Just as a nit, "[desperate for] an opportunity to bash a Nazi" does not imply "only in it for the violence"; someone who's only in it for the violence would be equally glad of an opportunity to bash anyone, Nazi or otherwise.
...do you use some weird kind of nonstandard keyboard on which the "A" is close enough to the "C" for you accidentally type the one in place of the other? (If so, what's it called, and where can I see pictures of the key layout?)
Or if you really did mean to type "FAA", what the #&*)! does the Federal Aviation Administration have to do with this?
Do you have a citation for the definition you reference in point 2? Because it looks to me as if you've confused "fighting words" with the "true threat" doctrine.
The definition you gave seems much closer to (though not quite identical with) the "true threat" doctrine than to "fighting words".
"Fighting words", as I understand the concept, are basically words directed in real time at a specific person (or specific group of people) which are so extremely offensive that it would be unreasonable to expect the targeted person to have the self-possession to refrain from reacting with immediate automatic/reflexive/instictive violence.
...that said, "push back" does carry the additional implication that it's being moved farther from the current time, just as "pull forward" carries the implication that it's being moved closer, so the phrase as used was clear enough in this instance.
This phrase, like similar ones (e.g. the daylight-savings-time "spring forward, fall back" alleged mnemonic) has a problem of ambiguity: the direction intended is not clearly conveyed by the terms used.
To move an event "back" could mean to shift it "backward in time", i.e., to the past, or to shift it "backward in the queue of "pending" items", i.e., postpone the time when it is scheduled to happen. Both uses of "back" are standard idiom, and no matter which interpretation you default to, it's perfectly natural; as long as the two senses of "move back" are both in general usage, the phrase is not enough to clearly convey which is meant.
(In some cases, such as this one, context can clear up the ambiguity - but that doesn't mean the phrase itself is any less ambiguous.)
The phrase "move forward" has the analogous problem in reverse. I have, in fact, seen both phrases used with each of the two possible senses; always assuming the same direction (past/future) for each would have resulted in being wrong at least part of the time.
Re: Action item for the reader: Get a Proton Mail account
This is probably good advice. Proton Mail isn't the only option for a non-US-based E-mail provider, either; I've been using Fastmail since mid-2009, and have had no reason to be dissatisfied with them. There are almost certainly other good choices out there.
Also, I'm given to understand that most of the NRA's power has historically come not through donations to campaigns in whatever form, but through their ability to mobilize and/or motivate their base, into voting for/against (even if not actually contributing to, or to the opponent of) a particular candidate.
That's a decent definition, but I think it's still overly-narrow, except insofar as "objectionable" covers a lot of bases.
My preferred definition is somewhat broader than that: "an attempt to prevent some particular audience from being exposed to some particular information".
That covers everything from parental censorship of what books their children are allowed to read and what movies their children are allowed to watch, through people working for e.g. the military with the actual job title of "censor" blacking out parts of soldiers' letters home in order to avoid compromising ongoing operations, all the way to V-for-Vendetta-style "add it to the blacklist" banning of books and music and so forth, and a multitude of other things along the way.
It's the only definition I've ever found which seems neither too narrow (skipping things which seem like they should be included) nor too broad (including things which seem like they should be left out) to my sensibilities.
It's less "do not want to stand for office" so much as "stand zero practical chance of actually getting elected", such that the investment of time and money and effort into the process of running for office is not remotely worth it.
I think I could do a far better job of actual policy-making, and so forth, than most of the people currently in office in many places - but I do not remotely have the skillset or the temperament to prevail on the campaign trail, even at the county level much less anything higher than that. (I say that having seen my father, who's much better at those things than I am and much better-connected in the community, fail fairly conclusively - though not spectacularly - in a county-level election.)
One of the core weaknesses of American-style democracy (and possibly of democracy in general) is that the skills and talents which make someone good at winning elections have little overlap with the skills and talents which make someone good at governing.
Then again, the same is true of most other forms of government, so the old adage that "democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the others" probably still applies...
A peroxide blonde is someone whose hair (on the outside of the skull) has been bleached, e.g. with hydrogen peroxide.
The comment was suggesting that it looks like these people have applied the bleach to the insides of their skulls, i.e., to their brains rather than their hair.
That says nothing whatsoever about the intelligence of people who applied the bleach on the outside of the skull - to say nothing of natural blonds or blondes, who haven't had bleach involved in the first place.
I think the line about the Constitution having been "rewritten secretly after 9/11" was intended to imply that (many of) the things the government has been doing since that date - without being overturned as Constitutional violations by the courts - are so far out of consistency with the publicly-known Constitutional text that the only reasonable conclusion is that the government (including the courts in question) must now be working from different text, which they simply haven't shared with the rest of us.
