Well, you talk about non-zero sum games and then you talk about diffusion. Then, you talk about polarity from diffusion.
I also speak of relative position.
Neither the U.S. nor China will (likely) see an absolute loss from trade. The U.S., however, has seen a relative loss as China grows stronger. Both are, however, growing stronger.
Neo-Marxist ideas, such as those in the GP, argue that one grows weaker as the other grows stronger. This is the difference.
But simply look at the per-capita GDP numbers - Chile is the highest among those countries generally considered the powerhouses of the region (according to CIA World Factbook, $14,400 - 50% higher than Brazil, a few thousand higher than much, much more stable than Argentina). Growth of the Chilean economy, additionally, has consistently been quite stable, and Chile routinely ranks among the best countries in South America to invest in, often due to low levels of corruption.
You'll note that I included the qualifier "pound for pound". You conveniently exclude this and create a straw man. Cute, but dumb. You're either shadow boxing, or you lack a basic understanding of the English language. The latter seems most likely - especially as mercantilism generally seeks protectionist policies, but you refer to the U.S. seeking free trade agreements as an attempt to create a "mercantilism hegemony".
Now, you were attacking my understanding of economics?
I'll get modded down for this one, as it is Slashdot, but here goes:
Many of America's client states are rebelling against the economic burdens placed upon them. A clear example of this is seen in South America, where several countries (Venezuela included) are acting in contravention to America's economic wishes.
Which explains why the U.S. and Peru just struck a free trade agreement and why the U.S. already has a free trade agreement with, pound for pound, what is arguably the most powerful and stable economy in South America - Chile.
Oh, but Chavez. He makes a lot of angry speeches against the U.S.! He MUST hate us! He must just be screwing us and cutting us out!
Try again. Venezuela's main export partner - still by massive, massive margins (46% in 2006, according to the CIA world factbook) is the U.S. He still sends vast majorities of his oil to the U.S. Economically speaking, he's lining up just fine. Security wise, he's causing a few issues with neighboring countries that we would like him to stop, but as far as his massive oil industry - which is the only real engine his economy has - massive amounts of it are coming here, and there's little reason for him to change that.
Also of note, according to CIA World Factbook figures from 2006: Brazil imports almost twice as much from the U.S. as it does Argentina and exports twice as much to the U.S. as well.
Furthermore, the American economy is in deep trouble, largely because it has borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to build expensive weapon systems (and also to build too many unproductive but expensive toys such as big screen TV's).
Oh please. The American economy has stalled a bit, but we're not even at the point of a classic recession (failure to increase GDP).
The economic system you are discussing is referred to generally as "neo-Marxism", with its focus on large states ruining the outlying countries for their wealth in an evil capitalistic world. What neo-Marxists never came to realize is that the world is not a zero sum game - and that rhetoric rarely translates into cold hard cash.
Now, what the U.S. likely is experiencing is more akin to hegemonic diffusion. The U.S. is, pretty much, an undisputed world Hegemon at this time. However, to maintain this hegemony, it must maintain trade (using its own resources) and trade a great deal with other countries, slowly diffusing its wealth to others. The great examples of this at the moment would be China and perhaps India. China is building a massive military based on income largely from U.S. trade, for example. China improves quickly, and the U.S. finds it increasingly difficult to maintain its relative position. The big question is whether this will switch to a bi-polar world (U.S./China), remain a uni-polar world (U.S., possibly China) or become multi-polar in the end.
I was more of an EBSCO man as an undergraduate, so my experience with that side of Lexis was pretty slim, but from what I know there are a lot of differences. Lexis used by law students/lawyers contains all of the same information from periodicals, but also contains tons and tons of case law, legal treatises, Shepard's citations, and other information which an undergrad isn't likely to find to be useful.
The big problem with the restatements is that they are not the result of legislative input.
On the other hand, the restatements also cover areas that legislatures have often not covered in their own proceedings - areas of law that have traditionally been left to the common law and which the people have, apparently, seen no need to change. But when the people - through the legislature - do change them, the people obviously have the power to overrule the restatements.
People sue each other. 1.8 million over a period of 58 years comes to about 31,000 year from a whole lot of courts - not too bad, and not unheard of. If you want to cut down on case law, people will need to stop suing each other. That's not going to happen - and I'm not sure it should. The courts provide a vital means for people to settle disputes without resorting to self-help (i.e. theft, assault, etc.). This isn't even including criminal cases - if you've got a way to stop people committing crimes and appealing their sentences, that's great. Also keep in mind that many of these opinions are as short as a sentence.
There have been, actually, numerous attempts lately to simplify the common law - the restatements of torts, contracts, property, etc. The restatements, however, aren't created by elected officials but a group of law professors, academics, lawyers, and judges. Some states like the restatements and follow them. Some don't - and some legislatures (elected officials) have taken steps to change the common law as in the restatement.
Then there are other areas - the Uniform Commercial code, for example - that have helped to simplify the law. But legislatures still want to tweak these (and with reason).
Then there are other codes, such as the Model Penal Code, for criminal law. The MPC is great and all, but it has its problems as well.
A big problem with these "simplifications" of law, however, are the time required to create them. It can take decades for the ALI to come to a decision on matters and publish a restatement. A legislature can do the same job much more quickly.
As a law student, I'm glad to hear these things are now public. They've always been in the public domain - just never published like this, at least that I'm aware of.
But Lexis and Westlaw will remain exceedingly important and worth their fees. Publishing cases is one thing - publishing the proprietary information that Lexis and Westlaw add (headnotes, the West Key system, Shepard's citations, treatises, and countless other secondary sources) would truly make this useful for attorneys. Of course, maintaining all of these sources requires a huge effort - and is one of the reasons these databases cost as much as they do. (There are, I'm sure, less savory reasons as well, of course.)
I wouldn't count on seeing Lexis and Westlaw go belly up soon - an attorney needs much more than the raw cases. But, like I said, this is very positive for the public.
Godwin's law already... that was quick. I do love a good non-sequitur in the morning.
No one's denying that Japanese Internment was wrong, but really - can it actually be compared with the concentration camps?
How many millions were gassed in those internment camps? How many hundreds of thousands were massacred, slaughtered? The internment camps simply aren't the same thing as concentration camps. They're not a good thing, of course, and no one's denying that, but they're not the same.
I would be surprised if Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or especially Michael Savage didn't call for violence against Muslims.
Your conspirational mind isn't the issue here - it's fact. Have they called for such violence? Do you have any evidence of such calls to violence? And let's assume for a moment that there were such calls to violence - then where's the genocide? Limbaugh supposedly has 20 million listeners - where are the mass killings?
It doesn't matter what you feel, only reality matters. And here's the reality - there is no evidence of such mass violence, and far, far less to attach it to talk radio.
I understand that, as a "progressive", you feel you must limit speech for the good of the people. Just understand that those of us who value the constitution have another opinion.
the most vapid post I have read in a long, long time on Slashdot.
And I just finished up a lengthy back and forth with a Ron Paul guy - so that's saying something.
