If you attempt to screen your energy output then you need perfect knowledge of the exact location of ALL of the the enemy sensors.
So you send out decoys.
Wouldn't you just need to make sure your energy output goes in a single tightly focused direction - for example by sending the energy output in the form of a laser? Unless I'm missing something (which is quite possible) it wouldn't be visible to anyone unless they happened to be in precisely the right path, and the odds of that are pretty small even if they hundreds of sensors.
They are currently confident that they could use force to claim Taiwan, but there are many reasons that they do not. Loosing is not one of those reasons.
There is no upside for China if they go and claim Taiwan by force.
There is no upside for China to go to war with the US.
If China was interested in using its military to solve political issues then China would be blockading Japan in regards to their current dispute.
It's not that China isn't interested in using military force - their arms build-ups particularly in terms of arms for use in conquering Taiwan combined with their threates clearly indicate that they are even if mainly for intimidation.
However if China wants to conquer Taiwan and/or the Senkakus and/or the Spratly Islands and/or parts of India, then China knows the best thing to do is wait. Every year the balance of power favors them more. Their technology is improving and their wealth is growing. Meanwhile the American government seems determined to spend itself into oblivion and/or servitude.
Meanwhile they have more ability to soften Taiwan's resistance by controlling large swaths of the Taiwanese media (either through direct ownership, by manipulating the ability of Taiwanese media corps to make money in China or by working with the current Chinese Nationalist government of Taiwan). As they're economic strength grows they can also weaken American support for Taiwan through similar methods and even by direct buys in American media (see the big advertisement about the Diaoyu (Senkaku) islands in today's Washington Post).
For now China is pursuing less violent means, but don't mistake patience for pacifism. All good predators are patient.
Besides they currently have a tool in acting as Taiwan's president
As I understand law enforcement, there is a chain-of-evidence that says evidence obtained illegally can't be used in court, nor can evidence obtained as a result of the original illegal evidence. For example, if the cop searches your house without a warrant and finds illegal activity, any evidence obtained by that search can't be used against you. If evidence obtained in that search leads to further evidence - that too is tainted by the original illegal search and can't be used against you.
As I understand this case from your description, all the evidence of the parole violations were the result of an investigation into the origin of the perfectly legal video - an investigation that appears to have occurred because the government didn't like the video. If that's the case, then any evidence obtained from that investigation is tainted by the fact that he government wasn't respecting the guy's free speech rights.
True but, I don't think this applies here. They were not holding violations in reserve, they simply did not know he was violating them. It wasn't until journalists investigated the source of the film, and made the trail back to him and a few accounts that it was known.
Didn't a similar thing happen with one of Obama's relatives who is in America illegally? When he ran for president and won, journalists investigated and found that the relative was violating America's laws. Well, I didn't think that relative should have been singled out for having an incompetent presidential relative. Similarly, this guy shouldn't be singled out for having exercised his freedom of speech. The government is going after him because they don't like what he said, not for what he did. Had the video been anything else there would have been no investigation.
The government isn't "holding in reserve"; they made a CONTRACT, that he and his lawyer agreed to, for being let out of prison in exchange for behaving himself. As I read the article, part of the contract was that he not use the Internet and that he not use an alias or pseudonym. He has violated both of those. He would have been violating them even if all he posted was a funny cat video.
Didn't one of Obama's relatives make a contract with the INS and then violate it? Has that relative been arrested?
I hope most Americans haven't sunk so low that we'll give up our freedom of speech so easily. We've given up so many freedoms for various reasons - the freedom to choose who we hire and fire, the freedom to choose who we rent apartments too, the freedom to get a new job without notifying the authorities, the freedom to choose whether to allow smoking inside private businesses. In most cases many of us would behave consistent with what the laws says we must do anyway, but we still know the chains are there and the chafe us.
Freedom of speech is even more fundamental. Indeed it is almost as important as that bedrock of all freedoms, freedom of religion. That someone would willingly surrender our freedom of religion because of how some evil people ten thousand miles away react is beyond comprehension or description.
.
We have so many laws that if they want to put you in jail they'll find something. Remember the special prosecutor law? When it first came out Justice Scalia said it was unconstitutional because it had an investigator with special powers looking for a crime - any crime - that might have been committed by a selected individual, as opposed to looking into a specific crime.
