US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1255

On August 28 2014 00:44 Millitron wrote:
Voting, speaking, and owning guns are all rights, you should be VERY careful when you try to regulate them.

On August 27 2014 15:13 GreenHorizons wrote:
Now if I hear a bump in the night don't get me wrong, I am grabbing my glock (and an edged weapon).

On August 28 2014 03:20 Yoav wrote:


These are not on the same order. Voting and speaking are essential rights in a democracy; hell, they're what defines democracy. Weapon rights are historically important to the development of democracy, but are not the be all and end of all. The UK hasn't lost its democracy license for (pretty nearly) banning guns the way they would have if they had implemented even pretty mild restrictions on speech or voting.



Anybody else read this and imagine Horizons dual wielding Glock/Katana?

A film producer who was in Beverly Hills to attend a pre-Emmy party Friday night was handcuffed and detained for about six hours before authorities investigating a nearby bank robbery realized they had the wrong man.

“I get that the Beverly Hills Police Department didn’t know that I was a well educated American citizen that had received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Southern California, an MBA from Indiana University … and an executive leadership certificate from Harvard Business School,” Belk’s statement read. “Hey, I was ‘tall,’ ‘bald,’ a ‘male’ and ‘black,’ so I fit the description.”

Belk wrote that he was not initially told why he was being detained.

“Within an hour, I was transported to the Beverly Hills Police Headquarters, photographed, fingerprinted and put under a $100,000 bail and accused of armed bank robbery and accessory to robbery of a Citibank,” Belk said in the statement.

Belk also said he was not allowed to make a phone call and was denied the opportunity to speak to his lawyer for a lengthy time.

“What I don’t get … is why, during the 45 minutes that they had me on the curb, handcuffed in the sun, before they locked me up and took away my civil rights, that they could not simply review the ATM and bank’s HD video footage to clearly see that the ‘tall, bald-headed, black male’ … did not fit MY description,” Belk’s statement read.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress.

In preparation for this agreement, to be signed at a United Nations summit meeting in 2015 in Paris, the negotiators are meeting with diplomats from other countries to broker a deal to commit some of the world’s largest economies to enact laws to reduce their carbon pollution. But under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.

To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path.

On August 28 2014 03:20 Yoav wrote:


These are not on the same order. Voting and speaking are essential rights in a democracy; hell, they're what defines democracy. Weapon rights are historically important to the development of democracy, but are not the be all and end of all. The UK hasn't lost its democracy license for (pretty nearly) banning guns the way they would have if they had implemented even pretty mild restrictions on speech or voting.



Anybody else read this and imagine Horizons dual wielding Glock/Katana?

On August 28 2014 01:05 Millitron wrote:

Voting being too easy skews the balance of power among political demographics. If absolutely everyone can vote, only populists have a chance, and populists are practically synonymous with lynch mob members. Jim Crowe laws had populist support. The Spanish-American War had populist support. After the sinking of the USS Maine (which turned out to not be Spain's fault), the public was thirsty for Spanish blood. Every communist revolution that turned violent had populist support.

Populism is rule by emotion.

I don't think you realize how threatening the vote can be.

On August 28 2014 10:47 IgnE wrote:


I don't think you realize how incredibly wrong your characterization of those events were. Vietnam wasn't put to a vote, and neither was WW1. While many history books cite plenty of "popular support" for the wars (at least at the beginning) there actually isn't as much evidence for that support as you would think. There is also plenty of evidence that is ignored in the mainstream media and common historical narrative that there was significant opposition to those wars.

The Spanish American War, in particular, is a terrible example. The McKinley administration was looking for war with Spain, and rushed into it so that they could replace collapsing Spanish influence in Cuba rather than let Cuban revolutionary forces emerge victorious and establish an independent Cuba. Despite Congress passing the Teller amendment, which pledged that the US would not annex Cuba, business and other special interests were soon clamoring for American intervention, as multiple articles in the Journal of Commerce from around 1898 illustrate. It was certain influential newspapers, backed by these interests, who were pushing hard for American involvement, and lend the appearance of great popular support. That's what is written in the history books taught in American schools at least. But there are no public opinion surveys from the era, which could substantiate these claims. American labor unions and anti-interventionist populist groups supported the Cuban revolutionaries and opposed American annexation of new territories (Hawaii, see also the Teller amendment, above). It was only after war was declared, and after months of hawkish media attention that popular opinion really embraced the war effort. It is no surprise then, that after the war was won, Americans began taking over railroad, mine, and sugar properties in Cuba either outright, or for cents on the dollar.

I also don't know why you qualified your last sentence, saying that every "communist" revolution that turned violent had populist support. What an inane thing to say. The American revolution had popular support (less than you would think though, as told by the history books in high school) and was very violent. But somehow you are concerned here only with "communist" revolutions. "Communist" revolutions being defined, perhaps, as those revolutions that are not aligned with American interests. The propaganda efforts by the establishment in this country have been manufacturing consent for a long time, and you seem to have completely bought in. The presupposition that populist movements are somehow more "emotional" is particularly absurd. One would think that you prefer fascism to democracy.

On August 28 2014 12:36 Millitron wrote:

The opposition to the wars was there once it started. But before WW1 and Vietnam, there were many who were all about it. And they elected the people who got the US involved. Do you remember the wind-up to the War in Iraq? Populist, emotion-fueled nonsense.

I qualified it with "Communist" because the communist revolutions were all populist uprisings. The Bolshevik Revolution, the Chinese Civil War, the Cuban Revolution specifically were the ones I was thinking of.

Our two-party system is not "Democracy". Both parties are the same when it comes to the big issues, like financial and foreign policy. They squabble over the petty stuff like drug laws and gay marriage, to appear different to the masses. They may as well just be one party.