No one denies that bugs are a part of life. No one denies that we all have experience with them. The article is noteworthy - and Slashdot assigns it primarily, and appropriately - to the "it's funny" tag because, well, it's funny to hear a national talk show host discuss not only bugs with software, but to discuss them quite specifically. It's also fairly rare to hear bugs in a fairly niche OS get national play like that. Bonus points for Limbaugh using a machine manufactured by a company of which Al Gore is a part. As a Mac user, I even find myself sympathizing with him.
So grow up and deal with it. Yes, we all deal with bugs, but they rarely get this exposure.
And then there's this gem:
Before the Rwandan massacres, they had similar radio programs pumping the audience full of hate and anger with deadly results.
That kind of behavior has made him a wealthy man, but I don't see why it should get him any love from Slashdot, or any priority over anyone else who has technical issues.
It's hard to imagine a more asinine allusion. Really, you can't honestly be trying to compare the two, can you? I mean, this is either one of the sickest pieces of political posturing or the most feeble-minded reasoning I have read in some time - and like I said, I've been talking with Ron Paul fans, so that's really saying something.
Are we really going to equate Rush Limbaugh to these people? Oh, I'm sure we'll all get to hear some nonsense about him "stoking the flames of war with Iraq" or whatever, and you'll do your best to provide a tenuous link between Limbaugh and ongoing U.S. military action, but really - when was the last time Limbaugh got on the radio and told anyone to grab a machete and go murder their neighbors of a different ethnic group next door - really, when? Or are you just spouting nonsense? You even further your claim by arguing that he is getting wealthy off of such comments. According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know...) twice as many people listen to his show as there are in the entire population of Rwanda. Where's the uprising?
So, assuming you believe that Limbaugh can lead a bunch of hillbillies or whoever to load up and start gunning down their neighbors, what do you suggest? Since you feel free to make allusions, should I? Should I assume that you believe we should regulate political speech? Should we prevent people from being paid for political speech? Should we only allow the good, happy, cheerful thoughts to be put out over the airwaves, so as to avoid the mere possibility of genocide? (A genocide which, as it just so happens to be, has never occurred in the U.S. and is exceedingly unlikely to occur?) Should we simply prevent criticism? Free discussion? Should we shut up radio announcers here who happen to express ideas you don't like because a bunch of a slaughter that occurred in the third-world that just so happened to use radio as a medium of passing along information?
The scary thing is that the government - and, one would assume, the party in government you yourself would favor - is trying to do that exact same thing with attempts to return to the so-called "Fairness Doctrine". We just can't have people expressing their ideas over the radio, can we?
And you have the gall to refer to others as "Orwellian"? It would appear that we were reading very different copies of Mr. Blair's work.
If you've got the opportunity to shoot down a useless satellite, cause a nice pretty boom, play with some really cool tech, cause no real harm and get away with it, I'd do it, too...
And I'd probably have a similar response to your hypothetical Bush... muhahaha... boom boom!
Simply put, time has not allowed a greater response. I advanced far further in the competition I entered than originally anticipated, and went from simply trying it out for fun to preparing to enter the quarter finals this Tuesday while keeping up with the rest of my madcap schedule. I simply don't have time for this, although I have posted a few brief items on/. to fill the time lately.
Paul's recent decision to pull out of the race has also made this thread far less useful. Far too much time has already been wasted on a man who could barely scrape together 14 delegates.
As Paul's candidacy is relegated to an obscure reference found in a small footnote of history - still far too great an honor - I would urge you to consider the following:
The fact that we have people in the white house abusing their power to the point of invading other countries without merit is an excellent example of why the US should not attempt to control the world and maintain bases everywhere. We aren't a perfect angel that can keep evil at bay. We should restrict our military to our own homeland except for brief periods when they must wage war overseas. It would let other countries feel more independent and let them worry less about the US deciding to order their troops next door to open fire.
While Paul fans have famously misstated both the number of American bases (the number includes not only bases, but essentially any piece of property found on a military base - even including buildings of fewer than 1,000 sq. ft. as "bases") and the number of countries American bases are in (my previous research on the matter indicates that any country with an American embassy was included. While American embassies do host military personnel and are, in fact, guarded by Marine Security Guards, the MSGs are under civilian command and are so few in number that referring to them as a base is a far stretch.), the simple fact is that the pullback has already begun. The U.S. has begun reducing its presence overseas, cutting back on bases considered "large" by the defense department and cutting back on personnel as well.
Also, many countries want those bases overseas, and we happen to want them there as well.
This is perhaps the biggest insanity of the Ron Paul nuts. Weakness is not strength. Pulling back military presence overseas does not create a "flyswatter" military. It hampers operations. North Korea's reasons for being pissed off with the south (and virtually everyone around them) go far further than a relatively small contingent of U.S. personnel. It's not always America's fault.
Foreign bases provide incredible power projection ability, keep naval ships running, and ensure that we can rapidly deploy forces. You may think they're unnecessary. I think it's clear than well over 90% of the electorate disagrees with you.
On to a few more personal matters:
I'm not sure why you now request me to provide an eloquent argument for Ron Paul. If you were really interested, you could easily search online and find more specific, concrete details about him. Heck, you could read his positions from his own words at ronpaullibrary.org
Yes, it's easy to find information about Paul. I have read it. I don't like him. Your issue - and the issue of many of your fellow Paul supporters - is that he doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. Period. And when an argument occurs, rather than providing a defense (i.e. - Ron Paul says this, and I believe it is correct for good and well-thought out reasons a, b, and c), the argument is flipped around to "how dare you deny the Paul!!!" I deny him because I have weighed his views in the light of history and the present political situation. Period.
We should not be there.
Well, we're there. Sunk costs, my friend. We can't change the fact that we entered Iraq. The question - and the only logical question - is what to do now.
I don't think Amazon was caught in a "lie" here - a lie requires some level of demonstrable intent to mislead others.
The idea that advertisements are not offers is very important to contract law for all vendors. Otherwise, consumers could sue if a vendor did not have an item it listed in a print ad because it had simply run out or, as more commonly happens, a clerk, graphic designer, or publisher somewhere along the way screws up and lists the wrong price. Businesses could quickly and easily be taken out of business if every single advertisement was an "offer" in the legal sense of the word, which implies much more than the lay term of an offer. First-year law students spend weeks on precisely what offer and acceptance mean in contract law, and it is a dicey issue at times.
I think Amazon did screw up in that it handled the situation poorly - consumers should have been notified of the mistake and that they should not expect their CDs. But this is not a legal issue - Amazon had the right to simply cancel the orders or, as another way of putting it, ignore the offers.
Once again, I am not a lawyer and none of the above should be considered legal advice. Please seek the assistance of a qualified attorney on these and other matters.
Acceptance must be both clear and unequivocal. An e-mail acknowledging an order received is not an acceptance under any common law concept that I know of. Acceptance generally occurs through performance, i.e. shipping the item at the price paid for.
