ParanoiA

Yay Rand Paul, for starters. If anyone cares to see the difference between the federalist big government big spending/borrowing/printing corporatism republicans and a more realistic, responsible, constitutional free market republican, nowadays called a libertarian, then here's a quick run down of Rand Paul on the issues. I think the Rand Paul victory helps to distinguish the Tea Party from Fox News and other band wagon hop alongs. The Tea Party has shown their message to be deeper than the Rush Limbaugh's and the Hannity's want to believe it is - or even the bascule's and John Stewart's (see the company I lumped you in bascule?). I'm excited about a libertarian-republican making through the primary. And with all of the incumbents being thrown out with their dirty bath water, we could be in for an interesting change - real change, this time.

The average person, adult or not, does not have the level of competence to do most anything you can think of, better than a supposed expert. Yet, we still are trusted to do these things, including handling gasoline despite most people not knowing what the flash point is. Seriously, we live in 99% ignorance. Of the thousands of decisions you make everyday, how many of those are actually well informed, thought out, expert level decisions? Only a tiny fraction. Because parents aren't experts in education is not a compelling reason to cherry pick that fundamental right from them. They also aren't dietary experts, nor are they competent sex educators or hazardous materials handlers, but we're not rationalizing injecting ourselves in those decisions? Or...is that next? Interference predicated on these insulting notions of people, or some class of people, being too stupid to understand the "correct" choice doesn't offer any meaningful limit at all whatsoever - if I accept that faulty premise, then I must accept rule by experts only in order to avoid incompetent decisions. Rule by some external force of supposed superior reason is subordination logic, somewhat antithetical to a republic, and fails to account for the quality of decisions made by the subject itself - I know what's best for me better than you know what's best for me. You can only know what you prefer to be best for me. It don't matter if parents ain't real bright 'bout schoolin' and such...if'n they give 'er a try, they'll figure it out...

So what? If what you say is true, and it isn't, then it will fail on its own. You really believe that schools can churn out "uncompetitive paste eaters" and thrive in the market? If so, you must be under the impression that they will find a way to benefit from being a "uncompetitive paste eater" - so, what's the problem then? No, instead, the conservatives are adding their little spin to their education, and it will all be just fine. If we all had our choice, you would find that schools will teach the same fundamentals of math, english and etc - but will differ on the subjects that are more edification than necessary detail - like evolution and creationism. Most of us don't need to know either, in terms of economic success. Unless of course one wants to be a scientist...but then, creationism isn't science, so where's the problem? It's more phantom problems. Choice is the solution to many of our problems. We really do not need to force our views onto everyone else. Well I did attend public schools. So there. Although, in my defense, I haven't looked at math beyond simple addition and subtraction for about 20 years. I was happy I remembered 3.14.

Oh no, not the man-on-the-moon appeal! There is no successful counter to the we-can-land-a-man-on-the-moon-but-we-can't-<enter your incredulous claim>. So I won't even try. Well, I'll admit to being a part of that emotional opinion, as I'm processing the hundreds of thousands of gallons being released every day, going on a month long now...and you just mentioned up thread about the force of the mississippi possibly preventing the spill coming ashore, as of yet. Let me put it this way, if there isn't much of an ultimate environmental cost on this one, then it's a successfully dodged bullet, not a confirmation that oil spills don't harm the environment terribly. Is it that hard to imagine this same volume of oil, over the same course of time, somewhere else, without the mississippi or anything else holding it back?

Well if you're talking about the ACICS, then I like it; it's entirely private. I have no issues with private entities freely creating labels and systems of merit that others find value in. There's no coersion by law here, and it serves us well. I would like to see the same thing with K-12 education - if it's even K-12 anymore. Hell, maybe the idea of school years and 13 discrete units of achievement is outdated. And this is why I found your previous post on 2+2=pie to be absurd. Yes, people would be free to do such things, but then how do they make a living or benefit from it? My company has no interest in hiring people who synthesize math and desert (unless you meant pie as in 3.14?). What value does a technician bring to the job when they've been taught weird, incorrect ideas about their trade? I actually don't have any issues with government suggestion about standards, and endorsing preferred practices - I simply prefer parental choice over their children. It's fundamental. We trust parents with so much more life threatening decisions than this, long before they make it to the school yard. And further still, if somehow they could benefit from such a ridiculous education, then I'd be forced to ask....what's the probem then?

