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[Starver]

More Space! All the space! It's all ours! MANIFEST DESTINY.

A dangerous precedent.  My home planet could just as easily claim ownership of the entire Earth (including the US).  We sent so many surveying expeditions and picked up absolutely no sign of intelligent life.  Plenty of rednecks, as you'll realise by analysing your own copious reports on our 'encounters', but no sign of intelligence.

[Egan_BW]

More Space! All the space! It's all ours! MANIFEST DESTINY.

A dangerous precedent.  My home planet could just as easily claim ownership of the entire Earth (including the US).  We sent so many surveying expeditions and picked up absolutely no sign of intelligent life.  Plenty of rednecks, as you'll realise by analysing your own copious reports on our 'encounters', but no sign of intelligence.

Counterpoint: Earthlings have bigger guns.

[BFEL]

More Space! All the space! It's all ours! MANIFEST DESTINY.

A dangerous precedent.  My home planet could just as easily claim ownership of the entire Earth (including the US).  We sent so many surveying expeditions and picked up absolutely no sign of intelligent life.  Plenty of rednecks, as you'll realise by analysing your own copious reports on our 'encounters', but no sign of intelligence.

Counterpoint: Earthlings have bigger guns.

Counter-Counterpoint: Aliens have better engines. In space better engines=bigger booms.

[wierd]

Didn't NASA already say that developing a death star is a waste of money, because pushing a really big rock at the planet in question is equally, if not significantly more destructive, at a fraction of the price?

(checks)


Yup, they sure did!
http://www.wired.com/2015/12/nasa-death-star-asteroid/

Now you know why they REALLY want to capture an asteroid and bring it to lunar orbit!
https://www.nasa.gov/content/what-is-nasa-s-asteroid-redirect-mission

[Fenrir]

???th Amendment: No one is permitted to acknowledge the existence of this amendment through word or deed.

[Strife26]

We've drifted away somewhat by the point of the thread unless someone would like to make a contention that no ammendment or an obviously sunk ammendment would be the best course of action, let's continue with a new proposal.

What about using the Ammendment to fix an already binding decision into the safer realm of Constitutional law. Both the Posse Comitatus Act (Federal troops don't get used for domestic things) and Marbury vs. Madison (The Supreme Court has the power of judicial review, so they may strike down laws as unconstitutional) seem like prime candidates for Ammendment-worthy rules. Neither is particularly threatened right now, but it's reasonably possible at a much lower threshold than something iron clad in the Constitution.

[Bohandas]

Clarification to the first amendment to explicitly protect pornography, blasphemy, and copyright infringement as protected speech/writing, protect digital expression (includig violent videogames), create stronger separation of church and state, and explicitly refute the concept that the USA is a "Christian nation" in any legally valid sense

[Rolepgeek]

Define copyright infringement.

Patents serve a purpose. Infinite length patents on characters/stories/words, not so much.

The strongest argument against pornography that I've read is that it's basically legal prostitution except with way less regulation and so it acts a lot like illegal prostitution in how it treats it's workers. The professional videos, at any rate. Not universally, of course, it's not a one-to-one relation, but I would ask why protect pornography made commercially as free speech?

[Bohandas]

The strongest argument against pornography that I've read is that it's basically legal prostitution except with way less regulation and so it acts a lot like illegal prostitution in how it treats it's workers. The professional videos, at any rate. Not universally, of course, it's not a one-to-one relation, but I would ask why protect pornography made commercially as free speech?

All of the matters you've mentioned are redundant with other laws. Furthermore it needs to be protected to prevent the development of the kind of ridiculous excesses that you find in places like Austrailia where there are even limits on what you can draw.

Patents serve a purpose.

Patents maybe, copyrights not so much. I think it's at this point entirely plausible for the country's entertainment needs to be met without the need for professionals.

Furthermore, intellectual property rights infringe on everyone else's rights to say what they want.

Lastly, do you know what it means to "reap the whirlwind"?

[Strife26]

That's silly. Artists deserve compensation for their work if they choose. You don't get professional authors if professional authors can't write for a living.

[Bohandas]

That's silly. Artists deserve compensation for their work if they choose. You don't get professional authors if professional authors can't write for a living.

I addressed that:

I think it's at this point entirely plausible for the country's entertainment needs to be met without the need for professionals.

[TheBiggerFish]

Plausible, but it's not about what CAN happen, it's about what WILL happen, and I doubt that it'd end up that way.

Imagine this.
Upon the release of, say, the second or third Discworld book, someone jumps on it, steals the characters, and releases a much worser book under a pseudonym that looks rather like Terry Pratchett.  Boom.  Artist discouraged, fans disappointed, we don't get anything at all.

It is plausible...If you assume that ANYBODY will actually want to write after people start barging in and wrecking their worlds.

So it's really not.

[Strife26]

That's silly. Artists deserve compensation for their work if they choose. You don't get professional authors if professional authors can't write for a living.

I addressed that:

I think it's at this point entirely plausible for the country's entertainment needs to be met without the need for professionals.

You addressed it poorly. Great and good works are occasionally produced by people for free, but that's a large minority.

[TheBiggerFish]

Frankly, an unsupported assertion is not addressing anything at all.

[Helgoland]

Also 'the country's entertainment needs' smacks of planned economy, and a certain disdain for non-entertainment forms of culture...