Sorry, you didn't give the Supreme Court's BS rationale. No follow-up for you.
Just kidding. Here it is.
So, is there any action a person can take in the United States that is *not* "interstate commerce"? Walking near a school while carrying a firearm, perhaps? Operating a business which transacts with retail customers in its own state, but uses supplies that were manufactured in another state?
Once Justice Roberts said that if you call it a tax with an exemption clause for doing what the government wants you to, not a fine for disobeying the government (even if it was not called a tax in the actual legislation), it's OK. Peachy keen. No problemo. Problem solved. (To coin a phrase.)
Now anything can be prohibited or mandated by the federal government, punishable by a fine (that is called a "tax" when the wind is from the right direction at the proper time of day), apparently.
I'm not sure when the Constitution was dealt its death-blow, but it's definitely not getting up and walking away from that.
It could pull a Lazarus if the majority of the voters knew what was in the Constitution and wanted constitutional government. Or even a large bloc of voters that would be the swing voters in enough states, and enough congressional districts.
The constitution was written that way to prevent the centralized government from becoming too dictatorial.
And how's that working out lately? And by "lately" I mean the last 9 decades, more or less.
As one wag put it, it took about a century and a half to get a Supreme Court that would rule that a man raising grain on his own land to feed his own family and livestock was engaged in "interstate commerce" as he did so.
Silly me, I thought that for an act to be commerce between states, it had to be: (1) commerce, and (2) between states. What he did was neither.
Now to await the first person to provide the Court's BS sophistry that explains why I'm the silly one in all of this. (If you do, I'll have a follow-up question for you.)
Some IBM mainframe guy (Gene Amdahl?) and Seymour Cray were talking shop. Amdahl (or whoever) said to Cray that he'd wished he'd put more smarts into the peripheral side of things on System/360, as Cray did with the CDC 6000 series (and related) machines.
Peripheral Processor Units were so much more flexible. They were actual programmable computers that could run general-purpose code, not just CCW chains. (Or whatever those thinguses were.) In fact, part of the operating system itself -- not just device drivers -- resided in a PPU.
Monday morning I can't remember what I was working before I left for the day on Friday, but I remember stuff like this. (I sure wish a fella could make a living competing in Trivia Nights.)
There's a reason why people don't vote, and it's not because the choices on the ballot are all so wonderful it hardly matters.
Reasons, actually.
One that doesn't get much attention is the pre-printed ballot, where the government decides who is a "first-class" candidate and who can only be elected as a write-in (where not prohibited by law).
This comes from a series of election "reform" laws enacted in the late 19th century, designed to make it harder for immigrants and their offspring, and other undesirables, to vote.
Voter turnout and election competitiveness declined to our current low levels over the next several decades as engaged voters left the electorate through attrition.
Second, I'm sure we can come to satisfactory terms, with a little diligence. We could perhaps entrust some mutually-agreed upon third party to hold the money until it was time to pay off the winner, and to decide who that person was, in the event of conflict.
I'd be willing to go with Al Gore.
I'm not sure he's trustworthy (even with people watching), but if he's not, so what? It'd be worth losing a hundred bucks (my $50 and the other guy's) to tell all and sundry what a verifiable weasel Albert Gore, Jr. is.
So, how confident are you, personally, in the predictions of your favorite climate model?
Confident enough to put, say, fifty bucks on the line?
I get the impression you're confident enough to put the world economy on the line. If that's so, fifty bucks of your own money would seem like a reasonable thing to do.
Paul Ehrlich was willing to do so with a much larger amount. (The first time.)
"the measured temperatures are a nice validation that the models are in the right ballpark"
Well, within a factor of two. That's some ballpark.
If someone were trying to base public policy on a set of computer models which predicted changes in, say, IQ scores of black Americans, or academic success of women in STEM fields, and the predictions were off by a factor of two, how seriously would people take those models, or the people who came up with those models?
Their proponents would be laughed at by everyone who wasn't vilifying them.
According to Nat Silver in his book about prediction, it's surprisingly likely that a poker player with a good set of net winnings is mediocre. (I don't recall the numbers, but let's say it was 50-50 on skill, and 30%. Something like that.)
Chess is all skill. Matching pennies is all luck.
Poker is a lot closer to matching pennies than most people think, especially for some versions of the game.
Nope. Nobody in the military can vote. Only military veterans. (And that's hardly a guarantee of a pro-military attitude.)
Also, nope. "Society" and "Government" are not synonyms, despite what people keep assuming, and sometimes explicitly state. Not even in a republic.
Also, people in general were rather dismissive of the military, and choosing to enlist was considered a bad move in most social circles.
There are some good essays on the subject. James Gifford wrote the best, IMO. Don't recall who else. Searching turned up a few.
