Well here in Australia it is required when driving to give way to a funeral procession. I think it would be possible to give some sort of protected status to funerals that wouldn't have dire consequences for free speech.
My observation is that often (but not always) people who are mentally ill to the point of violence will still not oppose overwhelming force. With these sorts of shooting events, they get as much firepower as they can and go where everyone else has as little as possible.
With this latest one in the news, he went to a school and attacked children. Even with firearms, he didn't go to the local gym or football training session to take on even unarmed big guys. I find it credible that people disposed to such actions could be deterred by the possibility of encountering a concealed carrier, regardless of any particular carrier's ability to defend themselves or others effectively.
Speaking as an Australian, more specifically a Queenslander, I think it's more to do with culture than availability of guns. What was your murder rate before your gun laws were introduced?
When I left school, in Queensland you could buy military style semi-auto's and ammo across the counter with no background check. When I was a child, I bought my ammo from Toyworld. I grew up in a rural area where guns were a normal part of life, but not with the gun culture of the US. We had no mass shootings, they happened in the southern states which already had licensing etc, but we had gun laws forced on us. The PM threatened a referendum to give the federal government the power to introduce gun laws if the states didn't bring in basically uniform laws. Nobody really cares, it's not a regular topic of conversation here and not much of a political issue either.
Our murder rate has gone down slightly but it was already low and decreasing (yes, even with the few mass shootings that happened our total murder rate was decreasing without gun laws). I'm not convinced that the US would have a lower murder rate even if they had less guns.
10% of the population is a pretty significant demographic, you should reassess your characterization of these people as weird. Why should I agonize over day to day decisions? What I've noticed about people who like ambiguity is that they are often deliberately refusing to see something clearly so they can justify or refuse to confront bad behaviour. Do you want your spouse to interpret your wedding vows in black and white, or is a bit of adultery ok?
Any type of personality has it's pros and cons. When people take a principled stand it will often take a person who sees things in black and white to initiate that action, but I have been known to dig my heels in and subsequently find out I was wrong. For some reason, you are willing to rise out of your customary shadowy confusion to judge that as clearly wrong, where did your ambiguity go when I need it?:)
If there were no "black and white" type people, the world would grind to a halt with all the navel gazing. If there were only "black and white" type people, the world would grind to a halt while we all argued. We need each other.
I'm not American but the history of schools and the use of them by different religions and states to influence is not confined to any particular political ideal or philosophy.
Public schooling in the US and elsewhere is implemented by a unionized workforce. I find it difficult to believe that over time that doesn't push the general population to the left. Teachers unions the world over support the left. That influence doesn't even need to be planned into the curriculum, it is institutional due to the position of influence the teachers are in.
So you expect me to believe that when Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Fascists, Communists and Republicans are all willing to operate or subvert schools to advance their agenda that the Democrats, having the schools staffed with their supporters will just pass up the opportunity to politically influence the next generation. What shining beacons of impartiality and light these Democrats must be, like never before seen on earth.
Following someone around is not initiating violence, yet neither would I necessarily count it to be "standing", as in standing your ground. I think Zimmerman should stand trial. It's an unfortunate situation but one that either man could have de-escalated.
Why can't Trayvon be covered under stand your ground?
Because he died. Had Zimmerman died and Trayvon lived quite likely he would be using stand your ground laws as a defense if he was prosecuted. As for your other statement from a following post:
The only room for question here - the only reason it might be that Zimmerman should be found innocent - is if it is deemed that his literally stalking another human being while armed with a deadly weapon and when it was suggested that he not do so by the police is not seen as sufficient provocation for Martin defending himself under SYG.
The legal presumption of innocence in theory gives rise to the possibility that they could both successfully defend themselves in court, though in practice only one gets the chance.
I disagree. There is a saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I suppose true morality would require both good motivation and action. In the absence of that, give me someone who does the right thing for "bad" reasons over the "caring" asshole who screws you over every time.
I would suggest that someone "in school for Network Administration" such as the submitter should aim to become a good admin or go and do something else.
