So really the issue is people are doing something illegal and getting busted for it. The government is aware that people will routinely break said law and are profiting off it.

So the real issue is that the government is acting as a for-profit organization, right? That still doesn't negate that people are breaking the law and getting busted for it. If the drivers followed the speed limit, then the government couldn't profit off them, now could they? *smacks forehead*

See, with red light cameras there's a legitimate argument to be made. If a driver is following the speed limit, and break safely, there is a set time the yellow light should progress in order to insure compliance and safety. So for instance, if a vehicle traveling at 30MPH takes 10 seconds to come to a slow, controlled stop, the yellow should last for 12 seconds to ensure the drivers a reasonable time to notice the light change and react. (Normal human reaction time is between .3 to 2 seconds.)

So if the government sets the yellow to only 5 seconds, this creates an unsafe and unreasonable margin. And then, if the safest and more sane thing to do is "run the red" and are subsequently ticketed, then that's entrapment. That is wrong, and is something someone can complain about.

Complaining that you got caught speeding, well, boohoo for you. Don't speed. No one is forcing you to speed. So it's your own damn fault, no matter if the government is profiting off it or what video is posted.

If what you're really complaining about is that the actual design of the road triggers a natural response to travel at a "perceived safe speed" (which is a real thing) and the limit is set to a lower than needed limit, then that's something you can complain about. Still doesn't mean speeding isn't illegal.

Speed traps don't work in general. All they trigger is a momentary change in behavior and once the negative force is removed, the behavior continues. But because of the quota systems placed by "hard on crime" Republicans, real change isn't going to happen. Instead what you're seeing is a systematic failure of a rewards and punishment system that has long been proven to be ineffective and counter-productive.

Instead, if they really want to slow speeds, they should redesign the road and perhaps do a road diet, re-stripe the lanes, use bricks or plant trees (which is illegal by DOT standards btw - they hurt cars if they crash, but people don't, so it's better to hit people than trees - no joke, literally their logic.)

Or, if you're worried the police force is resorting to the quota and a misguided broken windows policy, then that's something to address. You're lack of ability to lay off the gas pedal is not a "liberties" issue or the "man putting you down."

The focus is totally misguided and the video is proof.

Ought to be required viewing for all Americans (and should be part of the informal driver's test).
I'd say that it warrants repeat viewings every few years, particularly around the holidays, when the cops are out in force, and looking to make quota.

well thank god i visited your page!
oooo../claps hands
what a delight to read your response!

i agree with almost everything you expressed.
oh thank you my friend!

economics has never been my strong suit.i know..shocker.
but i AM quite literate in history and government and of course politics.
while you are correct that a socialist state can become a fascist one,so too can a democracy.
it is really the forces of ideology which can push a state to either a fascist or swing despotic.
but i get your point.

i do apologize for my oftentimes rambling.maybe because i am a little out of my comfort zone when it comes to economics,so i rely on my history and governmental knowledge to fill in the gaps.
your last post really cleared so many misconceptions i was having during this conversation.

i knew we were more in agreement than disagreement.
and we are.

1.the banks need to held accountable.
check.
2,which by inference means the governments role should be as fraud detector and protector of the consumer.
check.
3,you didnt mention it but i hope you agree the corporate charter needs to be rewritten in a way where they are NOT a person and therefore shall be removed from the political landscape.
check.
4.this will (or should) re-balance our political system (which is diseased at the moment).
5.which will return this country to a more level playing field and equate to=more liberty.
6.this will open innovation,progress and advancements in ALL fields AND due to competitive forces ,will lower prices.

how am i doing so far?

now.
since we have to talk about politics when we talk about markets.
my old professor dr paul (great man,miss him very much).
he reduced politics down to one simple question:
"what should we do"?
or in terms that we have been discussing:
"what is governments role"?

thats it.
now people like to make it more complicated,especially people getting paid good money to postulate on sunday morning tv shows,but thats it.

being an anarchist is not one dimensional.
the anarchism YOU are speaking of is the extreme.
i am more the libertarian socialism flavor.(yes..you didnt convert me)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism
the anarchist may see a form of government that no longer works.that is weighed down by its own hubris,greed and corruption.
the anarchist finds it perfectly acceptable to tear down that government to build a new one.

and why not?
if something aint working the way it was meant to,get rid of it and try another.

now you wanted to know why i feared and unrestricted free market.
(which is how i was talking your previous post and confused me greatly).i see now i may have misinterpreted your commentary so my next point may be a moot one.
if so..i apologize.

if we put everything on the table as an unrestricted free market.we would be going back to feudalism.
the flaw in capitalism is not just the boom and bust but the exploitation of the common man,or worker if you like.

not only would the most vulnerable of us be exploited but it would make the class structure even WORSE than it is now (which by comparison is not too bad when compared to,say..somolia).

