Messages

31

General Discussion / Re: Small Government, Big Government: A Mature Conversation Herein Awaits

« on: May 25, 2007, 02:37:21 am »

Personal freedom doesn't really equal happiness. Happiness is really a lot more complex than that, and so is personal freedom. Drugs are a good example of how personal freedom can lead to the opposite of happiness! Also, death.

You're right that personal freedom doesn't equal happiness.  Far from it; no amount of personal freedom will guarantee happiness, because everyone else will have that same amount of freedom.  But I'd be willing to venture that personal freedom offers the best chance at happiness.

I find that most people that advocate legalizing drugs are white guys who've never touched anything more powerful that caffeine, or maybe alcohol, and are arguing from a purely theoretical perspective. Me a few months ago, for example. But--I've talked to people who have experience with stronger drugs. Generally, at most, they'll advocate legalizing marijuana, which makes sense, since its effects really aren't worse than any number of legal drugs. But legalizing say, cocaine or heroine or meth? Drugs that'll hook you almost immediately and which can have potentially lethal withdrawal symptoms? And how far do we take legalization? Do we allow hard drug manufacture to say, advertise on television? To create a cultural athmosphere accepting or encouraging addiction? Look, obviously the drug war's a bust, but I think most people advocating legalization could do well to give it a long, hard look.

I definitely support legalizing marijuana, as I don't particularly like having to duck around the cops to get it. 

As for the others, like I said, people should have the right to control what goes in their own bodies, even if it is likely to kill them.  So yes, I think harder drugs should in theory be legalized.  However, in practice, that couldn't work without first completely revamping our drug education to provide a much more comprehensive knowledge base to kids.  Making the choice to do drugs like crystal meth is nearly the same as making the choice to wreck your entire life; I have a friend who's a cokehead, and he doesn't hold out much hope for his future.  But you can wreck your life in plenty of other ways, so why is it illegal to wreck your life through drugs?

To violate the normal rules of debate and use a personal anecdote, when I got into weed, I came to find out that a lot of things I'd been told about it in school weren't true.  (This was relatively recently.)  Though it does induce a relaxed feeling, it isn't particularly addictive, which I had been told it was.  Granted, I went to a public school in Texas, the most conservative state in the Union, so the actual normal state of drug education may be different elsewhere.

Part of the problems you're talking about are directly due to the illegality of these drugs. With them being illegal, we have no control over doses, over what the drugs are laced with, the quality of the drugs, and so on and so forth. A lot of the medical problems are due to these drugs being messed with or otherwise tainted by those who don't give a damn about the health and safety of their customers: they're just making money.

A person's body is their own. They have a right to do whatever they wish with their own body, and that includes taking drugs if that is their choice. By legalizing these drugs and regulating them, we can make them much safer for people to take. Will they still be dangerous? Sure. I'm not advocating legalizing the hardcore artificial crazy crap like crystal meth, because that stuff'll kill you no matter how much you regulate it. I am, however, advocating the legalization of all the natural drugs; that is, natural as in derived from plant and/or animal sources, rather than laboratory created.

As for advertising? I say let them advertise the same way we allow tobacco and alcohol companies to advertise.

Remember, the key is that people have the right to make their own decisions and should be allowed to do so. Trying to control them, even if the intent is good as your intent is, will do naught but make the government a big, huge, nanny state, and I for one grew out of needing a nanny a long time ago.

Kyronea sums up many of my thoughts on the issue.  The expense and quality issues associated wtih marijuana in particular are a direct result of it being illegal.  Remove the restrictions and there's no longer a point in charging so much.

Your introduction there is almost self-defeating. First you profess that your motivation for wanting the government to be a certain size is due to your personal preference for "positive anarchy" rather than stewardship and defense of the people, which disqualifies your authority on civil grounds. (Sadly, your mistake was being too honest...a mistake you will learn with time not to make, which is a shame.)

Next, you further undermine you position by saying that you favor the smallest effective government. So does anybody who tackles government from a civil perspective rather than an ideological one, myself included. Such an assertion is meaningless, and in its meaninglessness even becomes a liability. The discussion hinges on what constitutes "effective."

Lastly, you fold your entire tent in the last line, admitting that the effective size of the government "nowadays" tends to be big. I certainly don't mean to be hard on you, but your argument is off to a very poor start.

