Sex for money should not be illegal. It is an overreach of local government in my opinion. It is between two consenting adults.
That's a reasonable position to take, but should it be constitutionally protected?
From a historical perspective, "no sex for money" within the USA is really an expression of religious belief of certain mainstream religious traditions within the USA. The history channel had a series ("The History of Sex") that covered this in considerable detail (apparently, the FBI was initially created as the nation's sex police).
In brief, the Protestant religions disliked the openness of some earlier Christian leaders to this practice, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation changed Catholic views on the subject as well.
Asian and even Western "Pagan" religions have treated this subject (and the whole subject of human sexuality) very differently from the Christian world (as those who are familiar with religous and secular practices in the Greek and Roman world will be quite aware).
Therefore, there definitely is a Constitutional issue here. It's called separation of church and state,
Except that "separation of church and state" is a Supreme Court issue not a Constitutional issue. While the Court has mentioned "separation of church and state" many times, the Constitution mentions is zero times. What the the Constitution guarantees is that there won't be a government church, and that people are able to freely practice their religion. Now if you can show that we have some people for whom sex for money is a religious practice, then you can argue that their need to practice their religion makes it a Constitutional issue. That certainly could have been an issue 3000 years ago, but is it an issue today?
Don't forget that religion heavily influences how one views the world. It inspired Americans to seek the abolition of slavery. It inspired Americans to make their government stop the army's brutal treatment of Filipinos. It inspired Americans to end child labor and alcohol. It inspired Americans to oppose Japan's brutal war in China. It inspired Americans to end Jim Crow laws and pass the Civil Rights act. Absent the religious values of American citizens, the country won't be capable of handling democracy. To suggest that the First Amendment requires Americans to stop believing when they enter the voting booth is a dangerous misreading of the Bill of Rights.
To me there are two important distinctions you have missed (you already mentioned that some obscenities can be harder to ignore than others). The first is that for some forms of art, the act of creating the art is obscene. The second distinction is that words come at you more slowly. When they start to portray an obscene image you can simply stop reading or, if it is someone talking, you can leave. If you are trying to decide whether to read something that might be obscene, you read a bit, perhaps skim, and get a good idea of whether you want to read the details. For a picture or a movie, once the obscenity starts, whether it be violence or something else, you've already seen it. You can't go back and change your mind. You don't know it's coming.
I think they're focus was on words and not on things like artwork (which they knew could be obscene).
Are you implying that they didn't know that words can be just as "obscene" as artwork?
Also, people may speak exclusively in words, but a printing press can just as easily print graphics as words. You mentioned the possibility of woodcut illustrations yourself. Freedom of the press must naturally extend to printed images as well as printed words. Recorded audio had yet to be invented, of course, but lyrics and printed sheet music would have been covered, as would the scripts for plays. Sculptures were omitted, true, but that seems more like an oversight than deliberate intent.
Finally, it would not be sufficient to show only that the 1st Amendment only covers words; you would also need to point out where in the Constitution any branch of the U.S. government is granted the power to censor images, music, plays, sculptures, or the formal descriptions of algorithms colloquially known as software.
In terms of federalism I agree with you. If anyone is going to be censoring the software artwork it should be the states rather than the federal government.
As for recorded audio, sheet music and scripts for plays - I think the words are covered by the first amendment. So the lyrics and the script could not be censored. You can make a very good argument that the sheet music also should not be censored (they are instructions for playing the music, not the music itself). But in this interpretation of the first amendment the performance of music and plays would not be covered. Recordings of people reading the script or music would of course be covered. But the state would be able to restrict performance of certain tunes or certain musical instruments. And the state would be able to restrict doing certain actions as part of a play. But the restrictions couldn't be based on the words or lyrics.
Of course in practice very little would be prohibited because voters wouldn't put up with it.
And no, I don't believe words can be just as obscene as artwork.
I think they're focus was on words and not on things like artwork (which they knew could be obscene).
Are you implying that they didn't know that words can be just as "obscene" as artwork?