You mean like the Internet Engineering Task Force? A private membership. Or do you mean like the World Wide Web Consortium? Another private sector membership. I'm sorry, I can't find the centralized government coersive power that has forced these standards on to all of us - like a school board. All I can find is free people, freely organizing and promoting standards that other free people are impressed with and follow. Probably because there isn't a public controversial divide of computer geeks, each with legitimate concerns erroneously dismissed by their opponents. Government schools on the other hand, leave no such freedom up to anyone. Coersion. That's it. My problem isn't with stardards, my problem is this antiquated notion that personal choice should be centralized, standardized and peer reviewed. I really don't give a shit if my education preferences don't pass someone's scrutiny, and I don't find any authority or hubris to manage theirs - which I do, absolutely, find appaling offensive and stupid by the way. I mean seriously...a capitalist republic that utterly fails to teach capitalism and the concept of the republic any deeper than glossary definitions? All High School graduates should be absolute experts in economics, the constitution and the responsibility inherent in a self-governed republic. Most kids don't even know the difference between republic and democracy, and foolishly consider ourselves a democracy. Yet, I don't bitch and cry to the school board to force everyone to learn it. Why stop there? Because that defies the meaning and purpose of the constitution. And I'm not surprised you asked and completely failed to notice that personal choice is also part of the meaning and purpose of the constitution. Bravo! Parents with money...hmm, you do realize that charter schools are funded by the state right? They're as "free" as the government schools. You mean like Harlem Success Academy? Built on the impoverished side of Manhattan, thousands apply every year, all over New York City, and only a few hundred get in. It's literally considered a lottery to get in. Not many rich kiddos going here... I wonder how they perform... Hmm...surely they must spend bunches of money right? Oops...try again. Here's some more reading on charter schools, since you seem to have fallen for the common mythology of charter schools and propaganda we get from the education cartel here in america. No need, I accept both. And much more. That's why we should have choice. You indoctrinate your kids with your trash, and I'll indoctrinate mine with my trash. We all do this. Education preference is just but one of thousands of ways we use power over our children to indoctrinate them with our value system and ethics. So what's the problem? Oh yeah...cuz they don't agree with your value system, that's right. Sorry, it's not any more compelling than when conservatives make that argument about gay marriage and god in the pledge. F*ck your value system. It sucks, in my opinion. In fact, most everyone's values are twisted up messes of excuses and lame exceptions that only impress themselves - although it's entertaining to watch. I'm not following any of them. And I'm not passing them down to my kids either. Absolutely. Listening to the politics pimped by the teacher's union and government bureaucrats against Charter Schools is the dumb way. After real examination, I expect you'll follow that up with action, right? Here's a real gem of examination of the current dumb way: Ooh yeah, go government schools!

Yep that's exactly right. Accuracy is not objective, but yet another subjective, personal interpretation of reality. But not to the control freaks, of course. Interesting you should mention math: Charter schools continue to outperform government schools. That's why the education cartel rarely approves them, and generally turns most of them down. Choice scares the hell out of lazy bureaucratic statists that are accustomed to getting their funds, including increases, without any results to show for it. Read pretty much anything about the Kansas City school district and the 2 billion dollar dump they got a few years ago and how we got nothing but further declining scores and drop out rates to show for it. Our education system is a joke. It's a government screw job. http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=1500338 The money should follow the student, not the assigned government building. Giving parents a choice is the only respectful compliment to the notion that we each know what's better for our children, on the whole, than the statist bureaucrats screwing them out of their education and the parents out of their money. Oh, and here's a chart on how to fire an incompetent teacher in the american government school system, for your comedic enjoyment. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Instead of a group of grown idiots with the free time to attend PTA deciding what my son or daughter should learn, how about I decide that? I get to decide what they eat, drink, wear, their healthcare, life or death decisions next to hospital bed - but what they learn is just too much parental control? Give me a break...logic please, everyone.

