Sorry to add myself to the "me too" crowd, but you don't know what you are talking about.
Actually I do. I'm not giving "professional advice", and I'm aware that going with what I'm saying has the potential to cause MS to engage in extortion against you.
None of that changes the fact that just because they put something in an EULA does not mean that it is legal. The fact that the EULA is nothing but restrictions added to your use of your property *after* a legal sale demonstrates quite clearly that it's legality is on extremely shaky ground.
It might be fair to say that you would be safer from barratry and extortion if you do follow the terms, but to say that any arbitrary terms a seller tries to impose on you after the sale is already complete is wrong.
ecent versions of Office explicitly address the Terminal Services environment and say that you have to "have" a separate MS Office license for every possible desktop that's used to access Office even occassionally.
Says MS. There is no legal basis for considering their nonsense EULA to be in any way meaningful. If you've signed a contract, well different story, but just automatically claiming that any ridiculous nonsense whatsoever that MS chooses to put in their garbage EULA is somehow magically legally binding...or even legal for that matter is just silly.
You also need a separate per-device TS-CAL and CAL for each connecting client.
Why would you *ever* conceivable need a CAL for anything? That one is just pure nonsense. If they sell you a server OS, then it *by definition* means that it will serve clients. If you need to additionally by a license to access the server, then *it isn't a server, is it?*
That's a simple case of false advertising.
Read your license agreements carefully, and bring aspirin.
And then wipe your ass with them for that is all the worth they have. One party can not arbitrarily add conditions *after a sale*.
It's sad that so many people think that MS (or any organization for that matter) magically acquired the right to do all of this clearly illegal and nonsensical crap.
How come If I told you that you owe me $100 you'd show some basic common sense and tell me to fuck off, but just because a major criminal organization does it you drop your pants, bend right over nad start trying to push lube on everyone else?
I'm afraid the other poster is right. You need a license for each user. And it's so because the EULA says so. Have a look at it sometime.
That's only true if 100% of the EULA is actually legally binding, which seems very unlikely, but for sure is in no way certain. That was really my point that just because MS says something is true doesn't mean it is.
the whole lying and fake enemy thing. already been disproven a dozen times.
No it hasn't. It's been proven with absolute certainty. You do need to actually pay attention though. I notice you were entirely unable to come up with any actual facts to back up your nonsense assertion.
I'd wager you are a truther too.
Given that I don't even know what you mean by that, you'd lose that wager.
what amazes me most about the left (and I'm a libertarian, and am disgusted with both parties) is how much they hate religion yet are willing to accept so much purely on faith. it's their version of creationism. oh well, ya gotta believe in something
Wow, what a complete non sequitor and a strawman.
I'm not on the Left, nor am I taking anything on faith. Making up silly nonsense like that in an attempt to avoid dealing with reality just makes you look ignorant and deeply dishonest.
With all due respect, you're an idiot. Legally, you need 1 copy of Office (or whatever, with VERY rare exceptions) per (at least) Concurrent User even if you are using Thin Clients.
Why would this be true? Merely because MS wants it to be so? Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
Citrix may ALLOW you to run 1 license of Office/whatever for everyone there, but that doesn't make it legal.
What praytell would make using a product you purchased for its intended purpose illegal? That doesn't even pass a basic sanity check.
What I was trying to say is that as everything has become "Left" or "Right", it frames every debate in terms of one of the 2 political parties. Since both parties are big government parties, this implies that whichever way the debate, vote, etc. goes, it will automatically lead to even bigger government. I'm not trying to say that it's some sort of absolute, just a trend.
The basic premise is that there's Liberalism (freedom from restriction) and limits set upon that to protect the rights of others. So naturally, the discussion of right and left will (or at least should) skew towards determining what these limits are, and how to enforce them.
I wouldn't necessarily say that any limits at all automatically implies left or right, at least not by the definitions I'm using. Take murder, for example. Say that you have a natural born right to pick up a stick and go bopping people on the heads to get at the goo inside. The problem is that those people have a right to keep their craniums intact.
So outlawing murder, clearly a restriction, is just a question of individual rights and nothing to do with either the left or the right.
To what level is the free market acceptable, and when does government need to intervene?
I'd say the free market is acceptable when it's some reasonable approximation of "free". That's the best you can ever get, and what we have right now is a long way from it.
What can a person "get away with" in terms of the religion they worship? (human sacrifice? bigotry? bigamy?)
For example, when the Economist uses the terms right and left (often in reference to Labor and the Tories) are they characterizing it correctly? Or is their definition askew from your own?
I haven't read the Economist much lately, although I am currently reading "Economics" by them which is essentially a bunch of their essays reprinted in book form. One thing that really strikes me about it is how they talk about "Liberal" this or "Liberal Economic policies" etc. The Economist has always been a very (Classical) Liberal publication. So, I'm surprised to hear that they do talk about Labor and the Tories like that. As it turns out, I happen to know a bit about them because I have a British wife;-)
The Tories correspond somewhat to our Republican party although there is a pretty large cultural divide between us and England in some ways which make the correspondence a bit more limited than you might think. Just things like hereditary titles, a "House of Lords", huge history etc. Thatcher was a Torie, and She was Reagan's poodle, and implemented some similar policies as he did here.
The Labor party corresponds somewhat to our Democratic party with the same caveats. In 1997 the New Labor party was elected with Tony Blair. There was much rejoicing, especially among the younger people. The Tories had been in power since '79 and a lot of people were ready for a change and they expected all these great things to happen when all of a sudden...WHAM. Blair, being Bush's poodle, turned out to be a neo con.
