Jihad needs scientists

[Lloyd Parker]

In article <e1423$453cf4ae$49ecff9$26900@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote:

Lloyd Parker wrote:

In article <ehfnmn$8qk_014@s799.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

In article <C6ednV0xVsTyoKfYRVnyjQ@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehd5ug$8qk_010@s884.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...

In article <45378D92.1903B626@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:


They gave their 95% confidence interval.

The news said that the questions that were asked was if
anybody knew anybody who died. Adding these up will not
give a correct count.

The 'news' was wrong then.

In most cases ( ~90 % ) a death certificate was shown.

And the death certificates said that all the deaths were
due to US killing them?

What has the US killing them being the cause of death got to do with
anything?

It has everything to do with it since you are using
the report that rate has increased since the US went into
Iraq. See your comment below. I shall star it so that
you cannot miss your implication.


Have you read the posts you are replying to?

Yes. Now read your words below.

If the US attacks destroyed a water pipe and someone died from drinking
polluted water, what would the cause of death be recorded as?

The study looked at numbers and rates of deaths.

Now here you go..implying that the US has caused more deaths
than Saddam would have if he had remained in power.


Well, that's obvious. What has changed in the last 3 years?


One thing that's changed is that insurgents are killing
the local population. Deaths resulting from government
actions is way down.

And total deaths are way up.

Now you may wish to attribute the insurgency to US actions,
but there's no valid cause/effect relationship.

The hell there isn't. Bush's own NIE says our presence there is fueling
insurgents.

 

[Lloyd Parker]

In article <vb4qj29r3tpr4ctnhbffuumsdgpj704mf8@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:42:53 -0500, unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 06 10:55:36 GMT, lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker)
wrote:


In article <8t5nj29md56ugu8pm4epmitj8tgp66v2of@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:21:12 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:



Saying "I believe in evolution" is a valid sentence.

No, it is not valid within this context. You do know that
the Creed starts out with "I believe...".

It is still valid. I honestly believe in Newtonian Gravity being the
best
description of gravity in the domain in which it applies. This is not
something which can be "known" as tomorrow some one may come up with a
better description.

Does this open the floodgates for the Religious Right to send me to
hell?

Can you cite any modern case of the Religious Right denying the
accuracy of Newton's law of gravitation?


Well, there was an Onion story...


Strawman indeed. Since the
time of Galileo's house arrest, the western churches have
progressively conceded to science the domain of physical reality. I've
read, and believe, the argument that Christianity is in fact
pro-science, and Islam is not, which is why the West is so far ahead
in technology. The Irish monks kept the wisdom of the Greeks safe
through the dark ages, and the Jesuits were and are great contributors
to math and science.


So your rejection of evolution makes you more Islam than Christian?


I don't reject it. I have a long history in s.e.d. of arguing that
evolution and the operations of DNA will turn out to be far more
complex than Darwin or the neo-Darwinists ever imagined. The dispute
is that I believe in evolution more than most other people do. As
such, evolution is still very poorly understood, hence not very well
developed science.

The same statement can be made with great validity about any
of the sciences.

Most of the other sciences produce theories that work quantitatively
to some goodly number of decimal points,

Big Bang. Formation of black holes. What the center of the earth is like.

and can be tested
experimentally, and that have difficulty quantitatively explaining
only extreme situations. Evolution is essentially qualitative, and
only connects the dimly-understood functionality of DNA to evolution
in a fuzzy, descriptive sort of way.

Biology is a qualitative science.

There's all sorts of interesting stuff. Some people are born with six
fully functional fingers on each hand. So "finger" must be some sort
of parameterized macro, and "mirror image" must be an operation, and
there must be some sort of installation crew that hooks everything up
so that it all works.

Aircraft parts were classicly identified by drawing number and dash
number. If a part were, say, 123456-1A (the basic part defined by
drawing 123456 rev A), it was automatically assumed that 123456-2A was
its mirror image.

John

 

[unsettled]

T Wake wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:a4ioj2hb7thtg4gl99sh7mas1fnmddbt6i@4ax.com...

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:27:01 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:



unsettled wrote:


T Wake wrote:

IT and computers are a science field.

Only as a misnomer.

Since when was electronics not a field of science ?

Graham


Electronics is a technology. Electrical engineers build things, they
don't research the workings of nature. Some academic EEs pretend to be
scientists.

Almost all the sciences use electronics to manage, measure, and record
experiments. It's remarkable how little science can now be done
without electronics, the exception being theoretical work, but even
that is tested and validated - or not - with electronics. Electronics
has become an indispensable tool of science, like mathematics.
Strange.


Not strange. Separating them is (IMHO) strange. Electronics is a practical
implementation of science. Why force them into different categories?

The reason is obvious, otherwise *everything* could be
categorized as part of science.

