I think the reason minors aren't allowed to vote is due to the fact that they don't much have the capacity to understand the ramifications of who they vote for. And the point the OP was making is that there are adults to whom this could equally apply to. People don't magically gain intelligence at 18; drawing an arbitrary line is just the best of all other possible options, although I'd personally draw it at 16 (here in the UK you can join the army at 16; if you can die for your country, you should be able to choose those would send you to do so).
Do you realise how small the UK is? There's no such thing as a remote farm unless you're living on a small island in the outer Hebrides, and IIRC those people get absentee ballots for constituencies on the mainland. We might not all be literally within 200m from a polling station, but we're all certainly within walking distance (by which I mean it'd take no longer than 5-10 minutes to walk to a polling station at the absolute maximum) of one.
Everyone already does live near a polling station here in the UK; the system is set up that way to make it convenient to vote. If you can't be bothered to get up and walk a few hundred metres to vote, you're better off staying at home anyway. If you have a disability, or are going to be away, then that's what absentee ballot papers are for.
the only enforcement actions I've heard of were purely anecdotal. As I don't live there, I wouldn't know, but this guy would probably disagree with you. Being wrestled to the ground by five cops isn't what I'd call unenforced. Of course, it's only the extreme stories like these that make the news, so my view of US jaywalking laws is bound to be somewhat biased. However, I still perfer UK laws, where crossing the road safely is my responsibility.
It annoys me when people say things like "I certainly don't include them". I read it as the "them" referring to the economic criteria, not to South Americans as a group:
only if you disregard the economic criteria. I certainly don't include them There's no need to be so sensitive over what could just be bad punctuation (change the full stop to a comma, and it's clearer). In short, relax, the world's not out to persecute you, or indeed, me.
That's partly true, our cops are mostly unarmed, but it would be semantically incorrect to say they aren't *routinely* armed anymore, although we only have a fraction of armed police, it's routine to see them outside Buckingham Palce, the houses of Parliment and other important places. However the neighbourhood police remain unarmed and the rank and file and consistantly say they want to remain that way.
He's talking about disregarding economic criteria; how can you be racist towards a non-sencient concept. It'd be like being racist toward triangles. It's not possible.
Even if he were talking about a race, how is the word "them" racist?
I'm a Brit of Indian origin myself, and people (mostly middle class white people) telling me what I should be offended by really annoys me, so you've hit a bit of a raw nerve, my flameing of you is nothing personal.
Note to mods: Feel free to mod me down as a troll, but I'm posting without my Karma or Subscriber bonuses, so it'd be a wase of a mod point.
The constitution - or, for that matter, any (written) law - is not going to fade out of existence just because people ignore it, though. Yes it will. How many British males do you find practising Archery on a Sunday? It was law in 1363, decreed by King Edward III. It's been ignored for hundreds of years, and no judge or magistrate would find someone guilty of not following it today. Ignore something for over 600 years, and it's irrelevant for day to day (or in this case, week to week) life.
Even the police take note of this. In LA, you can get a fairly large fine for jaywalking, Living in the UK, I've never understood why jaywalking is a crime. It seems like a dumb law to me, here not only can I legally cross the road where I want, when I want. Most of the time I also have right of way too.
Maybe in your country, here in the UK I can choose my electricity, gas and water suppliers, and switch if I don't like them.
I'm guessing you're from the USA, for the bastion of the capitalism, you're markets in everything from ISPs to consumer credit, to utilities seem to be very underdeveloped if anecdotes from slashdot are anything to go by. Whereas here in socialist Europe, with our free health care and welfare state; the free market appears to be flourishing. In the UK at least.
Well, as a Brit; I'm happy to use the current $->£ exchange rate to my advantage; even with shipping, it's often cheaper to buy goods from the USA; for example, I recently bought a "DS ONE" Supercard to run homebrew on my DS lite; importing it was significantly cheaper than buying it from the UK ("DS ONE" with 500mg Micro SD from US =~£37.00, the same from the UK without the Micro SD card was over £39.00). But at almost $2 to £1 that's to be expected.
