Ya know? It's amazing when people respond with facts, you continue to cling to the half truths and "sky is falling" mentality. Do not insult us with your high and mighty attitude. You sir, are the one that fail to respond to factual posts. You are the one who continues to spout off the continuous half truths that are being spread around the internet and elsewhere.

Read the actual legislation. Then find instances where this legislation has removed something our Constitution gives us. Give us facts. THEN maybe we'll listen to what you have to say. But as long as you subscribe to the Chicken Little Theory, we have nothing more to say.

 

I just read history.

 

I would jump in here and set all of you straight, but I'm too lazy...


So instead, just let me be Socratic for a second: Since terrorists and criminals aren't going to bother anyhow, what is anyone to gain in forcing law-abiding citizens to do the paperwork? Does anybody really think these regulations are going to cut crime rates?

After all, the only ones that will bother to get legit ID's are the ones with nothing to hide, while the criminals will just mock it with couterfits and the terrorists don't give an iota either way.

The chicken littles and morons are the blokes who support and pass these pieces of legislation that only make living legally increasingly more difficult to accomplish. It's a spiral, all supported by grass-roots chicken-littles- pretty soon laws govern and restrict everything and citizens find themselves walking a very fine line before they are breaking a law and subject to "justice".

It is the people who are to blame- in a quest for increased protection from themselves, they place these laws on the books that they percieve will protect them. In an increasing paranoia, more laws are passed, regulating everything. There is no evil conspiracy or power monger taking control, only the people erecting a monarchy from the ground up. Soon all power is centered in one source, and freedom is lost.

Hitler took advantage of this natural paranoia, as did Lenin and Stalin.

Hobbe's says that there are two kinds of people on the world- those who find an ideal in freedom, and those who find an ideal in security.
On one side is complete anarchy, where life is nasty, brutish and short as people within a society constantly take full advantage of one another out of unbridled self intrest. This is my ideal.
On the other side is complete oppression, where life is completely secure, but there is no room for self intrest as all men are forced to be exactly equal in order to avoid the slightest turmoil.

All people find belief in one of these two ideals- security or freedom. (And ironically they are ultimately the same, but we'll avoid that for now.)
From these two ideals stem political and social leanings; communism/ capitalism, monarchy/ democracy, (true)liberal/ (true)conservative all stem from Hobbes.

As pure freedom and pure oppression don't function properly, the trick to forming a lasting political government is to force the two extremes of opinions to form a compromise. This is why freedom of information is absolutely necessary.




Anyways, to get back on topic , this legislation is totally useless and only serves to continue the US's descent into a less free state. I totally disagree with it, but as most American's today believe in the ideal of security over freedom, the compromise is shifting to the right. Oh well... Us (true) leftists won't all get killed until the capital burns down, executive law is mandated and the people are all happy with their new dictator.

 

Be careful Begle1, TomW will accuse you of spouting half-truths and hyperbole.

Thank you for so eloquently expressing what I in my dismay and anger am unable to.

Edwin

 

Funny.. Ask 'em for factual information and they resort to insults and personal attacks. Good way to win an argument. Not.......

 

I wasn't insulting anybody in particular; actually, I thought I made it pretty clear that neither political-economical extreme will work at all and that compromises between the left and right are necessary to form a lasting society.


I'm simply a leftist* and therefore mock the right-winger's* in the world- however, I do give ultimate respect to members of all point of views, as my ideal world (as would be your ideal world) would be complete hell.

I don't agree with you and I think that you're stupid, but you're still necessary for the welfare of the country. Therefore I can, will and did not insult you.

*Speaking in historical terms, not the modified modern American usage.

 

**bold by me**

I rest my case. Neither one of you can carry on a logical and factual debate without resorting to personal attacks.

 

No no no... You see, I only think you're stupid, but I respect you enough to avoid calling you stupid. An insult involves a forecful application of a label, which I'm not doing. For example;

INSULT:
TomW, you are stupid.

NOT INSULT:
I think TomW is stupid.


You see, I'm not intending offense, I'm just descrbing how I see those who find their ideal in security and oppression. It was more of a description than an attack, and I applied the disclaimer of "I think", so it can only be offensive if you place any merit upon my words in the first place.

Not only that, but I wasn't even referring to you yourself but rather you people, so I was really "insulting" over half of the population of the world... Definitely not a personal attack.


And the odd thing is how your initial post, the "Ask 'em for factual information and they resort to insults and personal attacks" one, wasn't even referring to any personal insult or attack to begin with... It was more of an attempt to discredit us leftists by calling us a bunch of name-calling babies, not that I mind but you yourself now seem to be resorting to discreditation rather than responding with any logic or facts of your own...

So you loose.

Phbbt.

 

<Sound of chains being dragged out of the Moderator's storage room.>

 

See, the problem here is that we don't actually live in something close enough to your ideal world, which is unfortunate but true. There actually are people who would like to kill you for no reason other than the fact that you're an American, and making it easy for them to come to America doesn't strike me as that great an idea. I say that as a citizen of a large city that refuses to allow me to protect myself adequately (yeah, I think their restrictions are un-Constitutional, too, but good luck finding a judge who has heard of, let alone read and respects that amendment).

 

So there you go again, just bring the thread back on topic like that...


Specifically, the two points of view regarding this issue are 1. The law is required to protect us from unsavories and 2. The law will do nothing at all except for making it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to live in the US.


My point of view resides firmly in the second camp; I believe that nothing will come out of the legislation at all. It will not decrease illegal immigration, it will not decrease crime, and it won't catch any terrorists. All it will serve to do is to increasingly govern Americans' lives in a buildup towards an authoritarian dictatorship.


I thank God that we don't live in my ideal world. In my world, there would be no government, no economy and a life expectancy of 20 years. Ultimately, that's what happens in the other ideal world as well. Comprimise between the two extremes is necessary for any sort of stability and effectiveness. Conflict is necessary for progress. Both leftists and right-wingers must realize that if they had their way it would suck really bad.

While I realize that my ideal is a hell on earth, I still whole-heartedly pursue it in order for conflict and progress to be of maximum efficiency.

 

Just curious Beagle1. Do you consider yourself a pure anarchist or an anarcho-capitalist?

 

Ran it's course.

Everything that could be said has, over and over.


phox