At risk of sounding like flamebait or trolling (I'm not -- I'm honestly curious), how is Android different than an iPhone or iPad? I've got two Android devices, an HTC Hero and a Dell Streak 7, and I'm *pretty* happy with them...but not completely satisfied. I run ConnectBot on both devices so that I can SSH to various hosts at work, and I installed PocketCloud so that I can use RDP as well. Unfortunately, I'm severely limited when I can access hosts at work because the only OpenVPN compatible VPN clients I could find on the Android Market required that you first root (i.e., jailbreak) the device. So, as long as I'm in the office and connected to our internal wireless network I'm good, but forget trying to work from the coffee shop because I can't VPN from my Android devices unless I first root them...which, as far as I can tell, is not at all different from "fight[ing] our device manufacturer."
My complaint is not that they are not eating everything on their plates, but rather that when they have too much (and they are in their 20's, so serving size is entirely up to them) it never even occurs to them to put the leftovers in a container to save their food, but that their first instinct is to throw the excess away.
I started to mention that there are two classes of "Us" -- the "Us" who holds political power and the "Us" who are citizens of the United States, but realized my post was becoming a book, so I left it out. But yeah, you're right.
It makes no sense to me. You have by far the strongest military in the world. The USSR is gone. Ok, so there's China, but so far they have not made any seriously threatening moves. Who is left that is any threat?
I know 9/11 left some big scars on the collective psyche but seriously, it's been 10 years, you invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, killed Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Surely there's been enough restitution?
I worry that one day the rest of the world is going to have to unite against the US as you decide to pacify or nuke us all since we are deemed a threat to national security.
The answer to your question is explained in a book I am currently reading called Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell. It's geared towards a religious audience, so if you aren't interested in that sort of thing, then you'll have to wade through a lot of writing that's off-topic for you. The gist of the answer is this: 1) America has more than enough. 2) When you have more than enough, you start building ways to protect what you have, lest someone else take it from you. 3) When you start fearing that others might take away what you have, you begin to divide the world into an "Us" and "Them." 4) You then begin to fear all of the "Thems" and begin oppressing them. FWIW, I think Bell is right, and it deeply disturbs me. I just don't know how much I can do to stop it. And, you are exactly on target about the fear we have in this nation, and how illogical it is. I wish I could get the rest of the U.S. to understand that.
The biggest difference between left and right in psychological terms (and we'll leave out the middle to keep things simple) is that people on the left value fairness and equality more than people on the right, who value loyalty and authority in their valuative psych profiles.
Bunk, and here's why. What does "fair" mean to you? How about to your neighbor down the street? How about to the homeless guy on the street corner in town? How about to the CEO of the company that pays your salary? I'll bet you every one of those answers is different. To me, "fair" means I work hard for my money, and therefore I have earned the privilege of deciding how it gets spent. The homeless guy on the street corner probably would look at the surplus I have, and think that it's not fair for me to have more than enough and him to not have enough, and therefore, to be fair, the government should take* some of the money I earned and redistribute it to those that don't have enough (food, housing, clothing, etc.). Let's assume that the CEO of the company I work for earns $1,000,000 per year -- I have no idea if that's accurate or not, but for sake of argument, it will work. Suppose he and I both pay roughly 30% of our gross income in taxes (we don't, but again, close enough for argument's sake). That's fair, right? We're paying the same percentage of our income in taxes, after all. But wait...his salary is over an order of magnitude more than mine, so if we are paying the same percentage of our income in taxes, then he's paying a larger total sum than I am. Is that fair? Why should he be penalized (taxed) for being more successful in business than I am? He's providing a greater benefit to the economy than I am...he's paying my salary, and that of about a thousand other people, beside!
The problem is, "fair" isn't an objective term. "Fair" depends entirely upon the perspective of the person who is using the term. IMHO, the difference between the left and the right is that the left wants to take care of everybody while the right wants to take control of everybody. Personally, I find both viewpoints repulsive, albeit for very different reasons.
*To be clear, I don't have a problem with sharing my surplus with those who don't have enough to meet their needs, and I do, in fact, contribute to various causes. However, I have a real problem with government telling my I *have* to share with others, that this is how much I must give, and then skimming a percentage off the top. I believe that my money can do a lot more good if I skip the government middle-man and give it more or less directly to those who need it.
