Every government, since the dawn of civilization, has craved power.
You're missing the forest for the trees, and the difference, while subtle, is crucial.
It isn't "governments" that crave power; it's people who crave it. In a career spanning nearly 30 years so far I've worked in all manner of large enterprise, startup, mid-market and government agencies. In EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE, managers there craved empire. Never, not once, did I hear a manager say, "You know, I really don't need so many people working for me; I'm gonna re-assign these folks to marketing or just lay them off". They took every single opportunity to grow their budgets, grow the number of people in their org, and often schemed to create those opportunities to the detriment of the enterprise they worked for. They often knifed a fellow manager and stripped their corpse of their budget and staff.
People crave power. Not governments; a government is simply a "corporation" with different organizational structure, mission statement and founding legal principals.
This distinction is important because if you have this idea of "government as boogeyman", it prevents you from focusing on the real boogeyman; it causes you to fight against vapor rather than the individual(s) that you oppose, and it stops you from fully utilizing government for whatever good that it does do, and whatever your feelings about government, you must admit it does accomplish quite a bit of good. It makes it so you mistrust the idea of it, the idea of the institution. What you should be mistrusting are the people within the institution that want to grow their power.
I said "so basically you're saying that Americans are too dumb to decide for themselves what is in their best interests."
I'm shocked that you would have to ask this question at all. Have you seen the level of intelligence of the average American? Isn't the existence of the Kardashians or Honey Booboo or Duck Dynasty or Donald Trump as a Republican front-runner more than enough evidence for you? Americans, on average, are not at all intelligent, barely making it into double-digit IQs, and that average idiocy is force-multiplied by the fact that there are so many of us. I mean, Equatorial Guinea might have a much lower IQ, but there are fewer than a million of them, so the damage they can do to the rest of the world is quite limited. America is a global superpower, and the fact that a plurality can so easily be led by their basest instincts without any critical thought whatsoever has huge negative implications on the rest of the world.
Basic math tells us that single payer is more effective; basic economics tells us that for a product with intricate, expensive infrastructure in which everyone must participate by virtue of their biology (i.e. power, water, health care), a natural monopoly exists, and it is most efficient, and must be highly regulated. (and no, I did not say "perfectly efficient", or even "adequately efficient", simply "most efficient"). Anyone who claims health care in this country is anything close to a "free market" is a babbling idiot, so if it isn't a free market anyway, why isn't it a market that is structured to benefit the most people rather than the fewest?
That the average American doesn't know this, and will swallow the line that we should not move to single payer in America, even though it is working in EVERY SINGLE FIRST WORLD COUNTRY, providing roughly double the value at half the cost to the population because SOSHULIZM!!!! just boggles my mind and saddens me.
Wrong. The NSA has jurisdiction primarily outside of the USA; it is only relatively recently that they have been authorized to conduct domestic operations.
ot only that, so freakin what if he did. The black community is largely populated in dense urban environments ripe with gangs and notoriously bad schools
A) It matters because the Constitution SAYS it matters. Justice Scalia was (allegedly) a strict constructionist, so he should be have been worshiping the 14th Amendment, not musing out loud on reasons to wipe his ass with it.
B) Gangs and bad schools are a symptom of institutional racism and lack of economic opportunity, not some inherent inferiority of race. There are plenty of districts in poor white areas that exhibit bad schools and gangs.
Democracy is stupid, because people in general are stupid and evil
Every system of government is "stupid", for the exact reason you point out -- people in general are stupid. Even brilliantly smart people are often stupid in practice. The system of government only influences how the manner in which stupidity is expressed. Therefore, Democracy is stupid, but it is at least stupid in a reasonably fair way.
The real question i see nobody addressing is this. Why are all liberals so insistent on appointing a new justice before obama is gone?
Ummm... perhaps because that's what Section 2 of the Constitution says should happen? Perhaps you can point out where it says "except in the last year of the Presidency"??
The real question is why are the Conservatives who claim to so cherish the Constitution now wanting to ignore what it says simply because it is politically desirable?
That's true; the right will indeed thing it's just dandy. However, the election always turns on Independents, who will take a much dimmer view of playing partisan games with the Constitution, which is quite clear that the President nominates SCOTUS Justices, and makes no exception for a lame duck President.
If the GOP is smart, they will confirm whoever he sends right around October 15, which will outrage and motivate their base to show up. If they're stupid, they will obstruct through the election, which will outrage and motivate the Democrats and the independents.