Also, people may speak exclusively in words, but a printing press can just as easily print graphics as words. You mentioned the possibility of woodcut illustrations yourself. Freedom of the press must naturally extend to printed images as well as printed words. Recorded audio had yet to be invented, of course, but lyrics and printed sheet music would have been covered, as would the scripts for plays. Sculptures were omitted, true, but that seems more like an oversight than deliberate intent.
Finally, it would not be sufficient to show only that the 1st Amendment only covers words; you would also need to point out where in the Constitution any branch of the U.S. government is granted the power to censor images, music, plays, sculptures, or the formal descriptions of algorithms colloquially known as software.
In terms of federalism I agree with you. If anyone is going to be censoring the software artwork it should be the states rather than the federal government.
As for recorded audio, sheet music and scripts for plays - I think the words are covered by the first amendment. So the lyrics and the script could not be censored. You can make a very good argument that the sheet music also should not be censored (they are instructions for playing the music, not the music itself). But in this interpretation of the first amendment the performance of music and plays would not be covered. Recordings of people reading the script or music would of course be covered. But the state would be able to restrict performance of certain tunes or certain musical instruments. And the state would be able to restrict doing certain actions as part of a play. But the restrictions couldn't be based on the words or lyrics.
Of course in practice very little would be prohibited because voters wouldn't put up with it.
Sex for money should not be illegal. It is an overreach of local government in my opinion. It is between two consenting adults.
That's a reasonable position to take, but should it be constitutionally protected? Is it in the same class of rights as the right to free speech, a fair trial, freedom of religion and the right to vote? Is the viability of a constitutional republic in danger if it is outlawed?
The libertarian philosophy is wonderful and I generally agree with it (though for practical reasons I don't always agree with it). However I think the libertarianism needs to be a cultural value that is then reflected in the laws made by the legislature. So if you want libertarian laws, you first need to persuade the voters (and we've been doing a pretty crappy job of that for many years). The constitutional protections should mostly be limited to those necessary for making sure we have the freedom to make the arguments that change the culture, and the freedom to then change the government to reflect the culture.
If he just wanted to be mean and layoff people while raising pizza prices he could have done that regardless of who was elected. If laying off people and raising pizza prices would result in higher profit margins anyway (without or without Obamacare), he could have done that regardless of who was elected.
Except now he gets to raise prices and blame it on Obama instead of taking the heat for being greedy. Which do you think is better PR?
Better PR would be not announcing that he's laying off people and raising prices - just do it quietly like most other corporations will.
Regardless of whether you use foul language when expressing your idea, so long as you use words it should be ok. If you want to use the words "F--- the government" instead of "the government is corrupt" that's fine. However if you want to use a knife on a politician instead of saying "the government is corrupt" then we have a problem. If you want to stage a play where you have someone pretend to slash a throat then you're probably ok but when you start defending "art" you have trouble drawing the line. Is slashing a throat for real just a form of "performance art"? Why is f***ing for money illegal in most places in America unless you do it in front of a camera?
I also presume that the right pertains to people - not organizations. Organizations are not people, just as a pack of dogs is not a dog and a mob of people is not a person.
The First Amendment says (emphasis added):
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I am not a Constitutional scholar (although I have read the Constitution and refer to it frequently), but I would presume that "freedom of expression" and "freedom of speech" are intended to ensure that ideas cannot be censored.
I think the term "freedom of expression" is one of the big problems in figuring out how to apply the First Amendment to software. If we took the original text which said "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" we would see that it originally applied almost exclusively to words. When you speak, you speak words. When you print, you print words (ok, there were a few would cut pictures). The writers knew about things like music, paintings, sculptures and plays but did not choose to include them in the amendment. I think they're focus was on words and not on things like artwork (which they knew could be obscene).
Applying such a word-based test to software would be pretty easy. You can use the software to communicate any words you like, but things like pictures, games, and music could be regulated. Now many, perhaps most, of us would be pretty unhappy with a lot of regulations but we could use our freedom of speech to discuss and organize and use our votes to let the legislature know that. Slashdot, for example, would be completely free because it is a purely word-based site.
The negative score is telling about how much liberals like to suppress opposition. You basically said the exact thing as the +4 post you responded to (except to state a positive action,) and your post got modded as flamebait.
