US Politics

[Mal]

Well... yeah. It is kind of why I back away from supporting the death penalty.

 

And now, why are people caring about this? Did this really get national coverage?

[TheRevanchist]

Cuz the bitch be cray cray! Didn't you hear her second story where ninjas attacked?

[Thursday Next]

There is a distinction though between amending it to say "people can't own guns" and amending it to just take out the 2nd Amendment.  The first would actually be taking away the right, whereas the second would just be removing the protection of the right and they would still have to pass laws to actually take it away.

 

As for the second point, I actually kind of disagree (putting aside the fact that I don't really care "what the Founders intended")*.  I think the only sensible reading of the second amendment is that individuals have the right to own weapons such as would allow them to form a meaningful combat unit.  "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" to me pretty clearly means that people have the right to own weapons, and any other reading requires rather extreme logical gymnastics, and then the justification part, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" pretty explicitly shows we're talking about military defense.  Put those two together and the people must be given the right to possess such weapons as would be useful in military actions, and a formation of dudes with flintlocks would be less than useless in modern combat.

 

*I want to clarify what I said here: I don't care what the founders' specific intentions were, but I do care what they were generally trying to get at.  My approach to constitutional interpretation is to try and determine the underlying idea they were trying to get at and apply that to modern situations without worrying about what they might have thought about the specific situation.  Another example would be the equal protection clause, which was passed immediately following the civil war and they were obviously thinking about race at the time, but the idea they were putting into it is that everyone should be treated equally under the law, so even though they may not have been thinking about or applied it to women or Jews or LGBT or whatever we should still interpret it so that it does apply in those instances as well.

 

I just wish more emphasis were put on the justification. Personally, (and I know I'm retreading old ground here) I'd prefer to read that as a conditional, rather than a bit of waffly preamble.

 

To complain about removing the right to bear arms seems as ridiculous to me (as a British citizen) as complaining when the law allowing Englishmen to kill Welshmen in Chester at night with a crossbow was repealed. It was a law made for a specific time for a specific situation. In the case of the second amendment that specific situation was immediately following the creation of the United States, while they had no established police force, or standing army, and were facing British and Spanish forts on US soil, so yes, at the time, having an armed populace was favourable compared with losing territory to British and/or Spanish forces. The US is pretty secure these days, so those weapons are not really needed and are currently doing more harm than good.

 

That said. America loves it's guns. They've made the mistake of turning the gun into a symbol of freedom and so you can't take their gun without taking their freedom. I'm just really glad I don't live there.

[TheMightyEthan]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/12/muldrow-ten-commandments_n_3262518.html
 
High School has Ten Commandments posted, gets a letter saying "you can't do that, if you don't take them down we'll have to take you to court."
 
From the article:
 

A local church even bought hundreds of T-shirts, printed with the Ten Commandments, and offered them for free to students to wear to school.
 
The school, for its part, reportedly said students who wore the shirts would be forced to turn them inside out, the Sequoyah County Times reported.

 
That's going too far the other way.  The school can't promote religion, but students who want to express their own religious beliefs are certainly free to do so.
 
The school, in trying to correct its violation of the Establishment Clause ("Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion..."), has now put itself arguably in violation of the Free Exercise Clause ("... or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.").

Edited May 13, 2013 by TheMightyEthan

[Thursday Next]

That I agree with. Of course they have to allow ALL religions the same freedom, so same goes for Quran t-shirts etc. no matter how much the parents might dislike other children doing that.

 

The school should not allow religious postings on school owned property (e.g. walls etc) where it may be said to have editorial control. But if kids want to wear Bible-y t-shirts, that's their lookout. Unless it contravenes a specific uniform rule (I had to wear a white shirt, a black blazer and tie throughout my school career so a t-shirt bearing any slogan would be an issue).

[TheMightyEthan]

Yeah, if they had a content-neutral policy, like "no shirts with words on them", then they can apply that to bible shirts, but they can't ban the bible shirts specifically, generally speaking.  They might be able to argue that because of this specific situation the bible shirts would create disruptions to the learning environment, but I feel like banning them would create even more disruption.

