stutefish

Reply to Politics: It's Black and White in Politics JoeUser Forums

Enh. I don't see it. "White" and "Black" are skin colors. Different iIndividuals of those skin colors may have wildly varying and totally unpredictable thoughts and feelings. "Conservative" and "Liberal" are ideologies--a specific collection of related thoughts and feelings about a set of issues. By definition, a conservative believes in conservativism, and a liberal believes in liberalism. When I say "all Whites are fools",

I Was Wrong in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

I've changed my mind about the Supreme Court decision to allow eminent domain seizures of private property for private development. So if you care about such things, here it is: I was wrong. Those of you who have been laboring over the past day to convince me to see things your way, have succeeded. Thanks! Edit: To clarify, in the comments to

Reply to Supreme Court abolishes private property in Current Events JoeUser Forums

And indeed, the Dissenters make a powerful case, which challenges my whole idea of this case and its resolution.

Reply to Supreme Court abolishes private property in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Actually, there's a thoughtful legal analysis built right into the decision, in the form of the Dissent. I'll toddle off and read that now. Since four of the Justices think the other five are wrong on this one (and pretty much every conservative in the blogosphere besides me seems to agree with the Dissenters), I'm open to the increasingly likely possibility that I have my head firmly up my party-hatted behind. Draginol , it seems

Reply to Supreme Court abolishes private property in Current Events JoeUser Forums

And the Supreme Court says that giving public land over to a private corporation to develop is not a violation of the Constitution. Disputing their decision involves more than just saying they're wrong, Dr. Guy .

Reply to Supreme Court abolishes private property in Current Events JoeUser Forums

PJ_ , As you say, the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect against the wrongful seizure of property. In this case, the Supreme Court has ruled that the seizure of property was not wrongful. If you're saying that the Supreme Court made a mistake, I'd expect to see extensive quoting of the Supreme Court's decision, along with a thoughtful legal analysis that clearly rebuts their argument. And I'm not trying to say that the

Reply to Supreme Court abolishes private property in Current Events JoeUser Forums

drmiler , First of all, the 5th Amendment says that private property may be taken if compensation is given. Since it's totally constitutional to take private property in exchange for compensation, that would make the compensation issue pretty frickin' material, don't you think? Second, the U.S. government isn't even involved in this particular case. In fact, that's the whole point of the Supreme Court's ruling: The Fede

Reply to Supreme Court abolishes private property in Current Events JoeUser Forums

What new law did they create? And did the local government seize the private property without giving compensation? And anyway, why shouldn't this issue be dealt with by local communities in the first place, rather than making a federal case out of it? The Supreme Court seems to have the same question (and as far as I can tell, their answer is "no reason").

Reply to Supreme Court abolishes private property in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Actually, all SCOTUS said is that the Federal Constitution doesn't prohibit local governments from applying Eminent Domain in this way. If local citizens have a problem with such applicaitions, or if they wish to impose controls on how their local government makes the decision to apply Eminent Domain, SCOTUS won't stop them, and neither will the Federal Constitution. In other words, this may be a problem, but according to SCOTUS, it's a probl

Reply to rassmunson poll results in US Domestic JoeUser Forums

In general, I believe that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are being treated well. While there have been a few documented and confirmed cases of prisoner mistreatment, they fall far short of the horrible rumors being floated like so many turds by the media, and I cannot see how these documented abuses would justify any comparison of the detention center to the Gulag. How's that? Proper use of "in general", in this context?