The idea behind positive anarchy is an idealized humanity that has no need for an outside intercessor because it can naturally behave in a civil fashion.  I tried to make the point that this idea is in no way feasible; this being the case, stewardship and the common defense are the fallback plan.  Keep in mind that I'm not necessarily arguing against the idea of a big government.  I'm simply arguing against big government for big government's sake, as well as the idea that a big government is necessarily more effective.

I support, like you Hadriel, the right of people to control their own bodies. But that's not the real issue here. The real issue is the acquisition, possession, or distribution of dangerous substances. This, in contrast to bodily self-control, should be regulated--and heavily. Such control is vital to, variously, human health, public safety, ecological integrity, and sometimes even civil stability. Drug control is related to issues like toxic waste disposal and gun control, both of which concern the status of dangerous substances (or materials).

If you want to kill yourself, that's fine. You don't need illegal drugs for that. The reason drugs are illegal is that practically all of them are habit-forming, and the vast majority of them are clearly detrimental to human health. They're also expensive as all heck, and remain so even in places like the Netherlands where many drugs are legal to use. This triple combination is very harmful to society, because people get snagged into these spirals of chemical dependency that sap them both of their health and their money. This becomes not only a failure of society to care for its people, but a drain on society because of the inevitable expenses involved with policing and treating drug abusers and drug dealing operations.

The government ought to be empowered to control hazardous substances, and usually it is. Rightly so. With drugs, most of the opposition, ironically, comes from the leftist half of the spectrum--people who either have a personal stake in drug legalization, or support the drug-friendly lifestyle either in practice or in principle. I propose to you that these people have a bias in their judgment that renders them less fit to decide on the issue.

I don't know the exactitudes of the law, so there may be some room for a legal rebuttal here, but as I see it, the pro-legalization camp is begging the question by trying to make this a case of self-control when in fact the sticking point is substance control.

I'll grant you that most drugs are habit-forming and detrimental to human health.  But I don't agree that this constitutes a reason to control them.  Virtually anything can become habit-forming to one person or another.  Why is it not then illegal to watch porn, or to play video games?  They've destroyed people's finances and lives just as surely as any drug.  And besides, if we were going with the logic that drugs constitute a clear and present danger to others by virtue of impairing one's decision-making, alcohol should still be banned.  Do you think alcohol ought to be a controlled substance as well?

On the issue of income tax, I regard income tax as theft because it is the dictionary definition of theft: that is, taking something from someone without their consent.  But I personally can live with it because I don't like to watch others suffer.  As for the people who don't care, it's their rights being protected as well.  You could say income tax is the worst method of maintaining a society except for all the others that have been tried.

This is not true. In fact, personal freedom when thrust upon people who are not prepared for it, results in crime and oppression externally and mental anguish internally. It is one of the (many) reasons that democracy has not flowered at the barrel of a gun in the heavily Islamic countries of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Humans are creatures of habit, routine, comfort, and familiarity. I suspect most animals are. "Personal freedom" is a repudiation of that mindset, and cannot be taken lightly. Despite America's endless rhetoric about freedom and liberty, these things are not the beginning of a happy existence. They require many prerequisites. Naked freedom is a menace, not a virtue.

Perhaps I neglected to say this earlier, but I did not mean to imply freedom with no restrictions at all.  Personal freedom offers you a chance at happiness, but it must be coupled with knowledge in order to actually achieve that.  It isn't because they're free that people in Afghanistan and Iraq are miserable, it's because they don't know anything about how to put a government together.

The father of the world's richest man does not subscribe to the Great Man Theory, which lionizes individuals who pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Nobody makes it alone, he says. A person's physical comfort and opportunity have almost everything to do with the society into which he is born. Lucky if it's America; unlucky if it's Bangladesh or Botswana.

Imagine, he says.

"You'll never have a million dollars, never $100,000, never even $5,000, however smart or ambitious you are. The conditions of society don't allow for that. And you'll probably die of AIDS.

"That's the way it is. Those institutions and those phenomena of an orderly society don't exist in a vacuum. They exist because people pay taxes. If you stopped, all those things would die the next day. The police, the courts, securities markets."

I'll get to his assertion that no one born in crappy countries can ever have a decent life later (as in tomorrow, because I need to sleep).  Right now, I want to talk about the individual.

While there is a great deal of truth to the idea that no one makes it alone, in the end, the individual catalyzes whatever achievements (and blunders) they have to their name.  Why is the Nobel Prize for Physics not awarded to everyone the scientist has ever known that's helped him out at one point or another?  Why is the Oscar for Best Actor not given to both the actor and the actor's theater instructors?  It's because we as humans do recognize the idea of personal achievement; we know that the person we're giving the award to was the primary driving force behind whatever it was that he or she did.  Individual achievement is the entire impetus behind capitalism; if one does not believe in this fundamental principle, one might as well support communism.  And as we've seen, communism is every bit as likely to work as the positive anarchy I mentioned earlier.

