Uh, because different states sometimes have more or less strict laws... this is a case of state Y making sure that if a sexual predator is tried in state X for molesting a kid in state Y, and the penalty for soliciting is 'light slap on the wrist and a pat on the head' in X, the criminal can still be pursued by state Y without violating the whole "not tried twice for the same crime" thing.
From the perspective of inter-state cooperation it's a bit dodgy, I agree, but from the perspective of state Y, they've decided a minimum punishment for certain offenses and it's their moral duty to see that criminals pay at least that when one of their citizens is wronged.
The case is somewhat different when an additional penalty is tacked onto a federal offense. Then the state governments are just being assholes.
Though I have issues with how sexual offenses are enforced in general in the US (Jessica's Law and its unconstitutionality being a prime example), I don't think that states making sure criminals can't dodge the law by crossing a border is entirely unreasonable.
Just poking my head in to point out that the only difference between the two is that one has your approval. Even doctrines based on empiricism (most popular one being science) are only as sound as their base assumptions (in the case of empricism, that would be the assumption of repeatability).
Not that I doubt the value of education, I quite like my own, but to fool oneself that it's somehow not a process by which other minds are forcefully shaped to be like your own is to be rather excessively blind to reality for my educated tastes. Insert emoticon of your choice here.
Yeah, but while the clout of random voting increases with the square of population, the clout of carefully considered voting (assuming it's a given portion of the population and divides them at a given ratio) scales linearly: x% vote with research and this results in y% of them voting for a and z% voting for b, you have n*.01x*.01(y-z) portion in favor of a. So the total vote comes out to
Note that for a huge n like what you deal with in elections, the portion of the population that considers carefully has to be either really, really tiny or really, really evenly divided (y = z) for the deviation term to not disappear entirely. So, in other words, the only two situations in which deviance is mathematically significant are when the population that votes carefully is small (i.e. the election was left up to chance to begin with), or the caring electors were evenly divided (i.e. neither option is obviously inferior, and the election might as well be left to chance). In conclusion, you're imagining a problem where there isn't one.
P.S. Yes, I know that elections have been this close before. Note my remark about 'neither option is obviously inferior'... if you can't assume that the reasonable electors have some valid system of evaluation, then the whole system should die anyway.
p.p.s. I expect some damn 'insightful' points for this, kids. Normally i get paid 18$/hour to explain basic math to people.
Lincoln ran a fairly similar path to Bush, you know, except he was a bit more blantant about it. The whole "Burning down the offices of newspapers that object to my policy" bit was not exactly subtle. And by the very act of taking the presidency, he actively caused a war which he knew he could have prevented by stepping aside. And he ruined the hell out of his enemy's infrastructure and left the country with the bill. After making a relatively unprovoked assault against a sovereign nation he'd spent some time villifying, too!
So yeah, accepting your 'greatest war presidents' assertion puts even Bush's arguable worst errors in a new light. I was going to make a snarky comment here, but I just realized that this analogy gives me great hope for the whole Iraq thing being worth it in the end... bummer that it's going to take a bit over a century for beneficial policies of reform to finally catch on there, though. Thanks.
(P.S. As far as FDR... yeah, i got nothing, except maybe Japanese internment being a historical predecessor of guantanamo.)
Wrong about his stated positions at the time, or wrong about the positions demonstrated by his activities during his time in office? To put it bluntly, Kerry never held executive post and thus never got the chance to change his positions in the face of changing conditions, increasing informedness, and sheer cussedness, as most presidents eventually do. Plus, his platform only had one coherent point, and "I'm not Bush, you know" is not something that even a Democrat's memory can easily distort beyond recognition.
In summary, I'm secure enough in my skepticism of your claim to tell you with much confidence that you're delusional. The poll data probably indicates that you're not alone in your delusion, but I would assert that that's really not an excuse.
Elections on Saturday... I could go for that. Compulsory voting, too.
Then, I'm also a supporter of manditory military service as a prerequisite for having the right to vote, so I suppose I'm one of the crazier ones-- there's probably some logic to Tuesdays and optional voting that I'm just missing.
The major tested alternative to the plurality system is the proportional representation system, which, let's face it, involves handing direct control of your government to unelected external parties. While it's certainly better at keeping your sheep smug and placid, you haven't actually significantly reduced the threat of oligarchy, you've actually increased it. Give me a less effective system over a more effective one that hands the lawmaking process to a cigar-smoking suit in a dark room any day.