Heinlein himself wrote on it, but he apparently at times recalled what he meant to write, or thought he wrote, or wished he wrote. His comments don't always jibe with the book. (Gifford has details.)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nature+of+service+in+heinlein%27s+starship+troopers+ (search that turned up Gifford's, and more)
True communism hasn't really even been applied anywhere...
Yes. Only theoretical communism. Theoretical communism is *great*.
Theoretical communism beats every other real-world alternative.
"I want to move to Theory. Everything works in theory."
When socialists (of all stripes) give up comparing their ideal version of society with the various real versions of society -- they won't be socialists any more.
If people quit using something as money because its value increases too much, they quit using it. ("The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.")
They quit buying stuff with it. They quit making loans in it. Instead they use something else. (Remember Zimbabwe?) It decreases in usefulness to Holland tulip bulb level.
Unless its use is mandated by a government, that is. But only terrible governments do that sort of thing. East Germany did. It's been common in Latin America for decades, here and there.
And of course, the US government.
This alleged "problem" of a general decrease in the price level, for prices stated in a currency, is a self-correcting problem, to the extent that it even *is* a problem for that currency.
Say you're an ordinary person, and you got ahold of one of these Stingrays, and started gathering data? Would you be breaking any laws?
What if you were interested in blackmailing the people you snooped on? Would you have to actually threaten to reveal the information you had gathered to get arrested, or is possession of the device and the gathered information enough?
Not sure what good those answers would be, if I had them. The police are above the law, more often than not. What is a crime for someone not in a blue uniform is just another day at the office for cops, most of the time.
Hard to believe that the "precious metal" that was used to crown the Washington Monument was aluminum. (Or so I'm told.) Refining it chemically was extremely expensive. Refining it today is pretty cheap.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, you didn't give the Supreme Court's BS rationale. No follow-up for you.
Just kidding. Here it is.
So, is there any action a person can take in the United States that is *not* "interstate commerce"? Walking near a school while carrying a firearm, perhaps? Operating a business which transacts with retail customers in its own state, but uses supplies that were manufactured in another state?
Once Justice Roberts said that if you call it a tax with an exemption clause for doing what the government wants you to, not a fine for disobeying the government (even if it was not called a tax in the actual legislation), it's OK. Peachy keen. No problemo. Problem solved. (To coin a phrase.)
Now anything can be prohibited or mandated by the federal government, punishable by a fine (that is called a "tax" when the wind is from the right direction at the proper time of day), apparently.
I'm not sure when the Constitution was dealt its death-blow, but it's definitely not getting up and walking away from that.
It could pull a Lazarus if the majority of the voters knew what was in the Constitution and wanted constitutional government. Or even a large bloc of voters that would be the swing voters in enough states, and enough congressional districts.
I'm not holding my breath.
C'mon, Murray. That's not so.
What about ordinary criminals -- the kind who get their revenue without requiring you to do paperwork -- muggers and burglars and such?
The constitution was written that way to prevent the centralized government from becoming too dictatorial.
And how's that working out lately? And by "lately" I mean the last 9 decades, more or less.
As one wag put it, it took about a century and a half to get a Supreme Court that would rule that a man raising grain on his own land to feed his own family and livestock was engaged in "interstate commerce" as he did so.
Silly me, I thought that for an act to be commerce between states, it had to be: (1) commerce, and (2) between states. What he did was neither.
Now to await the first person to provide the Court's BS sophistry that explains why I'm the silly one in all of this. (If you do, I'll have a follow-up question for you.)
An anecdote, possibly true.
Some IBM mainframe guy (Gene Amdahl?) and Seymour Cray were talking shop. Amdahl (or whoever) said to Cray that he'd wished he'd put more smarts into the peripheral side of things on System/360, as Cray did with the CDC 6000 series (and related) machines.
Peripheral Processor Units were so much more flexible. They were actual programmable computers that could run general-purpose code, not just CCW chains. (Or whatever those thinguses were.) In fact, part of the operating system itself -- not just device drivers -- resided in a PPU.
Monday morning I can't remember what I was working before I left for the day on Friday, but I remember stuff like this. (I sure wish a fella could make a living competing in Trivia Nights.)
There's a reason why people don't vote, and it's not because the choices on the ballot are all so wonderful it hardly matters.
Reasons, actually.
One that doesn't get much attention is the pre-printed ballot, where the government decides who is a "first-class" candidate and who can only be elected as a write-in (where not prohibited by law).
This comes from a series of election "reform" laws enacted in the late 19th century, designed to make it harder for immigrants and their offspring, and other undesirables, to vote.
Voter turnout and election competitiveness declined to our current low levels over the next several decades as engaged voters left the electorate through attrition.
Details in "Why America Stopped Voting", by Mark L. Kornbluh. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/inde...
First of all, I'm not random, I'm deterministic.
Second, I'm sure we can come to satisfactory terms, with a little diligence. We could perhaps entrust some mutually-agreed upon third party to hold the money until it was time to pay off the winner, and to decide who that person was, in the event of conflict.