It took many years and finally the use of the law against a Democrat for people to finally realize it was a bad law.
The concern is that this might be a similar situation. Why was this guy even investigated? He wasn't suspected of doing anything illegal and there was no reason to look into his background or to question him. The government didn't like the guy so they decided to look and see if there was something they could arrest him for. That's wrong. And it's not even like the government always arrests people once they become famous and their law-breaking becomes public knowledge. See Obama's illegal alien relatives in America for examples.
For the country that really made the enlightenment a reality
Do you mean France or the US? Because in Britain both the monarch and the clergy are still in power.
Really? Is that why HHS is taking away the freedom of religion as soon as you decide to hire someone? Do yo really think the Queen is "still in power"?
If somebody working at the National Endowment for the Arts, or OSHA or NOAA, is amoral or immoral and has a personal grudge against you, they can screw with you, but they aren't carrying firearms in their line of duty
The entire government is weaponized. Some of them just take longer to get to the weapons than others. If Microsoft wants my money, they have to persuade me peacefully to give it to them (usually by giving me something in return). To use your example, if the NEA wants my money, they send the IRS after me. If I don't pay the IRS, they send the marshals. To use another of your examples, if OSHA wants me to do something because they are an agent of the government and the government has decided how I should act, then OSHA can fine me. If I don't pay they can shut down my business. If I refuse to shut down the business they can send in the marshals to shut it down. There may be more steps involved, but eventually the guys in uniforms with guns will show up unless I go along with what OSHA wants..
Sure, I can petition the courts, but they are also an arm of the government. At least if Bill Gates takes me to court it is private citizen vs private citizen. He's got an advantage because of his money, but if the government weren't involved in so many things voters could focus more on truly governmental matter like having a fair court system.
If someone in the military, FBI, DEA or BATF is similarly corrupt, venial and abusive, you had better hope your widow lives to seek some kind of justice for your corpse, because that's about the best you'll get. How does keeping the government focused on your tight list of legitimate uses for force protect you from abuses by the agencys of force?
It protects by ballot. Voters only get one vote. We don't get to vote for one president who handles law enforcement, a different president who handles energy policy, a different president for NEA, and still a different president for health care. We only get to choose one. If that president does a crappy job handling law enforcement he can still get re-elected because people like his energy policy,or his position on health care, or his handling of mortgages, or his whether he spends more or less money on welfare.
If the government only manages a few things, it had better get those few things right or it will be tossed out.
With corporations, you get many votes. Every purchase is a vote. You can vote Ford for your pick-up truck and Toyota for your commuter car. You can vote Apple for your computer and Enbev for your football-watching drink.
The fewer things the government manages, the more likely it is to get those few things right.
These [washingtonexaminer.com] guys put it another way:
According to presidential watcher Mark Knoller of CBS, George W. Bush, at this time of his presidency, had made 30 visits to his Texas ranch spanning all or part of 220 days. The Obama’s vacation day count is less than half of that.
But his have become more controversial because of the costs associated with moving the first family to a public vacation spot, unlike the Bushes to their remote ranch in Crawford, Texas. For example, the Hawaii Reporter said the first family’s 2011 Christmas vacation in Hawaii would exceed $1.5 million.
So we should never vote for presidents that don't own a large private ranch, or that come from states that are popular vacation spots?
These [washingtonexaminer.com] guys put it another way:
According to presidential watcher Mark Knoller of CBS, George W. Bush, at this time of his presidency, had made 30 visits to his Texas ranch spanning all or part of 220 days. The Obama’s vacation day count is less than half of that.
But his have become more controversial because of the costs associated with moving the first family to a public vacation spot, unlike the Bushes to their remote ranch in Crawford, Texas. For example, the Hawaii Reporter said the first family’s 2011 Christmas vacation in Hawaii would exceed $1.5 million.
Camp David is nice.
So we should never vote for presidents that don't own a large private ranch, or that come from states that are popular vacation spots?
People who have the guns should have the least freedom to exercise their power. There needs to be some institution that exercises legitimate force for purposes such as law enforcement and wars - but that institution, since it operates on the power of the gun, should be severely limited.
