The people basically *are* as the Left sees them. For those coming from an atheistic viewpoint, it would indeed be very hard to view people as much more than sides of beef when you tell them what they should and should not care about and they obey, every time.

I've witnessed more independent discernment ability from a hamburger patty than the American people. At least beef has even the capability of turning on you if it's not treated properly.

Or for a non-trivial set of combinations of operations. Take an installer that has to be able to upgrade just about any of a number of possible applications in a business's suite of related apps, and applying patches, in order, to support up to three versions back. Where different applications can be at different suite versions (customer pays for upgrades of some apps faster than others). It's just not feasible to make a progress bar account for all of those possibilities to be accurate.

I can see there come a day soon enough where corporations and govt.'s jointly sponsor "Have you used the Internet yet today?" PSA's on billboards and buses et al., because the 'Net will be the main source they rely on to keep a keen eye on their markets and subjects, respectively. A new class of software will sprout up from this, that "acts normal" for you in an online life, visiting gmail and failbook and cnn.com and other sites that are "safe" in that they're not ones that make you an "outlier" (/outlaw), around the same times of day every day and for randomized time intervals each. Kind of a vacation lamp timer, for watchful cyberspace eyes: "Nothing unusual to see here... move right along." Because going off the grid/tuning out will arouse suspicions in powerful entities, making them fear you're going to stop buying their brand/you've ceased to be on board with the approved societal pattern.

That sounds assumptive/putting words in your mouth, and it wasn't meant. I wish to rephrase that as "I wonder what you mean by the family being sacred and the individual not (or the family being more sacred than the individual, if that's what you meant)".

We just don't get each other. :(

A quibble: We are not saved in groups/as a family. You cannot buy salvation for your spouse and offspring. We each have to accept Christ individually. The individual is made in the image of God, but obviously the family has a very sacred place in God's ordering of things. Holding each and every individual human life as sacred does not preclude brotherly love and charity, to family members and beyond.

Not sure why we should be for (or against, for that matter) the race continuing, tho. Better to pray for His return, and the end of this wandering in exile as punishment for breaking the only rule we had in the Garden. I.e. this world is not how God wanted us to exist, and wanting to ensure that future generations are subjected to it seems perverse.

Maybe that's just my American Protestantism talking; I wonder if Catholicism teaches that you can be saved as a family/that you can secure salvation for your spouse and kids.

Unfortunately American Exceptionalism can lead to that-could-never-happen-in/to-America-pathy.

It's attitudes like that by that writer (and my sister holds the same view), and the govt. using drones to kill people including Americans, and the Obamacare "death panels" (govt. deciding if you're not worth it to society to receive potentially life-saving healthcare), and the mandate that your doctor must talk to you when you're old and sickly about throwing in the towel, that have made this Right-winger and long-time death penalty proponent abandon that, as too dangerous a precedent.

On top of this around here the police just shoot you if you look at them wrong, and they shoot to kill. And the news media dutifully announces in each incident that they had no choice and were forced to do it and justified, and then that news report ends with no facts or reasoning for the justification. I.e. we're not supposed to question, and eerily no one does.

Combine that with all the violence and death that the Leftie Hollywood has churned out for decades (betcha the Dems won't ban guns in movies!) and we have a culture of death, where all kinds of killings and more kinds of them over time are considered "justified".

Unfortunately it's prolly only going to get worse, as an economy with a Leftie boot on its neck can't support people with jobs, and govt.'s going broke can't support people with welfare, so our collectivist overlords will feel the need to do something [famous Leftie credo (and example of typical logic): "Anything's better than nothing!"] to protect the system/the society (since the collective and not individuals is what is sacred).

Try reading that again with sarcasm tags wrapped around the subject and first lines and a smiley at the end of the second.

Too bad about being a mindslave to the GOP. If only you were more libertarian than that.

And in the it's Never Enough dept., I'll see your men-wearing-makeup band and raise you one unit of metal.

that socialists, lefties and Democrats use

I wonder why he chose to use terms that are synonymous, repetitive, and redundant.

I didn't think an ex-president would go so far as to resort to arson, but I guess those Republicans really hate science that much.

Unfortunately nowadays no more violent than when the govt. enforces things. Around here the cops will shoot you if you look at them wrong, and shoot to kill. I used to be a supporter of LEO's. But with the ridiculously heavy-handed tactics, and Obama assassinating people including Americans with aerial drones, at this point I'm only slightly in favor of govt. being in charge of preserving order. It's conceivable that could change if it grows even more corrupt in ruthlessness and violence.

jQuery has said they will continue to support IE8 as long as it's a significant factor on the web. I.e. jQuery is not dropping support of it and ushering in its death, IE8's eventual dying will usher in jQuery's dropping support of it. And IE8's dying will only *begin* in a year and three months from now.

Okay, so it's okay if we have basically only one choice in browser as long as we have multiple choices in operating system to run it on.