It is about CSI and TV series brainwashing us the police can do whatever it wants without respecting the constitution and upholding the law.
This is where a citation that supports your assertion that the Constitution has been violated by this investigation would come in handy! Pray tell, sir, how has this operation violated the Fourth Amendment? First Amendment? Any section or Amendment?
It is about unlawful entrapment.
That word does not mean what you think it means. To whit:
In criminal law, entrapment is a practice whereby a law enforcement agent induces a person to commit a criminal offense that the person would have otherwise been unlikely to commit. It is a conduct that is generally discouraged and thus, in many jurisdictions, is a possible defense against criminal liability.
Now then, if you have evidence to support the assertion that those arrested in this sting would have otherwise never viewed child pr0n, by all means, I'm sure their defense attorneys would love to hear it.
It is about doing something morally wrong.
Arresting pedophiles is morally wrong? You appear to have a strange sense of morality.
Oh, you mean like NS not sharing methods, RS getting fundamental math wrong, RT cherry picking datasets, avoiding BEST data to exploit hadrut flaws, etc. yes, the manipulation a needed to be a trick cyclist in climastrology is alarming.
Of course! And that's to say NOTHING about the how NNH changed the ASSYMETRICAL PLASMA NETWORK midstream and GN withheld crucial data on ASTROPHYSICAL QUANTUM COUPLING's effect on the RECIPROCATING GRAVIMETRIC MATRIX and PSRT dishonestly sourced the NUCLEONIC DAMPENING CONTROLLER so that it emitted an INVERTED FREQUENCY SIGNAL
You seem to live in a world where characterizing a monolithic bloc of people -- in this case Social Justice Warriors -- as anything -- in this case "not on the side of good" -- is not fallacious on its face.
This is the best you've got? I want to do something about the billions of tons of pollution and "Disconnect your power!" is your solution?
That doesn't mean that I am not wise enough to see a demand from the EPA that all states reduce their CO2 production by 35% can end badly when there is no way to do that in many states. Do you expect that a nuclear power plant could be built in a week, or even 10 years? Do you expect the same for solar power plants?
We have these things in America; they're called "markets", and when there is demand, the markets will provide supply. It's pretty magical. It's how you got the food you ate this morning; how you got the clothes you're wearing; how you got the computer you're typing this on. According to you products such as coal energy simply cannot be regulated without the market collapsing...
Demanding that all states dump coal before there is something to replace it can only lead to rolling blackouts. Phasing out coal is a much wiser path, but I guess I am the shill in your book, though you appear to be shilling for the rolling blackout solution.
It's good to hear you're agreeing with me that coal should be phased out. The good news is we are phasing out coal, and no, there will not be rolling blackouts, despite your attempts at hyperbole. Mandatory reductions don't even BEGIN until 2022 and don't fully kick in until 2029. That's hardly an "out of control EPA".
Reining in an out of control EPA that is regulating power production out of existence without a plan for replacing all that power.
ZOMG! The EPA is out of control! What will we do without polluted air, lakes, rivers and aquifers?!? The environmental disaster remediation sector of the economy is going to implode!
Look at the guy who thinks that punishing every fraternity for a crime at one fraternity that never even happened is more important than the truth.
Look at the guy who is using a single anecdotal example of a false accusation to call into question the existence of the rape epidemic or that action should be taken to combat it. (According to the FBI, 2% of rape reports are found to be false -- the same percentage as other types of felonies.
False dichotomy. Just because someone dislikes Apple doesn't mean they have to like Google.
It's only a false dichotomy if you posit that there are viable choices other than iOS and Android. Are you suggesting that Blackberry or Microsoft are viable alternatives? Because the marketplace would disagree with you.
Whether you choose TMI, Chernobyl or Fukishima, they are all examples how our inability to effectively remediate nuclear materials and render them harmless make it an incredibly dangerous source of energy that creates an unknowable risk of catastrophic losses. Until we have the ability to generate an infallible reactor AND safety turn nuclear waste into harmless substances, the specific mode of failure (bad pump, bad politics, bad earthquake) is irrelevant. That a failure CAN occur is enough reason to choose for it to NOT occur.
Jewtroll tears are delicious! They're almost as tasty as fagtroll tears.
Really, he made it too easy. He practically did my job for me. The HeadJew will be promoting me soon for sure! I guess now that this minion has served his purpose, it's time to file form JEW-WorldDom-NP-837 and have his nanoparticles activated and erase his memory.