Well, I thought it was obvious what the environmental cost was, but here's a sample from a quick google search: http://baronandbudd.com/legal_services/gulf_coast_oil_spill/environmental_impact http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/2010/05/14/how-much-damage-will-result-from-the-bp-oil-spill/ Nothing that has been tried is containing this thing. It's absolutely terrible. I have no confidence they're going to get every speck of oil sludge from this spill. Which ultimately means long term, if not unrecoverable damage, regardless of significance. I will concede that other energy technologies can be just as dangerous and impacting upon catastrophe, such as nuclear, but I'm trying to be careful in applying the risk/reward cost/benefit analysis. I don't think offshore drilling passes. Not when there are so many other ways to attain energy here, including coal. If they could prove some new technology or technique in this clean up, and restore confidence in their ability to mitigate such a thing, then I'd be happy to change my mind. At this point though, I don't see it.

I don't believe this would be a problem if you had real school choice. Currently, the state funds the school network and assigns kids to buildings based on geography. If kids don't go to those buildings, the system still gets paid. If parents want to send their kids to private school buildings, the state still gets paid full price. But when the funds follow the kid - ya' know, the tax money mom and dad lost in this transaction - then suddenly these state run buildings have to respond to their customers. When parents get that kind of choice, these bureaucratic boards of waste will have to bend and flex or lose out altogether - or I guess, just accept a smaller customer base. And then parents don't have to worry as much about centralized control freaks forcing their views on education onto everyone else. I would think this Texas problem would be more of a non-issue. Our country's psychology seems to be bent on fighting battles over centralized control preferences rather than avoiding battles by de-centralizing and allowing individual choice and the lack of centralized control. Instead of fighting about what we're going to force each other to do, we should be simply choosing what we prefer for ourselves, individually. Then everyone gets their preference. Why shouldn't these Texas conservatives learn what they want, and Texas liberals learn what they want? Why must we force one or the other?

No, to the first question. Still counting, on the second.

Well, despite the alcohol gangs and wine cartel that bring violence to our streets, selling beer and whiskey to school children, I still think legalizing drugs will end the violence and much of the risk associated with them. Wish I could have linked this, but a quick search on Youtube for Stossel's debut on the O'rielly Factor is the only cost - and is just hiliarious; reminiscent of Refer Madness. O'rielly tells Stossel that dope dealers are buying legal pot from dispensaries in California and then selling it to kids. Yeah, because everybody knows kids are running around loaded and if you want to make money you aim for children - the holders of the wealth in America - as the adults are all broke, no money to be made there... So yeah, we still have irrational adults to contend with on the issue. A couple of isolated cases of kiddos buying some weed doesn't indicate a freaking market, Bill...

I have now lost all confidence in our ability to manage and mitigate offshore drilling disaster in the future. I think BP is trying harder than they are given credit for here, which is partly why I even further reject that this is a reasonable risk for the gain. I don't see it. There's no way they can truly "correct" this event. The cost to the environment is unrecoverable. I do wonder if BP will now roll out acoustic switches, or other fail safes on their own or if they will actually require government coersion to do it.

Cool. I'll check this out. Thanks.

Thanks guys. To be more clear, I was asking about the conjunction of immortaliy and the lack of pain - in other words, removing all the unpleasantness from our mortal lives. This assumes that death is bad. Pain is bad. Hate is bad. So if we remove all of these negatives, we should end up with immortality and nothing but happiness and contentment. My challenge to that was that it would be a worthless existence. How would you understand and appreciate pleasure, if you didn't know what pain felt like? How could understand and appreciate life, if you didn't die? It was to that appeal, that he essentially shrugged his shoulders and asked why it's necessary to appreciate such things. What is the benefit from appreciating happiness and immortality? Who cares if we don't understand happiness because we've never experienced pain? What does that really matter? That's where my assumptions have stranded me. Yeah, your post captures the idea. Interesting too, because he loves to complain. I'll bet he could identify with this.

So my teenager is lamenting about life last night, pondering why we should live life and experience pain and misery when we could just die and be free from it. I shared the whole balance thing..."Without death, life is not precious. Without pain, you can't appreciate pleasure." that sort of thing. But then he returns with questioning the value of that appreciation. Why does it matter if it's not precious? Why is that a point of reason? If we lived forever, without a chance of dying, and without sadness and pain, wouldn't that be better for humans? I scrambled and clawed and managed little more than a punt downfield. It should be easy to counter, but I get the point. I'm making assumptions that I cannot support. Is this whole balance philosophy about death and life, pain and pleasure, love and indifference, really a bunch of hogwash? Wouldn't immortality, freed from all pain or negativite emotion, actually be just fine?

