GeorgiaDon

Agreed. The problem occurs whenever whoever currently runs society uses threats of death or grievous harm to impose their will on others. In some cases it's men dominating women, in others one religion dominating another, in yet others it's one race or tribe subjugating another, and so on. It's reprehensible in every case. 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 you can have one. Just like a certain body part. 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)

Perhaps, then, we should enforce a quarantine on everybody who has not had a current flu shot and has been in contact with anybody who might have had the flu. Certainly we should involuntarily quarantine anyone who goes to work when they are feeling achy and might be running a bit of a fever. After all, the flu kills thousands of people every year just in the US. It's quite clear that without significant effort from medical volunteers from around the world, the epidemic in West Africa will continue to escalate. There is a clear trade-off here: we can impose significant (and medically unnecessary) impediments to protect against the vanishingly small chance that doctors and nurses returning from West Africa will choose to ignore their symptoms until they are actually projectile vomiting on fellow movie goers, but we should understand that that increases the chance that the epidemic will expand beyond West Africa and ultimately increase the influx of actually infected people coming here via way-points in Europe or Asia. Personally, I trust trained medical personnel more than I do travelers who lie about their travel history to evade embargoes and mandatory quarantines. In Nurse Hickox's case, she was pretty much forced to travel through Newark as it is one of only five airports travelers from West Africa can enter the US through. She lives in Maine, so if she was permitted to go home she would not pose any risk to residents of New Jersey or New York. Instead she is (or was) being forced to remain in New Jersey, hardly a course of action consistent with "protecting the residents of New Jersey". This would have been a great time for politicians to actually step up and take a leadership role, quieting fears instead of pandering to them for the sake of milking public panic for votes. Sadly that did not happen. Since Chris Christie seems able to diagnose patients without every even having seen them, perhaps he should nominate himself to be the new Surgeon General. 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)

He's just made he got picked last in sports and is taking it out on the jocks now that he is their professor and has "power" over them. That's my take on it anyways. We might also assume you were the kid who couldn't make it past freshman calculus, so now you hate anyone who could. And of course that "take on things" is just as useless as your "take on things". A more reasonable (and less emotion-driven) reading of things, taking the content of the OP into consideration and not just the thread title (which is limited to a bumper sticker length statement) would be: "One more reason why I hate the way big money college athletics corrupts college ethics". I think we can all agree that people who lie and cheat for financial advantage are reprehensible. It's a little more personal when you've dedicated most of your adult life to working hard to maintain a high standard as an educator. Salaries of coaches, assistant coaches, and almost everybody associated with college athletic departments vastly exceed typical faculty, and in certain cases (such as the football and basketball coaches) even the university president. When you discover that these lavish salaries have been maintained, even in part, through a systematic and prolonged shitting on every value that is important to every real educator in the university system, perhaps "hate" is not too strong a term. 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'm pretty sure that "honor" killings are not just a Muslim issue, and I'm also pretty sure not all Muslims have such a practice. I also feel fairly confident in suggesting such a social convention has less to do with religion than it does with male-dominated power and control. There's nothing like the threat of murder, or disfigurement with acid, or even "just" complete social ostracism to enforce conformity with the current power structure. Like all forms of murder, "honor killings" are completely reprehensible. They are (in my opinion) somewhat worse than your run-of-the-mill murder in that they are also intended to terrorize* other women into accepting a position of subjugation. Like all murder, "honor killings" are criminal acts and are prosecuted as such in the US and all Western democracies. I fail to see just what else you would expect American (or Canadian, or European, or even Russian, Japanese, Chinese, etc) women to do about it. Do you expect them to form a "feminist army" and invade countries where "honor killings" are still practiced? Murder of innocents, and subjugation of people due to gender, race, religion, etc is not just a "feminist" issue, it is a human rights issue. If you want to take "feminists" (whatever that means) to task for "not doing enough", you should first take a look in the mirror and ask what you should be doing. *From time to time the issue of "hate crimes" is brought up. Personally, I think the legal definition is too broad. Killing someone because you want their cell phone is no less reprehensible than killing someone because you don't like their choice of sex partner. Where I think a useful distinction might be made, though, is when someone commits a murder or assault on someone in a deliberate effort to terrorize or intimidate others of the same race, religion, sexual orientation etc. For example, if a murder is linked to a message to a targeted group that says "you better get out of town or you will suffer the same fate", you have the crime of murder linked to the intent to terrorize. By that definition "honor killings" would qualify as "hate crimes" in my opinion. 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)