we see pockets of this happening now here in the US:
http://youtu.be/GVz_yJAxVd4

imagine having to pay for any road you drove on.ALL of them.all owned by different companies and subsidiaries.every one of them a toll road.
the market would dictate what burden could be held sufficiently in order to turn a profit.
what percentage would be prevented from driving those roads due to lack of funds?

see what im saying?

lets take this template and put it with firefighters.
would having a firehouse every couple of miles be profitable?
i mean,how many fires are there actually occurring on any given day?
so the firehouse would have 2 choices that i see.
shut down the more rural and spread the firehouses more thinly OR charge a monthly fee.
since a nominal fee would be the most likely avenue,what about those people who cant afford that fee?
does the firehouse BILL them?
"sorry for the loss of your house ..pay us".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwJrPa8Ps7A

and what about police?
they already have become revenue generators and protectors of the privileged.
what happens to poor folks in an unrestricted market?
police wont have a station in any inner city areas.no profit there.
no no no..wait a minute!
there would be HUUUGE profit there!
/smacks head
what was i thinking!
of course!
just like our prison system the police would be paid by the state PER arrest.
to be reimbursed on a quarterly basis!
BRILLIANT.
then poor people could be commodities!

nope nope nope.not gonna work.
that would mean the state would have to impose a tax or something to generate the revenue to pay for the arrested subjects.

hahaha im being an asshole now.forgive me.

ok.lets talk schooling.
lets privatize em!
free market baby!
based on the local population and average income we can fill those seats.
aaaand maybe get rid of NCLB and standardized testing,which i loving refer to as the giant ball of bullshit.
now this would be GREAT.

wait a minute.
what about the poor families that cant afford the tuition?
what do they do?

well in an unrestricted market and pesky government out of the way what do YOU think is going to happen to a system driven by self interest and profit?

welcome back child labor!!
and the 80 hour work week!
and beatings for not making quota!
and how awesome is it that that poor family of 5 gets to live with grandma,grandpa,uncle lou and aunt sara and there 3 kids all in one 3 bedroom house.
its 1913 all over again.
happy days are here again.......

ok ok.dont get mad at me.that was mostly tongue in cheek.
i realize after your post tonight that you are not suggesting an "unrestricted" free market but a free market.

and i am ok with that.
if we can limit government intrusion.
allow companies to tank when they fail.
rewrite the corporate charter (or dissolve them completely,or as i suggested previously make them accountable and put back the phrase "for the public good").
reign in bank fraud and make the rules to keep em honest.

in my opinion the only thing we really seem to disagree on is when it is in regards to labor.

i tried a few years ago to buy my friends bar/eatery with most of the employees.
did you know what i found out?
we were not allowed.
could not get the permits.
the owner even offered to finance us all..
nope.
how about them apples.illegal to have an employee owned business.

that is changing though.
employee owned businesses and co-opts are popping up like recurring herpes.

i dont know why it was illegal in this area and i dont see how employee owned companies would threaten a free market.

but as you figured out.
economics is not my strong suit.

and my man,cant tell ya how grateful i am to have had this conversation with you.i learned tons,about you and your views and even some about free markets.

thank you my friend.thank you.
namaste.

I've have great cop interactions and horrible cop interactions. Same with referees in sports. People are fucking stressed out and they have problems sometimes with authority or difficult situations or masters they have to serve.

That's why we have to try and make their jobs as easy as possible. Don't give cops quotas they have to fill, have them be a part of the community.

Those poor cops, they probably missed their quota's that day

*sniffle

Your video, Cop Fired for Speaking Out Against Ticket and Arrest Quotas, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

My schadenfreude quota has been met for the week.

I don't disagree about the snooping since 2001. As far as the koch brothers and the Tea Party, you don't know what the fuck your talking about.

They just want the Constitution follow or at least print current laws back towards it.

Instead of watching biased Democratic sucking media, go to an actual event .

They are not raciest, or the desire to go back to slavery as the media puts forth. . That's Bullshit. B.W.Y. the slavery shit and the KKK was the Democrat south doing its thing, not Republicans. MLK was Republican.


Today the Republican party is nothing more than a cheap intimation of the Democrat party. They will never win fighting that way. The Tea Party is they way to go.


FYI a little history ... Since you had a public education and hence only learned skewed left leaning revised history...


http://www.humanevents.com/2006/08/16/why-martin-luther-king-was-republican/

"
It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S’s: slavery, secession, segregation and now socialism.

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860s, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950s and 1960s.

During the civil rights era of the 1960s, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court, which resulted in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman’s issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil Rights Act... And after he became President, Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph, who was a black Republican.

The Democrats were loosing the slavery battle and civil rights were breaking through and JFK/Johnson the

Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon’s 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation’s fist goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs.

Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans."


Democrats are still in the slavery business. They just use the welfare system to keep the poor poor and use the shallow promise of If you vote Democrat we will keep giving you a little cheese.