Seriously, heads of political parties already have too much power unfettered by the system of checks and balances... do you really want them to have more?
It is the duty of every citizen to inform himself of the workings of the political process and exert the full possible extent of his nonviolent influence to see that his society runs well. Occassionally, the situation merits violent influence as well... fortunately this is fairly rare in the modern republics.
So, yes, you have a duty as a citizen to not only make a vote, but an informed vote to the extent of your ability. Flipping a coin is not an issue, as it's not a seperable duty.
Unfortunately, in the Republican/Democrat case, the "steel vs metal bat" is a more accurate decription of the situation than the "slap vs. bat" one you describe, given the appreciable difference in the scale of damage done by slaves to either party.
Seriously, you seem to be implying that the "steel" and "metal" were some sort of mistake on the GP's part. I'm pretty sure the only person missing the implication of that analogy was you.
The problem with your initial argument is that the demands of historical precedent are satisfied by turning in a blank ballot, thus exercising your right, without actually voting.
As for your second argument, I'm just going to say that someone a lot more authoritative on the issue than yourself grants unconditional right to complain about any political desire you wish, regardless of wether or not you vote. It's generally referred to as the first amendment to the US Constitution, and technically it isn't even limited to people who can vote.
Regarding your third point, we're not a democracy, we're a republic: it's not a system to bring the will of the majority on every issue, it's a system to place the correct people in power to make the correct judgements while preventing abuse of governmental power. Frankly, I'm rather glad of this, given my experience with the political ignorance of the average citizen. (Preceding assumes that you're in the USA, which seems reasonable given that you refer to 'congress' and not, say, 'parliament', use american syntax, and are on a/. politics thread.)
Regarding your advice on selecting a party to vote for, I provide the simple counterexample of switching from, say, republican to democrat: your strategy just failed, because you voted for a clone of the party already in power. You have to be reasonably informed to even select a party that would cause some sort of policy change.
And, finally, no, voting does nothing to improve voter informedness of itself. In fact, simple proportioning tells us that the more issues you cast a vote on, the less time you will spend on average considering each issue, since there is a finite span of time for each election and assumably you spend what you can spare in either case.
Rebuttal complete. Do I get a cookie or something? 'cause I'm starving over here.
My impression was that the Democrats pioneered most of the nasty propaganda tactics, and the Republicans finally caught up and overdid it (just as the Democrats did before them, that kind of nasty nonsense was a part of why they lost power to the Repubs in the first place). The developmental cycles of the two parties are just a bit out of sych these days. That, and the republicans briefly have more money with which to be corrupt: I'm hoping the backlash guts the funding for both parties, honestly, because that's the only way to keep the Democratic machine from humming up to full speed again while everyone watches their opponents.
This is more a general impression from the history of the american political cycle than anything else, so if you want hard evidence, I'm not your guy (I only have precedent). That said, figured I'd input my two cents in case it sparked off an idea for anybody else.
(Just using recent history to avoid the confusion of changes in party names: Populists use advances in rhetoric to bring their godfather party, the democrats, to power early in the century. In the early 80s, Repubs reagain some power by calling them on their bullshit, itself an apparrently useful rhetorical technique. Repubs follow up by gaining power through the use of advances in rhetoric (as opposed to, say, advances in policy), and Democrats are now attempting to regain some power by calling repubs on their bullshit. Full circle. The conclusion: Political sleaziness is just the sin wave to political self-righteousness's cos wave. Secondary conclusion: I'd like to buy some politicians that will get over themselves and do their damned jobs... oh, wait, the very philosophical foundation of the party system prevents that. Ah, well...)
Parties should not be a part of American politics at all. Individuals should be elected based on their ability to do the job assigned and the earned respect and trust of their fellow citizens: essentially, a man with a party badge is an extension of another man's will and therefore unfit to govern.
I realize that factioning is the inevitable result of the scale-up of a Republic as population increases and being truly known by one's constituency becomes difficult, and I further realize that the kind of ethical, hard-working types we would actually want running the country are usually too busy running successful businesses (*cough* at republicans) and not sitting around on their inherited fortunes occassionally throwing money at the occasional charity to assuage their guilt at not earning their own bread (*cough* at democrats). In this context, I'll accept the existence of the parties as an unfortunate necessity. However, giving official recognition to special-interest groups as our acknowledged masters is still an over-my-dead-body type of thing.
