Your Attention Please [Breaking News and WoD Flamewars]

[Admin Moderator]

Since my last vanity announcement on keywords went so swimmingly (it ended up with something like 5000 keywords added to it) I thought a great idea would be to throw some propane on some other fires with a vanity.

Breaking news is being abused again, big time. This goes in cycles, with sometimes people being responsible, but other times people not being very responsible.

We are in one of the not-very time periods.

Please, do not post something in Breaking News because you think it is something you want people to see. Place something in Breaking News only if it is

1. Something the networks would interrupt their programming to say,
2. The networks would interrupt their programming to say if they weren't overwhelmingly liberal,
3. Something that honestly would (not should, would) be of interest to majority of self-described conservatives
4. Official chapter announcements

Or things along those lines. Don't consider that a list of rules, but of guidelines. But act as if the guidelines matter, please. And flame the heck out of people that don't. And provide appropriate feedback to people who don't.

Some things that are never breaking news: Stories that have been posted before, stories that are over a day old, opinion vanities, freep this poll, or anything from the op-ed section of any newspaper.

Now, on to the WoD [War on Drugs] flamewars. There are a few problems with them. The flaming on them is tremendous. It is wrong for several reasons, and it should stop and the first thing we are going to do to try to get them to stop is to make a request for them to stop. If you feel the need to flame someone for something they say on one of these threads, do this (and yes, it involves a lot more work than just hitting reply, but such is life):

1. Post a copy of the article to the Smokey Backroom
2. Ping your flamee to that copy.
3. Go to town over there and keep the crap off the main forum.

Instead of hitting abuse on someone on a WoD thread right away (unless it is extremely bad), please just advise them to do what I am saying here- take it to the backroom. Link them to this if need be. And if you don't want to get into a flamewar, leave it at that. If you do, then join them in the backroom and have at it. The WoD flamewars overwhelm the latest posts page with a neverending sequence of posts that are just mindless insults. Please, spare us, and don't try to put it on the moderators to determine who fired the first shot. There are rarely clean hands here, and no matter what we do one side or another is going to complain.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Freeping. I expect no fewer than 500 taunts at us in the keywords here before this is over. Thank you, and God Bless. ;-)

[Constitution Day]

I actually know which one, but I don't think I should say who in the open forum.
It's a North Carolina Freeper.

[MrLeRoy]

I'm with you.

No you're not.

Execute all large volume drug pushers.

That won't make a significant difference. Drug dealers currently face a greater and more imminent threat of death from competitors (and violence-prone customers) than the government could ever impose, yet they continue dealing, and when one is arrested or dies, another springs up to take his place.

[bvw]

That particular Letter of Rebuke came in a special package, and was delvered by "parcel post".

Did you see where the Feds have warned private hackers against hacking enemy networks? Penalty of felony. If they meant to stop hackers from munging up intelligence gathering, I think they should have just said that.

If the Federals are at War with a nation, what is the the Constitutional court history status of private war acts against that same nation in the same time frame?

[jayef]

Have you checked the marijuana laws in Nevada? Marijuana is decriminalized there. If you can stand it, go to the NORML site and you can see the legal status of cannabis in every state. The only punitive sanction for possession of any quantity of marijuana by an adult in Nevada is a $600 fine. Hate to break it to ya Dane, but you seem to have misunderstood the purpose of the referendum.

[toothless]

"And the actual text of the laws. And Congressional findings of facts. And the words of Founding Fathers and of historical authorities. And ballot statements. And court decisions."

I have not seen you post any words of the Founding Fathers supporting prohibition. Please do so again, I am very curious what they had to say. Thanks.

[robertpaulsen]

I do not believe that a State of War, declared or otherwise, is a valid excuse to violate the Constitution.

Also, you are making a giant leap of logic to assume that The Lever Food and Fuel Control Act and The War Prohibition Act 1) were unconstitutional and 2) were only enforceable because we were at war.

Again, my point is that Congress did not need a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. My proof is the above two Acts. Your "proof" is mere speculation, conjecture, and false claims, unsupported by any sliver of documentation.

[bvw]

When you look at whether a law, once passed, is Constitutonal, at either the Federal or State levels, the normal, standard, accepted practise is to look at how that law has been tested in the Courts. The highest standard is that the Supreme Court has ruled on a case of that law, then downward through the various levels of appelate courts. That's just the way it is, Mr. Paulsen. Laws are passed that will never pass muster, it is the testing of the court that resolves the issue.

[MrLeRoy]

you said that Congress needed a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol. I proved to you that they didn't.

No you didn't. That legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime in no way implies that they would be justifiable during peacetime.

[MrLeRoy]

That legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime

And as bvw has pointed out, we don't even know that's true.

[Roscoe]

"Every society has a right to fix the fundamental principles of its association, and to say to all individuals, that if they contemplate pursuits beyond the limits of these principles and involving dangers which the society chooses to avoid, they must go somewhere else for their exercise; that we want no citizens, and still less ephemeral and pseudo-citizens, on such terms. We may exclude them from our territory, as we do persons infected with disease." -- Thomas Jefferson

"There never was a government without force. What is the meaning of government? An institution to make people do their duty. A government leaving it to a man to do his duty or not, as he pleases, would be a new species of government, or rather no government at all." -- James Madison

[Roscoe]

Thanks!

Whoever it is, it's good to know that they're a Freeper.

[Roscoe]

That legislative bans were found justifiable during wartime in no way implies that they would be justifiable during peacetime.

No source, of course.

[robertpaulsen]

So, if I can show that this legislation was reviewed by the federal courts and found constitutional, then you would accept this legislation as justifiable and lawful?

[MrLeRoy]

So, if I can show that this legislation was reviewed by the federal courts and found constitutional, then you would accept this legislation as justifiable

As a wartime measure, yes.

[MrLeRoy]

The Supreme Court has traditionally taken a relatively lenient view of federal actions presented as wartime needs---or do you disagree?

[EBUCK]

Actually I started replying long before I realized that the thread was over. Realized that the thread was dead and stopped posting.

And yes, it was unConstitutional. Find for me where, in the Constitution, the drug czar is authorized to campaign, using federal dollars, against state initiatives. If you can't find that power "specifically" in the Constitution refer to the tenth. Just because you agree with the purpose shouldn't blind you to the fact that the drug czar camainging in state matters is a terminal symptom of obese and unrestrained federal governemnt.

[E Rocc]

Sorry, I must have missed that class - what's "WoD"?

A method for testing fascistic techniques on Americans. See also "ATF enforcement".

-Eric

[EBUCK]

No source for the real numbers since he won't file them, convienient eh?

But I remember at least 5 trips in the final months. Each by personal plane, each with an envoy of drug warriors, each on the tax payer dime.

[tpaine]

Take your out of context 'spam' to the backroom.

[Roscoe]

The Supreme Court has traditionally taken a relatively lenient view of federal actions presented as wartime needs---or do you disagree?

They also voted unanimously to uphold federal drug laws against the medical marijuana challenge.