Amateur satellite trackers have been the bane of US secret satellite projects for quite a while, actually. You don't necessarily even need a telescope to do it, you just need to live somewhere without too much light pollution. (Which is probably why a lot of the notable amateurs tend to be from Canada or Australia.) Of course what the amateurs publish probably doesn't come close to the precise ephemeris data that the French are gathering, and likewise doesn't include radio frequencies.
"If I have a die that is weighted to land on 5 or 6 almost every time, it's not random.
If you decide to use 5 as 1 and 6 as 0, and treat them as equal probabilities because you are ignorant to the fact that 5 is weighted higher than 6, you will not see a random result. And if you play against me, you will lose because I am aware of the predictable nature of the results and you are not.
This system is not random, and is subject to gaming of any system that treats it as though it was."
All random sources are of a similar nature. It is a random system. You just have to process it to get the randomness into the results you want, such as equally likely 1's and 0's.
Also, this may be a stupid question, but I wonder how one measures the 'randomness' of a generator? Is there a unit that represents randomness? I mean, it would be seemingly impossible to do it using observation of the output so I guess all you can do is discuss how dependent it is on particular prior events and what they are, theoretically. Can you really say that this is 'more random' than another one because you have to know so much more before hand about the particular machine & its fingerprint in order to predict its generated number?
The unit of randomness is the bit of entropy. If you accumulate eight bits of entropy (or more) into an eight-bit register, you have a truly uniformly random eight-bit number. There are various ways of measuring or calculating entropy. I'm more familiar with the ways of directly measuring "randomness." There are math software packages available that will analyze a large series of numbers in with many different statistical algorithms to detect any types of patterns. Generally, if a randomness generator (or PRNG) gives good results for all the tests in the batch, you can be confident that it's close to completely patternless (although no PRNG is completely patternless, as they're all periodic). So in the 8-bit example, the way I would know how to measure 8 bits of entropy is to increase the amount of entropy stored in the register until a block of them (the software I'm familiar with requires at least an 8MB block) passes all the statistical tests.
That said, although this might be "true" randomness, what kind of randomness it is? Uniform over a range? Gaussian? Weibull? Most likely, none of the above if it can be used for fingerprinting systems. (No, I did not RTFA.)
Though I also did not RTFA, all such random sources are a combination of pattern and randomness. The way you would presumably use it for both is to either A) extract the randomness from the raw memory bits, or B) identify the patterns of the non-randomness in the raw memory bits.
The former is very easy to do mathematically. The latter depends on what kind of pattern you have to look for.
AI is one of those fields, like fusion power, where the delivery date keeps getting further away. For this conference, the claim is "some time in the next century". Back in the 1980s, people in the field were saying 10-15 years.
Precisely. The more we advance our experience in AI and our knowledge of the process of thought and emotion become, the further out we will move our forecast of strong AI. Indefinitely.
We're probably there on raw compute power, even though we don't know how to use it. Any medium-sized server farm has more storage capacity that the human brain. If we had a clue how to build a brain, the hardware wouldn't be the problem.
Talking about building a "human brain" is a further absurdity because no one has attempted, or even suggested how to go about attempting, to build so much as an ANT brain. An ant brain has only a quarter million neurons. To all appearance, ants experience basic emotion such as fear and contentment, as well as whatever "thought" processes that enable them to perform the amazing feats they perform.
It's easy to to form vague hypotheses about how to simulate logical thought... but ALL thought, logical or otherwise, is formed out of emotional constructs which motivate it and direct it. If artificial thought is possible, then artificial emotion comes first. The theory that emotion comes from thought is wrong. I believe that this is now accepted in the field of neurology (though not the field of AI). Some philosophers and theologians have been saying it for centuries. If you consider how you would write a program that would experience (not just simulate) emotion, you might get a glimpse of the virtually infinite ignorance from which we're approaching this subject, as well as the problem with the entire materialist premise that tells us that this is a solvable problem. To me, as a programmer, the answer is obvious. I need to know the calls I can make to the "emotion API." The instructions available to a computer processor are not sufficient to create actual emotion. Computer instructions contain only logic. Emotion isn't built out of logic, and neither, therefore, is thought. Logic can be built out of thought, and logic can be built out of a computer processor, but that's where the connections end.
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(The owner does not respond.)
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
Owner: We're closin' for lunch.
Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
Mr. Praline: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up! (shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you
show...
(owner hits the cage)
Owner: There, he moved!
Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Owner: I never, never did anything...
Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
(Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour
ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
Mr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's b
I think a large part of required math/science reading should be the history of the subjects. A great introductory book I recently read was "Five Equations that Changed the World." I personally can't think of anything that would inspire someone to mathematical and scientific discovery more than understanding the excitement experienced by those who have discovered what we know so far.
I think he has a better chance of sitting in the white house than any of the current contenders. If I were a betting man, I'd put money on him on intrade. He has a strong and credible conservative message, unlike Guiliani and Romney. And it looks like he will get to run against Hillary. There's no way a Clinton can win the presidency without a strong third party candidate in the mix.
So why not a telescope as big as the ORBIT of the Earth?...as long as you're looking at something like a galaxy, that isn't going to change the shape of its features over the course of a year. Any reason why this wouldn't be possible?
In the case of the scientific method or math, it is easy to establish objectivity because EVERYONE'S subjective experience is the same. 2+2=4 no matter who looks at it. Gravity works the same for EVERYONE. Not so with God. Different people have different experiences. It is purely subjective with no objective consistency. You're subjective proof of God is no different from my subjective proof of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
You're right. The difference is that in math we all share the same subjective experience. In religion there is more variation. (Although for the 90% who are theists, the variation is not as great as many suggest.) So while we can't agree, like we can in math, the "method of proof" is no less valid.
And of course, my subjective proof of God is vastly different from your subjective proof of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, as I presume that you don't actually believe the former, or have reason to. If your point is that someone could claim to believe any arbitrary absurd thing, well of course they could. And many people do in fact believe absurd things. Other people can claim and can assert whatever they wish. Nevertheless, I know what I have intimately experienced over many years. And that is a reflection of objective reality that happens to be shared by billions of other people. I, and those other people, know something about reality that the rest are free to deny, but we still know it to be true. And the fact that you don't share that knowledge or possess the proof necessary to share it, doesn't make our knowledge somehow irrational or without proof.
In your experience? Are you a lawyer who has argued these cases before the Supreme Court? Otherwise, I'd like to hear how you arrived at this conclusion.
No, I'm just a regular person who reads most of the supreme court decisions, or at least their summaries. But even the summaries are enough to identify the parties and the subject matter.
This ruling established the so-called "Lemon test" which states that in order to be constitutional under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment any practice sponsored within state run schools must: 1) have a secular purpose, 2) must neither advance nor inhibit religion, and 3) must not result in an excessive entanglement between government and religion.
I don't see how that's in any way unconstitutional, perhaps you'd like to enlighten me.
The 1st Amendment says
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech...
It says "Congress" because it already establishes that the other branches don't have the power to make laws. But overlooking the unconstitutionality of the Supreme Court making a law in the first place, the law is unconstitutional because it 1) prohibits the free speech and free exercise of religion by parents, teachers and school boards, 2) illegally prohibits citizens from advancing religion, in direct opposition to the above, 3) unconstitutionally advances a uniform national "secular purpose" where no such power is granted any of the branches of government in the Constitution.
Unlike your "proof of the divine origin of scripture" the proofs of mathematics and the scientific method are repeatable and consistent.
They're subjective. Prove the validity of the scientific method. Prove the truth of the principle of deductive reasoning. These things are taken on faith, because the truth of them is perceived directly and subjectively.
There is no proof of divinity of diving scriptures. None. It's just wishful thinking on your part.
I can't prove to you that the proof is there. But it's there nonetheless.
Thus, my proof of the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has just as much weight as your proof, because it is subjective. You are presenting a very weak case. Subjective evidence is shaky at best, and certainly falls far short of proof.
No, subjective proof is generally far stronger than objective proof. For example the proof of the validity of the scientific method, and the proof of the validity of the first principles of mathematics. Like the proof of the divine origin of scripture, these are subjective proofs which are the bases of the subsequent objective proofs we can do on the subjects.
To be honest, while I have more than ample proof of God's existence and goodness, I don't know how the same can be given to you. I could only share the sources I went through to find it, which I'd be happy to do. Whether you could find proof that way, or if you could find it some unrelated way, only God knows. Meanwhile, I can tell you a lot of stuff that is true; such as that God is good. But it would be a waste of time for me to attempt to prove it to you directly. Such proof is a very long road.
The expression of religion in school, a public school, is not a right. As Thomas Jefferson said religion is a private matter and that's exactly where it should stay. Jefferson never in his life implied that people should be forced to keep their religion private. He did however, sign into law the Northwest Ordinances, stating that, "Religion, Morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged."
The federal government has no right to outlaw religion in public schools. The Constitution nowhere gives it that power, and therefore, by the 10th amendment, it reserves it to the people or the states.
Freedom from religion is as much a part of the First Amendment as is worship.
No it's not. Just like freedom from speech is not as much part of the First Amendment as freedom of speech.
Head on over to their website and take a look at what they're doing. It's inaccurate to characterize the majority of the causes they take up as pertaining to religion.
In my experience, the majority of their cases which make it to the supreme court pertain to religion.
It's not illegal for an individual to pray in school. It is illegal for a publicly funded school to hold a prayer session, and I fail to see the problem with that. Your religion has no right to use my tax dollars to provide a facility for your prayer group.
It is not illegal for a school, however it is funded, to hold a prayer session. That sentiment is incompatible with the first amendment. The federal government has no right telling a local teacher or school board what the best way to educate children is, or if religion should be part of it. Besides which, there is no such thing as a federal school. If all public schools are considered federal schools, then their very existence is unconstitutional.
Yeah - I realize that it's not currently the case. What I'm saying is that the Court is the final check and balance of the constitutionality of the law, and the fact that the court has to wait for cases to go before it questioning the constitutionality of said laws indicates that the government can introduce laws at will that can go unchecked for years.
Well, they're "checked" by the two independent branches which are answerable to the people. Increasing the involvement of the unanswerable branch would be bad, because they are unanswerable, and history shows that they can basically do anything the want with impunity. If the legislative and executive are both disrespecting the constitution, it's up to the people to replace them.
That's bad. The President should be hanged IMO for signing laws into law when they are blatantly in violation of the constitution.
Or at least voted out.;-) That's the purpose of signing statements, BTW, to specify any applications of a bill being signed into law which would be unconstitutional and therefore void.
Problem is, cases that never make it before the SCOTUS can have serious constitutional issues as well, but be knocked out by 'executive order' like the recent lawsuits against telecoms being thrown out due to 'national security'. SCOTUS will never hear those kinds of cases, thus, will never be able to rule on their constitutionality.
Sure, but on the other hand, SCOTUS is no more inherently likely to be faithful to the constitution than the other two branches. All three branches have an independent duty to be faithful to the constitution. The biggest difference between the three is that in the legislative and executive branches, failure to abide by the constitution can be punished by removal by the people. All it takes to end an unconstitutional law is for the people to elect a president who upholds the constitution, as such a president is bound to refrain from executing such laws.
Fair use is not actually a defined right. It is, instead, an"affirmative defense" against a charge of copyright violation. That's a difference, however subtle. That is to say, IF you are charged with violation, you may assert FU as a defense.
That's the argument made in TFA, but I don't see any distinction, subtle or otherwise.
An analogous case _might be_ if you're being chased by someone with a gun and if you run through my front yard and trample some extremely valuable shrubs and flowers, you could possibly (if I were a jerk and had a compliant cop friend to push the issue) be charged with trespass and destruction of property. You might then assert, as an affirmative defense, that your life had been in danger. Though you might eventually have to reimburse me for my loss, the charge of trespass and property destruction would be dismissed.
That's not a suitable analogy, because there are no such exceptions written in to the tresspass and destruction of property laws.
That gives Self-Defense as a prime example of an Affirmative Defense against a murder charge. But self-defense is certainly a basic human right. So again, I see no actual distinction. If something, like FU, is written in as an explicit exception to the law, that makes it a right as well as an affirmative defense.
The majority of what the ACLU does is trying to undermine the religious liberty of the people, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. They specifically attack the right to religious expression in schools and in public places.
Slashdot Mirror
Amateur satellite trackers have been the bane of US secret satellite projects for quite a while, actually. You don't necessarily even need a telescope to do it, you just need to live somewhere without too much light pollution. (Which is probably why a lot of the notable amateurs tend to be from Canada or Australia.) Of course what the amateurs publish probably doesn't come close to the precise ephemeris data that the French are gathering, and likewise doesn't include radio frequencies.
"If I have a die that is weighted to land on 5 or 6 almost every time, it's not random.
If you decide to use 5 as 1 and 6 as 0, and treat them as equal probabilities because you are ignorant to the fact that 5 is weighted higher than 6, you will not see a random result. And if you play against me, you will lose because I am aware of the predictable nature of the results and you are not.
This system is not random, and is subject to gaming of any system that treats it as though it was."
All random sources are of a similar nature. It is a random system. You just have to process it to get the randomness into the results you want, such as equally likely 1's and 0's.