American law is pretty nice to consumers, don't get me wrong, but it also tries to avoid massive windfalls wherever possible. Here, a windfall of nearly 12x the value paid for is quite rightfully avoided.
Should Amazon have actually notified its customers? From the viewpoint of a businessman, yes - that would have been nice. But it's not required.
The buying and selling of goods in a commercial sense falls under contract law, generally governed by the version of the Uniform Commercial Code or however it has been adapted in the state in question. Law students don't spend a great deal of time learning specific law, but generally applicable concepts.
Further, no contract was even formed here. A contract requires an offer, followed by acceptance. In this case, we have an offer (by the consumer) followed by rejection (by Amazon)
Advertisements, such as those that Amazon has put out, are not offers. They cannot be - they suffer from a problem of over subscription - far more people will or can see the ad than Amazon has products to offer others. If, however, the advertisement requires a certain behavior from the consumer (be first in line, whatever), then there could be an argument that the advertiser has made an actual offer. Until then, an ad is just an invitation to deal.
When a consumer orders the product from Amazon, he essentially makes an offer to purchase that product at that price. Amazon then may reject the offer, make a counteroffer, or accept the offer. In this case, Amazon rejected, having realized that their $5.00/hour clerk made a mistake that could have cost them tens of thousands of dollars. It was a good decision and a perfectly legal decision.
Under your idea of the law, if you put an ad up on Craigslist for your house and forget a zero or two, you could be out of hundreds of thousands of dollars because, by golly, that was the price on the item!
Now, as to these laws, please find the applicable one and, while you're at it, describe your own legal training and what you believe gives you the ability to judge others' understanding of the law.
I'm a law student... just a student... NOT a lawyer, and certainly not your lawyer, so nothing here is legal advice, period. I am not qualified to give legal advice, so I'm not giving it and cannot, in fact, even do so. Speak to a qualified professional about these matters, NOT ME.
(This is all assuming, of course, that there is an actual problem here.)
If I'm remembering first year contracts properly, then there's no problem here with Amazon refusing to sell at the price it listed.
A contract must have a few things to come into existence, generally: offer, acceptance, consideration.
Advertisements and catalog listings suffer from an "over-subscription problem" and are not considered firm offers themselves and, therefore, cannot simply be "accepted" by a consumer who makes an order. Ads are generally treated as invitations to deal unless they require something special on top of just showing up (i.e. being the first in line). The consumer's order, however, is considered an offer, which can be rejected by the seller by either refusing to provide goods and refunding money in a timely fashion or refusing to accept the money in the first place. This is done to protect merchants from themselves (people shouldn't be able to walk away with huge windfalls because a $5.00/hr clerk forgot a zero) and to protect their advertisers from them (newspapers shouldn't be held accountable for giving people windfalls for much the same reason). It's just good public policy, and prevents the games of "gotcha".
I see why some people are whining, but from a legal standpoint (again, I am not providing legal advice and I'm only a student - I could be 100% wrong on this and would welcome correction), Amazon has done nothing wrong in simply deleting the orders and refunding any money already sent.
The U.S. has a history of being able to do so successfully.
Four cables in the matter of a week or two? That's far too obvious and very, very sloppy. It would be an unprecedented, massive, and very public screw up. One screw up? Sure. Two? Possible, but only just. Three? That's just asking for it. Four? Expect a major shuffling of the deck in the DNI's office for this outrage.
Intelligence agencies tend to move slowly, carefully, and methodically on this sort of thing. They will spend untold hours and millions training for tiny details. A single screw up is one thing - it can be covered for, and agencies can fall back and figure out what went wrong. Rushing forward and screwing it up three more times smacks of incredible recklessness. Sure, American intelligence agencies have screwed things up in the past - quite often, actually. But something like this is approaching beyond the pale for stupid. Maybe one or two were targeted, but I doubt all 4 were if the targeting screwed it up.
Option B would be that the NSA had previously successfully done the job only to have it discovered by the locals who shut off the cables/screwed them up in order to remove the devices. This seems a bit more likely to me - information could spread through "friendly" intelligence officers to country to country on this. But this would beg the question - why not expose the U.S. involvement in them? Why claim it was something else? Iran in particular would have an incentive to do this. Egypt can be bought. But Iran... why no exposure, if this were the case?
Ignoring the paragraphs describing your supreme intellect, your assertions that I'm a disproved conspiracy theorist, your little strawmen, etc. Our discussion didn't begin with an argument over law - it began with you arguing that Ron's statements about the Constitution weren't how courts rule on Constitutional law. Somehow you think this matters, like he's arguing a legal case. Good for you.
Wow.
I'm just gonna stop here for a moment.
So, the Supreme Court - vested with power by the Constitution (implied, but essentially universally agreed) has no power, according to Paul's view, to, you know, interpret the constitution?
An argument about the Constitution is an argument on the subject of the highest law of the land. Of course it is a legal "case". You're not mad because it was made into a legal case - it is one fundamentally. You're upset that neither the law nor history go your way, nor have they ever. I understand that basic constitutional precepts are not exactly the focus of an engineering degree, but they remain vital to the informed citizenry.
It is also of note that courts do make law - the common law - and the rulings of the Supreme Court must be followed lower courts. Much of the law of torts, property, contracts, and other areas are created, managed, and interpreted almost entirely by courts. Legislatures can, of course, jump in to fill in gaps or reverse a common law trend if they wish, and they do so quite often. Almost all state legislatures have done so by creating a statute along the lines of: 'The common law of England, so far as it is not repugnant to or inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, or the Constitution or laws of this State, is the rule of decision in all the courts of this State.' There is a difference between "legislating from the bench" and crafting common law, of course, but law is law - regardless of its source.
What Paul fights against when discussing the war powers is an act of congress supported by the judicial branch. Oddly enough, the branch most likely to argue that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional is the Executive - the act places restrictions on the president's power found nowhere in the constitution. No president, to my knowledge, has ever acknowledged and considered himself bound by the act.
Guess what happens when the dollar crashes? People here start using alternative currencies - except they'll be foreign currencies instead of our own US alternatives.
Fascinating...
First of all, Paul's glorious announcement of the death of the U.S. dollar is premature. The dollar is weak right now. This is good for U.S. business, bad for U.S. tourists. Lower dollar = lower costs for overseas buyers of U.S. goods. This means higher exports. I know that Paul believes in the Austrian school of economics, which has all but thrown out the scientific approach used by the rest of the social sciences, and thus rejects this idea which fits with both common sense and history. The dollar goes through periodic dips and peaks - this is nothing new, this has happened before, and it will pass.
Personally, I'm convinced that the dollar tanks whenever I go overseas, based on past performance. This is m personal conspiracy theory. It did it when I went to Europe, it did it when I went to Chile, and as I will be heading to South America for 6 weeks this summer, I anticipate the dollar to go even lower. This is karma for having lived through the Argentine Riots of December 2001 (that was a long month...), when I enjoyed watching my dollar become three-times as powerful once the Argentines got the bright idea of unhooking their currency from the arbitrarily set parity with the U.S. dollar. The Argentine economy has seen a remarkable rebound since it floated its economy, ignoring ideas of both the gold standard and its previous mistake of arbitrarily pegging their currency to that of another country. And let me put it to you this way - even in a country which expe
Here's the secondary point - it's not that I don't know what Paul stands for. It's not that I'm an uneducated loon on the matter of international relations - frankly, a political science BA with an international relations focus is good for little else, and law school just might give me an edge on understanding, you know, the law. I know what he stands for. I've read his issue statements.
