I wouldnt stand by any government that would deploy military force in an offensive manner against the people. If my commanding officer issued an order for me to kill civilians I can tell you that he and his cadre would be those facing the barrel of a gun.

It's why it is important that the military be educated, and 'of' the people. You do a disservice to the US military.if you think that if things got bad enough where use of force to resist the government was justified that the military would leap to oppress.

I would argue that any.governmemt that would issue an order for the use of nukes to fight insurrection is a government that MUST be destroyed. If enough people are dissatisfied that nukes would be an option, then it is clear that the government is either incapable or unable to represent those people and is illegitimate.

You have a constitutional right to EVERYTHING. The government can only limit those rights in the manner described by the constitution.

I repeat this time and time again, hopefully it will stick with a few. The only thing the Constitution does is define a subset of rights which the government 'shall not' infringe. Everything else, you've got it, unless the government is given the authority over it.

Better to have 5,700,000 pairs of eyes that can actually do something than 300,000,000 that can do nothing about it.

I can't vote for the legislators in 49 of the other states, and I can only 1 that comes from my district. I might be able to help campaign against 1 or two in neighboring districts...

So that 300,000,000 is a pointless number when less than half that votes, and only a fraction of those may have an opportunity to influence the decision. And even then, that fraction with the ability to influence the decision may be the ones who support this kind of legislation in the first place...

I shudder to think how much worse the fuckheads in this state's government would have screwed us if they'd had more power.

So why on Earth would we ever advocate that the Federal Government should be allowed to do the same?

More power, and no oversight. Not a pretty picture.

This is why I never bought the whole "we should leave more things up to the states to decide" line of argument: as bad as the US Congress is, state legislatures are generally solidly worse; they just don't get as much press. Or maybe this is just a New York thing and other states are different, I don't know.

There is nothing magically different between the state and federal legislators aside from their ability run larger campaigns.

The reason we SHOULD leave more up to the states is that bad legislation WILL be passed, but when the federal government has real limits, the scope of those fuckups will be limited and more easily rectified by the actual democratic process.

When the Federal government fucks up, it is nationwide, backed by the full force of the government (infinitely more powerful than you because you are part of what makes up its power), and correcting fuckups of the Federal government is all but impossible. The only thing we can hope for in correcting things at the Federal level is that it starts some other initiative that interferes with the one that is engaged in screwing you over.

Case in point, federal sin taxes. Don't expect them to go away, but thankfully they are so dependent on the income they bring in that they can't go full nanny-state on us and outright ban them. The government has a vested interest in collecting taxes from cigarettes, so thankfully for those of us who don't smoke (but hey, I might feel like it), they can't just ban it.

I love my beer, my alcohol, and my other vices. So when Utah or Alabama decide that they want to be draconian in their restrictions on such things, I can make the decision not to move to either of those states. They don't gain an engineer and my tax revenue, and I'm not subjected to their laws.

When the Federal government does something that I disagree with... well I can't really leave the country (My handle describes my industry), so I can't move to another jurisdiction. Even worse, the US federal government pushes its laws as far as it can overseas as well.

That's is why that while it sucks when states do stupid things like this, and even though the Federal government is slightly less likely to do things like this (gridlock), it is far far far more important to keep and reinforce the limits that prevent the Federal government from doing things like this in the first place because their jurisdiction and power is effectively unlimited with regards to the actual citizens of this country.

You are misappkying the 'expectation of privacy' angle. If you are in public you retain all of your privacy rights. The expectation of privacy statement only means you can't revoke something after it was made public from an evidence perspective if when you made it public that you had the expectation that it was public.

Its tangential to your statement(which is not wrong) but it is dangerous and wrong to apply it in that manner. It is a nuanced decision that is often misinterpreted as an affirmation that no privacy exists outside a hermetically sealed chamber in your bedroom.

There is plenty that is in public which retains significant privacy. A hand shielded whisper picked up by a parabolic mic would be an example of someone acting privately in public.

I work with folks who earn 200k+ per year and they would do the same. Its human nature, and we are very social gossipy animals.

Always write laws and grants of authority with the mindset that they will inevitably be abused.

It applies to all people not because of what it says, but because of who the constitution applies to.

It is only a list of powers granted to the government and a few critical (but incomplete) prohibitions/limitations.

In otherwords, if it isn't in the Constitution, the US government should NOT be doing it, regardless of the nationality of the person they are 'doing it to'.

The US Constitution does NOT apply to you, me or any 'one' person. The Constitution applies only to the government. It is the set of rules with the government must follow to be considered legitimate.

It's a mistake that is commonly made, and a dangerous one for people to believe since the document was NEVER intended to be some sort of protection of the people. There are a few affirmations, but the document itself is only a limited list of authorities granted to the government.

It grants us (the people) nothing. Everything we have, we have had regardless of the Constitution.

The Trinitron 36âoe television serving as a work bench begs to differ.

Tubes have their place, but I will gladly sacrifice all of their benefits for something that doesn't weigh more than an NFL linebacker.

It is like a cast iron bathtub. Buy a new one and it will run you at least a grand. Try to get rid of a decent used one and you will be relieved if the buyer's offer is no more than to come and pick it up from its current location.