"chaniarts" wrote in message ...


Who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them?

do people have no individual responsibility at all, or is the government
supposed to tell them what's good for them, and they're just supposed to
listen and obey?

I'm not suggesting that people who signed mortgages they couldn’t afford
should be off the hook (except in cases of outright deception) but the other
side of that coin is an industry that knowingly sold such mortgages even
when mortgage brokers had to falsify documents to make the sale. Is it just
an astonishing coincidence that millions of mortgages were sold to people
who couldn't afford the payments?

And that wasn't the worst of it, it was those mortgages being bundled into
securities and sold between financial institutions and those institutions in
effect placing bets on those securities that brought about the financial
crisis we are still in. And guess who gets to bail out banks that got
themselves into trouble through unrestrained reckless greed--the taxpayer.
If we're going to hand out billions to people who don't deserve it, how come
it didn't go to families to save their homes, why is it always the fat cats
who get bailed out?

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:41:38 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:
stuff snipped

do people have no individual responsibility at all, or is the
government
supposed to tell them what's good for them, and they're just supposed
to
listen and obey?

Great question. Doesn't also apply to all the banks and mortgage
companies
that gave loans to people without due diligence? Shouldn't THEY have to
suffer the consequences of their bad business decisions and NOT come
looking
to Uncle Sam to bail them out? That sword cuts both ways. I would even
say
it applies even MORE to bankers because THEY had the money and holding
onto
it was their responsibility.

The problem isn't that the banks issued mortgages to people who couldn't
pay,
rather that these bum mortgages were packaged up and sold as AAA rated
financial instruments.

If they didn't place the bad mortgages to begin with, what would there have
been to bundle up, brand as AAA and sell to investors? The process depended
on creating as many mortgages as possible to feed the voracious
securitization engine. This happened because bankers didn't care a bit
about the unsound nature of the underlying mortgages. That risk was being
bundled in with a mix of real AAA mortgages and sold down the line just the
way all the bad strawberries are placed at the bottom of the container where
they are hard to see until you open it.

Then the stupid mortgage originator

Stupid? So far guys like Countrywide's Angelo Mozilo were making $150M a
year marketing toxic waste and have been tapped on the wrist compared to the
outrageous amounts of money they made/stole. Crazy like a fox is more like
it.

http://forum.brokeroutpost.com/loans/forum/2/268988.htm

Posted - 06/04/2009 : 11:02:14 PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv...5540BG20090605

Born in 1938 to Italian immigrants and raised in The Bronx borough of New
York City, Mozilo evangelized home ownership for everyone.

A golfing enthusiast whose home is said to abut the Sherwood Country Club in
Ventura County, California, Mozilo built his company and his own prominence
by riding the property boom. In 2006, at the height of its success,
Countrywide originated $461 billion worth of loans -- close to $41 billion
of which were subprime.


sold the bum
mortgage out one door and bought more through the other, thinking that
other's
couldn't possibly be doing the same thing.

Correct. It was the glut of these bad mortgages that caused the downfall.
The bankers who thought they could repossess and resell even if they
couldn't resell to repackagers believed that values were always climbing and
they could just flip the foreclosures for more money. Instead they ended up
with a glut of foreclosures on the market and Jack and Jill came tumbling
down.

They were AAA rated obligations,
after all! F&F were right smack in the middle of it all.

Moody's and other raters failed their due diligence, but there was little
risk to them in doing so. It was all a shell game of hiding and shifting
risks to those who could not reasonably evaluate the underlying strength or
weakness of the product. Articles about how the ratings companies operate
make me ill when I read them. It's the ultimate racket.

--
Bobby G.

DGDevin wrote:

Exactly. Some people are good at public speaking, and they know how
to inspire students and how to deal with students having
problems--those things are not automatically there just because
someone is an expert on electronics or medieval Europe or marine
biology.

Agreed, but when it comes down to ability to teach or mastery of the
material, I'll take mastery.

Consider my example of a retired chemical engineer assigned to teach high
school chemistry. He probably DOES have teaching experience. First, he's got
12 years experience sitting in a classroom, being exposed to teaching
methodology.

Then he has four years of college, again with the same experience.

Add to that another four or five years for his advanced degrees. Those also
include actual teaching as a grad student (adjunct professor).

Now add 30 or 40 years of experience in the field.

Contrast that with an education major who just happens to have 14 semester
hours of college chemistry.

The "educator" is long on methodology; the engineer is long on experience.
Which is better able to convey the material?

DGDevin wrote:

The housing market collapsed because progressives wanted to lift up
the downtrodden into the middle class.

Who sold mortgages to people who couldn't afford them? Who then
bundled those mortgages into toxic securities and sold them around
the world? Who then in effect placed bets on those securities that
they couldn't afford to pay out if the securities were no good? Who
sold such securities as good and secretly placed bets the securities
were garbage? Was that, A) Progressives, or B) Wall St.?

The mortgage companies and banks sold the toxic securities, but it was the
progressives who forced them to do so. Study up on the history of the 1976
Affordable Housing Act (under Carter) and the teeth that was added to it
under Clinton. Unless a financial institution could show that it was
"serving" the under-class community, it would be severely sanctioned by the
Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC.

Drive through the worst parts of your town. The only retail businesses
you'll find in some blocks are street-walkers, crack dealers, and Bank of
America branches. Do you think the bank put a store-front there because of
sound financial reasons?



The
housing market collapsed in large part because Wall St. was making
insane amounts of money inflating that market and was so free of
govt. oversight there was nobody to call a halt to the party. Yet
somehow when people like you want to assign blame the only
fingerprints you can find belong to "progressives"--ain't it funny
how that happens?

I know, I know. My eyes lie a lot.

chaniarts wrote:

do people have no individual responsibility at all, or is the
government supposed to tell them what's good for them, and they're
just supposed to listen and obey?


Good question!

Let me think...

DGDevin wrote:

those types of laws are to provide punishment for when a person
commits an actual crime.

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we
prevent them doing that without background checks? Are you seriously
suggesting there should be no barriers to convicted criminals from
buying guns, we should only hope that the cops catch them after
they've used a gun they aren't supposed to have to commit another
crime?

We don't mandate that those who've gotten a speeding ticket install
governors on their car engines to prohibit excessive speed.

Like almost any other crime, you prevent the crime by the threat of
sanction.

The prohibition against a felon purchasing a gun is NOT to prevent him from
committing another crime; it is a deterrence to discourage others from
becoming felons in the first place! Depending on the jurisdiction, a felon
cannot vote, become a lawyer, doctor, nurse, get a commercial driver's
license, own a plant nursery or a day-care center, or dozens of other
occupations. He can't get bonded, obtain a security clearance, or join the
military.

All these sanctions - including purchasing a gun - are, in the main, on the
books to discourage a person from becoming a felon in the first place, not
to prevent him from another anti-social act.



..

In article , Robert Green wrote:
"DGDevin" wrote in message
om...

"Don Klipstein" wrote in ...

I know one libertarian who wishes to take a time machine trip back
to the late 1700's so as to remove from the US Constitition's
preamble the "public welfare" bit.

That doesn't surprise me. Many people are fierce defenders of the
parts of the Constitution *which they agree with*. Ditto with the
Supreme Court, when they agree with a ruling the court is just fine,
when they disagree the court is a bunch of morons.

stuff snipped

What many people conveniently forget is that today's firearms are virtually
nothing like the muzzle loaders of the Revolutionary War period. Had there
been AK-47's, Glocks, 30 round magazines, .44 and .50 cal handguns in
existence at the time, the Framers might have felt the need to be more
specific than they were.

Put another way, how happy would the NRA be if the SCOTUS decided that the
right to keep and bear arms applied only to muskets and flintlocks? A
strict Constitutionalist might have to consider not just the words, but the
context of the time the document was written.

Admittedly a muzzle loader can do some damage. I recall a case where some
kid had taken his father's black powder replica and blasted a hole clean
through a car door, nearly killing the occupant. But the time to load and
fire the next shot is considerable and Columbine wouldn't have been possible
with muzzle loaders that represented "arms" at the time the framers wrote
the Constitution.