The fact that someone actually used one of their few mod points to hide your post is key to their insecurity.
It cuts both ways. Slashdot tends to have a liberal slant, ergo there'll be liberals with mod points who think downmodding is the way to deal with opposing views. Head over to forums/sites with a conservative bent and you'll see the same.
I didn't realize Slashdot was supposed to be liberal. I thought it was supposed to be for nerds - focused more on subjects like science, math, science fiction and stuff like that. National Review Online is something we expect to have a conservative slant. New York Times and Slate are sites we expect to have liberal slants. I come to Slashdot hoping to see both sides discussed in an fair way by people with enough skills in logical thinking to recognize logical fallacies. So long as everyone is being civil the logical fallacies either don't happen in the first place, or when they do happen someone points them out.
Downmodding should be reserved for things like spam, posts dominated by foul language, off-topic posts, and posts that are so clearly fallacious and offensive that its clear the writer wasn't even trying to contribute something useful.
Slashdot used to be that way. For a while I noticed that conservative posts were getting downmodded a lot. In the last month it feels like it has gotten better. The post that was modded down should not have been. It wasn't something to be modded up as it wasn't very insightful or interesting or informative. But it certainly didn't deserve a downmod.
The instructions for moderating say you should focus on upmodding more than downmodding. That's important to remember.
So basically he, as a businessman, realized that with Obamacare he would be forced to lay off workers and raise prices.
He apparently didn't want to have to do these things so he warned people in hopes of preventing that it from happening.
It happened anyway so he followed through on what he said was the logical result of the re-election.
Sounds to me like he was just being a good American doing his best to run a business despite interference from the government. If he just wanted to be mean and layoff people while raising pizza prices he could have done that regardless of who was elected. If laying off people and raising pizza prices would result in higher profit margins anyway (without or without Obamacare), he could have done that regardless of who was elected.
He only chose to do these things because Obama was re-elected. Since the guy wants to make money it is logical to assume that it is the threat of Obamacare that created the conditions where it makes more sense to lay off people and raise prices.
Of course, you can always make things worse theorizing but in this case, they guy can read and now also answer.
In a civilized country, he would just get an MRI machine since that is what he needs and we can affords it with our means. Oh wait, that is communism right. Yeah, the Romney thing is to let him suffer because euthanasia also isn't allowed.
It is not like providing a 2 million dollar/euro machine for every vegetative person is going to break any countries economy.
Can we afford it? An MRI machine costing thousands (tens of thousands?) of dollars for every patient in a vegetative state, plus staff to maintain it and to interpret the results. I suppose we have the resources to do it if we made that our top priority, but at what cost? Is the MRI machine for one person more valuable than buying an ambulance for a small town (might save a few lives with that ambulance)? Is the MRI machine for one person more valuable than a school lunch program for an inner city elementary school? Is the MRI machine for one person more valuable than a college education for another (looking at just the individuals - having a life at all does seem better than having the better life of a college-educated person - but also consider the benefits to society of having more college educated people around).
There are quite a lot of things we can afford, but we can't afford all of them. One of the reasons our government is in so much debt is a failure to set priorities. Anything that is good or beneficial is deemed worthy of spending money on, yet clearly we can't afford everything - choices need to be made.
If we paid enough taxes to eliminate the deficit the economy would tank immediately (it will tank eventually anyway from the debt). If we paid enough taxes to eliminate the deficit while simultaneously increasing spending to cover the cost of everything that is good and beneficial then we would indeed be in socialism with all of your money going to the government. Unfortunately, it is human nature to just stop working when that occurs.
What if you look at it from a world-wide perspective?
To be fair it's not just Virginia. Texas has similarly discriminatory policies in education (See Fisher v. University of Texas) as do many other states. The federal government has similarly discriminatory policies in contracting.
We just re-elected a president who supports this kind of discrimination so we have no one to blame but ourselves.
See Fisher v. University of Texas. In the Fifth Circuit the Obama administration came out in favor of this kind of discrimination. Obama appointed to the Supreme Court the person who made the comment about a "Wise Latina" (speaking of herself). He tried to appoint Goodwin Liu who was on record as strongly supporting this kind of racism. Obama and his party have for a long time supported this kind of racism.