I'm quite serious here. If we actually make it part of the country's basic charter to recognize the authority of external, unelected groups to appoint their own representatives with a general public nod, the time for voting the bums out has passed: it will be time to break out the ammo boxes.
By this I mean no offense to all of you in proportional representation democracies out there: I know your history is different from the US's, and calls for different measures. In the case of the US, though, we rejected the direct tyrrany of the old religions over government long ago, and I have faith that we'll reject the new ones, too, in time. (In both cases, not as thoroughly as I'd like, but the thought was and will be there.)
I really, really hope that you have some idea of exactly how hilarious that statement is. Because if you don't, I fear for the state of the American educational system: funny as those ignorant of historical context being doomed to repeat old mistakes, it's getting a bit old.
(Translation for the dim: seriously, the phrase 'party of extreme hypocrisy' is horribly redundant in the context of the history of American politics. Naivette ftmfl)
If you ever work on costing for a business, rule #2 is 'a dollar gained now is worth more than a dollar gained next year'. At the minimum, you contrast present value to an inflation rate; in general you contrast it using a reasonable return on an assured investment. In this context the value of money is considered to drop on the order of 9% per year from an investor or business standpoint. So while I agree that numerically you are correct, the dollar cost of such loans and the corresponding taxes required to keep them will increase and need to be paid (which is not great for your federal government there), on an individual level the grandparent just trounced you soundly at knowledge-of-economics-101. This principle, by the way, is what allows the reserve to set a discount rate in the first place (their concern, though, is not with financial success, but with the regulation of inflation)
(Come, on, guys; I know most of you are engineers, not economists, but I am too! Broaden your field a little.)
I'm actually a bit comforted that at least it's foreign factions killing us nowadays. Or at least it bothers me slightly less than the domestic terrorists we used to have so many more of. Though there's been a rise in anti-muslim violence nonsense that destroys the bit of faith in human nature I had initially gained from this.
"Most voters I talked to said they wouldn't vote for Kery[sic] because they had no idea what he really stood for. He campaigns against his opponents rather than for himself; recent events support that."
Yeah, I was amazed that the Dems managed to dig up someone worse than the incumbent: I mean, Bush had been purposefully marketing himself as practically illiterate, and made no real effort to conceal the fact that he was far right of the average american on social issues and rather uncomfortably left of him on issues of government control. And yet he came out ahead in half the debates anyway by virtue of being the only one to actually say anything...
On a side note, wherever you live, I'm moving there. Your neighbors seem about a billion times more detached and sensible regarding politics than my own (Why, oh, why did I move to the Bay Area? I swear I can't remember any more.) Though the fact that you still have not dodged the annoying DCCC negative campaign e-mail nonsense kills some of the joy of my existence... I was kinda hoping that was a local thing.
The difference between a human and an animal is, in allegory, that any animal can play warcraft (assume an ideal case for the sake of argument: (1) interface limitations can be compensated for using technology, (2) the animal in question finds the 'playing warcraft' activity enjoyable). Your basic animal continues playing warcraft until another immediate need like food or sex comes along to override it. The human, on the other hand, may find themself subject to desire for food an water and reject them in favor of warcraft, or it may stop playing for reasons related to an overall evaluation of the worthiness of the activity rather than a superceding desire.
Of course, it's not really an 'on the other hand' matter: humans are animals most of the time. However, if they are truly incapable of behaving as a human and this can be established to be hereditary, then yes, a sweeping eugenics movement is called for, because it would be more efficient and useful to society for such individuals to be replaced by chimpanzees (who are, frankly, better at being animals than we are).
I have had my own issues with gaming and, earlier, heavy drinking, and am aware that breaking one's addictions can be difficult. However, difficult is not impossible: the reason there isn't currently a formal eugenics program going on today is that today's science has concluded that genetics don't control our behavior (though they can suggest it). In this context, I refuse to accept that people are "unable" to resist habit-forming things for the same reason I reject the old racist rhetoric of my country or the new 'born gay' 'born alcoholic' 'born disadvantaged' responsibility slides.
Overreaction to your overall post? Probably. But I felt a need to say it.
Do you seriously beleive he didn't consult his staff?
This is kind of the defining flaw of the Bush Jr terms for me... the executive branch can't seem to select competent advisors. He managed to chase fricking Colin Powell off the cabinet, for Christ's sake.