On the one hand, I agree that with liberty comes responsibility, and consequently, we ought to be responsible enough to know when it is "patriotic" to speak* and when it is "patriotic" to keep silent* -- that is, to self-censor. Having said that, TFS makes it sound like the SAIC analyst is suggesting that we turn into a nation of yes-men and women. Historically, that's typically a Very Bad Thing.
*and by this, I mean calling the government out when it is behaving illegally or irresponsibly. I am a firm believer in, "If you want peace, work for justice" and "None of us are free while any of us are oppressed." Patriotism, IMHO, isn't blind obedience to the government; it's working for the good of the nation as a whole. By that definition, Martin Luther King, Jr. was far more of a patriot than G. Gordon Libby, for example.
We, as humans, have no physiological need for any foods that come from an animal, and in this day and age it's easy enough to find vegan alternatives to just about anything you can think of
Look, if you can eat vegan, more power to you. I respect that. However, while "All people [may be]...created equal" not all people are identical. No diet can be one-size-fits-all. My sister-in-law tried going vegan until her body basically started digesting itself. At her doctor's insistence, she finally began forcing herself to eat meat (she didn't like the taste of it, didn't like the way most meat-providing animals were raised and treated, and *really* didn't like thinking about the fact that her meat came from something that was once alive) but her body couldn't tolerate a vegan diet. Maybe she's just a really odd exception to the rule, but I kind of suspect that she is just one end of a bell-curve and you are the other, with most of us somewhere in between, with regards to our ability to tolerate a meat-free diet.
Then you are more intellectually honest than a lot of people I've met. Like you, I really like animals, too. Sheesh, I've got three dogs and a cat at home, two fish in a bowl at my desk at work, we've had a rabbit in our house, and the highlight of my week -- well, almost anyway -- was when my daughter and I found a porcupine walking up our driveway while we were playing Frisbee in the yard the other day, so I know where you are coming from. I tend to be a rather empathic person, but I have gone hunting. The first animal I ever shot (and with a bow, at that) was a grouse, and it was surprisingly difficult. When hunting, you have to own up to the fact that there is a live animal who's life you are about to take. That's not easy. In my opinion, everyone who wants to eat meat should, at least once, have to kill the animal they intend to have for dinner. That's not because I'm sadistic, but rather because I think we would be a lot less blase about wasting meat and eating animals raised in inhumane conditions if we were painfully aware of what it means to be a carnivore (well...technically, omnivores, but you get my point). Regarding "being able to hunt and hold up dead deers in a photo"...yeah, I'm with you there. For people who are into that, that's cool I guess, but I'm not about showing off the trophy I bagged; I'm about providing healthy food for my family and not spending my money to support corporations that raise cattle, chickens, pigs, etc. in inhumane conditions.
Ummm...no. I started cooking my own food just as soon as I was old enough (I always enjoyed it), and I was always cognizant of the fact that steaks don't just magically appear at the supermarket -- you have to kill a living animal to eat meat. However, it wasn't until I was finally able to go hunting in my twenties that I truly began to appreciate that if I am going to eat meat, it means something had to die. Many people, my wife for example, are *aware* of that fact, but it's unpleasant so they intentionally don't think about it. My wife can't even eat anything that still looks like the animal it came from (Cornish game hens being a good example) because it forces her to admit that her food was once alive.
Growing your own vegetables gets a little closer, since it takes a lot of work to grow enough vegetables to feed a family. But just cooking your food? Not even close.
I've long held the belief that you appreciate you food more if you kill it yourself.
+1
I have two nieces who routinely waste about half the food they put on their plates -- which pisses me off for a number of reasons -- but both are died-in-the-wool animal lovers. "How can you shoot a moose? They are soooo cute and cuddly!!!"...while throwing away 8 oz. of steak every night at dinner.
When you kill the animals you eat for food yourself, it becomes very, very real to you that your dinner was bought with the blood of another living creature. You don't just throw the meat away because you understand where it came from and what it means for it to be on your dinner plate.