Basically, think about Republicans who voted for Bush who now regret that decision at their moment of realisation about what they actually voted for. Now imagine that Bush had been a Democrat. That's kind of like what happened in England.
So, if you had to call one of those two parties "Left" or "Right", then it's kind of tough. They're both Right wing parties in many ways. Much like the Democrats or the Republicans.
Historically, they've ( back to just the Democrats and Republicans now ) been generally been more polarized on most real substantive issues than they are today in terms of an actual right/left type divide. Now they're largely both right wing who trot out emotional but largely meaningless (relatively) issues like gay marriage or abortion.
Your points are interesting.
Thank you. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine, although I know I'm swimming upstream. I wasn't trying to say you were "wrong", just that with those commonly used definitions an entire dimension is left out.
Can one posit that the meanings of Right and Left have shifted through usage?
Absolutely. What I'm saying is that the meanings of Left, Right, and Liberal have been transformed and compacted into just the modern Right and Left. Essentially they used MP3 when they should have used FLAC, and information was lost. I think this (among plenty of other things) has helped lead to the current dismal state of American political discourse. This is different than just the stupid yell fests and whatnot though.
There is no longer a word in common American useage to describe a person who believes in individual liberty over unrestrained government power.
"Liberal" used to be that word before the Democrats coopted it and changed its meaning and the Republicans demonized it.
"libertarian" is close, but has baggage from the "Libertarian Party". Not that they're bad or anything, just that it's a political party. I think it usually also carries the connotation of a somewhat "religious" belief in free markets.
And as a side note, doesn't Liberalism ultimately fail if it fails to define limits on individual freedoms?
Any society larger than one person (ok, not really a society;-) would fail without some limits as soon as the first asshole was born;-)
Aren't those limits the core of what Right/Left should be about?
W might be many things, but conservative is absolutely NOT one of them. he was referred to by someone as being a christian socialist. probably the most accurate description I've heard.
Hmmmm... except for the Christian part. He's really not one of those. And Socialist....well, sort of in some areas.
All in all, he's really pretty much a fascist more than either or both of those.
the Goldwater/Reagan party is dead.
Not true. The Goldwater party is dead. The Reagan party is alive and well and proceeding on course. The similarities between Bush and Reagan are far more numerous and striking than the differences. Apart from the fact that Reagan was an actor, so better at bare faced lying without sounding like a fool than Bush, I really see almost no differences between their administrations that can't be accounted for by the fact that they are looking to make "progress" in a direction and Reagan already did a lot of that, so no need to repeat it just expand on the same programs.
I often hear people who dislike Bush talking about how great Reagan was and it really blows my mind given how damn near identical their administrations are even to the people in them.
Massive overspending on a largely made up threat based on Donald Rumsfeld's falsified and doctored evidence? Check for both of them. Massive attacks on personal liberty? Check for both of them (and most other presidents...but I digress) Active support and promotion of terrorism? Check for both. Actively working for religious extremists against the fundamental basis of this country? Check for both.
I mean really apart from the fact that Reagan was good at giving "inspirational" speeches while fucking the country instead of sneering and snickering while doing so what real, solid, meaningful differences do you even see between Reagan and Bush's administrations?
I was using liberal in the terms of US politics, not in terms of Liberalism. So yes, you were correct.
Which means you were using it as a meaningless space filler as far as I can tell....not from you specifically, but in America, the term has no real well defined meaning anymore. Mostly it's just a slur from the wingnuts, and when used as a self description it doesn't really seem to be consistent or mean anything concrete. Anyhow, that's just my experience. Maybe you do have a valid definition for it. The question that raises though, is do you have a word to replace the one you've redefined? The lack of *any* word in the US with the definition that Liberal once had is a tremendous problem. It's part of why all our public debates are framed as black/white. The ability to discuss a concept goes away quickly when there is no word corresponding to it. It's especially tragic here where the defining concept of our nation is now the most scathing epithet the Republicans have and it's been subverted by the Democrats to mean something totally foreign.
I do disagree with your characterization of both Right and Left. . . you characterized both as their enemies would.
What's there to disagree with? The fact that the right and the left have declared themselves the enemies of Liberalism and individual rights and supporters of big state power doesn't really matter to the meaning of the terms.
They originated in the French assembly where the Nobility and the Church sat on the right and the representatives of the people sat on the Left and had no power.
Each side was looking out for their interests and against everyone else.
Both sides are extremely opposed to individual liberties (Liberalism), but for different reasons.
The Right is opposed to Liberalism because they reject the fundamental idea of Liberalism outright (We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal). They feel that some people are naturally better than others and that therefore they should rightfully use the power of the state against the individual to keep the peons down and the elite on top where they belong by birthright.
The Left agrees with that fundamental principle, but they go further. They feel it's ok for them to use the power of the state against the individual to *enforce* that equality.
That is what the Right and the Left are. That, in a nutshell, is what those words mean.
So, I'm rather curious as to what specifically about my definitions you disagree with. Just the fact that it makes both left and right look both self-serving and poor ideas? They are self serving and they are both poor ideas. That's been widely understood for hundreds of years. That is why when it came time to form a new nation (cue patriotic music) our Founding Fathers rejected both of them in favor of Liberalism since they had already seen how poorly they played out in the real world.
The appropriate characterization would be the Democrats think that by helping the poor and less fortunate out, the society will benefit as a whole (a rising tide lifts all boats) while the Republicans think it would be better if the poor people just died.