Oxymoron.I disagree, actually. That might apply to many male football and basketball scholarship "students", for whom college is just a necessary stepping stone to the professional career most of them never achieve. However, there are a lot of student athletes who do not fall into that category. Many, including virtually all female student athletes, have no expectation of a lucrative professional career in sports; they compete pretty much just because they love their sport. These students know they will need a degree to make a living after college. Also the only way to cope with practices and competitions on top of classes is to be very very focused and organized. I have never seen a male scholarship football or basketball player in any of the courses I teach. However I regularly get other student athletes, including members of the women's baseball, basketball, and soccer teams, and despite absences for competitions they always are among the better students in the class. I once had a fellow who had been a walk-on kicker on the football team (he was the backup, but actually played in a few games) do a masters degree in my lab and an MBA at the same time. Now that was an exceptionally smart and well organized individual! I do fault the universities for sacrificing academic rigor to keep players in the big money sports. However that problem goes very deep in the education community; to be good enough to compete for scholarships, kids have to focus on sport to the exclusion of everything else, including academics. It is no mystery why many kids who can play football or basketball at the necessary level can't add, subtract, or read above a third grade level. I place the blame at the feet of the long line of adults who stand to profit on the backs of these kids, and who are all too happy to line their own pockets and discard the kids when their usefulness is done. The fact that the sports/entertainment industry holds out the potential for a huge payday, that only a small fraction of the kids will ever attain, makes the whole thing an easy sell. 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)

Sensationalistic tripe. Requiring food banks and "soup kitchens" to comply with food safety regulations is not the same as "forbidden to feed the homeless". I could play the same game and say you favor feeding the homeless rancid spam on moldy bread. Neither statement would be true, and neither would be helpful. Not every place is suitable for every activity. This is why zoning ordinances exist. Putting soup kitchens in a place where you can also offer other services such as job training or medical services makes sense. Putting them in a place that is hard to get to, or that disrupts or destroys other people's businesses (thereby making them also homeless) is not reasonable. Similarly, it would not be reasonable to expect to be able to move into an established residential neighborhood and open an auto salvage business in your front yard. 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)

Fair enough. Horse is almost dead anyway, it needs a break. 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 was replying to his sarcastic statement that only the U.S. is freaking out about ebola, and posted a video showing such. ***So two third-world countries have managed to control it without generating a panic among their citizens. In that case your reading comprehension is as deficient as your knowledge of geography. Kallend merely stated that some US politicians seem determined to whip up a panic they can exploit. He did not say the US is the only country responding irrationally to Ebola. His statement is true. He also said that two African countries responded appropriately and contained the disease, and posted links referring to Nigeria and Senegal. This statement was also true. You responded with an irrelevant and misleading link referring to a different country, Liberia. If your intent was to fit the stereotype of the ugly American, ignorant of the world beyond US borders, congratulations! You win. 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)

News flash: Liberia is not Nigeria. Liberia is also not Senegal. Contrary to the ignorant opinion of some, Africa is a rather large continent, not a single country. 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)

42, 46, 50, whatever, it's still amazing (to me anyway). Cheers, 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)

It would be cool if you could do it without knocking yourself out, but not worth a heroic effort. I was wondering more if you already had it up some place. 50 points in 35 seconds seems magical to me, even if you had to build up to that speed. 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)

Your post prompted me to check the actual law, and you are correct. It seems I was misinformed years ago when I inquired at a local gun shop. Permanent residents are legally allowed to purchase guns. People who are on non-immigrant visas (J, H, etc) may also possess firearms if they also have a hunting license. However they can't purchase a firearm unless they have been a resident of the state for at least 90 days, which means you can't come in as a tourist intending to hunt and plan to buy a gun here. Apparently, though, it's not uncommon that gun dealers are misinformed and think they can't sell to any non-citizen. All of that does not change the main point of my earlier post, which is that you have to show ID to prove you are legally allowed to buy a gun (analogous to registering to vote), but there is no legal requirement to show ID every time you use the gun (analogous to voting). 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)

