ParanoiA

Here at work we have 2 urinals and 3 stalls, for more serious business. When I have to use one of these stalls, I always choose an outside stall, fully expecting the next potential toilet client to choose the other outside stall - leaving the middle stall for emergency use only. But we have a class of employee here that's just way too damn socially comfortable and will choose the middle stall, even when one of the outside stalls are EMPTY! Why? Why oh why do you do this?!?! Here I am, minding my own business and some a-hole would rather sit close to a half naked man dropping bunker busters in an industrial ceramic bowl, than to sit a few more feet away and create some comfortable distance. Come on, people! No one should have to tell you this is NOT COOL. Just like no one should really have to tell you to wash your creepy hands after using the bathroom, equivalently no one should have to tell you not to violate the man laws of bathroom etiquette - that we are to keep our eyes on the ground, or straight ahead at a wall, and we don't talk until we leave the bathroom, and we don't get close under any circumstances - and if it should happen anyway, we are to act like it is absolutely repulsive. Choosing the middle stall when an outside stall is available is a direct violation of male bathroom law. Really, this should cross gender lines too - why would anyone elect to sit closer to someone else emptying their bowels? Really, why? Are you the guy? Be honest...

You're absolutely right. Except that Obama has provided documentation on his birth certificate and has been accepted by congress. If I remember correctly, the qualification process is the obligation of the congress and even if they abdicate it in practice it does not transfer. He has been stamped as qualified and it's a done deal. And it's an ugly accusation anyway. I have co-workers that cry out "photoshop!" when it's pointed out that he's presented his birth certificate. And it's pathetic, really. I reply that they are not citizens either and can't prove it since all of their documentation is photoshopped as well. It becomes an exercise in teenage logic to do battle by that standard. Obama is a horrible president for more than enough reasons, one doesn't need to perpetuate the ridiculous to counter him - and it makes them look like nut jubs, and that won't help in 2012. That hardly seems fair. He came here to ask, to query and confirm in a political forum full of brilliant minds - to critically reconcile what he read. That's very much a part of the critical thinking process. Not sure he deserves to be scolded to do what he did.

See, I realize that's your take on this, and that Krugman has impressed you enough to take a position on it. But I, and most americans I suspect, cannot. Here's an example. This is a Forbes article written a year ago, How Stimulating is Stimulus? And by some measure, that prediction appears to have happened. GDP went up the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarters of 2009, including the first quarter of 2010, and unemployment has steadily increased over that time as well. Here's the paper referenced in the Forbes article. Don't mistake this for anything close to a proper analysis or rebutall to Krugman by yours truly, as we all know, or should know by now that economics is my achilles heel. However, do take this as further supporting evidence that we, the people, have no particular reason to hang our hat on any particular economist. Unlike Global Warming, we really don't actually have a consensus here - well not for Krugman anyway. I'm not even saying he's wrong, because honestly I don't know. I do know, however, that I could care less how emphatic the virtual room full of economic geniuses are about their theories when they mostly run counter to each other and it's our money at stake and generations of debt repayment. Essentially, I've got a back yard full of drenched plumbers and busted pipes, leaks shooting up in the air while Krugman is insisting I let them tear up my front yard too and if I don't agree then I'm a dumbass. Play those games with your money. Leave the rest of us out of it.

I could be wrong, but I haven't yet heard of a terrorist attack that used a Burqa to hide bombs strapped to someone's head. If you're actually serious about trading yet more freedom for the illusion of security, then you should follow through and ban clothing in public. That's where the bombs are man - strapped to their body. Not their noggin. The Burqa only conceals their gender, not their sinister plot and props to execute it. How can the police determine they have bombs without undressing them? Carrying your logic, our right to wear clothes should be trumped by your apparent right to not be afraid of your own perceptions. Oh, you can still wear head scarves and sunglasses though. The first thing I would do is throw a literal towel over my head, with 3 slits in it, and try to figure out just how I have to wear it before it becomes a Burqa. How far do I raise my scarf over my face before it becomes an offensive, non-person violation of law? I would cover my entire body with a bed sheet and stash a bunch of stuff underneath so you can tell I'm concealing all kinds of things, but leave my face perfectly visible - maybe even make sure some wire is hanging out where someone can see it. I would mock the law for the shallow affront to liberty and common sense that it is.