It's not just electronic goods either, almost everything is cheaper in the states at the moment; hence my recent shopping spree over at thinkgeek.
And the oh, so clever mods go on to mark a justifiable troll as flamebait. Note to Mods; all moderations are not the same, learn your informative from your insightful, your troll from your flamebait etc. before moderating. This post here, for example, is offtopic. As such, feel free to mark it so; however, when you do you'll realise that it's also informative, and probably provides some insight into the broken nature of the moderation system.
You laugh, but I actually do like to visit Fox News, Al Jazeera and other sites that challenge my opinion, just to get some balance. If I spent all day at slashdot, with the occasional detour to the BBC, and other news sites that I agree with, or at least don't stray far from the centre ground (i.e. Places like the Telegraph and the Guardian (yes, I'm english)) my world view would become incredibly biased. Instead, I like to give myself some perspective by reading opinions that challenge my own in the extreme.
You also forget the European constitution on human rights is now UK law; it is effectively a bill of rights. Actually, our Bill of rights was enacted in 1688. It even grants us the right to bear arms, as with the US constitution; well, sort of:
That the Subjects which are Protestants may have Arms for their Defence suitable to their Conditions and as allowed by Law. that's in amongst the rights to speedy trials, and the right not to be subject to cruel or unusual punishment and Limitations on the power of the crown.
First off, seeing as you read TFA, You must be new here etc. etc.;P
To answer your point, scroll about a quater of the way down the page, past a bunch of other articles, and you'll finally reach the article. Not the best thought out link in the world, I agree.
Thanks for that link, I'm personally not a Christian, but I do want to dismiss the foolhardy notion that science and religion cannot coexist. Take for example Gregor Mendel, a monk; now considered the father of genetics. I'm sure that there are many similar stories throughout history.
is anyone else disturbed that unwavering belief in the theory of evolution has become a litmus test for intelligence? Yes, despite my own belief in evolution, I also happen to be mildly (non-Christian) religious. I have to say that the zealotry and downright bigotry that some slashdotters have come out with appals me. But then, I don't live in a country where the subject is so politicised. Here in the UK, I don't know anyone, religious or otherwise, that believes in creationism. Perhaps if the subject was removed from the political arena the debate would be a little more rational.
At least in the city I grew up in the 2 local religious schools (one catholic and the other baptist) consistently lead the public school in math and science, and by a very wide margin. So I think religion and education can go hand in hand. Indeed; despite being of an entirely different religion, my parents sent me to a Church of England school for exactly the same reasons. Religious schools consistently top the league tables here in the UK, suggesting that it's not religion that makes people dumb, just genral, run of the mill, ignorance.
Religion is inherently non-scientific, and cannot therefore co-exist in the mind of a scientific person. As I said to an AC: "God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein (obviously not a "scientific person") Note: I'm not trying to rebuff evolution (a concept I believe in), just the notion that science and religion cannot coexist.
Actually, I've run into a lot of people who have problems with evolution even though they aren't Christian or religious. Conversely, at least here in the UK, I know of many religious Christians, including IIRC the Archbishop of Canterbury, and I believe the Pope (obviously he's not in the UK); who accept the theory of evolution with no problems.
Personally I'm a lax hindu*, and evolution fits right in with my world view, and that of others I know. Infact AFAIK I don't know a single creationist.
*by which I mean I'm religious on Tuesdays and during holy festivals and other holy days.
Slashdot Mirror
People don't magically gain intelligence at 18; drawing an arbitrary line is just the best of all other possible options, although I'd personally draw it at 16 (here in the UK you can join the army at 16; if you can die for your country, you should be able to choose those would send you to do so).
Do you realise how small the UK is? There's no such thing as a remote farm unless you're living on a small island in the outer Hebrides, and IIRC those people get absentee ballots for constituencies on the mainland. We might not all be literally within 200m from a polling station, but we're all certainly within walking distance (by which I mean it'd take no longer than 5-10 minutes to walk to a polling station at the absolute maximum) of one.
