprehended. To ignore that evidence is to ignore objective reality.
You can pretend the convicted indivual chose to be killed, but this is a legal fiction and not reality.
The vast majority of people put to death by the state, if asked, would say they want to live.
But its not surprising to see that ultimately you make a purely religious argument in favor of the death penalty bolstered by an assumption that the justice system is infallible and fundamentally moral. You also rely on 2600 years of tradition (as if the actions of barbarians is persuasive in the least).
This entire line of argument falls apart completely once you allow that the justice system is fallible and that it is fundamentally political AND THAT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN POLITICAL.
If one is going to make any assumptions about the justice system, the assumption should be that the justice system serves the political system and the political system is fundamentally self serving.
In that light, the ultimate purpose of all actions of the justice system is SERVICE TO POWER. Whatever moral good it happens to do is completely unintentional.
But immigrants are demonstratively dangerous to British culture, by the fact that they're resisting assimilation. That's the point: the immigrants have no right to be angry because they should have realized they'd be expected to assimilate, rather than import their old culture. If they wanted to remain in a traditional Muslim community, they should have stayed home!
And that goes for all immigrants, everywhere: Muslims in Britain should become [culturally] British, Mexicans in the U.S. should become American (or more precisely "USian," but that's not really a word), Americans in China should become Chinese (disregarding the fact that relatively few Americans immigrate), etc. Expecting the incumbent culture to accommodate you, as a newcomer, is disgustingly arrogant!
America is a land of LAWS and expecting immigrants to bow down to arbitrary exercises of red neck power when the law expressively provides for their right is the only thing "disgustingly arrogant" here.
A Bill of Rights does not merely proclaim that *you personally* have rights. But it proclaims your moral obligation to "accommodate" others in the enjoyment of their own rights.
Does the law say 'All people in America shall assimilate'? Or does the law say:"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
And yet you accuse immigrants of being arrogant for insisting that america merely comply with its own law.
The hallmarks of a FREE NATION is the power to believe and think anything you want to believe as long as your beliefs do not harm anyone or disrupt public order. And when an immigrant decides to open a restaurant using his own private property and sell foreign cuisine he is not disrupting public order, he is enjoying his God given (As far the US law is concerned) Right to private property.
if an immigrant complies with the laws and is permitted by those laws and due process to reside in America, then he has fulfilled his moral obligation to the Nation. He is FREE.
For any immigrant to assume that there are obligations imposed upon him in America except for those STRICTLY articulated by law, is for that immigrant to presume that the United States is not a land of laws. However America is one of the FEW nations that expressly puts a LEGAL DOCUMENT in supreme power over all. It is called the Constitution.
America recognizes the concept of the rule of law, (it was one of the first nations to do so) and any citizen who thinks they have a moral right to impose assimilation beyond what is stipulated in law, is the one who has failed to assimilate into American culture.
And just because many old world, superstitious and primitive cultures demand assimilation, that doesn't make it in a land of freedom.
America is different specifically because America does NOT demand anything except what is articulated IN LAW. And American law expressively recognizes the sanctity of FREE THOUGHT, and the right to PURSUE HAPPINESS.
If an immigrant doesn't want to act like a hillbilly, but prefers to wear a special hat because that is his belief to do so, and there is no law against it, America is one country that holds it is his absolute and inalienable right to do so.
Of course all immigrants and all the worlds people should be furious when they discover that any self proclaimed Americans wont even comply with their OWN constitution and the principles on which it was founded.
The UK may have its faults, but I'd rather live here than in the US, where you've got a policeman training his gun on you wherever you go, ready to shoot and kill you at a moment's notice. I'd rather live in Canada.
I'm not advocating slavery, I'm just saying true free market capitalism is no better.
What are you talking about? Your social safety net programs are actually the guy without a jog making a slave of me. I'm forced (on penalty of losing my liberty by going to jail) to write a check that's used, in part, to feed him.