As I've followed this thread, I have become increasingly alarmed at the astounding lack of reading comprehension on display. Is everybody here channeling Nancy Grace, or what?
The crux of the problem is this: there are things that people want, in this case food (steak, for example). Satisfying these wants sometimes means others are going to suffer (in this example, the cow that is slaughtered for the steak). However, most people don't like to think about how the things they want are obtained at the expense of someone or something else. Zuckerberg, by making a statement in this way, is forcing people to face the unpleasant fact that the steaks in the package at your local supermarket were once part of a living, breathing animal. Since it is easier to dismiss Zuckerberg as a wacko than it is to face the unpleasant fact that a lot of what we eat comes at the expensive of another life, that's exactly what many people are choosing to do. Sure, it's intellectually dishonest, but...well, did you ever hear of a guy named Socrates? People got so uptight with him for throwing their intellectual dishonesty in their collective faces that they sentenced him to death.
This isn't limited to food, either. Like that Hummer you drive? That's arguably a major explanation for why we are still at war in Iraq, and why we're now getting involved in Libya, too. How many of the toys your kids play with were made by a Chinese kid in a sweatshop? Do you know that for certain? <shrug> I'm not pointing fingers, and, Mr. AC, I'm certainly not accusing you specifically of any of this. But I am saying that Zuckerberg at least is facing the reality that when he eats meat, it's because an animal died.
Ugh...that's more repulsive to me than simply killing the animal before butchering it. I had surgery in my mid-20s, and the six weeks of recuperation afterwards pretty much sucked. Imagine if that was your life: anesthetized before surgery, parts cut out of you, stitched back together again, several weeks of moderate discomfort to outright pain, and then about the time you finally started feeling "normal" again it's time to rinse and repeat .
That's mighty particular of you...I prefer to eat wild animal meat, thank you very much!
Okay, okay. I was kidding. Mostly. There is a draw to wild game: no added hormones, no being kept in an inhuman pen until being slaughtered, etc. Otherwise, yeah, I pretty much agree with you (and RobNich below who makes a good point about eating herbivores rather than carnivores).
There have been (at least) two terrorist attempts since 9/11, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. TSA caught neither of them. On the other hand, the people on board the airplanes in question detected what was happening and intervened, thwarting the would-be terrorists. In other words, TSA: 0. Private citizens: 2. Is that what you call "working as designed"?
Simply because you disagree with someone's opinion of how government should work does not make them a sociopath, but nice try at painting your ideological opponent with emotional rhetoric so as to not have to make a logical, rational counter-argument.
So many people who claim to have such great knowledge about the constitution seem to miss that last line in Section 8:
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
How exactly does this prove your point? The Constitution enumerates the powers the Federal government holds, and prescribes limits upon that power. Therefore, Section 8 authorizes the government to pass laws that allow it to carry out those powers the Constitution grants to it. However, if the Federal government attempts to usurp powers that the Constitution did NOT grant to it, then nothing in that statement gives it authority to do so. If it did, then the Constitution would essentially be handing absolute, unlimited power to the Federal government. That is clearly not the case.
And, of course, you specifically seem to have missed the preamble:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Again, your point? The Framers of the Constitution understood that there was a necessary role that the Federal government had to play in turning a loose alliance of independent states into a single nation. However, they also understood that a centralized government with unchecked power would grow to be a monster, and therefore they sought to strike a balance between a centralized government that was powerful enough to meet the needs of the nation ("establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare") while still providing balances to that power so that it didn't become a tyranny ("...secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"). It's a balancing act.
I understand though. You hate society, you hate the idea of people working together, you hate the general idea behind the formation of the United States...but then, you don't like society do you, even though you've gain immense privileges by living in one.
No, you don't understand...not even remotely. Nothing GPP said even hinted that (s)he wanted to see society destroyed or laws abolished. In fact, if you will think objectively for just a moment, you will find that yourposition is much more likely to lead to chaos and anarchy than GPP's. You argue that the Federal government should be able to pass whatever laws it wants, regardless of what the Constitution allows, simply because it IS the Federal government. In other words, you want everyone in the country to obey the law, except for the Federal government itself. They, you think, are above the law. "Do as I say, not as I do"? No. Any leader -- whether individual or corporal -- must model respect for the law by themselves respecting the law, if they seriously expect anyone else to do likewise. Therefore, if the Federal government wants the people of the United States to uphold the law, they must uphold the law themselves, and thus the Federal government must be bound by the Constitution.
