The Tide May Be Turning

[blackshoe]

The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution provides that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,..." I don't see anything about protecting the right of the people against reasonable searches at or near a border crossing.

 

Really, that is the crux of the matter. Searches at border crossings are per se reasonable. Of course, the further away from a border crossing one is, the weaker that argument becomes.

 

As I said in my prior post, a condition to be permitted to enter the country (or, for that matter, to leave the country) is to consent to such searches as are deemed reasonable by the government in the interests of national security. Now, I admit that I just made up that language, but I am sure there is precedent for that conclusion.

It is indeed the crux of the matter. Searches of people crossing the border are per se reasonable. Searching people who just happen to be in the area may or may not be reasonable. I'm not saying all such searches are unreasonable, I'm saying that showing such a search is reasonable requires more than just invoking "national security".

[FM75]

The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution provides that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,..." I don't see anything about protecting the right of the people against reasonable searches at or near a border crossing.

 

Really, that is the crux of the matter. Searches at border crossings are per se reasonable. Of course, the further away from a border crossing one is, the weaker that argument becomes.

 

As I said in my prior post, a condition to be permitted to enter the country (or, for that matter, to leave the country) is to consent to such searches as are deemed reasonable by the government in the interests of national security. Now, I admit that I just made up that language, but I am sure there is precedent for that conclusion.

So what constitutes "near a border crossing"? When the 4th amendment was written the fastest form of human travel was horseback and a fast full day's travel across a border might get you 100 miles into the country. Of course in many areas, you might never be detected the first day.

 

Today, if you fly in low enough to avoid radar (say a few hundred feet up), you could easily land 1000 miles from the border in a single engine small private plane. Yes, you would be violating the requirement to land at the nearest international airport with customs inspections. One day later, you could be anywhere (not including Hawaii.), including out of the country again.

 

 

 

[Zelandakh]

Poll tax?!

 

Absolutely not. You did not read carefully. Voting would be free.

I read carefully enough thanks and you have written this sh!te before. Voting in Britain under the poll tax was free. Having your name known by the authorities, and therefore on the electoral register, was not. The tax was not a flat tax across the board - no sane person would even consider such a thing because it is completely bonkers. In order to make even this watered-down version of your idea slightly workable, there were various exclusion groups that only had to pay 20% of the lowest rate. In practise, even that was impossible. Quite simply, yours is one of the worst ideas for a change to the tax code that could ever be devised; and it even makes Thatcher's Poll Tax look good!

[Winstonm]

dwar0123, on 2013-June-18, 20:33, said:

What are the things you can't do now that you could in 1963?

 

Smoke in restaurants

Use aerosol sprays

Run behind DDT trucks

Fear a US/USSR nuclear war

Pray in school

Look up at the moon and wonder if many will ever fly into space and back again

Use leaded gasoline

Buy corn without worrying about genetic modification

Fly TWA

Wear your shoes at all times in an airport

Watch a new episode of Gunsmoke on black and white TV.

[barmar]

http://www.voanews.com/content/hungarian-president-signs-controversial-media-law-112693124/170413.html

That may be Hungary but shades of the same thing is now seen with Harper in Canada restricting access to information, even in the face of Freedom of Information Act which is (at least sometimes) simply ignored. We have also recently had amendments to bills passed which makes the parameters of the information legally available so extreme that it's virtually the same as denying access.

The FOIA in Canada only dates to 1983. I'll bet that compared to 1963 you still have far more access, even if they've been adding exceptions.

 

Although I suppose it could seem as if access is denied if anything you actually might really care about is restricted.

[billw55]

I read carefully enough thanks and you have written this sh!te before. Voting in Britain under the poll tax was free. Having your name known by the authorities, and therefore on the electoral register, was not. The tax was not a flat tax across the board - no sane person would even consider such a thing because it is completely bonkers. In order to make even this watered-down version of your idea slightly workable, there were various exclusion groups that only had to pay 20% of the lowest rate. In practise, even that was impossible. Quite simply, yours is one of the worst ideas for a change to the tax code that could ever be devised; and it even makes Thatcher's Poll Tax look good!

I think he's just trolling Zel.

[mike777]

:)

 

Same old discussion do you want to have economic power in the same political hand.

 

If yes then that is one form of govt.

 

If you believe that the central govt is better at allocating capital....than other options....

 

do you look at the central govt as the controlling source of economic, social order.

 

If so do you believe that leads to a fascist govt?

 

OTOH if you believe that leads to utopia or something close...you have a discussion

------------

 

 

IN this and many other posts I have made an argument to give glory/praise for risk taking entreprenuers(sp?), but many think this is close to evil.

 

I do indeed fear having economic and political power in the same pair of hands.

[kenberg]

 

In this and many other posts I have made an argument to give glory/praise for risk taking entrepreneurship but many think this is close to evil.