In the interest of full disclosure, my listed defining flaw of the clinton administration was an attempt to deal with escalating centralized international terrorism by ignoring it, and Bush Sr. was too mediocre to really have perceptible flaws or merits, except perhaps for 'read my lips, no new taxes' (/snicker). Much farther back, and I really didn't have opinions on politics.
Yeah, because all up to date textbooks on astronomy and orbital mechanics use a simple 9-planets model of the solar system and don't already account for relative masses of various objects or anything.
alternately, if you're talking about primary school texts, have you noticed how your kids' geography textbooks mark half of the eurasian mass as being part of the "union of soviet Socialist republics"? Yeah.
So, since both parties are pushing existent/mostly dominant agendas, and are therefore both conservative... the example loses all relevance? Also, while the republican party was certainly liberal at their founding (as all new parties necessarily are), they were not leftist (no agenda of forced redistribution, etc).
Hey, I was just pointing out the statistics of the situation and adding my own experience.
If the robot thing happens, though, let me be the first to note that that would be fucking awesome, and if anyone wants help working on that, I'm soo in.
Well... I have yet to see real evidence of an actual common Human Experience(tm). While we share certain threads with large portions of the population in our region and economic zone, increasing experience tends on the whole to make us more distinct rather than more alike. Our current set of experiences as city-dwellers in the Americas at the end of the 20th centruy would be completely alien to the agrarian societies in Egypt four or five thousand years back, but I'd still call them human, despite the fact that we have more social similarities to a set of warring ant colonies than to the old architects. Nor would I call ants human.
Basically, yes, I use 'human' primarily as a taxonomic label. Your way might be better, but as you haven't actually presented your alternative yet, I'm going to reserve judgement.
With togue in cheek, I part with the observation that our experiences are in fact comparable to those of any rodent you wish to name. Wether, after being compared, they can be called similar is a judgement call I leave to others.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh, because different states sometimes have more or less strict laws... this is a case of state Y making sure that if a sexual predator is tried in state X for molesting a kid in state Y, and the penalty for soliciting is 'light slap on the wrist and a pat on the head' in X, the criminal can still be pursued by state Y without violating the whole "not tried twice for the same crime" thing.
From the perspective of inter-state cooperation it's a bit dodgy, I agree, but from the perspective of state Y, they've decided a minimum punishment for certain offenses and it's their moral duty to see that criminals pay at least that when one of their citizens is wronged.
The case is somewhat different when an additional penalty is tacked onto a federal offense. Then the state governments are just being assholes.
Though I have issues with how sexual offenses are enforced in general in the US (Jessica's Law and its unconstitutionality being a prime example), I don't think that states making sure criminals can't dodge the law by crossing a border is entirely unreasonable.
Just poking my head in to point out that the only difference between the two is that one has your approval. Even doctrines based on empiricism (most popular one being science) are only as sound as their base assumptions (in the case of empricism, that would be the assumption of repeatability).
Not that I doubt the value of education, I quite like my own, but to fool oneself that it's somehow not a process by which other minds are forcefully shaped to be like your own is to be rather excessively blind to reality for my educated tastes. Insert emoticon of your choice here.
Yeah, but while the clout of random voting increases with the square of population, the clout of carefully considered voting (assuming it's a given portion of the population and divides them at a given ratio) scales linearly: x% vote with research and this results in y% of them voting for a and z% voting for b, you have n*.01x*.01(y-z) portion in favor of a. So the total vote comes out to
n*(considered constant) - sqrt(n)*(random deviation constant)
Note that for a huge n like what you deal with in elections, the portion of the population that considers carefully has to be either really, really tiny or really, really evenly divided (y = z) for the deviation term to not disappear entirely. So, in other words, the only two situations in which deviance is mathematically significant are when the population that votes carefully is small (i.e. the election was left up to chance to begin with), or the caring electors were evenly divided (i.e. neither option is obviously inferior, and the election might as well be left to chance). In conclusion, you're imagining a problem where there isn't one.
P.S. Yes, I know that elections have been this close before. Note my remark about 'neither option is obviously inferior'... if you can't assume that the reasonable electors have some valid system of evaluation, then the whole system should die anyway.
p.p.s. I expect some damn 'insightful' points for this, kids. Normally i get paid 18$/hour to explain basic math to people.