You have this ludicrous opinion that the Constitution is the ONLY law of the land, when it would be impossible for a society to exist without laws...
Those two points are not polar opposites; they are orthogonal. Like it or not, the Constitution IS the law of th
You've been lucky, then. Linux is my OS of choice, and I also own and use a Mac. While both OS' are, IMHO, much better than that other one from Redmond, I have managed to lock them up from time to time. Not often, mind you, but it CAN happen.
Meh...1920x1200 on my 5+ year old computer monitor is better resolution (albeit, just barely) than even a 1080p HDTV (source). Sure, you can get a six foot wide HDTV, but that only makes the image look more pixelated. Drop to a 720p and the difference is even more marked. I'd rather watch TV or movies on my PC than use my PC on a TV. YMMV, of course.
Two days ago, I was trying to configure a managed Ethernet switch by SSH'ing into a remote console switch and using it to connect to the console port on the Ethernet switch. Unfortunately, for reasons I still haven't figured out, I could not get the remote console switch to work with the Ethernet switch. I had tried multiple cables, multiple ports on the console switch, and I had successfully connected the console switch to a router I was also trying to configure...but I could not get the console to work on the Ethernet switch. Okay, no problem...I'll just pull my laptop out of the port replicator and try plugging the console cable into the serial port on my laptop, right? Wrong. There was no serial port on my laptop. Grrr... That used to be standard on computers, and it's still frequently used by network admins.
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At risk of sounding like flamebait or trolling (I'm not -- I'm honestly curious), how is Android different than an iPhone or iPad? I've got two Android devices, an HTC Hero and a Dell Streak 7, and I'm *pretty* happy with them...but not completely satisfied. I run ConnectBot on both devices so that I can SSH to various hosts at work, and I installed PocketCloud so that I can use RDP as well. Unfortunately, I'm severely limited when I can access hosts at work because the only OpenVPN compatible VPN clients I could find on the Android Market required that you first root (i.e., jailbreak) the device. So, as long as I'm in the office and connected to our internal wireless network I'm good, but forget trying to work from the coffee shop because I can't VPN from my Android devices unless I first root them...which, as far as I can tell, is not at all different from "fight[ing] our device manufacturer."
My complaint is not that they are not eating everything on their plates, but rather that when they have too much (and they are in their 20's, so serving size is entirely up to them) it never even occurs to them to put the leftovers in a container to save their food, but that their first instinct is to throw the excess away.
I started to mention that there are two classes of "Us" -- the "Us" who holds political power and the "Us" who are citizens of the United States, but realized my post was becoming a book, so I left it out. But yeah, you're right.
It makes no sense to me. You have by far the strongest military in the world. The USSR is gone. Ok, so there's China, but so far they have not made any seriously threatening moves. Who is left that is any threat?
I know 9/11 left some big scars on the collective psyche but seriously, it's been 10 years, you invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, killed Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Surely there's been enough restitution?
I worry that one day the rest of the world is going to have to unite against the US as you decide to pacify or nuke us all since we are deemed a threat to national security.
The answer to your question is explained in a book I am currently reading called Jesus Wants to Save Christians by Rob Bell. It's geared towards a religious audience, so if you aren't interested in that sort of thing, then you'll have to wade through a lot of writing that's off-topic for you. The gist of the answer is this: 1) America has more than enough. 2) When you have more than enough, you start building ways to protect what you have, lest someone else take it from you. 3) When you start fearing that others might take away what you have, you begin to divide the world into an "Us" and "Them." 4) You then begin to fear all of the "Thems" and begin oppressing them. FWIW, I think Bell is right, and it deeply disturbs me. I just don't know how much I can do to stop it. And, you are exactly on target about the fear we have in this nation, and how illogical it is. I wish I could get the rest of the U.S. to understand that.
The biggest difference between left and right in psychological terms (and we'll leave out the middle to keep things simple) is that people on the left value fairness and equality more than people on the right, who value loyalty and authority in their valuative psych profiles.
