Gallup: Almost half of America sees Government as an Immediate Threat to Liberty

[brimic]

The government is rigged to only allow two parties.  It's nowhere in the Constitution, but that's only sometimes respected anyways.  Throw out one party, you'll get the other one which is just as bad when it's in power.  Good luck getting good candidates, because those are also largely controlled by the parties.  Good luck "working within the system" to reform either party.  It's not a 100% system.  Sure, you can get a Ron Paul or some other wild card not endorsed by their party.  But the point is that the system does not have to be 100%.  Just being even 98% effective means for 50 to 1 odds against the wildcards.  Most of those wildcards get absorbed anyways into corruption, crony capitalism and all the other perks of the job. 

You play by rules stacked against you, don't be surprised when you lose.  Each and every time.  You need to change the rules of the game.  Try to do so with elections and you'll lose.  Try to do so with money, and you'll have ten times as much extorted as you volunteer in bribes/lobbying.  Try to do so with nonviolent protest, and you'll be ignored.  Try to do so with violence, and you'll be curb stomped by police, military, intel folks, etc.  Try to do so with a civil war and you'll be considered (correctly) as a nut.  Even if you were not considered a nut and were successful, you'd be looking at massive piles of bodies.

Ain't worth it.  Just get yourself in the best position possible, build up a good network of folks, and let the situation go as it will.  Try to make a positive change, so that you can sleep at night if nothing else.  But don't be too hard on yourself when you make one mild step forward with freedom, and get kicked a dozen steps back. 

Go ahead and call me a defeatist.  I'm just not dumb enough to throw money, time and resources down a hole unless I'm getting something out of it.  The returns on investment suck, frankly.  Exactly how much money has the 2nd Amendment folks dumped in bribes, propaganda, et al over the last two decades or more?  We got the Supreme Court to admit that the right exists, and we made otherwise modest returns at the federal level.  In exchange for billions of dollars and tens/hundreds of thousands of man-hours.  Plus we LOST numerous other rights at the same time we made modest gains.  That's sorta the point.  We get X dollars taken from us by law, we give up Y dollars to use legalized corruption to not get completely hosed, and we're rewarded with small gains in compensation for major losses.  The entire point is to benefit the political folks.  They created a system where their side automatically wins, nearly every time. 

I like the upbeat Disk who speaks of shooting hippies from a helicopter while blaring Slayer over a loudspeaker a lot better

[Tallpine]

The most basic ethic or morality is to not harm others.

As far as a "work ethic" - well, if you are not providing for yourself and your personal brand of family, then there is harm taking place: both those who are neglected and those who are having to step in and pay the bill that you should be paying.  Of course, no one is required to live a certain lifestyle - maybe the whole family is happy living in a teepee. 

If the long-haired pagan is managing to provide for his nine wives and 39 children without stealing either individually or collectively, what is the problem for a "free" society 

[RevDisk]

I like the upbeat Disk who speaks of shooting hippies from a helicopter while blaring Slayer over a loudspeaker a lot better

It's the same Disk.  Sorry if I sound depressing, I'm honestly not "all is lost, toss in the towel".  I'm just putting my resources into what can be changed, and that's AFTER the rules change so that things can be done.

[Perd Hapley]

If the long-haired pagan is managing to provide for his nine wives and 39 children without stealing either individually or collectively, what is the problem for a "free" society 

You'll notice it was Micro the Balrog who mentioned polygamy, probably because he was going for something obviously anathema to traditional American Protestantism. I don't think polygamy would do our country any favors, but I'm more worried about people without enough parents, rather than too many.

[longeyes]

There are good arguments to be made for extended families rather than "nuclear" ones--absent the xenophobia that often accompanies tribalism--but polygamy is just a combination of a fertility cult and masculine autocracy.  It was exactly these elements that the Founding Fathers, who might better be described as the Founding Brothers, broke away from.

[freakazoid]

Except the Bill of Rights did not extent to blacks, women, etc.

It didn't not extend to them either.

[KD5NRH]

DVD players will play audio CD's.

So will LaserDisc players.  I still want the LaserDisc form factor to come back with BluRay information density.  That way I'll only need four or five discs to make the reinstall media for the next version of Windows.

[freakazoid]

  I've wondered how much information one of those Laser disks could hold if it was a BluRay disk.

[KD5NRH]

I've wondered how much information one of those Laser disks could hold if it was a BluRay disk.

DVD: 120mm diameter, 452 sq cm area.
LaserDisc: 300mm diameter, 2827 sq cm area.

A quad-layer BluRay holds 128GB, so, disregarding the center hole and any unused edge margin, call it about 283MB/sqcm.  That would make the LaserDisc about 800GB assuming the center hole and edge margin use up the same proportion of its area.  They're actually proportionally smaller, but probably not more than ~1-2GB worth.  LDs were also typically double-sided, so 1.6TB overall.

[TechMan]

DVD: 120mm diameter, 452 sq cm area.
LaserDisc: 300mm diameter, 2827 sq cm area.

A quad-layer BluRay holds 128GB, so, disregarding the center hole and any unused edge margin, call it about 283MB/sqcm.  That would make the LaserDisc about 800GB assuming the center hole and edge margin use up the same proportion of its area.  They're actually proportionally smaller, but probably not more than ~1-2GB worth.  LDs were also typically double-sided, so 1.6TB overall.

Yep, that might just cover the code bloat in the next Micro$oft OS version.   

[doczinn]

the anarchist twits that burn something whenever the WIPO or G8 meet

Not anarchists. Nihilists, perhaps, socialists usually. Anarchists, no.

[longeyes]

Good distinction.

[Balog]

Not anarchists. Nihilists, perhaps, socialists usually. Anarchists, no.

This reminds me of the "But the Soviet Union and China aren't/weren't real Communist states!" argument. Those are the folks in the anarchist movement, even if they don't match the fantasy anarchists have of themselves.

[RevDisk]

This reminds me of the "But the Soviet Union and China aren't/weren't real Communist states!" argument. Those are the folks in the anarchist movement, even if they don't match the fantasy anarchists have of themselves.

This. 

At least the Soviet Union was more or less honest about being evil commie bastards.

[longeyes]

Totalitarians aren't anarchists.  It's moot, though.  Unreason usually leads to the same grim place.

[freakazoid]

So all "Republicans" that call themselves that must be, never mind there actual actions. 

[roo_ster]

So all "Republicans" that call themselves that must be, never mind there actual actions. 

Two words:
Olympia Snowe

(AKA, "RINO")

[Perd Hapley]

So all "Republicans" that call themselves that must be, never mind there actual actions. 

Republicans are a political party, not an ideological movement. So I'd say that anyone who self-identifies as Republican and has a strong tendency to vote that way is a real, honest-to-goodness Republican.

[Tallpine]

Considering that the Republicans started out as the mercantilist and central-government party, I'd say that they really haven't strayed all that far from their roots.

[freakazoid]

Republicans are a political party, not an ideological movement. So I'd say that anyone who self-identifies as Republican and has a strong tendency to vote that way is a real, honest-to-goodness Republican.

It's both. There is a generally understood ideology that people who say they are Republicans posses.