 

[unsettled]

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:9d61d$453cfc77$49ecff9$27195@DIALUPUSA.NET...

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:


"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:cf679$453cf606$49ecff9$26900@DIALUPUSA.NET...


Lloyd Parker wrote:



In article <ehi3q8$8qk_004@s784.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:



In article <ehafo7$ot9$1@leto.cc.emory.edu>,
lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:



In article <ehab1j$8qk_001@s949.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:



In the US, the federal government isn't allowed to do anything.

Except start wars.

When the nation is threatened, yes. It's in our Constitution.

And is it unconstitutional to do so when we're not threatened?

In our system, anything not prohibited is permitted.


Uh, sorry, no...the Constitution *specifically* limits the powers of the
Federal government to those listed in the Constitution.

Did you not read what I just wrote? Is your brain incapable of
understanding that "specifically limits" is a prohibition?



Uh, no..."specifically limits" says what they can do. Anything else is
prohibited, not permitted.

Precisely. So everything which is not prohibited is permitted,
exactly as I wrote.

 

[unsettled]

John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:42:53 -0500, unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com
wrote:


John Larkin wrote:


On Mon, 23 Oct 06 10:55:36 GMT, lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker)
wrote:



In article <8t5nj29md56ugu8pm4epmitj8tgp66v2of@4ax.com>,
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:


On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 14:21:12 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:




Saying "I believe in evolution" is a valid sentence.

No, it is not valid within this context. You do know that
the Creed starts out with "I believe...".

It is still valid. I honestly believe in Newtonian Gravity being the best
description of gravity in the domain in which it applies. This is not
something which can be "known" as tomorrow some one may come up with a
better description.

Does this open the floodgates for the Religious Right to send me to hell?

Can you cite any modern case of the Religious Right denying the
accuracy of Newton's law of gravitation?


Well, there was an Onion story...



Strawman indeed. Since the
time of Galileo's house arrest, the western churches have
progressively conceded to science the domain of physical reality. I've
read, and believe, the argument that Christianity is in fact
pro-science, and Islam is not, which is why the West is so far ahead
in technology. The Irish monks kept the wisdom of the Greeks safe
through the dark ages, and the Jesuits were and are great contributors
to math and science.


So your rejection of evolution makes you more Islam than Christian?


I don't reject it. I have a long history in s.e.d. of arguing that
evolution and the operations of DNA will turn out to be far more
complex than Darwin or the neo-Darwinists ever imagined. The dispute
is that I believe in evolution more than most other people do. As
such, evolution is still very poorly understood, hence not very well
developed science.

The same statement can be made with great validity about any
of the sciences.


Most of the other sciences produce theories that work quantitatively
to some goodly number of decimal points, and can be tested
experimentally, and that have difficulty quantitatively explaining
only extreme situations. Evolution is essentially qualitative, and
only connects the dimly-understood functionality of DNA to evolution
in a fuzzy, descriptive sort of way.

Let's examine one tidbit, the one I was addressing.

"evolution is still very poorly understood, hence not
very well developed science."

We know only a tiny fragment of the totality of
eventually available knowledge, irregardless how many
decimel poinnts of accuracy we can muster for the
relatively few bits of understanding we have.

snip

 

[T Wake]

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:u2aqj2lqr0gbuujmq84mgge0bq67brplon@4ax.com...

On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:47:03 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:



jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

Why not start listening to and watching the BBC
?

I have and I do. I now listen to the BBC to see which
slant of surrendering to the Islamic extremists they
are taking that day.

Amazing. Can you let me know when you come across any please?

Any report about the Palestinians will give you a start.

You think the BBC has surrendered to the Palestinians ?


Graham

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/45336.aspx

Bias is not surrender.

 

[T Wake]

"Lloyd Parker" <lparker@emory.edu> wrote in message
news:ehj7mr$h3g$1@leto.cc.emory.edu...

In article <9949f$453cf343$49ecff9$26858@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote:
Lloyd Parker wrote:

In article <ehd5ug$8qk_010@s884.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

In article <45378D92.1903B626@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:


They gave their 95% confidence interval.

The news said that the questions that were asked was if
anybody knew anybody who died. Adding these up will not
give a correct count.

The 'news' was wrong then.

In most cases ( ~90 % ) a death certificate was shown.

And the death certificates said that all the deaths were
due to US killing them?


That wasn't what the study (which you haven't read) said. It was all
deaths
in Iraq.

Wrong. It was all the *reported* deaths which is a
completely different thing.

No, it was a survey of deaths.


Everybody agrees most of them have been due to sectarian violence.
But the point is, the death rate is significantly higher than when
Saddam
was
in power, giving lie to the notion that we've made Iraq safer.

Probably only higher than the deaths reported during
the Saddam regime.

No, everybody pretty much agrees the violence is much worse now.