32

General Discussion / Re: My grades...

« on: May 19, 2007, 11:03:35 pm »

It's one of those strange paradox things where men deal with me and think I'm an asshole, but respect my directness, and women deal with me and think I'm really a nice person.

Are you particularly attractive?  This may be part of the reason.

Golly. So women have no thoughts in their head besides attractiveness when it comes to interpersonal behavior. Just...golly.

At least to your marginal credit you used the qualifiers "may" and "part." I'll spare your life today...

For all I know, the teachers at his school were just generous.  Mine were certainly rather lax.  But the fact is that for the average person, attractiveness is a factor, both in how much credence people are willing to give and in how much bullshit they'll put up with.  Attractive people tend to be perceived as smarter, more honest, and more likely to succeed.  With all the hot bitches I've met that have vacuum-sealed skulls, it's impossible for me to share that perception, though.  And no, I'm not using "bitches" as a colloqualism to refer to women in general.  If I meant "women" I would have said that.  I'm referring solely to attractive women who also happen to be irredeemably stupid and obnoxious.

It's sad to think our society has evolved this way. You'd think that by now due to our scientific knowledge about the human body and about evolution and all that jazz we'd finally drop all of this nonsense and start treating everyone equally, the way they deserve.

That depends on what you mean by the way they deserve.  If you're referring to workplace equality, I heartily agree with you.  I wouldn't promote an attractive person over an unattractive person if the unattractive person could do the job better, and if the former tried to use their sexuality to get me to change my mind I'd probably fire them.  But would I rather hang out with someone I find attractive in my off hours?  Damn right I would.  That isn't discrimination, that's simple personal preference.  Putting ketchup on my burger does not equate to discriminating against mustard.

33

General Discussion / Re: My grades...

« on: May 17, 2007, 02:28:50 am »

However, teachers usually still go out of their way to help me, especially female teachers. It's one of those strange paradox things where men deal with me and think I'm an asshole, but respect my directness, and women deal with me and think I'm really a nice person.

Are you particularly attractive?  This may be part of the reason.

Also, yes, I can tell when men are attractive.  Final Fantasy VII sapped out about 30% of my heterosexuality.

34

General Discussion / Re: Small Government, Big Government: A Mature Conversation Herein Awaits

« on: May 14, 2007, 10:31:14 am »

Many (or at least some) of the arguments for a big-government "nanny state" center around the precept that people aren't smart enough to figure things out on their own, and require someone to hold their hand.  Now, to be fair, this is true in large measure.  But simply increasing the size of government or mandating greater government oversight of education is not a solution to this problem.

With regards to the whack-a-mole theory, as long as the money is being spent somewhere useful, it's all well and good.

I hold to libertarian beliefs; that is, I believe that people should be free to make their own way in life and to pursue their own happiness, within reason.  But as much as I'd like positive anarchy, where people don't treat each other badly simply because it would not be beneficial to them to do so, the fact is that this system of "government" is not a viable one, and is not likely to become so.  Neither an excessively big nor an excessively small government will produce good results; I'm in favor of the bare minimum size of government necessary to get the job done.  Nowadays, that tends to be pretty big, but it's not a reason to proffer the government even more influence than they already have.

The war on drugs should be ended, and drugs should be legalized.  I don't believe they should be regulated or taxed, either.  The government takes enough of our money as it is, and it has no right to tell me what I should put in my body by my own choice even if it is likely to kill me.  Further, I consider the very idea of an income tax an attempt to morally justify theft, but if there truly is no other way to ensure that society runs, then at least don't spend the money on worthless endeavors.  I'd have to say the most difficult issue here is finding a balance between wanting to help people and being forced to.  I help people because I feel like doing it, and I often don't expect payment in return.  I don't believe that I have a moral duty to do so.  I simply can't stand to see people suffer.  But I'm an abnormality in a lot of ways, and I don't expect everyone to adhere to my particular code of ethics, because I don't believe that any type of morality save the most basic, inalienable rights of human beings should be impressed upon anyone.

What ultimately makes people happy is personal freedom.  In order to build a society where everyone can have lasting happiness, everyone needs to have as much control over their own destinies as possible.  Big government for the sake of big government, as much as it seems like it could be effective with the right people in power, does not offer this option.