Corporations and businesses can be just as amoral and even immoral as the government, but unlike the government, corporations and businesses don't have guns backing them up. You don't like the Microsoft monopoly? You may find it difficult to make a lot of money and run the software you want if you install Linux, buy Apple, or just refuse to use a home computer, but you won't find yourself hauled before a judge by armed police officers like you might if you refuse to pay your taxes.
If there's no other reason to vote non-Democrat, it's simply so that the media will pay attention when mistakes are made. Just look at how the media refused to ask questions of Obama when they were still claiming the embassy hit was random instead of a terrorist attack.
You make a good point. Bush made a lot of mistakes too, but at least they made the news quickly.
If it was prepared by a staffer then presumably reviewed by other people (if something that they planned to show at a big convention and on national TV wasn't reviewed by multiple people then there really is a serious leadership problem). What we can deduce is that no one involved 1. had enough military experience to notice the difference or thought it was worth checking to be sure that they were using American ships (they might not have been Russian - they might have been Chinese or who knows what).
It weakly suggests some management issues (only weakly because it was the type of gaffe that most organizations make occasionally) But it strongly suggests (though it doesn't prove) that the DNC puts a low priority on military matters.
The other great thing about street view is you get a look at the real place rather than the just the tourist locations or just what someone wants you see. One of my favorite things to do with street view is pick a random spot to see what is there. After doing that several times I get a much better view of life there than I would from any tourist brochure or picture book. Far less than 1% of Japan is made up of historic temples and pagodas. I've seen those pictures. What does a typical neighborhood look like? Where do the people live? What does a country road look like and what kinds of houses and stores are on it? What does the vegetation look like (and not just the pretty vegetation)? What does a typical fjord look like (and not just the ones in national parks or the ones that have particularly pretty cities next to them)?
I used to dream of touring places around the world. Then I lived overseas and lost interest. It wasn't because I didn't like living overseas. I loved it. But I discovered that visiting a place and experiencing a place and culture are completely different and I was really only interested in the latter. There just isn't time on a trip to get any idea of what the place is like. Street view gives me a smidgen of the experience of seeing the real place.
Certain safeguards need to be built in to control the passions of the moment.
Ah yes, because like all right wingers you associate "democracy" with "frenzied blood-letting by an emotional mob".
Believe it or not, democratic non-republics can have systems of law and order and things like the separation of the legislature from the executive too.
That's not a pure democracy. And those are some of the safeguards I was referring to. And yes, sometimes democracy does represent an emotional mob that wants to engage in frenzied blood-letting. And sometimes they managed to do it despite the safeguards.
I'm pretty sure it is legal to mock someone in front of their kids, and that they can't sue, have you arrested, or engage in violence against you. Instead the parents can either mock back or teach their children about how "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me."
As for pictures - I'm pretty sure privacy laws would prevent you from getting those. Were any privacy laws violated in making facebook page Greece?
True. There's a lot of definitions of 'far right'; the definition I was using was the 'Conservative vs. Liberal' definition, as that seems to fit in this particular instance. Of course, there's also the 'Democrat vs. Republican' definition here in America (nearly the same thing);
I should have responded to this. As I see it you've got it backwards. In America, the Democrats are the conformists while the Republicans favor individualism.
It can be confusing because Republicans do favor conformity outside the law. You can do what you want but don't expect Republicans to approve of it if it doesn't match what Republicans consider normal. On the other hand Democrats favor conformity by force of law. In areas where Democrats favor freedom - primarily issues surrounding sex - Democrats not only say do what you want, but they make laws requiring everyone else to support and/or pay for you doing what you want. And of course on other areas Democrats demand conformity to their social values (you can only use the criteria they tell you to use when hiring and firing, you are required to donate to their health-care and welfare programs). Recently a leader of Chic-Fil-A said something Democrats didn't like and immediately prominent Democrats were threatening to use local laws to hurt Chic-Fil-A's business.
Republicans do sometimes use laws where they shouldn't - but while that is an occasional failing of Republicans it seems to be the entire point of Democrats.
While there is a huge amount of truth to what you say, especially about the multiple political dimensions, the "far right" label has a simple usage.