(This of course assumes that "the government (including the high-level courts which overrule the others) is ignoring the Constitution" is not a reasonable conclusion, which one might consider questionable.)
(Nit: "ordnance". An ordinance is a law, usually city or county rather than state or federal. The former term is apparently derived directly from the latter, but their senses are now distinct.)
While it's true that personal armaments aren't likely to do much good against the kind of firepower that the US military can bring to bear when it wants to, wouldn't that serve equally well as an argument that private individuals should be able to have access to that same kind of firepower, to keep that playing field more level?
There are all sorts of problems with that scenario too, of course, when considering its subsequent ramifications - but since people do (apparently) hold that viewpoint, it needs to be addressed when the argument that "the military will vastly outgun any domestic revolutionary group anyway" is presented, or the two sides just end up talking past one another and the discussion goes nowhere.
As I understand matters, the idea behind what has been labeled the "Constitution-free zone" is not "an exception to the Fourth Amendment", but rather that the Fourth Amendment only prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures - and that clearly, since border enforcement is necessary, falls within the responsibilities of the government, and cannot be carried out without carrying out searches, searches pursuant to border enforcement are de-facto reasonable (therefore not requiring warrants) by their very nature.
The latter point is where things get a bit sticky. While searching through someone's horse-drawn wagon while they're crossing the border, to make sure they aren't smuggling contraband (including people, where and as applicable), makes perfect sense and might very well fit that "obviously reasonable" standard, the term "border search" has been expanded to cover things well beyond that point - or even the modern equivalent, which itself may no longer be quite equivalent because of the ways in which technology and society have developed.
If you want to fight the precedent that establishes those zones, however, the place you need to fight it is on that presumption of "obviously reasonable". (And, nice though it might be, a simple declaration that that presumption is incorrect does not serve as a very effective weapon in that fight.)
I don't think it's just that "it was ignored because it was inconvenient".
I think part of the problem was that someone who ignored the problems would have a short-to-mid-term competitive advantage over someone who didn't, precisely because of how intractable the problems were.
And so it was inevitable that someone who ignored the problems was going to win out in the marketplace, at least until such time as the problems became too big to keep ignoring.
The current market giants just happen to be the ones (among all those who ignored the problems) who did grab that brass ring, at whatever the long-term cost may turn out to be.
My guess is that the phrase arose from people parsing "I could not care less" as meaning something like "of course I care this much, how could you possibly think I could care any less than that?" - i.e., as the phrase not stating or implying anything about what level of caring the indicated minimum is, only that the speaker cannot go below that level.
The idea that that level is still positive doesn't reflect the intended implication, that the only possible way for it to be impossible to go below a level is for that level to be zero - but I think it's still a technically valid interpretation of the words of the idiom.
I agree that "I could care less" is still worse, though; where the most that can be said of the other is that it doesn't explicitly rule out the wrong interpretation, "I could care less" explicitly states the wrong interpretation, and that rubs several parts of my psyche the wrong way.
(The only way "I could care less" makes any sense to me is as an elision from "I could hardly care less", which makes sense from a how-language-develops perspective but is no less wrong for that fact.)
Actually, I believe that an underlying assumption of the Second Amendment is that there will not, and either cannot or must not, be a standing army at all - that the army of the nation will be formed on demand by calling up the (armed) populace into the form of a militia.
Since we clearly have a standing army, either we need to modify the Second Amendment to accord with that reality, or we need to abolish the standing army.
I don't think it very likely that any of the gun-rights advocates would be happy with either approach.
There's a potentially reasonable argument to be made that there needs to be a buffer zone at a border with another country, within which things that should be forbidden to government in other parts of the country can be permitted, for the purpose of enforcing laws related to transfer of things between countries.
But if such zones are going to exist, they need to be exclusive - with no one permitted to live, work, or otherwise claim occupancy there, except in the course of enforcing those laws.
No such exclusive zones were established back when this country was being founded or when such laws were being put into place, and as such, we do not currently have such exclusive zones. (Or at least, I'd be very much surprised to learn otherwise.)
If the government wants to try to eminent-domain its way to a 35-mile buffer zone around border crossings, or a 100-mile zone around the borders (even just land borders, never mind coasts, or the question of how such a thing could possibly work with airports), and deal with the backlash that would result, it is free to do so.
But as long as the zone is part of the US, any people who live there must have the same rights under federal law as those in any other part of the US, and the same rights under state law as those in any other part of the state.
To conclude otherwise is to undermine the very concept of what it means for something to be a "right".
On the post: Famous Racist Sues Twitter Claiming It Violates His Civil Rights As A Racist To Be Kicked Off The Platform
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Just as a nit, "[desperate for] an opportunity to bash a Nazi" does not imply "only in it for the violence"; someone who's only in it for the violence would be equally glad of an opportunity to bash anyone, Nazi or otherwise.
