I am not advocating an armed revolution. You said: "Liberty is fed with the blood of tyrants." You also say: "Hint: it might be a crime for a US citizen to advocate taking up arms against his government." So in not-so-subtle terms, you are arguing for armed revolution. Which would be a huge mistake. Chances are after all the bloodshed and upheaval the new government would be even worse.
It's kinda funny watching all these armchair Slashdotters arguing for violent overthrow. Most of them probably couldn't turn over their mattress, let alone a government.
I don't have a conundrum. What I see is 'screaming', feces throwing, and whining from every crackpot and self-promoter who gets turned away from Wikipedia.
You know, there are far to many oversensitive pansies on WP. There are far too many people who want to use Wikipedia as a vehicle for self-promotion, and then cry foul when they are thwarted.
And the trick to this is that you have to give me a good answer, one that I can accept, and that motivates me to believe that life is worth living, among many other things. So what you are looking for is a convenient fairy tale that helps you sleep at night.
There's very little direct evidence of a lot of things, and especially scientific ones, who's to say Einstein's Theories of Relativity are how the phenomenon they explain works, or much of quantum mechanics or string holds water Quantum mechanics and Einstein's relativity theories make predictions that have been tested repeatedly. When there are competing theories in science predictions and tests of those predictions are used to choose among them. So how do you decide which religion to believe in, or whether to believe in ghosts?
The "Subject" heading for the parent of this seems to be a little bigoted. The subject mentioned Americans because the story summary said "An anonymous reader passed a link to a survey that says a third of Americans believe in ghosts."
Not in particular, and no one is perfect, but I used to argue exactly as Linus and Theo do -- always with ad hominem attacks and anger. Now I try to keep that stuff out of my arguments.
The link you provided is also "tired old psychobabble used by most armchair shrinks", but it happens to be nerd-friendly. I think there's truth in both points of view, and I'll add a bit of my own pyschobabble: People like Linus and Theo who haven't progressed beyond the "angry nerd" mindset are emotionally immature.
WWII is probably one of the few wars where there really was an unequivocal "right" vs "wrong", and it was a war that the allies had to win at any cost. From The Fog of War:
"Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve."
"LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
After a few years working in the tech industry I finally went and joined a B School. So i now feel competent to comment about this:-) A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Hence the term "sophomoric".
But what happens when a scalper can buy ALL of those tickets? Why is the scalper any different than the event organizers? They both hold ALL the tickets. Their selling strategy should be exactly the same.
But the society bears a "deadweight" loss on this monopoly situation since the stadium has now just 1000 people!! Umm, why would the scalper not sell tickets at a lower price to get rid of them? You don't need a class in economics to tell you that the scalper will want to sell everything he has. These guys will be practically giving the tickets away if they have unsold supply.
She wiped the HD *before* being notified. From an Associated Press report:
"Thomas said before the trial, which began Tuesday, that her hard drive was replaced in 2004, but she agreed Wednesday that it actually was replaced on March 9, 2005.
The disparity is important because the companies say she received an instant message on Feb. 21, 2005, warning her that she was violating copyright law by sharing songs online.
The companies say she replaced the drive to cover her tracks -- not to rectify persistent problems, as she claims.
Thomas, of Brainerd, defended giving the erroneous date by saying she had been confused about several dates."
[...]
Kevin Havemeier, Thomas' boyfriend at the time, testified that she had talked about problems with her hard drive before the lawsuit came up. He also said he never saw her download music.
A worker from Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad service testified that Thomas' hard drive was replaced under an extended warranty plan in 2005 that would generally have required her approval. But under cross-examination by Toder, the worker said he didn't have a record of her approving the replacement."
If ANYTHING in my house broke that often, to hell with the warranty, I'd buy a different brand. The problem is game consoles aren't interchangable once you've invested in games. Plus your basic alternatives are a Wii or a PS3. Wii has a different focus, and the PS3 costs a lot more, and again the game lineups are different. It's not like buying a toaster.
Microsoft for once did the right thing by extending the warranty. I can see how people would be willing to stick with them. That said, I own a launch version of the 360 and it's too damn noisy, the games demand you have a high-def TV, and I really don't like the idea that the hardware is prone to breaking. I won't buy any games for it, don't pay for Xbox Live, and stick to playing downloaded demos for free. Fuck them:)
You have to remember that you're squeezing all that into a tiny box and you need to keep it cool and quiet, on a limited budget. Microsoft failed, no doubt, but certainly the task wasn't easy. In comparison, the PS3 is beautifully designed -- cool, quiet, and reliable. But way too expensive. I wonder if they could have sold it for a decent price without the Blu-ray.
