Free Republic

NYC is even crazier with prop guns. To shoot a scene in NYC with a realistic gun one must:

Any reason one couldn't use a transparent plastic prop with a few markings on the edges and then digitally edit in a real gun in post?

Political arguments that cite a religious text are only going to be meaningful to those who accept the text in question. Many such arguments could, for purposes of the political arena, be better expressed in secular terms.

I also think the Parable of the Talents might be a better basis for argument, though one needn’t actually cite the parable. If one gives $100,000 to two people, one of whom uses it to buy a small factory and produce a new product, and the other of whom spends it on expensive luxury goods for himself, which of those people would likely have more money after ten years? Would society benefit more from having money in the hands of the first person or the second?

While there are some people who are rich despite spending money poorly, and there are others who would invest wisely any money they acquired but who because of genuine misfortune have nothing to invest, for the most part people who invest resources wisely are apt to end up with more than those who don’t, and society is likely to thrive more when its resources are in the hands of those who use them productively than when resources are in the hands of people who don’t.

The law contested in the Illinois Court system was Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon, the AUUW.

If I were king of the world, I'd pass a rule that juries should be instructed that they may only convict someone of a crime if their actions fall afoul of the a reasonable reading of the name of the crime. For example, a conviction for Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon should require that the person actually made use of a weapon. There's no reason legislatures should be allowed to dishonestly name crimes, but nowadays dishonest crime names seem to be the norm.

The results, including the public’s yawn, come from decades of non-Bible based (ie, relativistic) media and education.

I would argue the opposite: it comes from the fact that too many of the opponents of so-called "same-sex marriage" voiced their argument in ways that could be spun by opponents as "trying to cram religion down their throats".

If opponents of SCSSM had instead focused on a couple more important principles, I think they would have fared much better:

1. The joining of people into long-term heterosexual mating pairs predates religion, predates governments, predates written communication, and might quite plausibly predate Homo Sapiens [given that many animal species behave similarly]. Religions and governments acknowledge such relationships, but that does not mean that they create them.
2. Marriage has always been, fundamentally, centered on recognizing the legitimacy of an exclusive sexual union between individuals. It is hypocritical for proponents of SCSSM to simultaneously demand that others "keep out of their bedroom" but simultaneously demand recognition for what goes on there.

Any argument whose validity is predicted upon the Bible will be irrelevant to anyone who does not regard the Bible as a perfect source of truth. On the other hand, I really don't see any good counter to secular arguments like the above.

A fundamental problem is that the meaning of Marbury v. Madison has been twisted over time. When written, it meant, essentially, that for a Court decision to be legitimate, the judges must determine what the law means and make the decision consistent with that meaning. I would posit that most people would and should agree with that statement. Further, I don't think many people would dispute the fact that those with a duty to enforce court judgments on the parties to a case is generally required to presume that the court's decisions are legitimately enforceable in the absence of very strong evidence otherwise.

Unfortunately, many people proceed to make a logical inference by combining the two statements above without recognizing that it's possible for a decision to be legitimately enforceable without actually being legitimate. Consequently, if the Court makes a false statement about what the law means, the fact that the court misinterpreted the law would not render its decision unenforceable, but it would instead mean that the law wouldn't match what the Court says it is.

If one acknowledges the possibility that the Court may have at times made decisions inconsistent with the Constitution, it will become apparent that the Constitution doesn't really have all the odd little nooks and crannies that the Court loves to read into it.

It is a well known anecdotal fact that progressive/liberalism is a serious mental disorder.

Such statements are at their core no different from those made by leftists who claim conservatism is a mental disorder. Further, they fail to make a distinction between three kinds of people:

1. Those who out of apathy simply don't see the effects of leftist policies.
2. Those who, in order to avoid contradiction with their views, have blinded themselves to the consequences of leftist policies even when those consequences are staring them in the face.
3. Those who are well aware that the actual effects of leftist policies have no relation to their stated aims, but whose actual aims correlate to the effects of those policies.

While those in the second group could be regarded as suffering from a delusion disorder, and one could argue that the members of the third group are often sociopaths, I don't think leftism may fairly be described as a mental disorder, especially given that the second and third groups are so different.

IMHO, the big reason that "gay marriage" proponents have been as successful as they have been is that they have baited many conservatives into treating marriage as a "religious issue", thus allowing leftists to paint those who don't acknowledge it as "foisting their religion on others". The proper rebuttal would be to suggest that any two (or more) individuals who want to consider themselves "married" are free to do so, but that does obligate anyone else to recognize them as such. It is common for people, including business owners, to voluntarily extend certain benefits and privileges to some people that they do not wish to extend to others. In a free country, such behavior is their right as individuals.

To declare by fiat that X is required to provide a service to Y which X has not voluntarily agreed to provide and does not wish to, is to make X a slave of either Y or the entity that is mandating such service. The issue isn't merely one of religion. It's about whether people should be compelled to serve others against their will.

Will be interesting to see how Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore will handle it when some crackpot liberal federal judge says the people of good state of Alabama have to accept sodomite “marriage” after the people have resoundingly voted it down time and time again

A more interesting question IMHO is what would happen if a state passed a law which used the state's authority to define the effects of such "marriages" in other states such that people claiming such marriages could request, in exchange for a $50,000 fee, a document from the secretary of state documenting the fact that the other state regards them as married, but that such marriages performed in other state would impose no obligations on either the state or its citizenry beyond the issuance of such document, and such document itself would not compel anyone to do anything.

Once you have been pulled over, if you then give the police permission to search your car, the search is not illegal or unconstitutional. Why? Because you gave permission.

I wish (though it will never happen) that legislators would make clear that in many circumstances involving police, any "consent" should be presumed coerced and any police who wish to claim they had permission to do something would be required to prove that it was genuinely voluntarily.

I would suggest that the vast majority of people who "consent" to searches really don't want to police to search, and don't believe that the police would be able to find a legal basis to search without consent, but believe (perhaps correctly) that the police will use their discretionary authority to make their lives more unpleasant if they refuse the search than if they "consent". I would not call consent given in such cases voluntary.

After reviewing this case, we have decided to Abolish the policy of Not Utilizing Firearms during the course of their duties and instead, We at Papa Johns are encouraging ALL OF OUR EMPLOYEES to get Training and Concealed Weapons Permits. We will begin offering FREE Firearm Safety courses to all Franchisees and openly encourage our Stores to use their GOD GIVEN RIGHT to Defend themselves against these cockroaches.

Unfortunately, any person or business with deep pockets that gets involved in a self-defense shooting, no matter how clearly justifiable, is apt to get sued and risk having a jury sympathize with the victim. The most reliable way in today's legal climate for a company to avoid such a thing is for it to make clear that a employee who does anything with a firearm does so in violation of company policy, and thus cannot be construed in any way as having done so on the company's behalf.

The proper remedy would be to have a states amend their tort laws to shield companies from liability when their employees use firearms for personal defense during the course of their duties, while making companies which forbid weapons liable for the safety of their customers and employees while on the premises, or while en route to or from the nearest practical place where weapons can be stored. If e.g. a jewelry store wishes to require that customers check weapons and accept liability in the event that its guards are unable to protect customers from robbers, that should be its prerogative, but companies should be encouraged to minimize liability by simply allowing employees and customers to protect themselves.

One big reason that the entire investment industry blundered into this extremely risky world is because they were all relying on a risk formula that few of them appeared to understand

A person who is allowed to place bets which he might not be able to cover will, as a result of such ability, be able to achieve a higher payoff expectation than someone without that ability. In some cases, a such person may be able to combine multiple negative-expectation bets in such a way as to have a net positive outcome for the person placing them (and a huge negative outcome for someone else who will be left holding the bag).

I don't think companies that issued credit default swaps far in excess of their net worth failed to understand the dangers of correlated risks. More likely, they understood that the optimal way to monetize their ability to place bets they couldn't cover is to concentrate all the risk into one negative outcome, so all other outcomes would be positive. If the most one would stand to actually lose would be $10M, having a 1/1000 chance of being "obligated" (but unable) to pay $1B dollars is less "risky" than a 1/100 chance of having to pay $10M even though the former "expectation" is $1M and the latter expectation is only $100K. Accepting the latter risk in exchange for $80K cash would be a losing proposition, but "accepting" the former for $50K would be a winning proposition (since it really represents a 1/1000 chance of losing not $1B, but only $10M).

If one couldn't avoid one's obligations to pay, accepting $50K for a promise to make a 1B payment for a 1/1000 event would be a grossly losing proposition. On the other hand, if one isn't going to be paying anyhow, any premium one gets beyond what would be required to justify one's actual risk exposure is pure gravy.

How would you word that; Maybe something like this?

How about "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States", followed by a clarification that rules which grant government employees immunity to certain laws shall only be effective when those employees are making a good faith effort to carry out their legitimate duties, and when such protection is necessary to the carrying out of those duties. It should further note that illegitimate actions form no part of a person's legitimate duties, and it should further recognize that even if people who exhibit a certain standard of comment may be presumed to be acting in good faith, agents wanting to ensure legal protection for themselves must strive to attain a higher standard. An affirmative showing that someone deliberately failed to act according to that higher standard, even if their actions would otherwise have been presumed legitimate, should be considered a demonstration of bad faith.

One of the major mechanisms for the erosion of freedom is a presumption that if courts find some standard of overt conduct acceptable, that entitles agents to protection if they make a good faith effort to aim for that standard of conduct. If the conduct of those who fall short is held acceptable, then that will in turn become the new standard. Having separate thresholds for "agents whose conduct falls below level X should expect to be punished" and "agents wishing not to be punished must maintain their conduct above level Y" could help avoid such erosion if those who were shown to have deliberately acted below Y were considered eligible for punishment even if their conduct was not below X.

Liberals argue that, “we have to be better than the enemy”.

Those who wish to discourage evil should endeavor to treat others *slightly* better than those others treat them. Letting others know that both good and bad actions will be reciprocated will encourage those others to engage in good actions, so they can receive a favorable response and avoid an unfavorable one. Conversely, letting others know that no action by them will net a negative response will encourage them to engage in bad actions, since they will lose nothing by doing so.

Sure, but ricochets are notoriosly unpredicable.

Almost by definition, any shot which doesn't hit the shooter's intended target is guaranteed to behave in a manner the shooter didn't intend. Further, because the bullet won't be traveling along the shooter's line of sight, it will commonly end up going someplace the shooter can't see (since his view will be obstructed by the intended target). Is there any particular reason to believe that a bullet fired at a slight downward angle would be more likely to harm someone other than the intended target than would one fired horizontally or at a slight upward angle?

Besides the fact that you’re much more likely to miss, it guarantees a ricochet every time you miss.

I would think that a shot at a slight downward angle would tend to be lethal for a shorter distance beyond the intended point of aim than one which is fired horizontally or upward. A typical self-defense shooting isn't going to allow the shooter much chance to look 100 yards or more behind the target to make sure there aren't any innocents in the line of fire.

Of course, such a common-sense view of reality is probably considered a “hate-crime” nowadays.

I would expect that in almost any tribe throughout history, females could be classified into the following categories:

1. Those who would have sexual relations with exactly one specific man, who would respond very unfavorably if anyone else sought to have sexual relations with her.
2. Those who were not having sexual relations with anyone, but whose exclusive sexual services might be acquired by a man who was favored by the woman and/or her father.
3. Those who would make sexual services available on a non-exclusive basis.

I would further expect that just about everyone in most tribes would know, or could readily find out, which women had established exclusive sexual relationships, and with whom.

The principles that many females would have a sexually-exclusive bond to exactly one male, many others would aspire to do so, and everyone would know who was bound to whom, are almost universal and can be observed even in tribes which have never heard of Western religions. As such, they cannot be reasonably described as a product of Western religious bigotry. On the other hand, vocal religious people who focus on the religious issues and ignore the secular basis for marriage make it easier for homosexual activists to dodge the fundamental secular issue which is that the term "marriage" was introduced to describe the union of a female to exactly one male, and thus a homosexual union simply isn't a marriage.

Once the definition of marriage changed from “man and woman” it is inevitable that the next thing to change is “one”.

Actually, I would posit that the most universal aspects of marriage is that every union must involve *exactly one male* and *at least one female*. Typically it involves exactly one female, but that's not quite so universal. A relationship with two females and zero males violates the "exactly one male" requirement, and one with zero females and two males violates both requirements. Unlike those, a relationship involving two females and one male would abide by both required criteria for marriage, and would be closer to abiding by the requirements for a monogamous marriage.

The definition of marriage as between a man and a woman were defined very clearly by God LOOOOOOOOOONG before Governments were instituted among men.

Such arguments are irrelevant to those who would deny the existence of God. A better argument would be that marriage as a secular institution predates both governments and religions.

I tell you what, I have said to my liberal co-workers, "The way out of poverty is simple: get an education, work hard, don't have kids while in poverty, and don't do drugs. We could eradicate poverty in one generation if the poor would simply do that."

Another key aspect is to spend *less* than you earn. Even if one tries never to spend more than one earns, it's impossible to spend exactly what one earns on a sustained basis because spending requirements and earnings are not completely predictable. If one doesn't spend less than one earns during the times one is fortunate enough not to have any unexpected expenditures or temporary loss of earnings, one may be unable to avoid spending more than one earns during times of even mild misfortune.

Still, I think it might be interesting to have a class where students were invited to imagine that they were evil overlords who wanted to keep their subjects in a state of mollified dependency. Suggest that subjects be supported if they get too poor, but withdraw such support from any subject who seems to be working toward self-sufficiency. I think a lot of students would see how such behavior on the part on an overlord could be effective at keeping his subjects under control. One wouldn't have to mention, at first, that the kinds of things an evil overlord would do coincide very closely to the way many real-world welfare policies actually work; let students draw their own inferences.

I’d like a national poll on: “Do you think a homosexual male couple should have the same right as a straight couple to adopt a little boy?” Isn’t this what gay “marriage” leads to in the courts?

I would ask it differently: does a mother who is considering voluntarily placing her child for adoption have the right to refuse any prospective adoptive couple for any reason whatsoever she chooses--even if solely for membership in what would otherwise be a "protected class" (e.g. race, religion, sexuality, etc.)? If she seeks assistance in finding prospective adoptive parents, does she have the right to ask them to apply any criteria she sees fit?

I would rather affirm the right of a mother to determine who will raise her offspring, even if some might choose to place their children with gay couples, than suggest that someone other than the mother should have more say.