I just completely disagree with far too much of it to ever consider voting for him.
I know, I know. It's tough for you to comprehend. Your messiah came down and told you - promised you - that all you had to do was get the word out. Put up ugly signs. Vote in useless internet polls. Then, the people would flock to their Austrian economics, non-interventionist god. Of course, the millions given to him didn't hurt one bit, either.
But you failed. You didn't lose to a media conspiracy. You didn't lose to a grand assassination plot. You lost because his ideas resonate with, at best, a tiny minority of angry but ultimately impotent people who cannot possibly hope to accomplish what they want.
But here's the main point - you did nothing to convince me. Nothing. Look back at the previous posts - all of 'em. Where is the eloquent argument for Paul's policies? Where? It seems to me that we began debating a point of law. You lost, so we slid to something else, and the question became one of "why don't you support Ron Paul?", as if there was clearly some mental defect in me if I could not see the glory of the great messiah of the gold standard reigning down.
Well, with a top 6% score on the LSAT, the ability to speak 3 languages, fairly extensive overseas travel, a college degree and a graduate degree on the way, I may not be the smartest guy on the block - if law school teaches you anything, it's that you're not nearly as smart as you think you are - but I'm not the dumbest either. It's not that all those who dislike Ron Paul are stupid - it's that we just don't like him or can easily name a list of preferable candidates. And much of our dislike happens to come from the fact that we do, in fact, understand his policies.
To sum up, your entire argument has been, "why don't you love me?" This is not convincing. I let it go on for a while - curious to see if you would ever put up something other than a half-hearted defense, curious to know if you would ever at least attempt to grab the initiative. Unsurprisingly, you did neither. You're like the sad little ex-boyfriend who hangs around a former girlfriend, convinced the relationship is still on unless she can give him a reason for it to end. No courting, no schmoozing - just an obsessive, crazed hanger-on who, in the end, will probably brush himself off, curse the one who spurned him for being such a fool, and then wander off to find the next hopeless cause to pin his life to.
Sometimes, it's just over, usually because the groundwork itself was never laid. And now, it's over - quite literally for Paul.
Paul, rather unsurprisingly, lost miserably once again tonight in Maine, coming in behind McCain who, once again, barely bothered to campaign in that state. No, Ron Paul did not win in New Hampshire. No, he did not even come close to first in Nevada. He then failed massively in Maine. He possesses a whopping four ballots - less than 1/4 of one percent than that needed to take the nomination.
It's over. It never even began for Ron Paul.
I'm not sure who I'll vote for in November. Elections are - and always have been - about deciding between the lesser of a set of evils who must at least fall within a certain set of parameters to be palatable at all. I find little t
I misread my ol' scorecard for Maine. Maine does have delegates - they just don't award them now.
Of course, now that Paul is in third place with 41% of votes in - in a state where neither Romney nor McCain spent much time - it's all a wash for RON PAUL as is.
Tell me - will you go out and take down all of the graffiti you and your compatriots have put up over the last year once Paul has lost? Or do we have to put up with those stupid "Revolution" signs forever?
The difficulty with Ron Paul is knowing where to begin. Is it the laughably simplistic demand to return to a gold standard and Austrian economics? Because the present economic system has just been so terrible... we're surrounded with the impoverished, depression abounds! Oh, wait... floating currencies rather than archaic gold standards have ushered in unprecedented economic growth around the world... hmmm...
Then there's the "let's get out of Iraq NOW!" argument. Sure... right... that'll work. I'm sure Iran would do absolutely nothing if that happened. I'm sure the whole world would love us for doing that. Oh yeah, it just makes so much sense! Particularly the idiotic isolationist bent. After all, Carter's decision to cease U.S. support in Iran has really worked well for the U.S. - we're now loved there! Beloved! Wonderful! The government there is great now!
Uh oh, government spending is high! Let's just cancel Social Security! Because canceling programs makes all the problems go away! Oh, and let's all just do away with the IRS! IRS = very bad, so we should just ditch it! We'll all fall back on the states who will, in their grand benevolence, provide the federal government with money so freely.
Then, we can neuter the military!
The difficulty is that there is so little of substance to critique. Ron Paul's platform consists of little more than a populist-like rhetoric of waving a magic wand and fixing all the nation's problems, all written with the idyllic cant of a high schooler. He doesn't understand the constitution. He doesn't understand foreign relations. He doesn't understand trade.
He does understand precisely what gets conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, and the gullible from around the nation - even around the world - excited about a candidate who is entirely unelectable.
Are there economic problems? Sure. Do I want the U.S. in Iraq in its present force forever? No, just long enough to do the job. But Paul's policies are so far from providing actual fixes it's funny. It's a campaign of platitudes.
It appears that Mr. Paul will do fairly well in Maine - a state where no one campaigned, and a state which has no delegates to even give. Thus far, Paul has only shown any progress in states where a) others have not even campaigned and b) where the people's votes don't matter anyways. In Nevada, he came nowhere near winning. In Maine, he is poised to lose once again - and even if he wins, it won't matter a bit - and the fact that it doesn't matter at all will be the only reason he wins.
Paul's best hope at this juncture is a 3rd party run. Even then, he stands absolutely no chance of winning the presidency - only of pissing off one party or the other.
We talked about this problem at length a while back in torts.
Basically, the subject here is one of civil liability. The kids - all under the age of 18 - all had alcohol and marijuana in their bloodstream at the time of the incident (according to police reports). Their alleged taunting could be used against them, not to completely excuse the zoo from guilt (although they'll try), but to reduce the damages. Generally speaking as to torts, a jury can find a defendant partially liable for their own injuries.
I don't think there's too much question here as to the zoo's liability - they failed to build a wall capable of keeping the tiger in, and failed to keep their team of snipers (as per their own emergency plan) on the zoo during all times it was open. But, the zoo will pen its hopes on the theory above, arguing that the kids are at least partially liable. They do have a point - this tiger has certainly faced taunting in the past, and no results like this occurred. But the case for the kids, I think, is a much better. one.
The zoo knows it's trying to shoot the moon by removing full liability from itself, but they could have a reasonable shot at reducing the damages if it goes to court.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, you talk about non-zero sum games and then you talk about diffusion. Then, you talk about polarity from diffusion.
I also speak of relative position.
Neither the U.S. nor China will (likely) see an absolute loss from trade. The U.S., however, has seen a relative loss as China grows stronger. Both are, however, growing stronger.
Neo-Marxist ideas, such as those in the GP, argue that one grows weaker as the other grows stronger. This is the difference.