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General Discussion / Re: Star Wars: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

« on: May 14, 2007, 09:43:12 am »

Correct me if I am mistaken, but nobody was talking about Star Trek.

The guy in the video Kyronea posted did.  I was responding to those points, since he appears to be using them as justification for his views.

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General Discussion / Re: Star Wars: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

« on: May 13, 2007, 08:11:17 pm »

Here's my 1/50 of a dollar:

Star Wars used to be one of the best pieces of sci-fi out there.  Like it or not, creating a myth for a sci-fi environment is something that hadn't been done in film up to that point, and Lucas deserves the credit for that.  His characters may not be the most original, but they're certainly developed, and more importantly, it's easy to get attached to them.  It may not be a study of the human condition as such, but the process of a Republic turning into an Empire and the actions of the Empire itself incorporate a great deal of real-world history and political theory.  In that regard it's more subtle than Star Trek, which often chooses to beat the moral into us with a baseball bat.  And with regards to Star Wars' gradual decline in quality, Star Trek has suffered far, far worse.  Some may call Star Wars' writing mediocre at best, but the writing seen in the later Star Trek series is easily as bad as anything in the prequels, and there's more of it by virtue of being a TV series.

However, Star Wars does indeed have its bad points, and these can be seen in greater volume as time goes on.  Ignoring the technical errors they've committed (as if Star Trek was some kind of paragon of real science; I can name at least three sci-fi series off the top of my head that get it closer to right), the universe simply became far too bloated, partly as a result of all the expanded universe material.  It would be impossible for new readers to pick up the New Jedi Order books without first reading a great deal of other stuff.  Not only that, the same few characters kept doing everything, ignoring the fact that Han, Luke and Leia are not the only people in the entire galaxy who know how to solve problems.  They've also committed the error of killing people simply for the impact value, and not to serve any real plot function.  And yes, the prequels feature a sharp decline in the quality of the writing.  Unlike the original characters, the majority of the prequel characters are hopelessly bland, and the hero of the story, the great Anakin Skywalker, is an emo bitch that would make Squall Leonhart look at him and say "Dude, seriously, it's not that bad.  Calm down.  Jesus H. Christ."  Emo bitches aren't necessarily bad characters; I find Cloud, for example, to be quite effective in spite of the many people who hate him solely because of his mostly hormonal fanbase.  But Anakin manages to not be engaging at all.  It's easy to rationalize, but ultimately the onus falls on the actor and the director to make the character, and for the most part they didn't do a terribly good job of it.

On the issue of Star Wars' writing, I constantly hear that it's subpar.  For the classic trilogy, I'd have to say I disagree with this.  Very simply, if you can get attached to the characters, it's written well.  Han Solo may be a stereotype, but when it comes right down to it, he's a damned entertaining stereotype.  It's also hard to critique Star Wars for the originality of its characters on the basis of Star Trek when Star Trek's characters are stereotypes as well, and few of them, especially in the later series, even begin to approach the chemistry that Star Wars had.  Captain Kirk was written very well, but he's also a typical womanizer, and in fact he's very much like Han.  Picard was something of a stereotype as well; he resembles to a T a European aristocrat of the colonial age who sought to impress his moral values upon everyone else.

As far as dark being better, it isn't necessarily better, but like it or not, it is more realistic.  Star Wars is far better at being dark when it needs to be than Star Trek; in fact, in recent years criticism has been leveled at it for becoming too dark.  And that's actually one of the reasons that I think Star Wars is a more human story than Star Trek.  Trek tries to examine the human condition, but it does it through the lens of this bright, happy idealized future that none of us can really relate to except that we'd all like to spend an hour on the holodeck with (insert name of female celebrity here).  And the fact is, examining the real human condition from the point of view of a perfect society is damned patronizing.  They portray humans as this ascended race trying to bring their happy hippy commie civilization to everyone (and yes, it is a hippy commie civilization) because they think they have the moral superiority to do so.  Out of every rule the Federation ever established, the Prime Directive is the one we see consistently violated over the course of the many series and movies.  Are the crews ever punished for this?  On the contrary, they're held up on a pedestal as the premier examples of how to run a starship.  The Prime Directive is seemingly in place as nothing more than window dressing, as the Federation clearly thinks it's the shit.

Also, trashy 80s pop is awesome.

37

General Discussion / Re: partiacl physics

« on: May 06, 2007, 04:44:37 am »

...judging from your spelling, I doubt you actually even know the formal definition of a black hole.