I'm convinced that at least some gun enthusiasts would own 88mm cannons
if the law allowed. Probably tactical "suitcase" nukes, too. HeyBub
would be first on the list to have his own 88mm flak gun - just in case
the squints and mopes came from the sky. (You KNOW you want one, HeyBub
- don't deny it. You could build a fake observatory to house it,
complete with a Palomar-style rotating turret dome.)

I seem to remember someone mounting big guns that couldn't aim low enough
to hit attackers - was it US carrier weapons in WWII and wave skimming
Japanese attack aircraft? The guns at Tobruk? Obviously another swiss
cheese hole has formed in my brain. Memory loss seems perverse in that
you remember you can't remember something. How cruel is that?

Here's something: I don't feel fear of being robbed or gang-raped by
some hypothetical Marcus Hook Militia that hypothetically owns and
operates for "training runs" so much as a battleship, an aircraft
carrier, and 1-2 cruisers and 2-3 destroyers.

My main fear from criminals is from ones petty enough to have whatever
offensive armament they have being generally .22-.45 used in revolvers
and other pistols.

========

Here's another thing: Most heat-packing thugs in Philadelphia appear
to me legally unqualified to do so, due to recent-past conviction or
recent-past not-yet-resolved criminal case in felony class, or age under
21. It appears to me that Philadelphians carrying shooting-irons with
licenses to do so are disproportionately low on doing crimes with guns,
even regardless of PA definition of firearms in PA's "uniform firearms
act".

Maybe the illegally-heat-packing thugs hope they can roam the streets
in Philadelphia's "bad neighborhoods" before being jailed likely-again...

--
- Don Klipstein )

DGDevin wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

It appears to me that a "shall-issue" law for carrying firearms is
arguably in compliance with 2nd Amendment. SCOTUS is a bit in a
mood to have the Bill of Rights applying not only to USA's gummint,
but also to gummint of USA's political subdivisions.

That's called "incorporation." With the "incorporation" of the 2nd
Amendment via the Heller case, very little of the Bill of Rights is
NOT now binding on the states (e.g., the entire 3rd Amendment, the
excessive bail clause of 8th Amendment, indictment by a grand jury).

The Supreme Court did not rule on incorporation in the Heller case.

Um, correct; I jumped the gun. But the court came close, comparing the 1st
Amendment with the 2nd. They couldn't really reach incorporation inasmuch as
there was no state involved (it was Heller vs. D.C.), but the court strongly
signaled that should a similar case appear, one that originated from a
state, that incorporation would latch.

Sure enough, McDonald gave them the opportunity.

DGDevin wrote:

I asked you this before and you did not answer. Can you document that
shall-issues states are able to revoke carry permits without due
process? If not, if in fact shall-issue laws allow permits to be
revoked only after due process and for violation of specific
conditions listed in the law, then what are you talking about?

Any chance of getting an answer this time?

So far as I know, all the shall-issue legislation in the various states
provides a mechanism for suspending or canceling the permit. That mechanism
is the "due process."

Conversely, the states that are not "shall issue," that have some sort of
discretion on the part of the issuing authority, usually allow the permit to
be canceled by whim or caprice.

On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:03:52 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:

wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:41:38 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:
stuff snipped

do people have no individual responsibility at all, or is the
government
supposed to tell them what's good for them, and they're just supposed
to
listen and obey?

Great question. Doesn't also apply to all the banks and mortgage
companies
that gave loans to people without due diligence? Shouldn't THEY have to
suffer the consequences of their bad business decisions and NOT come
looking
to Uncle Sam to bail them out? That sword cuts both ways. I would even
say
it applies even MORE to bankers because THEY had the money and holding
onto
it was their responsibility.

The problem isn't that the banks issued mortgages to people who couldn't
pay,
rather that these bum mortgages were packaged up and sold as AAA rated
financial instruments.

If they didn't place the bad mortgages to begin with, what would there have
been to bundle up, brand as AAA and sell to investors?

You're looking at it all wrong. They *could* write the mortgages because they
knew they weren't going to be stuck with them. F&F (your government at work)
were more than willing to take them off their hands, if another bank didn't.
The amazing part is then, with the other hand, they bought someone else's
junk.

The process depended
on creating as many mortgages as possible to feed the voracious
securitization engine. This happened because bankers didn't care a bit
about the unsound nature of the underlying mortgages. That risk was being
bundled in with a mix of real AAA mortgages and sold down the line just the
way all the bad strawberries are placed at the bottom of the container where
they are hard to see until you open it.

Right, but that couldn't have happened without the help of the government.

Then the stupid mortgage originator

Stupid? So far guys like Countrywide's Angelo Mozilo were making $150M a
year marketing toxic waste and have been tapped on the wrist compared to the
outrageous amounts of money they made/stole. Crazy like a fox is more like
it.

Yes, stupid. They then bought someone else's junk after selling their stuff.
They thought they were the only ones who had a bright idea? Right.

http://forum.brokeroutpost.com/loans/forum/2/268988.htm

Posted - 06/04/2009 : 11:02:14 PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv...5540BG20090605

Born in 1938 to Italian immigrants and raised in The Bronx borough of New
York City, Mozilo evangelized home ownership for everyone.

A golfing enthusiast whose home is said to abut the Sherwood Country Club in
Ventura County, California, Mozilo built his company and his own prominence
by riding the property boom. In 2006, at the height of its success,
Countrywide originated $461 billion worth of loans -- close to $41 billion
of which were subprime.


sold the bum
mortgage out one door and bought more through the other, thinking that
other's
couldn't possibly be doing the same thing.

Correct. It was the glut of these bad mortgages that caused the downfall.
The bankers who thought they could repossess and resell even if they
couldn't resell to repackagers believed that values were always climbing and
they could just flip the foreclosures for more money. Instead they ended up
with a glut of foreclosures on the market and Jack and Jill came tumbling
down.

s/"Jack and Jill"/"Fred and Fannie"/

They were AAA rated obligations,
after all! F&F were right smack in the middle of it all.

Moody's and other raters failed their due diligence, but there was little
risk to them in doing so. It was all a shell game of hiding and shifting
risks to those who could not reasonably evaluate the underlying strength or
weakness of the product. Articles about how the ratings companies operate
make me ill when I read them. It's the ultimate racket.

....and they haven't downrated Obamabills yet.

"Don Klipstein" wrote in message
...
In article , Robert Green wrote, as related
to man-made global warming:

FWIW, I was really a skeptic of man-made global warming until the carbon
dating studies that indicate where the carbon in today's rapidly rising
carbon dioxide levels is coming from. Apparently, different sources of
carbon can be fingerprinted as to man-made or natural origin.

http://pubs.acs.org/cen/coverstory/87/8751cover.html

Has a very detailed analysis of the war between the climate theorists.


http://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/...lish/gc51inf-3
-att3_en.pdf

talks about being able to distinguish carbon sources by radioactivity.
Apparently the bomb testing of the '50's actually turned out to be
helpful
in studying ocean current mechanisms.

I agree that the recent-decades major increase of CO2 concentration in
our atmosphere is man-made. For that matter, nature "as a net" is
removing some of it rather than adding.

However, there is still the matter of how much warming this has caused
and will cause. It appears to me that the advocates of existence of
man-made global warming are overestimating degree of its existence, and
degree of existence of "positive feedbacks" necessary for this to be an
actual problem.

At least isotopic fingerprinting is helping quantify the various sources of
carbon and what "forcings" are really raising global temperature and which
may not be. One thing is clear is that there are an incredible number of
variables and cross-effects that are really still not completely understood.
We've only had the means to measure stratospheric temperatures and
composition in the last century. The same with deep ocean gyres and a whole
host of "mechanisms" that can affect global temperature.

