Our country has a long history of immigrants taking the lowest paying menial jobs that no one else wants. The problem is that we have not updated our immigration laws to make it easier for people to come here legally. We also have. in some cases, fought to make these laws more restrictive towards immigrants.

I have no problem with immigrants taking low paying jobs. There is no way I am ever working for minimum wage again. Nor will I work menial labor. If they want those jobs, more power to them.

My problem is that because we have made it extremely hard to immigrate, we have illegal immigrants coming here. Illegal immigrants are outside of the system for the most part. They generally do not pay taxes other than sales tax, they use emergency care services that they cannot pay for because they cannot join healthcare plans, and their children use services that are being paid for by other taxpayers. These things put a drain on the system and that is my only real concern.

Personally, I have come to feel we should simply grant amnesty for any immigrant who can prove they are not a threat to society. I live in Texas, in a neighborhood that is predominantly surrounded by Latino people. My house has never been broken into, I have never been threatened by a Latino person, and my Wife and dogs have never been accosted by Latino's when she walks around the area. I have friends that live in Caucasian areas that have had the complete opposite experience...from other Caucasians.

If we give these people, who mostly just want to work hard for their families, a chance to join the system, then we can all benefit.

All the information I referred to or copied was from the link to the CNN article in the link the sifter provided above.

Crimes in which violence is the means to an end, such as robbery, are violent crimes. Violent crimes may, or may not, be committed with weapons. He robbed a store, committed arson on an occupied structure, committed breaking and entering upon a private home, stole the car at said home which is GTA, then committed another robbery at the walmart when he took the gun.

CNN stated that the person was also accused of pointing the rifle at the police, firing it in the air, and then later pointing it at himself. The man clearly has some mental issues, but he was a threat to society in the condition he was in. His rights do not trump the rights of his fellow citizens to be protected from his mental illness.

There are lots of ways that this could have been handled differently, but there are also lots of ways this could have went worse. We could be discussing why the police didn't do more before this guy shot an innocent bystander.

From the interview that I saw on CNN of the police chief, lethal force had been authorized if needed. I think this officer saw an opportunity and took it, perhaps over zealously, to end the situation without harm to innocents.

The Cannabis Cup has nothing to do with medical marijuana, it is a recreational marijuana event, normally held in Amsterdam.

Where there is no difference, is between a bunch of people drinking alcohol and these people smoking marijuana... well save for the fact these people aren't using something that destroys their bodies as much, it doesn't make them more violent and irritable and overly confident in themselves and their reaction time, and the high ends much sooner than the drunkards drunkenness (but can be detected in the system for far longer); but hey let's keep wasting billions of tax dollars keeping up a sham of a double standard so we can keep prisons over crowded with non-violent drug offenders, let's waste police resources finding people smoking or growing a plant,rather than violent criminals that pose an actual threat to society... because that makes perfect sense in opposite world.

Make no mistake, the supposed tax revenue that proponents of legalization make are a bit overstated since it is relatively easy to grow (to grow period, to grow quality stuff not so easy or cheap) compared to brewing one's own beer or something, but there would be some.

It is the height of hypocrisy to say marijuana should be illegal while saying people should be allowed to drink/make/brew beer, wine or other such drinks or us tobacco products.

The transcription is from a different message. Here's the right one:

Greetings, members of NATO. We are Anonymous.

In a recent publication, you have singled out Anonymous as a threat to „government and the people“. You have also alleged that secrecy is a ‘necessary evil’ and that transparency is npt always the right way forward.

Anonymous would like to remind you that the government and the people are, contrary to the supposed foundations of „democracy“, distinct entities with often conflicting goals and desires. It is Anonymous’ position that when there is a conflict of interest between the government and the people, it is the people’s will which must take priority. The only threat transparency poses to government is to threaten government’s ability to act in a manner which the people would disagree with, without having to face democratic consequences and accountability for such behaviour. Your own report cites a perfect example of this, the Anonymous attack on HBGary. Whether HBGary were acting in the cause of security or military gain is irrelevant – their actions were illegal and morally reprehensible. Anonymous does not accept that the government and/or the military has the right to be above the law and to use the phoney cliche of „national security“ to justify illegal and deceptive activities. If the government must break the rules, they must also be willing to accept the democratic consequences of this at the ballot box.We do not accept the current status quo whereby a government can tell one story to the people and another in private. Dishonesty and secrecy totally undermine the concept of self rule. How can the people judge for whom to vote unless they are fully aware of what policies said politicians are actually pursuing?