I think was is closer to the truth is that the people who have the most control of the relevant language - people in soft sciences and people who run news organizations - use "far right" to tar people they disagree with. That's why people who oppose any kind of racial discrimination or racial preferences are called "far right" and the KKK is also called "far right". It's libertarians and old guard communists and 1940s Germans and Italians can all be called "far right".
Point taken on leftists, although I'm not sure I've met anyone who describes himself as "far right". That term is usually applied by other people trying to discredit them.
I had to look up the term "Anarcho-Syndicalist". It's interesting (impractical, but interesting).
If your argument is that you should be free to offend something imaginary, then you'll lose the argument because the people you're arguing with don't believe it is imaginary. The key to the success of American religious tolerance is not that we believe religion is imaginary and therefor that various beliefs are harmless. The key to our religious tolerance is that we believe people have an inherent right to be wrong. We believe in conversion by choice, and that conversion by sword is not allowed.
If you expect to make the argument that because their god is imaginary Muslims shouldn't get upset at offenses, you're not arguing for religious tolerance; you're arguing that your religion is better than theirs.
You are under the impression that there is a "universal right" and "universal wrong" (and you claim to know the right in this case)
In a democracy the majority should get their way - by definition.
Which is why pure democracy is such a bad idea and why the American Constitution provides for a representative republic instead. Certain safeguards need to be built in to control the passions of the moment.
In America, people generally being described as "on the right" are generally those who favor a high degree of individual liberty. So at least in America, I don't think the definition fits.
But what if you have a cold room that you want to keep warm? Instead of spending money on a dangerous space heater, just get some of these lightbulbs? A bonus is that they only run when needed. When you leave the room you turn off the lights and the heat with one flip of the switch.
Slashdot Mirror
If you attempt to screen your energy output then you need perfect knowledge of the exact location of ALL of the the enemy sensors.
So you send out decoys.
Wouldn't you just need to make sure your energy output goes in a single tightly focused direction - for example by sending the energy output in the form of a laser? Unless I'm missing something (which is quite possible) it wouldn't be visible to anyone unless they happened to be in precisely the right path, and the odds of that are pretty small even if they hundreds of sensors.
They are currently confident that they could use force to claim Taiwan, but there are many reasons that they do not. Loosing is not one of those reasons.
There is no upside for China if they go and claim Taiwan by force.
There is no upside for China to go to war with the US.
If China was interested in using its military to solve political issues then China would be blockading Japan in regards to their current dispute.
It's not that China isn't interested in using military force - their arms build-ups particularly in terms of arms for use in conquering Taiwan combined with their threates clearly indicate that they are even if mainly for intimidation.
However if China wants to conquer Taiwan and/or the Senkakus and/or the Spratly Islands and/or parts of India, then China knows the best thing to do is wait. Every year the balance of power favors them more. Their technology is improving and their wealth is growing. Meanwhile the American government seems determined to spend itself into oblivion and/or servitude.
Meanwhile they have more ability to soften Taiwan's resistance by controlling large swaths of the Taiwanese media (either through direct ownership, by manipulating the ability of Taiwanese media corps to make money in China or by working with the current Chinese Nationalist government of Taiwan). As they're economic strength grows they can also weaken American support for Taiwan through similar methods and even by direct buys in American media (see the big advertisement about the Diaoyu (Senkaku) islands in today's Washington Post).
For now China is pursuing less violent means, but don't mistake patience for pacifism. All good predators are patient.
Besides they currently have a tool in acting as Taiwan's president
As I understand law enforcement, there is a chain-of-evidence that says evidence obtained illegally can't be used in court, nor can evidence obtained as a result of the original illegal evidence. For example, if the cop searches your house without a warrant and finds illegal activity, any evidence obtained by that search can't be used against you. If evidence obtained in that search leads to further evidence - that too is tainted by the original illegal search and can't be used against you.
As I understand this case from your description, all the evidence of the parole violations were the result of an investigation into the origin of the perfectly legal video - an investigation that appears to have occurred because the government didn't like the video. If that's the case, then any evidence obtained from that investigation is tainted by the fact that he government wasn't respecting the guy's free speech rights.
