GeorgiaDon

The closer you get to the South, the more time slows down? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

However, the same cannot be said of the state of Mississippi, which defaulted on a loan of $7,000,000 in 1841. That was an enormous amount of money at the time, but with interest it now amounts to several billion dollars. Mississippi dealt with the situation by amending their state constitution to forbid the repayment of the loan. It would never have occurred to me to think of Mississippi as a liberal state. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Are you saying that all the information on the health effects of mercury are bogus, made up by "liberal doctors and scientists" over decades just to one day be able to harass poor innocent power plant companies? All the way back in the 1950s those liberal Japanese fabricated Minamata Diseaseso one day the EPA could use it to advance some political agenda? Misdirection. Why not try just answering the question for once? What do you mean by "good"? Do you think unregulated dumping of mercury and arsenic into the air is "good"? Don rushmc, Are you ever going to answer the question? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I think the Constitution has stood up remarkably well because it states principles that can almost always be applied, even if the details of the case at hand could never have been imagined by the writers. Your examples of email and automatic rifles are great samples. I think the Constitution (at least as far as civil rights are concerned) is now interpreted in ways that would be shocking to the writers, yet is more true to the principles they put forth. Most of the Founders were slave holders, and were immersed in a society that took for granted the superiority of the "white race", and their personal views were colored (so to speak) by that immersion. It seems a bit funny to argue "original intent" to arrive at a conclusion the Founders would certainly find outrageous (all men are created equal, with women and non-whites included as "men" for example), though I think that conclusion is truer to the principle. Perhaps the Founders were not even aware of the full scope of their "original intent". I also think some of the most problematic rulings or legal opinions have been rooting in a process of parsing the words to find a way to justify a conclusion that does violence to the plain principle of the Constitution. Convoluted semantic arguments to reconcile mass invasion of privacy by the government are an example. Of course some would argue that the Constitution provides no privacy protection at all, because the word "privacy" is not specifically mentioned. They dismiss the notion that "privacy" is the principle at stake when the Constitution bars search and seizure without a warrant. Scalia dismisses the notion that there is any such a thing as a "right to marriage", as if "the pursuit of happiness" has any meaning when the state gets to choose your life partner (or at least, reject your choice). Yet in earlier rulings he wrote that people would object to public homosexual conduct as a reason for voting to uphold anti-gay laws; this seems to invent a right "to not be offended" that I have never found in my reading of the Constitution. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Are you saying that all the information on the health effects of mercury are bogus, made up by "liberal doctors and scientists" over decades just to one day be able to harass poor innocent power plant companies? All the way back in the 1950s those liberal Japanese fabricated Minamata Diseaseso one day the EPA could use it to advance some political agenda? Misdirection. Why not try just answering the question for once? What do you mean by "good"? Do you think unregulated dumping of mercury and arsenic into the air is "good"? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Sure. That's why the court was set up with 9 judges. I think the Founders knew full well that the cases that would come before the SC would be the ones that required some interpretation; anything that is black-and-white (disclaimer: not meant in a racial way) would be settled in the lower courts. Nine judges is enough to at least sample the range of possible perspectives, without becoming totally unwieldy. If it was just a matter of robotically applying the letter of the law, one judge could do that, but then that judge would become too powerful. The link regarding the history of the legal battle over interracial marriage wolfriverjoe posted yesterday in the gay marriage thread is a perfect example of how societal change makes new understanding of the Constitution possible and even inevitable. For many years every challenge to state bans on interracial marriage was rejected, and the reason almost always included some reference to "natural law", the Christian Bible, or misconceptions that the progeny of interracial coupling would be weak, deformed, effeminate, etc. The judges who issued such rulings were not evil, they just took for granted certain "truths" that were founded in long tradition and were not (at that time) open to question. Over time many of those assumed truths have been disproven, or the societal context in which decisions are made have changed. No judge today would base a ruling on the notion that God created the races and put them on different continents so they could not mix, in part because we today understand that that violates the Establishment clause, but also because our society has evolved to the point where it is possible to even contemplate such issues, to imagine solutions that are not Biblically based. The words of the constitution have not changed, but the readers have changed so that interpretations that were obvious at one time are unthinkable now. Along the way, there will be some people who see things one way (the original way) and some the new, and so some will be outraged at whatever the court decides. This is why I think arguments of "original intent" are bogus: not only is it difficult or impossible to now determine exactly what the "original intent" was, but "original intent" is also inextricably linked to a social context that may be irrelevant now or even seen as despicable (such as racism). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Yep. Good.What do you mean by "good"? Do you think unregulated dumping of mercury and arsenic into the air is "good"? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Out of curiosity (perhaps morbid curiosity) who do you think should have the responsibility to regulate release of pollutants into the environment, since you seem to hate the EPA so much? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

