Well, being out and about on the internet myself, I should probably ask you which encryption methods would be appropriate (I'm assuming you don't rely on Microsoft's built-in encryption), and which tools to use for this purpose.

I haven't thought anything through in depth yet, but I think NTFS encryption wouldn't be a bad place to start, at least temporarily. At the very least, it'll buy some time, and it's relatively convenient for protecting files I use often. Ideally, though, I'd like to use PGP, GPG, or a similarly proven encryption scheme.

The catch is that while I may be able to prevent the Feds from cracking their way into my files, I'd actually be committing a crime if I don't give them my passphrases when they ask for them (assuming they have a warrant, of course). So even the strongest crypto is worthless as long as I'm alive and the files exist. For this reason, I'd need some sort of failsafe; a way to ensure that my hard drives get wiped as irreversibly as possible before anyone can get their hands on them.

Unfortunately, if I see the Feds coming and send the erase command, I'm still guilty of obstruction of justice. So the failsafe must be passive. Something like a special boot procedure that, if not correctly followed, quietly erases the disks. Of course, the problem with this is that it makes it really easy for me to accidentally lose all my data.

I'll give it some thought.

If you were a 1337 f1sh you would use a hardware bluetooth powered keychain somewhere in the chain of command.

Yeah, I've been thinking about possible encryption schemes and how a real Bill-O'-Rights-safe tool should work. It would need two passwords, of which one scrambles everything beyond recoverage and another actually unlocks the files. I don't know enough about the NTFS filesystem and the inner workings of Windows to assess how hard it would be to write such a tool, but I could definitely devise some sneaky encryption algorithms.

But as always, in the end, perhaps it would just be easier to not get involved in activities that attract the attention of Big Brother - such as writing Bill-O'-Rights-safe encryption tools.

Your 1337 keychain could still be legally confiscated.

Giving the Feds a password that destroys "evidence" would be just as illegal as any other active method of obstruction, so that won't work if we want to stay out of jail (which is the ultimate goal here).

You say it'd be easier just to avoid attracting Big Brother's attention, but I think you're missing my point. What I'm trying to illustrate here is not that criminals are being treated unfairly, it's that innocent people are being treated unfairly. I may not be doing anything explicitly illegal, but that doesn't stop the FBI from suspecting that I'm doing something illegal, which is enough for a judge to let them confiscate my files. I'd rather they confiscate an empty disk than a disk containing something incriminating that I wasn't aware of.

Furthermore, quietly avoiding attention in the hope that I'll avoid oppression is not my style, and it's certainly not how I want to live or how anyone in this country should have to live.

I suppose so. However, I'm an alien, albeit a legal one, and I'm wondering if I enjoy the same rights (as limited as they may be) as you, being an actual American citizen. For all I know, they could send me to Guantanamo Bay and throw away the room I was in. I pay the same taxes as you, but thus far my distinct impression is that I don't have any of the rights normal Americans have. As an example, I pay social security taxes, but as far as I know, I'm not entitled to social security. If I get fired, I can't get unemployment pay. Rather, I have to leave the country withing 30 days (that's the official statement, anyway). Sometimes it seems that illegal Mexican immigrants have more rights than people like me - not that I don't think illegal Mexican immigrant workers shouldn't have any rights, of course, but you know what I mean.

True, but you could have something where if the keychain is not near the computer for x hours things start to disappear or something and just not tell anyone about it.

To answer your first paragraph, it would have to be proven that you were the cause of the evidence being destroyed. It would be necessary to study the rules and see how the software could be devised in a way that would cast reasonable doubt upon the question of whether the data was lost by accident as opposed to as the result of a wilful act.

Anyway, I've read the whole search warant, and of course there is nothing in there indicating which evidence was presented to the judge, prompting the "I am satisfied..." statement. If the American legal system works anything like the Danish one, it wouldn't be enough that this guy knew someone who knew someone who might be involved. It would be required that the investigators show evidence that the suspect has done or said something pertinent to the case that very specifically cast suspicion upon himself as the actual perpetrator or accomplice in the investigated crime.

That information will of course only become available in a courtroom, and only if it will support the prosecutor's case, at that. Only time will tell if he's completely innocent. What worries me is the notion that he will never get his equipment back. I would think it should be returned to him when the case is closed, either because it's dropped because of insufficient evidence or an actual ruling is made.