Bunk, and here's why. What does "fair" mean to you? How about to your neighbor down the street? How about to the homeless guy on the street corner in town? How about to the CEO of the company that pays your salary? I'll bet you every one of those answers is different. To me, "fair" means I work hard for my money, and therefore I have earned the privilege of deciding how it gets spent. The homeless guy on the street corner probably would look at the surplus I have, and think that it's not fair for me to have more than enough and him to not have enough, and therefore, to be fair, the government should take* some of the money I earned and redistribute it to those that don't have enough (food, housing, clothing, etc.). Let's assume that the CEO of the company I work for earns $1,000,000 per year -- I have no idea if that's accurate or not, but for sake of argument, it will work. Suppose he and I both pay roughly 30% of our gross income in taxes (we don't, but again, close enough for argument's sake). That's fair, right? We're paying the same percentage of our income in taxes, after all. But wait...his salary is over an order of magnitude more than mine, so if we are paying the same percentage of our income in taxes, then he's paying a larger total sum than I am. Is that fair? Why should he be penalized (taxed) for being more successful in business than I am? He's providing a greater benefit to the economy than I am...he's paying my salary, and that of about a thousand other people, beside!
The problem is, "fair" isn't an objective term. "Fair" depends entirely upon the perspective of the person who is using the term. IMHO, the difference between the left and the right is that the left wants to take care of everybody while the right wants to take control of everybody. Personally, I find both viewpoints repulsive, albeit for very different reasons.
*To be clear, I don't have a problem with sharing my surplus with those who don't have enough to meet their needs, and I do, in fact, contribute to various causes. However, I have a real problem with government telling my I *have* to share with others, that this is how much I must give, and then skimming a percentage off the top. I believe that my money can do a lot more good if I skip the government middle-man and give it more or less directly to those who need it.
On the one hand, I agree that with liberty comes responsibility, and consequently, we ought to be responsible enough to know when it is "patriotic" to speak* and when it is "patriotic" to keep silent* -- that is, to self-censor. Having said that, TFS makes it sound like the SAIC analyst is suggesting that we turn into a nation of yes-men and women. Historically, that's typically a Very Bad Thing.
*and by this, I mean calling the government out when it is behaving illegally or irresponsibly. I am a firm believer in, "If you want peace, work for justice" and "None of us are free while any of us are oppressed." Patriotism, IMHO, isn't blind obedience to the government; it's working for the good of the nation as a whole. By that definition, Martin Luther King, Jr. was far more of a patriot than G. Gordon Libby, for example.
Sorry - didn't mean to like I was criticize you. It just sounded creepy to me now :)
We, as humans, have no physiological need for any foods that come from an animal, and in this day and age it's easy enough to find vegan alternatives to just about anything you can think of
Look, if you can eat vegan, more power to you. I respect that. However, while "All people [may be]...created equal" not all people are identical. No diet can be one-size-fits-all. My sister-in-law tried going vegan until her body basically started digesting itself. At her doctor's insistence, she finally began forcing herself to eat meat (she didn't like the taste of it, didn't like the way most meat-providing animals were raised and treated, and *really* didn't like thinking about the fact that her meat came from something that was once alive) but her body couldn't tolerate a vegan diet. Maybe she's just a really odd exception to the rule, but I kind of suspect that she is just one end of a bell-curve and you are the other, with most of us somewhere in between, with regards to our ability to tolerate a meat-free diet.
Chicken.
--Mark
Then you are more intellectually honest than a lot of people I've met. Like you, I really like animals, too. Sheesh, I've got three dogs and a cat at home, two fish in a bowl at my desk at work, we've had a rabbit in our house, and the highlight of my week -- well, almost anyway -- was when my daughter and I found a porcupine walking up our driveway while we were playing Frisbee in the yard the other day, so I know where you are coming from. I tend to be a rather empathic person, but I have gone hunting. The first animal I ever shot (and with a bow, at that) was a grouse, and it was surprisingly difficult. When hunting, you have to own up to the fact that there is a live animal who's life you are about to take. That's not easy. In my opinion, everyone who wants to eat meat should, at least once, have to kill the animal they intend to have for dinner. That's not because I'm sadistic, but rather because I think we would be a lot less blase about wasting meat and eating animals raised in inhumane conditions if we were painfully aware of what it means to be a carnivore (well...technically, omnivores, but you get my point). Regarding "being able to hunt and hold up dead deers in a photo"...yeah, I'm with you there. For people who are into that, that's cool I guess, but I'm not about showing off the trophy I bagged; I'm about providing healthy food for my family and not spending my money to support corporations that raise cattle, chickens, pigs, etc. in inhumane conditions.
