You obviously haven't upgraded Opera in some time. The ads are now text-based and relevant to the current page (courtesy of Google) and take up very little space on screen.
Yes, I did just compare Microsoft to Israel and Mozilla to Palestine. Politics aside, I think their positions are similar.
That's right, because Israel is the huge entrenched monopoly power in the Middle East. Wait, Israel is the recent upstart with only 1% of the land area? I guess you must be wrong.
I don't know much about SMP programming, but that threading has to be really up to par. I've been looking forward to 2.0, even though I have only a uniprocessor box, so that I can recompile Apache to use threads rather than prefork.
That "elastic" clause is limited to the powers preceding (foregoing) it. Spyware is bad, but I don't see how it is the USFG's job to govern if I'm spying on my neighbors.
I bet it would be interesting. Those third-party guys really know how to mix it up. And they attack the real issues that the Donkeys and Elephants consider radioactive. Voter turnout has been on a constant decline since 1960, with one exception: 1992, the Perot year. People want a stronger third-party presence. I think people would watch, and more would turn out at the polls.
God gave us, as his stewards in this world, the authority to administer justice here. Passing laws to protect the innocent and ordering restitution for crimes does make us better than the perpetrator. I doubt that most police/judges/wardens feel vengeance when executing their duties, even if those duties include sentencing someone to death or even throwing the switch.
You are right that this is an issue of love. Where is your love for the innocent, the victims, the ones hurt by these criminals? It is these that God's laws (and man's laws) try to protect. If you love the weak and you love God's laws, you have to be willing to make the hard decisions. You cannot let evil people continue to hurt others again and again and again. That's not love.
I will not call your faith into question. It's clear that we disagree. I don't attempt to justify killing innocents in the name of justice. It happens, very rarely, and is a regrettable and tragic mistake. That you attempt to justify not protecting innocents by abdicating our right to dispense justice is what leaves me perplexed. Should we disband police because there's always a chance the wrong person might be apprehended and convicted?
The Republicans haven't stayed true to their platform for quite some years now. The grassroots party activists have great conventions and come up with a great platform, but then endorse candidates based not on how much they will advance that platform but on how "electable" they are. Foolish waste of time, GOP. It's no surprise that there's an exodus from the GOP to the Constitution and Libertarian parties, where people can be found that still stand by their principles.
the top 50% of American tax payers pay ** 96 ** percent of the taxes
The typical response to this is "yeah but they have all the money too so they should pay most of the taxes". To put it in perspective you have to say how much of the money the top 50% has. If they have only 82% of the money but pay 96% of the taxes, it's much more clear that "the rich" are disproportionately taxed. So darn right the tax cuts should "favor the rich". You want "fair" let's have a flat tax instead of a progressive one.
If the Libertarians stay true to their principles, they would not accept a spot in the debate under those circumstances. On the principle of it, taxpayers are still supporting views they don't agree with. All the non-D/R/L taxpayers obviously, but also the Democrat taxpayers would still be subsidizing the Rep/Lib views, etc.
Campaigns are a way to get your word out, but you should pay for it yourself, not force others to pay your way. Public financing of election campaigns is the worst possible solution. You end up with gov't itself playing a major role in its own future, by deciding who qualifies for finances, etc. Gov't shouldn't be in the business of deciding which political views to support and which to suppress.
If "simple" is the only criterion, then we're stuck with the broken mess we have now. If "accurate and fair" is the criterion, I believe Condorcet to be the best option. Personally I believe it more important to be accurate and fair. If people can't expend the mental energy to understand how to count pairwise electoral wins, then I guess we probably deserve the government we end up with. Unfortunately, you are probably correct.
It's not an issue of being parliamentary or not. It's completely a result of the plurality voting system. American voters are almost obliged to not vote for the guy whose platform they most align with, because well, nobody else is going to, right? As long as there is a strategic incentive to go along with what you guess everyone else will do, the problem perpetuates. We need a voting system (like Condorcet) in which you can vote honestly without shooting yourself in the foot.
Also, your last paragraph in nonsensical. The presidency is a singular office. Obviously everyone that didn't vote for the winner is disenfranchised for the presidency. The Congress is a closer analogue to a parliament. Proportional representation might be a convenient kludge, but I think a system that promotes honest voting would be even better.