Ahhhh..... I think I see the misunderstanding. I'm not talking about the Republicans and Democrats. I'm talking about Right and Left which are completely different things.
If I had been characterizing the Republicans and the Democrats I'd just describe them as gangs of thugs with a few mostly cosmetic differences.
They don't even closely map along Left/Right divides. Some things do, some don't.
For example, Affirmative action based on racial quotas is a purely Left idea. Keeping blacks out of college period because they're "stupid" "ignorant" "animals" or shit like that is a purely Right idea. Agreeing that race shouldn't be a factor in admissions positive or negative is a purely Liberal idea.
You'll note that the Democrats push the left side of this argument and the Republicans do not pus
I'm 36. In my youth, the old folks would tell stories about the good old days when men were men and Republicans worked for something other than international corporations.
Ehhhh? What's that sonny? You'll have to speak up a bit;-)
I'm 37. In my youth people sometimes still told those tired old stories as well. That doesn't mean that I remember the subject of the stories, nor does it mean they were true even then.
Choosing Reagan over Goldwater was the end of the end (long past the beginning of the end) for whatever truth there might once have been to those stories as that was the complete and absolute rejection of the old Republican platform.
Anyhow, I think I technically win the bet since neither of us actually remember a Republican party like that, we just remember hearing stories about how it used to be.
Free trade agreements, specifically signing NAFTA into law. Which is more of a right leaning thing, free trade and whatnot. (As a self described liberal, I lean right on free trade and believe it's important,
I don't think all of those words mean quite what you think you do.
"Free Trade" is a Liberal position. That is real Liberalism...what the word actually means, not the US bastardized version of the word.
If you leaned Right on free trade, then you would think that it's a bad idea because it has the potential to allow the peons an opportunity to pull themselves up to parity with the elites. Further you would support more taxes on the general citizenry in order to give that money to already massively profitable businesses as a bonus for already being part of the elite. That is what right wing means.
If you leaned Left on free trade then you would support restricting the ability of a "superior" person from getting too far ahead of the pack as they would no longer be "equal". That is what left wing means.
Both of them are opposed to Liberalism and hence to the rights of the individual, so they are both very *anti* free trade although they do like to spout off about it.
So odds are regardless of your "self description", you're probably more of a leftist (as that's how "Liberal" is used in the US) with Liberal leanings on economics as opposed to being a liberal with right wing leanings on economics.
Of course, that could be totally wrong as well as a description of you, but your description was based entirely on the misuse of the relevant words;-)
That is why I am seriously considering crossing party lines for the primary and voting for her. This assures Dem defeat. and we all win.
That would only even be a sane statement if it *also* assured Republican defeat. It's obvious to every single person with even a scrap of sense that when the Republicans win everybody except a few of the most corrupt thieves murderers and liars loses and loses big.
Just look at the last 6 years for certain proof of that.
or the idea of an unlikely alliance of nations (Gondor/Rohan, USA/USSR/Europe) against an axis of aggresive enemies.
Gondor and Rohan had been strong allies since Gondor carved out a chunk of itself to create Rohan to reward Eorl the Young for saving their asses way back in the day. Their relations had cooled a bit with Wormtongue's influence, but there was no more likely alliance of nations than Gondor and Rohan. Rohan had never in its history refused a request for aid from Gondor and was oathbound to always answer their call.
You might look to the Dwarves, Elves and Men for unlikely alliances.
I voted for Bush in 2000 - I made a bad mistake, but I am willing to admit it.
It's good that you can admit a mistake. I'm curious if you have taken the time to figure out how you were able to be duped by such a transparent scam..how you were able to be fooled so badly by someone so incompetent? In short, have you done anything at all to try and correct the thinking or lack thereof that led you to make such a horrendous *and* easily avoidable mistake in future?
It really is good that you can admit to your mistakes, but far more important is the question of whether you've taken the time to *learn* how and why you were able to make such a tragic mistake when the facts were widely available the entire time. In short, what actions have you taken to insure that you aren't fooled just as badly by the next political hack that comes along.
Were the 2000 election to be repeated, do you know now have the tools, knowledge, and attitude to have done some very basic research which is all it would have taken to avoid falling for the blatantly obvious scam that was the Bush campaign?
It seems to me that he plain outright lied about the appropriations bill that he vetoed.
"Seems like", lied about *that bill*?!?
Pay a little more attention and you'll realize that he's lying damn near any time he says anything.
Of course he was lying about this bill. Congress is doing its job for the first time in a damn long time. It's their responsibility to control the President. They funded the troops and Bush refused to allow them to be funded because it included provisions which are entirely within Congress's authority. Bush despises the constitution and everything it stands for as he has proved at every opportunity, so he does what he does: Lies about it blatantly and massively.
So there's no need for "seems like". He did lie as he always does when confronted with reality.
So it doesn't look like you've really done that research into how you were so easily duped if you need to even bother with "seems like". There's no seems like. Bush lied through his teeth just like about Iraq, just like about being either compassionate or a conservative, just like damn near everything he's said has been an obvious and easily refuted lie.
Bush is so bad he even makes the Democrats look pretty good.
He's a typical Republican president. That's been the case since Nixon in terms of treason and corruption and since the election of Reagan in terms of Economics, death squads, torture and the like. If you think Bush isn't the perfect poster boy for the Republican party, then you haven't paid a bit of attention to the party these last few decades. He's who and what the Republican party has become. Maybe it's time for the Goldwater type Republicans to join a party that agrees with them instead of staying in the one that holds them in complete contempt?