There are found mass graves, and

Still not equalling 600,000 a year.

likely to be more not yet found. We know that not
all deaths were reported during the Saddam regime.

We hope all current deaths are being reported.

You don't have good data. With bad data, all
conclusions are worthless, and that's the case
in this discussion at the moment.

unsettleds argument certainly relies on a large population in Iraq before
the war. If the death rates during Saddam's regime to have exceeded the ones
reported now, I am amazed there are any Iraqis left to report it.

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:07:31 +0100, "T Wake"
<usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:u2aqj2lqr0gbuujmq84mgge0bq67brplon@4ax.com...
On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:47:03 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:



jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

Why not start listening to and watching the BBC
?

I have and I do. I now listen to the BBC to see which
slant of surrendering to the Islamic extremists they
are taking that day.

Amazing. Can you let me know when you come across any please?

Any report about the Palestinians will give you a start.

You think the BBC has surrendered to the Palestinians ?


Graham

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/45336.aspx


Bias is not surrender.

It is if you call yourself a journalist.

John

 

[unsettled]

Lloyd Parker wrote:

In article <e1423$453cf4ae$49ecff9$26900@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote:

Lloyd Parker wrote:


In article <ehfnmn$8qk_014@s799.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


In article <C6ednV0xVsTyoKfYRVnyjQ@pipex.net>,
"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:


jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
news:ehd5ug$8qk_010@s884.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com...


In article <45378D92.1903B626@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:



lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:



They gave their 95% confidence interval.

The news said that the questions that were asked was if
anybody knew anybody who died. Adding these up will not
give a correct count.

The 'news' was wrong then.

In most cases ( ~90 % ) a death certificate was shown.

And the death certificates said that all the deaths were
due to US killing them?

What has the US killing them being the cause of death got to do with
anything?

It has everything to do with it since you are using
the report that rate has increased since the US went into
Iraq. See your comment below. I shall star it so that
you cannot miss your implication.



Have you read the posts you are replying to?

Yes. Now read your words below.


If the US attacks destroyed a water pipe and someone died from drinking
polluted water, what would the cause of death be recorded as?

The study looked at numbers and rates of deaths.

Now here you go..implying that the US has caused more deaths
than Saddam would have if he had remained in power.


Well, that's obvious. What has changed in the last 3 years?


One thing that's changed is that insurgents are killing
the local population. Deaths resulting from government
actions is way down.


And total deaths are way up.

We don't know that because we don't have any way
of knowing, with *any* accuracy, what deaths were
before.

Now you may wish to attribute the insurgency to US actions,
but there's no valid cause/effect relationship.


The hell there isn't. Bush's own NIE says our presence there is fueling
insurgents.

So are you saying the insurgents have no choice in the matter?
Are you saying they *must* kill because we're there?

I repeat, there is *no* causal relationship.

What the NIE says is not clear.

 

[unsettled]

Lloyd Parker wrote:

In article <9949f$453cf343$49ecff9$26858@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote:

Lloyd Parker wrote:


In article <ehd5ug$8qk_010@s884.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


In article <45378D92.1903B626@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:



lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:



They gave their 95% confidence interval.

The news said that the questions that were asked was if
anybody knew anybody who died. Adding these up will not
give a correct count.

The 'news' was wrong then.

In most cases ( ~90 % ) a death certificate was shown.

And the death certificates said that all the deaths were
due to US killing them?


That wasn't what the study (which you haven't read) said. It was all

deaths

in Iraq.

Wrong. It was all the *reported* deaths which is a
completely different thing.


No, it was a survey of deaths.

Sorry you're having a problem with understanding
something so simple. How do you input information
into the survey? You take reports of deaths as your
input data.

Everybody agrees most of them have been due to sectarian violence.
But the point is, the death rate is significantly higher than when Saddam

was

in power, giving lie to the notion that we've made Iraq safer.

Probably only higher than the deaths reported during
the Saddam regime.

No, everybody pretty much agrees the violence is much worse now.

That's because the violence isn't in isolated secret
locations these days. Do you think CNN was there in
minutes after the killings and before the mass graves
were covered over? They're sure there now, to *report*
the facts on the ground.

There are found mass graves, and

Still not equalling 600,000 a year.

You know this as a fact somehow?

<http://blog.washingtonpost.com/worldopinionroundup/2006/10/is_iraqs_civilian_death_toll_h.html>

Safe to say there's a lot of dispute over the
*estimates*.

likely to be more not yet found. We know that not
all deaths were reported during the Saddam regime.

We hope all current deaths are being reported.

You don't have good data. With bad data, all
conclusions are worthless, and that's the case
in this discussion at the moment.

 

[unsettled]

T Wake wrote:

"Lloyd Parker" <lparker@emory.edu> wrote in message
news:ehj7mr$h3g$1@leto.cc.emory.edu...

