What happens, do you suppose, when the first North Carolina transgender teenager has the s--t beaten out of them by the sons of the neanderthals this law is meant to court? I'll tell you what happens.
No, I'll tell you what happens. Assuming they can be identified they'll be arrested and prosecuted for assault just like anyone else. Why would you think anything else would happen? A little anti-American/anti-religious prejudice?
A Federal civil rights challenge that will see NC taxpayers pay out huge amounts of money.
On what basis? There doesn't seem to be one although some Federal judges do have very deep hats to pull things out of, let along a large supply of cloth waiting to be used in a decision.
...but forcing those people to use the men's washroom very likely will end up compromising those individual's civil liberties.
Probably not in the US, not yet. But that isn't a problem in North Carolina since people there that "transition" can have their birth certificates amended and the law is based on what is on the birth certificate.
But that's okay, because your prejudices reign a little longer, until the courts force the whole thing in your face.
Wouldn't it be odd if it turned out the other way and your prejudices were confronted?
And then, as a final sign of your ultimate impotence, you can complain about them thar darned right wing judges and their interfering ways!
FTFY
Having a person who is transitioning from male to female, or someone who has in fact completely transitioned,
You should look into what an early pioneer in that, John's Hopkins, does now: they don't. You might want to look into it and why.
Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution
- A drastic physical change doesn't address underlying psycho-social troubles - Paul McHugh - June 12, 2014 7:19 p.m. ET
We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.
It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.
There are subgroups of the transgendered, and for none does "reassignment" seem apt.
If I had to hazard a guess I would suspect there are a variety of problems you are both unacquainted with and disinterested in. I haven't noticed a lack of bigots of many flavors on Slashdot and the Left coast.
This law removes the right of all citizens to access state courts to sue for employment or housing discrimination based on age, race, national origin, or sex. The Republicans are using the bathroom stuff as cover because they think a majority of voters don't identify with transgender people. But the real impact is to legalize all forms of discrimination in North Carolina.
That appears to be a blatant lie. Here is the law, and a key section below:
(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.
(b) It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the State of the fullest utilization of its capacities for advancement and development, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.
(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."
The Research Triangle Park (RTP) is one of the largest research parks in the world, but its been largely a pearl in an otherwise very salty oyster. Its home to Cisco, Redhat, Microsoft, and NetApp among others. Governors and statesmen are wrecklessly gambling with this research park in the hopes that pandering to ten million North Carolinians with rhetoric from the culture war is a sustainable or responsible approach to governing their state.
It probably won't amount to much despite your hopes.
Stam: "When we passed our marriage amendment four and a half years ago, we had the same attention. (People said) businesses would flee, people wouldn't live here. Since then, we've gone from the back of the pack in the nation, now we're the second fastest economy in job growth. We're ranked right at the top in site selection, so it will have about as much effect as it did four and a half years ago. I feel somewhat sorry for these big company CEOs, because they get bullied by people, maybe in New York, who come to their stockholder meetings. But it has nothing to do with what happens on the ground in North Carolina."
You left out the role of anti-religious bigots and activists spinning, secular splaining about jebus, and misrepresenting the separation of church and state as they both fund and fight to impose their proper politically correct "enlightened" views on the ordinary citizens of the state, while also donating money to the proper "progressive" politicians, judges either on the take or running for office, and uncivil rights organizations. (If it wasn't for the activists how would we know that 90% of everybody in history is homosexual or gender flexible / questioning? Trust our own eyes? )
Your description isn't quite correct. What the law does is state the basis for protections of rights in employment and accommodations and make the law consistent across the state.
(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.
(b) It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the State of the fullest utilization of its capacities for advancement and development, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.
(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."
There is one other effect. Remember a week or two ago on Slashdot when the hot discussion was the FBI and Apple? The widely endorsed view was that the FBI and the court involved couldn't force Apple to modify its code to bypass the boobytrap it contained because of a Supreme Court precedent that said that code=speech and the general principle that government can't force people to engage in speech against their will. Most of the Slashdot audience was all about free speech then.
With this law it is unlikely that bakers in North Carolina will be forced to engage in speech and creative expression against their will as they have been in some other states by homosexual activists wielding local laws as a club with threats of high fines and other adverse consequences. The funny thing is I seem to recall that lots of people on Slashdot were against free speech in that case and were all in favor of using the law to bash people until they complied against their will in preparing creative materials and speech for use in gay weddings.
