That was the original promise of Tasers: no more near-death billy-clubbings. And indeed, I think that that promise has been fulfilled to a large extent; the trend of replacing non-impact compliance measures with tasings is a separate matter altogether.

Just because a state is a (republican) "representative democracy" does not mean that the state bureaucracy will not pursue its own interests in an authoritarian (and Orwellian) way. The two party distinction is also somewhat arbitrary; I would think that Obama's (Change!) sudden embrace and indeed expansion of all of Bush's national security policies would speak to that.

Obviously this isn't literally done by "big brother," but police attempting to stop people from recording their actions are motivated by a desire to rewrite history, and to maintain sole control of their "narrative" in a truly Orwellian way (there is no police brutality...the police will protect you...you love the police). People who challenge the narrative are not being put in thought police reeducation facilities...but they are being put in prison. This also reinforces the notion that the law doesn't really have any meaning beyond how the police choose to apply it, for their own reasons. In this interpretation, they are supported by certain legislatures and judiciaries. When exactly can we invoke Orwell?

Please don't construe my remarks to imply that I believe people don't abuse Orwell all the time; I agree that they do. Invoking 1984 too much dilutes its impact as a metaphor (as in the case of Hitler). People throw around the term "Orwellian" in connection with any big-government program (e.g. the recent healthcare legislation), even though Orwell (Blair) himself would ironically have been in favor of going much further.

That said, I think that eliminating the right of citizens to record government conduct so that the government can lie about it later without consequence is authoritarian on enough counts that it is legitimately "Orwellian." If only outright dictatorships could be "Orwellian," why did Orwell write in England, in English? Any steps toward Communist-style tyranny would be the fault of the people who elected the Parliament, after all, and thus actually "democratic."

Sure, all the questions were objectionable in one way or another; that one was objectionable in pretty much every way. Speaking of logic impairment...

I just got around to reading the replies to my comment, and finally my empathy kicked in: I have put myself in the author's place, and formed a consistent theory of her motivations. She obviously feels deeply traumatized by Ayn Rand generally, and by Nathaniel Branden's brand of psychology (c.f. "The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem" and "How to Raise your Self-Esteem") specifically. When she says that "you can't love anyone else until you love yourself" is a "pernicious notion," she is actually saying "Ayn Rand is pernicious, and Nathaniel Branden is her pernicious prophet." I think the author's deep loathing for objectivism (which may be perfectly rational in origin) has unfortunately lead her into an associational fallacy.

I found my theory so compelling I'm posting it four days late; alas, I must be an incurable narcissist after all.

I too find that decision disturbing. Previously, I imagined there was no way the Court would back Attorney General Holder on his absurdly expanded vision of the emergency exception to Miranda, but in addition to reducing liberty in its own right, this decision certainly augurs in Holder's favor; the Court is very willing to throw precedent to the wind and substantially erode Miranda (Damn you, Kennedy!). Justice Kennedy's majority opinion basically destroys the burden on the government to show both that the suspect understood his (Fifth Amendment) Miranda rights and that he waived them.

I had a strong premonition that Kennedy had written the opinion when I read in the LA Times article that it was a 5-4 decision revising Miranda. After actually reading the majority opinion, however, I wonder why Roberts bothered to assign it to him: Thomas could just as easily have written the same thing. It is only characteristically Kennedy insofar as he comes out with some new doctrine, and then claims that it is perfectly consistent with the precedent that it substantially ignores. In this case, though, I doubt even the "really" conservative justices would have had the balls to explicitly reverse parts of Miranda, so it could have been written by any of them.

Reading the facts of the case, it seems clear to me that the suspect (Thompkins), did not waive his rights, and understood them only to free him from the necessity of answering, not to actually enable him to end the interrogation. The only evidence that he understood his rights was that he could read, and had read the Miranda warning. If that was all that was required for understanding, it would have been superfluous to specify that understanding was required in the first place. This ruling cannot be construed as anything but a further erosion of Miranda. Justice Sotomayor writes powerfully in dissent:

The only reassuring part of Berghuis v. Thompkins is that Sotomayor wrote the dissent, and in no uncertain terms. That makes me feel slightly more charitable toward Obama (though, realistically, Sotomayor was nominated in May '09, when Obama had not yet fully discovered his "inner Yoo").

The same majority might very well be willing to perversely construe the Constitution to protect the privacy not of the citizens, but of the State, in upholding these interpretations of wiretap law.

Yowch! There were 105 comments when I started this post; now there are 733. For all of the apologists who have now responded to the parent, as Sotomayor writes in the dissent (which you should all read!), the reason this decision is important is that "[i]n the 16 years since Davis was decided, ample evidence has accrued that criminal suspects often use equivocal or colloquial language in attempting to invoke their right to silence." This decision may not affect you and me, who are fully aware of our constitutional rights (though a few of the responses cast that assumption in some doubt), but most criminal suspects are poor and poorly educated, have not had the benefit of a university education (or even a high school one), and certainly have not read widely on the current state of constitutional law (the last condition, unfortunately, seems to generally obtain among police officers as well). The full implications of the Fifth Amendment, as determined by the Supreme Court, are unknown to them.