We both know that banks work without a nationally issued currency as they did for hundreds of years so claiming that they wouldn't exist without it makes no sense.
Banks as they exist today did not exist for hundreds of years without government help. They issued their own notes but the currency was gold or silver. Issuing notes allowed them to engage in fractional reserve lending, which would be prosecuted as fraud in any other industry that attempted similar practices. Banking and fractional reserve lending would not have lasted to this day without government intervention, in particular the creation of central banks. The likelihood of bank runs meant it was not a long term viable business which is why the Federal Reserve was created.
Savers looking to keep their valuables in safekeeping depositories deposited gold coins and silver coins at goldsmiths, receiving in turn a note for their deposit (see Bank of Amsterdam). Once these notes became a trusted medium of exchange an early form of paper money was born, in the form of the goldsmiths' notes.
As the notes were used directly in trade, the goldsmiths observed that people would not usually redeem all their notes at the same time, and they saw the opportunity to invest their coin reserves in interest-bearing loans and bills. This generated income for the goldsmiths but left them with more notes on issue than reserves with which to pay them. A process was started that altered the role of the goldsmiths from passive guardians of bullion, charging fees for safe storage, to interest-paying and interest-earning banks. Thus fractional-reserve banking was born.
However, if creditors (note holders of gold originally deposited) lost faith in the ability of a bank to redeem (pay) their notes, many would try to redeem their notes at the same time. If in response a bank could not raise enough funds by calling in loans or selling bills, it either went into insolvency or defaulted on its notes. Such a situation is called a bank run and caused the demise of many early banks.
While some economists see this re-lending of customer money as fraud, governments saw an opportunity to license this re-lending while reducing the bank failures and financial crises it causes by the creation of central banks - public institutions that have the authority to regulate commercial banks, impose reserve requirements, and act as lender-of-last-resort if a bank runs low on liquidity. The emergence of central banks mitigated the dangers associated with fractional-reserve banking.
Considering that you're calling her a cow because she stopped talking to you, she did the right thing.
I disagree. If you personally distribute naked pictures of yourself to unintended recipients because you're too stupid to use privacy settings or a sharing method you understand, you have no cause to treat the recipients like creeps for informing you.
Banks do not merely accept fiat currency, they release it. Take away fiat currency and the banking system as it exists today is non-existent. Their hypothetical willingness to accept commodity currencies is meaningless in the absence of wide usage such currencies. Loans are a product, not a service. When lending decreases it is called a contraction in the money supply. Think about that for a minute, our money supply diminishes if we slow down the acquisition of debt. Issuing currency is a function of the federal government yet is currently carried out by banks through fractional reserve lending.
I'm not saying that the government is secretly controlling banks, I'm saying that the banks are in effect, if not in law, a part of the government structure. The lack of oversight indicates their position in the government (ie: higher than elected representatives) rather than their exclusion from it.
Now large scale free markets are also enabled by legislation. Without laws against force and fraud you have feudalism, not a free market. Regulation and government services provide an environment in which a free market can thrive. A functioning court system is a necessary prerequisite to a free market. My argument is that any fiat currency is by definition provided by the government and is more akin to a court system that allows free enterprise than a product or service provided by free enterprise. As such, running it on a system of profit motive is no less corruption than court judgements being sold to the highest bidder.
Therefore I'm saying that our entire currency system is an instrument of feudal political/economic power rather than a free market. If I'm correct, you could expect to see money being funneled from the general population to the rich, a widening gap between the rich and the poor and an ongoing erosion of the middle class. I'm not advocating less regulation, or more regulation, just to see the problem for what it is.
Banks have existed long before they were regulated and just because they are regulated they are not government enterprises. Much of their business goes on without any governmental oversight.
It's not the amount of regulation that's relevant, it's the complete non-existence of their product and business other than by government decree and the universal necessity of their service.
Their primary means of exchange (not a product) is government issued currency but if people decided to start paying for things in bottle caps then they would accept bottle caps.
At which point they would be functioning as a free market enterprise.
Unfortunately, I know of very few 1%'ers who don't participate in political bribery or manipulation.
