As I stated in a previous post, selling a national park to a private company would almost certainly work out to be a good thing, as they would have an interest in maintaining it so they could charge admission to the park, thereby making a huge profit. The easiest way to put "public" lands in the hands of private owners would be to hold an auction, sell to the highest bidder, and use the money to pay the national debt. With all the land currently in government control, this could be accomplished readily. Well, it could pay the current defecit, but once the Fed starts cranking out fresh monopoly money to pay baby-boomers' social security checks, that debt will rise beyond any possible repayment. Better get this guy in office now.
OK, ignore potential natural resources present on the property. If I bought Yellowstone national park, do you think I'd be stupid enough to turn it into an industrial park? Hell no! If I were looking to make good money from that property, I'd charge $20 admission ($15 child and student), and make a killing. How many people go to that park every year? How much federal (read: stolen from taxpayers) money is spent on that park's upkeep each year? If done my way, the park would be paid for only by those visiting, as is only fair, it would be preserved intact, as the environmentalists would like, and the owner of the property would make a bundle, as they undoubtedly liked. This is the concept of user fees in a free market providing for both practical conservation and profits for the owner. Sounds like a great system to me.
To me, that seems to be a benefit. I mean, look at those who do have political experience. Do you really approve of the track records of "proven" politicians? The only politicians I know of are lower level (usually local, state at best) politicians with no interrest or chance of getting into national office. I'm actually quite comforted by the fact that Badnarik is not a carreer politician. It means he knows how to make an honest living, and knows what is required to do so. Carreer politicians are interrested in advancing that carreer, which means doing whatever it takes to get votes. If someone has real skills and a real carreer outside of government, they know that they have a "fallback" of sorts if they don't get re-elected, so they vote their conscience. And since becoming president isn't a "career move", they campaign based on their conscience as well. I actually trust this man to try his hardest to do what he has promised, if elected. When was the last time you could say that about a Republicrat or Dempublican candidate?
I hope very much that this isn't another crappy spinoff game like FFX-2. Worst RPG ever. FFVII is my personal favorite, trumping even FFVI. I got my hopes up when they originally did a press release stating that they would redo FFVII for the PS2 with updated graphics and new CG scenes, and then they quashed that in favor of the movie. Hopefully this title lives up to its predecessor, but I really don't think Vincent was the pivotol character I would have chosen for a spinoff. He was a good character, don't get me wrong, but they had better options to chose from...
One final comment for this thread, unless I see something particularly ludicrous that needs addressing, is a very good source of information on the history of the "gun culture" and gun control. The book "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross is an excellent work of historical fiction. Ross takes actuall historical events dating from WWI onward, and describes their impact on a set of fictitious character, ranging from politicians to lawyers to big-game safari hunters. He goes into great detail about various legislative measures, but does not touch the gun control act, as the book was published prior to its implementation. This was in fact the first reference I had seen to the NFA (National Firearms Act). I highly recommend this book to anyone interrested in gun control, regardless of your stance. When I first started reading, I fell into the category of those who ride the fence on this issue: I felt some control was necessary, but could offer no reasonable suggestions as to where to draw the line. While reading the book, I simply could not believe some of the abuses and legal manipulation described, so I verified it with reliable third-party sources. This book made me aware of the events surrounding Ruby Ridge and Waco, and provided me with an interest in researching these matters. What I found was not only a government that would trample citizen's rights, but also not hesitate to use lethal and brutal force to keep its populace "in their place". Because of my knowledge of the abuses perpetrated by the US government against its own citizens, I was not surprised (although still completely appaled) to learn of the disgusting torture occuring in Guantanamo and Abu Gahrib, nor was I startled to hear American politicians discussing the "acceptable" use of torture, and to see a president of this once great nation seeking for ways to circumvent the Geneva Convention.