Hove you posted video of that somewhere? It'd be cool to see. Someone should build a tunnel next to the Capitol building and use the stream of hot air from Congress. 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)

yes, exactly, you got me, nicely played (my reply either way really doesn't matter as this is the tack you will take regardless of my response There was no intent to play you, and your response does matter to me. The reason I still bother with SC is because some people, including you, offer interesting perspectives I don't encounter in my usual ivory tower circle. I realize there isn't a one-size-fits-all flavor of libertarianism, but the notion that the market can solve all problems so there is no need for laws to protect consumers or the general public does seem to crop up frequently (as in Ron Paul's argument about why we don't need the EPA or CDC or FDA, for example). However I was surprised to hear it from you, and thought you might explain the position further. I reread your earlier post and see nothing suggesting any role for the government in protecting the public against abuse. What I see is: "Either party in charge could use that excuse to create any level of penal or supportive costing to try and 'level' out the 'fairness'. In no way would it be realistic or driven by real world concerns, only politics." This point you did make earlier. I'm not sure how to disentangle "vote buying" from protecting the public against abuse, in many cases. The air and water are a lot cleaner than they were 40 years ago, and AFAIK that had nothing to do with entire industries deciding to take on the burden of reducing air and water pollution purely out of a sense of good citizenship. I certainly would not vote for a political party whose platform would be to allow industries to pollute with impunity, regardless of the damage or cost to the public; if you choose to regard that as "vote buying" so be it. From your earlier post: I believe virtually all environmental regulations set standards for allowable levels of pollutants, and leave it to industries to find ways to meet those standards. This approach brings to the table classical free market forces: industries seek the most cost effective way to meet the standards. Some might change their manufacturing processes, others might use scrubbers for example. The most efficient solution wins. When the cost of cleaning up your mess is incorporated in the cost of production, and everybody is held to the same standard, market forces will reward the businesses that do the most efficient job. Along the way new businesses are sometimes spawned, for example to manufacture scrubbers or catalytic converters and such. I don't see these outcomes as "anti-free-market". If accounting for "downstream costs" is completely voluntary, companies that elect to spend money to reduce pollution (or any other downstream cost) will be taking on an expense not taken on by companies that do not account for such costs. They will have to include that expense in the price they charge for their products, which means they will have to charge more than companies who choose to ignore downstream costs. No company will be able to compete for long against companies that can cut their costs by making messes they don't clean up. In the end it's quite predictable what companies "may or may not do", and it has little to do with evil/not evil and everything to do with competitive/not competitive. A regulation (say, a standard for mercury pollution) that applies to everyone equally doesn't intrinsically favor one company over another, it just makes cleanup a cost of doing business and the most efficient company will win. Sorry to hear that. As I said, I did read your posts and I didn't see anything about any positive role for the government in anything, not even once much less 20 times. 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)

Seems as if you are a supporter of the Real ID Act. How very "conservative" of you. 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 sounds nice doesn't it? but that's just the very poorly hidden mask they wear in practice it is really ensuring targetted infringement of others for the subjective benefit of select group or groups - and yet we keep asking for more "econsystem damage" - did you do that on purpose? if so, it's pretty clever and I like it. If not, it's still pretty clever.So just to be clear, is it your argument that businesses should be permitted to pollute at will, and the only recourse affected people should be allowed is to not do business with that company? This is an example of why I can't be a Libertarian; although I find some aspects of the platform interesting, others apply the principle of "I can do whatever I want" to the level of absurdity. No business has a right to inflict things like Minimata disease on the public, and to tell victims of such an assault that their only recourse to to buy their paper from a different manufacturer is insane. 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 you know (or should know) full well, the constitution does not grant us rights, it places limits on the ability of the government to take away rights. The constitution does not have to say "you can vote, but only with a photo ID" for us to have the right to vote. Of course the whole argument is also silly on the grounds that photography (and so photo ID) did not exist in the Founding Father's day, and indeed I doubt that people normally carried any form of ID. Why would they? Most people were illiterate, you didn't need a license to ride a horse, and so on, so there would have been little or no need for paperwork to establish your identity. Also the entire population of the country was surprisingly small, just a couple of million, and the biggest cities had only 20-30,000 people, so virtually everybody was known by sight by a large segment of their home communities. It's just stupid to expect the founding fathers to have anticipated a need that didn't exist and was not technologically possible in their day, and say that because they failed to specifically state we don't need photo IDs to vote the right does not exist. 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)