From what I've seen of Slashdot recently, most slashdotters either supported Obama or stood on the sidelines while he was elected. Elections matter. Obama won. He gets to do things like granting waivers to Virginia. Many slashdotters need to stop trying to blame people who didn't vote for the guy and instead take a good hard look in the mirror.
Is it just me, or isn't this exactly the same as submitting an app to the Apple App store?
You never know if you'll be allowed entry, and can get the boot anytime for no reason...
Perhaps it is close, but at least on the App Store the customers are free to stop using Apple and switch to Android. This is the difference between a corporation and a government. This is true whether we're talking about the U.S. government or the Chinese government. You can change employers, you can change insurance companies, you can change your electronic equipment - unless the government says you can't, and you don't get to switch to another government.
Let's see gays - that's one I'll have to give you. The gay marriage thing is debatable, but too many Republicans would even outlaw gay relationships if it weren't for the recent, and baseless, supreme court decision.
drugs - that's just like the Democrats. Both parties support laws against drug use and both parties have made it clear that when they're in charge of the national government they won't look the other way when states legalize drug use.
abortion - right to life trumps other rights. You can't kill someone just because they're inconvenient.
hiring - the Democrats tell you who you have to work with.
hiring - the Democrate tell you how much you have to pay and in general what you and another person can agree to.
renting - the Democrats tell you what you can and can't do with your property, and what restrictions you can put on who enters your property
running a restaurant - the Democrats tell you whether you can smoke and Bloomberg (Democrat who switched parties but not stripes so he could run) even wants to tell you how big your drinks can be.
racism - the Democrats forbid people from rejecting racism. Either hire based on race (and do school admissions based on race) or face the wrath of Democrats
heath care - the Democrats tell you what kinds of health care you need to pay for
money - the Democrats take your money so they choose how it is spent
money - the Democrats take your children's money (though Republicans at times have joined them in doing so) so they can decide how your children's future earnings will be spent today.
The only freedom Democrats seem to respect is sexual freedom. To them all other freedom's are subject to government whim. And on sexual freedom they are so extreme that they work to remove the responsibility that should come with all freedoms and instead have everyone pay for it whether or not they participate, or even approve of it.
But it's not just phone banking. From my understanding, what Obama's campaign did was more Big Data oriented, gathering data on individual voters to target the right approach for each of them. Is this a persuadable voter? What issues will he/she respond to best? What method to reach them is best, a phone call or an in-person visit? And then armed with that data, following through to the local ground teams.
Just trying to understand Slashdot here. When a corporation like facebook does that kind of data gathering on individuals, that's bad, but when a political party does it, that's good. Am I right?
But we're not moving away from hate. We re-elected the guy who when talking to the American people called his opponent "not one of us". We re-elected the guy who asked his reporters to take revenge on their political opponents. We re-elected the guy who's limiting freedom of religion.
Because there is a difference between choosing to help others in need and choosing to force others to help other people in need. One is called charity and one is called slavery. Republicans are on the side of charity.
Laughing about the end of these sorts of values is not hate, it is joy.
The problem is those values aren't ending. In case you failed to notice, it was the party of "Hate, racism" that won the presidency again. And while you're right that the Democrats aren't the party of "tax cuts for the rich", but they are a major party of crony capitalism and subsidies for the rich.
So you're saying the Democrats alienated the good IT people and doing so kept them away from the Republicans. Either your logic or your premise is a little flawed.
I've often wished someone would do something like this. I've suggested on slashdot an interstellar military/trading game that would take relativity into account as a way to give people a more intuitive feel for it. I've wondered about the difficulties of a 2D game that would use a slow speed of light. But to have a 3D game that considers all the effects, including red-shift, is beyond my wildest dreams. I look forward to downloading and playing it.
That seems likely given that areas where illegal immigrants and other people who may have trouble with English vote are likely to elect Democrats to run their local governments.
Slashdot Mirror
Sex for money should not be illegal. It is an overreach of local government in my opinion. It is between two consenting adults.
That's a reasonable position to take, but should it be constitutionally protected?