The unit of randomness is the bit of entropy. If you accumulate eight bits of entropy (or more) into an eight-bit register, you have a truly uniformly random eight-bit number. There are various ways of measuring or calculating entropy. I'm more familiar with the ways of directly measuring "randomness." There are math software packages available that will analyze a large series of numbers in with many different statistical algorithms to detect any types of patterns. Generally, if a randomness generator (or PRNG) gives good results for all the tests in the batch, you can be confident that it's close to completely patternless (although no PRNG is completely patternless, as they're all periodic). So in the 8-bit example, the way I would know how to measure 8 bits of entropy is to increase the amount of entropy stored in the register until a block of them (the software I'm familiar with requires at least an 8MB block) passes all the statistical tests.
Though I also did not RTFA, all such random sources are a combination of pattern and randomness. The way you would presumably use it for both is to either A) extract the randomness from the raw memory bits, or B) identify the patterns of the non-randomness in the raw memory bits.
The former is very easy to do mathematically. The latter depends on what kind of pattern you have to look for.
**makes mental note to invest in Exxon**
And how did those members of societies become compassionate in the first place? Oh yes -- randomly, got it.
Precisely. The more we advance our experience in AI and our knowledge of the process of thought and emotion become, the further out we will move our forecast of strong AI. Indefinitely.
Talking about building a "human brain" is a further absurdity because no one has attempted, or even suggested how to go about attempting, to build so much as an ANT brain. An ant brain has only a quarter million neurons. To all appearance, ants experience basic emotion such as fear and contentment, as well as whatever "thought" processes that enable them to perform the amazing feats they perform.
It's easy to to form vague hypotheses about how to simulate logical thought... but ALL thought, logical or otherwise, is formed out of emotional constructs which motivate it and direct it. If artificial thought is possible, then artificial emotion comes first. The theory that emotion comes from thought is wrong. I believe that this is now accepted in the field of neurology (though not the field of AI). Some philosophers and theologians have been saying it for centuries. If you consider how you would write a program that would experience (not just simulate) emotion, you might get a glimpse of the virtually infinite ignorance from which we're approaching this subject, as well as the problem with the entire materialist premise that tells us that this is a solvable problem. To me, as a programmer, the answer is obvious. I need to know the calls I can make to the "emotion API." The instructions available to a computer processor are not sufficient to create actual emotion. Computer instructions contain only logic. Emotion isn't built out of logic, and neither, therefore, is thought. Logic can be built out of thought, and logic can be built out of a computer processor, but that's where the connections end.
Will the concentration of this many futurists in a confined area create a stupidity singularity???
Dead Parrot Sketch
The cast:
MR. PRALINE
John Cleese
SHOP OWNER
Michael Palin
The sketch:
A customer enters a pet shop.
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.
(The owner does not respond.)
Mr. Praline: 'Ello, Miss?
Owner: What do you mean "miss"?
Mr. Praline: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!
Owner: We're closin' for lunch.
Mr. Praline: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this parrot what I purchased not half an hour ago from this very boutique.
Owner: Oh yes, the, uh, the Norwegian Blue...What's,uh...What's wrong with it?
Mr. Praline: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead, that's what's wrong with it!
Owner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.
Mr. Praline: Look, matey, I know a dead parrot when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Owner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!
Mr. Praline: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.
Owner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!
Mr. Praline: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up! (shouting at the cage) 'Ello, Mister Polly Parrot! I've got a lovely fresh cuttle fish for you if you
show...
(owner hits the cage)
Owner: There, he moved!
Mr. Praline: No, he didn't, that was you hitting the cage!
Owner: I never!!
Mr. Praline: Yes, you did!
Owner: I never, never did anything...
Mr. Praline: (yelling and hitting the cage repeatedly) 'ELLO POLLY!!!!! Testing! Testing! Testing! Testing! This is your nine o'clock alarm call!
(Takes parrot out of the cage and thumps its head on the counter. Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)
Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!
Mr. Praline: STUNNED?!?
Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major.
Mr. Praline: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour
ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk.
Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords.
Mr. Praline: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers keepin' on it's b
I think a large part of required math/science reading should be the history of the subjects. A great introductory book I recently read was "Five Equations that Changed the World." I personally can't think of anything that would inspire someone to mathematical and scientific discovery more than understanding the excitement experienced by those who have discovered what we know so far.
Well, they just claimed the arctic ocean -- or the floor of it -- or some nonsense, a few weeks ago.
1. Claim the Arctic for the Motherland.
2. Discover Magical Radiation-Absorbing Mineral there.
3. ???
4. Profit!!!
I think he has a better chance of sitting in the white house than any of the current contenders. If I were a betting man, I'd put money on him on intrade. He has a strong and credible conservative message, unlike Guiliani and Romney. And it looks like he will get to run against Hillary. There's no way a Clinton can win the presidency without a strong third party candidate in the mix.