So you aren't actually a citizen of the US?I've been a citizen for six years now. I was a permanent resident for seven years before that; I applied for citizenship as soon as I was eligible. You have a problem with that? 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)

And as I'm sure you know, the "bo" in Ebola is shorthand for its evil creator, Barack Obama, which is why Ebola is so nasty. Kill all the Christians, and let all the illegal immigrants vote: two sides of the same despicable plan. However, I don't understand why is isn't Ebhola; though perhaps that would have been a little too obvious. 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)

Last time I checked you don't have to even have to prove you can hit the broad side of a barn door to buy a gun in Georgia. If someone can't prove even that much proficiency they don't deserve to own a gun. Why is this so difficult for you to understand? Makes perfect sense to me. Here's why. 1.) I don't live in Georgia 2.) my proficiency with firearms far exceeds your requirements laid out in your post. DonWhooosh!! _____________________________________ 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)

So are you ok with the oppressive ID requirements to exercise the rights detailed in the second Amendment to the Constitution? In my experience second amendment rights apply only to US citizens. Even as a permanent resident I was not allowed to purchase a gun. In order to purchase a gun, it is not unreasonable to ask that the would-be purchaser show that they are legally entitled to do so, and that would necessarily involve showing a form of ID that indicates citizenship. However, there should not be (and there is not) a legal requirement that you show your ID to someone each and every time you fire that gun. Similarly, there is a requirement that people be able to prove citizenship before being allowed to register to vote. However, once they have registered they should not have to keep proving they are entitled to the right every time they vote in that district (just as you don't legally have to show ID to fire your gun). If someone moves to a new district and has to register there to vote, they will again have to prove they meet the qualifications (US citizen, live in the district). Similarly, if you purchase another gun you will have to prove you meet the qualifications. Note that using guns may be confounded with private property rights in a way that voting is not. An owner of a firing range may, at their discretion, as for ID before letting you use the range. The constitution restricts the government in what it may do, not private interests. If you voluntarily sign a contract that limits your ability to speak to the press, for example, you cannot later leak information to the newspaper and then claim first amendment protection. You really can't compare ID requirements for private business transactions with voting rights. 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 have not looked the answer up. I would hope that you are not compelled to open the safe, as being compelled to provide such direct assistance would (in my mind) be a violation of protection against self incrimination. The situation seems analogous to demanding that a suspect reveal where he hid evidence; compelling a murder suspect to reveal where he hid the murder weapon, as an example, would be tantamount to forcing a confession. If the police had a valid warrant they could attempt to gain entry to the safe by their own devices. But as I said that would be my opinion, which may well be naive. 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 agree. I also agree. I was completely in agreement with the court decision that police need a warrant to look at the contents of your phone. My issue was just with the argument "I keep a lot of stuff there so law enforcement should, as a matter of principle, never be able to get a warrant." That's not the same as saying I have to help them, for example by providing pin numbers or passwords, as that gets into self-incrimination territory. 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)

Nope. What I'm saying is your phone is a special collection of data. It's not just the note to kill your wife on it, but it's also your entire life; calendar, contacts, credit cards... The scope of what is on your cell phone is what makes it special. It's not just "A" piece of data. In many people's cases, it's the entire nexus of their lives.Much of my "life" is inside my house: photos, calendar, collections, etc. By your logic law enforcement should never, under any circumstances, be able to execute a warrant to search my house, even if they have excellent and extensive probable cause. People choose to put a lot of information on their phone. I don't see how "I chose to put a lot of private info on this device" is a valid argument to say that device should automatically be beyond the scope of law enforcement to examine. The curmudgeon in me is also compelled to say that if your phone is the entire nexus of your life there is something wrong. I'm reminded of my son in law, who is unapologetic about admitting he would rather play a video game about any sport you care to name than to actually play the sport, as the video game won't make him sweat or risk injury. 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)