Pound for pound
Look it up. Then try commenting on what I actually wrote.
But simply look at the per-capita GDP numbers - Chile is the highest among those countries generally considered the powerhouses of the region (according to CIA World Factbook, $14,400 - 50% higher than Brazil, a few thousand higher than much, much more stable than Argentina). Growth of the Chilean economy, additionally, has consistently been quite stable, and Chile routinely ranks among the best countries in South America to invest in, often due to low levels of corruption.
You'll note that I included the qualifier "pound for pound". You conveniently exclude this and create a straw man. Cute, but dumb. You're either shadow boxing, or you lack a basic understanding of the English language. The latter seems most likely - especially as mercantilism generally seeks protectionist policies, but you refer to the U.S. seeking free trade agreements as an attempt to create a "mercantilism hegemony".
Now, you were attacking my understanding of economics?
I'll get modded down for this one, as it is Slashdot, but here goes:
Many of America's client states are rebelling against the economic burdens placed upon them. A clear example of this is seen in South America, where several countries (Venezuela included) are acting in contravention to America's economic wishes.
Which explains why the U.S. and Peru just struck a free trade agreement and why the U.S. already has a free trade agreement with, pound for pound, what is arguably the most powerful and stable economy in South America - Chile.
Oh, but Chavez. He makes a lot of angry speeches against the U.S.! He MUST hate us! He must just be screwing us and cutting us out!
Try again. Venezuela's main export partner - still by massive, massive margins (46% in 2006, according to the CIA world factbook) is the U.S. He still sends vast majorities of his oil to the U.S. Economically speaking, he's lining up just fine. Security wise, he's causing a few issues with neighboring countries that we would like him to stop, but as far as his massive oil industry - which is the only real engine his economy has - massive amounts of it are coming here, and there's little reason for him to change that.
Also of note, according to CIA World Factbook figures from 2006: Brazil imports almost twice as much from the U.S. as it does Argentina and exports twice as much to the U.S. as well.
Furthermore, the American economy is in deep trouble, largely because it has borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars to build expensive weapon systems (and also to build too many unproductive but expensive toys such as big screen TV's).
Oh please. The American economy has stalled a bit, but we're not even at the point of a classic recession (failure to increase GDP).
The economic system you are discussing is referred to generally as "neo-Marxism", with its focus on large states ruining the outlying countries for their wealth in an evil capitalistic world. What neo-Marxists never came to realize is that the world is not a zero sum game - and that rhetoric rarely translates into cold hard cash.
Now, what the U.S. likely is experiencing is more akin to hegemonic diffusion. The U.S. is, pretty much, an undisputed world Hegemon at this time. However, to maintain this hegemony, it must maintain trade (using its own resources) and trade a great deal with other countries, slowly diffusing its wealth to others. The great examples of this at the moment would be China and perhaps India. China is building a massive military based on income largely from U.S. trade, for example. China improves quickly, and the U.S. finds it increasingly difficult to maintain its relative position. The big question is whether this will switch to a bi-polar world (U.S./China), remain a uni-polar world (U.S., possibly China) or become multi-polar in the end.
I was more of an EBSCO man as an undergraduate, so my experience with that side of Lexis was pretty slim, but from what I know there are a lot of differences. Lexis used by law students/lawyers contains all of the same information from periodicals, but also contains tons and tons of case law, legal treatises, Shepard's citations, and other information which an undergrad isn't likely to find to be useful.
The big problem with the restatements is that they are not the result of legislative input.
On the other hand, the restatements also cover areas that legislatures have often not covered in their own proceedings - areas of law that have traditionally been left to the common law and which the people have, apparently, seen no need to change. But when the people - through the legislature - do change them, the people obviously have the power to overrule the restatements.
People sue each other. 1.8 million over a period of 58 years comes to about 31,000 year from a whole lot of courts - not too bad, and not unheard of. If you want to cut down on case law, people will need to stop suing each other. That's not going to happen - and I'm not sure it should. The courts provide a vital means for people to settle disputes without resorting to self-help (i.e. theft, assault, etc.). This isn't even including criminal cases - if you've got a way to stop people committing crimes and appealing their sentences, that's great. Also keep in mind that many of these opinions are as short as a sentence.
There have been, actually, numerous attempts lately to simplify the common law - the restatements of torts, contracts, property, etc. The restatements, however, aren't created by elected officials but a group of law professors, academics, lawyers, and judges. Some states like the restatements and follow them. Some don't - and some legislatures (elected officials) have taken steps to change the common law as in the restatement.
Then there are other areas - the Uniform Commercial code, for example - that have helped to simplify the law. But legislatures still want to tweak these (and with reason).
Then there are other codes, such as the Model Penal Code, for criminal law. The MPC is great and all, but it has its problems as well.
A big problem with these "simplifications" of law, however, are the time required to create them. It can take decades for the ALI to come to a decision on matters and publish a restatement. A legislature can do the same job much more quickly.
As a law student, I'm glad to hear these things are now public. They've always been in the public domain - just never published like this, at least that I'm aware of.
But Lexis and Westlaw will remain exceedingly important and worth their fees. Publishing cases is one thing - publishing the proprietary information that Lexis and Westlaw add (headnotes, the West Key system, Shepard's citations, treatises, and countless other secondary sources) would truly make this useful for attorneys. Of course, maintaining all of these sources requires a huge effort - and is one of the reasons these databases cost as much as they do. (There are, I'm sure, less savory reasons as well, of course.)
I wouldn't count on seeing Lexis and Westlaw go belly up soon - an attorney needs much more than the raw cases. But, like I said, this is very positive for the public.
Also - should we not have invaded Afghanistan, then?
Godwin's law already... that was quick. I do love a good non-sequitur in the morning.
No one's denying that Japanese Internment was wrong, but really - can it actually be compared with the concentration camps?
How many millions were gassed in those internment camps? How many hundreds of thousands were massacred, slaughtered? The internment camps simply aren't the same thing as concentration camps. They're not a good thing, of course, and no one's denying that, but they're not the same.
I would be surprised if Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, or especially Michael Savage didn't call for violence against Muslims.
Your conspirational mind isn't the issue here - it's fact. Have they called for such violence? Do you have any evidence of such calls to violence? And let's assume for a moment that there were such calls to violence - then where's the genocide? Limbaugh supposedly has 20 million listeners - where are the mass killings?
It doesn't matter what you feel, only reality matters. And here's the reality - there is no evidence of such mass violence, and far, far less to attach it to talk radio.
I understand that, as a "progressive", you feel you must limit speech for the good of the people. Just understand that those of us who value the constitution have another opinion.
the most vapid post I have read in a long, long time on Slashdot.
And I just finished up a lengthy back and forth with a Ron Paul guy - so that's saying something.
No one denies that bugs are a part of life. No one denies that we all have experience with them. The article is noteworthy - and Slashdot assigns it primarily, and appropriately - to the "it's funny" tag because, well, it's funny to hear a national talk show host discuss not only bugs with software, but to discuss them quite specifically. It's also fairly rare to hear bugs in a fairly niche OS get national play like that. Bonus points for Limbaugh using a machine manufactured by a company of which Al Gore is a part. As a Mac user, I even find myself sympathizing with him.