Agreed otherwise, though.
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Re: Re: Give them what they want
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Too bad
On the post: After Chat With Ethics Lawyers, FCC Boss Declines NRA Gun Award For Killing Net Neutrality
Re: FAA supports the second amendment,
Or if you really did mean to type "FAA", what the #&*)! does the Federal Aviation Administration have to do with this?
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re: Re: Constitution Free Zones
The definition you gave seems much closer to (though not quite identical with) the "true threat" doctrine than to "fighting words".
"Fighting words", as I understand the concept, are basically words directed in real time at a specific person (or specific group of people) which are so extremely offensive that it would be unreasonable to expect the targeted person to have the self-possession to refrain from reacting with immediate automatic/reflexive/instictive violence.
On the post: Slowing Down Driverless Cars Would Be A Fatal Mistake
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Based on that set of results, I'm not sure "dangerous" can be entirely ruled out.
On the post: Five Years After His Arrest, Prosecutors Try To Push Back Justin Carter's 'Terroristic Threat' Trial
Re: Re:
...that said, "push back" does carry the additional implication that it's being moved farther from the current time, just as "pull forward" carries the implication that it's being moved closer, so the phrase as used was clear enough in this instance.
On the post: Five Years After His Arrest, Prosecutors Try To Push Back Justin Carter's 'Terroristic Threat' Trial
Re:
To move an event "back" could mean to shift it "backward in time", i.e., to the past, or to shift it "backward in the queue of "pending" items", i.e., postpone the time when it is scheduled to happen. Both uses of "back" are standard idiom, and no matter which interpretation you default to, it's perfectly natural; as long as the two senses of "move back" are both in general usage, the phrase is not enough to clearly convey which is meant.
(In some cases, such as this one, context can clear up the ambiguity - but that doesn't mean the phrase itself is any less ambiguous.)
The phrase "move forward" has the analogous problem in reverse. I have, in fact, seen both phrases used with each of the two possible senses; always assuming the same direction (past/future) for each would have resulted in being wrong at least part of the time.
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Re: Action item for the reader: Get a Proton Mail account
On the post: Anti-NRA Censorship Efforts Echo Earlier Pro-NRA Censorship Efforts, And Learn No Lessons From Them
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Anti-NRA Censorship Efforts Echo Earlier Pro-NRA Censorship Efforts, And Learn No Lessons From Them
Re: Re:
My preferred definition is somewhat broader than that: "an attempt to prevent some particular audience from being exposed to some particular information".
That covers everything from parental censorship of what books their children are allowed to read and what movies their children are allowed to watch, through people working for e.g. the military with the actual job title of "censor" blacking out parts of soldiers' letters home in order to avoid compromising ongoing operations, all the way to V-for-Vendetta-style "add it to the blacklist" banning of books and music and so forth, and a multitude of other things along the way.
It's the only definition I've ever found which seems neither too narrow (skipping things which seem like they should be included) nor too broad (including things which seem like they should be left out) to my sensibilities.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Do your job
I think I could do a far better job of actual policy-making, and so forth, than most of the people currently in office in many places - but I do not remotely have the skillset or the temperament to prevail on the campaign trail, even at the county level much less anything higher than that. (I say that having seen my father, who's much better at those things than I am and much better-connected in the community, fail fairly conclusively - though not spectacularly - in a county-level election.)
One of the core weaknesses of American-style democracy (and possibly of democracy in general) is that the skills and talents which make someone good at winning elections have little overlap with the skills and talents which make someone good at governing.
Then again, the same is true of most other forms of government, so the old adage that "democracy is the worst possible form of government, except for all the others" probably still applies...
On the post: NRA Gives FCC Boss An Award For 'Courageously' Killing Net Neutrality, May Have Violated Ethics Rules
Re: Re: Re: bs/stupid meter
Uh, no.
A peroxide blonde is someone whose hair (on the outside of the skull) has been bleached, e.g. with hydrogen peroxide.
The comment was suggesting that it looks like these people have applied the bleach to the insides of their skulls, i.e., to their brains rather than their hair.
That says nothing whatsoever about the intelligence of people who applied the bleach on the outside of the skull - to say nothing of natural blonds or blondes, who haven't had bleach involved in the first place.
On the post: Rancher Sues CBP After Officers Install A Camera On His Private Property
Re: Re: Protect and Serve Who?
I think the line about the Constitution having been "rewritten secretly after 9/11" was intended to imply that (many of) the things the government has been doing since that date - without being overturned as Constitutional violations by the courts - are so far out of consistency with the publicly-known Constitutional text that the only reasonable conclusion is that the government (including the courts in question) must now be working from different text, which they simply haven't shared with the rest of us.