As for Miranda itself, the reasoning behind it was that custodial police interrogation was inherently coercive (even when not blatantly coercive), and therefore usually inadmissible. Miranda provided a formula that the police to follow to magically de-coercify their interrogations (requiring suspects to explicitly waive Fifth Amendment protections). Miranda did not just require the warning itself, the warning was there to establish that suspects understood what rights they were waiving. It actually helped the police in some ways, because before the decision the admissibility of any confession could be challenged on the grounds that the interrogation was coercive, and many confessions were thrown out. The confession of a Mirandized suspect who has explicitly waived his rights cannot be thrown out; Miranda provided the kind of "bright line rule" that simplifies the application of the law.

To be sure, the three justices in full dissent with Miranda felt that it was drawing the line too far in the suspects' favor; ignorance of the Fifth Amendment serves the interests of the State well. Justice Harlan wrote, "[t]he aim, in short, is toward "voluntariness" in a utopian sense, or, to view it from a different angle, voluntariness with a vengeance." History, however, has arguably vindicated that "utopian" goal by fully incorporating it into the national culture without a concomitant collapse of the criminal justice system.

If you're not sure of the right answer, you believe that the default action should be to outlaw, then?

Even EMTALA cannot actually force hospitals to provide care, it merely does so de facto by making compliance a precondition of Medicare participation.

I agree. There was nothing like Apple's "app store" until very recently; how does he think people have been selling consumer software for the past twenty years? Did he get all the software on his laptop from an "app store?"

More versatile developers will succeed on other platforms where "Shifty Jelly" is apparently not willing to tread.

Blackberry OS doesn't even have stores, but it certainly has software; Android is less "wild" than that. I find it ridiculous to say that people can't market software without a tightly controlled application store. There has never been a successful tightly controlled compulsory application store until Apple's. Since phones have become general computers, why is it so hard for people to buy software the same way they do for their laptops?

Apparently "ShiftJelly" isn't willing to develop for other platforms, but that just means that more versatile developers can succeed instead.

I was convinced that it was going to be some kind of gross "get-off-my-lawn" Republican screed (Kids don't need self esteem! They need to play Cowboys v. Indians outside like the Greatest Generation! The idiot box is destroying their minds!) until I got to the second half where the author blames Ronald Reagan and conservatism for destroying empathy in the millennial generation (!!!). I think that she is not so much liberal as insane.

I gave up in disgust after looking at the first question. "Legitimate" psychological tests don't ask you to self diagnose; they ask a large number of concrete questions that can be used to infer psychology.

The person who wrote the article obviously has a massive agenda, and it is not clear that it is grounded in empiricism. I stopped reading TFA (much like the test...) when I got to this:

I don't know if the "self esteem movement" is effective or not (I would guess "not"), but what the fuck is she really advocating here? Self-hatred is okay? If you don't like yourself, you don't believe that other people should like you either, which is a formidable obstacle to love. Whether we go about creating it the right way or not, calling self-esteem "pernicious" seems...pernicious.

The author also absurdly idealizes the past, seriously advocating "playing outside" as a panacea. She should take pushing her books to the next level and give Dr. Laura Schlesinger a run for her money on the radio. Malevolent conservatism vs. malevolent liberalism. They could have their own malevolent channel, where anything goes (except facts).

She spends the last half of the article railing against Social Darwinism, which (after it was invented by Ronald Reagan!) apparently created the empathy epidemic. It is interesting that reliable polling data invariably indicates that the (40% more sociopathic) millennial generation is overwhelming more liberal (the only true measure of empathy, according to the author) than the Tea-Partying baby boomers, who enjoyed such empathetic childhoods, romping under the open sky. Either there is no empathy epidemic, empathy is not closely correlated with political leaning, or both (my bet). In any event, the author obviously doesn't really care.

I think the way I used "tolerate" is consistent with your etymological view. I meant it in the sense that you describe: that you could disapprove of religion and condemn it, but still not (say) try to end it by force, because you believe that would be an even worse outcome.

It is indeed ridiculous and intellectually dishonest for me to say "I think religion is completely irrational bullshit" but at the same time say "I totally respect your choice to believe [completely irrational bullshit]," since in fact, I don't. That is why I have come over the years to a more militant atheism.

I am inclined to agree that the GP is complete bullshit, but how can you seriously propose that a hardline skeptical position (reality doesn't exist) should be the default?

Positing that reality doesn't exist requires rejecting absolutely all the evidence that is available. It is also utterly impractical: even religions generally do not take that position. I think it requires more faith to reject all experience than to accept the existence of physical reality in the absence of a plausible alternative. If physical reality doesn't exist (all experience is an illusion), then we have hardly lost anything by using the scientific method, which only purports to make predictions about physical reality anyway.

I won't disagree that you can't convince someone of the efficacy of the scientific method, who believes experience does not reflect reality, but I do take issue with your characterization of the acceptance of experience as a "leap of faith." It's an assumption, to be sure, but one that is useful as hell. If true reality is unknowable (or knowable only by revelation), then what is the point of taking actions which affect the false reality revealed by the senses?

People who make assumptions based on things other than the experience of (presumed) reality are nevertheless generally still accepting large parts of experience as fact. You may know actual radical skeptics (why are they bothering to talk to you if you don't exist?), but imputing that position to even a substantial minority of theists would be inaccurate.

I always found a lot more "spiritual beauty" in masses of a pre-Vatican II nature myself--no audience participation, the whole thing in Latin, etc. On the whole, however, I prefer Symphony tickets. When you're down to defending the existence of religion based on its value as an art form, you're scraping the bottom of the barrel. If people were only in religion for the "spiritual beauty," it wouldn't be such a problem.

I have found this interview with Daniel Dennett interesting. Unfortunately Charlie Rose was on vacation at the time, and instead Bill Moyers repeatedly bombards Dennett with inane questions. Moyers illogically tries to make an argument for theism on the basis that people universally appreciate the "spiritual beauty" of (Catholic) cathedrals, and Dennett makes the hilarious rejoinder that he found Aztec temples quite moving as well. If only it weren't for all that human sacrifice...Dennett nevertheless attempts general apology for religion--in a futile attempt to appear non-threatening to the mainstream audience, I think--on the grounds that it gives people purpose, and mobilizes large groups in a way that secular institutions never do.

That's the best he can do, and it isn't even a particularly good argument. You know what secular phenomenon similarly mobilizes large groups of people? Nationalism. If people aren't convinced by rational arguments, I would argue that it is probably not a good idea to mobilize them in the first place. Science has shown that people aren't particularly good rational decision makers, but it doesn't follow that decisions made on an irrational basis are superior. "A social glue that can be perfectly benevolent," you say. Well, I could say the same about radical jingoism, but I don't see anyone around here advocating that.

There is a difference between tolerating religion, and respecting it. If one's religion has any meaning at all, it has to influence one's worldview. The moment this leads to justifying a position because [God said so], rationality has been abandoned. "Respecting" that is a violation of your scientific worldview; you are implicitly condoning the very worst sort of argument to authority. If all such positions can be and are justified on other grounds, however, then why bother with the religion in the first place? It's superfluous cognitive dissonance.

The shocking thing is not that religion is political, but that you can fully recognize its nature as a creation of man, be familiar with the history of the major religions, reject the parts of yours that are explicitly disproved, and yet somehow continue to subscribe to the rest.

If you're going to claim that you don't really believe in the Norse (I assume) gods, you just find the ritual compelling or something, then I would argue (like the GP) that it isn't really "your religion" in any meaningful sense: you're really an atheist in denial.

If you are a theist...why? You decry blind faith, but what other kind of religious faith exists, faith where you admit that it all might very well be complete bullshit? Who would make important decisions based on something for which there is no evidence, in the absence of faith? Okay...everyone. But if you are willing to revise any part of your religion when specific evidence becomes available, how is it more than a political philosophy? Is positing the existence of particular deities useful to you somehow, even contrary to fact? Once you throw out divine inspiration as a source of authority, why not make up your own religion (metaphysics) entirely?

I'd really like to know; I undid my moderation on this article because I want to know how you, as a modern, scientifically and historically literate, technologically savvy, slashdotter, can "look at [religion] for what it is" and still claim to be "quite religious."

It has been shown that mandatory minimums for crack dealing had no effect on deterring criminals. If that didn't work, how can this possibly deter criminals (who will not even have heard of this law until they are slapped with the charges). At most, this would cause them to undertake rudimentary efforts to disguise their research (using a computer they don't own).

Criminals who commit petty crimes for money are already not operating on a basis of ROI or a rational examination of probabilities; they assume they won't get caught, and that petty crime pays more than McDonald's.

The more charges the prosecutor can throw at a defendant, the more likely one is to stick. And this one has a mandatory minimum penalty, which much be served consecutively! This bill is less a war on technology (or rational basis lawmaking) than a war on judicial discretion. If judges feel that there is an extraordinary level of planning or professionalism in a burglary, they can already hand out a harsher sentence (up to the maximum). This law just arbitrarily punishes thieves who used Google (and may well result in lighter sentences for the actual burglary charges to compensate). An attempt to legislate on every possible crime scenario will inevitably fail (and result in inequity), which is why judges control sentencing in the first place.

What the fuck. I think you are abusing your "privilege" to promote your retarded un-American (un-Enlightenment) opinions.