Why does he have no job, and no prospect of getting one? Because he's been raised in a culture that tells him it's OK not to prepare for that possibility. You make it sound like the economy is a fixed-size pie, and that nobody creates jobs through investment, that nobody starts businesses, and that no companies grow. Why do you supposed there are tens of millions of illegal immigrants risking their lives to sneak into the US in order to work? Because there's work. The guy without a job is one bus ticket away from having one. It's not a nice, middle-class job. But it's also not him holding a gun to my head, saying, "Feed me. I never learned how to do anything else, and it's your responsibility to buy me food."
he point is that on the whole, the vast majority of people DO NOT WANT to suck anyone dry or enslave anyone. That is just a myth propagated by rationalist capitalists and communists to morally justify the fact that they themselves do.
Ah well, just so long as nobody is making broad, sweeping, baseless statements, then we should be fine.
The Authorites in North America want to suck you dry in order to enslave you
I see. And that would be by, what... raising your taxes while also creating a culture of dependency? Great. Then don't vote for socialists and left wingers. They're the ones that are sure they know better than you what to do with your income. And they're the ones that woo votes from the very people they're feeding with my money, rather than telling them that they need to raise their next generation of kids to have the same work ethic and entrepeneurial vision as the people that are fighting to get into the country.
What are you talking about? Your social safety net programs are actually the guy without a jog making a slave of me. I'm forced (on penalty of losing my liberty by going to jail) to write a check that's used, in part, to feed him.
If 3-6 % of the population was not merely unemployed, but unemployed and starving to death, your employer would easily find someone to do your job for much less pay than you.
Crime would also shoot through the roof. As very few people would let their family starve to death if they could feed them via crime. Perhaps they would sell their children into prostitution in order to feed the family, or perhaps they would turn to robbery, extortion and assassination. People will not sit idly by and starve to death.
Why does he have no job, and no prospect of getting one? Because he's been raised in a culture that tells him it's OK not to prepare for that possibility.
Really? Please show me where in this "culture" it states that it is ok not to prepare for losing your job. Is that what your mom and dad told you?
We live in a society that says it is ok to pay your employees as little as they are willing to work for. We call this "negotiating freely". And it is a hallmark of capitalism.
If the alternative to welfare was starvation, you would work for a lot less money. In order to make up the lost wages you would need to work longer hours. Longer hours extracted from the same number of employees, means less demand for labour, which means more unemployed, (who go on to burn up their palty emergency funds while depsarately searching for any job whatsoever before they starve), and thus more competition for jobs and thus more free market pressure to cut wages and lengthen hours further. This cycle repeats until eventually people are working as long as humanly possible for as little as humanly possible.
In a free market you don't get paid more than the bare minimum necessities for surviv
their goal is to enslave their citizens, not just suck them dry. because citizens with no property still have rights in this society? Like what? The right to spend every waking hour searching for a new boss until they starve to death?
Poverty and slavery are effectively the same thing, except the slave tends to be better off because he's valuable property and thus can't simply be left to die even if he becomes temporarily redundant. On the otherhand the temporarily redundant laborer in a society without slavery is for all free market purposes, worthless. He can't buy anything (since he has no job) and he can't be bought or traded for commodities since that would require him to be a slave.
The only thing that makes this fact difficult to notice is all the social (humanist) programs we have that help the surplus labour pool (the unemployed) get by until the economy picks up.
I'm not advocating slavery, I'm just saying true free market capitalism is no better.
The point is that on the whole, the vast majority of people DO NOT WANT to suck anyone dry or enslave anyone. That is just a myth propagated by rationalist capitalists and communists to morally justify the fact that they themselves do.
The Authorities in China want to enslave you in order to suck you dry. The Authorites in North America want to suck you dry in order to enslave you. Nothing changes.. Authority wants the same thing. Total and absolute control. The only thing that changes is how Authority goes about aquiring what it seeks and whether any does anything to resist it.
Imagine, for one second, that the board of the fed might just happen to know lots of major shareholders in lots of major financial institutions... like morgan stearns... and speculate for one more moment on how much easier it would go on all of them if they could get something for their shares they would not have otherwise gotten. Make a vague claim about banking panic, and you're off scott free, because hey, you're the experts, right? The Board of the Fed does happen to know lots of major shareholders. But shares are locked at $100 BY LAW. You can NEVER GET MORE OR LESS. And you aren't free to buy or sell them either. This activity is dictated by law.