In article <9949f$453cf343$49ecff9$26858@DIALUPUSA.NET>,
unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote:

Lloyd Parker wrote:


In article <ehd5ug$8qk_010@s884.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


In article <45378D92.1903B626@hotmail.com>,
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:


jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:



lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:



They gave their 95% confidence interval.

The news said that the questions that were asked was if
anybody knew anybody who died. Adding these up will not
give a correct count.

The 'news' was wrong then.

In most cases ( ~90 % ) a death certificate was shown.

And the death certificates said that all the deaths were
due to US killing them?


That wasn't what the study (which you haven't read) said. It was all

deaths

in Iraq.

Wrong. It was all the *reported* deaths which is a
completely different thing.

No, it was a survey of deaths.


Everybody agrees most of them have been due to sectarian violence.
But the point is, the death rate is significantly higher than when
Saddam

was

in power, giving lie to the notion that we've made Iraq safer.

Probably only higher than the deaths reported during
the Saddam regime.

No, everybody pretty much agrees the violence is much worse now.


There are found mass graves, and

Still not equalling 600,000 a year.


likely to be more not yet found. We know that not
all deaths were reported during the Saddam regime.

We hope all current deaths are being reported.

You don't have good data. With bad data, all
conclusions are worthless, and that's the case
in this discussion at the moment.


unsettleds argument certainly relies on a large population in Iraq before
the war. If the death rates during Saddam's regime to have exceeded the ones
reported now, I am amazed there are any Iraqis left to report it.

Wake's numbers are a strongly corrupted estimate.

 

[T Wake]

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news2cqj29kqih3ull23h0sllt242km3b48lh@4ax.com...

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:07:31 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:


"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in
message
news:u2aqj2lqr0gbuujmq84mgge0bq67brplon@4ax.com...
On Sat, 21 Oct 2006 14:47:03 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:



jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:

"T Wake" <usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:
jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
Eeyore <rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

Why not start listening to and watching the BBC
?

I have and I do. I now listen to the BBC to see which
slant of surrendering to the Islamic extremists they
are taking that day.

Amazing. Can you let me know when you come across any please?

Any report about the Palestinians will give you a start.

You think the BBC has surrendered to the Palestinians ?


Graham

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/45336.aspx


Bias is not surrender.


It is if you call yourself a journalist.

You'd have to ask the journalist that. I have never seen an "unbiased"
journalist though. In this instance it is more about the organisational bias
than that of individual reporters. The bias is not solely towards the
Palestinians either.

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 12:13:35 -0500, unsettled <unsettled@nonsense.com>
wrote:

snip
In our system, anything not prohibited is permitted.
snip

That shows such horrible ignorance and it is exactly the kind of thing
that Hamilton wrote about "back in the day."

Scares me spitless that anyone actually believes that crap about what
government is permitted to do.

You should read a little, though I'm sure the 3 or 4 books you may
have in your home (likely unread) probably don't address the subject,
at all.

Jon

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 18:57:34 GMT, <lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:9d61d$453cfc77$49ecff9$27195@DIALUPUSA.NET...
lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:cf679$453cf606$49ecff9$26900@DIALUPUSA.NET...

Lloyd Parker wrote:


In article <ehi3q8$8qk_004@s784.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


In article <ehafo7$ot9$1@leto.cc.emory.edu>,
lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:


In article <ehab1j$8qk_001@s949.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


In the US, the federal government isn't allowed to do anything.

Except start wars.

When the nation is threatened, yes. It's in our Constitution.

And is it unconstitutional to do so when we're not threatened?

In our system, anything not prohibited is permitted.


Uh, sorry, no...the Constitution *specifically* limits the powers of the
Federal government to those listed in the Constitution.

Did you not read what I just wrote? Is your brain incapable of
understanding that "specifically limits" is a prohibition?


Uh, no..."specifically limits" says what they can do. Anything else is
prohibited, not permitted.

That about sums my grasp of it.

The radical idea debated prior to approving our US Constitution (as
documented in letters to the New York Journal, the Federalist Papers,
personal letters, the Virgina legislature debates in 1787, and so on),
was the idea of from where rights themselves emanate. I think I've
read published letters in the New York Journal dating back as far as
about 1755 on that topic. The conclusion of those writing the US
Constitution and, where it really counts, of those signing it into
effect is that they emanate from the individual, not from government
or from society, and that government operates by the consent of
individuals who grant those rights they deem necessary and which
persist only for so long as they choose to continue granting them.

You can see this kind of thinking in most of what survives today as
the body of materials elaborating the underlying intent of the
Constitution.