We just have too little (ironically it's terabytes and more) data from past
periods to know exactly what's going on. Isotopic analysis is bringing some
degree of rigor to the field, especially to parts of the model that have
been largely "guesses" as to how things work. I think that the new
information is, as you say, convincing more and more people and scientists
that the risk may be overstated. Still, the record floods we've seen
recently give me pause . . .

One thing that I see: About 40% of the warmup from 1973 to 2004 appears
to me to be from natural cycles, as in a combo of the Atlantic
Multidecadal
Oscillation and the low frequency component of the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation.

This shows up well as a roughly-64-year-period visible periodic item in:

1st graph in
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/h.../global/nh+sh/

See how the blue curve shows once the current year, or better still the
current year and the next one, get counted into the "blue curve". That
tends to be in late January of the following year.

It's becoming more clear each year that the oceans, and indeed the very deep
oceans, have great impact on the world's climate, far more than was
previously estimated. As more and more of the ocean is equipped with sensor
probes and buoys, it's more and more likely that the ocean will reveal some
of her secrets.

There is also the matter that about 20% of man-made addition of
"greenhouse gas effect" since the 1920's was by greenhouse gases that were
largely no longer being man-made after sometime in the 1990's.

There's nothing that makes accurate modeling more difficult than processes
that have a considerable time lags. It screws both economist and scientist
equally. (-: When the peaks of long cycles from very different processes
coincide they can suggest outcomes that aren't necessarily repeatable within
the time frames scientists predict based on examining the behavior of single
"threads."

At this rate, it appears to me that anthropogenic CO2 increase was
responsible for only about half of the warmup from 1973 to 2005.

It's only been within the last 50 years or so that jet airliners have
crisscrossed the world's sky. They may have an effect that counters the CO2
increase. I've read interesting, though conflicting, theories about the
subject based on the worldwide temperature and brightness reading spikes
that occurred when air travel around the globe basically stopped after 9/11.
Like the H-bomb test fallout providing a marker for scientists to track
oceanic carbon, 9/11 revealed yet some more clues about how climate is
changed.

Correspondingly, I expect future anthropogenic global warming to be about
half of "IPCC center track", and even that is only 3 degrees C for this
century.

Another article I read about carbon isotopes suggested that 88% of the CO2
in the air around Stockholm was biogenic in origin, a finding that surprised
many who believed it would be much more anthropogenic. All of this is a
lesson in waiting until you have solid facts before setting world policy. I
seriously doubt we have truly factored in all of the important "forcings"
and parameters of the climate problem. My experience building two much
smaller models (F16 engine reliability and Post Nuclear War Residual
Industrial Capacities) was that every week some new piece of real-world data
would be revealed that did not match assumptions made in the model. You can
honestly believe you've accounted for everything and get caught flat-footed
by reality.

That's been the case with isotopic fingerprinting. We can now tell where
CO2 came from and where it goes in the various climate systems in the world.
We just don't know what the big boost in CO2 is actually going to mean in
the long run. It seems to be good for sweat peas and lobsters, but bad for
sea urchins.

Adaptation is a process that's been going on since the first spark created
amino acids in the primordial ooze (a state that some nanotechnologists fear
that we will return to when nanobots run amok). (-: Only organisms that
can "roll with the punches" are still with us.

I expect close enough to zero, fair chance slightly negative, global
warming from a few years ago to 2030-2035 because AMO/PDO are heading into
downturns and solar activity is apparently going into a 210-year-class
dip.
Are IPCC or the scientists that they give consideration to predicting
this?

I couldn't say. So much depends on things like the ocean's CO2 sinking
ability remaining constant. Some scientists believe that there's a point
where the ocean's sinking ability will slow down dramatically. If nature's
mechanisms for absorbing man-made carbon decline, it could mean temperatures
will rise. That's what I found fascinating about the H-bomb testing. They
can determine exactly where that carbon is stratify in deep ocean currents
and thus measure the length of these absorption cycles quite precisely.
Sort of like blue food coloring in the toilet tank to track leaks. (-:

--
Bobby G.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
DGDevin wrote:

those types of laws are to provide punishment for when a person
commits an actual crime.

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we
prevent them doing that without background checks? Are you seriously
suggesting there should be no barriers to convicted criminals from
buying guns, we should only hope that the cops catch them after
they've used a gun they aren't supposed to have to commit another
crime?

We don't mandate that those who've gotten a speeding ticket install
governors on their car engines to prohibit excessive speed.

But we do mandate (in many states) that a conviction for drunk driving
requires the defendant to purchase an expensive breath-test starter
mechanism that requires the driver to "blow clean" to start the car and to
continue to blow clean while driving or the cars lights and horn begin
flashing and sounding. I don't think that the speed governor is far behind
for excessive speeding convictions. It's quite feasible technically. The
legal foundation has certainly been laid and has survived numerous
challenges for mandating a speed controller.

--
Bobby G.

On 6/28/2011 10:03 PM, Robert Green wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 17:41:38 -0400, "Robert Green"
wrote:
stuff snipped

do people have no individual responsibility at all, or is the
government
supposed to tell them what's good for them, and they're just supposed
to
listen and obey?

Great question. Doesn't also apply to all the banks and mortgage
companies
that gave loans to people without due diligence? Shouldn't THEY have to
suffer the consequences of their bad business decisions and NOT come
looking
to Uncle Sam to bail them out? That sword cuts both ways. I would even
say
it applies even MORE to bankers because THEY had the money and holding
onto
it was their responsibility.

The problem isn't that the banks issued mortgages to people who couldn't
pay,
rather that these bum mortgages were packaged up and sold as AAA rated
financial instruments.

If they didn't place the bad mortgages to begin with, what would there have
been to bundle up, brand as AAA and sell to investors? The process depended
on creating as many mortgages as possible to feed the voracious
securitization engine. This happened because bankers didn't care a bit
about the unsound nature of the underlying mortgages. That risk was being
bundled in with a mix of real AAA mortgages and sold down the line just the
way all the bad strawberries are placed at the bottom of the container where
they are hard to see until you open it.

Then the stupid mortgage originator

Stupid? So far guys like Countrywide's Angelo Mozilo were making $150M a
year marketing toxic waste and have been tapped on the wrist compared to the
outrageous amounts of money they made/stole. Crazy like a fox is more like
it.

http://forum.brokeroutpost.com/loans/forum/2/268988.htm

Posted - 06/04/2009 : 11:02:14 PM
http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv...5540BG20090605

Born in 1938 to Italian immigrants and raised in The Bronx borough of New
York City, Mozilo evangelized home ownership for everyone.

A golfing enthusiast whose home is said to abut the Sherwood Country Club in
Ventura County, California, Mozilo built his company and his own prominence
by riding the property boom. In 2006, at the height of its success,
Countrywide originated $461 billion worth of loans -- close to $41 billion
of which were subprime.


sold the bum
mortgage out one door and bought more through the other, thinking that
other's
couldn't possibly be doing the same thing.

Correct. It was the glut of these bad mortgages that caused the downfall.
The bankers who thought they could repossess and resell even if they
couldn't resell to repackagers believed that values were always climbing and
they could just flip the foreclosures for more money. Instead they ended up
with a glut of foreclosures on the market and Jack and Jill came tumbling
down.

They were AAA rated obligations,
after all! F&F were right smack in the middle of it all.

Moody's and other raters failed their due diligence, but there was little
risk to them in doing so. It was all a shell game of hiding and shifting
risks to those who could not reasonably evaluate the underlying strength or
weakness of the product. Articles about how the ratings companies operate
make me ill when I read them. It's the ultimate racket.

--
Bobby G.



I could have gotten one of those Affirmative Action loans several years
ago but I knew I had health problems and no one to back me up if
anything happened to me that put me out of action for any length of
time. There was a wonderful house I wanted but my brain took over and
I politely declined the deal. ^_^

TDD

In article ,
"DGDevin" wrote:


And that wasn't the worst of it, it was those mortgages being bundled into
securities and sold between financial institutions and those institutions in
effect placing bets on those securities that brought about the financial
crisis we are still in. And guess who gets to bail out banks that got
themselves into trouble through unrestrained reckless greed--the taxpayer.
If we're going to hand out billions to people who don't deserve it, how come
it didn't go to families to save their homes, why is it always the fat cats
who get bailed out?

Never understood that either. Especially since if you bailed out the
mortgage holders to the point they could pay, the banks would have been
taken care of.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

It seemed reasonable after learning how cruelly some retarded patients were
treated to put an end to the "snake pits" that so many institutions had
become. After reading recently that NY state pays 1.4 million per patient
per year to care for seriously retarded children in institutions, you have
to wonder . . .

Which of course is a separate thing entirely from the mentally ill
institutions.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

If they didn't place the bad mortgages to begin with, what would there have
been to bundle up, brand as AAA and sell to investors? The process depended
on creating as many mortgages as possible to feed the voracious
securitization engine. This happened because bankers didn't care a bit
about the unsound nature of the underlying mortgages. That risk was being
bundled in with a mix of real AAA mortgages and sold down the line just the
way all the bad strawberries are placed at the bottom of the container where
they are hard to see until you open it.
Of course neither did the buyers. The rating is but a small part of
the due diligence that people are supposed to do. Since these
securitized mortgages were only available, through out the entire
fiasco, to "qualified" investors. With the exception of a couple mutual
funds, these were all bought by people who should have known better
(heck CALPERS was one of the biggest buyers).
Nothing here was new or outlandish. Pretty much standard bubble
behavior from the Tulips forward.


sold the bum
mortgage out one door and bought more through the other, thinking that
other's
couldn't possibly be doing the same thing.

Correct. It was the glut of these bad mortgages that caused the downfall.
The bankers who thought they could repossess and resell even if they
couldn't resell to repackagers believed that values were always climbing and
they could just flip the foreclosures for more money. Instead they ended up
with a glut of foreclosures on the market and Jack and Jill came tumbling
down.
Just like.. but I repeat myself. (g).



They were AAA rated obligations,
after all! F&F were right smack in the middle of it all.

Moody's and other raters failed their due diligence, but there was little
risk to them in doing so. It was all a shell game of hiding and shifting
risks to those who could not reasonably evaluate the underlying strength or
weakness of the product. Articles about how the ratings companies operate
make me ill when I read them. It's the ultimate racket.


They get to exact their revenge, now. Not wanting to be yelled
at again, they are saying that anything the EU puts together in Greece
that looks likes a default to them will be rated as such. A small
spanner into the works. Also the hemming and hawing about the US debt
rating.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

Robert Green wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...
DGDevin wrote:

those types of laws are to provide punishment for when a person
commits an actual crime.

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we
prevent them doing that without background checks? Are you
seriously suggesting there should be no barriers to convicted
criminals from buying guns, we should only hope that the cops catch
them after they've used a gun they aren't supposed to have to
commit another crime?

We don't mandate that those who've gotten a speeding ticket install
governors on their car engines to prohibit excessive speed.

But we do mandate (in many states) that a conviction for drunk driving
requires the defendant to purchase an expensive breath-test starter
mechanism that requires the driver to "blow clean" to start the car
and to continue to blow clean while driving or the cars lights and
horn begin flashing and sounding. I don't think that the speed
governor is far behind for excessive speeding convictions. It's
quite feasible technically. The legal foundation has certainly been
laid and has survived numerous challenges for mandating a speed
controller.

Your contrary claim is noted and is a good one. I admit there certainly are
cases where some government-inspired penalty is imposed to prevent future
rascally behavior of the miscreant. There are always exceptions.

Still, "felon" is a pretty broad brush. It's a stretch to worry that someone
found guilty of tax evasion should be prohibited from owning a gun (don't
felons have a right to self-protection?).

(Don Klipstein) wrote in
:

In article , DGDevin
wrote:


"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
.44...


And no pro-gun person has ever claimed such a thing.

Oh, really? Yet some folks here will chant "shall not be infringed"
like it's the ultimate response to any law relating to firearms.

it's written right into the Second Amendment.
If you don't like that,get an amendment passed.
don't try the dishonest way of enacting unconstitutional laws and relying
on shoddy court practices to "uphold" them.

No "prior restraint" laws,either.


those types of laws are to provide punishment for when a person
commits an actual crime.

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we
prevent them doing that without background checks? Are you seriously
suggesting there should be no barriers to convicted criminals from
buying guns, we should only hope that the cops catch them after
they've used a gun they aren't supposed to have to commit another
crime?

Right now,we do background checks,and those few actual felons who try that
route,even fewer are arrested or punished. The only people it actually
affects are the LAW ABIDING citizens. Most felons get their guns from non-
legal sources,like stolen guns,or straw purchasers.
(Like ATF's Project Gunrunner...)

I suppose DG supports the "No-Fly" list that the gov't has,despite there
being a lot of errors in it,a lot of people get hassled or turned away
every time they fly somewhere,and hardly anyone really bad gets jailed.
Something similar happens with the background checks,a name is the same as
or similar to a prohibited person's name,and the ODC is blocked from
purchase,their civil right denied.
(yes,gun ownership IS a "civil right".)

BTW,I'm not against background checks like the NICS check that is "shall-
issue" and has a reasonable 3 day time limit for completion,with no records
retention.

I agree with preventing gun sales to folks with bad track records
that
sustained their badness into recent past years or show lack of
turnaround from a bad track history.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't except felons, or the mentally ill, so who
gets to decide that laws preventing such persons from possessing
firearms are okay?

SHEESH,is DG mentally retarded?
Felons are convicted in a COURT OF LAW,and have their rights restricted by
DUE PROCESS.How many times does this have to be repeated for it to sink in?
That's WAY different than enacting some arbitrary law and have it
administered arbitrarily by some anti-gun official. It's REASONABLE,and
RATIONAL.

What's the process to accept such laws as
constitutional while rejecting others such as DC's handgun ban?

DC's handgun ban applies to all of its law-abiding residents, not
only
those who have shown criminal irresponsibility in posession or usage
of handguns.

Limiting storage of hazardous substances in residential areas
is "common-sense" law,and based on solid facts.

So you'd support a law restricting possession of ammunition on the
grounds of fire prevention? The gun grabbers would love to pass such
a law because they'd make the number smaller every chance they got.

I'd support ammunition storage regulations that are supported by
Switzerland, or like ones used in USA armed forces. Ammunition
storage regulations imposed by and upon major players with right and
responsibility to keep and bear arms appear reasonable to me.


ammunition stored at home is not much of a danger to anyone.
Tests have shown that in a fire,the cartridges split open and the expelled
bullet doesn't have much force,not enough to penetrate the average
firefighters coat,nor drywall,and only travel a short distance,inches or
feet.
It also depends on HOW MUCH ammo (or propellant)you're storing. a LOT of
ammo/powder requires special storage.

I wonder if DG is aware that ROCKET MOTORS can be legally stored at home?
they are much more dangerous. Gasoline is far more dangerous than ammo,same
for some other common substances.


Unnecessary Discharge of a firearm endangers others. But mere
possession or carriage of a firearm does not.

I agree.

Much of the "gun control" laws are NOT based on actual fact or
reason.

I agree, but unfortunately if one takes the position that "shall not
be infringed" means there are no valid laws restricting or regulating
firearms

the dispute here is over regulation of LAWFUL POSSESSION and carriage of
firearms,not their use/misuse.
DG advocates prior restraint. that IS an infringement.

Laws concerning *use/misuse* of firearms are proper and legal,and the
Second's prohibition against infringement does not affect those in any way.

Lawful citizens carrying guns are no threat or danger to other lawful
citizens. that's been demonstrated in every US state with their concealed
carry permits. They are NOT any problem. the data proves that.

then they've gone to the other end of the looney scale.
There's a guy here who figures preventing the mentally ill from
possessing firearms violates their rights, that even crazy people have
a right to own a gun. So who gets to draw the line?

How do you determine who's mentally ill? you want to invade people's
medical history? there are laws against that.
Leave it up to some uncaring government official? NO WAY.Too much
opportunity for abuse.
Require some TEST to exercise a Constitutional RIGHT? NO. Same abuse
problem.

There is the matter of "free speech" not including shouting "fire"
in
a crowded theater.

SNIP after this what I largely agree with

actually,there's no law against shouting fire in a crowded theater,but
there ARE laws concerning liability for such actions should they be proven
to have caused wrongful injury or death.


--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

" wrote in
news
On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:33:06 +0000 (UTC), (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

In article , DGDevin
wrote:

wrote in message ...

The Constitution is pretty clear.

LOL, a couple of centuries of legislation and litigation would
suggest otherwise.

Mostly in Congress delegating its authority to regulatory agencies
such as EPA and others in Cabinet-level departments.

I know one libertarian who wishes to take a time machine trip back
to
the late 1700's so as to remove from the US Constitition's preamble
the "public welfare" bit.

"General welfare"? The "general" part should be enough of a hint.

What nine old farts in robes legislate is another thing.

There are countries where they don't rely much on courts, you could
always emigrate.

I have heard how much more expedious court proceedures are in China.

Needless to say this opinion is of zero value in a courtroom.

No one is accusing the courts of being honest.

You sound like a teenager whose parents won't let him drive their
car.

Not if it's a shall-issue law.

Certainly they can. If it's simply a law (rather than being
written into their constitution), the legislature can change it
faster than their sox.

So what do you suppose has motivated all these state legislatures
that have passed such laws to do so, and what dark conspiracy do you
figure would cause them to change their minds?

It appears to me that a "shall-issue" law for carrying firearms is
arguably in compliance with 2nd Amendment. SCOTUS is a bit in a mood
to have the Bill of Rights applying not only to USA's gummint, but
also to gummint of USA's political subdivisions.

I don't have too much of a problem with "shall-issue" (though I live
in a state that is "may-issue", for all practical purposes it is
"shall"), except that there shouldn't be the equivalent of a "poll
tax" to exercise one's rights.


IMO,Vermont,Alaska,and Arizona have it right. All the other states don't.

Vermont has had "No Permit Necessary" for a very long time,and there's not
been any significant problem,even in their major cities. Their police seem
to handle it fine.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

(Don Klipstein) wrote in
:

In article , Robert Green wrote:
"DGDevin" wrote in message
news:Tuedna3UnKIOvpfTnZ2dnUVZ_tydnZ2d@earthlink. com...

"Don Klipstein" wrote in ...

I know one libertarian who wishes to take a time machine trip
back
to the late 1700's so as to remove from the US Constitition's
preamble the "public welfare" bit.

That doesn't surprise me. Many people are fierce defenders of the
parts of the Constitution *which they agree with*. Ditto with the
Supreme Court, when they agree with a ruling the court is just fine,
when they disagree the court is a bunch of morons.

stuff snipped

What many people conveniently forget is that today's firearms are
virtually nothing like the muzzle loaders of the Revolutionary War
period. Had there been AK-47's, Glocks, 30 round magazines, .44 and
.50 cal handguns in existence at the time, the Framers might have felt
the need to be more specific than they were.

Put another way, how happy would the NRA be if the SCOTUS decided that
the right to keep and bear arms applied only to muskets and
flintlocks? A strict Constitutionalist might have to consider not
just the words, but the context of the time the document was written.

This idiot must be unaware that the militia were required to appear for
muster bearing arms similar to and compatible with what was in use at the
time by the Regular Military.
Today,that would be real,full-auto or select fire AK-47's M-16s,etc,with 30
round magazines.The semi-auto versions we are -allowed- presently are the
compromise that the anti-gun idiots would take away.
(typical,too;compromise and the grabbers then renege and demand more
"compromise" from the gun owners,but never compromise on their side.)

they were also cognizant of the fact that military arms evolved and newer
weapons invented.

The schmucks are also unaware that many firearms were developed by and for
CITIZENS and later adopted by the military;the Barrett M82A1 .50 cal
"sniper rifle" is one fine example.

they are simply IGNORANT of the facts in the gun debate.

Admittedly a muzzle loader can do some damage. I recall a case where
some kid had taken his father's black powder replica and blasted a
hole clean through a car door, nearly killing the occupant. But the
time to load and fire the next shot is considerable and Columbine
wouldn't have been possible with muzzle loaders that represented
"arms" at the time the framers wrote the Constitution.

the Columbine kid also had BOMBS.

But if you want to change the Constitution,write an denact an
amendment;that is the only lawful way,not by enacting unconstitutional laws
and relying on shoddy court practices to "uphold" them..


I'm convinced that at least some gun enthusiasts would own 88mm
cannons if the law allowed.

NEWSFLASH;some US citizens DO own cannon,tanks,other armor,fighter
jets,machine guns,"destructive devices",etc. No problems,either.

Probably tactical "suitcase" nukes, too.

Weapons-Grade Stupid. not even worth arguing.

HeyBub would be first on the list to have his own 88mm flak gun - just
in case the squints and mopes came from the sky. (You KNOW you want
one, HeyBub - don't deny it. You could build a fake observatory to
house it, complete with a Palomar-style rotating turret dome.)

I seem to remember someone mounting big guns that couldn't aim low
enough to hit attackers - was it US carrier weapons in WWII and wave
skimming Japanese attack aircraft? The guns at Tobruk? Obviously
another swiss cheese hole has formed in my brain. Memory loss seems
perverse in that you remember you can't remember something. How cruel
is that?

Here's something: I don't feel fear of being robbed or gang-raped
by
some hypothetical Marcus Hook Militia that hypothetically owns and
operates for "training runs" so much as a battleship, an aircraft
carrier, and 1-2 cruisers and 2-3 destroyers.

My main fear from criminals is from ones petty enough to have
whatever
offensive armament they have being generally .22-.45 used in revolvers
and other pistols.

========

Here's another thing: Most heat-packing thugs in Philadelphia
appear
to me legally unqualified to do so, due to recent-past conviction or
recent-past not-yet-resolved criminal case in felony class, or age
under 21. It appears to me that Philadelphians carrying
shooting-irons with licenses to do so are disproportionately low on
doing crimes with guns, even regardless of PA definition of firearms
in PA's "uniform firearms act".


Exactly;the lawful citizens are not any threat or danger to other lawful
people. I call them Ordinary Decent Citizens",ODCs.

Maybe the illegally-heat-packing thugs hope they can roam the
streets
in Philadelphia's "bad neighborhoods" before being jailed
likely-again...


to be anti-gun is to be pro-criminal.


--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...


The "educator" is long on methodology; the engineer is long on experience.
Which is better able to convey the material?

The better teacher; unfortunately (as we have already established) an expert
is not always a good teacher. The material being taught is also an issue,
you don't need to be an Olympic gold medalist to teach beginner's swimming
(although you should know how to swim yourself if only to understand what
your students are experiencing).

Consider how the military picks its teachers such as Drill Instructors.
They don't rely just on their inherent knowledge of the subject matter, they
send those folks to a training course to teach them how to teach, because
teaching is a skill in its own right. Yes, they have to be able to do what
they're teaching, but the point is they are given training so they know how
to convey their knowledge to others.

"Robert Green" wrote in message ...


It seemed reasonable after learning how cruelly some retarded patients
were
treated to put an end to the "snake pits" that so many institutions had
become. After reading recently that NY state pays 1.4 million per patient
per year to care for seriously retarded children in institutions, you have
to wonder . . .

Part of the justification was also that it cost half as much to care for
out-patients as it did residents of a psych facility. Unfortunately it
would seem that many folks receive almost no help at all unless they're
arrested and get enough medication to stabilize them before being released
to start the cycle all over again. Eventually many end up in the nation's
largest mental health facility--the prison system--which is ill-equipped to
deal with them. So instead of confining people in psych hospitals we lock
them up in prisons, doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
m...