Like superhero stories, the heroes do not exist. Unfortunately the villains of the story are all too real.
Note that this one follows one of the worst financial calamities in US history, perpetrated in reality by those magnates at the top (so revered in the story), and total lack of regulation.
Nonsense. Banks exist solely by regulation and distribute a product that exists only by government decree. I'm not trying to compare the merits of fiat money vs gold (or some other commodity), just pointing out that a network of businesses that depend entirely on the government for their product is hardly a free market enterprise.
Banks are effectively a part of the government. What we have now is privately owned institutions that provide a necessary government service to the entire population for the benefit of the rich. It is an aspect of our system that remains as a feudal system rather than a democratic republic system. The problems with banking are not so much attributable to free market failure or socialist policy failure but of corruption, though that corruption is encoded in law, even required by law.
I'm not out to defend Atlas Shrugged but I do challenge your interpretation. the "magnates at the top so revered in the story" are those that shun government interference. The rich who cultivate government favor are the villains. Have a look at the political donations from Wall St and tell me to which group they belong.
Not everyone works under those conditions. Most employees do, contractors terms vary considerably."Work for hire" rules are a default and you are free to negotiate different terms.
But what's a worthy target? Anyone they feel is stupid. Todd was stupid for appearing nude on the internet and more stupid for getting angry about it and not learning about the Streissand effect. It goes on and on like that.
It seems to me that the sentence you quoted is paraphrasing the attitude of the anonymous attackers, not the posters own opinion.
For children, parents are the government, being sent to your room or grounded or other similar punishment is jail. Yes, they should be punished and taught not to do it as early as possible. I would regard your sons age as appropriate for making a start, it doesn't happen quickly though.
My own boys learn ju-jutsu. They are not allowed to use force to settle verbal arguments, ever. They are not allowed to attack people. If they want to physically fight they have to follow the rules as a sport or be defending themselves.
Fighting is a good skill for a child to learn but they should learn it according to civilized rules, not be adopting the behaviour of thugs.
A particular political persuasion is irrelevant to the point, which is that your statement regarding libertarians is applicable to all political groups. Real thinkers are a pretty small group and much of politics is based on emotion rather than reason.
If we could compare all the people who don't follow a particular dogma, such as yourself, we would find a small subset of thinkers and a bunch of people who aren't. It's not rare, they're called swinging voters and most of those votes swing on propaganda and emotion rather than careful logical consideration.
Well I would have thought it pretty obvious that with China's record on pollution, human rights and contaminated baby formula indicates that standards for food production likely aren't up to the standards of my country.
I'm not against regulation and I don't regard laws requiring food quality to be anti-free market. Large scale free markets exist only in a framework of enabling legislation. Nevertheless guruevi's statement that the "free market dictates that consumers shouldn't hear about this" is demonstrably wrong in this case because we were informed of the issue by a private company. That doesn't mean I think regulation can't be a part of the response to this situation.
The issue I have is that a lot of people have strong feelings about "the free market" without having a clue what that means, both people for and against it. They vote according to that lack of understanding and we're all getting screwed.
It is the right choice for me, I barely use office suites anyway and the formatting issues I've experienced are negligible. Most documents I get are either available as pdf or simple enough not to be a problem. If I needed MS Office, I'd buy it, it isn't a religious issue for me. Having it would not raise my income or make my life easier and I don't value it as entertainment.
I suspect many people could get by without MS Office and some of them know it. One more thing I don't need to buy is fine with me.
Some people don't do anything "serious" with office software, especially on their own computers rather than work ones. Occasionally I want to write a letter, more often I email. I have some spreadsheets dealing with my personal finances. Nothing I do makes me need MS Office. Probably most businesses require more, but maybe not most people.
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Well here in Australia it is required when driving to give way to a funeral procession. I think it would be possible to give some sort of protected status to funerals that wouldn't have dire consequences for free speech.
My observation is that often (but not always) people who are mentally ill to the point of violence will still not oppose overwhelming force. With these sorts of shooting events, they get as much firepower as they can and go where everyone else has as little as possible.
