In my hometown, they're running ads that show policemen busting people for not having seat belts. They're saying basically, "we are starting to put more and more cops on the streets, looking for people who don't have their seat belts on. It's a fact--not having a belt buckled can kill."

I doubt there are more cops on the road to solve this one issue, which leads me to believe they're putting more and more cops on the streets, and are masking the real intent. Is anyone else out there seeing this happen? Are we turning into a police state? I don't think seat belts are much of a problem anyways, but people just blindly accept this.

Anyone know a quiet little corner of the world I could move to 10 years from know when the America I love starts to really suck?

By the way, its not the Bush regime in power. The liberal/conservative dichotomy is setup to make the opposing party allways seem like the cause of the real problems. The state of affairs in this country is really pissing me off, and there isn't a soul in Washington I don't blame for it (aside from John McCain).

This journal is a response to Interrobang's entries, not a flame (Interrobang: I respect your views inasmuch as I differ from them)

We need roads, power plants, schools, police, firemen, defense, and much more that I'm bound to forget. This is not in dispute. However, this is not an excuse to sneak in broad social programs or large, expensive projects. You can't say that because power plants are needed and we couldn't possibly build them ourselves, those who oppose tax'n'spenders or, more broadly, those who want to increase taxes, are wrong.

I firmly believe that the government should directly serve to protect us from real, physical threats. Is Iraq such a threat? I don't have a clue. But I do know if a nation attacks us, we should have a well-trained military to respond. Due to increasingly liberal attitudes towards troop training (and, more generally, the military becoming the battlefield for all sorts of trite political debates and legislation), our army troops have become the mockery of the other services, who receive far less scrutiny. Our government should do the best job it can of training our troops. However, our defense budget is ridiculously high, and I'm frankly uncomfortable with my country wielding so much physical power--though it may be necessary.

I agree that to acheive equality, the government has a critical role in education our children. If that means contracting under strict scrutiny or actually setting up schools, so be it. I don't think there's anyone who would debate this, so I'll move on.

The government should contract out internal improvements. Roads, power lines, national parks, etc. are very important. However, this should be taken care of by provincial/state and local governments. It is reasonable to devolve powers as much as possible until the next lowest power would not have the jurisdiction or authority to properly handle the situation. Let's keep the federal government out of farm-ranch roads, but have them lay out the interstate systems, for example.

Local communities must provide police/fire/etc protection in the local area. These departments must have as little oversight from the higher authorities as possible, however--if the citizens of a community want more cops, they can pay for it. If the whole nation were to vote, the government could easily scare or coerce the populace into a police state. I don't want men in ski-masks and FBI patches running around with automatic weapons not disclosing what they're doing.

The various governments should also regulate trade, zoning, etc. This should also be devolved unto the most local level as possible. If a regulation is to require a huge beaurocracy but is necessary for a specific region or constituency, they can agree to it and agree to pay for it. A huge advantage of this system is that other regions now have multiple examples of real-world scenarios with which to base the merit of a proposal on.

Now on to taxes. Taxes are what fuel all of this. I want full disclosure of both the money going in to these departments, contractors, or programs, and their operating budgets (this is not wholly the case where I live). We're unfortunately going crazy with building more beaurocracies and programs and such that are costing too much from people to whom these issues do not apply. I am distrustful of my government, and though it would be easy for me to allow them to manage my retirement plan, take care of me when I get fired, etc., not only could the feds taking care of the country lead to them taking over the country, I think we should have enough courage and strength to deal with such issues ourselves.

This is not simply because I believe we should accept more responsibility for our actions, but also because when and if our government tries to screw us (historically speaking, the odds of them not eventually doing so are astronomically low), these tax dollars will help support that through physical means and simply by the precedents that the accompanying legislation will set.

Basically, I know we need a government that collects taxes to pay for a lot of things, but I also firmly believe we should do our best to limit it without crippling its ability to carry out its exclusive functions.

On a side note, with regards to corporate control, the huge corporations are also restricting freedom in a big way, and (as in the media giant's case) are often getting Congressional support. We must also be weary of the giants as well, since they often begin to act like governments. However, this really doesn't pertain to taxation (but I felt it worth mentioning in response to one of Interrobang's points).