So why not a telescope as big as the ORBIT of the Earth? ...as long as you're looking at something like a galaxy, that isn't going to change the shape of its features over the course of a year. Any reason why this wouldn't be possible?
You're right. The difference is that in math we all share the same subjective experience. In religion there is more variation. (Although for the 90% who are theists, the variation is not as great as many suggest.) So while we can't agree, like we can in math, the "method of proof" is no less valid.
And of course, my subjective proof of God is vastly different from your subjective proof of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, as I presume that you don't actually believe the former, or have reason to. If your point is that someone could claim to believe any arbitrary absurd thing, well of course they could. And many people do in fact believe absurd things. Other people can claim and can assert whatever they wish. Nevertheless, I know what I have intimately experienced over many years. And that is a reflection of objective reality that happens to be shared by billions of other people. I, and those other people, know something about reality that the rest are free to deny, but we still know it to be true. And the fact that you don't share that knowledge or possess the proof necessary to share it, doesn't make our knowledge somehow irrational or without proof.
No, I'm just a regular person who reads most of the supreme court decisions, or at least their summaries. But even the summaries are enough to identify the parties and the subject matter.
The 1st Amendment says
It says "Congress" because it already establishes that the other branches don't have the power to make laws. But overlooking the unconstitutionality of the Supreme Court making a law in the first place, the law is unconstitutional because it 1) prohibits the free speech and free exercise of religion by parents, teachers and school boards, 2) illegally prohibits citizens from advancing religion, in direct opposition to the above, 3) unconstitutionally advances a uniform national "secular purpose" where no such power is granted any of the branches of government in the Constitution.
They're subjective. Prove the validity of the scientific method. Prove the truth of the principle of deductive reasoning. These things are taken on faith, because the truth of them is perceived directly and subjectively.
I can't prove to you that the proof is there. But it's there nonetheless.
No, subjective proof is generally far stronger than objective proof. For example the proof of the validity of the scientific method, and the proof of the validity of the first principles of mathematics. Like the proof of the divine origin of scripture, these are subjective proofs which are the bases of the subsequent objective proofs we can do on the subjects.
To be honest, while I have more than ample proof of God's existence and goodness, I don't know how the same can be given to you. I could only share the sources I went through to find it, which I'd be happy to do. Whether you could find proof that way, or if you could find it some unrelated way, only God knows. Meanwhile, I can tell you a lot of stuff that is true; such as that God is good. But it would be a waste of time for me to attempt to prove it to you directly. Such proof is a very long road.
Jefferson never in his life implied that people should be forced to keep their religion private. He did however, sign into law the Northwest Ordinances, stating that, "Religion, Morality and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, Schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged."
The federal government has no right to outlaw religion in public schools. The Constitution nowhere gives it that power, and therefore, by the 10th amendment, it reserves it to the people or the states.
No it's not. Just like freedom from speech is not as much part of the First Amendment as freedom of speech.
In my experience, the majority of their cases which make it to the supreme court pertain to religion.
It is not illegal for a school, however it is funded, to hold a prayer session. That sentiment is incompatible with the first amendment. The federal government has no right telling a local teacher or school board what the best way to educate children is, or if religion should be part of it. Besides which, there is no such thing as a federal school. If all public schools are considered federal schools, then their very existence is unconstitutional.
Well, they're "checked" by the two independent branches which are answerable to the people. Increasing the involvement of the unanswerable branch would be bad, because they are unanswerable, and history shows that they can basically do anything the want with impunity. If the legislative and executive are both disrespecting the constitution, it's up to the people to replace them.
Or at least voted out.
Sure, but on the other hand, SCOTUS is no more inherently likely to be faithful to the constitution than the other two branches. All three branches have an independent duty to be faithful to the constitution. The biggest difference between the three is that in the legislative and executive branches, failure to abide by the constitution can be punished by removal by the people. All it takes to end an unconstitutional law is for the people to elect a president who upholds the constitution, as such a president is bound to refrain from executing such laws.
That's the argument made in TFA, but I don't see any distinction, subtle or otherwise.
That's not a suitable analogy, because there are no such exceptions written in to the tresspass and destruction of property laws.
That gives Self-Defense as a prime example of an Affirmative Defense against a murder charge. But self-defense is certainly a basic human right. So again, I see no actual distinction. If something, like FU, is written in as an explicit exception to the law, that makes it a right as well as an affirmative defense.
The majority of what the ACLU does is trying to undermine the religious liberty of the people, as guaranteed by the First Amendment. They specifically attack the right to religious expression in schools and in public places.