With this latest one in the news, he went to a school and attacked children. Even with firearms, he didn't go to the local gym or football training session to take on even unarmed big guys. I find it credible that people disposed to such actions could be deterred by the possibility of encountering a concealed carrier, regardless of any particular carrier's ability to defend themselves or others effectively.
Speaking as an Australian, more specifically a Queenslander, I think it's more to do with culture than availability of guns. What was your murder rate before your gun laws were introduced?
When I left school, in Queensland you could buy military style semi-auto's and ammo across the counter with no background check. When I was a child, I bought my ammo from Toyworld. I grew up in a rural area where guns were a normal part of life, but not with the gun culture of the US. We had no mass shootings, they happened in the southern states which already had licensing etc, but we had gun laws forced on us. The PM threatened a referendum to give the federal government the power to introduce gun laws if the states didn't bring in basically uniform laws. Nobody really cares, it's not a regular topic of conversation here and not much of a political issue either.
Our murder rate has gone down slightly but it was already low and decreasing (yes, even with the few mass shootings that happened our total murder rate was decreasing without gun laws). I'm not convinced that the US would have a lower murder rate even if they had less guns.
10% of the population is a pretty significant demographic, you should reassess your characterization of these people as weird. Why should I agonize over day to day decisions? What I've noticed about people who like ambiguity is that they are often deliberately refusing to see something clearly so they can justify or refuse to confront bad behaviour. Do you want your spouse to interpret your wedding vows in black and white, or is a bit of adultery ok?
:)
Any type of personality has it's pros and cons. When people take a principled stand it will often take a person who sees things in black and white to initiate that action, but I have been known to dig my heels in and subsequently find out I was wrong. For some reason, you are willing to rise out of your customary shadowy confusion to judge that as clearly wrong, where did your ambiguity go when I need it?
If there were no "black and white" type people, the world would grind to a halt with all the navel gazing. If there were only "black and white" type people, the world would grind to a halt while we all argued. We need each other.
Rest assured good freinds, you can still get your mindless RIAA sponsored pop music pirate, entirely unabated.
https://thepiratebay.se/search/britney%20spears/0/99/0
And quite legally too:
http://www.youtube.com/user/BritneySpearsVEVO
Other than the fact that you can print money as required, what else makes you think that perpetual growth is possible?
I'm not American but the history of schools and the use of them by different religions and states to influence is not confined to any particular political ideal or philosophy.
Public schooling in the US and elsewhere is implemented by a unionized workforce. I find it difficult to believe that over time that doesn't push the general population to the left. Teachers unions the world over support the left. That influence doesn't even need to be planned into the curriculum, it is institutional due to the position of influence the teachers are in.
So you expect me to believe that when Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Fascists, Communists and Republicans are all willing to operate or subvert schools to advance their agenda that the Democrats, having the schools staffed with their supporters will just pass up the opportunity to politically influence the next generation. What shining beacons of impartiality and light these Democrats must be, like never before seen on earth.
Government schools have degenerated into starter-prisions.
Just like the Republicans like it.
Left and right use the education system for propaganda and indoctrination whenever they can.
Following someone around is not initiating violence, yet neither would I necessarily count it to be "standing", as in standing your ground. I think Zimmerman should stand trial. It's an unfortunate situation but one that either man could have de-escalated.
Why can't Trayvon be covered under stand your ground?
Because he died. Had Zimmerman died and Trayvon lived quite likely he would be using stand your ground laws as a defense if he was prosecuted. As for your other statement from a following post:
The only room for question here - the only reason it might be that Zimmerman should be found innocent - is if it is deemed that his literally stalking another human being while armed with a deadly weapon and when it was suggested that he not do so by the police is not seen as sufficient provocation for Martin defending himself under SYG.
The legal presumption of innocence in theory gives rise to the possibility that they could both successfully defend themselves in court, though in practice only one gets the chance.
Motivation is evil, actions are not.
I disagree. There is a saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". I suppose true morality would require both good motivation and action. In the absence of that, give me someone who does the right thing for "bad" reasons over the "caring" asshole who screws you over every time.