I guess freedom depends on how close you are to the 1%. Software engineers among the top 5-3% in income get free speech in the thinking of the Slashdot audience, but blue collar bakers don't. Free speech for me, but not for thee? I don't think that works out well in the long run.
The people are "technically" the FBI's "boss" in the same way that you are "technically" the "boss" of your local civil servants. To have a better understanding of the implications of that I suggest you go down to your local Department of Motor Vehicles office, fire station, or police station, and start ordering the employees around using your authority as their "boss". Try rearranging their work, make them pick up the place, maybe clean the windows. (If they don't obey, you might want to consider raising your voice, and maybe threatening their jobs.) Let us know how that works our for you.
You may have a say in selecting their actual boss, the executive (president, governor, mayor,...), but that authority doesn't pass through the executive to empower you to boss them around.
It cannot have been very difficult, it was far too fast for that.
You don't suppose that company had already developed the methodology and technology to do it, do you? Butchers generally make sausage faster than florists.
Having seen the pathetic lies and conduct of multiple levels of German government and law enforcement over the mass sexual assaults of the last few months I can understand how you might suspect the default behavior is to lie. You can't count on that though.
I read one of his books, and a biography about him. A very interesting, insightful, and influential fellow.
I wonder how much of a hand he had in shaping Intel's unique culture? I've had the opportunity to work with a number of people coming out of Intel and they have been some of the most focused and driven people I've ever worked with.
There's a disinfo unit out of Fort Meade that uses low-grade nerds in uniform to overwhelm people in chatrooms when certain subjects come up; the government has openly solicited bids for software to allow these clowns to "handle multiple simultaneous chatbots and user accounts."
"Clowns," huh? Unless you have some other info you seem to be confused about this program:
By Shaun Waterman - The Washington Times - Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The U.S. Central Command is stepping up psychological warfare operations using software that allows it to target social media websites used by terrorists.
The Tampa, Fla.-based military command that runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan recently bought a special computer program that troops use to create multiple fake identities on the Internet. The military uses the fictitious identities to infiltrate groups and in some cases spread disinformation among extremist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Taliban with the goal of disrupting their operations, according to documents and U.S. officials.
Sorry Chas, but posting from a Republican / conservative / center-center right / "classic liberal" viewpoint (as recognized in the US, and not so much in Europe/CA/AU/NZ) will often get you modded down on Slashdot, and even mod bombed over the years. It doesn't take "whack-job" posts either. All you need to do is post a dissenting viewpoint. It happens to me frequently. I can';t tell you how many times my posts have been picked out of a thread and marked "off-topic", "troll", or "flamebait" when I'm writing about the same subject as everyone else, but I have a different perspective. Citing major media, government or academic sources in support of a post is another good way to get marked "troll" too. I've seen other people repeatedly down modded until they had little karma and stopped coming back to Slashdot.
You apparently think that only "whack-job" posts cause enmity, but you seem to overlook the possibility that other people here can be whack-jobs, or otherwise have bad values, act in a thoughtless or ill-considered manner, or even suffer from some sort of mental or emotional disorder, including various obsessions and inability to tolerate contrary views.
Over at Soylentnews someone registered my username so it wouldn't be available. (I have a nice alternative picked out in case I ever want to go there.) In more than one discussion there was a comment along the lines of, "I'm glad we don't have that guy here!" Of course someone else answered that maybe that wasn't such a good thing since even though the poster seldom agreed with me, my views provided plenty of food for thought.
Do you remember "coid fjord"? C-O-I-D, not C-O-L-D. Because of the fonts used on Slashdot it is very difficult to tell the difference, especially since the L in my account becomes a capital i. That is one of two or three accounts created to harass me and troll other people by making misleading or harassing comments in threads. Another person so upset by my views that he became unhinged.
There are at least one or two threads (maybe more) in some stories within the last few years that have death wishes directed at me modded +5. In at least one of those threads I posted a comment pointing out the questionable nature of such a post and my post was modded -1 as I recall. I wouldn't even even bother trying to count the many other "die in a fire" and various other death wishes directed at me that didn't get modded up.
You might suspect that this has affected my karma, and it has. I've been repeatedly modbombed over the years, and there are apparently a few people that are still up to it when they can.