So I'm not sure what your hypothetical situation is trying to say.
it does seem to be a bit of a heads I win, tails you lose kind of situation if you step back a bit. while i would not say I know the truth of the matter, and I do not accept the conspiracy type theories as truth, I am certainly open to practices less than noble being the norm at very high levels of the game. witness, Enron, the savings and loans scandals, etc... it's not exactly unheard of stuff. I'm not suggesting anyone should trust the Fed. But I am suggesting people shouldn't merely speculate on how it works. They should read the Federal Reserve act, read the annual reports PERSONALLY. And unless they experienced with statutory interpretation they'll need to learn that first as well.
All governments have always rightfully had the power to control traffic across their borders. humans existed for many thousands upon thousands of years before any governments did, and all human beings had the right to travel wherever the hell they pleased with submitting to others. So when the first government started to control a piece of land and decree it was a "border", where did it obtain this "right" from?
managed by people who are not beholden to us via our government in any way, shape or form. The Federal Reserve exists by statute and is therefore beholden to that statute and the body which wrote it (Congress). Incidentally it must report to congress annually, and it turns over all profits to the treasury. If you don't trust Federal Reserve Notes you can always ask your boss to pay you in peanuts.
Much like the Fed itself. You know that's a private entity right? that depends on what you define as a "private entity".
The Federal Reserve only exists by an act of congress, turns over its profits to the US treasury, and must report annually to congress on its status.
Ownership of shares doesn't follow any of the traditional tenants of private property ownership. The owners ARE NOT FREE to dispose of their shares at their pleasure.
It would be more realistic to say that all banks are obligated to leave a DEPOSIT with a government created institution in order to be a bank in the USA. A deposit of 6% of their net worth.
Those "owners" thereafter can never get more than their deposit back because the federal reserve act fixes the value of each share at $100. Shares can only be bought and sold with the Fed itself, and only to keep your investment locked to 6% And the price is always $100.
And they are compelled to do this by PUBLIC STATUTE.
This is a very strange interpretation of the word "private property".
Say my dream car was a really fast Ferrari, but I only had $5000 to spend and I don't have any current transportation. Should I put that money away and just wait until I had enough to buy it, (which may never happen), and not have any transportation? Or should I be more practical and find the best option available to me right now, so that I can drive to work, and get a better job that makes more money and maybe earn enough to buy the Ferrari?
It'd be great if I could have my ideal, but practicality limits reality. If your dreams consist of nothing more than driving a really fast ferrarri, you probably have little choice but to vote for whoever the TV or church tells you to vote for. Your mind has already turned to shit.
This is within the distance of Earth's geosynchronous satellites. However, because Apophis will pass interior to the positions of these satellites at closest approach, in a plane inclined at 40 degrees to the Earth's equator and passing outside the equatorial geosynchronous zone when crossing the equatorial plane, it does not threaten the satellites in that heavily populated region. So what is being claimed here is not so implausible. It is going to pass within the geosynconous orbit distance. What happened to "However, because Apophis will pass interior to the positions of these satellites at closest approach, in a plane inclined at 40 degrees to the Earth's equator and passing outside the equatorial geosynchronous zone when crossing the equatorial plane, it does not threaten the satellites in that heavily populated region. "
Yep... the general populace derides the space program as a waste of money, preferring its funding to go to "education" or "helping the poor." Nevermind that NASA's budget is just a drop in the bucket compared to those...
But as soon as something (like an asteroid about to hit earth) comes along, they will be the first ones whining "but why didn't "they" do something about it?" My response will be "I told you so."
"Think of the children" indeed... You may have told them, but they didn't understand because education funding was cut in order to finance The War (tm).
I can say that, in the past, during a time where I was an atheist, and I believed that Free Will did not exist, I made choices that I would not make today, based on a supposed lack of moral consequence.
Because I chose NOT to believe in the existence of Free Will (and personal responsibility for actions)? The only thing keeping you from hurting people is the fear of punishment?
No ofcourse not. I don't know why this isn't general knowledge, but something like will can only be 2 things:
- Completely determined process, action -> reaction. - Completely random process, governed by random quantum effects. why not 50% of each or 2/3 and 1/3?
These scientists believe that the purpose of science is to model what we observe, which may have absolutely no indication as to the truth of things, or may actually be the model of the truth of things. But there's no way to tell. And linguists only concern themselves with words that are used in languages, but they don't make any claims about words that are not part of any language.