From a historical perspective, "no sex for money" within the USA is really an expression of religious belief of certain mainstream religious traditions within the USA. The history channel had a series ("The History of Sex") that covered this in considerable detail (apparently, the FBI was initially created as the nation's sex police).
In brief, the Protestant religions disliked the openness of some earlier Christian leaders to this practice, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation changed Catholic views on the subject as well.
Asian and even Western "Pagan" religions have treated this subject (and the whole subject of human sexuality) very differently from the Christian world (as those who are familiar with religous and secular practices in the Greek and Roman world will be quite aware).
Therefore, there definitely is a Constitutional issue here. It's called separation of church and state,
Except that "separation of church and state" is a Supreme Court issue not a Constitutional issue. While the Court has mentioned "separation of church and state" many times, the Constitution mentions is zero times. What the the Constitution guarantees is that there won't be a government church, and that people are able to freely practice their religion. Now if you can show that we have some people for whom sex for money is a religious practice, then you can argue that their need to practice their religion makes it a Constitutional issue. That certainly could have been an issue 3000 years ago, but is it an issue today?
Don't forget that religion heavily influences how one views the world. It inspired Americans to seek the abolition of slavery. It inspired Americans to make their government stop the army's brutal treatment of Filipinos. It inspired Americans to end child labor and alcohol. It inspired Americans to oppose Japan's brutal war in China. It inspired Americans to end Jim Crow laws and pass the Civil Rights act. Absent the religious values of American citizens, the country won't be capable of handling democracy. To suggest that the First Amendment requires Americans to stop believing when they enter the voting booth is a dangerous misreading of the Bill of Rights.
To me there are two important distinctions you have missed (you already mentioned that some obscenities can be harder to ignore than others). The first is that for some forms of art, the act of creating the art is obscene. The second distinction is that words come at you more slowly. When they start to portray an obscene image you can simply stop reading or, if it is someone talking, you can leave. If you are trying to decide whether to read something that might be obscene, you read a bit, perhaps skim, and get a good idea of whether you want to read the details. For a picture or a movie, once the obscenity starts, whether it be violence or something else, you've already seen it. You can't go back and change your mind. You don't know it's coming.
Nerd, being more intelligent than the average Joe Sixpack, tend to be liberal.
Speaking of nerd hubris: http://xkcd.com/793/
True, intelligence does tend toward hubris. But Slashdot used to be more evenhanded.
I think they're focus was on words and not on things like artwork (which they knew could be obscene).
Are you implying that they didn't know that words can be just as "obscene" as artwork?
Also, people may speak exclusively in words, but a printing press can just as easily print graphics as words. You mentioned the possibility of woodcut illustrations yourself. Freedom of the press must naturally extend to printed images as well as printed words. Recorded audio had yet to be invented, of course, but lyrics and printed sheet music would have been covered, as would the scripts for plays. Sculptures were omitted, true, but that seems more like an oversight than deliberate intent.
Finally, it would not be sufficient to show only that the 1st Amendment only covers words; you would also need to point out where in the Constitution any branch of the U.S. government is granted the power to censor images, music, plays, sculptures, or the formal descriptions of algorithms colloquially known as software.
In terms of federalism I agree with you. If anyone is going to be censoring the software artwork it should be the states rather than the federal government. As for recorded audio, sheet music and scripts for plays - I think the words are covered by the first amendment. So the lyrics and the script could not be censored. You can make a very good argument that the sheet music also should not be censored (they are instructions for playing the music, not the music itself). But in this interpretation of the first amendment the performance of music and plays would not be covered. Recordings of people reading the script or music would of course be covered. But the state would be able to restrict performance of certain tunes or certain musical instruments. And the state would be able to restrict doing certain actions as part of a play. But the restrictions couldn't be based on the words or lyrics. Of course in practice very little would be prohibited because voters wouldn't put up with it.
And no, I don't believe words can be just as obscene as artwork.
I think they're focus was on words and not on things like artwork (which they knew could be obscene).
Are you implying that they didn't know that words can be just as "obscene" as artwork?