But then, I don't know exactly how things work over here.

Come on, you read Cryptonomicon -- you should already know what to do!
All you've got to do is install powerful electromagnets in your doorframes without breaking any rental agreements.

If all else fails, I'm sure you could get someone to hang around outside with a van and a laptop. And a few backup shotguns.

I've had the pleasure of discussing the Cryptonomicon electromagnet trick with someone who actually does data recovery for a living and knows a thing or two about magnets and, sadly, I learned that the Cryptonomicon electromagnet trick only works in fiction. As it turns out, even with a tremendously powerful electromagnet, the vast majority of the data would probably still be recoverable (once they got the hard drive unstuck from the doorframe, that is).

Blast. It actually sounded like a fun thing to do.
You could at least try it just for the hell of it. I mean, it'd sure scare the crud out of any nearby FBI agents.

You are missing something. If you devise a failsafe system, no matter what the mechanism, who is to say it was obstruction of justice? What if your failsafe was not intended for the Feds? I know I have had 2 computers stolen from me, and I wouldn't have minded a failsafe here or there.

But above all I must stress that law enforcement is very careful not to trip failsafe systems when gathering evidence. Every schmo copying creditcards is well aware of how to build a simple failsafe system (such as Clean Sweep activated with one easy key press).

Somehow you need a failsafe that will not be noticed until it is too late. You also probably need a failsafe that will work after the Feds unplug your box to take it back to the lab. The best thing I can think of off the top of my head would be a hardware device between the motherboard and the drive. But you would need a large battery to power the drive, so that isn't the best idea.

Too bad melting the drive with Thermite is probably a violation of some law somewhere, especially if one of the agents got hurt because of it.

I've been privy to a few political discussions in the "tangential" part of my favorite rpg forums recently, and it is terrifying that all the self-professed conservatives shrug off the people in Guantanamo because "they're not American citizens". As if that makes them less than human beings -- or as if the average American doesn't realize that there are in fact legally mandated human and civil rights guaranteed by bodies and authorities outside this country.

Of course, given the "Get US out of the UN" signs by the side of the road, probably those people don't recognize the UN's authority or any international treaties on the rights of human beings. *sigh*

Keep two copies of everything.

The first copy is what you interact with on a day-to-day basis. At the first sign of trouble it goes away.

The second copy is encrypted. All the data is there. But you don't know the password (generate it randomly and throw it away).

Thus, all relevant evidence does still exist, but given strong enough crypto, it will be unretrievable during your lifetime.

A court would probably still find you guilty of destroying evidence/obstructing justice, but it might at least be a question.

I have long held the belief that the right to bear arms has nothing to do with home defense, hunting, collecting, target shooting or anything else the NRA will cite as a reason.

There is one simple reason for the right to bear arms: to overthrow a corrupt government. Think about it: the guys who wrote the Constitution lived through the American Revolution. They knew first hand how hard it was to displace an unjust governement, and that was with a fairly well-armed population.

Today (partly, I think, due to the Cold War), National Security is the most important principal in the US Government. That's just plain wrong. Self-perpetuation should never be the first goal of any governing body. First, service to the people.

Sadly, this nation has lost its way. Rights are infringed at the drop of a hat in order to prosecute crimes that cannot be undone. The legeslature and the executive represent not the electorate, but their funding sources. Happily, I don't think armed insurrection is necessary at this point. We still have peaceful ways of modifying the function of the government.

A few simple (but radical) changes are all that is needed to bring things back in line. First and most important: outlaw political advertising of any sort. The alternative solution is real campaign finance reform, but that has failed on multipul attempts to date. By outlawing advertising, you remove the need for money in campaigning. You also decrease the oppertunity for mud-slinging.

In the place of ads, you run debate. Debate is probably the most important skill that a representative can have, so one's ability in this area is quite material to the election. The topics for debate, of course, will be the issues that the candidates disagree on. Thus, we gain two important pieces of information from debate: how effectively will this candidate argue in the legislature, and what are his positions on the issues. Executives need rhetoric more than debate skills, so for presidential and similar elections, the debate can be replaced by speeches.

These debates/speeches can be televised, web-cast, whatever, at a regular time each week for an hour. Thus, politics moves from being an annoying interruption to a planned event, like a football game. My hope is that this change in character will also prompt some of the same interest that sporting events generate, thereby educating voters and making them think about the issues. But that's just a dream.

