Well, I don't think dogs are particularly adept at using them either, so his argument stands.

This is not always true. Your rights exist only so long as you are able to find someone who can defend them, as an individual is inherently incapable of protecting their own rights.

That said, you'd be surprised how difficult it is to find anybody who gives a damn in this world, because as long as it's not happening to them, it may as well not be happening at all.

Damn, I never knew that Beijing was the inspiration behind Turok on the Nintendo 64.

Yeah, the whole prison thing is probably the largest indication of how completely screwed up and out of control this country has become. The saddest thing is that I think the individual realizes this, but the individual also realizes they are powerless to change it. That is pretty bad, when the collective dissent isn't enough to quash the powers that be. Need to organize, somehow, but people tend to want a thorough, cohesive plan for such things. Sometimes I imagine that I'm actually a prisoner as a citizen of the United States, and that my dream of escape is to defect to some civilized nation, where ever that may be.

I don't know if planet Earth is trending much better as a whole, but that could prove too opinionated to explore.

No one really seems to care if anything is illegal anymore, as long as it isn't a "classic" crime like assault, robbery, murder, drugs, or the like. The notion of illegality is as benign and dead as ever. Now it seems, laws are merely for retaining and furthering the authoritative reach of those in power, not as a code by which we determine what constitutes a crime.

I've had money stolen by Fortune 500 companies and those employees laugh at me after I read the applicable laws aloud to them, even though they were clearly -- even personally -- in violation. It's all just a joke, a game. Of course, they win, because it wasn't enough dollars and cents to coerce me into jumping through all the necessary hoops and sending of all the paperwork to the various & mysterious government entities whom I would need to reach out to in order to even have "THE LAW" enforced.

Nearly ten years ago, I was searched every single day before class my senior year. I dropped out because they wouldn't stop and I was sick of it. No due process. There were no charges, no arrest, no evidence -- nothing. Just some overzealous police officer saying I did something (I didn't), and that being enough. The police are the authorities on reality now, I suppose. Be searched, or be denied an education! No one cared at the school, the local school board, the state department of education, the ACLU, the attorney general's office -- whoever I reached out to. Couldn't even find any money-grubbing lawyers to take on the district. I was only seventeen, a definite no one. Why should they care? There are no consequences if they don't.

There, in the corner of a locked bathroom, lay the United States Constitution trampled, battered, abused, and with a page upturned to the fourth amendment, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." Shall not be violated. Here I was, locked in a bathroom with two police officers, being searched, all because I didn't get lucky when somebody went searching for a promotion in a post-Columbine fear state.

So, the law is dead. It's because nobody cares. No one is individually accountable. Nothing matters as long as you can have your TV dinner in front of a friendly glowing screen made just to keep your empty mind company; crawl under your made-in-China blanket at night; and sidle up to that wife of yours you met staring down the packets of pet niblets at the grocery store in the dog food aisle.

Take away a person's false sense of security and all of the comforts of modernity, perhaps they'll have time or be more inclined to think about trivial, meaningless things such as "sense-makery" and "justice."

You might also just decide to go on a murderous rampage, being no longer fearful of life imprisonment or death. Does fear alone mitigate such behavior, or are there other factors involved?

I think there was a time when religion served a purpose for humanity, or at least was in some way pivotal in paving the way to the modern age.

That time has passed.

You mean the porn stored on my hard drive can get pregnant? Oh shi--

Except for this one time, where the steak was prepared by a girl who used to work the tables at this slammin' little joint in Prypiat...

I just wanted to say that it really makes me sad to know that this is what it has all come down to.

after reading most of the comments in this thread, it's looking like ymmv is a safe bet.

But what if he hates the sun, you insensitive clod!

Free thinkers are dangerous. All praise be unto The Establishment.

If there's one thing he's learned from being a part of large government organizations, it's that there's one thing he's learned from being a part of large government organizations, which is that there is one thing he's learned from being a part of large government organizations, it being that there is one thing he has learned...

M-O-O-N, that spells rings!