I wish more people had this attitude. I think fewer animals would live miserable lives and people would waste less.
Exactly.
Ummm...no. I started cooking my own food just as soon as I was old enough (I always enjoyed it), and I was always cognizant of the fact that steaks don't just magically appear at the supermarket -- you have to kill a living animal to eat meat. However, it wasn't until I was finally able to go hunting in my twenties that I truly began to appreciate that if I am going to eat meat, it means something had to die. Many people, my wife for example, are *aware* of that fact, but it's unpleasant so they intentionally don't think about it. My wife can't even eat anything that still looks like the animal it came from (Cornish game hens being a good example) because it forces her to admit that her food was once alive.
Growing your own vegetables gets a little closer, since it takes a lot of work to grow enough vegetables to feed a family. But just cooking your food? Not even close.
Well played, sir. I'd mod you up, if I had mod points right now.
I've long held the belief that you appreciate you food more if you kill it yourself.
+1
I have two nieces who routinely waste about half the food they put on their plates -- which pisses me off for a number of reasons -- but both are died-in-the-wool animal lovers. "How can you shoot a moose? They are soooo cute and cuddly!!!"...while throwing away 8 oz. of steak every night at dinner.
When you kill the animals you eat for food yourself, it becomes very, very real to you that your dinner was bought with the blood of another living creature. You don't just throw the meat away because you understand where it came from and what it means for it to be on your dinner plate.
Apparently, about half of /.
As I've followed this thread, I have become increasingly alarmed at the astounding lack of reading comprehension on display. Is everybody here channeling Nancy Grace, or what?
The crux of the problem is this: there are things that people want, in this case food (steak, for example). Satisfying these wants sometimes means others are going to suffer (in this example, the cow that is slaughtered for the steak). However, most people don't like to think about how the things they want are obtained at the expense of someone or something else. Zuckerberg, by making a statement in this way, is forcing people to face the unpleasant fact that the steaks in the package at your local supermarket were once part of a living, breathing animal. Since it is easier to dismiss Zuckerberg as a wacko than it is to face the unpleasant fact that a lot of what we eat comes at the expensive of another life, that's exactly what many people are choosing to do. Sure, it's intellectually dishonest, but...well, did you ever hear of a guy named Socrates? People got so uptight with him for throwing their intellectual dishonesty in their collective faces that they sentenced him to death.
This isn't limited to food, either. Like that Hummer you drive? That's arguably a major explanation for why we are still at war in Iraq, and why we're now getting involved in Libya, too. How many of the toys your kids play with were made by a Chinese kid in a sweatshop? Do you know that for certain? <shrug> I'm not pointing fingers, and, Mr. AC, I'm certainly not accusing you specifically of any of this. But I am saying that Zuckerberg at least is facing the reality that when he eats meat, it's because an animal died.
Ugh...that's more repulsive to me than simply killing the animal before butchering it. I had surgery in my mid-20s, and the six weeks of recuperation afterwards pretty much sucked. Imagine if that was your life: anesthetized before surgery, parts cut out of you, stitched back together again, several weeks of moderate discomfort to outright pain, and then about the time you finally started feeling "normal" again it's time to rinse and repeat .
If it's bred for food...why not eat it?
That's mighty particular of you...I prefer to eat wild animal meat, thank you very much!
Okay, okay. I was kidding. Mostly. There is a draw to wild game: no added hormones, no being kept in an inhuman pen until being slaughtered, etc. Otherwise, yeah, I pretty much agree with you (and RobNich below who makes a good point about eating herbivores rather than carnivores).