The decision was a technical one about the point in the regulatory process where the EPA has to do a cost/benefit analysis to decide if a pollutant should be regulated. The EPA determined that mercury is a toxic pollutant and therefor should be regulated. In fact, they were directed by Congress in 1990 to regulate mercury. Later, when deciding the level to which mercury release that would be regulated, they did a cost/benefit analysis, taking into account the cost of available technology to remove mercury (and arsenic) from the exhaust from power plants, to decide what level of mercury release to permit. The SC decided the EPA should have done the cost/benefit analysis first, before deciding to regulate. Again we have a decision that turns on interpretation of a phrase: the law ordering the EPA to regulate mercury emissions from power plants says the EPA should impose regulations that are "appropriate and necessary". The EPA is not required to do cost/benefit analysis for mercury emissions from other sources, and in fact the courts have (in previous cases) decided that the EPA cannot use cost/benefit analysis in making decisions, they can use only data on health effects to set permissible release levels. However, power plants are covered under a separate bill, and that bill (and only that bill) has the "appropriate and necessary" language, and the SC decided that "appropriate" implies a cost/benefit analysis. The decision did not strike down the regulations, but the EPA must now (in a lower court) present a cost/benefit analysis to justify the imposition of regulations. That should not be a problem, as that analysis has been done and the EPA concluded that there would be $9 of benefit for every $1 of expense. However you can expect the industry to fight that estimate as a lot of the benefits are not easily quantified: what is a 5-point reduction in IQ in 1,000,000 people worth, for example? How do you put a number on that? In the meantime the regulations stand, and the point is largely moot anyway as the power plant industry has already spent most of the money that will be required to install scrubbers to remove the mercury. The decision will not result in an immediate increase in mercury and arsenic emissions. However it will affect future regulations, as industry will now be able to use the courts to contest cost/benefit analyses before a decision to regulate pollutants can be made, delaying the decision-making process and implementation for years or decades. Consider that Congress ordered the EPA to regulate mercury from power plants in 1990, regulatory rules were not announced until three years ago, and the industry is still fighting those regulations. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I'd like to see tax exempt status be removed from all, along with the ability to deduct charitable contributions. That would remove the ability of government to apply such pressure. Yes - this. It's silly to tax exempt anything that collects revenue. Keep gov out of religion, out of charities, out political 'action' groups, etc. They should run as is under simple rules that apply to anything.Perhaps unfortunately, it's not that simple. The tax-exempt status of churches is based in the First Amendment. The ability to tax is a form of power, with the side doing the taxing in the superior position and the side paying in the subordinate position. If any level of government were to attempt to tax churches that would amount to asserting control or power over the church, and violate the separation of church and state. Before governments could tax churches, the First Amendment would have to be repealed or substantially modified to remove the "establishment" clause, and that is a non-starter. Probably that's just as well, because the First Amendment is the main thing that protects us from "true believers" who would use the legislative system to impose their religion on all of us. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Did you just propose to Amazon?? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Of course words have meaning, but often that meaning is clear only when you look at the context, the words before and the words after the little snippit you have decided to isolate. Consider this example. Suppose you are looking to hire someone, and are reading recommendation letters. One letter includes the sentence: "You will be fortunate if you can get Jerry to work for your company." That's pretty ambiguous, I think you will agree. It could mean two totally opposite things. Now you read further: "You will be fortunate if you can get Jerry to work for your company. He is the best employee I have ever had." Now the meaning is clear. Suppose instead the letter continued: "You will be fortunate if you can get Jerry to work for your company. He never did an honest days work while in my employment." Again the meaning is clear. Context is important. Sometimes I think lawyers make their living on two things: parsing words so as to twist their meaning in favor of a client, and making the perfect the enemy of the good. I'm sure there are many that do not fit these descriptions, but the ones that make headlines seem to fit pretty well. I can understand why a lawyer would feel threatened when the Supreme Court chooses to look at the phrase in question in context, as that threatens the whole legal strategy of splitting hairs. By the way, am I mistaken in thinking that the term "the State" is sometimes used to refer to the government as a whole, both Federal and State? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Do you have actual evidence that he was taking any pharmaceutical, and any evidence that he was abusing? Or are you just making things up to serve some personal agenda? I have seen nothing in the press that suggests anything like this incident being a "sudden burst of outrage", nor that it reflects a sudden change of character (choirboy turns homicidal manic type of thing). Rather, he was known even in high school to harbor racist views, and he has been talking for months about some sort of attack to start a race war. This crime seems to be the culmination of a long-festering hatred in the mind of a screwed up ignorant loser, enamored with a romanticized view of a time and society where he would have had power over others simply by virtue of his under-pigmented skin. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Well Obama said nigger publicly a couple days ago and he is the 2015 president not some 1960's president caught on a phone call tape, so it must be good to use by everyone now right? http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/22/politics/barack-obama-n-word-race-relations-marc-maron-interview/Sure. Because context means nothing to some people. I guess that's too subtle for them. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Apparently initial reports from law enforcement "stretched the truth" a bit. According to family members Roof was given money as a 21st birthday present. He chose to spend that money to buy a gun. Should parents of adult children be held criminally accountable for how their children spend their own money? Also, Roof had been convicted of misdemeanor trespass, and had been charged (but not yet tried or convicted) of misdemeanor drug possession. Neither charge was a felony, and neither would have caused him to fail a background check. If he was legally in the clear to purchase a gun, why should we seek to imprison the parents for giving him money for his birthday that he later used to buy a gun? You're opening a can of worms here, if you expect all parents to be able to predict the actions of their adult children months or years into the future. I'm more concerned about the friends who knew he was talking about taking some action based on his racist ideas. However, even there he apparently made no specific threat, and no-one felt he was serious. Indeed one of the friends, who has been interviewed a lot in the last few days, is quite obviously black, and he didn't feel the comments were meant seriously. It seems a contradiction that someone with such racist views would have black friends, but that just illustrates the difficulty in distinguishing between a serious threat and someone just shooting their mouth off (so to speak). As unsettling and as contemptible as Roof's "manifesto" and web postings may have been, they were not illegal and law enforcement would not have been able to detain him based only on his words, as long as he did not mention a specific planned action or target. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Skyrad, who is I believe a Muslim, has provided scripture that teaches forgiveness and condemns vengeance and retribution. Perhaps you, being a good Christian and all, can provide us with scripture (preferably New Testament) that advocates execution by firing squad, death by anal sodomy, or any of the other courses of action proposed by yourself or other Conservative Christians in this thread. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Interesting. Here is a quote from a daughter of one of Roof's victims: "I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you," a daughter of Ethel Lance said. "And have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people but God forgives you, and I forgive you." Source I wonder which one of you is the real Christian? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I think you didn't get the memo. Andy explained it quite well (post 124 above). Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Hmmm. 24 hours and not one liquor store or pharmacy looted. Don't you just hate it when "those people" don't conform to your stereotypes? Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

