painting strippers with that broad brush

Part of what makes Zip-Strip a useful product is that you can pant it on with whatever size of brush you like.

First: President Clinton was impeached, not nearly impeached.

Second: He was impeached for lying while under oath about his practices of sexual harassment, not for getting a BJ.

I agree that America needs to grow the fuck up.

Yes, libertarians do cringe when Republicans or conservatives do that. We'd still like "Liberals" to stop misusing the term "liberal", however. Progressivism is opposed to liberalism.

A little bit spying on own citizens is acceptable if there is a current cause. Not acceptable is the dragnet type of surveillance with all-encompassing records of every citizen. This is a major characteristic trait of totalitarianism.

No, domestic "spying" is never acceptable because domestic spying doesn't have any of the safeguards that either domestic law enforcement or international spying has.

Not acceptable is the dragnet type of surveillance with all-encompassing records of every citizen. This is a major characteristic trait of totalitarianism.

Once you allow any domestic spying, it inevitably deteriorates into that. The only way to avoid that is to subject domestic surveillance to judicial review and hold abusers legally responsible.

>> Those are not skills for this summer, those are skills for several summers ago.

Heh. Wish I had mod points today. Can anyone else speculate on why these would be "skills for summer" anyway?

Dear FBI: Stan92057 just said "BOMB .. I'm going to off kids". Just to be safe, please lock him up until this can be cleared up. Thanks.

Ah, I see, you support free speech as long as that speech does not offend you. How nice.

Not only do I find that claim dubious, it's completely beside the point. At least one recent study discussed here on Slashdot, possibly more, said THEIR IS NO SHORTAGE of qualified technical workers in the United States. Some corporations just want more H1-Bs because they're cheaper.

but he wasn't conveying a threat. He was using hyperbole to point out that he wasn't like those who do actually use violence.

And that is entirely different than what the kid did and I would consider what you did a credible threat.

What the kid did was to use hyperbole to point out that he is not, in fact, insane. For this situation to be the same thing you would need to be responding directly to someone suggesting that you were somehow being abusive and you responding with "Oh yeah..." [continue with your post] and then following it up by pointing out that you have no idea where he lives nor care to find out, thus making it obvious that you were using hyperbole.

Yes, but you are talking about the concept of free will.

The concept of freedom with respect to rights is that exercising those rights don't carry government imposed consequences. As Antipater pointed out, you can freely and properly exercise your rights and still face consequences from friends, spouses, family, etc.

operagost wasn't saying he should be convicted of anything but merely pointing out that he is facing felony charges.