How shallow minded are the people who believe a$UDDlkj!!$% isn't a word! a$UDDlkj!!$% has put a seal on their hearts and that is why they do not believe!
In the current result (which isn't new), we could claim that the act of free-will happens with a seven second lag, or that certain potential centers are activated before the act of choosing a branch. Etc... I think, also, there is a large cultural element to the debate, the current trends in cultural interpretation is towards removing all individual culpability and responsibility (as we can see in the rise of psychotropic drug prescriptions, and "Twinkie" defenses).
As a philosophy buff, lets leave it to religion. It doesn't add to any argument. Free Will only affects the definition of 'culpability and responsibility'. It doesn't affect its existence.
There are no current trends in cultural interpretaion towards removing individual culpability and responsibility.
Current trends in cultural interpretation lean strongly towards increasing individual culpability and responsibility. For example: we now prosecute people who suffer from a mental illness, (pedophilia) as if they freely choose to be sexually addicted to children. We utter the word 'pedophile' with loathing and hatred, even while we picture an individual who is suffering from some kind of mental insanity.
On the one hand almost everyone agrees that pedophiles and sex criminals are dangerous because they CAN'T CONTROL THEMSELVES, going so far as to create a sex offender registry, and on the other hand we have drastically increased the punishment for sexual crimes. This suggests that we believe individuals are morally responsible for their actions regardless of whether there is free will.
That said... I really fear what will happen to him, cos we can't really expect a guy that's so full of **** and so much in the public spotlight to *not* get some crazy muslim to kill him... following God's orders is crazy now? As a life long atheist that has had to put up with decades of preaching and pontification from all faiths (who seem to agree on nothing except that they hate me even more than they hate each other), I say all religious people who think suicide bombers are crazy, rather than merely highly religious are hypocrites. If Jesus said 'blow your self up' a real christian would say 'how big of a boom do you want?'... ignorance and superstition do not equal craziness. it is perfectly rational to sacrifice this life for an eternity in paradise, and that's what the Christian church has been promising people they can do for 2 thousand years.
There is absolutely nothing new in what Islam preaches. Considering the immense level of faith that Europeans displayed in the 11th century, its a wonder we don't start calling it the 'Age of Glory' rather than the 'Dark Ages'. Based on Christian dogma, all those superstitious victims of ignorance in the dark ages are now laughing it up in divine splendor. Muslims want nothing more than what the every God fearing Christian soul apparently gets.
And far be it for me or anyone to make God or their prophet look like an ass. God hates those who are unjust.
At least the Quran is clear that if God sends you to hell, its because he hates you. Christianity seems to hold the position that eternal damnation awaits those whom God loves.
You're quite clever to know a brat from the average guy over the internet. you can judge people by what they say. It's called "making a judgement call"; Something that many millenials seem to think is immoral. It is most apparent in their lack of fashion sense, lack of musical taste, lack of critical thinking skills, and bratlike whining, crying, and self cutting.
The myth that young people are spoilt and have an undue sense of entitlement is starting to wear a bit fucking thin though. In what way do we have more than previous generations? Tax burdens have been moved down to lower incomes in the UK, and I believe this is also the case in the US. Public services have been gutted by privatisation. Yet because we can buy iPods these days apparently we are spoilt. Fuck you. I'd rather be able to find an NHS dentist and get free higher education than have an mp3 player. Of course, now all you old fucks have no more need of public education and have fat wage packets to pay for private healthcare, you want such things scrapped so you don't have to pay for them. That is called 'kicking away the ladder'. Then you have the fucking nerve to complain about an undue sense of entitlement in the younger generation. You simply don't want to pay now for the things you were given to help you out when you were young.
You are confused son. Its a class struggle, not an age struggle. Stop attacking people on the basis of age; you're just making yourself into a useless annoyance to everyone and not accomplishing anything at all. You are also advertising the fact that you are basically an ignorant thug.
Just because you see someone criticizing youth as if it were a collective sentience (an absolutely absurd position: they are all individuals with seperate aims and ambitions), that doesn't make your attack against another collective age category meaningful. If all you are good for is to engage in moronic knee jerk reactions, you will continue to be part of the problem going forward, and in 15 years you'll be part of the 'blame kids for everything' crowd. It also explains why no one wants to put you in charge of anything or give you the money you think you deserve because all the "old fucks" have "kicked away" your poor little ladder.