Also, people may speak exclusively in words, but a printing press can just as easily print graphics as words. You mentioned the possibility of woodcut illustrations yourself. Freedom of the press must naturally extend to printed images as well as printed words. Recorded audio had yet to be invented, of course, but lyrics and printed sheet music would have been covered, as would the scripts for plays. Sculptures were omitted, true, but that seems more like an oversight than deliberate intent.
Finally, it would not be sufficient to show only that the 1st Amendment only covers words; you would also need to point out where in the Constitution any branch of the U.S. government is granted the power to censor images, music, plays, sculptures, or the formal descriptions of algorithms colloquially known as software.
In terms of federalism I agree with you. If anyone is going to be censoring the software artwork it should be the states rather than the federal government.
As for recorded audio, sheet music and scripts for plays - I think the words are covered by the first amendment. So the lyrics and the script could not be censored. You can make a very good argument that the sheet music also should not be censored (they are instructions for playing the music, not the music itself). But in this interpretation of the first amendment the performance of music and plays would not be covered. Recordings of people reading the script or music would of course be covered. But the state would be able to restrict performance of certain tunes or certain musical instruments. And the state would be able to restrict doing certain actions as part of a play. But the restrictions couldn't be based on the words or lyrics.
Of course in practice very little would be prohibited because voters wouldn't put up with it.
Sex for money should not be illegal. It is an overreach of local government in my opinion. It is between two consenting adults.
That's a reasonable position to take, but should it be constitutionally protected? Is it in the same class of rights as the right to free speech, a fair trial, freedom of religion and the right to vote? Is the viability of a constitutional republic in danger if it is outlawed?
The libertarian philosophy is wonderful and I generally agree with it (though for practical reasons I don't always agree with it). However I think the libertarianism needs to be a cultural value that is then reflected in the laws made by the legislature. So if you want libertarian laws, you first need to persuade the voters (and we've been doing a pretty crappy job of that for many years). The constitutional protections should mostly be limited to those necessary for making sure we have the freedom to make the arguments that change the culture, and the freedom to then change the government to reflect the culture.
If he just wanted to be mean and layoff people while raising pizza prices he could have done that regardless of who was elected. If laying off people and raising pizza prices would result in higher profit margins anyway (without or without Obamacare), he could have done that regardless of who was elected.
Except now he gets to raise prices and blame it on Obama instead of taking the heat for being greedy. Which do you think is better PR?
Better PR would be not announcing that he's laying off people and raising prices - just do it quietly like most other corporations will.
Regardless of whether you use foul language when expressing your idea, so long as you use words it should be ok. If you want to use the words "F--- the government" instead of "the government is corrupt" that's fine. However if you want to use a knife on a politician instead of saying "the government is corrupt" then we have a problem. If you want to stage a play where you have someone pretend to slash a throat then you're probably ok but when you start defending "art" you have trouble drawing the line. Is slashing a throat for real just a form of "performance art"? Why is f***ing for money illegal in most places in America unless you do it in front of a camera?
It's must simpler just to protect the words.
I also presume that the right pertains to people - not organizations. Organizations are not people, just as a pack of dogs is not a dog and a mob of people is not a person.
The First Amendment says (emphasis added):
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
An organization is a peaceful assembly of people.
I am not a Constitutional scholar (although I have read the Constitution and refer to it frequently), but I would presume that "freedom of expression" and "freedom of speech" are intended to ensure that ideas cannot be censored.
I think the term "freedom of expression" is one of the big problems in figuring out how to apply the First Amendment to software. If we took the original text which said "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" we would see that it originally applied almost exclusively to words. When you speak, you speak words. When you print, you print words (ok, there were a few would cut pictures). The writers knew about things like music, paintings, sculptures and plays but did not choose to include them in the amendment. I think they're focus was on words and not on things like artwork (which they knew could be obscene).
Applying such a word-based test to software would be pretty easy. You can use the software to communicate any words you like, but things like pictures, games, and music could be regulated. Now many, perhaps most, of us would be pretty unhappy with a lot of regulations but we could use our freedom of speech to discuss and organize and use our votes to let the legislature know that. Slashdot, for example, would be completely free because it is a purely word-based site.