 

 

Mike, you would get farther with this, at least with me, if you refined it a bit. Like many or most males, I did a fair amount of (mostly physical) risk taking while I was young. Physical or financial, it can be pretty stupid. Not evil, not evil at all, just stupid. And some of it can be evil. Selling heroin, for example. Long run probably it is also stupid, but evil from the get-go. There are many things of lessor evil, perhaps, but still; not what I would call praiseworthy either.. As I understand it there is quite a business in buying up patents and suing people. The buyer of the patent does not at all intend to produce anything, he just hopes that the patent office has carelessly granted a poorly phrased application and that this can be used to hassle an honest innovator. I gather this practice is successful enough to cause concern. If we could make the practice less lucrative, I think that would be good.

 

I value the freedom to choose my own path in life. As I tell it, with little or no exaggeration, I came home from high school one day and announced I had decided to go to college. My mother had seen it coming, my father could not imagine why I would want to do such a thing. But here is the kicker. I got a scholarship. It helped. It helped a lot. Freedom is great, but people can also, at times, use a helping hand.

 

I have no desire at all for stopping a guy from starting a start-up. Go for it. But I think even Darwin advocated going easy on Darwinianism.

 

Liberals as more risk-averse than conservatives does not jibe with my experience.

[Winstonm]

Adding to Ken's reply, modern research has shown the conservative mind to be risk adverse and security orientated. Liberals tend to be much more comfortable with change and the risk that change entails. This explains the differences.

Psychologists have found that conservatives are fundamentally more anxious than liberals, which may be why they typically desire stability, structure and clear answers even to complicated questions.

 

Anxiety about communism drove many basically good people who were born with conservative inclinations to act in a fashion that can only be described as disingenuous when the story about defense of the tobacco, aerosol, coal, and energy industries is understood. (A small group of free marketers, staring with the Reagan administration, promoted and propagandized a wait-and-see approach instead of action on what was known to be settled science.)

 

A similar fear may induce a narrative-based worldview where everything is divided into black and white, us versus them, and all we have to do is choose the right path to avoid misery.

 

But from my understanding of history, unbridled capitalism can be as horrific to humans as unbridled socialism, and to reduce man's motivations to a mechanical binary code is too simplistic of answer for a complex biological being.

[billw55]

I dont think anyone was "born with conservative inclinations"

[Winstonm]

I dont think anyone was "born with conservative inclinations"

 

What we think and what the evidence shows may not always agree.

 

In the 16 peer-reviewed scientific studies, researchers found that liberals and conservatives have different brain structures, different physiological responses to stimuli, and activate different neural mechanisms when confronted with similar situations

 

source: http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004818

[kenberg]

I was looking at number 16 on Winston's link.

 

"Conservatives slept somewhat more soundly, with fewer remembered dreams. Liberals were more restless in their sleep and had a more active and varied dream life. In contrast to a previous study, liberals reported a somewhat greater proportion of bad dreams and nightmares. Consistent with earlier research, the dreams of conservatives were more mundane, whereas the dreams of liberals were more bizarre...

 

Conservative men sleep a bit longer, with better quality sleep; they recall the fewest dreams, but have the most lucid awareness. Liberal women have the worst quality sleep, recall the greatest number and variety of dreams, and have the most dream references to homosexuality."

[/Quote]

 

Boy, I need to change my voting habits. Maybe once a year or so I can recall that I had a dream about something or other, some boring topic that I recall through a haze. The rest of the time I would say that I don't dream except my understanding is that we all dream, we just don't remember.

 

When I was very young, five or so, I had highly active dreams but they are long gone. Well, they say you become more conservative as you get older so maybe dumping my dream life is the way this tendency came out with me.

 

My thoughts about social science research are not very favorable. No doubt social scientists can explain this with an MRI of my brain. Maybe they are right. I don't care. And I doubt it.

[barmar]

What we think and what the evidence shows may not always agree.

source: http://2012election.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004818

Tht doesn't mean they were born that way. Studies have also shown that learning to play a musical instrument changes brain structure.

 

I'd be more impressed if they'd discovered genes that are more frequent in one party or another.

[barmar]

People often think about things in terms of false dichotomies

fixed ;)

Well, that's the point. It psychologically easier to think in terms of dichotomies, so we see dichotomies even when things are more complex. They're psychological equivalents of optical illusions.

[helene_t]

Tht doesn't mean they were born that way. Studies have also shown that learning to play a musical instrument changes brain structure.

 

I'd be more impressed if they'd discovered genes that are more frequent in one party or another.

The genes for dark skin are more frequent in democrat voters :) And it used to be that the Y-chromosomes were weakly associated with voting for the communist party in Denmark. Not sure if it is still the case. But in any case, conservatives and christian democrats tend to have shorter telomeres.