True but, I don't think this applies here. They were not holding violations in reserve, they simply did not know he was violating them. It wasn't until journalists investigated the source of the film, and made the trail back to him and a few accounts that it was known.
Didn't a similar thing happen with one of Obama's relatives who is in America illegally? When he ran for president and won, journalists investigated and found that the relative was violating America's laws. Well, I didn't think that relative should have been singled out for having an incompetent presidential relative. Similarly, this guy shouldn't be singled out for having exercised his freedom of speech. The government is going after him because they don't like what he said, not for what he did. Had the video been anything else there would have been no investigation.
The government isn't "holding in reserve"; they made a CONTRACT, that he and his lawyer agreed to, for being let out of prison in exchange for behaving himself. As I read the article, part of the contract was that he not use the Internet and that he not use an alias or pseudonym. He has violated both of those. He would have been violating them even if all he posted was a funny cat video.
Didn't one of Obama's relatives make a contract with the INS and then violate it? Has that relative been arrested?
I hope most Americans haven't sunk so low that we'll give up our freedom of speech so easily. We've given up so many freedoms for various reasons - the freedom to choose who we hire and fire, the freedom to choose who we rent apartments too, the freedom to get a new job without notifying the authorities, the freedom to choose whether to allow smoking inside private businesses. In most cases many of us would behave consistent with what the laws says we must do anyway, but we still know the chains are there and the chafe us.
Freedom of speech is even more fundamental. Indeed it is almost as important as that bedrock of all freedoms, freedom of religion. That someone would willingly surrender our freedom of religion because of how some evil people ten thousand miles away react is beyond comprehension or description. .
We have so many laws that if they want to put you in jail they'll find something. Remember the special prosecutor law? When it first came out Justice Scalia said it was unconstitutional because it had an investigator with special powers looking for a crime - any crime - that might have been committed by a selected individual, as opposed to looking into a specific crime.
It took many years and finally the use of the law against a Democrat for people to finally realize it was a bad law.
The concern is that this might be a similar situation. Why was this guy even investigated? He wasn't suspected of doing anything illegal and there was no reason to look into his background or to question him. The government didn't like the guy so they decided to look and see if there was something they could arrest him for. That's wrong. And it's not even like the government always arrests people once they become famous and their law-breaking becomes public knowledge. See Obama's illegal alien relatives in America for examples.
To quote the bard
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely fool-proof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
— Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
The Bard is Shakespeare not Douglas Adams - it's not like a generic term that can applied to any author.
In the 50s, "the Boss" was Sinatra. In the 80s it was Springsteen.
Times change. The Bard used to be Shakespeare for his humor and insightful lines about human nature - now Adams is the Bard for the same reason.
In the 1st millenium BC, 1s millenium AD and 2nd millenium AD, they had Homer - now we have Tolkien.
Who knows what future hold? Someday we may even have a replacement for "da' Bears" and someone to succeed Mozart or Michelangelo.
Being the greatest in a field may last generations or even thousands of years, but it's isn't necessarily permanent.
For the country that really made the enlightenment a reality
Do you mean France or the US? Because in Britain both the monarch and the clergy are still in power.
Really? Is that why HHS is taking away the freedom of religion as soon as you decide to hire someone? Do yo really think the Queen is "still in power"?
If somebody working at the National Endowment for the Arts, or OSHA or NOAA, is amoral or immoral and has a personal grudge against you, they can screw with you, but they aren't carrying firearms in their line of duty
The entire government is weaponized. Some of them just take longer to get to the weapons than others. If Microsoft wants my money, they have to persuade me peacefully to give it to them (usually by giving me something in return). To use your example, if the NEA wants my money, they send the IRS after me. If I don't pay the IRS, they send the marshals. To use another of your examples, if OSHA wants me to do something because they are an agent of the government and the government has decided how I should act, then OSHA can fine me. If I don't pay they can shut down my business. If I refuse to shut down the business they can send in the marshals to shut it down. There may be more steps involved, but eventually the guys in uniforms with guns will show up unless I go along with what OSHA wants..
Sure, I can petition the courts, but they are also an arm of the government. At least if Bill Gates takes me to court it is private citizen vs private citizen. He's got an advantage because of his money, but if the government weren't involved in so many things voters could focus more on truly governmental matter like having a fair court system.