Some don't recall today that Hamilton had argued fiercely at the time
against the Bill of Rights, something that Jefferson felt was very
important to include. Hamilton's argument, if put in a nutshell,
claimed that if *any* specific guarantees about rights were written
down, that instead of being a useful protection against the more
frightening forms of state power and coersion, it would instead
eventually be seen as the *ONLY* rights anyone had. That later
generations would imagine (and therefore accept a yoke being placed
around their necks) these rights were the only ones and thus the Bill
of Rights would become the prison bars of our own jailing -- that
government would then be able to claim for itself, without much
resistance, everything else.

His argument was so profoundly expressed and so thoroughly agreed to
that they decided to actually write it in as one of the Bill of Rights
-- namely, the 9th Amendment (known as "The Hamilton Amendment".)

His argument went something like this: It's like coming to a new,
vacant land and staking out your homestead. You build a nice little
fence around it and put in a garden there. Someone new arrives and
sees your fence and naturally assumes that what isn't fenced, must be
available to newcomers or anyone else. Of course, having lived there
yourself for decades beforehand, you might think otherwise. But the
fence has become the only obvious line of demarcation. So the
assumptions others make may materially operate to make you seriously
regret having put up a fence at all. You might have been better off
simply not having one.

Hamilton's opposition argued that there were some individual rights
that were so important and so vital that they simply had to have
explicit expression. Kind of like, "Governments may transgress rights
now and then, but if they even come close to transgressing these you
know you are in very deep trouble already and should consider
abolishing what's there and finding another way."

Hamilton, though, felt very strongly that putting down just a few
rights would then imply that others didn't also exist and that later
generations would lose sight of the agreed upon understanding that all
rights emanate from the individual and that society and governments
have NO RIGHTS except those ceded by individuals, for such time as
they continue to perceive that the common benefits outweigh the cost
of ceding them to government.

---

There is no legitimate power of a government or a king or anyone else
to either grant rights or to take them away. Nothing inherently makes
anyone man or women the possessor of individual rights, who can hand
them out or withhold them as they please. We don't need a contract
from someone to have rights. And no one else owns that contract that
they can rescind at their will. These rights are "inalienable," as
the wording goes -- inherently within each of us, as individuals. They
flow out of us as actors in the world.

This starting point was debated over a period of decades, well before
the revolution started or the US Constitution was eventually created,
debated, and then signed. By the time it was signed, there was almost
no material argument here.

From this founding assumption, it followed that governments are
_granted_ rights "by the people" for the purposes of mutual safety and
their pursuit of happiness. The idea is actually pretty simple and
requires no belief in a god, no acceptance of the rights of a king,
etc. Instead, we grant our government certain rights, for example the
right to accumulate police powers needed to enforce a law against
murder, because we jointly feel that there is an overwhelming social
need that we can agree on. The benefits of ceding these rights to
government's good purposes outweighs the loss we suffer as individual
actors. We give up our own control to a degree and grant such powers
and for such purposes, so long as it continues to serve the general
will.

The problem with the Magna Carta was an implicit assumption. This was
argued about and made explicit in debates here in the US, prior to the
US Constitution even existing. The problem arises from the fact that
by accepting that a King may transfer, by signing a contract saying
so, some of his own rights to those of his lords, one also implicitly
then accepts that the King actually owned those rights in the first
place and actually had the authority to then sign some of them away by
contract. To accept any such "granting" is to implicitly accept the
idea that the King actually had the right _to_ grant them, in the
first place.

All this was avoided in the US by the "inalienable rights" phrasing.
Rights reside in each individual and no where else. No one else owns
our rights. We agree and accept the idea that good government has
need of at least some part of our individual rights, so that it can go
about the good purposes of securing our other liberties, our mutual
safety, and our right to secure a measure of happiness in our lives.
But the rights are deemed to start with each individual, who then
grants (accepts) that some are needed by government, for so long as
that government is serving its just purposes.

But even there, to the issue of what people may accept or be willing
to consider accepting, in granting some rights to government, there
was strongly felt a need to prevent popular fads and ideas from then
granting to government some rights that were so basic, so necessary to
individual liberty and happiness, that there was a need for some
explicit expression of a few that were felt to be the most important
of them -- that even a popularly held belief cannot transgress, in
terms of what each of us as individuals have secured. It was this
area where Hamilton felt worried -- that there were so many more that
were also equally important, or almost so, and to list them with so
little time left, and to then debate them and hammer them out... well,
it was better, he said, to not have any written down at all. Because
people would then imagine these were all there were and they would, in
later generations, accept government transgressions against all manner
of rights that just didn't happen to make "the short list."

In some ways, Hamilton was right. Many are now found to quickly
argue, "That right is not in the constitution!" As though that should
mean anything. The constitution doesn't have the power to grant
rights to individuals. It can help to secure them, or not, but not
grant them. No central group -- not a king, not a small collection of
people in power, not anyone, including a government -- holds our
rights in their hands.