Lincoln ran a fairly similar path to Bush, you know, except he was a bit more blantant about it. The whole "Burning down the offices of newspapers that object to my policy" bit was not exactly subtle. And by the very act of taking the presidency, he actively caused a war which he knew he could have prevented by stepping aside. And he ruined the hell out of his enemy's infrastructure and left the country with the bill. After making a relatively unprovoked assault against a sovereign nation he'd spent some time villifying, too!
So yeah, accepting your 'greatest war presidents' assertion puts even Bush's arguable worst errors in a new light. I was going to make a snarky comment here, but I just realized that this analogy gives me great hope for the whole Iraq thing being worth it in the end... bummer that it's going to take a bit over a century for beneficial policies of reform to finally catch on there, though. Thanks.
(P.S. As far as FDR... yeah, i got nothing, except maybe Japanese internment being a historical predecessor of guantanamo.)
Wrong about his stated positions at the time, or wrong about the positions demonstrated by his activities during his time in office? To put it bluntly, Kerry never held executive post and thus never got the chance to change his positions in the face of changing conditions, increasing informedness, and sheer cussedness, as most presidents eventually do. Plus, his platform only had one coherent point, and "I'm not Bush, you know" is not something that even a Democrat's memory can easily distort beyond recognition.
In summary, I'm secure enough in my skepticism of your claim to tell you with much confidence that you're delusional. The poll data probably indicates that you're not alone in your delusion, but I would assert that that's really not an excuse.
Elections on Saturday... I could go for that. Compulsory voting, too.
Then, I'm also a supporter of manditory military service as a prerequisite for having the right to vote, so I suppose I'm one of the crazier ones-- there's probably some logic to Tuesdays and optional voting that I'm just missing.
The major tested alternative to the plurality system is the proportional representation system, which, let's face it, involves handing direct control of your government to unelected external parties. While it's certainly better at keeping your sheep smug and placid, you haven't actually significantly reduced the threat of oligarchy, you've actually increased it. Give me a less effective system over a more effective one that hands the lawmaking process to a cigar-smoking suit in a dark room any day.
Seriously, heads of political parties already have too much power unfettered by the system of checks and balances... do you really want them to have more?
It is the duty of every citizen to inform himself of the workings of the political process and exert the full possible extent of his nonviolent influence to see that his society runs well. Occassionally, the situation merits violent influence as well... fortunately this is fairly rare in the modern republics.
So, yes, you have a duty as a citizen to not only make a vote, but an informed vote to the extent of your ability. Flipping a coin is not an issue, as it's not a seperable duty.
(/stoic-derived philosophy)
Unfortunately, in the Republican/Democrat case, the "steel vs metal bat" is a more accurate decription of the situation than the "slap vs. bat" one you describe, given the appreciable difference in the scale of damage done by slaves to either party.
Seriously, you seem to be implying that the "steel" and "metal" were some sort of mistake on the GP's part. I'm pretty sure the only person missing the implication of that analogy was you.
The problem with your initial argument is that the demands of historical precedent are satisfied by turning in a blank ballot, thus exercising your right, without actually voting.
/. politics thread.)
As for your second argument, I'm just going to say that someone a lot more authoritative on the issue than yourself grants unconditional right to complain about any political desire you wish, regardless of wether or not you vote. It's generally referred to as the first amendment to the US Constitution, and technically it isn't even limited to people who can vote.
Regarding your third point, we're not a democracy, we're a republic: it's not a system to bring the will of the majority on every issue, it's a system to place the correct people in power to make the correct judgements while preventing abuse of governmental power. Frankly, I'm rather glad of this, given my experience with the political ignorance of the average citizen. (Preceding assumes that you're in the USA, which seems reasonable given that you refer to 'congress' and not, say, 'parliament', use american syntax, and are on a
Regarding your advice on selecting a party to vote for, I provide the simple counterexample of switching from, say, republican to democrat: your strategy just failed, because you voted for a clone of the party already in power. You have to be reasonably informed to even select a party that would cause some sort of policy change.
And, finally, no, voting does nothing to improve voter informedness of itself. In fact, simple proportioning tells us that the more issues you cast a vote on, the less time you will spend on average considering each issue, since there is a finite span of time for each election and assumably you spend what you can spare in either case.
Rebuttal complete. Do I get a cookie or something? 'cause I'm starving over here.