Everyone already does live near a polling station here in the UK; the system is set up that way to make it convenient to vote. If you can't be bothered to get up and walk a few hundred metres to vote, you're better off staying at home anyway. If you have a disability, or are going to be away, then that's what absentee ballot papers are for.
That's partly true, our cops are mostly unarmed, but it would be semantically incorrect to say they aren't *routinely* armed anymore, although we only have a fraction of armed police, it's routine to see them outside Buckingham Palce, the houses of Parliment and other important places. However the neighbourhood police remain unarmed and the rank and file and consistantly say they want to remain that way.
He's talking about disregarding economic criteria; how can you be racist towards a non-sencient concept. It'd be like being racist toward triangles. It's not possible.
Even if he were talking about a race, how is the word "them" racist?
I'm a Brit of Indian origin myself, and people (mostly middle class white people) telling me what I should be offended by really annoys me, so you've hit a bit of a raw nerve, my flameing of you is nothing personal.
Note to mods: Feel free to mod me down as a troll, but I'm posting without my Karma or Subscriber bonuses, so it'd be a wase of a mod point.
you forgot: :P
7. ???
and
8. Profit!
Sorry, but I couldn't resist.
Maybe in your country, here in the UK I can choose my electricity, gas and water suppliers, and switch if I don't like them.
I'm guessing you're from the USA, for the bastion of the capitalism, you're markets in everything from ISPs to consumer credit, to utilities seem to be very underdeveloped if anecdotes from slashdot are anything to go by. Whereas here in socialist Europe, with our free health care and welfare state; the free market appears to be flourishing. In the UK at least.
Well, as a Brit; I'm happy to use the current $->£ exchange rate to my advantage; even with shipping, it's often cheaper to buy goods from the USA; for example, I recently bought a "DS ONE" Supercard to run homebrew on my DS lite; importing it was significantly cheaper than buying it from the UK ("DS ONE" with 500mg Micro SD from US =~£37.00, the same from the UK without the Micro SD card was over £39.00). But at almost $2 to £1 that's to be expected.
It's not just electronic goods either, almost everything is cheaper in the states at the moment; hence my recent shopping spree over at thinkgeek.
And the oh, so clever mods go on to mark a justifiable troll as flamebait. Note to Mods; all moderations are not the same, learn your informative from your insightful, your troll from your flamebait etc. before moderating. This post here, for example, is offtopic. As such, feel free to mark it so; however, when you do you'll realise that it's also informative, and probably provides some insight into the broken nature of the moderation system.
You laugh, but I actually do like to visit Fox News, Al Jazeera and other sites that challenge my opinion, just to get some balance. If I spent all day at slashdot, with the occasional detour to the BBC, and other news sites that I agree with, or at least don't stray far from the centre ground (i.e. Places like the Telegraph and the Guardian (yes, I'm english)) my world view would become incredibly biased. Instead, I like to give myself some perspective by reading opinions that challenge my own in the extreme.
First off, seeing as you read TFA, You must be new here etc. etc. ;P
To answer your point, scroll about a quater of the way down the page, past a bunch of other articles, and you'll finally reach the article. Not the best thought out link in the world, I agree.
Not really, he's just saying that you can rely on there to be "poor service, delayed flights, lost luggages"...;P
IIRC Slashdot uses GMT; It's long past noon GMT. On the plus side we've only got about 3 and 3 quarter hours to go http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/.
Thanks for that link, I'm personally not a Christian, but I do want to dismiss the foolhardy notion that science and religion cannot coexist. Take for example Gregor Mendel, a monk; now considered the father of genetics. I'm sure that there are many similar stories throughout history.
"God does not play dice" - Albert Einstein (obviously not a "scientific person")
Note: I'm not trying to rebuff evolution (a concept I believe in), just the notion that science and religion cannot coexist.
Personally I'm a lax hindu*, and evolution fits right in with my world view, and that of others I know. Infact AFAIK I don't know a single creationist.
*by which I mean I'm religious on Tuesdays and during holy festivals and other holy days.