We have "a government by and for the people."

So it is said, anyway.

Whether that is more true or less true is about whether or not we work
hard to well secure our rights. It's a path we walk, a treadmill we
cannot ever get off of. If we depart from the path or get off the
treadmill, to that degree we cede our individual rights to others.

Jon

 

[Jonathan Kirwan]

On Sun, 22 Oct 2006 21:51:00 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 05:27:01 +0100, Eeyore
rabbitsfriendsandrelations@hotmail.com> wrote:

unsettled wrote:

T Wake wrote:

IT and computers are a science field.

Only as a misnomer.

Since when was electronics not a field of science ?

Graham

Electronics is a technology. Electrical engineers build things, they
don't research the workings of nature. Some academic EEs pretend to be
scientists.

I think of engineering, in general, as the application of science and
math knowledge for practical purposes. Not all science knowledge can
be used, at some particular moment anyway, for such purposes. And it
is definitely true that not all mathematical knowledge can be used for
practical needs.

(Mathematicians sometimes gleefully seek and are actually attracted to
researching some area that they are personally convinced no one will
ever use for practical things -- I particularly remember John Conway's
comments in that regard.)

Almost all the sciences use electronics to manage, measure, and record
experiments. It's remarkable how little science can now be done
without electronics, the exception being theoretical work, but even
that is tested and validated - or not - with electronics. Electronics
has become an indispensable tool of science, like mathematics.
Strange.

Galileo was an engineer -- a military and sometime civil engineer --
who was also bright enough to begin some of the amalgam of theory and
experimental result that would later become associated with the
practice of science. And there is Archimedes and host of others. So
in that sense, perhaps one could say that engineering gave science a
jump-start.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, though, theoretical scientists used to
quite often have to switch hats long enough to be engineers (and
better than most) in order to develop what was needed to test an idea.
It's hard to imagine any of them not knowing quite a lot about
practical engineering issues of the day.

Today, things are a lot more specialized and they probably have to be.
But through all of it, ultimately, it is theory that is primary.
Theory provides a way to "see." Without it, we can't discern.

Jon

 

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:856de$453d290d$49ed52d$28493@DIALUPUSA.NET...

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:9d61d$453cfc77$49ecff9$27195@DIALUPUSA.NET...

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:


"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:cf679$453cf606$49ecff9$26900@DIALUPUSA.NET...


Lloyd Parker wrote:



In article <ehi3q8$8qk_004@s784.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:



In article <ehafo7$ot9$1@leto.cc.emory.edu>,
lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:



In article <ehab1j$8qk_001@s949.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:



In the US, the federal government isn't allowed to do anything.

Except start wars.

When the nation is threatened, yes. It's in our Constitution.

And is it unconstitutional to do so when we're not threatened?

In our system, anything not prohibited is permitted.


Uh, sorry, no...the Constitution *specifically* limits the powers of the
Federal government to those listed in the Constitution.

Did you not read what I just wrote? Is your brain incapable of
understanding that "specifically limits" is a prohibition?



Uh, no..."specifically limits" says what they can do. Anything else is
prohibited, not permitted.

Precisely. So everything which is not prohibited is permitted,
exactly as I wrote.

You need to brush up on your propositional logic. "A implies B" is not the
same as "(not A) implies (not B)".

Eric Lucas

 

[John Fields]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:10:46 +0100, "T Wake"
<usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:

unsettleds argument certainly relies on a large population in Iraq before
the war. If the death rates during Saddam's regime to have exceeded the ones
reported now, I am amazed there are any Iraqis left to report it.

---
C2H6O talking?


--
John Fields
Professional Circuit Designer

 

[unsettled]

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:856de$453d290d$49ed52d$28493@DIALUPUSA.NET...

lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:


"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:9d61d$453cfc77$49ecff9$27195@DIALUPUSA.NET...


lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:



"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:cf679$453cf606$49ecff9$26900@DIALUPUSA.NET...



Lloyd Parker wrote:




In article <ehi3q8$8qk_004@s784.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:




In article <ehafo7$ot9$1@leto.cc.emory.edu>,
lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:




In article <ehab1j$8qk_001@s949.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:




In the US, the federal government isn't allowed to do anything.

Except start wars.

When the nation is threatened, yes. It's in our Constitution.

And is it unconstitutional to do so when we're not threatened?

In our system, anything not prohibited is permitted.


Uh, sorry, no...the Constitution *specifically* limits the powers of the
Federal government to those listed in the Constitution.

Did you not read what I just wrote? Is your brain incapable of
understanding that "specifically limits" is a prohibition?



Uh, no..."specifically limits" says what they can do. Anything else is
prohibited, not permitted.

Precisely. So everything which is not prohibited is permitted,
exactly as I wrote.


You need to brush up on your propositional logic. "A implies B" is not the
same as "(not A) implies (not B)".

