ParanoiA

I realize raking a democrat over the coals for doing something you support is tough to take without pointing out "the other guy". I don't believe for a minute it's because I called it an "open and shut case". That's externalizing your error. The thread was clear, my post was clear, but it invokes the partisan competition psychology and you're only human. No offense. Seriously. Look at the threads created here about those damn republicans and the tea party. There's a lot of time spent fielding partisan team logic in all of them. I fully expected it here too, even though I acted surprised. To your other point, we do know because he followed up with: "I don't know". So he doesn't worry about the constitution, and he doesn't know. And there have been some good examples in this thread demonstrating how innocuous those phrases could be - and this doesn't match any of them. Keeping within context, he clearly doesn't worry about the constitution nor doesn't know if it's allowed, and clearly doesn't care. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I agree, but I've seen no evidence to make it impeachment worthy. Same with the healthcare bill. We've had this discussion before, on GWB, and how political prosecution poisons and arrests government. Like it or not, violations of sworn oath is more a matter of intent than outcome. If someone truly believes they are acting in the spirit of the constitution, then I don't see how you can prosecute with a clear conscience. That person's intent matches that of a constitutional intent. They are the same. One is merely wrong in the eyes of the supreme court, or the people. People, even lawmakers, legally deserve the right to be wrong. No one should be held to a standard that mandates perfection to avoid prosecution. If that were the case, the republicans would be seeking charges against every legislator that voted for that bill.

Yeah...I don't know why I have to keep saying this...again, this thread isn't about pointing fingers at unconstitutional lawmaking - that's subjective. This thread is about glorious self incrimination by one's own mouth. Got any examples of lawmakers saying they don't care about what they're paid to care about? It's just obvious. If your job is to take care of kids and you don't care about kids...uh, you shouldn't be taking care of kids. Right? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Of course, that would be the association fallacy. I included that it "helps" validate suspicions from constitutional admirers like myself. A bit of a wiggle word, I'll admit, but I was trying to speak about perception. For instance, Rush Limbaugh could be said to validate prejudices. That's a statement about the perception listeners might have - it's not a bubbly statement about how correct Rush is about prejudices. Right now, that video serves to validate the suspicions I, and other constitutional types, have about the democratic party. Shit man, I don't know which is worse - but you're not really trying to make excuses for willfully violating the constitution are you? Both parties are guilty of doing it out of ignorance. The healthcare bill is one, and warrantless wiretaps another. But that's still pretty subjective stuff. To prosecute such a thing is exactly how to bring down the empire. People are free to be ignorant, including lawmakers. But they aren't free to knowingly break the law, including lawmakers. No matter which is worse.

Yeah, I'm perfectly aware of what the "other team" is doing... Again...I'm talking about blatant statements in complete defiance to their oath. Like a law enforcement officer claiming "I don't care what the law says". Wouldn't you say he's in the wrong line of work then? And isn't that so fundamental that to rationalize around it is practically a psychological experiment worthy of study? Aren't you the least bit fascinated by your own mind to reach for an excuse for that?

Oh, but even democrats believe going to war with a resolution - passed by congress - is the same thing as declaring war. Warrentless wiretaps though..I'm not sure I've heard that one explained. You may be right. Fair enough. I'm not an activist so I can certainly be reasonable. Uh oh, you must have replied to the wrong thread. This one is about elected officials that are sworn into office to uphold the constitution and then turn right around and say they don't care what it says. It's perfectly cool not to care what is says mind you - but not when caring about it is your freaking job. Sounds like a flop in career choice for Mr. Hare. Hmmm...does this statement I made in the OP sound like that up there? Seems pretty obvious to me I'm saying that republicans are just as guilty, but of different charges. They don't get charged with "not caring what it says" - instead, they get charged with "delusionally believing it says what they say". And this thread is about "not caring what it says". "Not caring what it says" is against their oath of upholding what it says. It's directly contradictory to their job. You can't even pretend or delude yourself into believing that's ok. Or at least I haven't met someone with that kind of talent yet. In very simple terms. If your job is to...say, pick up trash...and you don't care about picking up trash...then, uh...that shouldn't be your job then...should it?