[Mister Jack]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/george-takei-responds-to-traditional-marriage-fans?s=mobile

 

Oh George.

[TheMightyEthan]

Haha, I was just coming in here to post that.

 

*Edit* - This one's my favorite:

 

 

 

 

Edited May 17, 2013 by TheMightyEthan

[deanb]

So, that NSA news eh?

 

Basically NSA is said to be in cahoots with most ISPs and phone providers in the US to supply pretty much all the data they can get, regardless of warrants, innocence etc.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/confirmed-nsa-spying-millions-americans

 

This also extends to them having their fingers in the servers of several internet companies too.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa-data

 

And to store all that data a new data center

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/06/06/nsa-to-build-860-million-hpc-center-in-maryland/

 

Sounds fun.

[FredEffinChopin]

Funny you mentioned this in the XBone thread Dean, as it's one of the first things I thought of when I read of this NSA foolishness.

 

On topic:

I love that now that the press have seen their own specific freedoms encroached upon, they are taking breaches of *everyone's* privacy as seriously as they should be. Where was this outrage back when the Patriot Act was first enacted? Anyway, better late than never. 

 

I'm trying not to lose my shit until they "clarify" some of the specifics and conditions of use, but it doesn't look good, especially for an administration that loves to talk about transparency. Actually, it looks fucking godawful, and it makes me want to throw a brick. The fact that all of the alleged involved parties are acting like it is not true at all really freaks me out as well, and makes me wonder as to the extent of imposed confidentiality on measures taken in the name of combating "terrorism". The buying and selling of our elected officials and the grip on our government by big business is something that got a pretty admirable number of people marching for a brief time, albeit to the tune of wild cynicism and ridicule... If this situation winds up being as bad as it seems, I'm thinking we might be seeing a real march around the corner; this time with a sympathetic press. 

Edited June 7, 2013 by FredEffinChopin

[TheRevanchist]

The bad part is how the UK press is all over this, and even broke other stories of the BS the US government has done.  It's like the US press doesn't even try anymore.  

 

The Tea Party had been complaining for years that the IRS was harrassing them.  The US press ignored it and brushed them off.

 

The AP had their phone records seized, and they only made a stink when someone else broke the story.

 

But, like Right Said Fred pointed out, the XBone is the newest NSA treat.  I'm sure the government will love to see everyone in their homes, getting pictures of you from Kinect, and listening in to what you have to say.

[TheRevanchist]

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/06/07/anonymous-leaks-documents-allegedly-associated-with-prism-surveillance-program

 

Anonymous can actually be helpful at times, when the Bill of Rights is violated in most abusvie ways.

[TheMightyEthan]

Yes, this is why I'm torn about Anonymous: I agree with a lot of the stuff they do (or at least the side they're on, if not necessarily their methods), but then sometimes they do shit and I'm like "fuckin seriously guys?"

 

Though I know that's an inevitable result of them being just a loose association of people who choose to self-identify as part of Anonymous, rather than any kind of organized entity with a central command structure.

[Mal]

Funny you mentioned this in the XBone thread Dean, as it's one of the first things I thought of when I read of this NSA foolishness.

 

On topic:

I love that now that the press have seen their own specific freedoms encroached upon, they are taking breaches of *everyone's* privacy as seriously as they should be. Where was this outrage back when the Patriot Act was first enacted? Anyway, better late than never. 

 

I'm trying not to lose my shit until they "clarify" some of the specifics and conditions of use, but it doesn't look good, especially for an administration that loves to talk about transparency. Actually, it looks fucking godawful, and it makes me want to throw a brick. The fact that all of the alleged involved parties are acting like it is not true at all really freaks me out as well, and makes me wonder as to the extent of imposed confidentiality on measures taken in the name of combating "terrorism". The buying and selling of our elected officials and the grip on our government by big business is something that got a pretty admirable number of people marching for a brief time, albeit to the tune of wild cynicism and ridicule... If this situation winds up being as bad as it seems, I'm thinking we might be seeing a real march around the corner; this time with a sympathetic press. 