If you bothered to actually read the US Constitution,
including Ammendments, you might actually understand
and stop relying on what you think it might be about.
It is online for free access.

The Constitution is known world wide not as an
enabling document, but a document which restricts the
power that the government may exercise. The direction
of the verbiage is not of concequence. Some of the
Amendments are written in a positive context, for
example Amendment 6, but what is clear in content,
interpretation, and practice, is that it forbids
prolonged incarceration and a bunch of other evils
exercised by other nations.

Therefore, all which is not prohibited is permitted.

Congress must meet at least once a year. Congress shall
not fail to meet at least once a year. Does one sentence
carry a connotation different from the other? They are
neither enabled by the constitution, nor prohibited by it,
to meet more often that once on January 3rd (Ammendment XX.)

I urge you to read _Sources of our Liberties_, American
Bar Foundation (multiple dates/editions) before you
pontificate thus. Available at amazon.com starting
(used) at $5.80.

Over the years I've purchased a number of copies and
donated them to nearby public libraries. The needs of
"better educated" people represented by posters in
this forum demonstrates the prevalent levels of
misunderstanding how basic government works and what
the regulations are and what they mean sugegsts the
book should become required reading before allowing
you to vote.

Kirwan's rambling overlong post on the subject misses
the mark throughout. He does no better in the rest
of his posts today. His wordiness does nothing to
offset his essential ignorance. In fact, his sort
resorts to such wordiness because they're trying
to convince themselves.

 

[unsettled]

John Fields wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:10:46 +0100, "T Wake"
usenet.es7at@gishpuppy.com> wrote:



unsettleds argument certainly relies on a large population in Iraq before
the war. If the death rates during Saddam's regime to have exceeded the ones
reported now, I am amazed there are any Iraqis left to report it.


---
C2H6O talking?

In T Wake's case, probably.

 

[John Fields]

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:42:02 GMT, Jonathan Kirwan
<jkirwan@easystreet.com> wrote:

On Mon, 23 Oct 2006 18:57:34 GMT, <lucasea@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:9d61d$453cfc77$49ecff9$27195@DIALUPUSA.NET...
lucasea@sbcglobal.net wrote:

"unsettled" <unsettled@nonsense.com> wrote in message
news:cf679$453cf606$49ecff9$26900@DIALUPUSA.NET...

Lloyd Parker wrote:


In article <ehi3q8$8qk_004@s784.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


In article <ehafo7$ot9$1@leto.cc.emory.edu>,
lparker@emory.edu (Lloyd Parker) wrote:


In article <ehab1j$8qk_001@s949.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>,
jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:


In the US, the federal government isn't allowed to do anything.

Except start wars.

When the nation is threatened, yes. It's in our Constitution.

And is it unconstitutional to do so when we're not threatened?

In our system, anything not prohibited is permitted.


Uh, sorry, no...the Constitution *specifically* limits the powers of the
Federal government to those listed in the Constitution.

Did you not read what I just wrote? Is your brain incapable of
understanding that "specifically limits" is a prohibition?


Uh, no..."specifically limits" says what they can do. Anything else is
prohibited, not permitted.

That about sums my grasp of it.

The radical idea debated prior to approving our US Constitution (as
documented in letters to the New York Journal, the Federalist Papers,
personal letters, the Virgina legislature debates in 1787, and so on),
was the idea of from where rights themselves emanate. I think I've
read published letters in the New York Journal dating back as far as
about 1755 on that topic. The conclusion of those writing the US
Constitution and, where it really counts, of those signing it into
effect is that they emanate from the individual, not from government
or from society, and that government operates by the consent of
individuals who grant those rights they deem necessary and which
persist only for so long as they choose to continue granting them.

You can see this kind of thinking in most of what survives today as
the body of materials elaborating the underlying intent of the
Constitution.

Some don't recall today that Hamilton had argued fiercely at the time
against the Bill of Rights, something that Jefferson felt was very
important to include. Hamilton's argument, if put in a nutshell,
claimed that if *any* specific guarantees about rights were written
down, that instead of being a useful protection against the more
frightening forms of state power and coersion, it would instead
eventually be seen as the *ONLY* rights anyone had. That later
generations would imagine (and therefore accept a yoke being placed
around their necks) these rights were the only ones and thus the Bill
of Rights would become the prison bars of our own jailing -- that
government would then be able to claim for itself, without much
resistance, everything else.

His argument was so profoundly expressed and so thoroughly agreed to
that they decided to actually write it in as one of the Bill of Rights
-- namely, the 9th Amendment (known as "The Hamilton Amendment".)

