You're close, Voyager was so that both copies of that godawful song were flung out of the solar system to the stars.

many people inspired Van Braun: http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/v...

If your poorly constructed argument were correct, then the Earth's temperature would be increasing year upon year. However it is not, as the warmest year in recent records is 1998. We know from the fossil record that increased carbon dioxide levels are a response to global warming, not a driver

After all, you could turn the cops laser right back at him...

Oh personally I think collisions between people who don't look where they're walking and run into each other are highly necessary. Some people need to feel that they're acting stupidly.

I'm done fighting, arguing and whatnot. I offer to you what I offered everyone so far: I move inland, you move to the coast. If you're right, you get a wonderful piece of seaside real estate. If I am right, I get to shoot you if you try to escape drowning.

Deal?

That's pretty much what would happen in most countries in Europe. I am not aware of a "poisoned well" provision in our laws over here. If there's evidence against you and it's neither fabricated ("planted") nor required an incentive from law enforcement so you commit the crime (agent provocateur), it's a-ok to use it against you.

What keeps police in check is that they essentially have a job for life once they're in, they get a LOAD of job perks (official ones and "less official ones") and breaking the law to get evidence is almost certainly the end of that rather comfy job, and even if you don't get locked up (with all the nice guys that you got in there first...), what's left for you is some sort of mall cop crap job.

Seems to work really well.

Where to draw the line? And who gets to pick and choose what crimes are worse than others. The egoist in me would say that a government employee ignoring the privacy of citizens is a bigger threat to me than any pedo on the planet. Because he may be a threat to me, the pedo most certainly won't be. I'm kinda too old for that...

This just to illustrate that "worse crime" is highly subjective. I'm fairly sure if you ask the RIAA, the crime behind trading pedo pics is the potential copyright infringement.

Oh, I'm sorry, being a non-native speaker I took "at worst" to mean "if he did anything wrong at all"...

I honestly don't want to engage in the debate whether commies were a threat. The ones in Russia with the bombs, most likely. The idiots running around in the US? Very debatable.

I know the hearing between Welch and McCarthy rather well (I dare say most likely better than most non-US people). Its importance is less in what transpired, what mattered is what effect it had. It was the end of the witch hunts. Because that's what the whole zeal to find commies turned into. What went down in the US during those years around whether or not someone was a commie was not far from what happened in Russia with whether or not someone was anti-commie. The main difference being mostly that the outcome was less lethal in the US. The process itself, though, was the same mix of hysteria, opportunism and people who used it to get rid of opponents, as well as an excuse to do "whatever is necessary" and "end justifying any means".

I cannot help but find the same attitude now towards the proverbial four horsemen of the infocalypse. Is there a threat? Yes. Is it as big as we're led to believe? Hell no. But it is a very neat vehicle to get whatever you want because nobody may oppose it without provoking the question "or are you a commie/terrorist/pedo/whatever?"

Black and white. You're on one side or the other. The idea that BOTH sides could be wrong is not even offered as an option.

Maybe you could kindly elaborate how

"The criminals here worthy of being described as scum and deserving confinement are the people involved in child pornography, not the investigator."

does not fit the description of

"Disagreeing with one crime is no excuse for agreeing with another."

So the end justifies the means?

I guess then we may assume you'd be in favor of weekly raids of your house (and everyone else's)? That should pretty much ensure we can eliminate any and all drug cooking and growing happening nationwide.

The end justifies the means, after all.

So, NCIS it is?

So I guess the whole security theater that sprung up after 9/11 is ok? If it only saved the life and virtue of even one....

Child porn, terrorism, or in earlier days communism. I can only hope that one day we'll have some Welch again asking "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Disagreeing with one crime is no excuse for agreeing with another.

Yes, I do expect law enforcement to act within the law. For the very simple reason that if there's some way to rubber stamp a way around it with "serves to protect against child porn/terrorism/organized crime/money laundering/choose the horrible crime of the month", whenever it is convenient, any kind of check that serves to protect you from your law enforcement invading your privacy can as well be abolished. A law that only exists as long as the one limited by its existence allows it to be, if it can be ignored at will by the entity subject to it, is void by definition.