People were talking about organized crime in japan. So... do you think organized crime in japan has any trouble getting all the guns they "WANT"... the answer is obviously. They smuggle more then that all the time.

Regardless... on the issue printed weapons... we can already pump out plastic weapons from printers that print plastic.

What happens when the public has printers that can print metal?

The metal printers can already print production grade weapons. One of the printing companies printed a 1911 pistol.

Now you can control that to some extent by controlling the sale of ammunition. But it really depends on what you're printing.

I would print a shotgun. Mostly because the ammo is really easy to make yourself.

Here is the thing. You can't stop a psychopath by controlling weapons. You can change the way that organized crime deals with people. But a mass killer is going to find a way. Keep in mind you can make a powerful bomb with fertilizer. Keep in mind you can make poison gas with cleaning supplies.

At a certain point, there is substitute for simply trusting people. And that means that if you really want to control this issue you need to know who is crazy and who is not.

i would argue that is not trolling however, that is exactly what you said however

Any nice thing happens and some asshat comes along to say "but we won't all have it at the same time instantly!"... Seriously?

Can you just be happy someone has something nice? And eventually it will get around to everyone. It is better that someone has something then that no one has it. This envy based value system is really getting old.

Simplicity can be beauty when you haven't gone too far in simplifying the object of considertaion, removing so much that essential information is lost. That is what you did. You obscured the actual problem rather than clarifying it.

google always throws out 100 half baked ideas, and hopefully one or 2 of them end uop being decent. sometimes its annoying when I find one I like that gets discontinued (igoogle home page for example) but if you make 100 things that suck and 2 that are awesome, thats still 2 more awesome things that didnt exist before. they have the money and talent so let um!

As to facing your accuser... lets say I own a shop and it has a camera in it... and someone breaks into my shop and use the video from the camera to convict them.

The video is evidence... your accuser is the government.

As to discretion, i have a problem with this as well because it means the police officer can decide what is illegal or not on a case by case basis. That is not his right. The legislature has the right to decide what is and is not legal. The courts have the duty to decide who is actually guilty. And the executive's job is merely to write the tickets.

Discretion on balance creates problems because it papers over problems with bad laws. Congress or city councils would be pressured to fix bad laws if those laws were actually applied as written.

Making matters worse, police sometimes apply the letter of the law and sometimes not. They are held to no standard as to when they do or do not do this. They can choose on a whim what to do. And that is a kind of tyranny.

Do I prefer police officers? yes. Because they're expensive and can't be everywhere. So they are inefficient for many kinds of enforcement. I like that as a check against tyranny.

If the cameras were only used properly, I wouldn't have a problem with them.

I think one of the bigger issues with traffic citations is that they are a revenue stream for cities. They shouldn't be. An alternative should be offered instead of giving the city money. Community service or something. Most people will just pay the money. But if the city gets silly with the fees, then you can just do some community service for 10 hours or something and be done with it.

That would lower the incentive for the government to effectively raise taxes by increasing enforcement for petty traffic violations.

great list. Ive seen a number of these but a bunch are new Thanks!

I understand the purpose.

However, in a democracy where everyone can vote... you run into problems when taxation does not equal representation.

By having different tax rates for people that are wealthier... while at the same time not increasing their influence over government relatively... you create a situation where one faction can vote themselves something at someone else's expense and the system is unable to balance the interests.

That is the problem with progressive taxes. They do not come with corresponding influence for those that pay more.

If you are prepared to reduce the influence of those that pay less or increase the influence of those that pay more... then go for it. Otherwise, progressive taxes should be avoided.

Further note that I am referring to tax RATES. If I make a million dollars and I pay a rate of 10 percent then I'm going to pay a lot more money then someone that makes 1000 dollars and also pays 10 percent. However, note that the rates are the same. That is fine. The problem comes about when the guy making a million pays a rate of 70 percent and the guy making a 1000 pays a rate of negative 900 percent. And yet they both have the same influence over the political process when they go to the ballot box.

Now you might say the rich man might get more influence buy donating to politicians. This is true. However that comes as an expense ON TOP of his taxes. He doesn't just get that. He has to pay even more money just to get the influence he should have gotten simply by paying those progressive taxes.

Now look, I don't want rich people to have that much influence. I like the idea of one person one vote.

But the price of that is that we all have to pay the same rate. Another option might be limiting what people on subsidies can vote on. I know... it sounds terrible but it might be fair. If society is basically feeding you, housing you, etc... then do you have a right to tell the rest of society how it must do it? I don't see that you do. At that point you are a dependent of the state not unlike being a child taken care of by a parent. And children don't get to vote.

... then you should be able to get someone to step up and do it.

They did it wrong clearly.

The idea is that a certain amount of the economy is flowing through the internet and the government feels it has a right a fraction of that just as they claim from everything.

I can get that far.

Then I get what they did by charging by bandwidth. This is an attempt to make the tax progressive so that small users pay very little and big users pay a lot. I get that too.

The problem with this idea is that the amount of traffic is accelerating and the tax isn't reasonable if everyone's internet speed goes up by a factor of ten or something.

A more reasonable tax would be a per user tax on the ISPs. I'm quite sure they already have those... so... increase them I guess if they want more. That gets us to a tax that should bring in decent revenue without limiting people to lower bandwidth.

How to make that progressive?... I guess you could say anyone with low income could file for relief from that tax... or you could just have bandwidth tiers. Every company has tiers... this is the 3mb tier, this is the 7 mb tier... all the way up to 200 mb or something. Have the tax associated with given tiers be reset yearly or something so it can keep pace.

That or just dont' have a progressive tax... progressive taxes are stupid.

is she cute??? if so yes

It's nice that you have an opinion even if it is frivolously wrong.

You don't seem to have a good grasp of the American political spectrum. Just for clarity, yes the US really does have genuine Marxist / Leninist / Trotskyist / Maoist flavored communist parties. Bernie Sanders is a self-described socialist that caucuses with the Democrats, and is well to the left. There aren't a lot of moderate Democrats anymore since they have largely been driven from the party by the "progressives." There is no shortage of liberal or "progressive" Democrats, including actual communists that want to hold office in their lifetime. You can see Van Jones for an example of that. If the Republicans look "bat shit insane" to you it probably means you are well into loony left territory yourself since the Republicans are a liberal-right to center-right party committed to democracy, civil rights, and free enterprise.