The big problem is that it prevents national economies from doing what they need to do in order to survive. If Germany was on marks, and Greece was on drachmas, we'd have seen the mark become worth more and more drachmas, and this would have allowed the economies to balance. Greece would attract German tourists, since their marks would go farther, and export more and import less. This would mean that Greece would go through a period of poverty, but it wouldn't distort the Greek economy. That would work.

By mandating the same currency, without having more of a financial union, Greece lost an invaluable tool in managing its problems.

You need to learn some macroeconomics. It's not a particularly solid field of study, but it at least makes seeing what happened easier.

The fact is that the Greek per-capita GDP has dropped by nearly a third in seven years. The macroeconomic problems largely imposed by austerity (which has a strong tendency to shrink economies) have drastically cut Greece's ability to be productive, and plunged the country into an even worse economic mess.

The problem is that the alternative is the exact same stuff that has fucked Greece over for years now. Greece would not be allowed to have a productive economy, because "austerity" sounds so good to self-important people who don't have to know what it does. Greece would have more debt that would take even longer to pay off, even if the Greek economy was allowed to recover.

Under the circumstances, the Greek people decided to try something else, anything else. They do have leverage. There's billions of euros that are currently not likely to be paid back, the EU is not equipped to handle a failed national economy without enforceable borders, and kicking Greece out of the EU causes a lot more problems. I'm sure the EU can find a solution that's better for everyone than what they're trying now.

AFAICT, treadmills have this habit of not working suddenly. I wouldn't buy one except from a company with a very good return policy.

Let's picture the theater. The gunner is next to the screen, and is very hard to see. There's some sort of smoke in the air. The average citizen with a gun isn't too accurate with it anyway, let alone in a live situation, and if he or she stands up to try to aim he or she is likely the next target. People are moving around, and any would-be defender who isn't in the front rows is not going to get a clear shot.

General handgun ownership is not nearly as useful against mass shootings as it looks.

There are some problems with other laws. Welfare recipients are frequently required to accept any job offer or lose their benefits, and if prostitution were legalized without changing anything else this would force poor women into prostitution (not that it's altogether rare; it's a way for a welfare recipient to get a little extra money without reporting it). Many people, including me, think it wrong to pressure people into having sex against their will. Personally, I'd like to see prostitution legalized (along with various other victimless crimes), but with some care.

Also, you left out Situation 4 (standard when I was young): Some girl makes a deal where she'll get financial support for the rest of her life in exchange for sexual favors more or less on demand. Since then, the workforce has become a lot more welcoming of women, and a wife's right to not have sex with her husband has been recognized, and it's a lot easier to get divorced, but it still happens. Formal wholesale prostitution has been legal pretty much forever.

I don't think the camera makes any difference in any state. Apparently, in California, prostitution means that I pay you to have sex with me. If I pay you to have sex with somebody else, that's legal. This is not the case in all states, as you point out.

The quality of a mass-manufactured thing may not be as good as the quality of the thing produced by a high-end 3D printer. The price will be lower, and the price will generally always be lower for the same quality. Part of designing a production process is determining what level of quality is needed, and going higher than that is likely to introduce additional cost.

The Second Amendment has been gutted already. AFAICT, it isn't legal for me to go out and acquire a modern military rifle, while the Second's mention of a militia suggests that it was particularly intended to allow citizens to own military weapons (the "militia" thing).

What bothers me about mental health checks is what they'll classify as acceptable. I see enough people who think that an existing mental health condition should be excluded from something or other (which leads to a LOT of untreated mental health problems).

Um, no. Not in the US. There is no "the government" here. Any monopoly status is given by local governments, not any national government. The Feds have not demonstrated an ability to pre-censor the Internet, and I don't think they have any such. They have the ability to come along afterwards and prosecute, if they can convince a court that this is justified despite the First Amendment.

I've discussed things with several religious people, and I've noticed that some try to do what Jesus would have (which I generally approve of) and some are hateful bastards, with all sorts of variation in between.

The fact is that war is inherently brutal and ugly and hurts lots of people, and therefore we should wage war only when not doing so would have dire consequences. It's all too easy to argue in favor of war when one forgets how bad it really is. IIRC, the first war covered extensively by the mass media was the Crimean War of 1854-55, and that caused a lot of controversy in Britain.

In the first century or two, they were persecuted. Arguably the worst thing to happen to Christianity was to be adopted as the state religion of the Roman Empire.

There aren't that many outspoken atheists around (Slashdot is not a typical sample of the population), and there's lots of outspoken Christians around here. I don't think Jesus wanted his disciples to turn irrational at the least criticism.

Besides, the opposition to evolution has historically been heavily driven by religion (not all religions, obviously), and that was well before atheists were normally outspoken.