I am not aware that any American university provides housing on campus, much less in an "ivory tower" (whatever that is). All the faculty I know live, shop, commute etc in the same neighborhoods as "regular people" live. Students freely choose to pay tuition because (especially in engineering) it is a good investment. Successful engineers have no trouble paying off that "student debt" because engineers provide essential services, the demand for engineers exceeds the supply, and so they are well compensated. People like Professor Kallend are well compensated because universities must compete with the private sector to be able to hire and retain the most talented people to train the next generation of engineers. Only fools would wish to limit universities to hiring faculty who would not be competitive in the private sector. Certainly, people without the foresight, ambition, or intelligence to invest in the education needed for a successful professional career might have a harder time. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Dude, the corpses are still leaking blood. That couldn't wait for another 5 minutes? You can learn a lot about people on this forum. It's often quite depressing, unfortunately. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

As a university professor myself, I'm still surprised by the sense of entitlement some students display. I've not noticed any correlation with race, though; an unwarranted sense that one is the center of the universe seems to be an equal opportunity affliction. It's worth noting, though, that there still seems to be dozens of decent students for every asshole. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Rushmc better not enroll in his class. That would start a nationwide shortage of red ink. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Oh, I agree. I only meant that whatever the politicians do, it will end up before the courts. I didn't mean the courts are the best way to deal with it. In fact they may be the worst; to the extent that the courts rely on precedent they may be incapable of affecting change in a situation like this. As we discussed in another thread long ago, to the courts consistency and abiding by rules is more important than any concept of a "just outcome". If the rules (laws) say 1 guy owns all the water, and 999,999 other people have nothing, the courts will likely say "those are the rules, if you don't like it find a way to change the rules". Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

Yet, farmers were able to get laws passed that state that they own the water even as it falls from the sky. And, they were able to derail legislation that would have allowed homeowners to capture a small amount of that water to temporarily divert it to watering gardens. It doesn't matter that ultimately the water ends up in the soil, replenishing ground water that feeds the rivers, and so eventually reaches the farmers after a short but productive detour. It's their water dammit, and no-one else can touch it even if it happens to fall on someone else's land. Just like California, the situation exists because the rights to use water were given to a small number of ranchers over a century ago. At the time, the intent was to encourage people to move West and homestead, and no thought was given to the day when the land would be full of people, industries, and farms that all need water. Now we have a situation where a stream may flow across your land, but you can be prosecuted for removing a single cup to drink. We have legislators comparing rain barrels to allowing people to go into stores and empty the shelves of bottled water without having to pay for it. No amount of local "brain power" will be able to redistribute the water, because it was all given away to a few ranchers a century ago, they own it, and they will not willingly part with so much as a drop. Any solution will have to involve "re-negotiating" water rights, and if one side refuses to negotiate then legislative and judicial action (=government) is the only option left. Don _____________________________________ Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996) “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)