I know, I know! It's a hole, right? And it's BLACK, right? Basically, a hole that's black?

I really don't know how to react to you not making a serious post.  Part of that could be because it's almost 3 AM and I've just had one of the most harrowing days I've had in a while.

But in all seriousness, the formal definition of a black hole is simply an object which lies inside its Schwarzschild radius.

38

General Discussion / Re: Lagrangian points

« on: May 05, 2007, 03:12:30 am »

Suppose you have two bodies in space.  A Lagrangian point is anywhere you can put something else that will theoretically allow it to remain in the same position at all times relative to those two bodies (taking into account orbits, gravity, etc.).

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General Discussion / Re: partiacl physics

« on: May 05, 2007, 02:29:51 am »

Not you, Lu Bu.

Hey, that rhymed.

40

General Discussion / Re: partiacl physics

« on: May 05, 2007, 01:50:10 am »

...judging from your spelling, I doubt you actually even know the formal definition of a black hole.

41

General Discussion / Re: Virginia Tech Massacre

« on: April 20, 2007, 06:16:37 pm »

In those cases, wouldn't the logical option be to have guns ready to deal with them before they commit massacres on this scale?

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General Discussion / Re: Virginia Tech Massacre

« on: April 20, 2007, 04:38:51 pm »

Liberal versus Conservative
The liberal talking heads have been emphasizing gun control pretty much down the line. Nothing very creative from them, although one Seattle liberal radio talk show host pointed out that it would have taken a very, very strict set of gun laws to have thwarted this particular shooting, because of the particulars. However, the Mayor noted what I said yesterday: Gun control might not be able to prevent a particular shooting from occurring, but over time it will save lives statistically. A ban (partial or total) would have some net positive effect.

On gun-related crime, yes.  What about other crimes?

Suppose you banned guns entirely.  It becomes much harder to get guns, and gun-related crime goes down.  Meanwhile, the number of crimes that could have been stopped by a gun skyrockets, since many of them don't actually require a gun to commit.  Is that a price worth paying?

The conservatives have been emphasizing the immigration angle, and, apparently as a defense to the attacks on gun rights now underway, they have also been spinning the murder as overhyped. One right-wing radio talk show host in Seattle said today that people are driving this event way out of proportion, because more people die every day in this country from things like car wrecks than they do from shootings. So, he reasoned, what is all the fuss? (He's actually got a point, except for two things. One, a more calm public reaction will do nothing to prevent these shootings from happening. Two, the "fuss" is that premeditated murder is a more culturally harmful event than a car wreck.) A few minutes later the radio host started saying that illegal immigrants come into the country, infest our cities with crime, shoot police officers, and who knows what else--because at that point I turned off the radio. He's a bullshitting bastard, and it is scary that so many people feel the same way as him right now.

Here in Texas, we see a lot of illegal immigration.  And I hate to break it to you, but the guy has a point on the crime angle.  Though given the fact that such a comment was immediately followed by "shoot police officers," you're quite right in assuming that the only reason he's saying that is because he's a retarded fuck.

Dehumanizing Diversions
It came out today that the killer left a letter raging against women, rich kids, campus debauchery, and perhaps some other things. I suggest to you all that these elements of the story are a diversion. They are meant to dehumanize the criminal and make it easier for us to think less critically about why this shooting occurred and how it can be prevented. In other words, the hype surrounding these details is our pop culture's own numbskulled attempt to cope with the tragedy in its own numbskulled way. Don't fall for it. We should assume that the killer was a human being just like the rest of us, and that whatever grievances drove him to this crime were at least somewhat based in society. I am not saying that we should absolve him of his legal responsibility for these crimes, but I am saying that a wiser society will look first at itself when one of its people goes bad, and only second will it look at the person who committed the crime.

This is another thing I hate to say, but the killer actually has a bit of a point; to some degree, it is society's fault.  That hardly constitutes a reason to commit mass murder, but according to everything I've read about him, he was shunned and mistreated constantly throughout his life.  There's only so far you can push someone before they'll snap.  Unfortunately, this is a problem that has to be fixed at the social level.

The Second Amendment
Scrap it. If people want to have guns, let them damn submit to some regulation. I don't necessarily support a total gun ban, but neither do I support a Constitutional Amendment worded so broadly that right-wingers (and libertarians) falsely construe it to mean that private citizens should check their own government with the threat of violence. That is absurd in today's world.