William F. Buckley once said,"I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." Participation on Slashdot can help one appreciate the wisdom of that statement.
So Chas, if you haven't experienced negative affects due to posting from a Republican viewpoint I would say you should rejoice for that, but I don't think your experience is necessarily reflective of the typical experience of Republicans or conservatives. Your call of "bullshit" isn't adequately justified.
But the second amendment can be restricted. For a start it is an amendment to the original document. There is nothing constitutionally stopping the government from removing that amendment, there is however no political will or capacity to. These are not the same thing.
Actually yes, there is something Constitutional that stops the government from removing the amendment - the process. It isn't just the call of the Federal government, the states have to ratify the change. That isn't very likely.
Your used the wrong punctuation. You should have used a colon (as shown above) instead of a period. With that change your statement is more or less correct.
Actually it is the Republicans that is keeping things from being worse under Obama. Obama and the Democrats agreed to a deal on spending called sequestration thinking they could use it to screw the Republicans, but they have been hoisted on their own petard. The Democrats want to greatly expand spending, but can't force the Republicans to do it.
Once you start incorporating Congress into the story your fairy tale falls apart. The best parts of Clinton's governance was the Republican congress that controlled spending and the growth of government. You can thank the Clinton administration for Enron, and the internet bubble. On the other had Democrats in Congress blocked reform of the mortgage industry that the Bush administration tried to pass to head off the meltdown that occurred and badly damaged the economy. The Democrats even cheered during a State of the Union address over their blocking the reform! And working two jobs? Thank Obamacare. Before Obamacare it was becoming common for even fast food jobs to offer healthcare benefit. After Obamacare that pretty much stopped and lots of full time jobs in the economy turned into part time jobs to get around Obamacare's taxes, penalties, and regulations. Companies shut down expansion plans to stay under the limits. And who brought Obamacare? 100% Democrat created and passed.
Your description of events in the 1960s is more than a little confused as well.
Americans don't care what their politicians do, only what they say. Reagan talked like a conservative, but governed like a liberal, running big deficits, negotiating with Gorbachev, continuing and expanding most social spending, etc. So conservatives loved him and liberals hated him. Bill Clinton did the opposite: he talked like a liberal, but governed as a conservative. He cut welfare, balanced the budget, pushed through free market reforms and free trade agreements, and sent bombers into the Balkans. So liberals loved him, and conservatives hated him.
Reagan's administration suffered because it had a Democratic congress. Clinton's administration benefited because he had a Republican congress.
You can thank the Republican congress for much of what people credit Clinton for, especially fiscal restraint and welfare reform.
I'm pretty sure that Left-leaning, socialist, even Communist nations have gone to war with the approval of their media. What do you think you're trying to prove? That Liberal papers can support military action too? I'm pretty sure there isn't any real doubt about that.
Here is a news flash for you: The New York Times is not located in Brisbane, Donald Trump is not standing for office in Queensland, and the context of the discussion is not Australian.
Apparently you don't understand how those terms are applied in an American context. Does that mean that you too are illiterate?
Slashdot Mirror
What happens, do you suppose, when the first North Carolina transgender teenager has the s--t beaten out of them by the sons of the neanderthals this law is meant to court? I'll tell you what happens.
No, I'll tell you what happens. Assuming they can be identified they'll be arrested and prosecuted for assault just like anyone else. Why would you think anything else would happen? A little anti-American/anti-religious prejudice?
A Federal civil rights challenge that will see NC taxpayers pay out huge amounts of money.
On what basis? There doesn't seem to be one although some Federal judges do have very deep hats to pull things out of, let along a large supply of cloth waiting to be used in a decision.
...but forcing those people to use the men's washroom very likely will end up compromising those individual's civil liberties.
Probably not in the US, not yet. But that isn't a problem in North Carolina since people there that "transition" can have their birth certificates amended and the law is based on what is on the birth certificate.
But that's okay, because your prejudices reign a little longer, until the courts force the whole thing in your face.
Wouldn't it be odd if it turned out the other way and your prejudices were confronted?
And then, as a final sign of your ultimate impotence, you can complain about them thar darned right wing judges and their interfering ways!
FTFY
Having a person who is transitioning from male to female, or someone who has in fact completely transitioned,
You should look into what an early pioneer in that, John's Hopkins, does now: they don't. You might want to look into it and why.
Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution
- A drastic physical change doesn't address underlying psycho-social troubles - Paul McHugh - June 12, 2014 7:19 p.m. ET
We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.
It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.
There are subgroups of the transgendered, and for none does "reassignment" seem apt.
If I had to hazard a guess I would suspect there are a variety of problems you are both unacquainted with and disinterested in. I haven't noticed a lack of bigots of many flavors on Slashdot and the Left coast.
This law removes the right of all citizens to access state courts to sue for employment or housing discrimination based on age, race, national origin, or sex. The Republicans are using the bathroom stuff as cover because they think a majority of voters don't identify with transgender people. But the real impact is to legalize all forms of discrimination in North Carolina.
That appears to be a blatant lie. Here is the law, and a key section below:
PART III. PROTECTION OF RIGHTS IN EMPLOYMENT AND PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
SECTION 3.1. G.S. 143-422.2 reads as rewritten:
" 143-422.2. Legislative declaration.
(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.
(b) It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the State of the fullest utilization of its capacities for advancement and development, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.
(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."
That seems to directly contradict your claims.
for those who think this isnt an egregious concern for the state of North Carolina, they very much do have a lot to lose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Research Triangle Park (RTP) is one of the largest research parks in the world, but its been largely a pearl in an otherwise very salty oyster. Its home to Cisco, Redhat, Microsoft, and NetApp among others. Governors and statesmen are wrecklessly gambling with this research park in the hopes that pandering to ten million North Carolinians with rhetoric from the culture war is a sustainable or responsible approach to governing their state.
It probably won't amount to much despite your hopes.
North Carolina transgender law: Is it discriminatory?
Stam: "When we passed our marriage amendment four and a half years ago, we had the same attention. (People said) businesses would flee, people wouldn't live here. Since then, we've gone from the back of the pack in the nation, now we're the second fastest economy in job growth. We're ranked right at the top in site selection, so it will have about as much effect as it did four and a half years ago. I feel somewhat sorry for these big company CEOs, because they get bullied by people, maybe in New York, who come to their stockholder meetings. But it has nothing to do with what happens on the ground in North Carolina."
You left out the role of anti-religious bigots and activists spinning, secular splaining about jebus, and misrepresenting the separation of church and state as they both fund and fight to impose their proper politically correct "enlightened" views on the ordinary citizens of the state, while also donating money to the proper "progressive" politicians, judges either on the take or running for office, and uncivil rights organizations. (If it wasn't for the activists how would we know that 90% of everybody in history is homosexual or gender flexible / questioning? Trust our own eyes? )
Your description isn't quite correct. What the law does is state the basis for protections of rights in employment and accommodations and make the law consistent across the state.
PART III. PROTECTION OF RIGHTS IN EMPLOYMENT AND PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS
SECTION 3.1. G.S. 143-422.2 reads as rewritten:
" 143-422.2. Legislative declaration.
(a) It is the public policy of this State to protect and safeguard the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain and hold employment without discrimination or abridgement on account of race, religion, color, national origin, age, biological sex or handicap by employers which regularly employ 15 or more employees.
(b) It is recognized that the practice of denying employment opportunity and discriminating in the terms of employment foments domestic strife and unrest, deprives the State of the fullest utilization of its capacities for advancement and development, and substantially and adversely affects the interests of employees, employers, and the public in general.
(c) The General Assembly declares that the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment is properly an issue of general, statewide concern, such that this Article and other applicable provisions of the General Statutes supersede and preempt any ordinance, regulation, resolution, or policy adopted or imposed by a unit of local government or other political subdivision of the State that regulates or imposes any requirement upon an employer pertaining to the regulation of discriminatory practices in employment, except such regulations applicable to personnel employed by that body that are not otherwise in conflict with State law."
There is one other effect. Remember a week or two ago on Slashdot when the hot discussion was the FBI and Apple? The widely endorsed view was that the FBI and the court involved couldn't force Apple to modify its code to bypass the boobytrap it contained because of a Supreme Court precedent that said that code=speech and the general principle that government can't force people to engage in speech against their will. Most of the Slashdot audience was all about free speech then.
With this law it is unlikely that bakers in North Carolina will be forced to engage in speech and creative expression against their will as they have been in some other states by homosexual activists wielding local laws as a club with threats of high fines and other adverse consequences. The funny thing is I seem to recall that lots of people on Slashdot were against free speech in that case and were all in favor of using the law to bash people until they complied against their will in preparing creative materials and speech for use in gay weddings.