I'm not sure how far that goes though. For one, they may not even see the light of day at all, now, if their husbands do keep them inside to refute this law. Two, how many wear them for personal comfort (and I don't mean physical comfort) and how many were forced to wear them by their husbands? (For that matter, what gives the state a right to trump the dom-sub relationship here? If my wife enjoys being subservient to me, would France destroy this interface agreement because they find it distasteful? That's what they're doing when they assume control over this very personal choice - they are assuming every woman is a helpless victim if she's wearing a Burqa, without regard to her personal choice to be subservient, or to find comfort in virtually eliminating sexual objectivity via their attire.) Talking about this with folks at work, and now I'm even more offended. In the interests of women denied the right to choose their dress, the state denied their right to choose their dress. And that's...uh...better? Am I in the twilight zone? This is like the guy that saves the damsel in distress that was tied to a tree, only to be tied to a chair so she can't be tied to the tree. And grown ups did this.

Sort of, but I thought the bigger reason was about state representation. Less about balance, and more about orientation. Each state, as its own sovereign entity, being equal by that metric, represented by two senators. Whereas the people were represented as portions of the whole, being equal in proportion to each other, state boundaries largely irrelevant. I don't see it as 25 California reps, but rather 25 reps for the tons of people that just so happen to be located in California. Of course, these reps do have consequences that give advantage to the states, but I think that's largely because we subverted the whole arrangement with the 17th amendment and the way we allocate electoral votes.

So they counter coercion with coercion. Sounds very American. Yeah, it's obviously laced with "good intentions", just like murdering child molesters seems really great, until you realize you're worse than them, or at least equal. Being equal with dirt is not an impressive aspiration. I guess it's good intentions to deny the right to women who find comfort in such things - you just can't have women making their own decisions now can you? Anyone else see the double dip of hypocrisy on this one? And how does society reconcile state hypocrisy like this? Nationwide cognitive dissonance management...or self delusion? Nice to verify we aren't the only ones on the planet that can't follow through on personal liberties and leave people the hell alone. So yeah, it's great. Hey, how about banning long dresses and clothing designed to conceal legs and cleavage next? Men are always pressuring their women to cover up, so maybe France or even the US can save those poor girls and ban the props that make it possible. All girls like to show off their body, just like all girls hate Burqas - all of them.

I know you didn't ask me, but this question seems a bit like asking 'is it better to go faster or slower' - gee I don't know, are you running from an axe murderer or taking a sunday drive? I think it depends on what's going on. I truly believe the amendment process was meant to be utilized much, much more than it has been. It takes a major, majority but that is very possible for many issues. Most of my complaints about Judicial activism and the methods the federal level has used to expand itself, would be deflated if the same changes were done with amendments instead of interpretive circumvention. At least then a justifiable argument could be made that the major, majority of americans have spoken. That argument can't be made at all, as only a seasonal simple majority was required to invoke these careful, incremental nudges and manipulations that lead to a legislatively active judiciary that expanded federal power at the expense of state sovereignty and individual choice without a clear signal from the major majority of the governed. So, yes I agree with Jefferson entirely. If the people want to serve fair masters at the expense of their own liberties then let them say so, outright, without ambiguity and opportunistic machinations - let them speak through their states and pass a constitutionally unassailable amendment. As was intended.

Well, tough for me to understand the detail but very interesting. I wish I could repeat some of this in my own words next time I'm locked into battle!

I thought it was obvious I was playing around a bit. I don't actually talk like that ya' know. I don't even own a blade. Well, a set of bent up butter knives...that's about it. Sure, I'm governed but I don't consent. All that really means is that once a critical mass of folks stop consenting, at some point we stop being governed by you. You'll have to initiate the force, just like Lincoln. I was specifically asked to enumerate the abuses, so that's what I did. I tried to lighten it up a bit by trying to throw some pretentious style in it, but I guess I failed. Ah well.

I understand the logical exercise you're doing, and I'm rejecting it because I don't accept the same low bar that status quo typically affords. You might find that, in comparison, this is awesome prosecution. To me, that only means that the DoJ and voter intimidation lawsuites are terribly prosecuted; that week-kneed political pardons are apparently regularly served up - which makes everyone involved even more guilty. There is no escape from the insult of this case, other than some miracle of proof that it's all doctored video and a conspiracy involving Bartle Bull. Shame. Shame. Shame on American political bologna.