My impression was that the Democrats pioneered most of the nasty propaganda tactics, and the Republicans finally caught up and overdid it (just as the Democrats did before them, that kind of nasty nonsense was a part of why they lost power to the Repubs in the first place). The developmental cycles of the two parties are just a bit out of sych these days. That, and the republicans briefly have more money with which to be corrupt: I'm hoping the backlash guts the funding for both parties, honestly, because that's the only way to keep the Democratic machine from humming up to full speed again while everyone watches their opponents.
This is more a general impression from the history of the american political cycle than anything else, so if you want hard evidence, I'm not your guy (I only have precedent). That said, figured I'd input my two cents in case it sparked off an idea for anybody else.
(Just using recent history to avoid the confusion of changes in party names: Populists use advances in rhetoric to bring their godfather party, the democrats, to power early in the century. In the early 80s, Repubs reagain some power by calling them on their bullshit, itself an apparrently useful rhetorical technique. Repubs follow up by gaining power through the use of advances in rhetoric (as opposed to, say, advances in policy), and Democrats are now attempting to regain some power by calling repubs on their bullshit. Full circle. The conclusion: Political sleaziness is just the sin wave to political self-righteousness's cos wave. Secondary conclusion: I'd like to buy some politicians that will get over themselves and do their damned jobs... oh, wait, the very philosophical foundation of the party system prevents that. Ah, well...)
Parties should not be a part of American politics at all. Individuals should be elected based on their ability to do the job assigned and the earned respect and trust of their fellow citizens: essentially, a man with a party badge is an extension of another man's will and therefore unfit to govern.
I realize that factioning is the inevitable result of the scale-up of a Republic as population increases and being truly known by one's constituency becomes difficult, and I further realize that the kind of ethical, hard-working types we would actually want running the country are usually too busy running successful businesses (*cough* at republicans) and not sitting around on their inherited fortunes occassionally throwing money at the occasional charity to assuage their guilt at not earning their own bread (*cough* at democrats). In this context, I'll accept the existence of the parties as an unfortunate necessity. However, giving official recognition to special-interest groups as our acknowledged masters is still an over-my-dead-body type of thing.
I'm quite serious here. If we actually make it part of the country's basic charter to recognize the authority of external, unelected groups to appoint their own representatives with a general public nod, the time for voting the bums out has passed: it will be time to break out the ammo boxes.
By this I mean no offense to all of you in proportional representation democracies out there: I know your history is different from the US's, and calls for different measures. In the case of the US, though, we rejected the direct tyrrany of the old religions over government long ago, and I have faith that we'll reject the new ones, too, in time. (In both cases, not as thoroughly as I'd like, but the thought was and will be there.)
"...the GOP is the party of extreme hypocrisy."
I really, really hope that you have some idea of exactly how hilarious that statement is. Because if you don't, I fear for the state of the American educational system: funny as those ignorant of historical context being doomed to repeat old mistakes, it's getting a bit old.
(Translation for the dim: seriously, the phrase 'party of extreme hypocrisy' is horribly redundant in the context of the history of American politics. Naivette ftmfl)
If you ever work on costing for a business, rule #2 is 'a dollar gained now is worth more than a dollar gained next year'. At the minimum, you contrast present value to an inflation rate; in general you contrast it using a reasonable return on an assured investment. In this context the value of money is considered to drop on the order of 9% per year from an investor or business standpoint. So while I agree that numerically you are correct, the dollar cost of such loans and the corresponding taxes required to keep them will increase and need to be paid (which is not great for your federal government there), on an individual level the grandparent just trounced you soundly at knowledge-of-economics-101. This principle, by the way, is what allows the reserve to set a discount rate in the first place (their concern, though, is not with financial success, but with the regulation of inflation)
(Come, on, guys; I know most of you are engineers, not economists, but I am too! Broaden your field a little.)
Vote democrat, give your local animal-control another 30 seconds of coffee break?
I'm actually a bit comforted that at least it's foreign factions killing us nowadays. Or at least it bothers me slightly less than the domestic terrorists we used to have so many more of. Though there's been a rise in anti-muslim violence nonsense that destroys the bit of faith in human nature I had initially gained from this.
"Most voters I talked to said they wouldn't vote for Kery[sic] because they had no idea what he really stood for. He campaigns against his opponents rather than for himself; recent events support that."