The voting system itself is biased against third parties. (Duverger's Law.) And the people in a position to change the system have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Keep voting for your principles; keep voting third party. With the way the two major parties are going, enough people will be disillusioned and start looking for any alternative. All it takes is a small foothold to make the "plurality" system start falling apart, and then it can be replaced with something other than an incumbent protection racket.
Was the "victim" given due process in a court of law before a jury of his peers? Then it's called "justice".
You may think there is no crime egregious enough to warrant death. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. However, there are jurisdictions where a majority of people believe otherwise.
Where was I arguing for use of excessive force? Use of force can be legitimate in the Christian worldview, but I'm not suggesting you drop a nuke on a guy who steals your wallet.
The differentiation between offensive and defensive weapon is pretty nebulous. Even presuming you would define "nonlethal" weapons as defensive, there are documented cases of stun guns killing people. A weapon is neither offensive nor defensive on its own. A weapon is just a tool. (A hammer is a construction tool, but it can be used to tear down a house as much as build one.) It may be used in unprovoked assault against another - but it's the act that's offensive not the gun. It may be used to protect oneself from assault - again the act is defensive not the weapon. The same knife, pepper spray, Colt.45 could be used in each case. Therefore I dismiss your argument that I can't be a Christian and justify a right to own/use a gun. I'll use whatever is necessary to protect myself and my family whenever it is necessary - I have that right. If some psycho breaks into my house to do violence and won't stop until one or the other of us is dead, be assured I will do everything in my power to make sure it is him and not me.
Anyone trained in self-defense knows a cardinal rule is never to escalate farther than you have to. Legally, this can put you in the position of being the aggressor. However, I disagree with your statement that demonstrating a gun is a threat. Displaying possession of superior firepower is a deterrent, because it is backed up with the promise (not threat) that it will be used in defense. It's a "don't mess with me" sign. Simply having a weapon does not make you a threat. To be a threat I'd have to have malicious intent. Mens rea, weapon or not, makes you more of a threat than a weapon alone.
Very interesting observation. The EC does talk about winning X votes rather than defeating challengers, which is what Condorcet uses to determine the winner. To send electors to DC to case the preferences they represent (Bush > Badnarik > Kerry or whatever) we'd still need an amendment to change the EC operation.
Retaining the view that we are a collection of states is crucial for protecting our freedoms. By decentralizing gov't, you create multiple sources of political power, each of which will presumably fight to protect its own interests and realm of control. This is good for the citizen, because governments that centralize too much power in one place can cause lots of problems when they get into mischief. If there isn't too much power in any one place, the scope of mischief is reduced - that's a good thing.
Personally, I like the idea of using districts (like Maine and Nebraska) but then using the two at-large votes to try to fudge the state's results toward a proportional total. I think this satisfies geographic and ideological considerations nicely. Thus in NE the 20% Democrats that vote would still get 1 one of the EC votes instead of nothing. In larger states, this would put the threshold of winning an ECV in the single-digit range, which might be possible for a third party. Assuming the districts are won fairly closely to proportionally already, a third party could actually get noticed in a presidential race. It's never going to win until it can start carrying entire districts, but getting noticed is a start.
Vote casting is just as easy in both systems. Vote counting is more complex in Condoret, granted, but most people won't be exposed to that. Casting has to be simple: rank-your-choices vs vote-for-all-you-could-live-with are both simple. For Condorcet, it is easy enough to explain conceptually that you're looking for who wins the most head-to-head matchups to be the final winner. I think the conceptual explanation is good enough.
The problem I see with approval is that it doesn't do away with strategic voting. You might approve of both A and B (but not C) but still only vote for your favorite (A) if you prefer him strongly enough in order to "sabotage" your second place choice (B). If most of B's supporters also would approve of A and vote honestly, your dishonest vote helps A win. Condorcet eliminates this.
Condorcet (vote for several with various degrees of support) can be seen as a generalization of plurality (vote for one) and approval (for for several). Since Condorcet allows you to rank ties, you can still simulate both of these. You either rank one candidate a 1 and that's it, or rank several candidates a 1 and the others 2.
But yes, Condorcet would probably require different machines and would make hand-counts much more tedious.
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You obviously haven't upgraded Opera in some time. The ads are now text-based and relevant to the current page (courtesy of Google) and take up very little space on screen.
That's right, because Israel is the huge entrenched monopoly power in the Middle East. Wait, Israel is the recent upstart with only 1% of the land area? I guess you must be wrong.
I don't know much about SMP programming, but that threading has to be really up to par. I've been looking forward to 2.0, even though I have only a uniprocessor box, so that I can recompile Apache to use threads rather than prefork.
That "elastic" clause is limited to the powers preceding (foregoing) it. Spyware is bad, but I don't see how it is the USFG's job to govern if I'm spying on my neighbors.
Typical overbroad interpretation of the commerce clause.
What part of Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress authority to draft legislation on this subject?
You only admit those on the ballot in enough states to theoretically win. That typically limits it to 4-7 candidates.
I bet it would be interesting. Those third-party guys really know how to mix it up. And they attack the real issues that the Donkeys and Elephants consider radioactive. Voter turnout has been on a constant decline since 1960, with one exception: 1992, the Perot year. People want a stronger third-party presence. I think people would watch, and more would turn out at the polls.
God gave us, as his stewards in this world, the authority to administer justice here. Passing laws to protect the innocent and ordering restitution for crimes does make us better than the perpetrator. I doubt that most police/judges/wardens feel vengeance when executing their duties, even if those duties include sentencing someone to death or even throwing the switch.
You are right that this is an issue of love. Where is your love for the innocent, the victims, the ones hurt by these criminals? It is these that God's laws (and man's laws) try to protect. If you love the weak and you love God's laws, you have to be willing to make the hard decisions. You cannot let evil people continue to hurt others again and again and again. That's not love.
I will not call your faith into question. It's clear that we disagree. I don't attempt to justify killing innocents in the name of justice. It happens, very rarely, and is a regrettable and tragic mistake. That you attempt to justify not protecting innocents by abdicating our right to dispense justice is what leaves me perplexed. Should we disband police because there's always a chance the wrong person might be apprehended and convicted?
The Republicans haven't stayed true to their platform for quite some years now. The grassroots party activists have great conventions and come up with a great platform, but then endorse candidates based not on how much they will advance that platform but on how "electable" they are. Foolish waste of time, GOP. It's no surprise that there's an exodus from the GOP to the Constitution and Libertarian parties, where people can be found that still stand by their principles.
The typical response to this is "yeah but they have all the money too so they should pay most of the taxes". To put it in perspective you have to say how much of the money the top 50% has. If they have only 82% of the money but pay 96% of the taxes, it's much more clear that "the rich" are disproportionately taxed. So darn right the tax cuts should "favor the rich". You want "fair" let's have a flat tax instead of a progressive one.
Yikes! Personally I don't trust the current generation of politicos to rewrite the Constitution from scratch.
If the Libertarians stay true to their principles, they would not accept a spot in the debate under those circumstances. On the principle of it, taxpayers are still supporting views they don't agree with. All the non-D/R/L taxpayers obviously, but also the Democrat taxpayers would still be subsidizing the Rep/Lib views, etc.
Campaigns are a way to get your word out, but you should pay for it yourself, not force others to pay your way. Public financing of election campaigns is the worst possible solution. You end up with gov't itself playing a major role in its own future, by deciding who qualifies for finances, etc. Gov't shouldn't be in the business of deciding which political views to support and which to suppress.
If "simple" is the only criterion, then we're stuck with the broken mess we have now. If "accurate and fair" is the criterion, I believe Condorcet to be the best option. Personally I believe it more important to be accurate and fair. If people can't expend the mental energy to understand how to count pairwise electoral wins, then I guess we probably deserve the government we end up with. Unfortunately, you are probably correct.
Some have proposed exactly that, and some others seem to be following through on the idea. Good for them.
It's not an issue of being parliamentary or not. It's completely a result of the plurality voting system. American voters are almost obliged to not vote for the guy whose platform they most align with, because well, nobody else is going to, right? As long as there is a strategic incentive to go along with what you guess everyone else will do, the problem perpetuates. We need a voting system (like Condorcet) in which you can vote honestly without shooting yourself in the foot.
Also, your last paragraph in nonsensical. The presidency is a singular office. Obviously everyone that didn't vote for the winner is disenfranchised for the presidency. The Congress is a closer analogue to a parliament. Proportional representation might be a convenient kludge, but I think a system that promotes honest voting would be even better.