Yes I do, sir. And my fellow citizens. 1) The egregious confiscation of property through value judgment from one citizen to another. I and my fellow citizens have our property residually removed bit by bit, incrementally and progressively, such that those of us who manage our money and property properly, without need of the people's charity, have our property removed and given to those who have mismanaged their property, their money, the "poor". This cyclic, persistent confiscation of property to usurp the people's charity causes undo, and unearned hardship to those who rightly sacrificed their time, their sweat - a portion of their lives given up, by personal choice and direction, with no chance of reliving that time, to attain their property. To be sure, taking property is taking a portion of one's life and cannot be properly compensated. The rates at which property is confiscated by force improperly reduces movement between classes, violating the design and promise of class ascension and descension based on individual merit. Akin to soft slavery, the damage caused by this abuse is immeasurable, and it's attack on basic human rights unforgiveable. 2) The systemic extortion of property and denial of self determination and individual choice by legal architecture to force patronage to state approved corporations and private business, such as the latest healthcare insurance act. To force patronage by the citizenry to the benefit of private enterprise is an unfounded abuse of authority and yet another attack on basic human rights – further threatened by encroaching corporatism repackaged as government intervention, all empowered by the further usurpation of the people’s charity. Government wills itself to be obligated to fund the costs of those who don’t pay for medical services, then uses its own uninvited voluntary imperative to then give itself authorization to restrict the rights of all and force trade against their will – ostensibly due to every citizen’s potential to be a recipient of their charity. This is akin to volunteering to pay for one’s groceries, and then using that charitable decision to authorize forcing one to shop at Safeway, and further to regulate the goods purchased. Further still, such twisted logical operations would well serve the tyrant and despot such that any oppressive law can be imagined and sold, with the proper packaging. The list of abuses from this act rival the outright neglect of national security and dutiful protection of the basic rights of the people – such as individual choice and self determination. 3) The theft of state sovereignty by federal funding and judicial manipulations to revise interpretations of the constitution as a flexible document of weasle clauses. By the abuse of General Welfare and Commerce Clause, diverting from 150 years of plain limitation, the federal government has expanded powers well beyond the jurisdiction of the states using interpretive methods that nullify the bulk of the constitution as well the authority of amendments over that of the articles. The 10th amendment clearly limits both aforementioned clauses, yet the federal judiciary changes its collective mind and both clauses instead limit the 10th amendment, and by extension, the people's free choice. To measure this abuse, would be futile. To measure the threat imposed by its existence is to entertain extremes of the tyrannical majority and moral police, self appointed across the nation. These are but a sampling of the source of abuses by the federal government, that in turn create pages and pages of enumerated abuses and usurpations that are ignored and dismissed by the central authority and its supporters. While 'good' remains objectively indefinable, supporters of this statist government find no resistance in defining it for all. That one man should be forced to live up to the 'good' defined by another man, at the expense of his own, is reason enough to spill his blood. If they will not be persuaded by the edge of my tongue, they will be by the edge of my blade. Ok, that's all I can afford to write. It's busy as hell today.

I don't know that it's a slam dunk as much as it's a unusually timid response from prosecution. We all have our roles to play, and the prosecution's role is to fiercely fight this stuff, prioritizing certainly which could lead to ignoring one incident while focusing on another. And here, we have a case that was already done. No prioritizing even necessary. Yet they dismiss this as if it was still a case to be argued and processed in court with doubts for success - this thing was a done deal. Yet, we essentially respond by withdrawing our winnings as well as dicontinuing the punishment. That's the equivalent of a politically based pardon. And it's very ugly politics on this one. We have shamed ourselves with acts like this. If this goes on regularly, and this political approach to enforcement of voter intimidation laws based on race is typical, then I'm quite content to watch America choke. We just blew off racial intimidation - and we think we're enlightened? We think 1960 is in our past? Please, we are every bit as repugnant as we were then. Still making excuses to shit on each other.

Yes, you're right I didn't answer that question good enough then. I'm sorry, this seems to be only of interest to my-team, your-team competition psychology. I'm not terribly concerned with the status quo of bureaucratic suits, I'm about right and wrong. For instance child molesters should go to jail. I don't care if republican officials typically don't do that, I care that all officials should do it. So, yeah, I'm not sure about the answer to your question. Not sure why it matters. I would be throwing poop at my department of justice when they handle voter intimidation with timid resolve, like they have here. We'll see what happens when the KKK returns the favor in 2012. I'm just sure they're watchig. Not going to be a proud moment for anyone either. I meant voter intimidation. Well he could very well be dishonest and at this point I'm positive he's politically motivated and likely to spin every bit of information he has. But then so does everyone else, from what I can tell. That quote above is about a decision made by supervisors, not Adams and the first bit appears to be a slam on Bush's DoJ, although Adams defended it. So far Adams has not dropped in credibility to the likes of a dumb racist. Queen Shabazzle, or whatever his clown name is, thinks like a 12 year old and I'm pretty sure has a driver's license. That ought to scare everybody. But that's ok, that's the point of focusing on Adams anyway. Let's just chuck him under the bus and talk about Bartle Bull. Bartle said, in a sworn affidavit, quoted from that article above "that never in his entire career as a civil rights attorney has he ever seen or heard of an instance where uniformed and armed men intimidated and blocked voters as they tried to enter a polling station. Not even in Mississippi in the 1960's." I'm not inclined to think of this as a typical case when a man like Bartle Bull, with his experience directly on this matter, expressly states it's not. In fact, he's pretty outraged about it. No, I don't mean "mentioning" him, I mean covering him. Where's all the interviews? Where's the exclusives? He should be right in the middle of this - he's the only witness! Unless the voters could be tracked down, he's the only one to see this activity. Fox is the only news organization or pretend news organization that I've seen pretend to act like a real news organization and cover this guy. But you're right, the others sure "mention" him. Wow. Go media. Correct. So why did Obama drop what little case we had? It was won, and it was clear intimidation so it's not like we had a group of young black men that were falsely accused or being misrepresented by angry old white dudes. So, the civil case was "to the fullest extent".