So grow up and deal with it. Yes, we all deal with bugs, but they rarely get this exposure.
And then there's this gem:
Before the Rwandan massacres, they had similar radio programs pumping the audience full of hate and anger with deadly results.
That kind of behavior has made him a wealthy man, but I don't see why it should get him any love from Slashdot, or any priority over anyone else who has technical issues.
It's hard to imagine a more asinine allusion. Really, you can't honestly be trying to compare the two, can you? I mean, this is either one of the sickest pieces of political posturing or the most feeble-minded reasoning I have read in some time - and like I said, I've been talking with Ron Paul fans, so that's really saying something.
Are we really going to equate Rush Limbaugh to these people? Oh, I'm sure we'll all get to hear some nonsense about him "stoking the flames of war with Iraq" or whatever, and you'll do your best to provide a tenuous link between Limbaugh and ongoing U.S. military action, but really - when was the last time Limbaugh got on the radio and told anyone to grab a machete and go murder their neighbors of a different ethnic group next door - really, when? Or are you just spouting nonsense? You even further your claim by arguing that he is getting wealthy off of such comments. According to Wikipedia (yeah, I know...) twice as many people listen to his show as there are in the entire population of Rwanda. Where's the uprising?
So, assuming you believe that Limbaugh can lead a bunch of hillbillies or whoever to load up and start gunning down their neighbors, what do you suggest? Since you feel free to make allusions, should I? Should I assume that you believe we should regulate political speech? Should we prevent people from being paid for political speech? Should we only allow the good, happy, cheerful thoughts to be put out over the airwaves, so as to avoid the mere possibility of genocide? (A genocide which, as it just so happens to be, has never occurred in the U.S. and is exceedingly unlikely to occur?) Should we simply prevent criticism? Free discussion? Should we shut up radio announcers here who happen to express ideas you don't like because a bunch of a slaughter that occurred in the third-world that just so happened to use radio as a medium of passing along information?
The scary thing is that the government - and, one would assume, the party in government you yourself would favor - is trying to do that exact same thing with attempts to return to the so-called "Fairness Doctrine". We just can't have people expressing their ideas over the radio, can we?
And you have the gall to refer to others as "Orwellian"? It would appear that we were reading very different copies of Mr. Blair's work.
Hell, I don't even like Limbaugh.
If you've got the opportunity to shoot down a useless satellite, cause a nice pretty boom, play with some really cool tech, cause no real harm and get away with it, I'd do it, too...
And I'd probably have a similar response to your hypothetical Bush... muhahaha... boom boom!
Simply put, time has not allowed a greater response. I advanced far further in the competition I entered than originally anticipated, and went from simply trying it out for fun to preparing to enter the quarter finals this Tuesday while keeping up with the rest of my madcap schedule. I simply don't have time for this, although I have posted a few brief items on /. to fill the time lately.
Paul's recent decision to pull out of the race has also made this thread far less useful. Far too much time has already been wasted on a man who could barely scrape together 14 delegates.
As Paul's candidacy is relegated to an obscure reference found in a small footnote of history - still far too great an honor - I would urge you to consider the following:
The fact that we have people in the white house abusing their power to the point of invading other countries without merit is an excellent example of why the US should not attempt to control the world and maintain bases everywhere. We aren't a perfect angel that can keep evil at bay. We should restrict our military to our own homeland except for brief periods when they must wage war overseas. It would let other countries feel more independent and let them worry less about the US deciding to order their troops next door to open fire.
While Paul fans have famously misstated both the number of American bases (the number includes not only bases, but essentially any piece of property found on a military base - even including buildings of fewer than 1,000 sq. ft. as "bases") and the number of countries American bases are in (my previous research on the matter indicates that any country with an American embassy was included. While American embassies do host military personnel and are, in fact, guarded by Marine Security Guards, the MSGs are under civilian command and are so few in number that referring to them as a base is a far stretch.), the simple fact is that the pullback has already begun. The U.S. has begun reducing its presence overseas, cutting back on bases considered "large" by the defense department and cutting back on personnel as well.
Also, many countries want those bases overseas, and we happen to want them there as well.
This is perhaps the biggest insanity of the Ron Paul nuts. Weakness is not strength. Pulling back military presence overseas does not create a "flyswatter" military. It hampers operations. North Korea's reasons for being pissed off with the south (and virtually everyone around them) go far further than a relatively small contingent of U.S. personnel. It's not always America's fault.
Foreign bases provide incredible power projection ability, keep naval ships running, and ensure that we can rapidly deploy forces. You may think they're unnecessary. I think it's clear than well over 90% of the electorate disagrees with you.
On to a few more personal matters:
I'm not sure why you now request me to provide an eloquent argument for Ron Paul. If you were really interested, you could easily search online and find more specific, concrete details about him. Heck, you could read his positions from his own words at ronpaullibrary.org
Yes, it's easy to find information about Paul. I have read it. I don't like him. Your issue - and the issue of many of your fellow Paul supporters - is that he doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. Period. And when an argument occurs, rather than providing a defense (i.e. - Ron Paul says this, and I believe it is correct for good and well-thought out reasons a, b, and c), the argument is flipped around to "how dare you deny the Paul!!!" I deny him because I have weighed his views in the light of history and the present political situation. Period.
We should not be there.
Well, we're there. Sunk costs, my friend. We can't change the fact that we entered Iraq. The question - and the only logical question - is what to do now.
It is pr
I don't think Amazon was caught in a "lie" here - a lie requires some level of demonstrable intent to mislead others.
The idea that advertisements are not offers is very important to contract law for all vendors. Otherwise, consumers could sue if a vendor did not have an item it listed in a print ad because it had simply run out or, as more commonly happens, a clerk, graphic designer, or publisher somewhere along the way screws up and lists the wrong price. Businesses could quickly and easily be taken out of business if every single advertisement was an "offer" in the legal sense of the word, which implies much more than the lay term of an offer. First-year law students spend weeks on precisely what offer and acceptance mean in contract law, and it is a dicey issue at times.
I think Amazon did screw up in that it handled the situation poorly - consumers should have been notified of the mistake and that they should not expect their CDs. But this is not a legal issue - Amazon had the right to simply cancel the orders or, as another way of putting it, ignore the offers.
Once again, I am not a lawyer and none of the above should be considered legal advice. Please seek the assistance of a qualified attorney on these and other matters.
Acceptance must be both clear and unequivocal. An e-mail acknowledging an order received is not an acceptance under any common law concept that I know of. Acceptance generally occurs through performance, i.e. shipping the item at the price paid for.
American law is pretty nice to consumers, don't get me wrong, but it also tries to avoid massive windfalls wherever possible. Here, a windfall of nearly 12x the value paid for is quite rightfully avoided.
Should Amazon have actually notified its customers? From the viewpoint of a businessman, yes - that would have been nice. But it's not required.