Partly because of climate change, the U.S. government is protecting 20 types of colorful coral by putting them on the list of threatened species.

As with polar bears, much of the threat to the coral species is because of problems expected in the future due to global warming, said David Bernhart, an endangered-species official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The newly designated coral species are already being hurt by climate change "but not to the point that they are endangered yet," he said.

Climate change is making the oceans warmer, more acidic which encourages coral diseases like bleaching — and those "are the major threats" explaining why the species were put on the threatened list, Bernhart said in a Wednesday conference call.

Other threats include overfishing, runoff from the land, and some coastal construction, but those are lesser, Bernhart said.

“Coral reefs are one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on earth, providing habitat for many marine species,” Eileen Sobeck, NOAA’s assistant administrator for fisheries, said in a statement.
Five species can be found off the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. They include pillar coral, rough cactus coral and three species of star coral. The other 15 are in the Pacific Ocean area near Guam and American Samoa, but not Hawaii.

The agency looked at listing 66 species, but Wednesday listed only 20 for various reasons. All are called threatened, not endangered. Two coral species were already listed.

On August 28 2014 01:05 Millitron wrote:



Populism is rule by emotion.

On August 28 2014 00:44 Millitron wrote:

I'm ok with training as part of the education system. You learn how to exercise your right to vote, why not your right to bear arms?

I'm not ok with training as part of a requirement to own a gun. You don't have to prove you can read to vote, you shouldn't have to prove anything to own a gun either.

I think states should have the right to decide if you need training to carry a gun in public, though I'd prefer that they chose not to require it. Basically I can't see a reason why that shouldn't be up to the state, but I have a preference for which way they go.

But also, accidental gun deaths are pretty much a non-issue, and are actually decreasing.
http://www.nssf.org/PDF/research/IIR_InjuryStatistics2013.pdf
1,441 accidental gun deaths in 1991, ~600 in 2010.


Do you also agree with certification and government classes for voting? How about for speaking?

Voting, speaking, and owning guns are all rights, you should be VERY careful when you try to regulate them. In my opinion, voting and speaking are both more dangerous than guns. The biggest mass shooting in history killed ~80 people. Speaking and voting though, got the United States into every war we've ever fought, including the ones that weren't so smart. 116,000 Americans died in WW1. 58,220 died in Vietnam.

On August 28 2014 12:48 IgnE wrote:
Which is it? Are the people directing the course of the nation, or are the people being led, their consent being manufactured ex post facto by the media, business elite, special interests, and political governing class? Your analysis is schizophrenic.

On August 29 2014 00:56 Nyxisto wrote:

I'm not saying you're wrong but it's not like 'the people' have shown to be super smart about when to go to war and when not to either. It's not like it has taken a lot of effort in the past to sent millions of people into war for all kinds of stupid shit.

Also on democracy: Democracy is more than just voting. It's also about freedom, prosperity and all that kind of stuff. That you can't vote for Stalinists or theocratic nutjobs doesn't make your country less democratic. If it's all about how many choices you have then having a vote about who's head we chop off next would by that definition make a country more democratic. I think one of the strongest indicators on how well a democracy functions is how well it protects their minorities. These groups of people are often the first that can pack their bags when the "true leaders of the people" get into office.

On August 29 2014 00:56 Nyxisto wrote:
If it's all about how many choices you have then having a vote about who's head we chop off next would by that definition make a country more democratic.

On August 29 2014 02:31 Yoav wrote:


Yup. It would. Direct democracy of everything is the most "pure" form of democracy. That's why most of us think some restrictions are in order, without losing democratic essence. First decision is what you vote on. Switzerland has a much more comprehensive list, but everybody agrees its just unwieldy to have people vote on every little thing. That's why we have juries: a theoretically representative sample gets to very much vote on who's head to chop off.

Former Iowa state Senator Kent Sorenson on Wednesday pleaded guilty to accepting bribes to drop his campaign for 2012 presidential candidate Michele Bachmann.

Sorenson, a top aide for Bachmann's campaign at the time, admitted he concealed the money he received from Texas Representative Ron Paul's campaign to switch his support. He pleaded guilty to causing a federal campaign committee submit a false expenditure report and obstruction of justice, StarTribune detailed.

The former Iowa senator said he backed one campaign for the 2012 presidential race. However, beginning October up to December 2011, he admitted that he secretly negotiated with a second party to switch his support in exchange for US$73,000, a Justice Department document said.

Sorenson received US$8,000 every month, according to the Justice Department. The payments went through two firms before Sorenson and his wife received them.

On August 29 2014 03:12 zlefin wrote:
It's not at all clear that electing for anyone is necessary or helpful; rather than using things more resembling juries for everything. There's been some research lately into using something akin to juries for many of the government legislative tasks; typically in a more local level..

A U.S. military test rocket, designed to fly up to 10 times the speed of sound and attack targets anywhere in the world in under an hour, failed spectacularly this week just after taking off from a site on Alaska’s Kodiak Peninsula.

The setback comes as China and perhaps Russia have forged ahead with their own versions, defense research agency IHS Jane’s reported. With some support in the U.S. Congress, the Pentagon has been working on these new rockets for a decade. Analysts say the weapons have the potential to shake up the balance of military might and missile defense among Washington, Beijing and Moscow.

"Due to an anomaly, the test was terminated near the launchpad shortly after liftoff to ensure public safety. There were no injuries to any personnel," the Department of Defense said in a news release.

Officials were overseeing the test remotely when they blew up the rocket after detecting an unspecified problem, Reuters reported. Alaska radio station KMXT cited witnesses as saying the rocket started a nosedive before it exploded.

The hypersonic rocket could give the U.S. military more options when a chance to strike an enemy arises and when no drone, aircraft carrier or other piece of military hardware is nearby, said Elbridge Colby, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank.