JayC

Chuck, posts like this need to come with a warning message... I just had to change my shirt because I snorted coffee out of my nose :) I wonder how long the sticker was on there before F-Troop figured it out :)

One would hope that somebody in charge would recognize the possible poor judgement of young soldiers in those types of situations and not leave them alone to make poor choices. Honestly if I had caught an airman playing with a skull on the battle field, he would have been sent to the rear as quick as possible for an eval... If they have such piss poor judgement to think that playing with body parts is acceptable behavior they are either nuts or too immature to be on the battlefield.

I agree burning them for hygiene purposes is perfectly legal...  playing with the skulls after the fact... not so much...  Being stupid enough to take pictures of your buddies burning the dead, or playing with skulls...  completely stupid.     If some officer of NCO gave this order (for hygiene purposes), it should have come with the added instruction not to take pictures or video tape.    

Just a point, these insurgents are most definitely enemy combatants under the Geneva Conventions which our country is a signatory of....  Even if they're committing war crimes and violating the Geneva Conventions, we're still obligated to follow those rules when dealing with captured enemies, and the dead.   Even if they aren't covered, we need to be respectful enough of the dead...  It's the right and human thing to do...  This isn't even a close call, every service member knows not to desecrate the enemy dead under any circumstance.    

And that is my experience with open carry as well...  People either don't see it...  or don't care.

What free market?  These are all government back monopolies and duopolies...  How many cable providers do you have where you live?  I have 1.  How many Telephone companies can provide you copper/fiber to your door?  I have 1.    1 or 2 government selected choices does not make a free market.  

Ummm...  I'm not sure what 'test' you took...  but virtually none of these positions are inline with the Libertarian ideals....   No offense, but you're focusing on problems, not the cause of those problems...  The reason big businesses help politicians get elected is because the government is so big, so regulates so much...  take away the size and scope of government and big business doesn't care about politicians.     Free trade is good for us, and the other country...  whats bad?  All the unneeded regulation and added costs of doing business in the United States.  Imagine what a burden it is on a business owner that it's cheaper to ship products from half way around the world to here at a cheaper cost per item?  Also, trade creates peace...  People are much less likely to go to war with people they trade with.   As for your military policy...  We need to have a strong national DEFENSE, countries should know that attacking us will result in them loosing...  but we don't need a borderline mad man in the Oval office to do that....  We for sure don't need troops stationed all over the world to protect us at home.   There are some simple questions we should be asking ourselves...  We do we only have 435 Representatives today?  How did we get that number, and why is it so small?  When this country was founded a Congressman represented about 35,000 people...  In 1910 we stopped adding seats, yet our population has ballooned...  Today some house districts represent over 1 million people...  The average being somewhere around 750,000....     If we just increased the number of representative so that each represented 175,000 - before the freeze in 1910, we'd have 1715 Representatives...  TN would have 37 Representatives in the House...  If we we back to traditional numbers BEFORE congress started to mess with the ratio (bet you can't guess which President did that?)...  We'd be looking at 6,000 Representatives and TN would have 129 Representatives...   It's easy to buy off 218 congressmen...  how easy is it to buy off 857 or 3,001?  Also by having such a large number of representatives you'd see a much more diverse parties...  More importantly, getting 800+ or 3000+ people to agree on something would be next to impossible...  it would be like herding cats...  and government would stop passing a lot of laws :)    

Reminds me of a modified version of an Edmund Burke quote I saw the other day:   "Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the government officials committing it." - Kurt Hofmann  

FCC will probably go back and reclassify cable/telephone and cell companies internet service as 'common carrier' which would have the exact same effect - ie de facto net neutrality.   I'm all for the free market, but until we break these companies up to separate the lines from the service, there won't be a free market.

Well, NICS might not be getting rid of the information correctly... but there are some very large pro-2nd amendment organizations watching them like hawks...  We know TICS has unlawfully held firearm check data longer than allowed under the law...  Also TICS asks for more information about your purchase than NICS does.   As for uptime, I'd rather not pay $10 per purchase and once and awhile have to wait longer, than use TICS.  

How does NICS suck more than TICS?   TICS costs us money on each purchase, NICS doesn't...  TICS has a much higher false positive rate than NICS...  NICS also has better privacy safeguards than TICS.   TICS knows it has a very high false positive rate...  Up to 70% of the denials are outright overturned on appeal.  Many of the denials that are upheld are because of outstanding 'issues' that even if true could not be a disqualifying event...   The truth is we're paying extra to have a 90+% false positive rate...  Now, these numbers combined with the feds really bring into question the logic behind background checks to begin with...  is it really worth $15-20 million in cost to taxpayers to put each violator behind bars?   Is it really worth all of this mess to stop 1.14% of the population from getting a gun?  Even if it is, the state doesn't have a business or authority to be involved in the process.    

They are also an anti-property right, anti-business rights organization :)   I like John Harris, and the crew over there a lot... a good group of guys, but once they hopped on this parking lots bill crazyfest I stopped helping out.  And I can't recommend that anybody else join of give them money that cares about their other rights just as much as they do about the 2nd amendment rights.    

I'd rather see TICS shut down completely ;)    

I've yet to find a Church based program that doesn't require you to sign a statement of faith...  Since all the accrediting groups in state law are evangelical based, they all require a statement of faith that God is a trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that the Bible is inspired, infallible, and the supreme and final authority from God.   Since we don't believe either of those things, we can't sign a statement of faith, and therefore can't enroll in those programs.   It's similar to asking a Jew to sign a document that they believe in the New Testament and the holy trinity.    

I thought you mentioned that your grandkids had been homeschooled and might know the if they used the LEA or Church based program. Maybe I misread that?   As for 'extreme' examples...  Mormons, 7th Day Adventists, Jews, Muslims. Hindus,  Buddhists just to name a few off the top of my head, none of which have church-based homeschooling options...   In our case, nothing as crazy as any of that...  We're unitarians who believe in theistic rationalism (yea that is a form of Christianity that has been around since the late 1700's)...  The biggest differences are we don't believe in the trinity (like Mormons), but we also don't believe the entire bible is the word of God, only that parts of the Bible are divinely inspired.   Needless to say the vast majority of evangelical churches aren't compatible :)     

Thanks for the link. I'm not sure the information is current...  for example they don't list the new Common Core testing schedule that was added to state law 2 years ago...   As for the reason I don't want to subject my child to a faith different from our own?  Would you like to subject your grandkids to an Islamic religious course everyday?  I mean you could still take them to church on Sunday's and teach them what you really believe.  Frankly I find the suggestion that I should just make do with incompatible religious teaching fairly outrageous.     We'll agree to disagree on whether going through the LEA or not poses issues...  Just a quick question did your children use the LEA or a church-based school for their homeschooling?   My entire point is that our homeschooling laws should be strengthened to not only allow parents to stay away from the local schools on religious grounds but also on moral and ethical grounds as well.    

Jerry, welcome to the club...  I ended up joining about 6 years ago...  I've never completely agreed with Ron Paul's thoughts on National Defense...  but listening to him opened up my eyes some...  You're never going to agree with a candidate 100% of the time, IMHO you need to find somebody you agree with most of the time, and hope they'll stay true to their beliefs once in office.   The truth is libertarians come in all shapes and sizes, and we don't all agree with each other :)  Some are against strong borders and immigration policy... some of us aren't for it.   The national defense issues...  we just have to look for common ground...  My opinion is there is a lot of waste, fraud and abuse in the current DoD budget...  You were in the military I'm sure you saw waste all the time...  There are all sorts of programs the military isn't even asking for that could be cut... How much, I don't know, my guess 30+% of the budget could be cut and not impact our ability to fight...  maybe it's a little less, maybe it's a lot more...  but the military shouldn't be a serving dish for corporate welfare...  it's one of the few things the federal government does that is authorized under the constitution and we should be careful not to waste money on it.   We also don't really need 900 military based outside the country....  Doesn't mean we need to close all of them down...  but how many do we really need?  maybe 100?  These act as a de facto foreign aide to countries who can afford their own security...  We're spending US tax dollars to protect Germany, so they don't have to spend their GDP on their own military...  I'm not saying we don't need to do that...  but first off we shouldn't be paying for the privilege...  Germany should be providing the bases for free, and should be shoulder most of the cost.   Anyhow welcome to the club..  feel free to PM me if you feel the need...  once your mind starts down this path it can be a little shocking how you're world view on a topic can change suddenly :)  Truth is we're so out numbered on here we should start a support group...  I'm sure 6.8 and Chuck would join as well ;)

Robert,   My wife and I want to homeschool or go the private school route for our daughter...  and we've been doing a lot of research over the last 6-8 months trying to educate ourselves on the options (we have more than 2 years before we have to make a choice) available to us...  Honestly, I have to pause when contemplating spending nearly 1 million dollars or more on my daughters education (K thru College)...  I'm not sold on the idea that is the best way for our family.   So, my wife and I are in agreement that public school is out of the question, and because of all the strings attached, LEA home schooling is also not an option, because the local school system can dictate the curriculum... among other things.   That leaves us with homeschooling through a 'church-based' program...  our faith isn't represented by any of the currently approved church based home schooling programs... only Catholics and a hand full of Evangelical sects are represented currently, if you're Jewish, or any other major religion you're out of luck...  Belong to a church that isn't well represented in the South, you're out of luck.   And if you're not religious you're completely out of luck, because there is no non-government, non-church related homeschooling program authorized under state law.   BTW, the VAST majority of homeschoolers in this state are part of a church related program, and if your religion is represented in the current list of approved programs, I would think it would work very well for you.  But, the government is supposed to be blind when it comes to religion and in this case IMHO the home schooling law isn't.    

TICS has a much higher rate of false positives than NICS...  and TDOS is mis-interpreting state law to deny firearm checks and permit applications...     I know I sound like a broken record, but TICS not only violates the state constitution and taxes a protected right...  but it's a poorly run make work program that needs to be shutdown.   If the federal government wants to perform background checks, 'let them', but the state of TN has no busy wasting tax dollars on TICS.    

Robert,   I think you'd be hard pressed to find anymore than a handful of non-religious private schools in TN, and the few there are are VERY expensive, $16,000+ per child expensive.   I can't speak to other parts of the state, but in middle TN there are only 4 K-12 non-sectarian schools, BGA, Benton Hall, Ensworth, and University School of Nashville...  For an family of 4 that is $30k-50k a year in private school costs... I think we can both agree the average TN family would have a very hard time paying for 2 children enrolled in one of those schools.   The rest of the certified private schools in Middle TN are all religious, even the "nondenominational" K-12's require daily bible classes, and "service projects", so are not an option of families who aren't religious.   Homeschooling through the LEA isn't really an option, because they're now forcing families to teach 'common core'... and the families open themselves up to a lot of dealing with the public schools...  your child will have to sit for standardized tests at the local school.  Not to mention the school gets to dictate what you will teach your child.   But, we're in complete agreement putting your child in a public school is about the worse thing you can do to them today...  everyday I'm surrounded by kids who went to public school (and even public colleges) and I just shake my head at how poor of an education they received.     

Robert,   I agree with you but where do you send your kids?  If you're not religious or your church doesn't have/run a school your options are very limited...    While TN has homeschooling laws, it only involves 2 methods....  The first is controlled by the local school district which is as bad as putting your kids in public schools...     The second is to 'register' with a church related school...  You're completely out of luck with this method if you're not an Evangelical or Catholic...  there are no 'certified' schools in the Jewish faith, let alone any other faiths approved by the state.  And no way to use this non-government method of homeschooling if you're not religious.   The fact is you're options are very limited to pull your child out of public school altogether...  And this is another area of freedom where we should work to restore more freedoms to parents.  

First bill still doesn't appear to cover passengers in a vehicle....  somebody should email Green and get him to re-file with one more sentence :)

Focus on the root cause of the problem...  The Government (on any level) shouldn't be running schools...  Take away public schools and the problem solves itself.

Offer me a solution that doesn't cost me more money, doesn't raise my taxes, and doesn't require me to give up more of my civil rights... And I'll be right there with you.   Nobody is providing any suggestions for how to keep illegals from getting jobs here that doesn't increase costs for businesses, and doesn't further erode civil rights.    We have a labor shortage...  the reason we have a labor shortage, because we allow able bodied adults to collect a paycheck from the government for sitting at home...  then we're shocked when people come here for open jobs and the free welfare we provide them and their families while they're here.  You can't solve the illegal immigrant problem without solving the welfare state problem first.... and nobody is willing to say that who is running for President.  

I'm not worried about my fellow citizens with no training carrying in public...  I'm much more worried about police officers who have a ton of training yet manage to kill innocent citizens at a rate 5 times that of untrained citizens.   Alaska, Arizona, Vermont don't seem to have issues with constitutional concealed carry...  no increase in accidental shootings in those states...  29 states allow open carry without a permit...  and again no increase in accidental shootings...  We've allowed people to carry in TN on out of state permits for the better part of a decade without any increase in accidental shootings....   Where is the problem with untrained people carrying guns?  I just don't see it.   I understand you're nervous...  and I'm not suggesting that training isn't a good thing...  but the risk you seem to be worried about... untrained people carrying firearms just doesn't exist on paper, or if it does it's a rounding error...  You just can't use that feeling as a justification for creating all of this corporate welfare which makes it that much harder for people to protect themselves.