I don't know, I think this interview covers it. They don't use those exact words, but I think it's obvious that if dismissing the case after default victory is not common, then this punishment is not in line with other punishments. At one point, Adams makes the comment that they were pursuing a permanent injunction: If adams is to be believed, and I have no reason not to believe him thus far as opposed to excellent reasons not to believe the caucophobic black bully party, then it's plainly obvious that the department's dismissal is highly unusual, and politically motivated. I'm not sure how common it is to politicize voter fraud. Here's some more interesting stuff. I do find it most curious that Bartle Bull is not who is in the headlines, but rather the DoJ attorney. I guess smear campaigns only work on those without a spotless public resume. I wonder if anyone, besides Fox news, has interviewed him about this. Weird that a supposedly fake news outlet would be the main source for the only credible witness for the entire story. Go figure...

Yes, I'm advocating force against others for initiating force against me. No matter how you spin it, it's reactionary, not preemptive. It appears you believe the only choice for a freedom lover is to be a pacifist. I do not agree, and do not accept that as the only "consistent" response to threats against liberty. By your logic, our government is one gigantic experiment in inconsistency. Hell, that may be true, actually...

The DoJ "whistleblower", J. Christian Adams, and his preferences for how this case should have been handled, and his disappointment over the dismissal by the administration is quite well known. From a quick google search... http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/nation/ex-justice-department-lawyer-says-black-panther-case-shows-rights-of-white-voters-are-ignored-97623204.html

In our quest for freedom we remove it from others as a matter of government design - hell, our nation was born in the blood of that hypocrisy. Every law that protects someone else's freedom is a threat to remove their own. Our prisons are just a fraction of the evidence of the business end of that arrangement. And that's actually logically appropriate for those that violate the freedom of others - to remove their own. By that measure, it's quite consistent. Respect other's rights, or lose your own. Sounds fitting to me, anyway. Care to rethink that statement?

I think you missed the line "I’m done entertaining moral busy bodies...". I'm done changing the hearts and minds of thugs and tyrannts - I'd just rather see blood. In my mind, it's time to start prosecuting those who advocate against my liberty like the tryannts they immitate. I don't give a shit how charged they are with what's "best for me", they are as insulting as a slave owner and deserve to lie with them. I don't have much to offer politics really, sorry. I try to conjure up a coherent post here and there, but mostly I'm ready for it to end. America is home mainly to cowards.

Here, he makes the case for individual rights being inherent, and not something to be listed in detail - or enumerated. The case against a bill of rights was correct, and we have seen their fears come to pass. We have repeatedly seen the lack of an enumerated right being used to justify federal expansion - like the healthcare bill. We also have seen conservatives try to use it for their moral legislation, like abortion. There are better examples than those, much better, but I'm in a hurry to get out to lunch. The key point is that enumerated rights have been damaging to our rights that they didn't manage to think of and get written down, just as they warned. Enumeration became its own limitation.

Priceless. I'm trying to determine whether I'd rather dress up in a white pajama outfit and call myself the white kittens love of whitey group and protest them, or dress up in a black pajama outfit with a porn robe adorned with 'kill whitey' signage and try to out-hate white people with them. I think I would get a kick out of any white person dressing up as a black panther - reminds me of the Dave Chappelle skit where he played a blind black man that lead a KKK rally. Funny as hell.

I would. Their intimidation is based on fabric coordination for their pajama outfits, and doing the "I'm pissed off" look-thing (sunglasses help with this) while carrying something dangerous. The racial epithets are aimed at feeble people that they know won't or can't beat the shit out of them for it, which means usually older folks and women. Bullies are bullies. They can find themselves a cute little cause, dress up in funny clothes that make them feel like ninjas and externalize all of their problems like the rest of the teenage population, but they're still just bullies.

No it's not too far removed at all. At this point, we won't get freedom and liberty back in this country without violence. Security in economics and terrorism have successfully duped the sheeple. Now they trade freedom for security like stocks on wallstreet and use appeals to complicated societal evolution as the excuse. A drunk empire drunk on empire. I’m done entertaining moral busy bodies with the merits of my choices or justifying why freedom of choice should remain a key American value. The tree of liberty should be watered with the blood of traitors this time.