The negative score is telling about how much liberals like to suppress opposition. You basically said the exact thing as the +4 post you responded to (except to state a positive action,) and your post got modded as flamebait.
The fact that someone actually used one of their few mod points to hide your post is key to their insecurity.
It cuts both ways. Slashdot tends to have a liberal slant, ergo there'll be liberals with mod points who think downmodding is the way to deal with opposing views. Head over to forums/sites with a conservative bent and you'll see the same.
I didn't realize Slashdot was supposed to be liberal. I thought it was supposed to be for nerds - focused more on subjects like science, math, science fiction and stuff like that. National Review Online is something we expect to have a conservative slant. New York Times and Slate are sites we expect to have liberal slants. I come to Slashdot hoping to see both sides discussed in an fair way by people with enough skills in logical thinking to recognize logical fallacies. So long as everyone is being civil the logical fallacies either don't happen in the first place, or when they do happen someone points them out.
Downmodding should be reserved for things like spam, posts dominated by foul language, off-topic posts, and posts that are so clearly fallacious and offensive that its clear the writer wasn't even trying to contribute something useful.
Slashdot used to be that way. For a while I noticed that conservative posts were getting downmodded a lot. In the last month it feels like it has gotten better. The post that was modded down should not have been. It wasn't something to be modded up as it wasn't very insightful or interesting or informative. But it certainly didn't deserve a downmod.
The instructions for moderating say you should focus on upmodding more than downmodding. That's important to remember.
So basically he, as a businessman, realized that with Obamacare he would be forced to lay off workers and raise prices.
He apparently didn't want to have to do these things so he warned people in hopes of preventing that it from happening.
It happened anyway so he followed through on what he said was the logical result of the re-election.
Sounds to me like he was just being a good American doing his best to run a business despite interference from the government. If he just wanted to be mean and layoff people while raising pizza prices he could have done that regardless of who was elected. If laying off people and raising pizza prices would result in higher profit margins anyway (without or without Obamacare), he could have done that regardless of who was elected.
He only chose to do these things because Obama was re-elected. Since the guy wants to make money it is logical to assume that it is the threat of Obamacare that created the conditions where it makes more sense to lay off people and raise prices.
Of course, you can always make things worse theorizing but in this case, they guy can read and now also answer.
In a civilized country, he would just get an MRI machine since that is what he needs and we can affords it with our means. Oh wait, that is communism right. Yeah, the Romney thing is to let him suffer because euthanasia also isn't allowed.
It is not like providing a 2 million dollar/euro machine for every vegetative person is going to break any countries economy.
Can we afford it? An MRI machine costing thousands (tens of thousands?) of dollars for every patient in a vegetative state, plus staff to maintain it and to interpret the results. I suppose we have the resources to do it if we made that our top priority, but at what cost? Is the MRI machine for one person more valuable than buying an ambulance for a small town (might save a few lives with that ambulance)? Is the MRI machine for one person more valuable than a school lunch program for an inner city elementary school? Is the MRI machine for one person more valuable than a college education for another (looking at just the individuals - having a life at all does seem better than having the better life of a college-educated person - but also consider the benefits to society of having more college educated people around).
There are quite a lot of things we can afford, but we can't afford all of them. One of the reasons our government is in so much debt is a failure to set priorities. Anything that is good or beneficial is deemed worthy of spending money on, yet clearly we can't afford everything - choices need to be made.
If we paid enough taxes to eliminate the deficit the economy would tank immediately (it will tank eventually anyway from the debt). If we paid enough taxes to eliminate the deficit while simultaneously increasing spending to cover the cost of everything that is good and beneficial then we would indeed be in socialism with all of your money going to the government. Unfortunately, it is human nature to just stop working when that occurs. What if you look at it from a world-wide perspective?
To be fair it's not just Virginia. Texas has similarly discriminatory policies in education (See Fisher v. University of Texas) as do many other states. The federal government has similarly discriminatory policies in contracting.
We just re-elected a president who supports this kind of discrimination so we have no one to blame but ourselves.