The only way you can contend that their speech is protected is if you believe there is a way for the US to become a communist state or a monarchy while leaving the constitution and bill of rights intact. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights explicitly allows itself to be changed, and it has been changed in the past. Whether it is changed piecemeal or wholesale, it explicitly allows it, and any right you currently enjoy can be taken away.
That's why when people get upset about stuff like flag burning they proprose for an amendent to the Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled that flag burning is protected under the 1st, but if an amendment was passed against it the Supreme Court would have no power to argue otherwise. Following your logic, arguing for an amendment against flag burning is a violation of the 1st amendment, and not protected speech.
Nowhere does it say, nor have I said, that the government has to crack down on subversive speech or speech intended to deprive others of their rights, only that it would not violate the 1st ammendment if they did so. Backpedalling further, I see. Why, when the government was fighting against the spread of communism, and they were arresting people, did they only do so if violent overthrow was being advocated? Why would they let a communist party even exist in the country? If their free speech wasn't protected, they obviously would have.
Today's free speech rights are upheld much more clearly than they were in the past. The very idea that in 2007 aruing for an alternative form of government, even one that unravels the Constitution, isn't protected under the 1st is laughable. "clear and present danger" and "imminent lawless action" being key phrases.
You've gone from my original statement about being a communist to "merely speaking in favor of communism". You're running out of room for back tracking. You are the one who is backtracking. You stated: "If someone was a communist or monarchist, and they want the US to become a communist state or a monarchy, then their speech does not enjoy the protections of the 1st ammendment." [emphasis mine].
You have yet to prove otherwise, and the page you link to clearly states that their speech is protected. Even when it was being attacked, it was done so under the rule of "clear and present danger" involving the overthrow of the government. I never stated free speech was absolute -- that has been your strawman to knock down, not my position.
Ever read Darwin's "Origin of the Species" ? No, but I see it's online, and I read some of it. Very clear, concise writing. No puns, no metaphysical animal characters. Convincing experiments and argumentation. Groundbreaking work. NO HANDWAVING. No smog machine. Comparing "Godel, Escher, Bach" to this book, now that's hubris.
It's even more self apparent for monarchists. Many were driven from their homes, property seized, etc. War of 1812 ring a bell? Please cite a case where a Bill-of-Rights based government restricted free speech for a monarchist.
Free speech means being able to speak with impunity. Losing the ability to join the military or work for the government or get a clearance, are all punitive in nature, whether you'd like any of them or not. No, it's not the same. The government can exclude people from working from them for any number of reasons. Being a security threat is certainly one. The military currently has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding homosexuality. Are you claiming that homosexuals' rights aren't protected under the 1st amendment? If you kill somebody, and then give yourself away by talking about the murder, you will be punished for the murder, not for talking.
You have yet to cite a case where merely speaking in favor of communism was considered illegal. The fact is that right has always been protected under the 1st amendment. If it was not protected, then people could have been thrown in jail for just stating their support of communism, yet the government always made it a point to target those who advocated overthrow.
And there are answers. Just maybe not the easy ones we would like. Philosophical musings wrapped up in 700+ pages full of puns and other "aren't I clever" intellectual masturbation is not providing answers.
So, you have no specific example, and your original claim "If someone was a communist or monarchist, and they want the US to become a communist state or a monarchy, then their speech does not enjoy the protections of the 1st ammendment." is completely wrong. You talk about violence, but I specifically excluded that right from the beginning. Is it so hard to admit you're wrong?
I do agree - and I claim carpal tunnel (really) in that typing in mostly lc is just easier on the wrists. I've had on and off problems because of typing, but hitting shift is rather trivial and I doubt it adds to your problems. For anybody in IT shift is really unavoidable anyways. The main thing is the amount of typing you do, how you position your wrists, the number of breaks you take, etc. I also found a big problem was keeping my arm stuck out on the mouse while browsing, instead of keeping it down at my side and using it occassionaly.
if there was a good auto-cap program, I would use it. Well, I know Microsoft Word has features like this, and so does Open Office. Not sure about browser integration. But hitting shift is really super-easy, especially if you touch type it's right next to the pinky.
at any rate, I'm not applying or a tech writer job. if I was, well, you'd have a point;) It's just a matter of common courtesy. Text is written once, and read hundreds or thousands of times. It really slows me down and interrupts my flow to read uncapitalized text, and I tend to skip over posts that don't capitalize.
Slashdot Mirror
It's kinda funny watching all these armchair Slashdotters arguing for violent overthrow. Most of them probably couldn't turn over their mattress, let alone a government.
I don't have a conundrum. What I see is 'screaming', feces throwing, and whining from every crackpot and self-promoter who gets turned away from Wikipedia.
Not in particular, and no one is perfect, but I used to argue exactly as Linus and Theo do -- always with ad hominem attacks and anger. Now I try to keep that stuff out of my arguments.