The really interesting thing that never fails to amuse me is how important people like you are to the success of the Jewish World Domination plan. Without people such as yourselves that shout the conspiracy everywhere and discredit the whole notion of a International Zionist Conspiracy, it would be much more likely that people would believe such a conspiracy exists.
I'm sure the Head Jew will be pinning a medal to you when they achieve final victory.
Slashdot Mirror
194 comments so far, and not a single person has thought to mention what a bright idea this is!
You're slipping /., you're slipping.
You're missing the forest for the trees, and the difference, while subtle, is crucial.
It isn't "governments" that crave power; it's people who crave it. In a career spanning nearly 30 years so far I've worked in all manner of large enterprise, startup, mid-market and government agencies. In EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE, managers there craved empire. Never, not once, did I hear a manager say, "You know, I really don't need so many people working for me; I'm gonna re-assign these folks to marketing or just lay them off". They took every single opportunity to grow their budgets, grow the number of people in their org, and often schemed to create those opportunities to the detriment of the enterprise they worked for. They often knifed a fellow manager and stripped their corpse of their budget and staff.
People crave power. Not governments; a government is simply a "corporation" with different organizational structure, mission statement and founding legal principals.
This distinction is important because if you have this idea of "government as boogeyman", it prevents you from focusing on the real boogeyman; it causes you to fight against vapor rather than the individual(s) that you oppose, and it stops you from fully utilizing government for whatever good that it does do, and whatever your feelings about government, you must admit it does accomplish quite a bit of good. It makes it so you mistrust the idea of it, the idea of the institution. What you should be mistrusting are the people within the institution that want to grow their power.
Yes I no I didn't.
Jeebus H. Fucking Kerist no it most certainly does NOT. For the love of The Flying Spaghetti Monster PLEASE go buy a fucking dictionary.
I'm shocked that you would have to ask this question at all. Have you seen the level of intelligence of the average American? Isn't the existence of the Kardashians or Honey Booboo or Duck Dynasty or Donald Trump as a Republican front-runner more than enough evidence for you? Americans, on average, are not at all intelligent, barely making it into double-digit IQs, and that average idiocy is force-multiplied by the fact that there are so many of us. I mean, Equatorial Guinea might have a much lower IQ, but there are fewer than a million of them, so the damage they can do to the rest of the world is quite limited. America is a global superpower, and the fact that a plurality can so easily be led by their basest instincts without any critical thought whatsoever has huge negative implications on the rest of the world.
Basic math tells us that single payer is more effective; basic economics tells us that for a product with intricate, expensive infrastructure in which everyone must participate by virtue of their biology (i.e. power, water, health care), a natural monopoly exists, and it is most efficient, and must be highly regulated. (and no, I did not say "perfectly efficient", or even "adequately efficient", simply "most efficient"). Anyone who claims health care in this country is anything close to a "free market" is a babbling idiot, so if it isn't a free market anyway, why isn't it a market that is structured to benefit the most people rather than the fewest?
That the average American doesn't know this, and will swallow the line that we should not move to single payer in America, even though it is working in EVERY SINGLE FIRST WORLD COUNTRY, providing roughly double the value at half the cost to the population because SOSHULIZM!!!! just boggles my mind and saddens me.
Wrong. The NSA has jurisdiction primarily outside of the USA; it is only relatively recently that they have been authorized to conduct domestic operations.
A) It matters because the Constitution SAYS it matters. Justice Scalia was (allegedly) a strict constructionist, so he should be have been worshiping the 14th Amendment, not musing out loud on reasons to wipe his ass with it.
B) Gangs and bad schools are a symptom of institutional racism and lack of economic opportunity, not some inherent inferiority of race. There are plenty of districts in poor white areas that exhibit bad schools and gangs.
Every system of government is "stupid", for the exact reason you point out -- people in general are stupid. Even brilliantly smart people are often stupid in practice. The system of government only influences how the manner in which stupidity is expressed. Therefore, Democracy is stupid, but it is at least stupid in a reasonably fair way.
Ummm... perhaps because that's what Section 2 of the Constitution says should happen? Perhaps you can point out where it says "except in the last year of the Presidency"??
The real question is why are the Conservatives who claim to so cherish the Constitution now wanting to ignore what it says simply because it is politically desirable?
Notice: I am stealing this brilliant bit of wisdom. I probably will not give you credit. /notice.
That's true; the right will indeed thing it's just dandy. However, the election always turns on Independents, who will take a much dimmer view of playing partisan games with the Constitution, which is quite clear that the President nominates SCOTUS Justices, and makes no exception for a lame duck President.