I would suggest that someone "in school for Network Administration" such as the submitter should aim to become a good admin or go and do something else.
We both know that banks work without a nationally issued currency as they did for hundreds of years so claiming that they wouldn't exist without it makes no sense.
Banks as they exist today did not exist for hundreds of years without government help. They issued their own notes but the currency was gold or silver. Issuing notes allowed them to engage in fractional reserve lending, which would be prosecuted as fraud in any other industry that attempted similar practices. Banking and fractional reserve lending would not have lasted to this day without government intervention, in particular the creation of central banks. The likelihood of bank runs meant it was not a long term viable business which is why the Federal Reserve was created.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional_reserve_banking#History
Savers looking to keep their valuables in safekeeping depositories deposited gold coins and silver coins at goldsmiths, receiving in turn a note for their deposit (see Bank of Amsterdam). Once these notes became a trusted medium of exchange an early form of paper money was born, in the form of the goldsmiths' notes.
As the notes were used directly in trade, the goldsmiths observed that people would not usually redeem all their notes at the same time, and they saw the opportunity to invest their coin reserves in interest-bearing loans and bills. This generated income for the goldsmiths but left them with more notes on issue than reserves with which to pay them. A process was started that altered the role of the goldsmiths from passive guardians of bullion, charging fees for safe storage, to interest-paying and interest-earning banks. Thus fractional-reserve banking was born.
However, if creditors (note holders of gold originally deposited) lost faith in the ability of a bank to redeem (pay) their notes, many would try to redeem their notes at the same time. If in response a bank could not raise enough funds by calling in loans or selling bills, it either went into insolvency or defaulted on its notes. Such a situation is called a bank run and caused the demise of many early banks.
While some economists see this re-lending of customer money as fraud, governments saw an opportunity to license this re-lending while reducing the bank failures and financial crises it causes by the creation of central banks - public institutions that have the authority to regulate commercial banks, impose reserve requirements, and act as lender-of-last-resort if a bank runs low on liquidity. The emergence of central banks mitigated the dangers associated with fractional-reserve banking.
Considering that you're calling her a cow because she stopped talking to you, she did the right thing.
I disagree. If you personally distribute naked pictures of yourself to unintended recipients because you're too stupid to use privacy settings or a sharing method you understand, you have no cause to treat the recipients like creeps for informing you.
Put simply, if the laws listed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_banking_legislation were repealed banking as we know it would no longer exist. They would have no product or service to offer.
Banks do not merely accept fiat currency, they release it. Take away fiat currency and the banking system as it exists today is non-existent. Their hypothetical willingness to accept commodity currencies is meaningless in the absence of wide usage such currencies. Loans are a product, not a service. When lending decreases it is called a contraction in the money supply. Think about that for a minute, our money supply diminishes if we slow down the acquisition of debt. Issuing currency is a function of the federal government yet is currently carried out by banks through fractional reserve lending.
I'm not saying that the government is secretly controlling banks, I'm saying that the banks are in effect, if not in law, a part of the government structure. The lack of oversight indicates their position in the government (ie: higher than elected representatives) rather than their exclusion from it.
Now large scale free markets are also enabled by legislation. Without laws against force and fraud you have feudalism, not a free market. Regulation and government services provide an environment in which a free market can thrive. A functioning court system is a necessary prerequisite to a free market. My argument is that any fiat currency is by definition provided by the government and is more akin to a court system that allows free enterprise than a product or service provided by free enterprise. As such, running it on a system of profit motive is no less corruption than court judgements being sold to the highest bidder.
Therefore I'm saying that our entire currency system is an instrument of feudal political/economic power rather than a free market. If I'm correct, you could expect to see money being funneled from the general population to the rich, a widening gap between the rich and the poor and an ongoing erosion of the middle class. I'm not advocating less regulation, or more regulation, just to see the problem for what it is.
Banks have existed long before they were regulated and just because they are regulated they are not government enterprises. Much of their business goes on without any governmental oversight.
It's not the amount of regulation that's relevant, it's the complete non-existence of their product and business other than by government decree and the universal necessity of their service.