I'd be willing to go with Al Gore.
I'm not sure he's trustworthy (even with people watching), but if he's not, so what? It'd be worth losing a hundred bucks (my $50 and the other guy's) to tell all and sundry what a verifiable weasel Albert Gore, Jr. is.
As important as it was at one point in my life, I can't recall the sound now.
So, that's a "no", then? Same as all the others.
Sounds like some of them are as inept as Al Gore has been said to be.
So, how confident are you, personally, in the predictions of your favorite climate model?
Confident enough to put, say, fifty bucks on the line?
I get the impression you're confident enough to put the world economy on the line. If that's so, fifty bucks of your own money would seem like a reasonable thing to do.
Paul Ehrlich was willing to do so with a much larger amount. (The first time.)
Not just government central banks.
Ordinary counterfeiters also put money into circulation. And also, extraordinary counterfeiters. Like North Korea.
Perhaps North Korea could update the Fed about its operations, so the Fed could make appropriate adjustments to its own operations.
It would be in NKor's best interest to do this, so the home-made money it spends won't degrade in value on the world market.
(I'm only about 99% joking, here.)
"the measured temperatures are a nice validation that the models are in the right ballpark"
Well, within a factor of two. That's some ballpark.
If someone were trying to base public policy on a set of computer models which predicted changes in, say, IQ scores of black Americans, or academic success of women in STEM fields, and the predictions were off by a factor of two, how seriously would people take those models, or the people who came up with those models?
Their proponents would be laughed at by everyone who wasn't vilifying them.
Or a tragedy.
According to Nat Silver in his book about prediction, it's surprisingly likely that a poker player with a good set of net winnings is mediocre. (I don't recall the numbers, but let's say it was 50-50 on skill, and 30%. Something like that.)
Chess is all skill. Matching pennies is all luck.
Poker is a lot closer to matching pennies than most people think, especially for some versions of the game.
Some dialog from a possibly-recognizable author: I do not gamble, if you're willing to concede that poker is a game of skill.
Nope. Nobody in the military can vote. Only military veterans. (And that's hardly a guarantee of a pro-military attitude.)
Also, nope. "Society" and "Government" are not synonyms, despite what people keep assuming, and sometimes explicitly state. Not even in a republic.
Also, people in general were rather dismissive of the military, and choosing to enlist was considered a bad move in most social circles.
There are some good essays on the subject. James Gifford wrote the best, IMO. Don't recall who else. Searching turned up a few.
Heinlein himself wrote on it, but he apparently at times recalled what he meant to write, or thought he wrote, or wished he wrote. His comments don't always jibe with the book. (Gifford has details.)
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=nature+of+service+in+heinlein%27s+starship+troopers+ (search that turned up Gifford's, and more)
http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf (Gifford's)
http://www.kentaurus.com/troopers.htm
http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/articles/rahrahrah.html (Spider Robinson)
"Heinlein was a strong advocate for a military-based society"
Uh, no. You must be thinking of the movie, not the book.
Not novel. Short story.
So was "By His Bootstraps", a different definitive time-travel story by Heinlein. The sex was rather conventional, there.
Observe that it is a government operation, and that private sector airports are not permitted to compete with them?
Especially those who like avocados.
True communism hasn't really even been applied anywhere...
Yes. Only theoretical communism. Theoretical communism is *great*.
Theoretical communism beats every other real-world alternative.
"I want to move to Theory. Everything works in theory."
When socialists (of all stripes) give up comparing their ideal version of society with the various real versions of society -- they won't be socialists any more.
Once? I thought Soviet Union failed year after year. East Germany, too. Just not for as many years.
If people quit using something as money because its value increases too much, they quit using it. ("The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club.")
They quit buying stuff with it. They quit making loans in it. Instead they use something else. (Remember Zimbabwe?) It decreases in usefulness to Holland tulip bulb level.
Unless its use is mandated by a government, that is. But only terrible governments do that sort of thing. East Germany did. It's been common in Latin America for decades, here and there.
And of course, the US government.
This alleged "problem" of a general decrease in the price level, for prices stated in a currency, is a self-correcting problem, to the extent that it even *is* a problem for that currency.
Say you're an ordinary person, and you got ahold of one of these Stingrays, and started gathering data? Would you be breaking any laws?
What if you were interested in blackmailing the people you snooped on? Would you have to actually threaten to reveal the information you had gathered to get arrested, or is possession of the device and the gathered information enough?
Not sure what good those answers would be, if I had them. The police are above the law, more often than not. What is a crime for someone not in a blue uniform is just another day at the office for cops, most of the time.
Hard to believe that the "precious metal" that was used to crown the Washington Monument was aluminum. (Or so I'm told.) Refining it chemically was extremely expensive. Refining it today is pretty cheap.