If the GOP is smart, they will confirm whoever he sends right around October 15, which will outrage and motivate their base to show up. If they're stupid, they will obstruct through the election, which will outrage and motivate the Democrats and the independents.
This is where a citation that supports your assertion that the Constitution has been violated by this investigation would come in handy! Pray tell, sir, how has this operation violated the Fourth Amendment? First Amendment? Any section or Amendment?
That word does not mean what you think it means. To whit:
Now then, if you have evidence to support the assertion that those arrested in this sting would have otherwise never viewed child pr0n, by all means, I'm sure their defense attorneys would love to hear it.
Arresting pedophiles is morally wrong? You appear to have a strange sense of morality.
Oh, you mean like NS not sharing methods, RS getting fundamental math wrong, RT cherry picking datasets, avoiding BEST data to exploit hadrut flaws, etc. yes, the manipulation a needed to be a trick cyclist in climastrology is alarming.
Of course! And that's to say NOTHING about the how NNH changed the ASSYMETRICAL PLASMA NETWORK midstream and GN withheld crucial data on ASTROPHYSICAL QUANTUM COUPLING's effect on the RECIPROCATING GRAVIMETRIC MATRIX and PSRT dishonestly sourced the NUCLEONIC DAMPENING CONTROLLER so that it emitted an INVERTED FREQUENCY SIGNAL
Oh the scandal!
You seem to live in a world where characterizing a monolithic bloc of people -- in this case Social Justice Warriors -- as anything -- in this case "not on the side of good" -- is not fallacious on its face.
This is the best you've got? I want to do something about the billions of tons of pollution and "Disconnect your power!" is your solution?
We have these things in America; they're called "markets", and when there is demand, the markets will provide supply. It's pretty magical. It's how you got the food you ate this morning; how you got the clothes you're wearing; how you got the computer you're typing this on. According to you products such as coal energy simply cannot be regulated without the market collapsing...
It's good to hear you're agreeing with me that coal should be phased out. The good news is we are phasing out coal, and no, there will not be rolling blackouts, despite your attempts at hyperbole. Mandatory reductions don't even BEGIN until 2022 and don't fully kick in until 2029. That's hardly an "out of control EPA".
I do. Perhaps you might suggest an alternative motivation that does not involve tinfoil has?
Gosh! Dumping billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year? What could possibly go wrong??? But that said, you're flat wrong.
Coal plants are the leading source of SO2 and aso emit tons of NOx and Mercury, to say nothing of the ash, lead, carbon monoxide, VOCs and arsenic.
Do you own coal interests? What's your motivation for shilling in this way?
ZOMG! The EPA is out of control! What will we do without polluted air, lakes, rivers and aquifers?!? The environmental disaster remediation sector of the economy is going to implode!
Look at the guy who is using a single anecdotal example of a false accusation to call into question the existence of the rape epidemic or that action should be taken to combat it. (According to the FBI, 2% of rape reports are found to be false -- the same percentage as other types of felonies.
It's only a false dichotomy if you posit that there are viable choices other than iOS and Android. Are you suggesting that Blackberry or Microsoft are viable alternatives? Because the marketplace would disagree with you.
And yet you provide no evidence to support your assertion...
Your need to denigrate those who disagree with you betrays the weakness of your argument.
Whether you choose TMI, Chernobyl or Fukishima, they are all examples how our inability to effectively remediate nuclear materials and render them harmless make it an incredibly dangerous source of energy that creates an unknowable risk of catastrophic losses. Until we have the ability to generate an infallible reactor AND safety turn nuclear waste into harmless substances, the specific mode of failure (bad pump, bad politics, bad earthquake) is irrelevant. That a failure CAN occur is enough reason to choose for it to NOT occur.
Wtf man... do I go throwing rocks into your fishing hole???
Jewtroll tears are delicious! They're almost as tasty as fagtroll tears.
Really, he made it too easy. He practically did my job for me. The HeadJew will be promoting me soon for sure! I guess now that this minion has served his purpose, it's time to file form JEW-WorldDom-NP-837 and have his nanoparticles activated and erase his memory.
The really interesting thing that never fails to amuse me is how important people like you are to the success of the Jewish World Domination plan. Without people such as yourselves that shout the conspiracy everywhere and discredit the whole notion of a International Zionist Conspiracy, it would be much more likely that people would believe such a conspiracy exists.
I'm sure the Head Jew will be pinning a medal to you when they achieve final victory.
Aww! What a nice thing to say! You're so sweet!