When a government is elected, it is said to „represent“ the nation it governs. This essentially means that the actions of a government are not the actions of the people in government, but are actions taken on behalf of every citizen in that country. It is unacceptable to have a situation in which the people are, in many cases, totally and utterly unaware of what is being said and done on their behalf – behind closed doors.

Anonymous and WikiLeaks are distinct entities. The actions of Anonymous were not aided or even requested by WikiLeaks. However, Anonymous and WikiLeaks do share one common attribute: They are no threat to any organization – unless that organization is doing something wrong and attempting to get away with it.

We do not wish to threaten anybody’s way of life. We do not wish to dictate anything to anybody. We do not wish to terrorize any nation.

We merely wish to remove power from vested interests and return it to the people – who, in a democracy, it should never have been taken from in the first place.
The government makes the law. This does not give them the right to break it. If the government was doing nothing underhand or illegal, there would be nothing „embarassing“ about Wikileaks revelations, nor would there have been any scandal emanating from HBGary. The resulting scandals were not a result of Anonymous’ or Wikileaks’ revelations, they were the result of the CONTENT of those revelations. And responsibility for that content can be laid solely at the doorstep of policymakers who, like any corrupt entity, naively believed that they were above the law and that they would not be caught.

A lot of government and corporate comment has been dedicated to „how we can avoid a similar leak in the future“. Such advice ranges from better security, to lower levels of clearance, from harsher penalties for whistleblowers, to censorship of the press.

Our message is simple: Do not lie to the people and you won’t have to worry about your lies being exposed. Do not make corrupt deals and you won’t have to worry about your corruption being laid bare. Do not break the rules and you won’t have to worry about getting in trouble for it.

Do not attempt to repair your two faces by concealing one of them. Instead, try having only one face – an honest, open and democratic one.

You know you do not fear us because we are a threat to society. You fear us because we are a threat to the established hierarchy. Anonymous has proven over the last several years that a hierarchy is not necessary in order to achieve great progress – perhaps what you truly fear in us, is the realization of your own irrelevance in an age which has outgrown its reliance on you. Your true terror is not in a collective of activists, but in the fact that you and everything you stand for have, by the changing tides and the advancement of technology, are now surplus to requirements.

Finally, do not make the mistake of challenging Anonymous. Do not make the mistake of believing you can behead a headless snake. If you slice off one head of Hydra, ten more heads will grow in its place. If you cut down one Anon, ten more will join us purely out of anger at your trampling of dissent.

Your only chance of defeating the movement which binds all of us is to accept it. This is no longer your world. It is our world – the people’s world.

We are Anonymous.
We are legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Expect us.

1. Yes, that poor man was shot multiple times with a lethal weapon because of the obsessiveness with danger from using weapons.

2. "The PC protection obsession is what leads to a world where kids with a plastic gun can be shot on sight." Really? Not the knowledge about the accessability of lethal guns for children? Not because a child playing with a lethal or toy- weapon for fun without malice is apparently enough reason to shoot the child in your scenario?

3."And some obsessed maniac came along an interpreted it as a threat to society." A police officer, brought up in a militaristic, gun loving culture. Who gets told he did the right thing by this society. Who is set free by this society. Who killed a human being with a gun in this society. And almost all are fine with that.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^DerHasisttot:
Nothing bad can come from a widespread disregard for human life and the fragility thereof

Oh, please.
Your link, if anything , proves my point, that poor man was shot partly because of the obsessiveness with danger from using weapons..
The guy was shot because, like the kids in this video, he used a "weapon" for fun, by doing something constructive with it. The PC protection obsession is what leads to a world where kids with a plastic gun can be shot on sight. He had harmless fun with his knife, just like these kids had with their waterpistols. And some obsessed maniac came along an interpreted it as a threat to society. Fuckin relax instead. live in the real world, where woodcarving, waterpistol shooting and the flashing of janet jacksons boob isn't viewed as a threat to our civilization, but for what it is: harmless fun.

>> ^DerHasisttot:
Nothing bad can come from a widespread disregard for human life and the fragility thereof


Oh, please.

Your link, if anything , proves my point, that poor man was shot partly because of the obsessiveness with danger from using weapons..

The guy was shot because, like the kids in this video, he used a "weapon" for fun, by doing something constructive with it. The PC protection obsession is what leads to a world where kids with a plastic gun can be shot on sight. He had harmless fun with his knife, just like these kids had with their waterpistols. And some obsessed maniac came along an interpreted it as a threat to society. Fuckin relax instead. live in the real world, where woodcarving, waterpistol shooting and the flashing of janet jacksons boob isn't viewed as a threat to our civilization, but for what it is: harmless fun.