Given the size of our country and the probable mass of defections, it might actually be possible to contest the government with guerrilla warfare to some extent, though I don't hold out much hope for such a revolution actually toppling it.  If anything, by becoming an outfit of tyranny the government would end up virtually shutting down the economy, bringing its scheme to a grinding halt in fairly short order.  Violence may be a solution, but it's rarely the best one.

Illegal Guns
To those who keep arguing that outlawing guns will give criminals absolute power over the rest of us, stop being deliberately dense. For one thing, the authorities would still be armed, and they are ones best equipped to deal with all of this. For another thing, the implicit argument behind arming private citizens is that they will be able to defend themselves and others against armed criminals. Gun battles between private citizens is a very bad solution! Most people would be overwhelmed by adrenaline and would make bad decisions in the heat of a gun battle. I know many of you around here feel bold, smart, and able to function well under pressure. I also know that many of you are none of those things. So it is with the rest of society. If more people brought guns to a shootout, unintentional shootings would soar. Think of the chaos! At the time of the shooting, you have no information about what is going on...yet you expect to make sound decisions about who to shoot? Bullshit. Life is seldom that easy.

The implicit argument behind letting the authorities handle everything is that they know best in every situation.  All one has to do is look at the violence that goes on in many of our major cities to see that this is hardly the case.  Of course, I don't trust other people to make those types of decisions, either, which is why I believe that mandatory gun training really ought to be instituted in order to purchase firearms.

So too are England, Singapore, Germany...and Canada. I looked it up. All of these are countries with significant gun restrictions, and all of them have a far lower rate of intentional gun violence than does the United States.

And all feature cultures that are quite different from ours.  If I lived in one of those countries, I wouldn't mind not being able to arm myself, since I probably wouldn't need to.  Over here?  Not a chance.  I don't know why, but this country seems to be particularly vicious even when guns aren't involved.

There does seem to be a cultural factor in play. Some societies are simply far more averse to gun violence than others, without regard to restrictions on guns. We have a violent, freewheeling, vigilante culture in many parts of America. But, dash it all, we also have a whole friggin' lot of guns.

I was about to mention that.  Japan's culture is quite subdued, generally speaking.  People are more focused on not fucking up their entire lives at the age of 15 to be bothered with the fine art of busting a cap in someone's ass.

Making guns illegal will not stop criminals from having guns. Criminals such as burglars. A home invasion is a situation in which a private citizen (the resident) owning a firearm can be of great benefit. If the burglar isn't armed, a hasty retreat is no doubt his response, thus minimizing the time spent burglarizing. If they are both armed, well, that's a bit trickier. Hopefully you manage to spot the burglar before he knows you're awake and armed. In such a scenario it doesn't matter if the police still have their guns because they won't be able to get there in time to help you.

And, statistically, you're more likely to use those home-protection guns to shoot a friend or family member than a burglar.

Even if I didn't have a great deal of trouble believing this, the mere presence of a gun is often enough to scare a criminal away.  In fact, this is what happens far more than the criminal actually getting shot.

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General Discussion / Re: Virginia Tech Massacre

« on: April 17, 2007, 01:48:55 am »

Acquiring a gun is pretty damned easy regardless, thanks to the black market.

Now I'm all for tighter restrictions on gun ownership.  But taking them away outright won't accomplish anything.  It will very possibly lose more lives than it saves, by virtue of people not being able to defend themselves in their homes.

A gun ban, like hadriel said, would stop nothing. It would only bring easier access to guns. See since marijuana is illegal it's more fun to obtain and use because of the thrill. Making guns illegal would only give it a thrill and people would own more guns than necessary.

Speaking as someone who's smoked it before, I can tell you that the "thrill" of acquisition really has very little to do with it, except in the case of young teenagers.

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General Discussion / Re: Virginia Tech Massacre

« on: April 17, 2007, 01:05:37 am »

How would a ban on firearms have stopped this?  If the guy wanted a gun, he'd get one, legal or not.

45

General Discussion / Re: Bush Nearly Blows Himself Up (Not Kidding)

« on: April 12, 2007, 06:49:35 pm »

Hydrogen's hard to make cost-effective, though.  In order to do that, we'd have to switch our power over almost exclusively to nuclear for the reactors whose electricity creates said hydrogen; if we use fossil-fuel plants to produce hydrogen, that pretty much defeats the point.  And though keeping the environment healthy is obviously the way to go, Greenpeace hasn't done very damned much for that.  It's been blathering on and on about how NUCLEAR = OH GNOEZ! for the past thirty years, which has rendered the option a political implausibility to say the least.