I guess freedom depends on how close you are to the 1%. Software engineers among the top 5-3% in income get free speech in the thinking of the Slashdot audience, but blue collar bakers don't. Free speech for me, but not for thee? I don't think that works out well in the long run.
The people are "technically" the FBI's "boss" in the same way that you are "technically" the "boss" of your local civil servants. To have a better understanding of the implications of that I suggest you go down to your local Department of Motor Vehicles office, fire station, or police station, and start ordering the employees around using your authority as their "boss". Try rearranging their work, make them pick up the place, maybe clean the windows. (If they don't obey, you might want to consider raising your voice, and maybe threatening their jobs.) Let us know how that works our for you.
You may have a say in selecting their actual boss, the executive (president, governor, mayor, ...), but that authority doesn't pass through the executive to empower you to boss them around.
It cannot have been very difficult, it was far too fast for that.
You don't suppose that company had already developed the methodology and technology to do it, do you? Butchers generally make sausage faster than florists.
Having seen the pathetic lies and conduct of multiple levels of German government and law enforcement over the mass sexual assaults of the last few months I can understand how you might suspect the default behavior is to lie. You can't count on that though.
I read one of his books, and a biography about him. A very interesting, insightful, and influential fellow.
I wonder how much of a hand he had in shaping Intel's unique culture? I've had the opportunity to work with a number of people coming out of Intel and they have been some of the most focused and driven people I've ever worked with.
The last president to be impeached was Clinton, a Democrat. There were Democrats circulating articles of impeachment against President G.W. Bush.
It looks to me like "Type44Q" is confused about this program that has been previously discussed on Slashdot IIRC:
U.S. Central Command 'friending' the enemy in psychological war
Not really what is implied by him.
There's a disinfo unit out of Fort Meade that uses low-grade nerds in uniform to overwhelm people in chatrooms when certain subjects come up; the government has openly solicited bids for software to allow these clowns to "handle multiple simultaneous chatbots and user accounts."
"Clowns," huh? Unless you have some other info you seem to be confused about this program:
U.S. Central Command 'friending' the enemy in psychological war
By Shaun Waterman - The Washington Times - Tuesday, March 1, 2011
The U.S. Central Command is stepping up psychological warfare operations using software that allows it to target social media websites used by terrorists.
The Tampa, Fla.-based military command that runs the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan recently bought a special computer program that troops use to create multiple fake identities on the Internet. The military uses the fictitious identities to infiltrate groups and in some cases spread disinformation among extremist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Taliban with the goal of disrupting their operations, according to documents and U.S. officials.
Sorry Chas, but posting from a Republican / conservative / center-center right / "classic liberal" viewpoint (as recognized in the US, and not so much in Europe/CA/AU/NZ) will often get you modded down on Slashdot, and even mod bombed over the years. It doesn't take "whack-job" posts either. All you need to do is post a dissenting viewpoint. It happens to me frequently. I can';t tell you how many times my posts have been picked out of a thread and marked "off-topic", "troll", or "flamebait" when I'm writing about the same subject as everyone else, but I have a different perspective. Citing major media, government or academic sources in support of a post is another good way to get marked "troll" too. I've seen other people repeatedly down modded until they had little karma and stopped coming back to Slashdot.
You apparently think that only "whack-job" posts cause enmity, but you seem to overlook the possibility that other people here can be whack-jobs, or otherwise have bad values, act in a thoughtless or ill-considered manner, or even suffer from some sort of mental or emotional disorder, including various obsessions and inability to tolerate contrary views.
Remember this recent story I submitted? Stephen Hawking and 150 Royal Society Scientists: Brexit Disaster For UK
There are people whining about my views on the completely unrelated topic of Snowden & the NSA. One of them keeps posting the same nonsense in multiple stories, and not so different from people that believe that soap operas are real seems to think that I agree with everything going on in the stories I submit. Just sad. This is hardly the only time this has happened.
Over at Soylentnews someone registered my username so it wouldn't be available. (I have a nice alternative picked out in case I ever want to go there.) In more than one discussion there was a comment along the lines of, "I'm glad we don't have that guy here!" Of course someone else answered that maybe that wasn't such a good thing since even though the poster seldom agreed with me, my views provided plenty of food for thought.
