interesting

right

not "terrorism in the sense we have become accustomed to"

but still terrorism

what tim mcveigh did was terrorism, for example

maybe unfortunately terrorism has come to mean "done by muslims"

although, maybe we should remove attacks on military installations as terrorism

surprise coordinated violent attacks on civilians for ideological reasons is about as good a definition of terrorism as we can get i think

we call too many things terrorism that are not, and too many things not terrorism that are

exactly

they oppose government when they should be opposing corruption

the idiots are actually helping the corruptors. the corruptors would rather not have anyone to corrupt as an extra expense, and the idiots oblige by insisting on the same: remove the corrupted position, rather than fix it. because they apparently like shoddy, expensive, manipulated, inefficient markets

it's like someone robs the bank because they paid off the bank guard

the intelligent response is to fire, prosecute, and replace the guard, and go after the criminals who paid him off

the idiots want to fire the guard and leave the bank unguarded, and leave it at that: not pursue the criminals who paid off the guard and robbed their bank, their money

it's stunning how stupid and propagandized people can be

no that's hay-zeus

jee-zuz is the proper pronunciation of the anglosaxon founder of christianity

us civilized folk need to teach his compassion to dirty brown people like mexicans and middle easterners

(facepalm)

you're trolling right?

I have a serious problem with gay marriage, as marriage is a religious ceremony, so the state should stay out of it. Civil union is the state sponsored joining, and should be the proper avenue for the state to allow something that religion indicates is wrong.

The problem is, the state can't recognize marraige without defining it. If you agree that the religious ceremony has no legal significance (that is, married couples also need to get a civil union if they want the state to respect their union), then fine; but if you want your marriage ot mean anything to the state itself, the state can't avoid deciding what it considers a valid marriage - and then carrying the moral and legal responsibility for that decision, if it would happen to put citizens into different categories based on religious beliefs. Indeed, it would be forced to recognize an official religion that gets to choose.

So, the only way to get the state out of marriage is to go pure civil union route and ignore whatever religious or other ceremony anyone feels fit to add on their own time.

Sincerely I cannot understand how this is modded informative. There is absolutely no factual data that supports what you just said. Sure, the bible implies what you described, but well, it's the bible, and the day we'll start to take the bible as "factual data" in Slashdot will be the day logic gets shattered to pieces.

The Bible gives data about the behaviour of biblical characters that is factual in the context of how these characters, as described in the Bible, would behave in a given situation. The grandparent was modded informative for making one such analysis.

In other words, Bible is a factual description of the World of Bible, which may or may not resemble the World of Average Slashdotter or World of Average American in some important ways. The same is true of all literary descriptions, whether meant as factual in the context of WoAA or not.

Going all Rambo is a good way to threaten to reverse that momentum.

Cue the obvious conspiracy theory.

well yeah. in which case a "free" market is simply anarchy, in which a monopoly and oligarchy comes to dominate and "govern" in a sense: decide how much consumers pay and that no one competes. truly "free" in the sense there is no government, but a much worse place in actuality

so company {X} dominates a market for widgets. any smaller companies try to compete, they undercut the competitors prices to starve them out, then jack prices way high when the smaller companies fold, consumers having no real choice

tell me how this problem is "self-regulated" by the market to correct for the abuse

the problem is that we do not have strong laws against corruption

1. corporations and the rich buying congrescritters with election funds (supported in 2010 citizens united)

2. revolving door employment between regulator and the corporations they are supposed to regulate

other countries have clear laws against this type of thing. we can have that too (not easily, but we should, and we should try)

it's kind of like the concept of the free market

without rules, enforced, all markets quickly devolve into oligarchies and monopolies: customers and smaller players squashed and abused

so a free market requires government regulation

likewise, without rules enforcing net neutrality, large market players start fucking with the status quo to siphon off more cash. simply because they can

but there exists certain idiots in the world, a lot in the usa, who only see the government as a threat. the government IS a threat, in many avenues of life

but in the market place, the government is usually your only friend when it comes to real abuse from large market players

there does exist regulatory capture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

but again, this is an argument against corruption, not against government. again, the problem with regulatory capture is large market players corrupting the rules. so you want to heal your sick government, not weaken it further, thereby giving large market players yet even more ways to abuse you. and they will

but certain people, they just utterly lack the awareness that the government is not the only evil bogeyman in the world. many times in fact, like regulatory capture, the government isn't really the ultimate bogeyman, but just the front for the real villains: plutocracy

we need strong anticorruption rules in the usa. badly. the people are losing to big money. this will be our downfall

"statist" is an insult used by the kind of people who who call obama a muslim socialist

it's an inaccurate, hysterical, and unintelligent smear

ah yes, when dealing with an intellectually dishonest individual, one encounters upset resistance rather than the simple ability to concede a point

you're welcome for the education on sovereignty

and where the fuck did i ever say that you dumb shit? are you talking to me or some made up boogeyman in your head?

delusional AND stupid

it seems the german education system is failing its children as much as german mental health facilities are failing its pilots

zero respect to you. you are not an equal. you are a child

The soviet union collapsed and now russia is run by a thug dictator for life as his personal toy with immature cult of personality on the same level as north korea

they invaded and vivisected georgia, and now invade ukraine because their feelings were hurt when slavic brothers ukraine announced it preferred to go with europe. its economy is tanking because its economy is just digging up oil

it is 140 million people. china is 1.3 billion. eu is 500 million. both diversified and growing economies with stable governments, not politically immature kgb goon worship

canada is small and weak over a large land area too. difference being, canada is at peace and with good relations with its neighbors. russia looks for every opportunity to piss everyone off. ultranationalism and 1950s imperialism is a fantasy of hurt egos and faded glory. it's a colossal weakness, not a strength. it only announces more aggression to come exactly as gets weaker

russia is a dying country. the 1950s and sputnik and yuri gagarin was its highest point. everything from then on was/ is downhill

in a hundred years, the trajectory that started with the collapse of the soviet union will continue. sibera will pass to china (outer manchuria, which russia won from china only in 1850, is going majority chinese population soon). and everything west of moscow will pass to europe by choice or by fire, as ukraine shows

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

they are too few people over too large an area. their economy is too weak. and their politics is mafia level intimidation amateur hour, easy to topple and push around, if not outright inviting revolution when rabid ultranationalism loses its power

their much vaunted military will not keep up technologically and with a collapsing economy, and that's the only chip they have left that is weakening over time

the history of central asia is replete with giant empires that rise and fall. russia is but another to come to pass, and soon. i think this century, at least the next

no more deals with russia, especially on the space station. they are aggressive losers, any deals we make with them will not last and will be subject to further decay over time

to russian space scientists:

i suggest defecting to the west and private space companies. be the next sergey brin of space. he didn't make google in russia, and he never could have. the russian von brauns need to do the same