I'm sure everyone's probably heard of this or has seen this clip. This accidental slip of the truth helps to validate suspicions many of us Constitutional types have long suspected out of the democratic party. (And to be fair, it's not that republicans are off the hook, it's that republicans do what they do and actually believe the constitution supports them. So, they manage to escape blatant dismissal of our founding document.) So, Phil Hare doesn't care what the constitution says. Yet, he took an oath to uphold it. Shouldn't he be impeached? And removed from office, never allowed to return? Isn't this open and shut? Granted, he'll likely lose his reelection bid, but shouldn't we the people insist on making an example out of him? To be clear, the message is not "ha, we don't like yer socialist gov'ment so get on outta here" - the message is "you are expected to at least believe you are upholding your sworn oath". In other words, I'm not advocating political criminality like we got with GWB, I'm advocating punishing any leader that violates their oath.

Yes, 1% easily makes that difference. Brain chemistry is responsible for this, is it not? Isn't that where the "person" resides? And when we analyze the brain, and break down its various functions and where they are found - will we find a greater than 1% difference? You might jump and say yes, but consider all the functions the brain performs without conscious awareness. Nature is buried in there. For instance, isn't it believed that what we find attractive in a mate has evolutionary originations? That I like certain features because of what it represents in the form of procreation advantages? Isn't that part of our nature? We have a tendency to think of the person as the consciousness, I think and of course, we all have different ideas and opinions and life experiences and we think we're uber unique. While I grant we are unique ultimately, there is more to the person and their nature that their conscious thought processes - and even those thoughts aren't all that unique. We find pieces of our beliefs and thoughts in others too - just scattered around. We are only unique in terms of our particular "group" of thoughts. Considering the whole, no I don't see too much difference in nature between people at all. In casual conversation, I would never make such a statement. But with "STFU" and "FOAD" at the suggestion of sharing nature - I thought it was important.

No, I agree with the whole "government subsidy justifies regulation" concept, as I posted when Pangloss first brought it up. I just want things as free as possible so I don't care. I don't want them to have government money. I don't agree with that. They deserve nothing from tax payers, they should earn their money from consumers. This arrangement is created by government intervention to regulate a monopoly - when at&t was busted up in 1981. So, they're both guilty and neither has firm ground to stand on, in my mind. But all that said, I still want people to be as free as possible, whether they're running a business or surfing the net. I don't want government swooping in a "cleaning" it all up - "protecting" us from sites like Wikileaks and demanding that servers block content and information that is "dangerous" to the citizenry. This goes back to the human nature thread. Controlling information is the first step to controlling the masses. Why do you think human kind is done controlling the masses tyrannically and nefariously? Remember, any corporation can be checked with law, but government can only be checked with blood. Why give the entity with the biggest weapons the most power? You're demonstrating an almost infinite degree of trust in government - what exactly have you observed in our history that earns such trust?

Well, I was taking his last post on the matter. You appeared to be taking issue with a much earlier post of his. From what I can tell, he's posted several times since then, but this is the point you argued: That's the post you used to respond to. But like I said, I understand and you're certainly right, the two are somewhat conflated at this point. Sure, but that doesn't strike me as disingenuous. Obviously he's crystalizing his position, and flexing to the demands of the information. I too have had to pay more attention to my verbiage as my knowledge expands. I don't think so, they are not synonymous. I think you can query human nature by observing human behavior, but I do not think they are equal. Behavior can be modified, but it doesn't mean our nature has been modified. I agree with JohnB above, and I think his examples illustrate the point well. Local human behavior can be misleading - such as assuming we're done controlling people merely because we do it in a different way. This is why I brought up the notion of quantifying our nature. By observing behavior past and present, do we have the information necessary to do a comparison and objectively measure a difference, positive or negative? And is that even valid? I'm not sure quantifying behavior by incident really means anything to nature either, actually. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Oh BS. We're 99% the same. We just focus on the 1% because our ego demands it. Actually, it would be nice to find an actual figure on that. I'm not convinced our brain chemistry makes us so different we can claim to be all that different. We are biologically unique to be sure, as I'm sure every organism is ultimately, while sharing the exact same parts and processes.