The Democrat party has been the most destructive political party to date.

Since my unsifted quota is full, I wanted to submit a YT video using two power points but the validate box doesn't respond after I type in the imbed code. It also didn't respond when I just wanted to just validate the video code [to be sure it hadn't already been submitted]

Operator error?

That reached several lifetimes of quotas for seeing dead and dying women, men and children. So many dead kids... For fucks sake.

This whole part of the world needs to just go away, because there's just no cure for this.

Seems to me a big part of the problem is police looking to meet some sort of quota. Shouldn't police performance be related to the level of crime and not the number of arrests?

Wow...that's smart. Respond to a call and get your quota taken care of. Quotas should be illegal.

This really is another storm in a bloody teacup.

@ChaosEngine brought up the perfect example of what's wrong on both sides of this type of thing with the Penny Arcade Sixth Slave comic debacle. That comic was absolutely innocuous. Having a slave say they were raped to sleep by dickwolves was merely a ludicrously horrible statement to show what a terrible existence the slave had, and why the player ignoring their pleas because they had fulfilled their quota was such a hilariously callous reaction.

To think that someone could read that and be offended, be offended enough to write a bloody blog post, is just stunning. It absolutely demonstrates a demeanour that's looking for the worst in everything and not the humour. I get that you may not find the comic funny, but to actually get riled up by it, to actually think it was worth telling people that you got riled up by it is stunning.

But then we get to the other ugly side of things. We have people who get angry at the people who got offended, and so they start attacking them (verbally), and start saying just horrible, mean spirited, ugly things. They start saying misogynistic, aggressive things that seem to demonstrate an ACTUAL core of anger/hatred towards women.

And that becomes scary.

So I think both sides are usually wrong in these cases:

* Those who get offended:
A lot of the time have very little reason to actually be offended (especially in the penny arcade example), it's as if they're attuned to their own little sphere of outrage and if someone mentions one of their keywords then they'll go nuts, regardless of the intent of a given joke.

* Those who made the initial joke and/or those who defend them:
Far, far, FAR too often they end up really attacking those that were offended, becoming vile and disgusting and not showing any restraint or compassion at all. Mike Krahulik demonstrates how NOT to handle something like the dickwolves incident. The correct way? 'Sorry you were offended by it, really don't understand how anyone could be, we're not taking it down as we don't see anything wrong with it. Let this be the end of it'. But nooo, he pushed and pushed and pushed it.

Louis CK, as usual, demonstrated that he can joke about horrible things and come up trumps because it's ALWAYS obvious that he's saying things in jest and from a good place (or for pure shock value). When someone says something so shit as 'It'd be funny if she was gang raped right now' without a damn strong demonstration that it was in jest and in no way meant to be mean or serious... well then that's a dick move and probably should be called out.

But for it to be as big as it's got? Gah!

We'll get there. I'm sure @ChaosEngine will respond again, he's a last-word kind of guy.

Hey @ChaosEngine, I agree, the video is stupid, but I wasn't commenting on the video, I was commenting on your gender-bias'ed ideas about what careers suit which sex.

Male nurses? WTF AM I RIGHT.
>> ^Unsung_Hero:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
>> ^KnivesOut:
What do we gain by having more people in science? How about more science?
Christ, would you please go back and read my post? I've already said I want "more capable, passionate scientists".
>> ^KnivesOut:
The point (that you're missing) is that by encouraging more people to be interested in science, we'll hopefully get more scientists, and at the very least, more smart people. How is that a bad thing?
You I doubt you'll get "more smart people". The percentage of "smart people" will stay the same as it roughly always has. You'll just get more mediocre people doing things they're not good at.
That said, more scientific literacy can't be a bad thing. But I'm not arguing against more people in science. I'm asking why we need more of insert-demograhpic-here in science. I don't give a rats arse what their gender, race, orientation is. This kind of thing just feels like quota filling.
>> ^KnivesOut:
I've worked with plenty of those programmers that you describe, primarily people with dollar signs in their eyes. Sure, if you don't love it enough to read a C++ book while your wife is in labor (guilty) you may not be the kind of person I'd give the nod to in an interview. At the same time, I'm glad that the world has more programmers. Hell I'm glad the world has more bad programmers, because it makes us good ones look that much better when we clean up their messes.
I'm not. That's a pretty selfish attitude to be honest. I would rather see those people doing something they're good at, or at least something they like.
>> ^KnivesOut:
I'm not sure why you're upset about the idea of the world having a high proportion of smart people.

I don't disagree with promoting science.
So far, even if you agree with the goal and methodology, it's a complete fail. This wouldn't convince a single teenage girl that science is cool. The ones that think it's nerdy will have that confirmed to them by this desperate attempt to be cool and the ones that like science will be disgusted by this patronising bullshit.
Now if there are barriers to women in science, they should be removed.

I just wanted to be part of this extremely long quoted comment. Are we near the record yet!?