Gene Frenkle

Don't confuse my belief system with membership in some club. From what I've seen, most of you let your need to belong to some group interfere with your ability to think critically. I'm not that guy.

Cute saying at the end there and I don't blame you if you want to quit. My assertion is that placing a prisoner in conditions that are guaranteed to cause him to go insane is cruel and unusual. Since when is defending and upholding the Constitution or Bill of Rights uber-liberal-mumbo-jumbo? Thankfully our Founding Fathers had the foresight to protect us from people like you.

Yes, technology never improves. Batteries today are no better than batteries from 10 years ago. Do you understand what a strawman argument is and why it may not be a valid vehicle for proving your obviously emotional point?

PPP is out of its mind today. The Strawmen are coming, the Strawmen are coming! Specifically, what questions are you talking about? Ever heard of the Hoover Dam? Ever heard of lithium-ion batteries? WTF does cold fusion have to do with any of this? This is such a waste of time, but it's like a train-wreck... But even PPP's most arrogant poster would never admit that the solutions to these questions are anywhere near being solved!

My bad, I thought all union employees were over-compensated. I would love to see that post. Yes, please!

Are you serious? Am I in the Twilight Zone today? Has April 1st come early this year? Atheists, scientists and other non-magical-thinking groups of people are VERY interested in finding REAL answers to the questions you're talking about. In fact, now that you mentioned it, CERN scientists are researching exactly how the first bit of matter was created as we "speak". When the Higgs Boson is found, you can cross that one off your list. Do some reading on the Big Bang, and you'll have an idea of "how all the galaxies got there". Math will tell you a lot more about the concept of infinity that your intuition ever will. Finally, I'm pretty sure Google can tell you all you want to know about what EXACTLY happens to living creature's body when it dies. While you're content to mindlessly wonder at the mysteries of the Universe as you stare into the night sky, real people are finding answers to these mysteries with no need for magical explanations.

I'm all for both to one degree or another, so you'll get no argument from me.

Not really. The prisoners are (mostly) all criminals and deserve to be where they are. The guards, callous as it may sound, know the risks going in and are well-compensated union employees. Give him his own cell and lock him down most of the time. Whatever you have to do to minimize the risk, but the punishment must not be cruel or unusual. ...OR like you're proposing, we could just stick with our our set inalienable rights until they become inconvenient... C'mon you're better than that. I guess the answer must be obvious even to you if you're throwing up such a blatant strawman. No dipshit, for complaining that the Bill of Rights was not applied to the dead victim of a violent crime or his family. You're trying to pull at some heartstrings but you're not making any sense at all.

Are you really that dumb?

This coming from you...so you're willing to spend your tax dollars to help the downtrodden as long as they're not lazy Americans? Is our deficit not large enough? Are our taxes not high enough? Spend, spend, spend??? I'm all for helping in situations like Libia and Rwanda. I'm just surprised at how much rationalization I see on this board when it comes to entitlement spending in the USA vs. military spending abroad.

27 years of solitary confinement is guaranteed to drive someone insane. Catch-22 or not, either throw out the clause or follow the Bill or Rights. It was written that way for a reason.

Nope. Crime and punishment should of course be directly related. The Bill of Rights does not say it's ok to subject someone to cruel and unusual punishment if the crime is heinous enough. Are you saying that the Bill of Rights should be not be followed to the letter?

The Pan Am 103 point is well taken. I don't have a strong opinion about this either way. It just seems somewhat of a contradiction. Qadaffi should be taken out, no doubt, but I'd expect that a Libertarian such as yourself would put it on the Libian people to take him out. Freedom ain't free!

I'm strictly speaking of extended solitary confinement. Are you arguing that causing someone to go insane is not cruel and unusual? Again, this is not a defense of his crimes. This has nothing to do with his crimes.

You are allowed the opinion that he's getting what he deserves and that's fine. That's not the real question, however. The Bill of Rights specifically protects US citizens against cruel and unusual punishment. It has nothing to do with the crimes he committed.

Here's one of the many things I don't understand: you're all about small government and people being responsible for themselves. So why don't you apply this same philosophy to Libia? I mean, I get why we'd want to take out Qadaffi, but shouldn't that responsibility fall on the Libian people?

Dude, whatever. Believe it or not, I have no interest in talking about the subjective good that comes with religion. Lots of people care about the truth, even if you find it unimportant. Very little is more important IMO, so the answer to your question is: Gene Frenkle. (I feel like T.O. referring to my fake name in the 3rd person)

With a bar so low, there exist many humble non-actions that can make one easily outshine one's predecessor.

I've been searching Google and I can't find anything from a decent source. All the attempted debunkings of the "Zeitgeist Hypothesis" seem to be extremely defensive and convoluted arguments from pro-Christian sites - not exactly the most objective sources. If there was a solid debunking anywhere, I'd expect to see it on snopes or some such site which doesn't have a direct conflict of interest. I'm very interested in seeing this video debunked: a challenge to all you good Christians out there. This is turning into my favorite thread ever!

I didn't realize that. Perhaps not starting nearly decade-long wars in multiple counties should be the new low-bar standard.

Link? I'm obviously more interested in the truth than being liked. We'll see what Tom comes up with.

A real documented person who rose from the dead? The zombie thing is hysterical! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1CWBKRWIg0 Incidentally, James, for someone who claims to be a non-believer, you sure do seem to enjoy apologizing for Christianity.

Romney is waiting for magical golden tablets to tell him the optimal time to declare his candidacy. The bar has been set pretty low. Not invading any new countries gets a pat on the back these days.

I agree, it would be better to execute him instead. Solitary confinement for any length of time is pretty f-ed up. People absolutely lose their minds because humans are not wired for such an existence. It is definitely cruel and unusual punishment.

So it's got that going for it...which is nice.