I appreciate it, honestly. To answer your question, I wrote my senators and representatives, who either told me to "run along; they know what's best for me" or crafted a masterpiece of taking no stand on the issue while trying to look deeply interested in what I was concerned about (warning: shameless plug to one of my blogs -- if you're offended by such things, don't click the links)...except for Representative Don Young, who didn't bother to reply at all. Next, I pissed off a couple of friends by using Facebook to get the word out about what was happening at the airports. <shrug> Unfortunately, not a lot of people in D.C. really give a rip what a network administrator in Alaska thinks about TSA.
Okay, how about this, then:
There have been (at least) two terrorist attempts since 9/11, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. TSA caught neither of them. On the other hand, the people on board the airplanes in question detected what was happening and intervened, thwarting the would-be terrorists. In other words, TSA: 0. Private citizens: 2. Is that what you call "working as designed"?
So many people who claim to have such great knowledge about the constitution seem to miss that last line in Section 8:
"To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
How exactly does this prove your point? The Constitution enumerates the powers the Federal government holds, and prescribes limits upon that power. Therefore, Section 8 authorizes the government to pass laws that allow it to carry out those powers the Constitution grants to it. However, if the Federal government attempts to usurp powers that the Constitution did NOT grant to it, then nothing in that statement gives it authority to do so. If it did, then the Constitution would essentially be handing absolute, unlimited power to the Federal government. That is clearly not the case.
And, of course, you specifically seem to have missed the preamble:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Again, your point? The Framers of the Constitution understood that there was a necessary role that the Federal government had to play in turning a loose alliance of independent states into a single nation. However, they also understood that a centralized government with unchecked power would grow to be a monster, and therefore they sought to strike a balance between a centralized government that was powerful enough to meet the needs of the nation ("establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare") while still providing balances to that power so that it didn't become a tyranny ("...secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity"). It's a balancing act.
I understand though. You hate society, you hate the idea of people working together, you hate the general idea behind the formation of the United States...but then, you don't like society do you, even though you've gain immense privileges by living in one.
No, you don't understand...not even remotely. Nothing GPP said even hinted that (s)he wanted to see society destroyed or laws abolished. In fact, if you will think objectively for just a moment, you will find that yourposition is much more likely to lead to chaos and anarchy than GPP's. You argue that the Federal government should be able to pass whatever laws it wants, regardless of what the Constitution allows, simply because it IS the Federal government. In other words, you want everyone in the country to obey the law, except for the Federal government itself. They, you think, are above the law. "Do as I say, not as I do"? No. Any leader -- whether individual or corporal -- must model respect for the law by themselves respecting the law, if they seriously expect anyone else to do likewise. Therefore, if the Federal government wants the people of the United States to uphold the law, they must uphold the law themselves, and thus the Federal government must be bound by the Constitution.
You have this ludicrous opinion that the Constitution is the ONLY law of the land, when it would be impossible for a society to exist without laws...
Those two points are not polar opposites; they are orthogonal. Like it or not, the Constitution IS the law of th
You've been lucky, then. Linux is my OS of choice, and I also own and use a Mac. While both OS' are, IMHO, much better than that other one from Redmond, I have managed to lock them up from time to time. Not often, mind you, but it CAN happen.
You mean...data I choose to make public on Google is... PUBLIC ?!?!?!
Meh...1920x1200 on my 5+ year old computer monitor is better resolution (albeit, just barely) than even a 1080p HDTV (source). Sure, you can get a six foot wide HDTV, but that only makes the image look more pixelated. Drop to a 720p and the difference is even more marked. I'd rather watch TV or movies on my PC than use my PC on a TV. YMMV, of course.
This, I can agree with.
Two days ago, I was trying to configure a managed Ethernet switch by SSH'ing into a remote console switch and using it to connect to the console port on the Ethernet switch. Unfortunately, for reasons I still haven't figured out, I could not get the remote console switch to work with the Ethernet switch. I had tried multiple cables, multiple ports on the console switch, and I had successfully connected the console switch to a router I was also trying to configure...but I could not get the console to work on the Ethernet switch. Okay, no problem...I'll just pull my laptop out of the port replicator and try plugging the console cable into the serial port on my laptop, right? Wrong. There was no serial port on my laptop. Grrr... That used to be standard on computers, and it's still frequently used by network admins.