And that wasn't the worst of it, it was those mortgages being bundled
into
securities and sold between financial institutions and those institutions
in
effect placing bets on those securities that brought about the financial
crisis we are still in. And guess who gets to bail out banks that got
themselves into trouble through unrestrained reckless greed--the
taxpayer.
If we're going to hand out billions to people who don't deserve it, how
come
it didn't go to families to save their homes, why is it always the fat
cats
who get bailed out?

Never understood that either. Especially since if you bailed out the
mortgage holders to the point they could pay, the banks would have been
taken care of.

I'd hazard a guess that a lack of lobbyists spreading around hundreds of
millions in campaign donations on behalf of people having trouble paying
their mortgages might have something to do with it.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

The mortgage companies and banks sold the toxic securities, but it was the
progressives who forced them to do so. Study up on the history of the 1976
Affordable Housing Act (under Carter) and the teeth that was added to it
under Clinton. Unless a financial institution could show that it was
"serving" the under-class community, it would be severely sanctioned by
the Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC.

Again, quote the part of any law that says banks are required to make loans
that cannot possibly be repaid, and especially show the part where it says
falsifying loan documents (e.g. inflating the applicant's income) is
permitted.

"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
4...

Oh, really? Yet some folks here will chant "shall not be infringed"
like it's the ultimate response to any law relating to firearms.

it's written right into the Second Amendment.
If you don't like that,get an amendment passed.
don't try the dishonest way of enacting unconstitutional laws and relying
on shoddy court practices to "uphold" them.

Freedom of speech is written into the First Amendment, and yet there are
laws restricting speech. So here's the tricky part for you, if the rest of
the Bill of Rights is subject to limits and regulation, why should the
Second Amendment be exempt?

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we
prevent them doing that without background checks? Are you seriously
suggesting there should be no barriers to convicted criminals from
buying guns, we should only hope that the cops catch them after
they've used a gun they aren't supposed to have to commit another
crime?

Right now,we do background checks,and those few actual felons who try that
route,even fewer are arrested or punished.

How is it that you are unable to understand that the purpose of a background
check is to prevent felons from getting their hands on firearms? Which is
more important, prosecuting a felon for trying to buy a gun, or preventing
him from getting ahold of a gun?

As for only a few felons trying to beat the background check:

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/15/132942...-have-big-gaps

"In 2009, the FBI ran 10.8 million background checks on potential gun
buyers. About 150,000 people were rejected. Most had felony or domestic
violence convictions, or a restraining order, on their records. Less than 2
percent were rejected because of a mental illness."

A hundred and fifty thousand rejections in just one year--that's a "few"?

The only people it actually
affects are the LAW ABIDING citizens.

How are you suffering from having to undergo a background check? And how do
we tell the law-abiding purchaser from a convicted criminal without doing a
check?

Most felons get their guns from non-
legal sources,like stolen guns,or straw purchasers.
(Like ATF's Project Gunrunner...)

I'd bet that many criminals do get their guns in such ways, but that is not
a convincing argument for making it easier to get them in gun shops.

I suppose DG supports the "No-Fly" list that the gov't has,despite there
being a lot of errors in it,a lot of people get hassled or turned away
every time they fly somewhere

That's an argument for fixing the no-fly list rather than an argument not to
have one. If the state mistakenly lists your driver's license as suspended
does that suggest they need to improve their record-keeping, or should we do
away with drivers' licenses completely because sometimes the computer screws
up?

IMO the no-fly list (and airport security in general) is largely a joke, but
don't let that stop you from making up something I didn't say and pretending
I did.

Something similar happens with the background checks,a name is the same as
or similar to a prohibited person's name,and the ODC is blocked from
purchase,their civil right denied.
(yes,gun ownership IS a "civil right".)

Can you document that any significant number of people are mistakenly barred
from purchasing firearms because their name is similar to that of a felon?
Given that you have to provide considerable info besides just your
name--your date of birth and so on--and produce govt. ID, how likely is it
that more than a relative handful of people have had such an experience?

BTW,I'm not against background checks like the NICS check that is "shall-
issue" and has a reasonable 3 day time limit for completion,with no
records
retention.

Really, in which case the list of objections you just posted was a curious
exercise.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't except felons, or the mentally ill, so who
gets to decide that laws preventing such persons from possessing
firearms are okay?

SHEESH,is DG mentally retarded?
Felons are convicted in a COURT OF LAW,and have their rights restricted by
DUE PROCESS.How many times does this have to be repeated for it to sink
in?

I'll rephrase the point in hopes you can grasp it and/or have the integrity
to answer honestly. Since the Constitution doesn't state that felons or the
mentally ill can be prevented from owning firearms, Congress or state
legislatures had to pass laws making that the case. In the event such a law
is challenged, who gets to rule on whether or not the law is constitutional?

That's WAY different than enacting some arbitrary law and have it
administered arbitrarily by some anti-gun official. It's REASONABLE,and
RATIONAL.

Arbitrarily, like the claim that shall-issue states can arbitrarily revoke
carry permits without due process, the claim you keep failing to document.

"Limiting storage of hazardous substances in residential areas
is "common-sense" law,and based on solid facts."

"ammunition stored at home is not much of a danger to anyone. "

Both the quotations above were written by you. You seem to have trouble
with consistency, so are laws regulating how much ammo you can store at home
"common-sense" or not?

Tests have shown that in a fire,the cartridges split open and the expelled
bullet doesn't have much force,not enough to penetrate the average
firefighters coat,nor drywall,and only travel a short distance,inches or
feet.

Surely fire prevention regulations are not concerned so much with that as
with large quantities of propellant serving to feed a fire. For example, a
reloader could have many pounds of powder on hand, so would it be reasonable
to require storage of such material in a fireproof locker, or not?

the dispute here is over regulation of LAWFUL POSSESSION and carriage of
firearms,not their use/misuse.

If only that were the case, but whenever any sort of regulation is proposed
the answer is always the same, "shall not be infringed". You can't even
stop yourself from arguing against background checks when you also say
you're okay with background checks.

How do you determine who's mentally ill?

The same way we decide whether or not someone goes to prison for the rest of
his life--in a court of law.

you want to invade people's
medical history? there are laws against that.

If the Virginia Tech shooter (who had been ordered to undergo psychiatric
treatment by a judge) had been on the prohibited list he wouldn't have been
able to buy the guns he used to murder dozens of innocent people. At the
point where a judge rules someone a danger to others their privacy is
trumped by public safety. All rights exist as part of a balancing act, your
rights vs. those of someone else, and at times one right is more important
than another.

Leave it up to some uncaring government official? NO WAY.Too much
opportunity for abuse.

There is nothing in your life which is immune to action by the courts, you
could even be put to death if the necessary series of courts so ordered. So
by what logic do you insist that the courts are unable to order that you not
be allowed to own firearms because of serious mental illness that makes you
a danger to others?

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we
prevent them doing that without background checks? Are you seriously
suggesting there should be no barriers to convicted criminals from
buying guns, we should only hope that the cops catch them after
they've used a gun they aren't supposed to have to commit another
crime?

We don't mandate that those who've gotten a speeding ticket install
governors on their car engines to prohibit excessive speed.

What a bizarre point, and it ignores that if one gets enough speeding
tickets we take away his driver's license and if he keeps driving without
one we put him in prison.

The prohibition against a felon purchasing a gun is NOT to prevent him
from committing another crime; it is a deterrence to discourage others
from becoming felons in the first place!

I would bet folding money that no legislator advocating a law to prohibit
felons from possessing firearms ever argued that the law's purpose was to
discourage law-abiding citizens from taking up crime. Can you document that
any such law contains language identifying that as its purpose?

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...


Still, "felon" is a pretty broad brush. It's a stretch to worry that
someone found guilty of tax evasion should be prohibited from owning a gun
(don't felons have a right to self-protection?).

The majority of felons belong to a criminal underclass and are engaged in a
variety of illegal activities, as opposed to a dentist in Nebraska whose
criminal career consists of trying to hide income from the IRS by taking
cash payments without receipts. So prohibiting felons from being able to
buy guns is a good way to keep one felon from supplying many others with
weapons (given that most felons are at least semi-professional criminals
acquainted with many other criminals).