You shouldn't base the values of a religion by the actions of the people who exploit, twist, and reinterpret it for their own benefit.
Actually, that's exactly what you have to do if you want to honestly assess a religion as those are the people who invent them, run them, and determine the values thereof.
What you shouldn't do is take the stated values as meaningful as they are tangential at best to the actual practice, purpose, and actions taken by the religion as a whole.
Seriously, no offense, but it would be difficult for you to be more wrong about anything than you are in that statement, since those who exploit, twist, and reinterpret *are* the religious leaders. That's what they do. That's really all they can do since we're talking about fantasies that were explicitly *made up* for that purpose. That's why so many questions can only be answered in a religious context by "you have to have faith" because they were made up by people who didn't have any answers. That's why religion has always been such a great evil and a blight on society.
Not proof, just evidence of a possibility. After all, the city of Troy is probably a real thing: ruins of a city in the right location have been found in Turkey, along with evidence of a war, IIRC.
Technically, they found city on top of city on top of city and evidence for war after war after war, but that certainly doesn't say anything contrary to your point...just being pedantic. I'd think that would even go farther to demonstrate that it was Troy, since in the Iliad they talk about how... I believe it was Diomedes' Grandfather and a few friends sacked Troy back in their day.
As far as "evidence of a possibility", well, the bible constitutes that much. Sure, there's a nonzero probability that there was a historical Jesus. There is zero historical evidence for it though which was my point.
I wouldn't call it "zero evidence". Good evidence? Definitely not. Accurate evidence? No. But not zero, either.
I'd still call it zero evidence. AFAIK, the Iliad while containing fantastical representations of various deities doesn't contradict itself.
Paul's writings in particular talk of a messiah who still has never been to earth. Paul claimed to have been visited by an incorporeal Jesus who spoke of his *future* coming within Paul's lifetime. He never claimed that he was talking about somebody who had lived within the last several decades.
It's that sort of thing throughout the Bible which demonstrates its uselessness as any sort of historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.
Granted, archaeologists have managed to use it to make some pretty impressive finds, but that's talking about physical cities which existed for hundreds of years.
Evidence or even proof that people in a given time and place believed certain things (or didn't believe such as the early Christians *not* believing in the divinity of Jesus until that was added much later) does not constitute evidence or proof that the things they believed in were real.
And as for whether the scientists are having a kegger and amusing themselves or not, I don't know. But why is everyone here seemingly ready to believe that the religious leaders are doing the same?
Because that's pretty much the only thing they've ever done for many thousands of years?
But that's still historic evidence, though not terribly reliable.
No it isn't. It is evidence of only one thing: That people were telling fairy tales about a Messiah. That's it. Evidence of fairy tales is not evidence for the subject of said fairy tales.
All this points to strong evidence that a guy name Jesus really did exist.
No it doesn't.
That is exactly zero evidence of any such thing.
The only way that could be evidence for what you're trying to make it look like it is would be if you went as far as to say the the Iliad is proof of the existences of Zeus and Achilles.
The only argument atheists have against the "miracles" in scripture is that miracles are impossible, which is a circular argument.
Bull ass.
Provide some shreds of evidence for your made up miracles, then we'll happily debunk them.
Your making up the silly idea that any crazy lunacy you spout is somehow incredibly valuable.
I don't need to prove your "miracles" false, since there is no evidence for any such thing.
Just because I read a fantasy book with miraculous events does not put an onus on you to disprove them. You are trying to pretend that it does. Of course you will only treat that as valid (or even sane, let's be honest) if it's restricted to your favorite fantasy book.
The difference is that you are making miraculous claims without *anything* to back them up. You have nothing, nada, zip, zilch... And yet you expect your fantasies to be automatically treated as if they were in any way anything but your own delusion.
Come up with some real rational reason to believe in your favorite fairy tale, and you will have something. As it stands you have nothing, so there is nothing to debunk.
In any case, Jesus wasn't about performing miracles: his purpose was much more important, and the miracles were meant to prove who he was.
He's so important, but he couldn't be bothered to leave a single scrap of evidence that he was ever here?!?
Do you ever stop and think critically about your beliefs? They really are deeply stupid and full of holes you could drive a truck through.
There is historic evidence that a wandering priest called Jesus Christ did actually exist.
No there really isn't any. That's why it's so amazing that all these people buy into that idiotic story. The only single scrap of supposed historical evidence was the Josephus document, but it has been pretty much totally debunked as either a forgery or a mistake in transcription.
That leaves a massive amount of historical records from the time and place, but no mention of an historical Jesus at all. No mention of earthquakes, censuses, miracles or executions on a high holy day which would have trumped everything else for incredibleness had it ever happened since it was not allowed by their religion, or any of the other things which would have been documented had they occurred but weren't
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to add myself to the "me too" crowd, but you don't know what you are talking about.
Actually I do.
I'm not giving "professional advice", and I'm aware that going with what I'm saying has the potential to cause MS to engage in extortion against you.
None of that changes the fact that just because they put something in an EULA does not mean that it is legal. The fact that the EULA is nothing but restrictions added to your use of your property *after* a legal sale demonstrates quite clearly that it's legality is on extremely shaky ground.
It might be fair to say that you would be safer from barratry and extortion if you do follow the terms, but to say that any arbitrary terms a seller tries to impose on you after the sale is already complete is wrong.
ecent versions of Office explicitly address the Terminal Services environment and say that you have to "have" a separate MS Office license for every possible desktop that's used to access Office even occassionally.