I've got it. It's so simple it didn't even occur to me until I read your idea. Remind me to tell you about my dastardly scheme in person sometime.

I don't think election reform by itself will solve all (or even many) of our country's problems, but otherwise I agree.

However, you say that the government's first goal should be "service to the people". Perhaps the wording was unintentional, so don't take this as a nitpick, but I'm of the opinion that, in this country at least, government and people should never be thought of as two separate things. As the distance between government and people increases, so does their usefulness to one another. We're at a point now where the government distrusts the people and vice versa, and the gap is increasing every day.

There are a lot of reasons behind why this has happened, but I think one of the biggest contributors to the problem is the ongoing erosion of states' rights. A democracy cannot work well on as large a scale as the federal government wants it to. The founders of this country knew this. That's why they attempted to give state and local governments a lot of power while limiting the overall power of the federal government. They intended to make democracy work by dividing the country into manageable, semi-autonomous chunks, with the federal government existing primarily as a glue between the states and as a conduit for international relations.

Unfortunately, the federal government has been steadily tightening its grip on the states from day one. When it got to be too much, a bunch of states attempted to exercise their Constitutional right of secession, which resulted in an incredibly bloody war. The Civil War was the halfway point in the erosion of states' rights. The states lost, the line was crossed, and the federal government became more powerful than the sum of its parts.

If this keeps up, just imagine where we'll be in fifty years.

I agree that erosion of states' rights is an important part of the problem with our country, but I don't think it has had as much of an impact as the (not unrelated) issues of the government's conduct during the cold war.

I haven't gotten the impression that people disliked/mistrusted the federal government as much before the cold war. I'm not a scholar of american history, so this is kinda a gut feel thing. I think cold-war politics and activities did a lot of harm to this country.

The reason I emphasize campaign finance is that whatever our problems, we are a capitalist representative democracy. Capitalism is based on greed. Thus, it is in character for our representatives to be self-serving, to an extent. This is just fine, as long as it remains in our representatives' best interests to represent the electorate. That's a system with good stability and error-correction characteristics.

But when we have a system under which votes are (percieved by the representative to be) purchased (indirectly, with advertising), then campaign finance becomes the controlling factor, not the interests of the electorate. A rep acting in his own best interests will play to his big contributors, not his electorate.

Thus, campaign finance reform becomes the easiest way to steer the governance back into the hands of the people. From there, further change is much easier.

The problem is that we have let the government grow to the point where it can begin to infringe on our rights in such meaningful ways. Better that such things were left (except in cases of national interest) in the hands of state or local governments as it was intended. They are much more accountable to individuals than the monstrosity we now have.

If we continue to allow our government to confiscate ever-increasing portions of our hard-earned income (much more than the 2% tax that incited the Boston Tea Party!) and steal power from the states in "providing for the common good" or "regulating interstate commerce", we will soon be socialists under the thumbs of a ruling elite class. Your friend just experienced a little taste of that.

"If are a conservative in your youth, you are heartless. If you liberal in maturity you are brainless"

Do you mean to say that the current administration is making things better?

This is too funny. The US resembling a police state is because of growing socialism? perhaps I've misinterpreted what you wrote, but that is indeed what it seems you're saying. If so, allow me to make a simple comparison between my home country (which is occasionally led by a socialist government) and the US (which is currently led by an ultra-conservative government).

I've recently learned of someone who had their real estate property seized in connection with narcotics charges spawned by the fact that the individual "knew the wrong people", just like the subject in this article. The property was sold before the case was dismissed a year later because the law enforcement officers had obtained a court order on false premises. In other words, law enforcement officers lied to get a warrant and then proceeded to have the property sold with a hefty profit, which the rightful owner never saw a penny of, before the question of guilt was addressed. The judge dismissing the case verbally reprimanded the law enforcement officers and that was the end of it. This person effectively had his house stolen by the system, and was left penniless, so he couldn't afford the legal expenses connected with attempting to get it back.