Once you have demonstrated that you are willing to commit serious crimes you
lose considerable freedom of action, that was your choice in risking the
consequences of committing such crimes. So no, a felon does not have the
same right to self-defense that you and I do.

wrote in message ...


So we've established that all rights are subject to limitations and even
regulation, but on the other hand you'll no doubt stick with the position
that limiting or regulating firearms ownership is unconstitutional because
the 2nd Amendment (according to you) prohibits limits and regulations on
firearms ownership.

Glad we cleared that up.

What an idiot!

Another brilliant contribution from the kid whose homework was never done on
time and whose mental powers haven't improved in adulthood.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
...

The Supreme Court did not rule on incorporation in the Heller case.

Um, correct; I jumped the gun. But the court came close, comparing the 1st
Amendment with the 2nd. They couldn't really reach incorporation inasmuch
as there was no state involved (it was Heller vs. D.C.),

Which is why they heard Heller first, they wanted to deal with the federal
aspect first.

but the court strongly signaled that should a similar case appear, one
that originated from a state, that incorporation would latch.

Sure enough, McDonald gave them the opportunity.

After Heller the smart money was on incorporation for the 2nd, and
ironically it was the supposedly uber-liberal 9th Circuit that first made
that call (if memory serves).

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...


So far as I know, all the shall-issue legislation in the various states
provides a mechanism for suspending or canceling the permit. That
mechanism is the "due process."

Exactly, you have to violate a specified condition (like not being a
convicted felon) and the issuing authority has to comply with the process
for revoking your permit and you have the right to appeal. So there is due
process, the Sheriff can't just decide one day to revoke the carry permits
of everyone who name contains more than two vowels.

Conversely, the states that are not "shall issue," that have some sort of
discretion on the part of the issuing authority, usually allow the permit
to be canceled by whim or caprice.

I remember reading about a guy in Los Angeles who testified against some
gang bangers and got a CCW permit because the Sheriff decided the guy's life
was in danger. But later they declined to renew the permit because the guy
hadn't been killed so that must mean the danger was past, ignoring that he
had repeatedly been beaten and stabbed by associates of the convicted gang
members! That's the difference between shall-issue and if-we-feel-like it.

"Robert Green" wrote in message ...

What many people conveniently forget is that today's firearms are
virtually
nothing like the muzzle loaders of the Revolutionary War period.

To me it is logical to believe that the Framers meant to protect the weapons
commonly owned by citizens of the period, i.e. personal arms like
muskets/rifles, shotguns and handguns. Some states even spelled that out in
their own constitutions by specifying what sort of arms men were required to
bring with them if it was necessary to form a militia, I think it was
Virginia that said bring a musket and so much powder and shot or failing
that a pike. Perhaps it is worth noting that in the late 18th century
civilian and military individual weapons were identical for all practical
purposes.

So it makes sense to me that the same classes of weapons are protected by
the 2nd Amendment today--rifles and shotguns and handguns. It is possible
to make an argument that heavy crew-served weapons like artillery were in
private ownership at the time of the Revolution (and for many years after)
and thus should be covered, but the counter-argument is they qualify as
"destructive devices" rather than personal arms and are not necessary for
personal defense (which seems to be the peg upon which the SCOTUS hung the
Heller decision).

So I think is is irrelevant that today's guns are magazine-fed rather than
being muzzle-loaders, the key point is whether or not they belong to same
classes of weapons available to the first Americans, and most of them do.
We don't believe that freedom of the press applies only to newspapers since
radio and TV and the internet weren't mentioned in the 1st Amendment, we
assume that "the press" means any form of journalism. It's the same with
the 2nd Amendment, so long as we are talking about personal weapons
analogous to those owned by the first Americans then things like magazine
capacity and so on are irrelevant.

DGDevin wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...


The "educator" is long on methodology; the engineer is long on
experience. Which is better able to convey the material?

The better teacher; unfortunately (as we have already established) an
expert is not always a good teacher. The material being taught is
also an issue, you don't need to be an Olympic gold medalist to teach
beginner's swimming (although you should know how to swim yourself if
only to understand what your students are experiencing).

Consider how the military picks its teachers such as Drill
Instructors. They don't rely just on their inherent knowledge of the
subject matter, they send those folks to a training course to teach
them how to teach, because teaching is a skill in its own right. Yes, they
have to be able to do what they're teaching, but the point
is they are given training so they know how to convey their knowledge
to others.

But the military does not take civilians, send them through basic training,
then off to drill instructor school.

Every DI - at least in the Marine Corps - has killed people in combat, up
close, with a bladed weapon, sometimes while the subject was tied to a post.
Subsequently, this instructor will know WHY every phase of the training he's
imparting is important.

I remember a math instructor in high school asserting that the sum of two
squares could not be factored. I had a plane geometry teacher, who had
taught the subject for twenty years, who could not give a reason for
learning plane geometry! Hint: It was not to train a bevy of surveyors, it
was to teach logical thinking.

DGDevin wrote:
"Robert Green" wrote in message ...


It seemed reasonable after learning how cruelly some retarded
patients were
treated to put an end to the "snake pits" that so many institutions
had become. After reading recently that NY state pays 1.4 million
per patient per year to care for seriously retarded children in
institutions, you have to wonder . . .

Part of the justification was also that it cost half as much to care
for out-patients as it did residents of a psych facility. Unfortunately it
would seem that many folks receive almost no help at
all unless they're arrested and get enough medication to stabilize
them before being released to start the cycle all over again. Eventually
many end up in the nation's largest mental health
facility--the prison system--which is ill-equipped to deal with them.
So instead of confining people in psych hospitals we lock them up in
prisons, doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

Cheaper to keep 'em in a prison than a psych hospital. A bed in a psych
hospital costs upwards of $200/day. In my state, we can house a prisoner for
about $50/day (and we do it for about 157,000 prisoners).

In California, the cost is about $130/day.

We COULD take a bucket-load of Golden State prisoners, charge the California
$100/day and both states would make out like crazy.

On Wed, 29 Jun 2011 17:14:53 -0500, "HeyBub" wrote:

DGDevin wrote:
"Robert Green" wrote in message ...


It seemed reasonable after learning how cruelly some retarded
patients were
treated to put an end to the "snake pits" that so many institutions
had become. After reading recently that NY state pays 1.4 million
per patient per year to care for seriously retarded children in
institutions, you have to wonder . . .

Part of the justification was also that it cost half as much to care
for out-patients as it did residents of a psych facility. Unfortunately it
would seem that many folks receive almost no help at
all unless they're arrested and get enough medication to stabilize
them before being released to start the cycle all over again. Eventually
many end up in the nation's largest mental health
facility--the prison system--which is ill-equipped to deal with them.
So instead of confining people in psych hospitals we lock them up in
prisons, doesn't seem like much of an improvement.

Cheaper to keep 'em in a prison than a psych hospital. A bed in a psych
hospital costs upwards of $200/day. In my state, we can house a prisoner for
about $50/day (and we do it for about 157,000 prisoners).

In California, the cost is about $130/day.

We COULD take a bucket-load of Golden State prisoners, charge the California
$100/day and both states would make out like crazy.

Why haven't you? Kentucky has been doing it for some time.

On Wed, 29 Jun 2011 12:38:57 -0700, "DGDevin" wrote:



wrote in message ...


So we've established that all rights are subject to limitations and even
regulation, but on the other hand you'll no doubt stick with the position
that limiting or regulating firearms ownership is unconstitutional because
the 2nd Amendment (according to you) prohibits limits and regulations on
firearms ownership.

Glad we cleared that up.

What an idiot!

Another brilliant contribution from the kid whose homework was never done on
time and whose mental powers haven't improved in adulthood.

Speaking of yourself, again, I see.

On Wed, 29 Jun 2011 10:38:23 -0500, Jim Yanik wrote:

" wrote in
news
On Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:33:06 +0000 (UTC), (Don
Klipstein) wrote:

In article , DGDevin
wrote:

wrote in message ...