See Fisher v. University of Texas. In the Fifth Circuit the Obama administration came out in favor of this kind of discrimination. Obama appointed to the Supreme Court the person who made the comment about a "Wise Latina" (speaking of herself). He tried to appoint Goodwin Liu who was on record as strongly supporting this kind of racism. Obama and his party have for a long time supported this kind of racism.
From what I've seen of Slashdot recently, most slashdotters either supported Obama or stood on the sidelines while he was elected. Elections matter. Obama won. He gets to do things like granting waivers to Virginia. Many slashdotters need to stop trying to blame people who didn't vote for the guy and instead take a good hard look in the mirror.
Is it just me, or isn't this exactly the same as submitting an app to the Apple App store? You never know if you'll be allowed entry, and can get the boot anytime for no reason...
Perhaps it is close, but at least on the App Store the customers are free to stop using Apple and switch to Android. This is the difference between a corporation and a government. This is true whether we're talking about the U.S. government or the Chinese government. You can change employers, you can change insurance companies, you can change your electronic equipment - unless the government says you can't, and you don't get to switch to another government.
Let's see gays - that's one I'll have to give you. The gay marriage thing is debatable, but too many Republicans would even outlaw gay relationships if it weren't for the recent, and baseless, supreme court decision.
drugs - that's just like the Democrats. Both parties support laws against drug use and both parties have made it clear that when they're in charge of the national government they won't look the other way when states legalize drug use.
abortion - right to life trumps other rights. You can't kill someone just because they're inconvenient.
hiring - the Democrats tell you who you have to work with.
hiring - the Democrate tell you how much you have to pay and in general what you and another person can agree to.
renting - the Democrats tell you what you can and can't do with your property, and what restrictions you can put on who enters your property
running a restaurant - the Democrats tell you whether you can smoke and Bloomberg (Democrat who switched parties but not stripes so he could run) even wants to tell you how big your drinks can be.
racism - the Democrats forbid people from rejecting racism. Either hire based on race (and do school admissions based on race) or face the wrath of Democrats
heath care - the Democrats tell you what kinds of health care you need to pay for
money - the Democrats take your money so they choose how it is spent
money - the Democrats take your children's money (though Republicans at times have joined them in doing so) so they can decide how your children's future earnings will be spent today.
The only freedom Democrats seem to respect is sexual freedom. To them all other freedom's are subject to government whim. And on sexual freedom they are so extreme that they work to remove the responsibility that should come with all freedoms and instead have everyone pay for it whether or not they participate, or even approve of it.
But it's not just phone banking. From my understanding, what Obama's campaign did was more Big Data oriented, gathering data on individual voters to target the right approach for each of them. Is this a persuadable voter? What issues will he/she respond to best? What method to reach them is best, a phone call or an in-person visit? And then armed with that data, following through to the local ground teams.
Just trying to understand Slashdot here. When a corporation like facebook does that kind of data gathering on individuals, that's bad, but when a political party does it, that's good. Am I right?
But we're not moving away from hate. We re-elected the guy who when talking to the American people called his opponent "not one of us". We re-elected the guy who asked his reporters to take revenge on their political opponents. We re-elected the guy who's limiting freedom of religion.
Because there is a difference between choosing to help others in need and choosing to force others to help other people in need. One is called charity and one is called slavery. Republicans are on the side of charity.
Laughing about the end of these sorts of values is not hate, it is joy.
The problem is those values aren't ending. In case you failed to notice, it was the party of "Hate, racism" that won the presidency again. And while you're right that the Democrats aren't the party of "tax cuts for the rich", but they are a major party of crony capitalism and subsidies for the rich.
So you're saying the Democrats alienated the good IT people and doing so kept them away from the Republicans. Either your logic or your premise is a little flawed.
I've often wished someone would do something like this. I've suggested on slashdot an interstellar military/trading game that would take relativity into account as a way to give people a more intuitive feel for it. I've wondered about the difficulties of a 2D game that would use a slow speed of light. But to have a 3D game that considers all the effects, including red-shift, is beyond my wildest dreams. I look forward to downloading and playing it.
That seems likely given that areas where illegal immigrants and other people who may have trouble with English vote are likely to elect Democrats to run their local governments.