Says MS. There is no legal basis for considering their nonsense EULA to be in any way meaningful.
If you've signed a contract, well different story, but just automatically claiming that any ridiculous nonsense whatsoever that MS chooses to put in their garbage EULA is somehow magically legally binding...or even legal for that matter is just silly.
You also need a separate per-device TS-CAL and CAL for each connecting client.
Why would you *ever* conceivable need a CAL for anything? That one is just pure nonsense.
If they sell you a server OS, then it *by definition* means that it will serve clients. If you need to additionally by a license to access the server, then *it isn't a server, is it?*
That's a simple case of false advertising.
Read your license agreements carefully, and bring aspirin.
And then wipe your ass with them for that is all the worth they have.
One party can not arbitrarily add conditions *after a sale*.
It's sad that so many people think that MS (or any organization for that matter) magically acquired the right to do all of this clearly illegal and nonsensical crap.
How come If I told you that you owe me $100 you'd show some basic common sense and tell me to fuck off, but just because a major criminal organization does it you drop your pants, bend right over nad start trying to push lube on everyone else?
I'm afraid the other poster is right. You need a license for each user. And it's so because the EULA says so. Have a look at it sometime.
That's only true if 100% of the EULA is actually legally binding, which seems very unlikely, but for sure is in no way certain.
That was really my point that just because MS says something is true doesn't mean it is.
the whole lying and fake enemy thing. already been disproven a dozen times.
No it hasn't.
It's been proven with absolute certainty. You do need to actually pay attention though. I notice you were entirely unable to come up with any actual facts to back up your nonsense assertion.
I'd wager you are a truther too.
Given that I don't even know what you mean by that, you'd lose that wager.
what amazes me most about the left (and I'm a libertarian, and am disgusted with both parties) is how much they hate religion yet are willing to accept so much purely on faith. it's their version of creationism. oh well, ya gotta believe in something
Wow, what a complete non sequitor and a strawman.
I'm not on the Left, nor am I taking anything on faith.
Making up silly nonsense like that in an attempt to avoid dealing with reality just makes you look ignorant and deeply dishonest.
With all due respect, you're an idiot. Legally, you need 1 copy of Office (or whatever, with VERY rare exceptions) per (at least) Concurrent User even if you are using Thin Clients.
Why would this be true? Merely because MS wants it to be so? Sorry, it doesn't work that way.
Citrix may ALLOW you to run 1 license of Office/whatever for everyone there, but that doesn't make it legal.
What praytell would make using a product you purchased for its intended purpose illegal? That doesn't even pass a basic sanity check.
I'm sure you must have meant 4.12310562561766054982/5
;-)
Remember, lots of decimal places in your rating system means it's better.
It's also irrational.
No it isn't. Multiply it by one and it's obvious... well, where by "1" I mean 1e+20/1e+20
Perfectly Ordinary Rational Number heh
I see someone's been wearing the tin foil hat too long.
Are you off your meds?
I didn't say that Reagan's brain was eaten by the zombie of Elvis.
Did you perhaps disagree with something I said and didn't have any argument to back yourself up?
I'm not particularly sure I follow you, here.
What I was trying to say is that as everything has become "Left" or "Right", it frames every debate in terms of one of the 2 political parties. Since both parties are big government parties, this implies that whichever way the debate, vote, etc. goes, it will automatically lead to even bigger government. I'm not trying to say that it's some sort of absolute, just a trend.
The basic premise is that there's Liberalism (freedom from restriction) and limits set upon that to protect the rights of others. So naturally, the discussion of right and left will (or at least should) skew towards determining what these limits are, and how to enforce them.
I wouldn't necessarily say that any limits at all automatically implies left or right, at least not by the definitions I'm using.
Take murder, for example.
Say that you have a natural born right to pick up a stick and go bopping people on the heads to get at the goo inside.
The problem is that those people have a right to keep their craniums intact.
So outlawing murder, clearly a restriction, is just a question of individual rights and nothing to do with either the left or the right.
To what level is the free market acceptable, and when does government need to intervene?
I'd say the free market is acceptable when it's some reasonable approximation of "free". That's the best you can ever get, and what we have right now is a long way from it.
What can a person "get away with" in terms of the religion they worship? (human sacrifice? bigotry? bigamy?)
Human sacrifice? No.
Bigamy? Sure, why not?
Bigotry? Sure, why not?
When, if ever, should a government exert force upon another country?
When necessary
I don't have a general answer for that, but only if you have to. Not for some harebrained plot for world domination.
For example, when the Economist uses the terms right and left (often in reference to Labor and the Tories) are they characterizing it correctly? Or is their definition askew from your own?
I haven't read the Economist much lately, although I am currently reading "Economics" by them which is essentially a bunch of their essays reprinted in book form. One thing that really strikes me about it is how they talk about "Liberal" this or "Liberal Economic policies" etc. The Economist has always been a very (Classical) Liberal publication. So, I'm surprised to hear that they do talk about Labor and the Tories like that. As it turns out, I happen to know a bit about them because I have a British wife
The Tories correspond somewhat to our Republican party although there is a pretty large cultural divide between us and England in some ways which make the correspondence a bit more limited than you might think. Just things like hereditary titles, a "House of Lords", huge history etc. Thatcher was a Torie, and She was Reagan's poodle, and implemented some similar policies as he did here.
The Labor party corresponds somewhat to our Democratic party with the same caveats.