The voting system itself is biased against third parties. (Duverger's Law.) And the people in a position to change the system have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
Keep voting for your principles; keep voting third party. With the way the two major parties are going, enough people will be disillusioned and start looking for any alternative. All it takes is a small foothold to make the "plurality" system start falling apart, and then it can be replaced with something other than an incumbent protection racket.
Right next to Shower Shock.
Was the "victim" given due process in a court of law before a jury of his peers? Then it's called "justice".
You may think there is no crime egregious enough to warrant death. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. However, there are jurisdictions where a majority of people believe otherwise.
Where was I arguing for use of excessive force? Use of force can be legitimate in the Christian worldview, but I'm not suggesting you drop a nuke on a guy who steals your wallet.
The differentiation between offensive and defensive weapon is pretty nebulous. Even presuming you would define "nonlethal" weapons as defensive, there are documented cases of stun guns killing people. A weapon is neither offensive nor defensive on its own. A weapon is just a tool. (A hammer is a construction tool, but it can be used to tear down a house as much as build one.) It may be used in unprovoked assault against another - but it's the act that's offensive not the gun. It may be used to protect oneself from assault - again the act is defensive not the weapon. The same knife, pepper spray, Colt .45 could be used in each case. Therefore I dismiss your argument that I can't be a Christian and justify a right to own/use a gun. I'll use whatever is necessary to protect myself and my family whenever it is necessary - I have that right. If some psycho breaks into my house to do violence and won't stop until one or the other of us is dead, be assured I will do everything in my power to make sure it is him and not me.
Anyone trained in self-defense knows a cardinal rule is never to escalate farther than you have to. Legally, this can put you in the position of being the aggressor. However, I disagree with your statement that demonstrating a gun is a threat. Displaying possession of superior firepower is a deterrent, because it is backed up with the promise (not threat) that it will be used in defense. It's a "don't mess with me" sign. Simply having a weapon does not make you a threat. To be a threat I'd have to have malicious intent. Mens rea, weapon or not, makes you more of a threat than a weapon alone.
Who said fairly representing diverse political interests in a democratic republic would be simple?
Very interesting observation. The EC does talk about winning X votes rather than defeating challengers, which is what Condorcet uses to determine the winner. To send electors to DC to case the preferences they represent (Bush > Badnarik > Kerry or whatever) we'd still need an amendment to change the EC operation.
Retaining the view that we are a collection of states is crucial for protecting our freedoms. By decentralizing gov't, you create multiple sources of political power, each of which will presumably fight to protect its own interests and realm of control. This is good for the citizen, because governments that centralize too much power in one place can cause lots of problems when they get into mischief. If there isn't too much power in any one place, the scope of mischief is reduced - that's a good thing.
Personally, I like the idea of using districts (like Maine and Nebraska) but then using the two at-large votes to try to fudge the state's results toward a proportional total. I think this satisfies geographic and ideological considerations nicely. Thus in NE the 20% Democrats that vote would still get 1 one of the EC votes instead of nothing. In larger states, this would put the threshold of winning an ECV in the single-digit range, which might be possible for a third party. Assuming the districts are won fairly closely to proportionally already, a third party could actually get noticed in a presidential race. It's never going to win until it can start carrying entire districts, but getting noticed is a start.
Vote casting is just as easy in both systems. Vote counting is more complex in Condoret, granted, but most people won't be exposed to that. Casting has to be simple: rank-your-choices vs vote-for-all-you-could-live-with are both simple. For Condorcet, it is easy enough to explain conceptually that you're looking for who wins the most head-to-head matchups to be the final winner. I think the conceptual explanation is good enough.
The problem I see with approval is that it doesn't do away with strategic voting. You might approve of both A and B (but not C) but still only vote for your favorite (A) if you prefer him strongly enough in order to "sabotage" your second place choice (B). If most of B's supporters also would approve of A and vote honestly, your dishonest vote helps A win. Condorcet eliminates this.
Condorcet (vote for several with various degrees of support) can be seen as a generalization of plurality (vote for one) and approval (for for several). Since Condorcet allows you to rank ties, you can still simulate both of these. You either rank one candidate a 1 and that's it, or rank several candidates a 1 and the others 2.
But yes, Condorcet would probably require different machines and would make hand-counts much more tedious.