The buying and selling of goods in a commercial sense falls under contract law, generally governed by the version of the Uniform Commercial Code or however it has been adapted in the state in question. Law students don't spend a great deal of time learning specific law, but generally applicable concepts.
Further, no contract was even formed here. A contract requires an offer, followed by acceptance. In this case, we have an offer (by the consumer) followed by rejection (by Amazon)
Advertisements, such as those that Amazon has put out, are not offers. They cannot be - they suffer from a problem of over subscription - far more people will or can see the ad than Amazon has products to offer others. If, however, the advertisement requires a certain behavior from the consumer (be first in line, whatever), then there could be an argument that the advertiser has made an actual offer. Until then, an ad is just an invitation to deal.
When a consumer orders the product from Amazon, he essentially makes an offer to purchase that product at that price. Amazon then may reject the offer, make a counteroffer, or accept the offer. In this case, Amazon rejected, having realized that their $5.00/hour clerk made a mistake that could have cost them tens of thousands of dollars. It was a good decision and a perfectly legal decision.
Under your idea of the law, if you put an ad up on Craigslist for your house and forget a zero or two, you could be out of hundreds of thousands of dollars because, by golly, that was the price on the item!
Now, as to these laws, please find the applicable one and, while you're at it, describe your own legal training and what you believe gives you the ability to judge others' understanding of the law.
I'm a law student... just a student... NOT a lawyer, and certainly not your lawyer, so nothing here is legal advice, period. I am not qualified to give legal advice, so I'm not giving it and cannot, in fact, even do so. Speak to a qualified professional about these matters, NOT ME.
(This is all assuming, of course, that there is an actual problem here.)
If I'm remembering first year contracts properly, then there's no problem here with Amazon refusing to sell at the price it listed.
A contract must have a few things to come into existence, generally: offer, acceptance, consideration.
Advertisements and catalog listings suffer from an "over-subscription problem" and are not considered firm offers themselves and, therefore, cannot simply be "accepted" by a consumer who makes an order. Ads are generally treated as invitations to deal unless they require something special on top of just showing up (i.e. being the first in line). The consumer's order, however, is considered an offer, which can be rejected by the seller by either refusing to provide goods and refunding money in a timely fashion or refusing to accept the money in the first place. This is done to protect merchants from themselves (people shouldn't be able to walk away with huge windfalls because a $5.00/hr clerk forgot a zero) and to protect their advertisers from them (newspapers shouldn't be held accountable for giving people windfalls for much the same reason). It's just good public policy, and prevents the games of "gotcha".
I see why some people are whining, but from a legal standpoint (again, I am not providing legal advice and I'm only a student - I could be 100% wrong on this and would welcome correction), Amazon has done nothing wrong in simply deleting the orders and refunding any money already sent.
The U.S. has a history of being able to do so successfully.
Four cables in the matter of a week or two? That's far too obvious and very, very sloppy. It would be an unprecedented, massive, and very public screw up. One screw up? Sure. Two? Possible, but only just. Three? That's just asking for it. Four? Expect a major shuffling of the deck in the DNI's office for this outrage.
Intelligence agencies tend to move slowly, carefully, and methodically on this sort of thing. They will spend untold hours and millions training for tiny details. A single screw up is one thing - it can be covered for, and agencies can fall back and figure out what went wrong. Rushing forward and screwing it up three more times smacks of incredible recklessness. Sure, American intelligence agencies have screwed things up in the past - quite often, actually. But something like this is approaching beyond the pale for stupid. Maybe one or two were targeted, but I doubt all 4 were if the targeting screwed it up.
Option B would be that the NSA had previously successfully done the job only to have it discovered by the locals who shut off the cables/screwed them up in order to remove the devices. This seems a bit more likely to me - information could spread through "friendly" intelligence officers to country to country on this. But this would beg the question - why not expose the U.S. involvement in them? Why claim it was something else? Iran in particular would have an incentive to do this. Egypt can be bought. But Iran... why no exposure, if this were the case?
Underwater backhoes.
The last safe spot for the network admin has been found - and destroyed.
Ignoring the paragraphs describing your supreme intellect, your assertions that I'm a disproved conspiracy theorist, your little strawmen, etc. Our discussion didn't begin with an argument over law - it began with you arguing that Ron's statements about the Constitution weren't how courts rule on Constitutional law. Somehow you think this matters, like he's arguing a legal case. Good for you.
Wow.
I'm just gonna stop here for a moment.
So, the Supreme Court - vested with power by the Constitution (implied, but essentially universally agreed) has no power, according to Paul's view, to, you know, interpret the constitution?
An argument about the Constitution is an argument on the subject of the highest law of the land. Of course it is a legal "case". You're not mad because it was made into a legal case - it is one fundamentally. You're upset that neither the law nor history go your way, nor have they ever. I understand that basic constitutional precepts are not exactly the focus of an engineering degree, but they remain vital to the informed citizenry.
It is also of note that courts do make law - the common law - and the rulings of the Supreme Court must be followed lower courts. Much of the law of torts, property, contracts, and other areas are created, managed, and interpreted almost entirely by courts. Legislatures can, of course, jump in to fill in gaps or reverse a common law trend if they wish, and they do so quite often. Almost all state legislatures have done so by creating a statute along the lines of: 'The common law of England, so far as it is not repugnant to or inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, or the Constitution or laws of this State, is the rule of decision in all the courts of this State.' There is a difference between "legislating from the bench" and crafting common law, of course, but law is law - regardless of its source.
What Paul fights against when discussing the war powers is an act of congress supported by the judicial branch. Oddly enough, the branch most likely to argue that the War Powers Act is unconstitutional is the Executive - the act places restrictions on the president's power found nowhere in the constitution. No president, to my knowledge, has ever acknowledged and considered himself bound by the act.
Guess what happens when the dollar crashes? People here start using alternative currencies - except they'll be foreign currencies instead of our own US alternatives.
Fascinating...
First of all, Paul's glorious announcement of the death of the U.S. dollar is premature. The dollar is weak right now. This is good for U.S. business, bad for U.S. tourists. Lower dollar = lower costs for overseas buyers of U.S. goods. This means higher exports. I know that Paul believes in the Austrian school of economics, which has all but thrown out the scientific approach used by the rest of the social sciences, and thus rejects this idea which fits with both common sense and history. The dollar goes through periodic dips and peaks - this is nothing new, this has happened before, and it will pass.
Personally, I'm convinced that the dollar tanks whenever I go overseas, based on past performance. This is m personal conspiracy theory. It did it when I went to Europe, it did it when I went to Chile, and as I will be heading to South America for 6 weeks this summer, I anticipate the dollar to go even lower. This is karma for having lived through the Argentine Riots of December 2001 (that was a long month...), when I enjoyed watching my dollar become three-times as powerful once the Argentines got the bright idea of unhooking their currency from the arbitrarily set parity with the U.S. dollar. The Argentine economy has seen a remarkable rebound since it floated its economy, ignoring ideas of both the gold standard and its previous mistake of arbitrarily pegging their currency to that of another country. And let me put it to you this way - even in a country which expe
Time to end the fun with this one, I suppose.
