Notices by mike805 (mike805@fosstodon.org), page 2

@freemo @JoeStewart I read Junky and Pimp. People were worried about getting their cars seized in the 1930s for having dope on them. And there was a very lively drug trade back then, if the books can be believed. The WOD was well under way in the 50s when Junky was written, complete with undercover cops, buy-busts, the whole works. The only major difference was the Feds rather than state and local were leading it.

@freemo "Did you say anything stupid? And by that I mean, did you say anything?" -- Best legally relevant line from Breaking Bad.

Seriously, deals are made after you have a lawyer.

A lesson from "The Lives Of Others": the guilty person, if interrogated, will cry or get emotional. The innocent will get angry. One thing hardened psychopaths have is the ability to display some "righteous anger" even if they are guilty as hell. That often gets them out of trouble.

@freemo Of course those do not apply to all or even most people of any of those faiths. But if you have to ask which characteristics of each faith have done good and harm to the world as a whole, those would be my picks.

Now we need to add Buddhism (and Eastern enlightenment seeking in general) to this list.

@freemo 1: (Good) Tend to think things through from first principles. (Bad) Downright dogmatic in their rejection of any possible spiritual reality.
2: (Good) Developed human rights and modern civilization (Bad) Everyone else is going to hell, and that was used to rationalize bad actions.
3: (Good) Strong cultural immune system, charity is built into their faith (Bad) explicitly allowed to war against nonbelievers.
4: (Good) Respect for education and brains (Bad) Allowed to exploit outsiders.

@freemo

@freemo @gpowerf Some psychopath entrepreneur should start a "make your own porn studio" which is just a bordello with cameras. The sex is free but the memory card for the camera is sold at a considerable markup, and you get to take the card with you.

If it's illegal... why isn't all porn production illegal?

If it's legal you get rich!

@freemo OTOH rage killers, the sort who have no plan afterward, seem a lot more common today. Is that media amplification, or SSRI drugs, who knows?

@freemo Somewhere I read recently that this number is much lower than it was decades ago. That was attributed to widespread surveillance and genetic evidence that makes them easier to catch.

@sj_zero Another way to look at it is money is like water and credit is like alcohol. You need water to live. Drinking alcohol will make you feel good, but you need water to make up for it later. And if you are dying of thirst, alcohol might make you feel better for a minute but it will make you worse off long term.

All of the above also applies to stuffing credit down the throat of an economy that desperately needs money.

@LouisIngenthron @freemo Siege engines were artillery. They were replaced by bombards, large caliber artillery, when gunpowder was available in quantity.

A fair number of Civil War reenactors own cannons, those are legal too.

@freemo For people who complain about dangerous objects, it comes in handy to point out the early 20th century.

You could buy dynamite at the hardware store, buy opium or cyanide at the drug store, and order a machine gun through the mail.

And yet society was more peaceful than it is today, at least until radicals from the failed 1905 Russian revolution started showing up here. Whatever has gone wrong, it isn't dangerous objects.

@freemo Agreed, MANPADS as well. In every recent people vs state war, having such AA and AT rockets made all the difference. USA refused to supply them to Iraqi rebels and Iraq wiped the rebels out with helicopters.

Now the practicalities: they cost as much as a car per shot, and don't differentiate between armored limos, airliners, and military targets.

Where to store them? Who owns them? How to train with them? A local armoury would make sense, with two person access by the citizens.

@freemo @kilroy_was_here This reminds me of the operations that lend small amounts to women in Africa. It's often used to start micro businesses and usually paid back. Whereas giving large amounts of money to Africa just results in high living among the already corrupt.

Most people do not know how to access those investor networks and would not know where to start.

@freepeoplesfreepress @freemo I've wondered hypothetically why wartime cannibalism is not more common. In war food is often scarce and corpses always plentiful. Why didn't those tribes who could stomach cannibalism take over the world? Soldiers often ate their horses when starving.

Kuru-type diseases are probably the answer.

@freemo @BernieDoesIt @georgetakei There is a reasonable case that all normal laws (not the Constitution) ought to have expiration dates. And should have to be read aloud at each renewal, with all the voting members present.

That would limit the total volume and complexity of law, and cause bad laws to expire if there was no will to renew them. Where laws did have expiration dates, like the Assault Weapons Ban, they do expire.

No more 1000 page laws that nobody has read.

@freemo @peterbutler @georgetakei The problem is, almost everyone starts from the goal they want to accomplish ("I want guns" or "I want abortion" or "I want to ban guns or abortion") and then looks for ways to do that within the Constitution. The SC obviously did that with RvW.

In an honest Republic you'd start from the Constitution and determine whether your "want" is included in there. If not, start a political campaign to add it.

Prohibition was the last time that was done, ironically.

@freemo @georgetakei That would be nice. I still think a Federal law upholding that right (and the FBI ready to arrest state officials who violate it) would do a lot to both practically back down the state-level oppressors, and force cases in front of the Supreme Court sooner rather than later.

It is absurd that a right can be upheld in court and it still takes years before you can safely exercise it. Or you can take your chances on being a test case. That requires money and no fear of jail.

@freemo @georgetakei The Federal government could have imposed national concealed carry reciprocity under the Commerce Clause. So anyone who was legally armed in their home state could not be forced to disarm while traveling. That would be a good start. They have done enough absurd things under the Commerce Clause and been upheld, it would be hard to overturn that one.

@freemo @georgetakei I suppose the same applies to R's on gun rights. Why haven't the Republicans put in some strong gun rights protection laws? Because the 2nd Amendment is something people will vote single issue on. Likewise reproductive rights.

@georgetakei So why didn't the Democrats pass a right to choose law when they had the chance? They apparently saw this as a useful wedge issue.