The Constitution is pretty clear.

LOL, a couple of centuries of legislation and litigation would
suggest otherwise.

Mostly in Congress delegating its authority to regulatory agencies
such as EPA and others in Cabinet-level departments.

I know one libertarian who wishes to take a time machine trip back
to
the late 1700's so as to remove from the US Constitition's preamble
the "public welfare" bit.

"General welfare"? The "general" part should be enough of a hint.

What nine old farts in robes legislate is another thing.

There are countries where they don't rely much on courts, you could
always emigrate.

I have heard how much more expedious court proceedures are in China.

Needless to say this opinion is of zero value in a courtroom.

No one is accusing the courts of being honest.

You sound like a teenager whose parents won't let him drive their
car.

Not if it's a shall-issue law.

Certainly they can. If it's simply a law (rather than being
written into their constitution), the legislature can change it
faster than their sox.

So what do you suppose has motivated all these state legislatures
that have passed such laws to do so, and what dark conspiracy do you
figure would cause them to change their minds?

It appears to me that a "shall-issue" law for carrying firearms is
arguably in compliance with 2nd Amendment. SCOTUS is a bit in a mood
to have the Bill of Rights applying not only to USA's gummint, but
also to gummint of USA's political subdivisions.

I don't have too much of a problem with "shall-issue" (though I live
in a state that is "may-issue", for all practical purposes it is
"shall"), except that there shouldn't be the equivalent of a "poll
tax" to exercise one's rights.


IMO,Vermont,Alaska,and Arizona have it right. All the other states don't.

I much preferred it over forking over $20/year. Not only for the $$ and
inconvenience but because it was no one's business what guns I owned. It was
about the only thing good about living in Vermont (there is also about 20
minutes in the fall when it's pretty).

Vermont has had "No Permit Necessary" for a very long time,and there's not
been any significant problem,even in their major cities. Their police seem
to handle it fine.

Sure, but Vermont is a "special" place. ...in the many senses of the word.

zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Cheaper to keep 'em in a prison than a psych hospital. A bed in a
psych hospital costs upwards of $200/day. In my state, we can house
a prisoner for about $50/day (and we do it for about 157,000
prisoners).

In California, the cost is about $130/day.

We COULD take a bucket-load of Golden State prisoners, charge the
California $100/day and both states would make out like crazy.

Why haven't you? Kentucky has been doing it for some time.

I can think of three reasons: 1) The prison guard union in California
wouldn't allow it, 2) Those are not the kind of Californians we want moving
to Texas, or 3) Kentucky is underbidding us.

DGDevin wrote:

Please point to the part of the law that said mortgage sellers could
and should commit fraud to comply with the law. Show where it says
falsifying the income of mortgage applicants was permitted. Quote
the part where lenders are required to make loans to people who
cannot possibly afford the payments.

I did when I quoted the law.

The law says banks, etc., must meet these goals. How the banks do it is up
to them. I'm sure the banks would have preferred to meet the goals in an
upright/legal way but, where that's not possible, it was either fudge the
numbers (or the equivalent) or be put out of business.

Take the case of the Oak Park bank. The median family income in Oak Park is
probably over $1 million. On their report to the FDIC, they have to fill in
the blank: "Number of mortgages to individuals below the poverty line:
ZERO." That would trigger an automatic closure as far as federal regulators
were concerned.

Which would you have them do? Lie to the government (which is meritorious in
itself) or close their doors?

"Don Klipstein" wrote in message
...
In article , DGDevin
wrote:


"Jim Yanik" wrote in message
.44...


And no pro-gun person has ever claimed such a thing.

Oh, really? Yet some folks here will chant "shall not be infringed" like
it's the ultimate response to any law relating to firearms.

those types of laws are to provide punishment for when a person
commits an actual crime.

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we prevent
them doing that without background checks? Are you seriously suggesting
there should be no barriers to convicted criminals from buying guns, we
should only hope that the cops catch them after they've used a gun they
aren't supposed to have to commit another crime?

I agree with preventing gun sales to folks with bad track records that
sustained their badness into recent past years or show lack of turnaround
from a bad track history.


Except that felons are exempt from filing 4473, necessary for a background
check, because forcing them to do so, would infring on their 5th Amendment
right not to incriminate themselves.

Which is why so few felons actually buy their guns legally.
Most of them get it on the black market, from family and friends or
through straw purchases. Processes that are ALREADY ILLEGAL in those cases.


The 2nd Amendment doesn't except felons, or the mentally ill, so who
gets to decide that laws preventing such persons from possessing firearms
are okay? What's the process to accept such laws as constitutional while
rejecting others such as DC's handgun ban?

DC's handgun ban applies to all of its law-abiding residents, not only
those who have shown criminal irresponsibility in posession or usage of
handguns.


Amazing how some people have trouble differentiating between criminals and
the law-abiding when it comes to guns
Must be because so many of them seem to think that if you have a gun, you
are automatically a criminal, BY DEFINITION.



Limiting storage of hazardous substances in residential areas
is "common-sense" law,and based on solid facts.

So you'd support a law restricting possession of ammunition on the
grounds of fire prevention? The gun grabbers would love to pass such a
law because they'd make the number smaller every chance they got.

I'd support ammunition storage regulations that are supported by
Switzerland, or like ones used in USA armed forces. Ammunition storage
regulations imposed by and upon major players with right and
responsibility
to keep and bear arms appear reasonable to me.


Go ahead and tell us about ammunition storage rules in Switzerland.
Don't forget to actually quote the applicable laws, as well as
differentiating the privately owned ammo from the military ammo issued to
members of the militia.

Unnecessary Discharge of a firearm endangers others. But mere
possession or carriage of a firearm does not.

I agree.

Much of the "gun control" laws are NOT based on actual fact or reason.

I agree, but unfortunately if one takes the position that "shall not be
infringed" means there are no valid laws restricting or regulating
firearms
then they've gone to the other end of the looney scale. There's a guy
here
who figures preventing the mentally ill from possessing firearms violates
their rights, that even crazy people have a right to own a gun. So who
gets
to draw the line?

There is the matter of "free speech" not including shouting "fire" in
a crowded theater.



What if shouting "fire" is part of the play and an actor does it ?
Isn't that protected by the First ?
This claim about shouting "fire" WITH THE INTENT TO CAUSE A PANIC - is a
CRIMINAL act, and has NOTHING to do with the First Amendment..

DGDevin wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

A felon buying a gun is committing an actual crime, so how do we
prevent them doing that without background checks? Are you
seriously suggesting there should be no barriers to convicted
criminals from buying guns, we should only hope that the cops catch
them after they've used a gun they aren't supposed to have to
commit another crime?

We don't mandate that those who've gotten a speeding ticket install
governors on their car engines to prohibit excessive speed.

What a bizarre point, and it ignores that if one gets enough speeding
tickets we take away his driver's license and if he keeps driving
without one we put him in prison.

The prohibition against a felon purchasing a gun is NOT to prevent
him from committing another crime; it is a deterrence to discourage
others from becoming felons in the first place!

I would bet folding money that no legislator advocating a law to
prohibit felons from possessing firearms ever argued that the law's
purpose was to discourage law-abiding citizens from taking up crime. Can
you document that any such law contains language identifying that
as its purpose?

No, but I can retell a conversation:

Condemned man: "Whatcha hangin' me for, governor? Hangin' me won't bring
back Charlie!"

Lord High Mayor of London: "Oh, we're not hanging you because you killed
Charlie. We're hanging you so that others won't kill."

As for a quote, they are generally not in the individual laws, but in the
codes of criminal procedure or the preamble to the penal code for the
various 52 state and federal statutes. These reasons are imbedded in the
Model Penal Code and usually say or imply:

The purposes of the criminal law of this state are three-fold: 1) To protect
society from further predations of the criminal, 2) To rehabilitate the
offender, and 3) To serve as a deterrence to others similarily inclined.