[barmar]

The genes for dark skin are more frequent in democrat voters :) And it used to be that the Y-chromosomes were weakly associated with voting for the communist party in Denmark. Not sure if it is still the case. But in any case, conservatives and christian democrats tend to have shorter telomeres.

With apologies to Barbie: "Genetics is hard!"

[onoway]

Well, that's the point. It psychologically easier to think in terms of dichotomies, so we see dichotomies even when things are more complex. They're psychological equivalents of optical illusions.

+1 wonderful turn of phrase.

[Winstonm]

Tht doesn't mean they were born that way. Studies have also shown that learning to play a musical instrument changes brain structure.

 

I'd be more impressed if they'd discovered genes that are more frequent in one party or another.

 

Maybe this helps?

 

For many years, psychologists and sociologists asked what kind of psychological or environmental factors influence the

political orientation of individuals [1]. Although political attitudes are commonly assumed to have solely environmental

causes, recent studies have begun to identify biological influences on an individual’s political orientation. For example,

a twin study shows that a substantial amount of the variability in political ideology reflects genetic influences [2]

Current Biology 21, 677–680, April 26, 2011 ª2011 Elsevier Ltd All rights reserved DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.017

[barmar]

Maybe this helps?

Yes, it does.

[ArtK78]

I sense a $1 bet approaching.

[Winstonm]

I sense a $1 bet approaching.

 

Bring a nickel, tap your feet

[kenberg]

I might run a poll sometime on how people come to, or think that they come to, their various political and social views. For myself, I am quite certain that to the extent that my views are rational at all, they are strongly based on my own experience and experiences that people I trust describe to me. I rarely pay much attention to what has been published in a journal, at least to in regard to any important social and political issues. this approach seems to work for me, so I am not much inclined to change it.

 

This doesn't mean that I ignore the social sciences, but my level of trust in them is far lower than my trust in the physical sciences.

 

Also, and I guess I often react fairly strongly here, I dislike anything that smacks of saying that people who disagree with me have some sort of psychological problem. Of course some of you psychos need a lobotomy, but let's keep it quiet.

 

To put it another way, it may or may not be true that we make our own destiny, but it's a good idea to approach life that way. I apologize if this is all trivial and preachy.

[Winstonm]

I might run a poll sometime on how people come to, or think that they come to, their various political and social views. For myself, I am quite certain that to the extent that my views are rational at all, they are strongly based on my own experience and experiences that people I trust describe to me. I rarely pay much attention to what has been published in a journal, at least to in regard to any important social and political issues. this approach seems to work for me, so I am not much inclined to change it.

 

This doesn't mean that I ignore the social sciences, but my level of trust in them is far lower than my trust in the physical sciences.

 

Also, and I guess I often react fairly strongly here, I dislike anything that smacks of saying that people who disagree with me have some sort of psychological problem. Of course some of you psychos need a lobotomy, but let's keep it quiet.

 

To put it another way, it may or may not be true that we make our own destiny, but it's a good idea to approach life that way. I apologize if this is all trivial and preachy.

 

I agree that the social sciences are not as robust as the physical ones, but I still find it interesting to read about the theoretical whys of the way people think and act - and I try to look for the best evidence I can for my opinions. In my own case, my thinking has changed over the years from being a staunch Republican supporter in 1994 to beomg considered more or a progressive now - and I credit the change to altering my methods of choice - in other words, I now try to see what the evidence suggests before forming an opinion instead of relying on a narrative that may or may not fit all the facts.

 

I also think it is best to live life as you suggest, but I do find it interesting that neuroscience is finding small hints that we are less free thinking than we might like to believe.

[onoway]

seems most times as though people don't vote FOR so much as they vote AGAINST. Obama won the first time on a platform of change, and for sure people were voting for him. However it seemed as though a significant number of people voted for him just because the vision of McCain and Palin was too much to contemplate. Much the same scenario this last time.

 

We have had much the same scenario but with multiple parties it makes it a bit harder. Voters split the votes against so Harper slid up through the middle with a majority like the weasel he is (imo).

 

We seem to be coming to the point of people trying to figure out who has the best chance of beating whoever we don't like, and voting for that person rather than voting for someone we feel will represent us. Something I hear over and over in random discussions, "they're all the same anyway".

 

That may be why Ron Paul resonated with so many people, maybe they felt finally someone actually did reflect and represent them. And why so many voted against his candidacy, they thought he might and couldn't face what that might mean either. :ph34r:

[mike777]

granted there seems to be strong evidence that republican party and much as democratic party want economic power in the same few, very few hands as political party.

 

fwiw unions such as afl/cio were famously against this.

 

it does appear that public unions want this so thay can be a strong influence. It does appear the same can be said as big/huge corporations.

 

Put the power of politics and economics in a few same hands..then influence them.

Of course only for the greater good.