The potential march would be far more legit than say Occupy Wall Street. It wouldn't be lazy bums asking for government handouts. Hell, it isn't even about money. It'll be about our rights as citizens and power of the government. It potentially might be bigger than the Vietnam War protests and the Civil Right Movement. All US citizens (Fuck, even internationals.) got their rights violated.

 

Good jobs Washington, you done fucked things up.

[Mister Jack]

In this day and age I'd be surprised if it went any further than a change.org petition.

 

"Guise srsly.  Don't spy on us.  Srsly guise.  That's not cool."

[Mal]

I suppose but there got to be a point where we do a Turkey.

[FredEffinChopin]

I wouldn't exactly color the occupy protests that way... There was certainly a good deal of confusion about its message, and some unsavory characters that the media loved to single out and interview, but at its core were some very legitimate concerns about economic disparity that have nothing to do with people wanting free money, but about a system that is rigged by the wealthy to work exclusively for the wealthy, while keeping everyone else right where they are. While Wall St. heads themselves were really smug about it at the time, and liked to color the protesters with that "lazy bum" brush, I'd point out some of the bigger scandals in recent history (especially involving AIG and HSBC), and ask anyone who the real bums are that want handouts. It's not the people breaking their backs for 40-50 hours a week that fear they might not have their SSI waiting for them after the banks help tank the economy. It's the crooks who launder money for terrorist organizations, rob the public blind, never go to jail for it, and then ask for government assistance when things don't look good for them; and they'll get it every time, at almost zero interest.  Perhaps everyone on the ground there wasn't able to articulate their concern very well, but they know enough to know that something is wrong. It's a complex game being played by politicians, lobbyists, and Wall St., and not the easiest thing to condense into a headline, but rest assured, they've successfully stolen democracy. Well, they bought it, to be fair, and legally. 

Edited June 8, 2013 by FredEffinChopin

[FredEffinChopin]

In this day and age I'd be surprised if it went any further than a change.org petition.

 

"Guise srsly.  Don't spy on us.  Srsly guise.  That's not cool."

 

You're probably right 

[Hot Heart]

These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America

[Saturnine Tenshi]

You know your society is fucked up when athletes—some of the least useful, least talented, most overpaid, most over respected "professions"—are getting less (potential) jail time than the person who brought their crime to light. Though, well, that would go without saying regardless their career path.

[TheMightyEthan]

The rapists were juveniles, while the hacker is an adult, which has a huge effect on sentences.  Also, if you're going to use the max he could possibly get then you need to compare it to the max they could possibly have gotten, which in Ohio appears to be 11 years for any first degree felony (based on really cursory research, so I could be wrong).  Finally, he's being charged under federal hacking laws, they rapists were charged under Ohio state laws, two entirely different governments prosecuting them, so comparing them is really meaningless.

 

What we should be up in arms about is how apparently lax Ohio's rape laws are.  Jesus Christ, 11 years max?  In Kansas the minimum presumptive sentence for a severity level 1 felony (which includes rape) is 12.25 years, and it goes all the way up to 54 years.

[Saturnine Tenshi]

I did say potential. And the issue still stands that they tried to cover it up, then went and attacked the person who revealed everything. The truth of the law doesn't make it any better.

 

Edit: Quick response because I'm auto-running in GW2. >_>

Edited June 8, 2013 by Saturnine Tenshi

[Hot Heart]

What we should be up in arms about is how apparently lax Ohio's rape laws are.

 

Nope, I'm up in arms about society, in general. And you can't stop me!

[Luftwaffles]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22832994

 

I'm not even sure where to put this, but it's far too good not to share. 

[Mister Jack]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance

 

This guy really deserves a lot of credit.  He basically gave up his whole life to get this story out.