Oh, so Ron Paul doesn't support a return to the Gold Standard?
Or immediate withdrawal from Iraq?
Lordy, where could I have gotten those ideas?
Here's the secondary point - it's not that I don't know what Paul stands for. It's not that I'm an uneducated loon on the matter of international relations - frankly, a political science BA with an international relations focus is good for little else, and law school just might give me an edge on understanding, you know, the law. I know what he stands for. I've read his issue statements.
I just completely disagree with far too much of it to ever consider voting for him.
I know, I know. It's tough for you to comprehend. Your messiah came down and told you - promised you - that all you had to do was get the word out. Put up ugly signs. Vote in useless internet polls. Then, the people would flock to their Austrian economics, non-interventionist god. Of course, the millions given to him didn't hurt one bit, either.
But you failed. You didn't lose to a media conspiracy. You didn't lose to a grand assassination plot. You lost because his ideas resonate with, at best, a tiny minority of angry but ultimately impotent people who cannot possibly hope to accomplish what they want.
But here's the main point - you did nothing to convince me. Nothing. Look back at the previous posts - all of 'em. Where is the eloquent argument for Paul's policies? Where? It seems to me that we began debating a point of law. You lost, so we slid to something else, and the question became one of "why don't you support Ron Paul?", as if there was clearly some mental defect in me if I could not see the glory of the great messiah of the gold standard reigning down.
Well, with a top 6% score on the LSAT, the ability to speak 3 languages, fairly extensive overseas travel, a college degree and a graduate degree on the way, I may not be the smartest guy on the block - if law school teaches you anything, it's that you're not nearly as smart as you think you are - but I'm not the dumbest either. It's not that all those who dislike Ron Paul are stupid - it's that we just don't like him or can easily name a list of preferable candidates. And much of our dislike happens to come from the fact that we do, in fact, understand his policies.
To sum up, your entire argument has been, "why don't you love me?" This is not convincing. I let it go on for a while - curious to see if you would ever put up something other than a half-hearted defense, curious to know if you would ever at least attempt to grab the initiative. Unsurprisingly, you did neither. You're like the sad little ex-boyfriend who hangs around a former girlfriend, convinced the relationship is still on unless she can give him a reason for it to end. No courting, no schmoozing - just an obsessive, crazed hanger-on who, in the end, will probably brush himself off, curse the one who spurned him for being such a fool, and then wander off to find the next hopeless cause to pin his life to.
Sometimes, it's just over, usually because the groundwork itself was never laid. And now, it's over - quite literally for Paul.
Paul, rather unsurprisingly, lost miserably once again tonight in Maine, coming in behind McCain who, once again, barely bothered to campaign in that state. No, Ron Paul did not win in New Hampshire. No, he did not even come close to first in Nevada. He then failed massively in Maine. He possesses a whopping four ballots - less than 1/4 of one percent than that needed to take the nomination.
It's over. It never even began for Ron Paul.
I'm not sure who I'll vote for in November. Elections are - and always have been - about deciding between the lesser of a set of evils who must at least fall within a certain set of parameters to be palatable at all. I find little t
I misread my ol' scorecard for Maine. Maine does have delegates - they just don't award them now.
Of course, now that Paul is in third place with 41% of votes in - in a state where neither Romney nor McCain spent much time - it's all a wash for RON PAUL as is.
Tell me - will you go out and take down all of the graffiti you and your compatriots have put up over the last year once Paul has lost? Or do we have to put up with those stupid "Revolution" signs forever?
See the above, genius.
The difficulty with Ron Paul is knowing where to begin. Is it the laughably simplistic demand to return to a gold standard and Austrian economics? Because the present economic system has just been so terrible... we're surrounded with the impoverished, depression abounds! Oh, wait... floating currencies rather than archaic gold standards have ushered in unprecedented economic growth around the world... hmmm...
Then there's the "let's get out of Iraq NOW!" argument. Sure... right... that'll work. I'm sure Iran would do absolutely nothing if that happened. I'm sure the whole world would love us for doing that. Oh yeah, it just makes so much sense! Particularly the idiotic isolationist bent. After all, Carter's decision to cease U.S. support in Iran has really worked well for the U.S. - we're now loved there! Beloved! Wonderful! The government there is great now!
Uh oh, government spending is high! Let's just cancel Social Security! Because canceling programs makes all the problems go away! Oh, and let's all just do away with the IRS! IRS = very bad, so we should just ditch it! We'll all fall back on the states who will, in their grand benevolence, provide the federal government with money so freely.
Then, we can neuter the military!
The difficulty is that there is so little of substance to critique. Ron Paul's platform consists of little more than a populist-like rhetoric of waving a magic wand and fixing all the nation's problems, all written with the idyllic cant of a high schooler. He doesn't understand the constitution. He doesn't understand foreign relations. He doesn't understand trade.
He does understand precisely what gets conspiracy theorists, white supremacists, and the gullible from around the nation - even around the world - excited about a candidate who is entirely unelectable.
Are there economic problems? Sure. Do I want the U.S. in Iraq in its present force forever? No, just long enough to do the job. But Paul's policies are so far from providing actual fixes it's funny. It's a campaign of platitudes.
It appears that Mr. Paul will do fairly well in Maine - a state where no one campaigned, and a state which has no delegates to even give. Thus far, Paul has only shown any progress in states where a) others have not even campaigned and b) where the people's votes don't matter anyways. In Nevada, he came nowhere near winning. In Maine, he is poised to lose once again - and even if he wins, it won't matter a bit - and the fact that it doesn't matter at all will be the only reason he wins.
Paul's best hope at this juncture is a 3rd party run. Even then, he stands absolutely no chance of winning the presidency - only of pissing off one party or the other.
No amount of claiming there is a vast media conspiracy and attempt to assassinate your candidate will help. He has been weighed by the voting public - and found wanting.
I'm not foolish enough to click on a link posted by a Ron Paul supporter.
Instead, I will respond in kind.
We talked about this problem at length a while back in torts.
Basically, the subject here is one of civil liability. The kids - all under the age of 18 - all had alcohol and marijuana in their bloodstream at the time of the incident (according to police reports). Their alleged taunting could be used against them, not to completely excuse the zoo from guilt (although they'll try), but to reduce the damages. Generally speaking as to torts, a jury can find a defendant partially liable for their own injuries.
I don't think there's too much question here as to the zoo's liability - they failed to build a wall capable of keeping the tiger in, and failed to keep their team of snipers (as per their own emergency plan) on the zoo during all times it was open. But, the zoo will pen its hopes on the theory above, arguing that the kids are at least partially liable. They do have a point - this tiger has certainly faced taunting in the past, and no results like this occurred. But the case for the kids, I think, is a much better. one.
The zoo knows it's trying to shoot the moon by removing full liability from itself, but they could have a reasonable shot at reducing the damages if it goes to court.