If this had taken place in Denmark, these law enforcement officers and the judge who let this happen would have been lynched in the media. What's more, they would likely have been put in jail themselves, because such conduct is simply not legal in that socialist home country of mine. It should be obvious, especially to a justice system, that seized property cannot be sold before a court ruling has determined whether the defendant is in fact guilty, and if he isn't, it is equally obvious that his property must be immediately restored to him without damage. There is no sane legal defense for any other conduct by law enforcement and courts alike. Anything else is in opposition to article 17 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (to which the United Staes is legally bound):

• Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
• No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

If this sounds ambiguous, read the complete declaration. Then it won't. I'm sure there are similar paragraphs in the constitution meant to prevent this kind of abuse. I had no idea that this sort of thing was possible in a democratic country, and it leaves me baffled and appalled, to put it mildly, that the state is allowed such unrestrained power and complete disregard for personal property rights, which, especially in an extremely capitalistic society, should be among the holiest of human rights. Don't even get me started on topics such as the Homeland Security Act or the practice of detaining people for years without trial. I'll restrict myself to reciting my favorite quote:

People who are willing to give up freedom for the sake of short term security, deserve neither freedom nor security. -Benjamin Franklin

Lastly, I can only snicker at Americans who complain about tax rates and gasoline prices, which in the US are still ridiculously low. Believe me, there is no reason to complain just yet.

Nope, but then they aren't as conservative as I am ;)

I just love old Ben, and agree wholeheartedly with his statement. You cite one quite exceptional instance of injustice and then try to paint our whole government with the same color - that's simply not true, and not representative of what is typical. Besides, there is a process by which people can appeal judgements.

I totally agree that people should be able to own their own property - by the way that is a CONSERVATIVE viewpoint! Liberals believe they have a right to your property and mine if it leads to a greater good, that good being defined of course by them and usually consisting of some new entitlement or another.

Your definitions of conservative and liberal are, I think, quite different than mine. I certainly would NOT define our government as "ultra-conservative" in any way - for gosh sakes it's far too liberal for me, and Ben Franklin would certainly be appalled! I disagree with the confiscatory and unfairly "progressive" tax structure, with the huge and unregulated spending, and with the intrusion into the social arenas that government was never meant to enter.

Why should any citizen have to give up more than 50% of his or her rightful income to pay for our government no matter how much or little that is? Why should we allow the government to say that one person's income is less deserved or earned than anothers? Why is it fair to expect half of our citizens to bear over 96% of the cost of government? (The top 5% currently pay more than half of the cost of government!) Our government seems to feel entitled to take as much of our income as it wants, and that is dangerous.

The more local the government, I believe, the more accountable. The more centralized the government, the more dangerous in regards to our rights as citizens. We've enabled our government through social spending and entitlements to grow into a massive bureaucracy - it is natural for that bureaucracy to progress from infringing on our rights to property and income to feeling that it can infringe on our rights to privacy and association. What the original post is lamenting is just the newest symptom of the chronic progression of liberalism in our society. True liberalism is at its core diametrically opposed to individual rights.

The answers? Limit the ability of government to tax by constitutional amendment and force balanced budgets - I'm a huge proponent of a national sales tax or VAT - that seems the most fair way to tax in all situations. Also, decentralize government shifting federal power back to the states and states' powers back to local government where we the citizens can more democratically control what our government does.

Whoever can do this would be a one-term wonder, but I'd vote for 'em in a second! As far as my liking of the current administration, I'd simply say I disagree with a fair portion of its policies, but I don't see any more attractive alternatives in the current spate of candidates.

Labels, labels, labels. This is why labels don't work. You can't divide people into two groups based on political opinions and you can't place them on a one-dimensional scale. You can't place them on a two-dimensional grid. You can't place them in a three-dimensional cube. You cannot define a person's beliefs with a single datapoint, a single word, or a single idea.

I enjoy having these political discussions, but as soon as the words "conservative" and "liberal" pop up, things always go down the tubes. Labels are a great way to piss people off and get them to stop paying attention to what you have to say. They're not good for much more than that.

That said, I generally agree with you on our current tax situation and on the need for a less centralized, more local government. I'm not particularly impressed by any of the current Presidential candidates but, as the saying goes, "any port in a storm."

I could reply to all this very tersely, Dr. Edwards. It seems that we agree to a very large extent on the symptoms, but disagree entirely on the pathology and hence the cure.

As to citing injustice, in my opinion, I've cited two instances. In doing so, I was attempting to illustrate how the present political system in the US is in disaccord with the spirit of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. When passing laws, it is my firm and unchanging belief that lawmakers must continually ask themselves whether they are infringing on constitutional or basic human rights. In the two examples I've offered they clearly have neglected this duty. Furthermore, it is my belief that they illustrate an unfortunate trend in the American society to equate capitalism with democracy and fail to recognize the areas in which these two systems are in conflict.

In a truly democratic system, money would not play a role in the election process at all. The need to fund their campaigns effectively put candidates in the pockets of their largest contributors. Thus, the direct connection of the people to the election process has been severed and replaced by an intermediate body controlled by capitalist interests. The winning candidate is still chosen by the people, but the possible candidates themselves are chosen by wealthy commercial institutions.

Similarly, increasing the powers of law enforcement will make it possible to enforce the law while expending less resources. In terms of capitalism, this is a sound approach. In terms of democracy, it is not. In order to protect the rights of the individual, I'm afraid it is necessary to do things the hard way, emphasizing social initiatives aimed at improving the conditions and quality of life of the people. Misery breeds crime. If you fight misery, you effectively fight crime, but at less expense in terms of infringements on people's rights.

It is equally important to ensure that law enforcement is accountable for their actions and methodology. If law enforcement is accountable, it is just. If it is perceived as just by a greater majority of the population, it will enjoy greater respect - which is not to be confused with fear - and inspire more people to respect and obey the law. It's all a question of conveying the value and prestige of lawfulness. Having to fear law enforcement is not in the interest of the people and is not an effective means of preventing crime.

All these things cost ungodly amounts of money. However, if we agree that the protection of the rights of everyone is the ultimate goal, I believe that it's worth the expense. Society as a whole will benefit. That means you as well. Instead of protecting your family from the bad guys, you help turn more of these people into good guys instead of just throwing them in jail where they turn into really bad guys.

- - -

I could - and most probably will - continue to draw comparisons between the political systems I have experienced. I do not expect you to be convinced by any or all of the individual cases I highlight and adopt my views, which you're right, by American standards, are quite Liberal despite the fact that I'm rapidly approaching an age where I can no longer attribute my folly to youth in terms of the number of rides I've had around the Sun.

Running a country is expensive. Let us forget for a moment our expendatures (which I think we can all agree should be reduced) an concentrate on the income side of things. Governments get money through taxes. This is a good thing. The alternative is for the government to not tax us, but instead print more money to cover its costs. This, of course, leads to rampant inflation and probably ends up costing us more.

So, taxes are a good solution overall. Two questions then: what to tax, and who to tax?

You don't want to tax money that's just sitting around, because it's hard to find. So you tax money that moves. This is either income or expendatures.

If we tax expendatures, then we encourage people to spend less, and instead keep their money in interest-bearing investments. People have to buy some things, but the overall effect is to depress the larger economy.

If we tax income, then we encourage people to make less money. Except that there are already plenty of factors encouraging people to make more money, so taxing income will have fewer detrimental effects to the country's economy.

So we have an income tax. Who do we tax? Well, there are two schools of thought: we tax everyone equally, or we tax people in proportion to their means to pay.

If we tax everyone equally (on a percentage of income basis, not dollar amount), then everyone must pull their own weight. But some people at any given moment cannot afford to pull their own weight. They are over-burdened by taxes, and cannot recover from their misfortune (because it takes money to do so). Others have income totally out of proportion to their expenses. Thus, they don't spend their money, but sock away the vast majority of it. This depresses the economy, because money is effectively exiting circulation.

So, instead, we tax people on a curve. The poorest pay little or no tax; they really can't afford it, their contribution is small anyway, and we have a hope that they will rise above their current trouble given room to breathe. The wealthiest pay a much larger portion of their income in tax. They still have more money than they want to spend, but a good portion of it is returned to the economy via taxation. This system also serves the majority well, because the majority are not the wealthy (by definition). It's a democracy, not a money-ocracy.

Thus, we end up with a few whining rich people who feel put upon, instead of a lot of angry working class people. This helps to prevent insurrection, which just ruins everyones day.

Plus, you get more blood from a red cross blood bag than from a stone:

Household income or consumption by percentage share:
lowest 10%: 1.8%
highest 10%: 30.5% (1997)

Taken from the CIA World Factbook, last updated Dec 18, 2003.

I'm not sure that "misery breeds crime" is accurate in the general case. I think poverty of means (the source of the misery you seem to be talking about) breeds certain types of crime, but others are the sole pervue of the wealthy.

The frustrated poor have the least to lose, and so are the most likely to risk it all on illegal activities such as robbery, burglary, drug trafficking, and other forms of smuggling. These activities in turn create anarchic subcultures, which increases the rate of violent crime.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the wealthy of means. These have considerable personal power, and many spend most of their time playing games in which wealth is a means of keeping score. To do well at these games sometimes involves breaking a few rules. The personal power these people wield is generally sufficient to protect them from the consequences of minor cheating. This encourages boundary-testing behaviors and further cheating.

These people probably don't end up killing anyone (directly), but I would argue that their crimes do a larger amount of damage overall than the crimes of a two-bit hood. But there are fewer wealthy, and thus fewer wealthy criminals, so their visibility is generally lower.

Thus we must strike a balance between humanitarianism and draconian law enforcement to truely enforce the law.

I really like your points about lawfulness and public perception and attitudes toward law though. Such a change in popular attitude may even have an impact on white-collar crime, as a social pressure.

But you're also right that these things are terribly expensive. It is the capitalist way to seek the 80% solution, and I think the US is more capitalist than democratic when it comes down to it. So such expensive 100% solutions are unlikely in this society.

Thus, the American solution must produce social justice by appealing to greed and self-interest, not universal moral principals. An interesting problem to say the least :)

Bravo and well put.

There's an even worse problem than the personal income tax mess, though: corporate income tax. Corporations -- especially large ones -- enjoy way too many tax exemptions. As a result, the private citizens working to make the large corporations richer are paying more taxes relative to their income than the corporations themselves. This, I think, is the single biggest problem with our tax system today.

If every US corporation actually paid their fair share of income tax (not to mention property and other taxes), balancing federal and state budgets would be a cakewalk. Follow this with private income tax reform and a decrease in unnecessary expenditure, and it's very likely the government could lower taxes and still maintain a budget surplus to go towards paying off our massive national debt.

But, as Mithrandir and Greystork have pointed out, this would anger rich people and big corporations, which means that any politician who even hints at working towards this sort of reform would have no chance of running a successful campaign or receiving a nomination.

Wrong wrong wrong! You zero-sum people really don't understand! "Socking away" money removes it from circulation? Are you daft? Maybe if it's buried in a mayonnaise jar in the back yard of the estate! Most money goes to banks or to the stock market where it is used for INVESTMENT! This GROWS the economy! Look at the huge increase in income to the government from taxes after Reagan CUT tax rates in the '80's - why the ballooning deficit then? The Democrat-controlled congress SPENT the nearly TRIPLED income and much more to feed the social programs which truly do suck money from the economy. You use the same arguments the tax-raisers use. Money does much more good entering the economy through investment than through the government where a majority of it is wasted.

Plus, you're saying it's ok to tax the "rich" more because they have more? So, I should pay 10 bucks at WalMart for milk when someone else pays two or four? Progressive taxation is inherently unjust and unfair - that's like saying it's ok to steal from rich people because they don't need it all anyway!

I'm all for helping those on the bottom rung up by supporting welfare for those who make less than a certain income or cannot make any income, but there's no way I will ever consider our current tax system fair, just, or right in any way.

Wrong wrong wrong! You zero-sum people really don't understand! "Socking away" money removes it from circulation? Are you daft?

I guess we're all just a bunch of daft, liberal, zero-sum wrongheads. Obviously you are vastly superior to us, as evidenced by your brave introduction of insults into the discussion.

My fragile ego is so wounded, I'm afraid I can't even muster the willpower to respond to your arguments. Ho hum.

I was just pointed to this article in the Oregonean. Isn't it nice that they can deport people for things they did, and served their sentence for, 11 years ago?

Oh, and here's a tale of how the US sent a Canadian citizen to Syria to be tortured.

Is it just me, or does it really seem like law enforcement agencies try their best to do the most damage, once they've picked out their target, with complete disregard for the consequences of their actions or whether justice is really served? The above story certainly seems to indicate a direct malicious intent.