In 1997 the New Labor party was elected with Tony Blair. There was much rejoicing, especially among the younger people. The Tories had been in power since '79 and a lot of people were ready for a change and they expected all these great things to happen when all of a sudden...WHAM. Blair, being Bush's poodle, turned out to be a neo con.
Basically, think about Republicans who voted for Bush who now regret that decision at their moment of realisation about what they actually voted for. Now imagine that Bush had been a Democrat.
That's kind of like what happened in England.
So, if you had to call one of those two parties "Left" or "Right", then it's kind of tough. They're both Right wing parties in many ways. Much like the Democrats or the Republicans.
Historically, they've ( back to just the Democrats and Republicans now ) been generally been more polarized on most real substantive issues than they are today in terms of an actual right/left type divide. Now they're largely both right wing who trot out emotional but largely meaningless (relatively) issues like gay marriage or abortion.
Your points are interesting.
Thank you. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine, although I know I'm swimming upstream. I wasn't trying to say you were "wrong", just that with those commonly used definitions an entire dimension is left out.
Can one posit that the meanings of Right and Left have shifted through usage?
Absolutely. What I'm saying is that the meanings of Left, Right, and Liberal have been transformed and compacted into just the modern Right and Left. Essentially they used MP3 when they should have used FLAC, and information was lost. I think this (among plenty of other things) has helped lead to the current dismal state of American political discourse. This is different than just the stupid yell fests and whatnot though.
There is no longer a word in common American useage to describe a person who believes in individual liberty over unrestrained government power.
"Liberal" used to be that word before the Democrats coopted it and changed its meaning and the Republicans demonized it.
"libertarian" is close, but has baggage from the "Libertarian Party". Not that they're bad or anything, just that it's a political party. I think it usually also carries the connotation of a somewhat "religious" belief in free markets.
And as a side note, doesn't Liberalism ultimately fail if it fails to define limits on individual freedoms?
Any society larger than one person (ok, not really a society
Aren't those limits the core of what Right/Left should be about?
Sure, to a point..or after one rather. I think
W might be many things, but conservative is absolutely NOT one of them. he was referred to by someone as being a christian socialist. probably the most accurate description I've heard.
Hmmmm... except for the Christian part. He's really not one of those. And Socialist....well, sort of in some areas.
All in all, he's really pretty much a fascist more than either or both of those.
the Goldwater/Reagan party is dead.
Not true. The Goldwater party is dead. The Reagan party is alive and well and proceeding on course.
The similarities between Bush and Reagan are far more numerous and striking than the differences. Apart from the fact that Reagan was an actor, so better at bare faced lying without sounding like a fool than Bush, I really see almost no differences between their administrations that can't be accounted for by the fact that they are looking to make "progress" in a direction and Reagan already did a lot of that, so no need to repeat it just expand on the same programs.
I often hear people who dislike Bush talking about how great Reagan was and it really blows my mind given how damn near identical their administrations are even to the people in them.
Massive overspending on a largely made up threat based on Donald Rumsfeld's falsified and doctored evidence? Check for both of them.
Massive attacks on personal liberty? Check for both of them (and most other presidents...but I digress)
Active support and promotion of terrorism? Check for both.
Actively working for religious extremists against the fundamental basis of this country? Check for both.
I mean really apart from the fact that Reagan was good at giving "inspirational" speeches while fucking the country instead of sneering and snickering while doing so what real, solid, meaningful differences do you even see between Reagan and Bush's administrations?
I was using liberal in the terms of US politics, not in terms of Liberalism. So yes, you were correct.
Which means you were using it as a meaningless space filler as far as I can tell....not from you specifically, but in America, the term has no real well defined meaning anymore. Mostly it's just a slur from the wingnuts, and when used as a self description it doesn't really seem to be consistent or mean anything concrete. Anyhow, that's just my experience. Maybe you do have a valid definition for it. The question that raises though, is do you have a word to replace the one you've redefined? The lack of *any* word in the US with the definition that Liberal once had is a tremendous problem. It's part of why all our public debates are framed as black/white. The ability to discuss a concept goes away quickly when there is no word corresponding to it. It's especially tragic here where the defining concept of our nation is now the most scathing epithet the Republicans have and it's been subverted by the Democrats to mean something totally foreign.
I do disagree with your characterization of both Right and Left. . . you characterized both as their enemies would.
What's there to disagree with? The fact that the right and the left have declared themselves the enemies of Liberalism and individual rights and supporters of big state power doesn't really matter to the meaning of the terms.
They originated in the French assembly where the Nobility and the Church sat on the right and the representatives of the people sat on the Left and had no power.
Each side was looking out for their interests and against everyone else.
Both sides are extremely opposed to individual liberties (Liberalism), but for different reasons.
The Right is opposed to Liberalism because they reject the fundamental idea of Liberalism outright (We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal). They feel that some people are naturally better than others and that therefore they should rightfully use the power of the state against the individual to keep the peons down and the elite on top where they belong by birthright.
The Left agrees with that fundamental principle, but they go further. They feel it's ok for them to use the power of the state against the individual to *enforce* that equality.
That is what the Right and the Left are.
That, in a nutshell, is what those words mean.
So, I'm rather curious as to what specifically about my definitions you disagree with. Just the fact that it makes both left and right look both self-serving and poor ideas? They are self serving and they are both poor ideas. That's been widely understood for hundreds of years. That is why when it came time to form a new nation (cue patriotic music) our Founding Fathers rejected both of them in favor of Liberalism since they had already seen how poorly they played out in the real world.
