on PolicyMic
Lampros Liontos I think the term was originally meant to refer to the feminists who are more for female superiority than female equality.
Lampros Liontos That was kinda my point.
Lampros Liontos If the states really wanted to make sure people were represented accurately, they would ditch the plurality vote system and use another one, like Approval or Instant Runoff.
Lampros Liontos On an unrelated tangent, it is amusing that the threat is to release hostages.
Lampros Liontos I don't know if I like this. On the one hand, I support Anonymous's efforts against the increasing intrusions of the State. On the other hand, this could trigger heavy crackdowns under the claim that "we do not negotiate with terrorists."
Lampros Liontos Isn't that kind of the whole point of this site?
Lampros Liontos Out of curiosity, what do you mean by waxing political?
Lampros Liontos The root cause is simply the victim and entitlement mentalities. When you're a victim, the authorities are responsible for protecting you. When you're entitled, the authorities are responsible for taking care of you. Some people will just accept it when the "authorities" let them down and wait for the "authorities" to pick the ball back up. If this disappointment happens enough, even the most patient will eventually snap, and do harm either to themselves or others. This is not to say that there aren't legitimate cases of actual mental illnesses, but the bulk of the issue comes from the buildup of pressure in many people caused by unrealistic societal restrictions, as well as a lack of responsibility, self-respect, and self-motivation.
Lampros Liontos Poorly trained? If teachers will be carrying weapons around children, don't you think that the job would include weapons training, as well as a license requirement? There are special drivers' licenses for people who drive school buses, don't you think that heat-packing teachers would also be required to carry a specialized gun license for school use in order to carry on premises?
Lampros Liontos I dunno about you, but having armed teachers in a school sounds like an excellent idea. What better way to protect your kids than to have their instructors armed and ready to prevent calamities from occurring, or at least ready to stop assailants cold when they attempt to start something? It wouldn't be any different than having an armed cop watching over your children against threats... except that the "cop" would be in the school, IN THE CLASSROOM with your children the whole time. And having students trained to handle and respect weapons would: 1. reduce the number of careless incidents in the home, 2. encourage wisdom in using the weapons (less temptation), and 3. ensure they grow up knowing they can protect themselves if need be.
Lampros Liontos Teaching them how to use and respect a firearm comes to mind. The former for your own children's protection, and the latter for the protection of others.
Lampros Liontos It's actually quite simple: Moral decay is the result of generations of offloading responsibility to a centralized "authority." At first, the laws are made. The people who previously had to be careful not to allow themselves to be harmed or taken advantage of can now relax, because it's out of their hands. They still have the knowledge of responsibility, because they grew up with it, and so can still protect themselves when the chips are down. Their children, however, never knew another way, never developed the necessary skills and responsibilities, and take the centralized "authority" for granted, and then wonder why that "authority" let them down time and again. Morality is breaking down because it was outsourced to a committee.
Lampros Liontos I've watched labels become entrenched in the past. As an anarchist and a hacker, I'm rather dismayed at society's branding me as a digital terrorist with a penchant for viruses and system intrusion. Sometimes, you just have to accept that a name has become tainted, or find a way to use the taint in the name to your advantage (I tend to use them for shock value). But raging against the taint isn't going to make it go away, and all the energy you could spend focusing on the problem is being wasted on defending the label.
Lampros Liontos Tex messages are messages written using the TeX typesetting system. Those messages have excellent support for math symbols. ;)
Lampros Liontos And why does it work if people are engaged enough to know better?
Lampros Liontos Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, but most of the rhetoric I've heard this election season has not been about how Romney or Obama is going to improve things, but how much worse things will be if the opposition gets into office, so while it may not cover everyone, it covers a good majority of the population.
Lampros Liontos Democrats vote to keep Republicans out of office. Republicans vote to keep Democrats out of office. Independents vote on name and face recognition (whoever they've seen more in the last 4 years is more recognizable to them). Third parties will vote against whichever of the two parties is more reprehensible because they're terrified of "throwing away the vote." Truth of the matter, there are two reasons people vote: to keep who they find most reprehensible out of office, or because they don't care enough to get involved, and just pick a name they recognize so that they can say they voted. The latter is, by the way, why incumbents tend to have a massive advantage in elections.
Lampros Liontos The bulk of people didn't vote for Obama because they supported Obama. They did so because they did not want Romney. Obama wasn't the best choice, he was the lesser of two evils. And, more importantly, the evil you know. Considering that Romney could be Kerry's soulmate where flip-flopping is concerned, there's no telling whether the horrors he would unleash would be any less than the ones Obama's already unleashed.