Yeah, I'm bitter. I was treated like crap and told to suck it up and that I was spoilt by a generation that had it a fuck load easier than I did. That is why I turned my back on the entire industry, although I don't hold out much chance of getting away from selfish middle-aged wankers any time soon.
Oh please. They couldn't stand the heat, so they got out of the kitchen. Netscape wasn't being "illegally squeezed" by Microsoft, their product just sucked and they couldn't compete. uhhh... guess again. See: United States v. Microsoft, 87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 2000)
Microsoft was found to committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
Let's assume Dell got the choice to ship both Netscape 4 and IE 4 with Windows; which one would they make the default? The slow bloated one which crashed every hour, or the slim fast one which was perfectly stable? Dell never got the choice, Microsoft made that choice for them. But Microsoft chose the slow bloated and unstable web-browser -- their own.
Slashdot Mirror
Why is banning organized prayer or any religious instruction in schools called "freedom", but merely ALLOWING the teaching of ID called "imposing dogmatic beliefs on others"?
Academic freedom has nothing to do with the freedom to teach children whatever you choose. It has to do with the freedom of academics to RESEARCH,STUDY AND PUBLISH whatever they choose.
the curriculum for children is NOT free for individual teachers to decide. It HAS NEVER BEEN FREE for the teachers to decide, is decided collectively by society, and as long as the Constitution seperates church from state, and the state is paying the teachers wages and financing the school, religious instruction is OFF THE TABLE.
Why can't people recognize that "God" is a metaphorical reference to the universe which science is dedicated to studying?
The equations of a scientist are an abstract representation of the Personality of God, and the stories of religion are personified representations of the equations of a scientist. Everyone is talking about the same damned thing, and arguing about which metaphor they like the best.
yeah? tell me which story in the bible explains how to make a lithion ion battery, or how microwave ovens work.
You don't make phone calls on a telephone company. A telephone company is a legal entity.
You make phone calls on a telephone network. A physical piece of infrastructure that continues to exist regardless whether or not the owners are sent to the poor house and forced to sell it.
Unless you've prepay for phone service 5 years in advance, you have almost nothing to lose by your telephone company going bankrupt.
Pithy, frightening scenarios backed up by no evidence or rationale whatsoever should be disregarded no matter how frightening.
"The first goal of American government is to protect the profitability of domestic and foreign businesses"
Actually the first and only goal of the government should be to uphold the rights of its citizenry, but feel free to continue to mischaracterize.
When something like the industrial revolution and political economics is so widely documented there is no need for anyone to waste time rehashing the evidence on some online blog for the amusement of people who are too lazy to do their basic homework. Why don't you get your head out of Thomas Pains ass and pay attention to the actual world.The poster was not saying what the goal of the American government SHOULD BE, he was saying what the goal of the American government ACTUALLY IS.
If America was so concerned about protecting human rights, it wouldn't spend so much time trying to privatize absolutely everything, deny global warming, and try to impose democracy with a gun on others. And and don't forget about preventing non-coalition countries from bidding on reconstruction contracts in Iraq. No.. that's not essentially a scheme to raise the cost of reconstruction and increase profits for american companies at the expense of Iraqi citizens.
In the real world there is a discretionary power to not prosecute and with that discretion comes moral responsibility.
As prosecution was not an inevitable consequence of the convicted individuals actions, it can not be deemed by some hand waving that the convicted individual chose to be prosecuted.
Likewise the convicted individual did not choose to be apprehended. They usually try to avoid being apprehended. To ignore that evidence is to ignore objective reality.
You can pretend the convicted indivual chose to be killed, but this is a legal fiction and not reality.
The vast majority of people put to death by the state, if asked, would say they want to live.
But its not surprising to see that ultimately you make a purely religious argument in favor of the death penalty bolstered by an assumption that the justice system is infallible and fundamentally moral. You also rely on 2600 years of tradition (as if the actions of barbarians is persuasive in the least).
This entire line of argument falls apart completely once you allow that the justice system is fallible and that it is fundamentally political AND THAT IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN POLITICAL.
If one is going to make any assumptions about the justice system, the assumption should be that the justice system serves the political system and the political system is fundamentally self serving.