I suppose I could at least see consistency with cable companies operating as ISP's being forced into common carrier laws, because of the facility monopoly - but I don't agree with a blanket assumption on all ISPs and I haven't yet seen any reason why suddenly contracts aren't "fair" for this industry, yet are just fine for the rest of the free market. I'm never going to sign on trampling the rights of businesses just because we're too lazy to read our contracts. Tyranny made necessary by laziness? I don't think so. If they violate a contract, get them. Step on the rights of every business dude trying to do an ISP business because of irrational corporate contract fear? No way.

Toasty, you seem to be equating human nature with human behavior. I thought jryan already made the point that behaviors will fluctuate but the nature of man will not. For instance: Yes, we still eat meat by killing, not by synthesis. Yes, we watch the news forecast and if rain isn't likely, crops are watered - we are tool makers. Tool making doesn't change our nature either. Yes, people still use and manipulate their offspring to acquire access to old and new money. Yes, many men still beat and subjugate their women. Right, those are all examples of human behavior - and none of them say anything about the nature of men to desire them. To this day, murder is illegal and we have a hands down, super majority that would agree it should be illegal and will comply - yet men still kill men. Our nature has not changed, despite our best efforts. It's also dishonest to misrepresent his argument as a statement about behavior rather than a statement about nature. I think it was an honest misstep on your part, but you've left no room for modesty when you characterize his statement as "bunch of crap" and calling his argument a "lie". Making tools? Don't misunderstand, I'm not necessarily in agreement with the "there is nothing new under the sun". At this point I just find it curious and there are decent points on both sides of this, really.

Or apparently not any more prescient than the rest of them either. I would guess predicting race wars doesn't suggest a thirst for race wars, but I'm sure that won't stop the accusations of such. Americans never let ignorance stand in the way of drawing a conclusion. Seemed to work pretty well for us until we started with the international value judgements, embargos, unconditional alliances, NATO, the UN - boy that sure has been a blast (pun intended). I'm not seeing how these clubs keep us out of war. I wasn't impressed with him. For 2012, I look for Gingrich. Because Gingrich is a historian and has the ability to articulate legislative and executive detail as well as the big picture. He was doing bipartisan work in 2008 while republican and democratic candidates were talking about it. I think he's in a unique position to appear as the libertarian-ish modeled conservative the republicans could unite with (thinking of the libertarian portion of the tea partiers). I don't get the religio dogma from him, so it makes it easier to trust his vision. Ultimately though, I don't think I could vote for him. I think he's worth a listen and contributes well to a discussion of the issues, but I'm not fond of the current republican ideology, which he represents.

If even one was caught, then it was worth it. Of course there are limitations - and guess what that is Jryan? That's a form of enlightenment. You have further thought out the conclusion of the practice, and questioned it and have determined a deeper conclusion. That's the value of constant literal examination over traditional static conclusions. It's ever changing every day, so if you have a small enough measuring instrument you could see it's happening right now at a micro level. Remember, we notice that humans do the same essential things, but do they do them in the same quantities? You can always find a weirdo in a village, but does that mean that villages are made up of weirdos? It's quite easy to violate the association fallacy here too, by pointing out dictators, wars and other atrocities, despicable human behaviors without quantifiying them. Do we know if this is happening less or more? Or is the change so subtle from generation to generation that we never actually notice it? Or is it exactly the same, or even getting worse and we aren't noticing it? I know this much: there is nothing we have ever observed in nature that would suggest static behavior - nature exterminates such things.

I would like to see any evidence he wrote of the coming race wars. I ask because similar charges have been levelled in the past, and Paul took responsibility for it being in his newsletter, yet made it clear he did not write them and had no knowledge of them. I disagree he is an isolationist. His policy is non-interference and free trade. Exporting liberty by example instead of force. It's weird to tell people you're going to force them to be free of force. But yeah, you're right, his changes aren't even slim really. America is quite fond of its car salesmen. I can't tell if Mitt Romney wants to a seat in the white house or if he wants to put me in a car that's over my monthly budget. I would rather have another term of Obama than see Mitt Romney any where near the white house. The devil you know...

You're focusing on detail - which is not what they're talking about. Zoom way out and engage the very nature of man, and what drives us. One of my favorite all time authors is extremely liberal and points this "there is nothing new under sun" thing out all the time. It's partly based off of the notion that humans still do what we did thousands of years ago - just updated packaging. Only humans would invade Iraq as a pre-emptive strike and act as if this is the first time that's happened - or to pretend as if previous military conquests were not motivated, at least onstensibly, by arguable grievances. We pretend as if humans are done conquering lands and subjugating each other, but we still do it to this day. We seem to try to except ourselves from the momentum of history with our "enlightenment" - and that's what bugs them. And me, for that matter. The liberal reverance for government is the epitome of this exceptance. We see that historically governments are never static - they dynamically grow and grow, rarely shrink, unless they are conquered or spend themselves to death. And they tend to take on more and more power as the society evolves, using appeals to welfare of the society. It's not that enlightment is wrong, like the conservatives want to believe. It's that it is misapplied. We can and should be enlightened about our moral obligations, and be welcome to upgrading our standards of decency to one another, but to delude ourselves into believing, for instance, we can suddenly trust an all powerful government to benevolently rule us for all time is naive by the most kindly of standards. At least, that's what I believe is the point they're trying to make. Thing is, even human nature isn't static. We may be the same as 2000 years ago, in essential behavior and how we justify excusing bad behavior, but even our basic human nature has changed since say, 20,000 years ago. It just appears a permanent feature of man.

Yeah, this is similar to the climate we had for Paul in 2008. For us Paul-ites, this is about the time that the mainstream media is the most kind and humbled and almost appear downright fair in including him and his ideas in the mix. But as short of a memory as I may have, I will not forget how quickly Fox news marginalized him and ignored him when it started to count. Once things get rolling and we're in campaign mode, Paul will be ushered out the back entrance again. And while I will always be a little bitter about it, it's not like I don't appreciate at least a nod to his ideology by the mainstream. To me, he is the hands down statesman that is true to the republican intention. His anti-war stance and negative views on the Federal Reserve don't help matters any and probably keep him from becoming anything more than an interesting showcase item. I do think it would be fun to finally have a dog in the fight and someone to take up for - and answer for - like I'm always doing to you guys. I've had it nice not being on a team really - it would probably do me some good to have to advocate and defend someone.

That's just it though, I don't believe you are not getting the product you were promised. The reason it appears I'm in favor of corporate rights over individuals is because you are using an emotional argument without any appeal to detail, or even any recognition of it. For instance, I've repeatedly pointed out that contractually you have agreed to terms before you get service - you sign something or you agree to a EULA before you are provided any service and charged for it. THAT is your contract - your promise, as you put it for service. The same kind of contract that you'd just as quickly hold someone else accountable for not fulfilling said contract - using the same detail and print. The same agreement all of us are held to when we sign agreements with each other - whether it be two neighbors, or two corporations, or your neighbor and a corporation. Only an emotional appeal would suddenly see the corporate side of that contract as some kind of unfair advantage or increase in rights. If they are not providing the service promised, then we are to appeal to the law for violating a contract. I have no sympathy for violating the contract. And remember, I'm one of the voices that rejected TARP, from both adminstrations, and that money went to big business corporations. I do not hold them in higher esteem than the individual.