Lampros Liontos That's because people who do the right thing have a disadvantage against someone who does what it takes to get elected.
Lampros Liontos I might like to add at this point that "social change" was not the government's purpose. Its purpose was to prevent anti-social behavior, such as theft, murder, rape, and so on. These things can pass because there's no need for compromise; the overwhelming majority (or even the unanimity) of people in the nation agree these things are absolutely wrong. To go further, in order to enact "social change," you have to enforce it on those who don't want to change. Where violence is concerned (abovementioned anti-social behavior), such enforcement is expected. But if the social change is not a result of stopping violent behavior, then it becomes a question of consent, without which enforcement becomes violent behavior itself.
Lampros Liontos From what I can tell, they felt more that change would happen on the individual level, not the social level; after all, the whole point of the United States was an experiment in "Self-government." The existance of a centralized government was simply for the purpose of guaranteeing that people would not lose their freedoms to other people.
Lampros Liontos At this point, we are existing in a time of unparalleled cooperation in the history of the United States, and we can look forward to the eventual extermination of the very conflict that kept us free.
Lampros Liontos In the intervening years, however, things started to change. Thanks to Lincoln's attempt to "preserve" the union by force, the States lost their sovereignty. Thanks to the continued drive for popular vote for everything, as well as the overwhelming power that television had on the apathetic, the participants of the system narrowed down to two groups of people who proceeded to gain control of the apparatus of conflict. Thanks to the reaction to 9/11, the previously-conflicting branches of government started to coalesce around the Office of the President.
Lampros Liontos The point of the Federal government was to ensure that this was possible, that a state could not lock down its borders against emigration. The reason for multiple branches of government was to ensure that each law got constantly reviewed and refined to prevent abusive results, to ensure that people remained free to live their lives as they felt proper.
Lampros Liontos The reason for all the conflict originally was to ensure that all voices were heard in the making of policy, and that nothing would get done unless there was sufficient consensus among all the affected parties that people would not be left out in the cold. This ensured that we would remain free to decide our own fates. The reason that states were left to be sovereign over their respective lands were to ensure that people who found one state's laws too onerous could relocate to another state in the hopes that they would find a better fit to their philosophy.
on PolicyMic
Lampros Liontos I think the term was originally meant to refer to the feminists who are more for female superiority than female equality.
Lampros Liontos That was kinda my point.
Lampros Liontos If the states really wanted to make sure people were represented accurately, they would ditch the plurality vote system and use another one, like Approval or Instant Runoff.
Lampros Liontos On an unrelated tangent, it is amusing that the threat is to release hostages.
Lampros Liontos I don't know if I like this. On the one hand, I support Anonymous's efforts against the increasing intrusions of the State. On the other hand, this could trigger heavy crackdowns under the claim that "we do not negotiate with terrorists."
Lampros Liontos Isn't that kind of the whole point of this site?
Lampros Liontos Out of curiosity, what do you mean by waxing political?
Lampros Liontos The root cause is simply the victim and entitlement mentalities. When you're a victim, the authorities are responsible for protecting you. When you're entitled, the authorities are responsible for taking care of you. Some people will just accept it when the "authorities" let them down and wait for the "authorities" to pick the ball back up. If this disappointment happens enough, even the most patient will eventually snap, and do harm either to themselves or others. This is not to say that there aren't legitimate cases of actual mental illnesses, but the bulk of the issue comes from the buildup of pressure in many people caused by unrealistic societal restrictions, as well as a lack of responsibility, self-respect, and self-motivation.
Lampros Liontos Poorly trained? If teachers will be carrying weapons around children, don't you think that the job would include weapons training, as well as a license requirement? There are special drivers' licenses for people who drive school buses, don't you think that heat-packing teachers would also be required to carry a specialized gun license for school use in order to carry on premises?
Lampros Liontos I dunno about you, but having armed teachers in a school sounds like an excellent idea. What better way to protect your kids than to have their instructors armed and ready to prevent calamities from occurring, or at least ready to stop assailants cold when they attempt to start something? It wouldn't be any different than having an armed cop watching over your children against threats... except that the "cop" would be in the school, IN THE CLASSROOM with your children the whole time. And having students trained to handle and respect weapons would: 1. reduce the number of careless incidents in the home, 2. encourage wisdom in using the weapons (less temptation), and 3. ensure they grow up knowing they can protect themselves if need be.