His argument went something like this: It's like coming to a new,
vacant land and staking out your homestead. You build a nice little
fence around it and put in a garden there. Someone new arrives and
sees your fence and naturally assumes that what isn't fenced, must be
available to newcomers or anyone else. Of course, having lived there
yourself for decades beforehand, you might think otherwise. But the
fence has become the only obvious line of demarcation. So the
assumptions others make may materially operate to make you seriously
regret having put up a fence at all. You might have been better off
simply not having one.

Hamilton's opposition argued that there were some individual rights
that were so important and so vital that they simply had to have
explicit expression. Kind of like, "Governments may transgress rights
now and then, but if they even come close to transgressing these you
know you are in very deep trouble already and should consider
abolishing what's there and finding another way."

Hamilton, though, felt very strongly that putting down just a few
rights would then imply that others didn't also exist and that later
generations would lose sight of the agreed upon understanding that all
rights emanate from the individual and that society and governments
have NO RIGHTS except those ceded by individuals, for such time as
they continue to perceive that the common benefits outweigh the cost
of ceding them to government.

---

There is no legitimate power of a government or a king or anyone else
to either grant rights or to take them away. Nothing inherently makes
anyone man or women the possessor of individual rights, who can hand
them out or withhold them as they please. We don't need a contract
from someone to have rights. And no one else owns that contract that
they can rescind at their will. These rights are "inalienable," as
the wording goes -- inherently within each of us, as individuals. They
flow out of us as actors in the world.

This starting point was debated over a period of decades, well before
the revolution started or the US Constitution was eventually created,
debated, and then signed. By the time it was signed, there was almost
no material argument here.

From this founding assumption, it followed that governments are
_granted_ rights "by the people" for the purposes of mutual safety and
their pursuit of happiness. The idea is actually pretty simple and
requires no belief in a god, no acceptance of the rights of a king,
etc. Instead, we grant our government certain rights, for example the
right to accumulate police powers needed to enforce a law against
murder, because we jointly feel that there is an overwhelming social
need that we can agree on. The benefits of ceding these rights to
government's good purposes outweighs the loss we suffer as individual
actors. We give up our own control to a degree and grant such powers
and for such purposes, so long as it continues to serve the general
will.

The problem with the Magna Carta was an implicit assumption. This was
argued about and made explicit in debates here in the US, prior to the
US Constitution even existing. The problem arises from the fact that
by accepting that a King may transfer, by signing a contract saying
so, some of his own rights to those of his lords, one also implicitly
then accepts that the King actually owned those rights in the first
place and actually had the authority to then sign some of them away by
contract. To accept any such "granting" is to implicitly accept the
idea that the King actually had the right _to_ grant them, in the
first place.

All this was avoided in the US by the "inalienable rights" phrasing.
Rights reside in each individual and no where else. No one else owns
our rights. We agree and accept the idea that good government has
need of at least some part of our individual rights, so that it can go
about the good purposes of securing our other liberties, our mutual
safety, and our right to secure a measure of happiness in our lives.
But the rights are deemed to start with each individual, who then
grants (accepts) that some are needed by government, for so long as
that government is serving its just purposes.

But even there, to the issue of what people may accept or be willing
to consider accepting, in granting some rights to government, there
was strongly felt a need to prevent popular fads and ideas from then
granting to government some rights that were so basic, so necessary to
individual liberty and happiness, that there was a need for some
explicit expression of a few that were felt to be the most important
of them -- that even a popularly held belief cannot transgress, in
terms of what each of us as individuals have secured. It was this
area where Hamilton felt worried -- that there were so many more that
were also equally important, or almost so, and to list them with so
little time left, and to then debate them and hammer them out... well,
it was better, he said, to not have any written down at all. Because
people would then imagine these were all there were and they would, in
later generations, accept government transgressions against all manner
of rights that just didn't happen to make "the short list."

In some ways, Hamilton was right. Many are now found to quickly
argue, "That right is not in the constitution!" As though that should
mean anything. The constitution doesn't have the power to grant
rights to individuals. It can help to secure them, or not, but not
grant them. No central group -- not a king, not a small collection of
people in power, not anyone, including a government -- holds our
rights in their hands.

We have "a government by and for the people."

So it is said, anyway.

Whether that is more true or less true is about whether or not we work
hard to well secure our rights. It's a path we walk, a treadmill we
cannot ever get off of. If we depart from the path or get off the
treadmill, to that degree we cede our individual rights to others.

---
Very nice. Very nice indeed, and your position lends credence to the
proposition that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

I've always thought of our system, simplistically, as one where one
is allowed to park wherever there's been no "NO PARKING" parking
sign erected.

Lately, from what I'm reading here, it seems the approved signs have
changed to "PARKING ALLOWED HERE", making all other non-marked
parking places illegal.

The difference?

The difference between English and Roman law, where under English
law one was presumed innocent until proven guilty and under Roman
law, where one was presumed guilty unless proven innocent.


--
John Fields
Professional Circuit Designer