Offtopic moderation no doubt had a reasonable problem to solve. In any given story, there are always a few that open up new threads that are ridiculous and way out there, but not necessarily reduntant, trollish, or flamebait.

Offtopic moderation has gotten out of hand. Almost all threads 'drift' from the original topic. No big deal--'Offtopic' should be given to posts that have nothing to do with their parent--be that an article or a post.

I'm sick of getting modded down for interesting, intelligent conversations with people--that's what the moderation system is supposed to promote.

Here's how I think it should work. If a post has little or nothing to do with the parent, it should be offtopic. All subsequent responses to that post can be considered offtopic as well. However, any offtopic threads must begin with a legitimate crap-post. If the post has something to do with a parent post that can't be quickly traced back to a such a blatantly offtopic crap-post, then the post is not offtopic.

Meta-moderation doesn't cure this--no one reads the context. Today I replied to a thread about kernel source sizes being too big, when the subject was something about two new features being added to the kernel. I got modded down as offtopic, even though the thread started by someone commenting along the lines of "why add new features when the kernel source is already so big?" A decidedly on topic question (despite however you feel about the quality of it). It ended up that I suggested that perhaps someone should distribute a source tree without the non-x86 architectures in it. Someone responded to me, saying that such a file would not be significantly smaller (4 megs). The comment that got modded down as offtopic was my response, that 4 megs for a dialup user is between 10-20 minutes on a good day.

This is one example--of many. Any one else pissed off about this? And before saying "calm down, it's just Slashdot," once I leave Slashdot and go do something else it probably won't urk me anymore. But for now, I really want to know if other people get similar treatment for their contributions to the articles.

Can anyone (out of the 3 people that no doubt read my journal ;) list the most actively moderated comment they've seen?

Ex. Overrated=4,Insightful=3,Interesting=1,Flamebait=2,Funny=5,Troll=1,Informative=1

I went to Blockbuster to rent some porn^H^H^H^HMonster's Inc, and some store in a different city I rented Star Wars from this summer slammed a bar on me and made the cashier call them. They slapped a 25$ late fee on movies which I could not have possibly been late for (I was in the city for a week).

I of course didn't have enough cash on me, and it led to an embarrasing situation, and now I'm pissed off. Even if I had such a fee, I want it to be brought out to the table ASAP--going past a reasonable customer's memory is a Bad Thing (TM), since it leads to mindlessly paying the bill to avoid trouble.

I wasn't late dammit. I've been renting on this card for months here. I'm gonna call them tomorrow but for now I'll just have to vent on my journal.

I'm sick of people on campus that get microphones and blast their annoying political diatribes all over the place. I hate how they feel like they're at a higher plane of intelligence than the rest of us. I hate how they engage in debates with lame ass looks on their faces, trying to conceal their frustration, because they are 100 percent right, and other people just don't "get it." I also hate how they want my money.

Well, I'm done venting now, so I think I'll hit the sack. Anyways, I like most everything else about college (to stay on topic with my title), except I'd much prefer to learn raw technical skills than all the "well-rounded, mind-expanding" fluff it takes to get a degree. Here I go ranting again--really I'm not a negative person, just sorta in a bad mood, and my journal seems like a good place to vent.

Karma Whoring is not a Bad Thing (TM). It is sort of like those high-school summer jobs or an apprenticeship--doing the hard annoying crap work before you get to the "next level." The only stipulation should be "no lame karma whoring."

I have seen Karma Whores simply provide 3 google links and get away with it, simply by admitting that they were KW'ing. Don't be lame, people. Try and cut and paste a decent amount of information and post it--not too short, and not so long that you're clearly not intending anyone to read it. If you're mirroring an article, great! Just don't do it off of your home cable modem, since it will soon get /.ed as well.

If you admit that KW'ing is not a bad thing, and you strive to do the grunt work and lay out useful information to the community, you deserve to get rewarded. After all, somebody's got to do it. The end result? A better, more well-informed discussion.