The appropriate characterization would be the Democrats think that by helping the poor and less fortunate out, the society will benefit as a whole (a rising tide lifts all boats) while the Republicans think it would be better if the poor people just died.
Ahhhh..... I think I see the misunderstanding.
I'm not talking about the Republicans and Democrats. I'm talking about Right and Left which are completely different things.
If I had been characterizing the Republicans and the Democrats I'd just describe them as gangs of thugs with a few mostly cosmetic differences.
They don't even closely map along Left/Right divides. Some things do, some don't.
For example, Affirmative action based on racial quotas is a purely Left idea.
Keeping blacks out of college period because they're "stupid" "ignorant" "animals" or shit like that is a purely Right idea.
Agreeing that race shouldn't be a factor in admissions positive or negative is a purely Liberal idea.
You'll note that the Democrats push the left side of this argument and the Republicans do not pus
I'm 36. In my youth, the old folks would tell stories about the good old days when men were men and Republicans worked for something other than international corporations.
;-)
Ehhhh? What's that sonny? You'll have to speak up a bit
I'm 37. In my youth people sometimes still told those tired old stories as well. That doesn't mean that I remember the subject of the stories, nor does it mean they were true even then.
Choosing Reagan over Goldwater was the end of the end (long past the beginning of the end) for whatever truth there might once have been to those stories as that was the complete and absolute rejection of the old Republican platform.
Anyhow, I think I technically win the bet since neither of us actually remember a Republican party like that, we just remember hearing stories about how it used to be.
Free trade agreements, specifically signing NAFTA into law. Which is more of a right leaning thing, free trade and whatnot. (As a self described liberal, I lean right on free trade and believe it's important,
;-)
I don't think all of those words mean quite what you think you do.
"Free Trade" is a Liberal position. That is real Liberalism...what the word actually means, not the US bastardized version of the word.
If you leaned Right on free trade, then you would think that it's a bad idea because it has the potential to allow the peons an opportunity to pull themselves up to parity with the elites. Further you would support more taxes on the general citizenry in order to give that money to already massively profitable businesses as a bonus for already being part of the elite. That is what right wing means.
If you leaned Left on free trade then you would support restricting the ability of a "superior" person from getting too far ahead of the pack as they would no longer be "equal". That is what left wing means.
Both of them are opposed to Liberalism and hence to the rights of the individual, so they are both very *anti* free trade although they do like to spout off about it.
So odds are regardless of your "self description", you're probably more of a leftist (as that's how "Liberal" is used in the US) with Liberal leanings on economics as opposed to being a liberal with right wing leanings on economics.
Of course, that could be totally wrong as well as a description of you, but your description was based entirely on the misuse of the relevant words
Remember when they used to be about states' rights and fiscal responsibility?
No, and I'll bet that you don't either.
That is why I am seriously considering crossing party lines for the primary and voting for her. This assures Dem defeat. and we all win.
That would only even be a sane statement if it *also* assured Republican defeat.
It's obvious to every single person with even a scrap of sense that when the Republicans win everybody except a few of the most corrupt thieves murderers and liars loses and loses big.
Just look at the last 6 years for certain proof of that.
or the idea of an unlikely alliance of nations (Gondor/Rohan, USA/USSR/Europe) against an axis of aggresive enemies.
Gondor and Rohan had been strong allies since Gondor carved out a chunk of itself to create Rohan to reward Eorl the Young for saving their asses way back in the day.
Their relations had cooled a bit with Wormtongue's influence, but there was no more likely alliance of nations than Gondor and Rohan. Rohan had never in its history refused a request for aid from Gondor and was oathbound to always answer their call.
You might look to the Dwarves, Elves and Men for unlikely alliances.
I voted for Bush in 2000 - I made a bad mistake, but I am willing to admit it.
It's good that you can admit a mistake. I'm curious if you have taken the time to figure out how you were able to be duped by such a transparent scam..how you were able to be fooled so badly by someone so incompetent? In short, have you done anything at all to try and correct the thinking or lack thereof that led you to make such a horrendous *and* easily avoidable mistake in future?
It really is good that you can admit to your mistakes, but far more important is the question of whether you've taken the time to *learn* how and why you were able to make such a tragic mistake when the facts were widely available the entire time.
In short, what actions have you taken to insure that you aren't fooled just as badly by the next political hack that comes along.
Were the 2000 election to be repeated, do you know now have the tools, knowledge, and attitude to have done some very basic research which is all it would have taken to avoid falling for the blatantly obvious scam that was the Bush campaign?
It seems to me that he plain outright lied about the appropriations bill that he vetoed.
"Seems like", lied about *that bill*?!?
Pay a little more attention and you'll realize that he's lying damn near any time he says anything.
Of course he was lying about this bill. Congress is doing its job for the first time in a damn long time. It's their responsibility to control the President.
They funded the troops and Bush refused to allow them to be funded because it included provisions which are entirely within Congress's authority. Bush despises the constitution and everything it stands for as he has proved at every opportunity, so he does what he does: Lies about it blatantly and massively.
So there's no need for "seems like". He did lie as he always does when confronted with reality.
So it doesn't look like you've really done that research into how you were so easily duped if you need to even bother with "seems like". There's no seems like. Bush lied through his teeth just like about Iraq, just like about being either compassionate or a conservative, just like damn near everything he's said has been an obvious and easily refuted lie.
Bush is so bad he even makes the Democrats look pretty good.