>> ^MaxWilder:
>> ^cindercone:
The point I was making is this: I propose that since our current society is Theologically based, the conversion to rational reasoning would be disastrous. Society would fail. If I proposed this, you might argue my proposal. You would argue that the new ascendant rationale could not be determined in advance, or you would argue that rational reasoning would ascend. So either an unknown reasoning would emerge, or we would be dependent upon a historically flawed human assumption of rational reasoning for anything short of total anarchy. THAT is the proof.

First of all, "society" has frequently changed the structure on which it is based throughout history, and though it has gone through some tough times as a result, it doesn't simply "fail". Furthermore, the fear of the outcome of such a change has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of religion in the first place.
Because of the nature of theological indoctrination, even in ideal circumstances it would take generations to remove religion from society. During that time, people will develop other moral codes, whether it is "enlightened self-interest" or something else. Those ethics will be hotly debated, but at least they won't be founded on irrational fairy tales, and therefor will not be available for use as justification for war.
>> ^cindercone:
Obviously, HE doesn’t spend the emotional energy arguing nuclear proliferation and abortion. For him to imply that gay marriage and abortion are issues that are only emotionally contested because of the presence of theology is ridiculous.
How can you say that? It is patently obvious that abortion and gay marriage are only contested on theological grounds. Even if you could find examples of non-religious people who are anti-abortion or anti-gay marriage (which I doubt), those would be so few in number as to be laughable.
The point is that these issues are stupid fights that are distracting people from the real threats to society. In order to move attention from a distraction to a real issue, you have to attack the distraction.


The fallacy here is that the smallness of the number of anti-abortion or anti-gay Atheists would be ridiculous while the smallness of the number of Atheists themselves wouldn't.
What is the percentage of Atheists that hold conservative such as anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion? I don't know. You don't either. In this context any counter proof for your feeling that there ain't no such people can't be simply dismissed on the grounds of being numerically insignificant.

All that said I'm an anti gay marriage Atheist. And in fact, the Soviet Union criminalized homosexuality from the 1930's up to it's dissolution. The law was only repealed in 1993. None of the 5 current communist states accept gay marriage either. Since communism is a generally Atheist ideology, there you have your share of anti gay marriage Atheists, historically and currently.

Just please let's not get on logical implication nonsense here. I know Atheism doesn't imply Communism. I'm not a Communist myself. But it's the other way around: Communism largely implies Atheism. Plus Communism provides you with the one instance of an Atheist society, so it's quite relevant to determine what kind of morals can exist in the absence of religious guidance.

>> ^quantumushroom:
In all 50 states of the republic, driving is a privilege, not a right.
And yet socialists believe health care is a "right".


Why is that crazy? It's reckless to let certain people drive. It's a threat to society. Motor vehicles kill tens of thousands of people every year, so that's not hyperbole. There's no equivalent danger to providing health care.

Hospitals are already legally required to provide aid to everyone, but the implementation now is terrible for patients and expensive for the rest of us. You're already living in a socialism, I guess, just implemented very stupidly.

>> ^cindercone:
The point I was making is this: I propose that since our current society is Theologically based, the conversion to rational reasoning would be disastrous. Society would fail. If I proposed this, you might argue my proposal. You would argue that the new ascendant rationale could not be determined in advance, or you would argue that rational reasoning would ascend. So either an unknown reasoning would emerge, or we would be dependent upon a historically flawed human assumption of rational reasoning for anything short of total anarchy. THAT is the proof.


First of all, "society" has frequently changed the structure on which it is based throughout history, and though it has gone through some tough times as a result, it doesn't simply "fail". Furthermore, the fear of the outcome of such a change has absolutely nothing to do with the validity of religion in the first place.

Because of the nature of theological indoctrination, even in ideal circumstances it would take generations to remove religion from society. During that time, people will develop other moral codes, whether it is "enlightened self-interest" or something else. Those ethics will be hotly debated, but at least they won't be founded on irrational fairy tales, and therefor will not be available for use as justification for war.

>> ^cindercone:
Obviously, HE doesn’t spend the emotional energy arguing nuclear proliferation and abortion. For him to imply that gay marriage and abortion are issues that are only emotionally contested because of the presence of theology is ridiculous.

How can you say that? It is patently obvious that abortion and gay marriage are only contested on theological grounds. Even if you could find examples of non-religious people who are anti-abortion or anti-gay marriage (which I doubt), those would be so few in number as to be laughable.