Yeah, I was amazed that the Dems managed to dig up someone worse than the incumbent: I mean, Bush had been purposefully marketing himself as practically illiterate, and made no real effort to conceal the fact that he was far right of the average american on social issues and rather uncomfortably left of him on issues of government control. And yet he came out ahead in half the debates anyway by virtue of being the only one to actually say anything...
On a side note, wherever you live, I'm moving there. Your neighbors seem about a billion times more detached and sensible regarding politics than my own (Why, oh, why did I move to the Bay Area? I swear I can't remember any more.) Though the fact that you still have not dodged the annoying DCCC negative campaign e-mail nonsense kills some of the joy of my existence... I was kinda hoping that was a local thing.
The difference between a human and an animal is, in allegory, that any animal can play warcraft (assume an ideal case for the sake of argument: (1) interface limitations can be compensated for using technology, (2) the animal in question finds the 'playing warcraft' activity enjoyable). Your basic animal continues playing warcraft until another immediate need like food or sex comes along to override it. The human, on the other hand, may find themself subject to desire for food an water and reject them in favor of warcraft, or it may stop playing for reasons related to an overall evaluation of the worthiness of the activity rather than a superceding desire.
Of course, it's not really an 'on the other hand' matter: humans are animals most of the time. However, if they are truly incapable of behaving as a human and this can be established to be hereditary, then yes, a sweeping eugenics movement is called for, because it would be more efficient and useful to society for such individuals to be replaced by chimpanzees (who are, frankly, better at being animals than we are).
I have had my own issues with gaming and, earlier, heavy drinking, and am aware that breaking one's addictions can be difficult. However, difficult is not impossible: the reason there isn't currently a formal eugenics program going on today is that today's science has concluded that genetics don't control our behavior (though they can suggest it). In this context, I refuse to accept that people are "unable" to resist habit-forming things for the same reason I reject the old racist rhetoric of my country or the new 'born gay' 'born alcoholic' 'born disadvantaged' responsibility slides.
Overreaction to your overall post? Probably. But I felt a need to say it.
Do you seriously beleive he didn't consult his staff?
This is kind of the defining flaw of the Bush Jr terms for me... the executive branch can't seem to select competent advisors. He managed to chase fricking Colin Powell off the cabinet, for Christ's sake.
In the interest of full disclosure, my listed defining flaw of the clinton administration was an attempt to deal with escalating centralized international terrorism by ignoring it, and Bush Sr. was too mediocre to really have perceptible flaws or merits, except perhaps for 'read my lips, no new taxes' (/snicker). Much farther back, and I really didn't have opinions on politics.
Yeah, because all up to date textbooks on astronomy and orbital mechanics use a simple 9-planets model of the solar system and don't already account for relative masses of various objects or anything.
alternately, if you're talking about primary school texts, have you noticed how your kids' geography textbooks mark half of the eurasian mass as being part of the "union of soviet Socialist republics"? Yeah.
Well, it only affects SP1, according to the summary, so fully updating your software fixes it. I would tend to call that a nonissue, but whatever.
So you're saying that your preferred product has better security as a result of its relative obscurity... don't we have a saying about that somewhere?
So, since both parties are pushing existent/mostly dominant agendas, and are therefore both conservative... the example loses all relevance? Also, while the republican party was certainly liberal at their founding (as all new parties necessarily are), they were not leftist (no agenda of forced redistribution, etc).
Hey, I was just pointing out the statistics of the situation and adding my own experience.
If the robot thing happens, though, let me be the first to note that that would be fucking awesome, and if anyone wants help working on that, I'm soo in.
Well... I have yet to see real evidence of an actual common Human Experience(tm). While we share certain threads with large portions of the population in our region and economic zone, increasing experience tends on the whole to make us more distinct rather than more alike. Our current set of experiences as city-dwellers in the Americas at the end of the 20th centruy would be completely alien to the agrarian societies in Egypt four or five thousand years back, but I'd still call them human, despite the fact that we have more social similarities to a set of warring ant colonies than to the old architects. Nor would I call ants human.
Basically, yes, I use 'human' primarily as a taxonomic label. Your way might be better, but as you haven't actually presented your alternative yet, I'm going to reserve judgement.
With togue in cheek, I part with the observation that our experiences are in fact comparable to those of any rodent you wish to name. Wether, after being compared, they can be called similar is a judgement call I leave to others.