He's a typical Republican president. That's been the case since Nixon in terms of treason and corruption and since the election of Reagan in terms of Economics, death squads, torture and the like.
If you think Bush isn't the perfect poster boy for the Republican party, then you haven't paid a bit of attention to the party these last few decades.
He's who and what the Republican party has become. Maybe it's time for the Goldwater type Republicans to join a party that agrees with them instead of staying in the one that holds them in complete contempt?
You shouldn't base the values of a religion by the actions of the people who exploit, twist, and reinterpret it for their own benefit.
Actually, that's exactly what you have to do if you want to honestly assess a religion as those are the people who invent them, run them, and determine the values thereof.
What you shouldn't do is take the stated values as meaningful as they are tangential at best to the actual practice, purpose, and actions taken by the religion as a whole.
Seriously, no offense, but it would be difficult for you to be more wrong about anything than you are in that statement, since those who exploit, twist, and reinterpret *are* the religious leaders. That's what they do. That's really all they can do since we're talking about fantasies that were explicitly *made up* for that purpose. That's why so many questions can only be answered in a religious context by "you have to have faith" because they were made up by people who didn't have any answers.
That's why religion has always been such a great evil and a blight on society.
Not proof, just evidence of a possibility. After all, the city of Troy is probably a real thing: ruins of a city in the right location have been found in Turkey, along with evidence of a war, IIRC.
Technically, they found city on top of city on top of city and evidence for war after war after war, but that certainly doesn't say anything contrary to your point...just being pedantic. I'd think that would even go farther to demonstrate that it was Troy, since in the Iliad they talk about how... I believe it was Diomedes' Grandfather and a few friends sacked Troy back in their day.
As far as "evidence of a possibility", well, the bible constitutes that much.
Sure, there's a nonzero probability that there was a historical Jesus. There is zero historical evidence for it though which was my point.
I wouldn't call it "zero evidence". Good evidence? Definitely not. Accurate evidence? No. But not zero, either.
I'd still call it zero evidence. AFAIK, the Iliad while containing fantastical representations of various deities doesn't contradict itself.
Paul's writings in particular talk of a messiah who still has never been to earth. Paul claimed to have been visited by an incorporeal Jesus who spoke of his *future* coming within Paul's lifetime. He never claimed that he was talking about somebody who had lived within the last several decades.
It's that sort of thing throughout the Bible which demonstrates its uselessness as any sort of historical evidence for the existence of Jesus.
Granted, archaeologists have managed to use it to make some pretty impressive finds, but that's talking about physical cities which existed for hundreds of years.
Evidence or even proof that people in a given time and place believed certain things (or didn't believe such as the early Christians *not* believing in the divinity of Jesus until that was added much later) does not constitute evidence or proof that the things they believed in were real.
Anything can be contrived into being called a sin if you try hard enough. Absolutely everything.
So an entirely valueless religion then, wouldn't you say?
And as for whether the scientists are having a kegger and amusing themselves or not, I don't know. But why is everyone here seemingly ready to believe that the religious leaders are doing the same?
Because that's pretty much the only thing they've ever done for many thousands of years?
There really is a deep fundamental difference.
But that's still historic evidence, though not terribly reliable.
No it isn't. It is evidence of only one thing: That people were telling fairy tales about a Messiah. That's it. Evidence of fairy tales is not evidence for the subject of said fairy tales.
All this points to strong evidence that a guy name Jesus really did exist.
No it doesn't.
That is exactly zero evidence of any such thing.
The only way that could be evidence for what you're trying to make it look like it is would be if you went as far as to say the the Iliad is proof of the existences of Zeus and Achilles.
The only argument atheists have against the "miracles" in scripture is that miracles are impossible, which is a circular argument.
Bull ass.
Provide some shreds of evidence for your made up miracles, then we'll happily debunk them.
Your making up the silly idea that any crazy lunacy you spout is somehow incredibly valuable.
I don't need to prove your "miracles" false, since there is no evidence for any such thing.
Just because I read a fantasy book with miraculous events does not put an onus on you to disprove them.
You are trying to pretend that it does. Of course you will only treat that as valid (or even sane, let's be honest) if it's restricted to your favorite fantasy book.
The difference is that you are making miraculous claims without *anything* to back them up. You have nothing, nada, zip, zilch... And yet you expect your fantasies to be automatically treated as if they were in any way anything but your own delusion.
Come up with some real rational reason to believe in your favorite fairy tale, and you will have something. As it stands you have nothing, so there is nothing to debunk.
In any case, Jesus wasn't about performing miracles: his purpose was much more important, and the miracles were meant to prove who he was.
He's so important, but he couldn't be bothered to leave a single scrap of evidence that he was ever here?!?
Do you ever stop and think critically about your beliefs?
They really are deeply stupid and full of holes you could drive a truck through.
There is historic evidence that a wandering priest called Jesus Christ did actually exist.
No there really isn't any. That's why it's so amazing that all these people buy into that idiotic story.
The only single scrap of supposed historical evidence was the Josephus document, but it has been pretty much totally debunked as either a forgery or a mistake in transcription.
That leaves a massive amount of historical records from the time and place, but no mention of an historical Jesus at all. No mention of earthquakes, censuses, miracles or executions on a high holy day which would have trumped everything else for incredibleness had it ever happened since it was not allowed by their religion, or any of the other things which would have been documented had they occurred but weren't
Also the the story fell apart in the last 100 pages or so, kind of like Stephenson just stopped caring and wanted to get the thing done.
How right you are...
Now.....which one of his books were you talking about again?