The point is that these issues are stupid fights that are distracting people from the real threats to society. In order to move attention from a distraction to a real issue, you have to attack the distraction.

I think this is funny.


BUT I'd like to to start labeling the group represented in this nutshell as "asshole christians."

There are millions of people who believe in magical things (religious or otherwise) who realize that it's just what they believe and that there's no good reason to force others into believing it too. And I think some of them are Christians, some are also Muslim, Jewish, Pagan and so on. I haven't read the whole bible but I'm not entirely certain that it says you *have* to be an asshole to be a Christian. There are a whhoooole lot of people using it as an excuse, but of course they're speaking louder than those who don't.

Everyone seemed okay with distinguishing moderate Muslims from "Extremists." Can't we start separating the "yur doing it wrong" Christians from the quiet nice not-a-threat-to-society Christians?

Amen,
I can take opposing points of view, but I can't stand when people ASSUME points of view and ascribe them to groups of individuals, i.e. "all conservatives think alike, all religious people are nuts, etc." It's bigoted, and it should be rebuffed. Damn the liberals and conservatives alike that write groups off like that. That is the REAL threat to society. At some point you have to face the fact that not everyone thinks like you and compromises are necessary to get along. It's how politics really works. It's how marriage really works. Say...that reminds me, I need to go put the toilet seat down.

"F'n politics. And the religion too. And the damn Camps."

exactly biznichi. why didn't the 911 operator just tell him it was impossible to overdose on marijuana and to quit freaking out? and then call the cops of course. really, if you are stupid enough to do drugs and then call the cops to report yourself, you should be in jail because you're ignorance and stupidity are a threat to society.

"The Bush Administration has hyped the fear of the "islamofascist" beyond any rational basis. Terrorists and their methods have been around for decades. It is simply not a "new and unprecedented" threat. The UK and Israel have been handling comparably greater terrorist threats for decades without eroding civil liberties and placing powers in the hands of an unchecked executive."

No two things are ever created equal, and terrorist threats and societies change over time. The U.K. dealt with the IRA in their own way, I can't comment on it too much because I've never studied that part of history. What I do know is that England is, by comparison, more strict with their civil rights and have far more intrusive law enforcement methods. England also recently broke up a homegrown terrorist ring and foiled a major attack of British soil. If they had America's laws, they never would have found them.

Israel has been going back and forth with Palestine and Syria for decades and very little has changed. And with the most recent conflict with Hezbollah was a huge victory for the terrorists because Israel showed them that they are unwilling to carry a fight to the end. And incidentally, if government suggested that we take on the kind of airport security that they have in Israel, the American people would absolutely freak.

The Islamofacist threat is real, but the vast majority of people simply don't want to believe it. I think it's part of human nature, that people don't want to think the unthinkable. What would happen if the sovereignty of this country was very seriously threatened? Can you even conceive of it? In the late 1930's, America, England and most of Europe didn't (want to) think that the Nazi's were a threat. Polls from back then stated that 90% of Americans didn't want to get involved even if England was conquered, but then Pearl Harbor happened and things changed. And like Pearl Harbor, we were hit once, we will be hit again.

"would like to know if [you] would support the torture powers asserted by the Bush Administration (no transparency, no oversight, classified secret prisons, warrantless surveillance) if someone like Al Sharpton (or even someone like Richard Nixon or Bill Clinton) was President."

I would hope that those in power would do what necessary to protect the people of this country regardless of who was in charge. But for what it's worth, let me try to assure you that there is oversight and that those in charge are not running wild with power and brutally mutilate prisoners for their own pleasure and the everyday, law-abiding Joe Schmoe has absolutely no intelligence value and is not worth surveilling. It is a massive waste of resources.

What this clip shows is not torture. It certainly is coercive, in that I would call it "coercive interrogation." If you've ever seen Hostel, THAT is torture. The use of electric shocks, blades, employing power tools is torture. Pouring water up someones nose is not, in my opinion.

"I appreciate the faith that some people have in this administration. But it is a deliberately blind, lemming-like faith on the issues of Iraq and torture."

Believe me, I share your sentiment, however I don't share your outlook. The people need to have a large amount of faith in the people they elect, and like you, there are people I simply don't trust. And I know it's hard, but we all need to believe that those in charge will do the right thing, but it gets harder everyday.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

"isn't there a "NO PORN" rule here? or do they even classify this as porn?"

No, see this is a video explaining the EVILS of pornography - any arousal you may feel is strictly a side effect of educating yourself on how to identify this insidious threat to society.