Hey CharonY, great update here. Could I trouble you for a source? I'll google it and see what I can find, but I was hoping to see where you got this. I don't know if the word "correct" is accurate, but certainly "unclear". Mine and Skeptic's disagreement would seem to demonstrate that. While I disagreed with his take, it's not like it was straight forward enough for either of us. If you can have an argument like this about meaning, then the wording isn't very good. The accusations of it is quite shameful. People love to conflate illegal and legal immigration to make it all about white people stepping on minorities. It's liberal romance. Liberating the victim is quite powerful and attractive, even if you have to make it up. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged

It's not obvious, as others are reading it the exact same way. That's why I provided the link, twice now, just to one such source. They're all over. And the reasoning matches mine identically. I don't think you're absorbing the circular logic you have to accept to read it your way. The key is this: only the Arizona immigration status law requires some kind of lawful contact before initiating reasonable suspicion to query immigration status. Soak that in for a second. That's what creates the one-way street here. "FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE.." - that happens first. The rest of the verbiage is held by this condition. I say it has to be any law, but not the status of illegal immigrant. You say it could be for suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. "..WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS.." - happens second. It is dependent and subordinate to the first 5 words about lawful contact. You are not allowed to "reasonably suspect illegal immigration status" until lawful contact is already made. Because some kind of lawful contact has to be made *before* you can initiate the process of reasonably suspecting their illegal status and then querying for it, means it cannot be illegal immigration suspicion that initiates lawful contact - some other lawful contact would have had to come before that. And it doesn't matter what it is, that's why they're wording it that way. No other law requires that you already have made lawful contact before you can begin initiating "reasonable suspicion" processing. All other laws are empowered by their own reasonable suspicion excuses to detain a citizen. Not this Arizona piece. They will always be suspected of two crimes, one of them being an illegal citizen.

Exactly. That's why when they are detained, if I ascertain they are an immigrant, then why can't I check their status? So long as it's instantaneous, that is. I guess what bothers me is that we're acting like there is absolutely no scenario that could exist that would legitimate the act of checking someone's immigrant status. Why issue green cards at all if there's no such thing as checking it? Why have an immigration authority if we're never allowed to check with them about someone? And actually, if we want to move on to immigration reform, I'd like to come up with a system that doesn't rely on citizens carrying a damn thing. It may not show, but I am bothered by that. I'm bothered that people think I should have ID when I walk around my block, or go for a jog. Just because it's not a popular problem for people to leave the home without their wallets, doesn't mean we can view anonymity as antiquated. So, I'm working within the current structure of immigration law and I see no issue with Arizona's law. In the bigger picture, I would like to see a clever solution that doesn't rely on citizens having paper work, with directives that they should carry a card with them everywhere they go. I'm not sure what that is, but I think a militarized border could be a start. It's a legitimate concern. And my previous source I linked, talks about that sort of thing in general: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGZjZmY3OThiZWJkYTNiMDI4NzM4MGZiOTNhOTMzMzU= I don't think that is a reply to your concern, but it certainly demonstrates that this isn't an isolated concern unique to any particular law. "..a reasonable attempt should be made, when practicable..." doesn't exactly create the kind of limit I'd prefer, but that's absolutely nothing new to legalease. And, if this part is true, federal law agrees with my view above: So, federal law may actually agree with my precarious language based initiation of immigrant status query during the act of detention for another offense - but Arizona definitely does not. Or, at least according that article, which is an opinion piece.

I don't know. Because we don't know, does that mean we can make up shit instead? Ok, I'll go first. I think they'll dress in white cloaks and pointy hats and torture children on the side of the road. Next? And hanging out in front of a convenience store at 3 AM with a mask and gloves on in the summertime is legal too, but it's reasonable suspicion as well. It shouldn't be too hard to imagine a better logical scenario though. Like people locked in the trunk of the vehicle. My English example likely wouldn't fly, even though I'd personally use it to judge whether or not I'm talking to an immigrant. I doubt I'm the only one that uses English knowledge and dialect as a clue to someone being an immigrant. I usually say something like, "where are you from?" followed by "how do you like it here?" and maybe even a "what's it like where you're from?". Common sense and decency. It's not hard.