If someone in the military, FBI, DEA or BATF is similarly corrupt, venial and abusive, you had better hope your widow lives to seek some kind of justice for your corpse, because that's about the best you'll get. How does keeping the government focused on your tight list of legitimate uses for force protect you from abuses by the agencys of force?
It protects by ballot. Voters only get one vote. We don't get to vote for one president who handles law enforcement, a different president who handles energy policy, a different president for NEA, and still a different president for health care. We only get to choose one. If that president does a crappy job handling law enforcement he can still get re-elected because people like his energy policy,or his position on health care, or his handling of mortgages, or his whether he spends more or less money on welfare.
If the government only manages a few things, it had better get those few things right or it will be tossed out.
With corporations, you get many votes. Every purchase is a vote. You can vote Ford for your pick-up truck and Toyota for your commuter car. You can vote Apple for your computer and Enbev for your football-watching drink.
The fewer things the government manages, the more likely it is to get those few things right.
These [washingtonexaminer.com] guys put it another way:
According to presidential watcher Mark Knoller of CBS, George W. Bush, at this time of his presidency, had made 30 visits to his Texas ranch spanning all or part of 220 days. The Obama’s vacation day count is less than half of that.
But his have become more controversial because of the costs associated with moving the first family to a public vacation spot, unlike the Bushes to their remote ranch in Crawford, Texas. For example, the Hawaii Reporter said the first family’s 2011 Christmas vacation in Hawaii would exceed $1.5 million.
So we should never vote for presidents that don't own a large private ranch, or that come from states that are popular vacation spots?
Camp David is nice.
These [washingtonexaminer.com] guys put it another way:
According to presidential watcher Mark Knoller of CBS, George W. Bush, at this time of his presidency, had made 30 visits to his Texas ranch spanning all or part of 220 days. The Obama’s vacation day count is less than half of that.
But his have become more controversial because of the costs associated with moving the first family to a public vacation spot, unlike the Bushes to their remote ranch in Crawford, Texas. For example, the Hawaii Reporter said the first family’s 2011 Christmas vacation in Hawaii would exceed $1.5 million.
Camp David is nice.
So we should never vote for presidents that don't own a large private ranch, or that come from states that are popular vacation spots?
People who have the guns should have the least freedom to exercise their power. There needs to be some institution that exercises legitimate force for purposes such as law enforcement and wars - but that institution, since it operates on the power of the gun, should be severely limited.
Corporations and businesses can be just as amoral and even immoral as the government, but unlike the government, corporations and businesses don't have guns backing them up. You don't like the Microsoft monopoly? You may find it difficult to make a lot of money and run the software you want if you install Linux, buy Apple, or just refuse to use a home computer, but you won't find yourself hauled before a judge by armed police officers like you might if you refuse to pay your taxes.
If there's no other reason to vote non-Democrat, it's simply so that the media will pay attention when mistakes are made. Just look at how the media refused to ask questions of Obama when they were still claiming the embassy hit was random instead of a terrorist attack.
You make a good point. Bush made a lot of mistakes too, but at least they made the news quickly.
If it was prepared by a staffer then presumably reviewed by other people (if something that they planned to show at a big convention and on national TV wasn't reviewed by multiple people then there really is a serious leadership problem). What we can deduce is that no one involved 1. had enough military experience to notice the difference or thought it was worth checking to be sure that they were using American ships (they might not have been Russian - they might have been Chinese or who knows what).
It weakly suggests some management issues (only weakly because it was the type of gaffe that most organizations make occasionally) But it strongly suggests (though it doesn't prove) that the DNC puts a low priority on military matters.
The other great thing about street view is you get a look at the real place rather than the just the tourist locations or just what someone wants you see. One of my favorite things to do with street view is pick a random spot to see what is there. After doing that several times I get a much better view of life there than I would from any tourist brochure or picture book. Far less than 1% of Japan is made up of historic temples and pagodas. I've seen those pictures. What does a typical neighborhood look like? Where do the people live? What does a country road look like and what kinds of houses and stores are on it? What does the vegetation look like (and not just the pretty vegetation)? What does a typical fjord look like (and not just the ones in national parks or the ones that have particularly pretty cities next to them)? I used to dream of touring places around the world. Then I lived overseas and lost interest. It wasn't because I didn't like living overseas. I loved it. But I discovered that visiting a place and experiencing a place and culture are completely different and I was really only interested in the latter. There just isn't time on a trip to get any idea of what the place is like. Street view gives me a smidgen of the experience of seeing the real place.
Certain safeguards need to be built in to control the passions of the moment.
Ah yes, because like all right wingers you associate "democracy" with "frenzied blood-letting by an emotional mob".
Believe it or not, democratic non-republics can have systems of law and order and things like the separation of the legislature from the executive too.
That's not a pure democracy. And those are some of the safeguards I was referring to. And yes, sometimes democracy does represent an emotional mob that wants to engage in frenzied blood-letting. And sometimes they managed to do it despite the safeguards.
I'm pretty sure it is legal to mock someone in front of their kids, and that they can't sue, have you arrested, or engage in violence against you. Instead the parents can either mock back or teach their children about how "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me."
As for pictures - I'm pretty sure privacy laws would prevent you from getting those. Were any privacy laws violated in making facebook page Greece?
True. There's a lot of definitions of 'far right'; the definition I was using was the 'Conservative vs. Liberal' definition, as that seems to fit in this particular instance. Of course, there's also the 'Democrat vs. Republican' definition here in America (nearly the same thing);
I should have responded to this. As I see it you've got it backwards. In America, the Democrats are the conformists while the Republicans favor individualism.
It can be confusing because Republicans do favor conformity outside the law. You can do what you want but don't expect Republicans to approve of it if it doesn't match what Republicans consider normal. On the other hand Democrats favor conformity by force of law. In areas where Democrats favor freedom - primarily issues surrounding sex - Democrats not only say do what you want, but they make laws requiring everyone else to support and/or pay for you doing what you want. And of course on other areas Democrats demand conformity to their social values (you can only use the criteria they tell you to use when hiring and firing, you are required to donate to their health-care and welfare programs). Recently a leader of Chic-Fil-A said something Democrats didn't like and immediately prominent Democrats were threatening to use local laws to hurt Chic-Fil-A's business.
Republicans do sometimes use laws where they shouldn't - but while that is an occasional failing of Republicans it seems to be the entire point of Democrats.
Thank you for the thoughtful response.
While there is a huge amount of truth to what you say, especially about the multiple political dimensions, the "far right" label has a simple usage. I think was is closer to the truth is that the people who have the most control of the relevant language - people in soft sciences and people who run news organizations - use "far right" to tar people they disagree with. That's why people who oppose any kind of racial discrimination or racial preferences are called "far right" and the KKK is also called "far right". It's libertarians and old guard communists and 1940s Germans and Italians can all be called "far right".
Point taken on leftists, although I'm not sure I've met anyone who describes himself as "far right". That term is usually applied by other people trying to discredit them.
I had to look up the term "Anarcho-Syndicalist". It's interesting (impractical, but interesting).
If your argument is that you should be free to offend something imaginary, then you'll lose the argument because the people you're arguing with don't believe it is imaginary. The key to the success of American religious tolerance is not that we believe religion is imaginary and therefor that various beliefs are harmless. The key to our religious tolerance is that we believe people have an inherent right to be wrong. We believe in conversion by choice, and that conversion by sword is not allowed.
If you expect to make the argument that because their god is imaginary Muslims shouldn't get upset at offenses, you're not arguing for religious tolerance; you're arguing that your religion is better than theirs.
You are under the impression that there is a "universal right" and "universal wrong" (and you claim to know the right in this case)
In a democracy the majority should get their way - by definition.
Which is why pure democracy is such a bad idea and why the American Constitution provides for a representative republic instead. Certain safeguards need to be built in to control the passions of the moment.
And yes, there is universal right and wrong.
So then communism is "far right"?
In America, people generally being described as "on the right" are generally those who favor a high degree of individual liberty. So at least in America, I don't think the definition fits.
But what if you have a cold room that you want to keep warm? Instead of spending money on a dangerous space heater, just get some of these lightbulbs? A bonus is that they only run when needed. When you leave the room you turn off the lights and the heat with one flip of the switch.