In that light, the ultimate purpose of all actions of the justice system is SERVICE TO POWER. Whatever moral good it happens to do is completely unintentional.
But immigrants are demonstratively dangerous to British culture, by the fact that they're resisting assimilation. That's the point: the immigrants have no right to be angry because they should have realized they'd be expected to assimilate, rather than import their old culture. If they wanted to remain in a traditional Muslim community, they should have stayed home!
And that goes for all immigrants, everywhere: Muslims in Britain should become [culturally] British, Mexicans in the U.S. should become American (or more precisely "USian," but that's not really a word), Americans in China should become Chinese (disregarding the fact that relatively few Americans immigrate), etc. Expecting the incumbent culture to accommodate you, as a newcomer, is disgustingly arrogant!
America is a land of LAWS and expecting immigrants to bow down to arbitrary exercises of red neck power when the law expressively provides for their right is the only thing "disgustingly arrogant" here.A Bill of Rights does not merely proclaim that *you personally* have rights. But it proclaims your moral obligation to "accommodate" others in the enjoyment of their own rights.
Does the law say 'All people in America shall assimilate'? Or does the law say
And yet you accuse immigrants of being arrogant for insisting that america merely comply with its own law.
The hallmarks of a FREE NATION is the power to believe and think anything you want to believe as long as your beliefs do not harm anyone or disrupt public order. And when an immigrant decides to open a restaurant using his own private property and sell foreign cuisine he is not disrupting public order, he is enjoying his God given (As far the US law is concerned) Right to private property.
if an immigrant complies with the laws and is permitted by those laws and due process to reside in America, then he has fulfilled his moral obligation to the Nation. He is FREE.
For any immigrant to assume that there are obligations imposed upon him in America except for those STRICTLY articulated by law, is for that immigrant to presume that the United States is not a land of laws. However America is one of the FEW nations that expressly puts a LEGAL DOCUMENT in supreme power over all. It is called the Constitution.
America recognizes the concept of the rule of law, (it was one of the first nations to do so) and any citizen who thinks they have a moral right to impose assimilation beyond what is stipulated in law, is the one who has failed to assimilate into American culture.
And just because many old world, superstitious and primitive cultures demand assimilation, that doesn't make it in a land of freedom.
America is different specifically because America does NOT demand anything except what is articulated IN LAW. And American law expressively recognizes the sanctity of FREE THOUGHT, and the right to PURSUE HAPPINESS.
If an immigrant doesn't want to act like a hillbilly, but prefers to wear a special hat because that is his belief to do so, and there is no law against it, America is one country that holds it is his absolute and inalienable right to do so.
Of course all immigrants and all the worlds people should be furious when they discover that any self proclaimed Americans wont even comply with their OWN constitution and the principles on which it was founded.
Hypocrisy makes all people of reason angry.
I'm not advocating slavery, I'm just saying true free market capitalism is no better.
What are you talking about? Your social safety net programs are actually the guy without a jog making a slave of me. I'm forced (on penalty of losing my liberty by going to jail) to write a check that's used, in part, to feed him.
Why does he have no job, and no prospect of getting one? Because he's been raised in a culture that tells him it's OK not to prepare for that possibility. You make it sound like the economy is a fixed-size pie, and that nobody creates jobs through investment, that nobody starts businesses, and that no companies grow. Why do you supposed there are tens of millions of illegal immigrants risking their lives to sneak into the US in order to work? Because there's work. The guy without a job is one bus ticket away from having one. It's not a nice, middle-class job. But it's also not him holding a gun to my head, saying, "Feed me. I never learned how to do anything else, and it's your responsibility to buy me food."
he point is that on the whole, the vast majority of people DO NOT WANT to suck anyone dry or enslave anyone. That is just a myth propagated by rationalist capitalists and communists to morally justify the fact that they themselves do.
Ah well, just so long as nobody is making broad, sweeping, baseless statements, then we should be fine.
The Authorites in North America want to suck you dry in order to enslave you
I see. And that would be by, what... raising your taxes while also creating a culture of dependency? Great. Then don't vote for socialists and left wingers. They're the ones that are sure they know better than you what to do with your income. And they're the ones that woo votes from the very people they're feeding with my money, rather than telling them that they need to raise their next generation of kids to have the same work ethic and entrepeneurial vision as the people that are fighting to get into the country.
What are you talking about? Your social safety net programs are actually the guy without a jog making a slave of me. I'm forced (on penalty of losing my liberty by going to jail) to write a check that's used, in part, to feed him.
If 3-6 % of the population was not merely unemployed, but unemployed and starving to death, your employer would easily find someone to do your job for much less pay than you.
Crime would also shoot through the roof. As very few people would let their family starve to death if they could feed them via crime. Perhaps they would sell their children into prostitution in order to feed the family, or perhaps they would turn to robbery, extortion and assassination. People will not sit idly by and starve to death.
Why does he have no job, and no prospect of getting one? Because he's been raised in a culture that tells him it's OK not to prepare for that possibility.
Really? Please show me where in this "culture" it states that it is ok not to prepare for losing your job. Is that what your mom and dad told you?
We live in a society that says it is ok to pay your employees as little as they are willing to work for. We call this "negotiating freely". And it is a hallmark of capitalism.
If the alternative to welfare was starvation, you would work for a lot less money. In order to make up the lost wages you would need to work longer hours. Longer hours extracted from the same number of employees, means less demand for labour, which means more unemployed, (who go on to burn up their palty emergency funds while depsarately searching for any job whatsoever before they starve), and thus more competition for jobs and thus more free market pressure to cut wages and lengthen hours further. This cycle repeats until eventually people are working as long as humanly possible for as little as humanly possible.
In a free market you don't get paid more than the bare minimum necessities for surviv
Poverty and slavery are effectively the same thing, except the slave tends to be better off because he's valuable property and thus can't simply be left to die even if he becomes temporarily redundant. On the otherhand the temporarily redundant laborer in a society without slavery is for all free market purposes, worthless. He can't buy anything (since he has no job) and he can't be bought or traded for commodities since that would require him to be a slave.
The only thing that makes this fact difficult to notice is all the social (humanist) programs we have that help the surplus labour pool (the unemployed) get by until the economy picks up.
I'm not advocating slavery, I'm just saying true free market capitalism is no better.
The point is that on the whole, the vast majority of people DO NOT WANT to suck anyone dry or enslave anyone. That is just a myth propagated by rationalist capitalists and communists to morally justify the fact that they themselves do.
The Authorities in China want to enslave you in order to suck you dry. The Authorites in North America want to suck you dry in order to enslave you. Nothing changes.. Authority wants the same thing. Total and absolute control. The only thing that changes is how Authority goes about aquiring what it seeks and whether any does anything to resist it.
So I'm not sure what your hypothetical situation is trying to say. it does seem to be a bit of a heads I win, tails you lose kind of situation if you step back a bit. while i would not say I know the truth of the matter, and I do not accept the conspiracy type theories as truth, I am certainly open to practices less than noble being the norm at very high levels of the game. witness, Enron, the savings and loans scandals, etc... it's not exactly unheard of stuff. I'm not suggesting anyone should trust the Fed. But I am suggesting people shouldn't merely speculate on how it works. They should read the Federal Reserve act, read the annual reports PERSONALLY. And unless they experienced with statutory interpretation they'll need to learn that first as well.
The Federal Reserve only exists by an act of congress, turns over its profits to the US treasury, and must report annually to congress on its status.
Ownership of shares doesn't follow any of the traditional tenants of private property ownership. The owners ARE NOT FREE to dispose of their shares at their pleasure.
It would be more realistic to say that all banks are obligated to leave a DEPOSIT with a government created institution in order to be a bank in the USA. A deposit of 6% of their net worth.
Those "owners" thereafter can never get more than their deposit back because the federal reserve act fixes the value of each share at $100. Shares can only be bought and sold with the Fed itself, and only to keep your investment locked to 6% And the price is always $100.
And they are compelled to do this by PUBLIC STATUTE.
This is a very strange interpretation of the word "private property".
It'd be great if I could have my ideal, but practicality limits reality. If your dreams consist of nothing more than driving a really fast ferrarri, you probably have little choice but to vote for whoever the TV or church tells you to vote for. Your mind has already turned to shit.
But as soon as something (like an asteroid about to hit earth) comes along, they will be the first ones whining "but why didn't "they" do something about it?" My response will be "I told you so."
"Think of the children" indeed... You may have told them, but they didn't understand because education funding was cut in order to finance The War (tm).
Because I chose NOT to believe in the existence of Free Will (and personal responsibility for actions)? The only thing keeping you from hurting people is the fear of punishment?
- Completely determined process, action -> reaction.
- Completely random process, governed by random quantum effects. why not 50% of each or 2/3 and 1/3?
How shallow minded are the people who believe a$UDDlkj!!$% isn't a word! a$UDDlkj!!$% has put a seal on their hearts and that is why they do not believe!
As a philosophy buff, lets leave it to religion. It doesn't add to any argument. Free Will only affects the definition of 'culpability and responsibility'. It doesn't affect its existence.
There are no current trends in cultural interpretaion towards removing individual culpability and responsibility.
Current trends in cultural interpretation lean strongly towards increasing individual culpability and responsibility. For example: we now prosecute people who suffer from a mental illness, (pedophilia) as if they freely choose to be sexually addicted to children. We utter the word 'pedophile' with loathing and hatred, even while we picture an individual who is suffering from some kind of mental insanity.
On the one hand almost everyone agrees that pedophiles and sex criminals are dangerous because they CAN'T CONTROL THEMSELVES, going so far as to create a sex offender registry, and on the other hand we have drastically increased the punishment for sexual crimes. This suggests that we believe individuals are morally responsible for their actions regardless of whether there is free will.
Isn't it some kind of war crime to intentionally TRY to inflict collateral damage?
I thought there was an obligation to try to minimize collateral damage?
There is absolutely nothing new in what Islam preaches. Considering the immense level of faith that Europeans displayed in the 11th century, its a wonder we don't start calling it the 'Age of Glory' rather than the 'Dark Ages'. Based on Christian dogma, all those superstitious victims of ignorance in the dark ages are now laughing it up in divine splendor. Muslims want nothing more than what the every God fearing Christian soul apparently gets.
And far be it for me or anyone to make God or their prophet look like an ass. God hates those who are unjust.
At least the Quran is clear that if God sends you to hell, its because he hates you. Christianity seems to hold the position that eternal damnation awaits those whom God loves.
Fine, fine, I'll get off your lawn.
The myth that young people are spoilt and have an undue sense of entitlement is starting to wear a bit fucking thin though. In what way do we have more than previous generations? Tax burdens have been moved down to lower incomes in the UK, and I believe this is also the case in the US. Public services have been gutted by privatisation. Yet because we can buy iPods these days apparently we are spoilt. Fuck you. I'd rather be able to find an NHS dentist and get free higher education than have an mp3 player. Of course, now all you old fucks have no more need of public education and have fat wage packets to pay for private healthcare, you want such things scrapped so you don't have to pay for them. That is called 'kicking away the ladder'. Then you have the fucking nerve to complain about an undue sense of entitlement in the younger generation. You simply don't want to pay now for the things you were given to help you out when you were young.
You are confused son. Its a class struggle, not an age struggle. Stop attacking people on the basis of age; you're just making yourself into a useless annoyance to everyone and not accomplishing anything at all. You are also advertising the fact that you are basically an ignorant thug.Just because you see someone criticizing youth as if it were a collective sentience (an absolutely absurd position: they are all individuals with seperate aims and ambitions), that doesn't make your attack against another collective age category meaningful. If all you are good for is to engage in moronic knee jerk reactions, you will continue to be part of the problem going forward, and in 15 years you'll be part of the 'blame kids for everything' crowd. It also explains why no one wants to put you in charge of anything or give you the money you think you deserve because all the "old fucks" have "kicked away" your poor little ladder.
Yeah, I'm bitter. I was treated like crap and told to suck it up and that I was spoilt by a generation that had it a fuck load easier than I did. That is why I turned my back on the entire industry, although I don't hold out much chance of getting away from selfish middle-aged wankers any time soon.
spoken like a true brat.See: United States v. Microsoft, 87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 2000)
Microsoft was found to committed monopolization, attempted monopolization, and tying in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. Let's assume Dell got the choice to ship both Netscape 4 and IE 4 with Windows; which one would they make the default? The slow bloated one which crashed every hour, or the slim fast one which was perfectly stable? Dell never got the choice, Microsoft made that choice for them. But Microsoft chose the slow bloated and unstable web-browser -- their own.