Their primary means of exchange (not a product) is government issued currency but if people decided to start paying for things in bottle caps then they would accept bottle caps.
At which point they would be functioning as a free market enterprise.
Unfortunately, I know of very few 1%'ers who don't participate in political bribery or manipulation.
Like superhero stories, the heroes do not exist. Unfortunately the villains of the story are all too real.
Note that this one follows one of the worst financial calamities in US history, perpetrated in reality by those magnates at the top (so revered in the story), and total lack of regulation.
Nonsense. Banks exist solely by regulation and distribute a product that exists only by government decree. I'm not trying to compare the merits of fiat money vs gold (or some other commodity), just pointing out that a network of businesses that depend entirely on the government for their product is hardly a free market enterprise.
Banks are effectively a part of the government. What we have now is privately owned institutions that provide a necessary government service to the entire population for the benefit of the rich. It is an aspect of our system that remains as a feudal system rather than a democratic republic system. The problems with banking are not so much attributable to free market failure or socialist policy failure but of corruption, though that corruption is encoded in law, even required by law.
I'm not out to defend Atlas Shrugged but I do challenge your interpretation. the "magnates at the top so revered in the story" are those that shun government interference. The rich who cultivate government favor are the villains. Have a look at the political donations from Wall St and tell me to which group they belong.
Not everyone works under those conditions. Most employees do, contractors terms vary considerably."Work for hire" rules are a default and you are free to negotiate different terms.
But what's a worthy target? Anyone they feel is stupid. Todd was stupid for appearing nude on the internet and more stupid for getting angry about it and not learning about the Streissand effect. It goes on and on like that.
It seems to me that the sentence you quoted is paraphrasing the attitude of the anonymous attackers, not the posters own opinion.
For children, parents are the government, being sent to your room or grounded or other similar punishment is jail. Yes, they should be punished and taught not to do it as early as possible. I would regard your sons age as appropriate for making a start, it doesn't happen quickly though.
My own boys learn ju-jutsu. They are not allowed to use force to settle verbal arguments, ever. They are not allowed to attack people. If they want to physically fight they have to follow the rules as a sport or be defending themselves.
Fighting is a good skill for a child to learn but they should learn it according to civilized rules, not be adopting the behaviour of thugs.
A particular political persuasion is irrelevant to the point, which is that your statement regarding libertarians is applicable to all political groups. Real thinkers are a pretty small group and much of politics is based on emotion rather than reason.
If we could compare all the people who don't follow a particular dogma, such as yourself, we would find a small subset of thinkers and a bunch of people who aren't. It's not rare, they're called swinging voters and most of those votes swing on propaganda and emotion rather than careful logical consideration.
Unfortunately 'thinking libertarians' are a small subset of the larger Libertarian movement.
Unlike people of your political persuasion, of course.
Well I would have thought it pretty obvious that with China's record on pollution, human rights and contaminated baby formula indicates that standards for food production likely aren't up to the standards of my country.
I'm not against regulation and I don't regard laws requiring food quality to be anti-free market. Large scale free markets exist only in a framework of enabling legislation. Nevertheless guruevi's statement that the "free market dictates that consumers shouldn't hear about this" is demonstrably wrong in this case because we were informed of the issue by a private company. That doesn't mean I think regulation can't be a part of the response to this situation.
The issue I have is that a lot of people have strong feelings about "the free market" without having a clue what that means, both people for and against it. They vote according to that lack of understanding and we're all getting screwed.
It is the right choice for me, I barely use office suites anyway and the formatting issues I've experienced are negligible. Most documents I get are either available as pdf or simple enough not to be a problem. If I needed MS Office, I'd buy it, it isn't a religious issue for me. Having it would not raise my income or make my life easier and I don't value it as entertainment.
I suspect many people could get by without MS Office and some of them know it. One more thing I don't need to buy is fine with me.
Some people don't do anything "serious" with office software, especially on their own computers rather than work ones. Occasionally I want to write a letter, more often I email. I have some spreadsheets dealing with my personal finances. Nothing I do makes me need MS Office. Probably most businesses require more, but maybe not most people.