(This of course assumes that "the government (including the high-level courts which overrule the others) is ignoring the Constitution" is not a reasonable conclusion, which one might consider questionable.)
On the post: Rancher Sues CBP After Officers Install A Camera On His Private Property
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
While it's true that personal armaments aren't likely to do much good against the kind of firepower that the US military can bring to bear when it wants to, wouldn't that serve equally well as an argument that private individuals should be able to have access to that same kind of firepower, to keep that playing field more level?
There are all sorts of problems with that scenario too, of course, when considering its subsequent ramifications - but since people do (apparently) hold that viewpoint, it needs to be addressed when the argument that "the military will vastly outgun any domestic revolutionary group anyway" is presented, or the two sides just end up talking past one another and the discussion goes nowhere.
On the post: Rancher Sues CBP After Officers Install A Camera On His Private Property
Re: Re: Restricted-rights zones at borders
As I understand matters, the idea behind what has been labeled the "Constitution-free zone" is not "an exception to the Fourth Amendment", but rather that the Fourth Amendment only prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures - and that clearly, since border enforcement is necessary, falls within the responsibilities of the government, and cannot be carried out without carrying out searches, searches pursuant to border enforcement are de-facto reasonable (therefore not requiring warrants) by their very nature.
The latter point is where things get a bit sticky. While searching through someone's horse-drawn wagon while they're crossing the border, to make sure they aren't smuggling contraband (including people, where and as applicable), makes perfect sense and might very well fit that "obviously reasonable" standard, the term "border search" has been expanded to cover things well beyond that point - or even the modern equivalent, which itself may no longer be quite equivalent because of the ways in which technology and society have developed.
If you want to fight the precedent that establishes those zones, however, the place you need to fight it is on that presumption of "obviously reasonable". (And, nice though it might be, a simple declaration that that presumption is incorrect does not serve as a very effective weapon in that fight.)
On the post: Mistakes And Strategic Failures: The Killing Of The Open Internet
Re: Re: Re: You're absolutely right: they weren't
I think part of the problem was that someone who ignored the problems would have a short-to-mid-term competitive advantage over someone who didn't, precisely because of how intractable the problems were.
And so it was inevitable that someone who ignored the problems was going to win out in the marketplace, at least until such time as the problems became too big to keep ignoring.
The current market giants just happen to be the ones (among all those who ignored the problems) who did grab that brass ring, at whatever the long-term cost may turn out to be.
On the post: Game Studio Threatens Employees' Jobs If They Don't Write Positive Reviews Of Own Game, Then Steam Pulls Game Entirely
"could care less"
My guess is that the phrase arose from people parsing "I could not care less" as meaning something like "of course I care this much, how could you possibly think I could care any less than that?" - i.e., as the phrase not stating or implying anything about what level of caring the indicated minimum is, only that the speaker cannot go below that level.
The idea that that level is still positive doesn't reflect the intended implication, that the only possible way for it to be impossible to go below a level is for that level to be zero - but I think it's still a technically valid interpretation of the words of the idiom.
I agree that "I could care less" is still worse, though; where the most that can be said of the other is that it doesn't explicitly rule out the wrong interpretation, "I could care less" explicitly states the wrong interpretation, and that rubs several parts of my psyche the wrong way.
(The only way "I could care less" makes any sense to me is as an elision from "I could hardly care less", which makes sense from a how-language-develops perspective but is no less wrong for that fact.)
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Re: Re: Re: #BoycottNRA Starts To Bite
Since we clearly have a standing army, either we need to modify the Second Amendment to accord with that reality, or we need to abolish the standing army.
I don't think it very likely that any of the gun-rights advocates would be happy with either approach.
On the post: Rancher Sues CBP After Officers Install A Camera On His Private Property
Restricted-rights zones at borders
There's a potentially reasonable argument to be made that there needs to be a buffer zone at a border with another country, within which things that should be forbidden to government in other parts of the country can be permitted, for the purpose of enforcing laws related to transfer of things between countries.
But if such zones are going to exist, they need to be exclusive - with no one permitted to live, work, or otherwise claim occupancy there, except in the course of enforcing those laws.
No such exclusive zones were established back when this country was being founded or when such laws were being put into place, and as such, we do not currently have such exclusive zones. (Or at least, I'd be very much surprised to learn otherwise.)
If the government wants to try to eminent-domain its way to a 35-mile buffer zone around border crossings, or a 100-mile zone around the borders (even just land borders, never mind coasts, or the question of how such a thing could possibly work with airports), and deal with the backlash that would result, it is free to do so.
But as long as the zone is part of the US, any people who live there must have the same rights under federal law as those in any other part of the US, and the same rights under state law as those in any other part of the state.
To conclude otherwise is to undermine the very concept of what it means for something to be a "right".
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