Lampros Liontos Teaching them how to use and respect a firearm comes to mind. The former for your own children's protection, and the latter for the protection of others.
Lampros Liontos It's actually quite simple: Moral decay is the result of generations of offloading responsibility to a centralized "authority." At first, the laws are made. The people who previously had to be careful not to allow themselves to be harmed or taken advantage of can now relax, because it's out of their hands. They still have the knowledge of responsibility, because they grew up with it, and so can still protect themselves when the chips are down. Their children, however, never knew another way, never developed the necessary skills and responsibilities, and take the centralized "authority" for granted, and then wonder why that "authority" let them down time and again. Morality is breaking down because it was outsourced to a committee.
Lampros Liontos I've watched labels become entrenched in the past. As an anarchist and a hacker, I'm rather dismayed at society's branding me as a digital terrorist with a penchant for viruses and system intrusion. Sometimes, you just have to accept that a name has become tainted, or find a way to use the taint in the name to your advantage (I tend to use them for shock value). But raging against the taint isn't going to make it go away, and all the energy you could spend focusing on the problem is being wasted on defending the label.
Lampros Liontos Tex messages are messages written using the TeX typesetting system. Those messages have excellent support for math symbols. ;)
Lampros Liontos And why does it work if people are engaged enough to know better?
Lampros Liontos Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, but most of the rhetoric I've heard this election season has not been about how Romney or Obama is going to improve things, but how much worse things will be if the opposition gets into office, so while it may not cover everyone, it covers a good majority of the population.
Lampros Liontos Democrats vote to keep Republicans out of office. Republicans vote to keep Democrats out of office. Independents vote on name and face recognition (whoever they've seen more in the last 4 years is more recognizable to them). Third parties will vote against whichever of the two parties is more reprehensible because they're terrified of "throwing away the vote." Truth of the matter, there are two reasons people vote: to keep who they find most reprehensible out of office, or because they don't care enough to get involved, and just pick a name they recognize so that they can say they voted. The latter is, by the way, why incumbents tend to have a massive advantage in elections.
Lampros Liontos The bulk of people didn't vote for Obama because they supported Obama. They did so because they did not want Romney. Obama wasn't the best choice, he was the lesser of two evils. And, more importantly, the evil you know. Considering that Romney could be Kerry's soulmate where flip-flopping is concerned, there's no telling whether the horrors he would unleash would be any less than the ones Obama's already unleashed.
Lampros Liontos That's because people who do the right thing have a disadvantage against someone who does what it takes to get elected.
Lampros Liontos I might like to add at this point that "social change" was not the government's purpose. Its purpose was to prevent anti-social behavior, such as theft, murder, rape, and so on. These things can pass because there's no need for compromise; the overwhelming majority (or even the unanimity) of people in the nation agree these things are absolutely wrong. To go further, in order to enact "social change," you have to enforce it on those who don't want to change. Where violence is concerned (abovementioned anti-social behavior), such enforcement is expected. But if the social change is not a result of stopping violent behavior, then it becomes a question of consent, without which enforcement becomes violent behavior itself.
Lampros Liontos From what I can tell, they felt more that change would happen on the individual level, not the social level; after all, the whole point of the United States was an experiment in "Self-government." The existance of a centralized government was simply for the purpose of guaranteeing that people would not lose their freedoms to other people.
Lampros Liontos At this point, we are existing in a time of unparalleled cooperation in the history of the United States, and we can look forward to the eventual extermination of the very conflict that kept us free.
Lampros Liontos In the intervening years, however, things started to change. Thanks to Lincoln's attempt to "preserve" the union by force, the States lost their sovereignty. Thanks to the continued drive for popular vote for everything, as well as the overwhelming power that television had on the apathetic, the participants of the system narrowed down to two groups of people who proceeded to gain control of the apparatus of conflict. Thanks to the reaction to 9/11, the previously-conflicting branches of government started to coalesce around the Office of the President.
Lampros Liontos The point of the Federal government was to ensure that this was possible, that a state could not lock down its borders against emigration. The reason for multiple branches of government was to ensure that each law got constantly reviewed and refined to prevent abusive results, to ensure that people remained free to live their lives as they felt proper.
Lampros Liontos The reason for all the conflict originally was to ensure that all voices were heard in the making of policy, and that nothing would get done unless there was sufficient consensus among all the affected parties that people would not be left out in the cold. This ensured that we would remain free to decide our own fates. The reason that states were left to be sovereign over their respective lands were to ensure that people who found one state's laws too onerous could relocate to another state in the hopes that they would find a better fit to their philosophy.