Read my post please. None of that was about the Arizona law. Now, let's read the law: "For any lawful contact made..." precedes "...where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present..." Lawful contact has to begin before the process of reasonably suspecting illegal immigration status. So lawful contact could not therefore be a result of reasonably suspecting an illegal alien, because the act of suspecting illegal aliens has to happen after a lawful contact. Like I said, I don't believe circular logic is a feature of law. Of course, I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so. Regardless, I still have to consider reasonable suspicion for illegal immigration as something other than baseless racist charges. What if an undercover operative overhears someone say, "thank you for smuggling me and my family across the border"? Gee, that's very reasonable suspicion to me.

Ok, then if that flies then apparently we now have incontrovertible evidence that CNN, MSNBC, ABC and etc - all of them are officially liberal now. They each have liberal commentators making political statements on TV with their company's logo clearly plastered in digital glory. So, now that we have officially determined they are liberal news outlets, let's talk about that conflict of interest and how they, also, are not real news networks. Also, Fox would be the only conservative biased news outlet, which makes them more important for "balance" than ever before. Yes, let's expore this "pretty" logic. To be a real news network, Fox News has to *not* cover the tea party at the Alamo? ....because Glen Beck is involved with it? And that's how they achieve "real news network", by *not* covering news? Seriously? Are they supposed to fire Glen Beck, send him back to CNN where CNN won't cover Glen and the tea party so that Fox news can be a real news network? What would that make CNN? Yeah, that logic isn't passing the common sense test. Why don't you tell us what Fox News is supposed to do - to be a real news network - that doesn't involve ignoring news? Or doesn't involve bullying one of their commentators into not exercising his right to free speech and organizing protest. They are a news organization. Their model is something altogether new that the traditionalists have yet to understand or get a handle on. Rather than dragging us back to the antiquated past, how about we move along into the 21st century? Here in the now, we don't subscribe to the preposterous joke of "objective journalism" that causes so much harm due to it's false premise. Of course, this is more of a devil's advocate post, as I'm not fond of Fox News that much. But that's more about their website and their treatment of "fringe" candidates.

No, I can't. And because you and I can't think of one, doesn't mean they are going to use invalid racist ones. Why is this so hard to understand? I know you want to pretend they're racist thugs, just like the tea partiers, just like the Bush administration and Katrina, it's the left's catch-all card - but you've got zero evidence or supporting logic.

Ok, even if the law employs circular logic - which it doesn't - you still haven't made the case for any exception at all. We do this already. Every crime can qualify for reasonable suspicion on the part of a suspect. Where is the problem at? You have to make a leap of faith that they will use skin color and other irrational, racist methods - which do not pass for reasonable suspicion - simply because your imagination cannot conjure a valid form of suspicion. In other words, your aversion is the result of your own lack of imagination and ability to think of a justifiable scenario - not for any other reason at all. Nothing in the law okay's racial profiling, or even suggests it. And I think that's what frustrates everyone the most. Which brings me to the same question that receives the same silence as asking for reasonable suspicion for illegal immigration: Where does this law make it ok to stop people because they look mexican?

It was already illegal. Maybe not at the state level, but certainly at the federal level. And the law specifically states that lawful contact already has to be in progress before illegal immigration inquiry can then be made. You wouldn't know if they were in the act of committing illegal immigration on the count of being an illegal immigrant in order to make a lawful contact, or Terry stop, to see if they're an illegal immigrant. Circular logic doesn't strike me as a feature here. And again, that's where the question about "reasonable suspicion" continues to hang in suspense. It's my contention that it can stay in suspense because the law doesn't invoke such a thing. In any case, absence of an answer to that question doesn't mean we get to fill in the blanks ourselves and conclude they're racists or nazi's.

How about a lack of understanding of basic English? This could suggest the possibility of being an immigrant, as opposed to a natural born citizen. That does not use skin color, or physical features of any kind, yet is plausible enough to provide "reasonable suspicion" when already detained and identified for another crime. A legal citizen will likely have a working knowledge of english. Here's an interesting bit: http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MGZjZmY3OThiZWJkYTNiMDI4NzM4MGZiOTNhOTMzMzU= And here's a meaningful observation and distinction from federal law: