Balta1701

By my definition, the government doing things for married couples that clearly provide obvious benefits (tax status, child status, priveledged state of spouses regarding hospitalizations/end of life decisions/etc) is by definition the government taking actions that are "pro" marriage. If you don't use the same wording there, fine, my bad but that one, the "Government should get out of the marriage business entirely" gets my goat when I hear that all the time from my libertarian friends because the idea that they're opposed to spouses being immune from testifying against one another is ludicrous, but they never consider the actual implications of their position.

Considering how much trouble he had with the skies at Yankee Stadium when we played there last year...eh.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 06:01 PM) I dont believe that marriage is a right. I dont believe the govt should have any role in marriage (pro or con). If a church wants to marry you, great, if they dont want to marry you, why should I care. The argument is actually an equal protection argument, that the govt is giving rights to a certain subset that it is not giving to another subset. Which is also explicitly in the constitution. I'm going to wind up with a derail here, but I don't care because this is a complete copout. Should spouses be able to be forced to testify against their husbands? Should there be no recognition of spousal relations in terms of estate planning/death benefits/insurance laws (i.e. if a person leaves an estate to their spouse, should it be subject to the estate tax, and then taxed again if that spouse dies)? If a parent dies, should there be no recognition of the existence of a spouse in terms of deciding custody of a child? It's nonsensical.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:31 PM) I like Reed very much. The rest of our relievers I personally believe are blah. I simply hate Jones' delivery. I don't mind funky deliveries as long as the arm holds up. He gets great velocity out of his delivery and batters aren't going to be used to the arm motion. The downside might have been control but the dude got outs with that walk rate, and any slight improvement on that with time will make him even more effective.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:29 PM) That is patently false. Go read Posner's decision and the decision in Heller. That right is not absolute. That assumes this court won't have a desire to expand upon that decision in the near future. Would you honestly put it past this court to strike down concealed weapons bans if given the chance? I think they'd have the votes right now. Edit: in fact, here's the relevant clause from Heller: Take note...they do not say anything about concealed weapons bans there, but take pains to say that the law making sure people don't bring guns into the Court is ok.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:27 PM) Every year people think the Sox will have a good bullpen and it annually sucks. Sox don't have any reliable relievers who get on a roll where they are unhittable. We're dead if our starters come out in the sixth cause that means way too many relievers will pitch that night. If the Sox go with 4 relievers on a given night you can bet one or two of them will suck. The latter 2 clauses are pretty much the case with most teams, and it seems like several of our guys went on unhittable rolls at different points in the season last year (Reed, Veal, and Jones immediately come to mind as having them).

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:22 PM) As a lawyer you know this isn't true. You know the arguments going into those decisions. Why are you making a grey issue so black and white? It's not that simple. You have a right to own and carry a gun, but there are restrictions. The lines in the sand that are drawn are important in determining what those restrictions should and should not be. The problem is...he's actually sort of right. The Supreme Court cases and the case cited here, for example, aren't being decided based on whether additional guns are good or bad for the society, they're being judged using the statement that gun possession is a fundamental right and should not be restricted under any circumstances. That's the logic being used here, that's the logic in overturning Chicago's handgun ban, the only question is how far the court is willing to push it. It's being treated as black and white, everyone has the right to have guns...and the consequences don't matter.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:17 PM) Since when do statistics matter when it comes to rights? Either 1) the govt can regulate or 2) the govt cant regulate. After that, its just simply drawing fake lines in the sand. Some would say that a right that kills us is a right we shouldn't want.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:14 PM) Did they control for the situations that the carriers and non-carriers found themselves in? People living in and around gang areas are going to have a higher likelihood of being shot. This is unsurprising. If Posner's correct that the largest group of CC holders are middle-aged, middle-class, suburban white men, then statistics of shootings that don't control for CC and are centered in a dense urban area don't tell me too much about the effects of CC on society as a whole. If you want the larger scale data, you can go to the data showing that the states with the highest rate of gun crime and gun injuries are the states with...the highest ownership of guns and the laxest gun laws. In the middle of work now so go find the citation yourself for once There are something like 200 successful uses of a gun to defend oneself against a crime per year in the united states, as judged by FBI statistics on justified homicide. On average, a gun in the home is >20x more likely to be used in a suicide, accident, or crime than it is for the gun to be used for self defense.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:05 PM) But if you're approaching it pragmatically, that needs to be counter-balanced against the effects of self-defense. That is included in the one I just cited, for an example. The cases where the person had a reasonably high chance of responding/defending actually produced an even higher rate of being shot than if the person had a low probability of responding. If you have a decent chance of responding, the assailant can respond to your actions, and that actually showed up in the one I happened to cite there.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 05:00 PM) Carrying a gun can turn somebody who may have otherwise backed down into a "big man," escalating a situation substantially. I'm not sure if there's a statistical examination of this or not, but as I said earlier most gun stats are questionable from either side. It's really not hard to find examples of the probability of the person being shot in an incident skyrocketing when that person is holding a gun. You can find similar numbers on risks skyrocketing when you have a gun in your home as well, but this isn't a debate that involves data, it's all about how having the gun produces the emotional response, makes you feel more secure.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 04:57 PM) Balta, you keep throwing out the false assumption that you are at more risk simply because some people may be carrying a concealed handgun. The incidents of people with legal carry permits committing crimes or any such thing is so small at to be not statistical at all. If it were a larger number you would hear about it day and night from the Brady Campaign, Bloomberg's mayor group and every other anti gun group out there. It just is a false premise that you are starting your argument with. You are not at more risk simply because someone may be carrying a legally concealed handgun. You would also hear about it if people cared to listen.

QUOTE (Sox1 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 04:20 PM) Olney tweeted on Oct 29 that the Dodgers are open in trading Ethier. Not sure why that is the case. I've always been a fan of his. I like him also but he's not a $17-$18 million dollar a year player right now and he definitely won't be when he's in his mid 30's.

QUOTE (Sox1 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 04:04 PM) Andre Ethier would be a nice fit for the Sox. Maybe a Rios/prospect for Ethier & money He's on the trade market even after signing the extension The money he's getting paid is really bad compared to his production. For a team like the Dodgers, that doesn't matter. For the Sox, that money would be terrible. At least if Rios has a season repeating last year he's worth the money. Ethier has, IIRC, barely if ever been worth the contract the Dodgers gave him.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 04:02 PM) Oh yeah, TOTALLY the same. You said it Anyway, it's a fair comparison, in both cases you're making a decision that puts both you as the carrier/driver and everyone else around you at an increased risk of injury and death by having/operating a device in an unsafe way, the only difference is the magnitude of the change is somewhat worse for DUI's. In one case, it's a constitutionally protected right. In the other, you can go to jail.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 03:50 PM) So you're cool getting rid of DUI laws? That's your logic here. Yes, I agree, people carrying concealed weapons are a good comparison to drunk drivers as they're needlessly putting everyone around them in danger.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 03:42 PM) I'm not aware of such laws and doubt they exist. That would fly in the face of trespass law. And you keep harping on the point that my right trumps yours. You have no right to be free from people with guns. That's not been recognized. But you know what? You guys harp all the time on rights that get taken away. Here's a right I want, I can present a case for, but you don't care. You have a right to force me to be around gun all the time. Tennessee has been more than happy to pass laws forcing business owners to accept concealed weapons on their property, for one example. It's very likely to do that even more so this year by making it illegal for any business owner to ban weapons in their parking lots.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 03:23 PM) I'm still not sure how someone can interpret the 2nd amended and believe that the founders believed it was important for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms but ONLY in your home. What purpose does that serve? Posner talks about this in his opinion and his answer is it doesn't. Historically there's no reason to believe that's what they believed, and grammatically it doesn't because it does not limit where your right begins and ends. I'm not going to object to your right to bear arms on any private land that isn't mine, and I probably have little problem with it on a variety of public/wilderness lands, but many of these laws take away the right of people to decide what is carried on to their own property, and they take away my right to be in an environment without them. I'm given no decision in the matter. Your right to have a concealed weapon has removed my right to have it around. If you want to go somewhere to hunt meat, great. Go there. I don't have to. But in that case, I'm given the chance to make an informed decision about whether to go somewhere that guns are being used in the way they would have been used at the time of the writing of the bill of rights.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 03:19 PM) If you accept Heller as correct, which I doubt Balta does. I don't think it's a good opinion myself, even if I'm not opposed to the outcome. This is probably the correct interpretation of the law based on that decision and the later McDonald vs. Chicago decision. But I have this annoying habit of disagreeing with interpretations of the law that put me and my family in greater jeopardy while walking down the street (and you all know I can pull out the studies showing that to be true).

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 03:16 PM) Because it's in the Constitution as SS pointed out. But you both have made a leap of interpretation that you particularly like. That is where this case is...it's taking a particular leap of interpretation.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 03:00 PM) That right isn't enumerated in the Constitution. I don't know if it's part of the history of natural rights philosophy, but I would doubt that. Neither is the right to concealed carrying of arms on the street or into my business/property, if you want to be specific about it. The right to bear arms "Anywhere and at all times without acknowledgment" is a modern invention. Hell, when that was written, I seriously doubt you could effectively conceal a legitimately damaging weapon.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 02:47 PM) Except that the government should have a good reason to deny me my rights, not the other way around. So why do you get the right to have a deadly weapon around me with me not having any choice in the matter? You're right the government should have to have a good reason to deny a person their rights, and that's one I want.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 02:31 PM) Welcome to everywhere except the State of Illinois. And yet you're still alive! Amazing! Wow, so Illinois banned firearms and took away your right to self-defense? And yet you're still alive? Amazing!

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 02:31 PM) The NFL is probably the best run professional sport out there. I'm going to go ask a Mr. Vilma about this, and I'll get you a statement from his attorney.

QUOTE (elrockinMT @ Dec 11, 2012 -> 02:27 PM) Or if we can! If the White Sox are sitting on a $100 million salary limit, then 2/$10 is a lot to commit to AJ. Might do it, but would try to draw it out and see what other options are available, particularly if the team has any confidence at all in Flowers sitting there. The Rangers have HGeovannyH Soto and 27 year old Luis Martinez sitting there, they currently have a salary sitting just over $100 million in commitments, and they started the season over $120 million last year while still having room to talk about adding Cliff Lee.