No, I could never ask a soldier to give up self preservation. But I am asking them to take a higher risk, I'll certainly admit that. But yeah, if your hand is forced, self preservation is a moral choice to me.

Nah, I've been keeping up with ya. It's just that in the case of them using children, I'm not comfortable concluding that therefore we must err on the side of terror kiddies. I think it better that we accept their cruel advantage and be better - it's harder, and complicates everything and will cost us blood as well, but as the invader and occupier announcing and intending a better life for their country, we must demonstrate a moral reverence for them. That's part of the cost in my mind. You make great points and I do appreciate taking up for the soldiers. I think Phi makes the best, if not depressing, point of focus really about the whole mess in general.

In a way, it's somewhat similar to this presently. AT&T, for instance, is your infrastructure company - that does phone service too - and they are forced to provide common carrier service. AT&T VoIP and ISP services are separate companies, even though they share the brand, and they do not enjoy any special treatment. No sharing of information, customer records, nothing. So, not quite how you propose, but there's at least a resemblance. That said, I like your solution much better. If the infrastructure company - providing the layer 1 and 2 service - was truly separate from the rest then it would all be more transparent and competitive. Good idea. Ah well, we'll just have to agree to disagree I guess. Always fun to go a couple of rounds with ya Dak.

Yes. The phone companies are regulated such that we are forced to resell or lease facilities at predetermined wholesale rates. It's thick with regulatory detail, so it's not as smooth and easy, or even fair, as it could be but we are definitely not allowed to choose favorites or restrict bandwidth to knock out competition. As a matter of fact, we are under specific direction to prioritize Competitive Local Exchange Carrier circuits above all others, including our own. And I believe that is the case for all Incumbent carriers, like AT&T. I guess I just don't understand that though. Back to my burger analogy, if I choose not to add lettuce and tomato to my burgers and it says so on the menu - how am I ripping anyone off? And further, how does anyone reason that the government should force me to include lettuce and tomato? I don't see how that doesn't hold water. That's the basic essence of trade between humans - absent fraud of course. And if it's in the EULA, then it's not fraud. Maybe you didn't want to read it, but that's on you. And it's not like EULA's haven't "screwed" me a time or two. And it's not like I, or anybody else in here, hasn't "screwed" someone else with disclaimers upon a purchase. Maybe we're more used to that here in the states. And we should be, it's the kind of economy that compliments a free republic and it's essentially contracts between citizens - and contracts don't legitimize fraud. So is Directv guilty of restricting content when they charge me for more news channels? They call themselves a satellite TV cable service and they are restricting or disabling parts of that network. Shouldn't we have a cable neutrality law to force them to deliver NFL Redzone (which is kickass by the way)?

Can we be celebrated 200 years from now when owning pets is morally equivalent to owning humans? Actually, the whole confederacy thing is complicated. On the one hand, the moral deficiency of fighting for the right to own people and calling it "personal liberty" is clearly not something to be celebrated. On the other hand, those that fought over the right to secede or as toastywombel pointed out, because the north invaded, is absolutely worth celebrating. It's difficult to separate the two though. If you're fighting over the right of self determination, then you must be simultaneously fighting for the emancipation of the slaves - or else you're still morally deficient and on the wrong side, even if your secession beliefs are noble. I guess in the end I think it's ok, as long as the muddy partitions between slavery, state's rights and personal preservation is realized and we don't lump them all together and indict the whole. The worst thing we can with history is simplify it.

I noticed the same thing! I wondered if it really was a pedestrian or not, if maybe it looked like a passerby. I don't know, it sure looked like someone just walking by to me, completely non-threatening and uninvolved. I didn't understand that.

That's the implication in every business. By that logic, no business has any right to make any choices for itself, since all the consumers own it thus government should run every business. Same with your money too then. Your employer should be able to make economic decisions for you, overriding you, since the money you have came from them when you sold your labor services to them. Technically, everything you own came from money spent hiring your service, that paid for your stuff.