But I digress. Read "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross. You'll be skeptical of the events described. Do your homework. Verify their authenticity and accuracy. If you still want to give the government the names of gun owners, if you still want them to say what guns you may and may not own, if you still want to have bans on concealed carry, you must be quite mad.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
on
Assault Weapons Ban
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· Score: 1
On the topic of mandatory gun registration, consider the intentions of the second ammendment. As stated in a previous post, half the intent was to prevent a standing army from being used opressively and coercively against the people. If you give the government a list of who owns what guns, a function it has no constitutional mandate, and thus no right whatsoever, to perform, then (and yes, I know this sounds paranoid, but it's called contingency planning people. And when you consider our current political leaders and our options for our future leaders, it doesn't look quite so paranoid) they can simply round up all the guns, much like they did with the nation's gold supply 70 years ago, and then we have no recourse.
Again on the topic of "well-ordered militias", it does say a well-ordered militia is the best defense against tyranny, but it does not say that one must be involved in said militia to bear arms. It says "the people". It does not say properly registered citizens who have undergone a background check, it does not say they may own only arms with certain capabilities, it says "the people" and it says "arms". No restrictions. As stated in a previous post, "arms" refers to infantry weapons. They did have powerful artillery (i.e. cannons) during the revolutionary war, so you cannot claim they were familiar only with single-shot black powder rifles. During the revolution (the first one, not FDR's), "arms" meant a black powder rifle, but not a cannon. In the first part of the 20th century, it meant a.50 cal BAR, but not heavy artillery, and today, it means an AK47 (that seems to be the only example people recognize), but not a nuclear bomb. This maintains a ballance of power, as a corrupt government is likely to call in the standing army, but rather unlikely to subdue the populace with nukes, as there would be nothing left to pillage and rule.
As to the argument that gun fights would be more common if everyone could get any gun they wanted, this is quite inaccurate. Consider that the criminal still has some concept of self-preservation. He may want to kill, but not to die. So if I'm a criminal and I want to kill someone, am I more likely to attack them if I know they may be armed, or if I have a government gaurantee that they are unarmed? Obviously more people would attack an unarmed person than one who may be able to defend themselves with lethal force. This is backed by statistics from states that have implemented concealed carry laws, where violent gun crimes drop dramatically.
Re:One, two, three, four, I declare a flame-war!
on
Assault Weapons Ban
·
· Score: 1
This seems to be an appropriate place to point out that the most widely accepted interpretations of the second ammendment is, and has been for years, that "militia" referes to all able-bodied adults (at the time of the Constitution's authoring, the legal age of adulthood was also much lower than 18, so most constitutional scholars consider "adult" to be interpreted as 16+), and the term "arms" refers to infantry weapons, i.e. guns and small non-ballistic weapons. Those who would argue that no one uses an "assault weapon" (note: this term was coined by politicians to get the weapons banned, it was not used previously) to hunt are quite correct: no one goes hunting with an AK47. That is not the point. The constitution did not include the second amendment to protect citizens' right to hunt, but their right to self-defense. Those who argue that no foreign nation will ever attack and defeat our standing army, thereby necessitating that civilians take up defense of the nation, are also quite likely correct. However, security against foreign invasion was also not the only reason for the inclusion of the second ammendment. A large part of the reasoning in favor of the right to keep and bear arms is protection against a tyrranical domestic government. In other words, the second ammendment exists in large part as a gaurantee of the other civil liberties enumerated (not granted) by the constiution. The idea is that if a tyrranical executive uses the military to opress the people, they will have weapons equivilent to the standing army with which to fight back. It is a hallmark of tyrannical government to first disarm the populace. The law implemented by Hitler to disarm the Jews before Krystalnacht reads almost identical to the US's gun control act of 1968.
On a side note, the Supreme Court did actually rule gun control to be unconstitutional in 1934. In the case of Miller vs US, the court found that the National Firearms Act of 1932, which the government had billed as a revenue raising measure, was only valid as long as its sole purpose was to raise revenue and not to control the sale and ownership of firearms, which they specifically stated to be unconstitutional. For those unfamiliar with this bit of history, the NFA was passed in 1932 at the beginning of FDR's new deal (no surprise, he had to begin disarming the people if he was to succeed with his bloodless socialist revolution, aka the new deal). It placed a $200 tax on firearms fitting certain criteria, as well as silencers. These criteria were rather arbitrary, involving total length of the weapon, barrel length, stock length, etc. The law was struck down initially in district court, because the judge, who was a shooting enthusiast, veteran, and father of a veteran, had some knowledge of weaponry, and correctly realized that no reasonable person would pay a $200 tax to buy a gun, and another $200 transfer tax to sell the gun later, when the gun itself cost only $20 at the time. So he ruled that it violated the second amendment and was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, when the government appealed to the supreme court, there was no such enlightened judge on the bench, and the original defendant was a poor hillbilly from tennessee, and neither he nor his lawyer filed an answer to the government's appeal. However, the court did still rule that the NFA was legal only as a revenue raising measure, and not as gun control. Unfortunately, subsequent laws and court rulings have ignored this precedent, leaving us with the warped and completely counterproductive gun control laws we have today, whereby innocent law-abiding civilians are gauranteed by the government to be disarmed and ripe for prey.
Also, on a statistical note regarding the assault weapons ban, there have been almost no crimes commited with so-called "assault weapons", either before, during, and, I believe we will soon see, after the ban was passed.
I'd say it's very inaccurate to claim that we do have a two party system. The neo-cons in the Republicrat party are after essentially the same things as the neo-libs that run the Dempublican party. The days of small government pro-capitalist Republicans are long gone, which accounts for a good portion of the Libertarian Party's membership: disenfranchised Repubs. Notice how socialism is very much an open issue this year, with both candidates trying to socialize the health care system (which, btw, would be terrible. I rarely get sick, I take care of my own health coverage. No reason I should pay to take care of everyone else who's not covered. What happened to this country embracing personal responsibility? Oh, that's right, we've been selling that ideal out for nearly a century now). The big differences are whether we add 20,000 or 40,000 troops in Iraq, as neither candidate has any intentions of departing, and whether our next target is Iran or Sudan. Either way, we're screwed. If you want a two party system, vote some libertarians into office. They're the only decent party still true to it's ideals.
The primary reason the American government is able to engage in such gross deficit spending is due to FDR's elimination of the gold standard as the basis for our currency. If elected, what, if anything, would be your policy as to reigning in the Federal Reserve and eventually restoring the gold standard in an effort to restore fiscal responsibility and once more provide America with a sound economic foundation?
Slashdot Mirror
As I stated in a previous post, selling a national park to a private company would almost certainly work out to be a good thing, as they would have an interest in maintaining it so they could charge admission to the park, thereby making a huge profit. The easiest way to put "public" lands in the hands of private owners would be to hold an auction, sell to the highest bidder, and use the money to pay the national debt. With all the land currently in government control, this could be accomplished readily. Well, it could pay the current defecit, but once the Fed starts cranking out fresh monopoly money to pay baby-boomers' social security checks, that debt will rise beyond any possible repayment. Better get this guy in office now.
OK, ignore potential natural resources present on the property. If I bought Yellowstone national park, do you think I'd be stupid enough to turn it into an industrial park? Hell no! If I were looking to make good money from that property, I'd charge $20 admission ($15 child and student), and make a killing. How many people go to that park every year? How much federal (read: stolen from taxpayers) money is spent on that park's upkeep each year? If done my way, the park would be paid for only by those visiting, as is only fair, it would be preserved intact, as the environmentalists would like, and the owner of the property would make a bundle, as they undoubtedly liked. This is the concept of user fees in a free market providing for both practical conservation and profits for the owner. Sounds like a great system to me.
To me, that seems to be a benefit. I mean, look at those who do have political experience. Do you really approve of the track records of "proven" politicians? The only politicians I know of are lower level (usually local, state at best) politicians with no interrest or chance of getting into national office. I'm actually quite comforted by the fact that Badnarik is not a carreer politician. It means he knows how to make an honest living, and knows what is required to do so. Carreer politicians are interrested in advancing that carreer, which means doing whatever it takes to get votes. If someone has real skills and a real carreer outside of government, they know that they have a "fallback" of sorts if they don't get re-elected, so they vote their conscience. And since becoming president isn't a "career move", they campaign based on their conscience as well. I actually trust this man to try his hardest to do what he has promised, if elected. When was the last time you could say that about a Republicrat or Dempublican candidate?
I hope very much that this isn't another crappy spinoff game like FFX-2. Worst RPG ever. FFVII is my personal favorite, trumping even FFVI. I got my hopes up when they originally did a press release stating that they would redo FFVII for the PS2 with updated graphics and new CG scenes, and then they quashed that in favor of the movie. Hopefully this title lives up to its predecessor, but I really don't think Vincent was the pivotol character I would have chosen for a spinoff. He was a good character, don't get me wrong, but they had better options to chose from...
One final comment for this thread, unless I see something particularly ludicrous that needs addressing, is a very good source of information on the history of the "gun culture" and gun control. The book "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross is an excellent work of historical fiction. Ross takes actuall historical events dating from WWI onward, and describes their impact on a set of fictitious character, ranging from politicians to lawyers to big-game safari hunters. He goes into great detail about various legislative measures, but does not touch the gun control act, as the book was published prior to its implementation. This was in fact the first reference I had seen to the NFA (National Firearms Act). I highly recommend this book to anyone interrested in gun control, regardless of your stance. When I first started reading, I fell into the category of those who ride the fence on this issue: I felt some control was necessary, but could offer no reasonable suggestions as to where to draw the line. While reading the book, I simply could not believe some of the abuses and legal manipulation described, so I verified it with reliable third-party sources. This book made me aware of the events surrounding Ruby Ridge and Waco, and provided me with an interest in researching these matters. What I found was not only a government that would trample citizen's rights, but also not hesitate to use lethal and brutal force to keep its populace "in their place". Because of my knowledge of the abuses perpetrated by the US government against its own citizens, I was not surprised (although still completely appaled) to learn of the disgusting torture occuring in Guantanamo and Abu Gahrib, nor was I startled to hear American politicians discussing the "acceptable" use of torture, and to see a president of this once great nation seeking for ways to circumvent the Geneva Convention. But I digress. Read "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross. You'll be skeptical of the events described. Do your homework. Verify their authenticity and accuracy. If you still want to give the government the names of gun owners, if you still want them to say what guns you may and may not own, if you still want to have bans on concealed carry, you must be quite mad.
On the topic of mandatory gun registration, consider the intentions of the second ammendment. As stated in a previous post, half the intent was to prevent a standing army from being used opressively and coercively against the people. If you give the government a list of who owns what guns, a function it has no constitutional mandate, and thus no right whatsoever, to perform, then (and yes, I know this sounds paranoid, but it's called contingency planning people. And when you consider our current political leaders and our options for our future leaders, it doesn't look quite so paranoid) they can simply round up all the guns, much like they did with the nation's gold supply 70 years ago, and then we have no recourse. Again on the topic of "well-ordered militias", it does say a well-ordered militia is the best defense against tyranny, but it does not say that one must be involved in said militia to bear arms. It says "the people". It does not say properly registered citizens who have undergone a background check, it does not say they may own only arms with certain capabilities, it says "the people" and it says "arms". No restrictions. As stated in a previous post, "arms" refers to infantry weapons. They did have powerful artillery (i.e. cannons) during the revolutionary war, so you cannot claim they were familiar only with single-shot black powder rifles. During the revolution (the first one, not FDR's), "arms" meant a black powder rifle, but not a cannon. In the first part of the 20th century, it meant a .50 cal BAR, but not heavy artillery, and today, it means an AK47 (that seems to be the only example people recognize), but not a nuclear bomb. This maintains a ballance of power, as a corrupt government is likely to call in the standing army, but rather unlikely to subdue the populace with nukes, as there would be nothing left to pillage and rule.
As to the argument that gun fights would be more common if everyone could get any gun they wanted, this is quite inaccurate. Consider that the criminal still has some concept of self-preservation. He may want to kill, but not to die. So if I'm a criminal and I want to kill someone, am I more likely to attack them if I know they may be armed, or if I have a government gaurantee that they are unarmed? Obviously more people would attack an unarmed person than one who may be able to defend themselves with lethal force. This is backed by statistics from states that have implemented concealed carry laws, where violent gun crimes drop dramatically.
This seems to be an appropriate place to point out that the most widely accepted interpretations of the second ammendment is, and has been for years, that "militia" referes to all able-bodied adults (at the time of the Constitution's authoring, the legal age of adulthood was also much lower than 18, so most constitutional scholars consider "adult" to be interpreted as 16+), and the term "arms" refers to infantry weapons, i.e. guns and small non-ballistic weapons. Those who would argue that no one uses an "assault weapon" (note: this term was coined by politicians to get the weapons banned, it was not used previously) to hunt are quite correct: no one goes hunting with an AK47. That is not the point. The constitution did not include the second amendment to protect citizens' right to hunt, but their right to self-defense. Those who argue that no foreign nation will ever attack and defeat our standing army, thereby necessitating that civilians take up defense of the nation, are also quite likely correct. However, security against foreign invasion was also not the only reason for the inclusion of the second ammendment. A large part of the reasoning in favor of the right to keep and bear arms is protection against a tyrranical domestic government. In other words, the second ammendment exists in large part as a gaurantee of the other civil liberties enumerated (not granted) by the constiution. The idea is that if a tyrranical executive uses the military to opress the people, they will have weapons equivilent to the standing army with which to fight back. It is a hallmark of tyrannical government to first disarm the populace. The law implemented by Hitler to disarm the Jews before Krystalnacht reads almost identical to the US's gun control act of 1968. On a side note, the Supreme Court did actually rule gun control to be unconstitutional in 1934. In the case of Miller vs US, the court found that the National Firearms Act of 1932, which the government had billed as a revenue raising measure, was only valid as long as its sole purpose was to raise revenue and not to control the sale and ownership of firearms, which they specifically stated to be unconstitutional. For those unfamiliar with this bit of history, the NFA was passed in 1932 at the beginning of FDR's new deal (no surprise, he had to begin disarming the people if he was to succeed with his bloodless socialist revolution, aka the new deal). It placed a $200 tax on firearms fitting certain criteria, as well as silencers. These criteria were rather arbitrary, involving total length of the weapon, barrel length, stock length, etc. The law was struck down initially in district court, because the judge, who was a shooting enthusiast, veteran, and father of a veteran, had some knowledge of weaponry, and correctly realized that no reasonable person would pay a $200 tax to buy a gun, and another $200 transfer tax to sell the gun later, when the gun itself cost only $20 at the time. So he ruled that it violated the second amendment and was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, when the government appealed to the supreme court, there was no such enlightened judge on the bench, and the original defendant was a poor hillbilly from tennessee, and neither he nor his lawyer filed an answer to the government's appeal. However, the court did still rule that the NFA was legal only as a revenue raising measure, and not as gun control. Unfortunately, subsequent laws and court rulings have ignored this precedent, leaving us with the warped and completely counterproductive gun control laws we have today, whereby innocent law-abiding civilians are gauranteed by the government to be disarmed and ripe for prey. Also, on a statistical note regarding the assault weapons ban, there have been almost no crimes commited with so-called "assault weapons", either before, during, and, I believe we will soon see, after the ban was passed.
I'd say it's very inaccurate to claim that we do have a two party system. The neo-cons in the Republicrat party are after essentially the same things as the neo-libs that run the Dempublican party. The days of small government pro-capitalist Republicans are long gone, which accounts for a good portion of the Libertarian Party's membership: disenfranchised Repubs. Notice how socialism is very much an open issue this year, with both candidates trying to socialize the health care system (which, btw, would be terrible. I rarely get sick, I take care of my own health coverage. No reason I should pay to take care of everyone else who's not covered. What happened to this country embracing personal responsibility? Oh, that's right, we've been selling that ideal out for nearly a century now). The big differences are whether we add 20,000 or 40,000 troops in Iraq, as neither candidate has any intentions of departing, and whether our next target is Iran or Sudan. Either way, we're screwed. If you want a two party system, vote some libertarians into office. They're the only decent party still true to it's ideals.
The primary reason the American government is able to engage in such gross deficit spending is due to FDR's elimination of the gold standard as the basis for our currency. If elected, what, if anything, would be your policy as to reigning in the Federal Reserve and eventually restoring the gold standard in an effort to restore fiscal responsibility and once more provide America with a sound economic foundation?