Do you remember "coid fjord"? C-O-I-D, not C-O-L-D. Because of the fonts used on Slashdot it is very difficult to tell the difference, especially since the L in my account becomes a capital i. That is one of two or three accounts created to harass me and troll other people by making misleading or harassing comments in threads. Another person so upset by my views that he became unhinged.
There are at least one or two threads (maybe more) in some stories within the last few years that have death wishes directed at me modded +5. In at least one of those threads I posted a comment pointing out the questionable nature of such a post and my post was modded -1 as I recall. I wouldn't even even bother trying to count the many other "die in a fire" and various other death wishes directed at me that didn't get modded up.
You might suspect that this has affected my karma, and it has. I've been repeatedly modbombed over the years, and there are apparently a few people that are still up to it when they can.
William F. Buckley once said,"I'd rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University." Participation on Slashdot can help one appreciate the wisdom of that statement.
So Chas, if you haven't experienced negative affects due to posting from a Republican viewpoint I would say you should rejoice for that, but I don't think your experience is necessarily reflective of the typical experience of Republicans or conservatives. Your call of "bullshit" isn't adequately justified.
Here is some help with that:
Why Congress Cut The CDC’s Gun Research Budget
In another discussion I provided the link below. Have you read it yet?:
Democrats Were Wrong on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - The White House called for tighter regulation 17 times
But the second amendment can be restricted. For a start it is an amendment to the original document. There is nothing constitutionally stopping the government from removing that amendment, there is however no political will or capacity to. These are not the same thing.
Actually yes, there is something Constitutional that stops the government from removing the amendment - the process. It isn't just the call of the Federal government, the states have to ratify the change. That isn't very likely.
You seem to have skipped over the error correction part.
Why don't you work your way through this short piece .... for starters.
Democrats Were Wrong on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - The White House called for tighter regulation 17 times
Pure fantasy land: Under Obamacare . . .
Your used the wrong punctuation. You should have used a colon (as shown above) instead of a period. With that change your statement is more or less correct.
Actually it is the Republicans that is keeping things from being worse under Obama. Obama and the Democrats agreed to a deal on spending called sequestration thinking they could use it to screw the Republicans, but they have been hoisted on their own petard. The Democrats want to greatly expand spending, but can't force the Republicans to do it.
What you wrote was intended to be funny? My condolences.
Once you start incorporating Congress into the story your fairy tale falls apart. The best parts of Clinton's governance was the Republican congress that controlled spending and the growth of government. You can thank the Clinton administration for Enron, and the internet bubble. On the other had Democrats in Congress blocked reform of the mortgage industry that the Bush administration tried to pass to head off the meltdown that occurred and badly damaged the economy. The Democrats even cheered during a State of the Union address over their blocking the reform! And working two jobs? Thank Obamacare. Before Obamacare it was becoming common for even fast food jobs to offer healthcare benefit. After Obamacare that pretty much stopped and lots of full time jobs in the economy turned into part time jobs to get around Obamacare's taxes, penalties, and regulations. Companies shut down expansion plans to stay under the limits. And who brought Obamacare? 100% Democrat created and passed.
Your description of events in the 1960s is more than a little confused as well.
Americans don't care what their politicians do, only what they say. Reagan talked like a conservative, but governed like a liberal, running big deficits, negotiating with Gorbachev, continuing and expanding most social spending, etc. So conservatives loved him and liberals hated him. Bill Clinton did the opposite: he talked like a liberal, but governed as a conservative. He cut welfare, balanced the budget, pushed through free market reforms and free trade agreements, and sent bombers into the Balkans. So liberals loved him, and conservatives hated him.
Reagan's administration suffered because it had a Democratic congress. Clinton's administration benefited because he had a Republican congress.
You can thank the Republican congress for much of what people credit Clinton for, especially fiscal restraint and welfare reform.
I'm pretty sure that Left-leaning, socialist, even Communist nations have gone to war with the approval of their media. What do you think you're trying to prove? That Liberal papers can support military action too? I'm pretty sure there isn't any real doubt about that.
Here is a news flash for you: The New York Times is not located in Brisbane, Donald Trump is not standing for office in Queensland, and the context of the discussion is not Australian.
Apparently you don't understand how those terms are applied in an American context. Does that mean that you too are illiterate?
If code is speech then it is probably commercial speech which has generally had less protection.