Your posts would be much easier to read if you started your sentences with capitals.
Translation: "I was crushed by somebody who knows what he's talking about."
It's not an "unearned advantage" to refrain from insulting people. It's an "earned disadvantage" to act the way Theo does.
The link you provided is also "tired old psychobabble used by most armchair shrinks", but it happens to be nerd-friendly. I think there's truth in both points of view, and I'll add a bit of my own pyschobabble: People like Linus and Theo who haven't progressed beyond the "angry nerd" mindset are emotionally immature.
Love! Them!! Exclamation points!!! Do you?!?!
"Why was it necessary to drop the nuclear bomb if LeMay was burning up Japan? And he went on from Tokyo to firebomb other cities. 58% of Yokohama. Yokohama is roughly the size of Cleveland. 58% of Cleveland destroyed. Tokyo is roughly the size of New York. 51% percent of New York destroyed. 99% of the equivalent of Chattanooga, which was Toyama. 40% of the equivalent of Los Angeles, which was Nagoya. This was all done before the dropping of the nuclear bomb, which by the way was dropped by LeMay's command. Proportionality should be a guideline in war. Killing 50% to 90% of the people of 67 Japanese cities and then bombing them with two nuclear bombs is not proportional, in the minds of some people, to the objectives we were trying to achieve."
"LeMay said, "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals." And I think he's right. He, and I'd say I, were behaving as war criminals. LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?"
"Thomas said before the trial, which began Tuesday, that her hard drive was replaced in 2004, but she agreed Wednesday that it actually was replaced on March 9, 2005.
The disparity is important because the companies say she received an instant message on Feb. 21, 2005, warning her that she was violating copyright law by sharing songs online.
The companies say she replaced the drive to cover her tracks -- not to rectify persistent problems, as she claims.
Thomas, of Brainerd, defended giving the erroneous date by saying she had been confused about several dates."
[...]
Kevin Havemeier, Thomas' boyfriend at the time, testified that she had talked about problems with her hard drive before the lawsuit came up. He also said he never saw her download music.
A worker from Best Buy Co.'s Geek Squad service testified that Thomas' hard drive was replaced under an extended warranty plan in 2005 that would generally have required her approval. But under cross-examination by Toder, the worker said he didn't have a record of her approving the replacement."
Microsoft for once did the right thing by extending the warranty. I can see how people would be willing to stick with them. That said, I own a launch version of the 360 and it's too damn noisy, the games demand you have a high-def TV, and I really don't like the idea that the hardware is prone to breaking. I won't buy any games for it, don't pay for Xbox Live, and stick to playing downloaded demos for free. Fuck them
You have to remember that you're squeezing all that into a tiny box and you need to keep it cool and quiet, on a limited budget. Microsoft failed, no doubt, but certainly the task wasn't easy. In comparison, the PS3 is beautifully designed -- cool, quiet, and reliable. But way too expensive. I wonder if they could have sold it for a decent price without the Blu-ray.
That's why when people get upset about stuff like flag burning they proprose for an amendent to the Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled that flag burning is protected under the 1st, but if an amendment was passed against it the Supreme Court would have no power to argue otherwise. Following your logic, arguing for an amendment against flag burning is a violation of the 1st amendment, and not protected speech. Nowhere does it say, nor have I said, that the government has to crack down on subversive speech or speech intended to deprive others of their rights, only that it would not violate the 1st ammendment if they did so. Backpedalling further, I see. Why, when the government was fighting against the spread of communism, and they were arresting people, did they only do so if violent overthrow was being advocated? Why would they let a communist party even exist in the country? If their free speech wasn't protected, they obviously would have.
Today's free speech rights are upheld much more clearly than they were in the past. The very idea that in 2007 aruing for an alternative form of government, even one that unravels the Constitution, isn't protected under the 1st is laughable. "clear and present danger" and "imminent lawless action" being key phrases.
You have yet to prove otherwise, and the page you link to clearly states that their speech is protected. Even when it was being attacked, it was done so under the rule of "clear and present danger" involving the overthrow of the government. I never stated free speech was absolute -- that has been your strawman to knock down, not my position.
You have yet to cite a case where merely speaking in favor of communism was considered illegal. The fact is that right has always been protected under the 1st amendment. If it was not protected, then people could have been thrown in jail for just stating their support of communism, yet the government always made it a point to target those who advocated overthrow.
So, you have no specific example, and your original claim "If someone was a communist or monarchist, and they want the US to become a communist state or a monarchy, then their speech does not enjoy the protections of the 1st ammendment." is completely wrong. You talk about violence, but I specifically excluded that right from the beginning. Is it so hard to admit you're wrong?
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