Slightly not on topic, but I also found this one interesting for musing upon regarding the State of the Union.

just by-the-by wonko, would it be at all possible for you to implement some kind of 'read/unread' marker for posts, just to ease the following of long threads like these, where I find myself trying to pick my way through to find the new responses the next day. Or should I just be more observant and let the lesson be learn'ed to me? :)

Good article.

I've been itching for some kind of new post filter for a while, I'm just too lazy to get around to actually doing it. Maybe I'll get off my bum and whip something up.

Heh - nice dodge out of listening to reason. If you don't want to think about it and realize that the reasoning I attacked is wrong then go ahead and live your life as a misguided liberal, voting for every liberal Democrat that talks a good game then busily sets out attacking success and shoring up the existence of a permanent underclass to assure their power. Be my guest.

But... If you think about it, I mean really try to bypass your prejudgement about the issues and the liberal dogma, you will realize that the only money that remains unused is money that is physically stashed away somewhere, destroyed, or otherwise wasted. Even government expenditures help the economy to some degree, although much less than private investment.

If you want to retain your worldview, please don't use reason or logic to analyze the situation, it might distress you. If you want to be so easily wounded, go ahead - it really chaps me when people recite this drivel that know it's not true - mainly the politicians you see spouting it on CNN. They know that using this type of misdirection is the only sure way to retain their power. If that fury toward the intentionally dishonest spilled over to you and hurt your fragile feelings then by way of apology I will say that it was not directed at those commenting here (unless they are Richard Gephardt).

Feel free to not respond, even feel free to not use reason and blindly continue believing what you do. If that's how you want to live your life it's a free country.

This is your website - I'm sure your witty rejoinder will convince your peers you've "won" the argument, and since you run the joint you have that privilege. You want to portray me as thinking I'm intellectually superior in order to attack my argument? Nice distraction, but it doesn't fly. Like the old joke about what the definition of a "bigot" (you can also insert "racist", "homophobe", "elitist" or whatever common liberal epithet applies) is - it's someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.

I think what it boils down to is this: The only way of convincing people is by showing them respect. If you're disrespectful, it doesn't really matter what you say, whether you're right or wrong, because you have already gotten your listeners on the barricades. This is psychology 101, and should be pretty obvious to anyone intelligent enough to argue his case. Commencing an argumentation with personal attacks defeats the message even before it is delivered, and hence is generally a very bad idea.

"Are you daft" has got to be the weakest personal attack I've ever seen defined as such - it's more a rhetorical question than anything else. Regardless, anyone who has been online for any length of time knows written remarks always seem sharper and more insulting than they would in person. Nothing I said was meant personally toward the prior posters, but I certainly have a great deal of frustration and anger that this idea still persists not only among reasonable people such as those who frequent this website, but in our country as a whole. It is entirely due to either ignorance or unreasoning belief in a set of suppositions that leads people to hold these mathematically and logically unsound views. Here's a brief restatement of my point:

Wealth is never removed from the economy by investing, the opposite is true. Liberal politicians (fiscally so I might qualify) don't want you to know this. If you think about it you'll see I'm right. No insult intended. Don't bury your money in a mayonnaise jar.

Regardless, anyone who has been online for any length of time knows written remarks always seem sharper and more insulting than they would in person.

And therefore, some people who have been online for a reasonable length of time utilize the time-delay of the written medium, an advantage they do not have in person, in order to look at their composition, see whether it is inflammatory, reconsider words typed in the heat of anger, clarify points of reasoning that might be unclear, and even sometimes provide links to objective sources that back up their arguments.

Yes, the internet is full of people glorying in their anonymity to pour vitriol and ad hominem attacks on all that oppose them. What they usually reap is yet more vitriol and ad hominem attacks. This does not mean that all discussion in the medium is worthless, or that all pretense at respect and common courtesy should be sloughed off as a bad idea or an outmoded one.

An angry opinion is almost guaranteed to fail at persuasion, as Greystork pointed out. All that is left is an exposition of that opinion, and the people that hold it, that shows it and them in the worst possible light. When a person responds to someone with radically different views from his own with respect and reason, it makes him look good. When he resorts to anger and insults, it makes no one look bad but himself.

Despite the continued dissection of my comments, which I feel I have adequately explained (except for the fact that I often have only brief interludes during my work to dash off a response, since I must earn all the money I stash away sucking it out of the economy) I still see no response to my assertions...