Reply to The Benefit of Blaming the Victim in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I'm reminded of the parable of the Prodigal Son. In this story, a punkass kid makes a lot of bad choices, and ends up suffering horribly for it. Now, my gut reaction is to hold the kid responsible for the choices he made, and send him away with a gruff and self-righteous, "you had it coming, buster". And there's no doubt he had it coming. Even his own brother knows he had it coming, and says so. But what does the father of the tale

Reply to Some Thoughts On Gitmo in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

kingbee , I have Googled "jose padilla". Here's the summary of Padilla's story, accorting to Google's top search result : On June 9, 2002 Jose Padilla--a.k.a. Abdullah Al Muhajir--was transferred from control of the U.S. Departme

Reply to Bush Admin. students of Nazi propaganda tactics? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Judges: The Constitution explicitly grants the President the authority and the responsibility to appoint judges. Please explain why the President should use his Constitutional authority to promote the agenda of an opposition faction whose ideals he does not believe are good for the country? Staff Members: Are you kidding me with this stuff? Do you typically gather around you co-workers, friends, and teammates whose motives yo

Reply to Should Constitutional Rights Extend to Non-Citizens? in Politics JoeUser Forums

The thing is, our behavior, overall, has been right and just and proper. Sure this is a war of perceptions, but after a certain point you can't change perceptions without compromising your fundamental principles. Not only that, but in the perception war there are enemy propagandists who will not stop poisoning public perception simply because we're not doing anything wrong. Even when we behave properly, that doesn't stop the negative percept

Reply to Just what should we do with the enemy combatants at Gitmo? in Politics JoeUser Forums

I'll see Ted 's solution, and raise him a deadline: We should do with them exactly what we are doing now, until we the people can reach some sort of consensus that the war is over (or that at the very least the detainees are no longer a significant threat to the war effort). This consensus will probably take the form of elected representatives who make it a part of their policy to release the detainees (and probably declare the war over or else

Reply to Bush Admin. students of Nazi propaganda tactics? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Bah. The problem with this analysis is that the situation described in Hitler's theories on propaganda is functionally identical to what would happen to a nation that truly was under attack. Churchill understood and used the same propaganda techniques that Hitler did. This leads me to the conclusion that propaganda itself is morally neutral, just like war. Putting the word out that the country is under attack, and denouncing those that will not fight, is propaganda.

Reply to Who has the best insults? Left or Right? in Politics JoeUser Forums

Tiny party hats for my behind, the lot of you. In a word: Asshats.

Reply to Geneva convention, right or privilege? in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Nitpick: the Geneva Convention isn't about rights, it's about privileges only. Being treated according to the Geneva Convention is a privilege accorded only to those who abide by the Geneva Convention. The Convention explicitly releases its signatories from abiding by its rules, if they are ever involved in a war with non-signatories or with signatories who first violate the Convention. In practice, most signatory nations abide by the rules even when

Reply to 5 Things I admire about the far left. in Politics JoeUser Forums

Awsome! Now do the far right! I'm surely overdue for righteous beatings

Reply to Villians in Blogging JoeUser Forums

I'll take that dare. If I were a villain, I would be a "cleaner", my name would be The Man, my super power would be teleportation, and my methods would be simple: enter locked rooms, perpetrate shenanigans, and leave again. Mysteriously.

Reply to PETA: Animal Cruelty Charges in Current Events JoeUser Forums

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about . You can't hold a crazy nutjob to their crazy nutjob ideas on the Internet. If you want to have a meaningful debate, that actually connects with the opposition, you need to go out into the real world, find a real live nutjob, and confront them in reality instead of in virtual reality. That's what real debate is.

Reply to Do You Even Understand What You Just Said? in Blogging JoeUser Forums

To be fair, in most of the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.), a double negative is an emphatic negative, not a logical positive. As the Artificial Intelligence researchers will tell you, natural languages don't really map well to systems of formal logic.

Reply to Casting Call for Project JU in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Hey, if Dr. Guy doesn't want Gary Oldman, I'll take him! Or Ed Norton. Just... not Rob Schneider, please!

Reply to Ethics of Depublishing in Blogging JoeUser Forums

Ouch. My last comment ended on a pretty harsh note. I'm very sorry about that. I did not mean it that way. Honestly, I think a conversation about the weather--especially the nice weather I'm getting right now--would be kind of nice. And there's always the opportunity built right in to bring up some aspect of global warming, see what the other person thinks, maybe talk about that for a litlte bit. So yeah, I think "depubl