Works for me!

When I am elected Emperor, one of my first orders of business will be to restore sanity and civility to our society.

Believe it or not, this would be rather simple to do!

Here’s how: A Lottery.

Not just ANY lottery, but a SECRET lottery — the most well-publicized, secret lottery in history!

We’ll have a computer pick a certain (Secret!) number of people to be “winners” — and their prize will be one (1) “Get Out Of Jail Free” card.

The card will enable each winner to commit one (1) crime – of his choice – for which he’ll endure NO punishment whatsoever.

As always, there ARE conditions: Winners *MUST* maintain TOTAL secrecy about their “prize” until it is time to use it!

NOBODY will know even how many winners there are — not to mention WHO they might be!

Ergo, the INSTANT return of sanity and civility!

See, the jerk you described above would be forced to stop and think! “MAYBE this guy I’m jerking around is one of those ‘lottery winners’ — and MAYBE he’s having a bad day! If I keep this up, he MIGHT just pull out a gun and shoot me in the head — or run me off the road into that bridge-abutment up there!”

Every person will be forced to stop and think whether their every action might have the potential to cause some “winner” to burn his card!

Even the WINNERS will have to be careful – because for all they know they might be interacting with ANOTHER secret-winner!

Of course, the better classes of people would be more inclined to save THEIR card for something really worthwhile, while the more easily-aroused might burn theirs immediately. These facts of human nature only serve to increase the efficacy of the solution — the early-adopters would serve to publicize, and the “hoarders” would help to keep the pressure on everyone else to maintain proper decorum!

This would solve business problems too — no more ripoff artists…

Think for a bit — I think you’ll agree that this is the cure for MOST of what ails our (human) race and our culture!

You have not read my comments. How dare you accuse me of religious hatred or hatred of Muslims? I clearly stated that it is the actions of the minority that prompt reactions such as Lars Vilks’. Not only that, my comment was a reply to someone else’s comment and not a vilification of Islam.

You do not have the right to condemn Mr Vilks, regardless of how offended you may be. He has the freedom afforded to him by the country in which he resides. Live and let live. And if it is the case that Muslim nations will change their relationship with “Western” nations as a result of the drawings of one disrespectful man and his idiot editor, then that simply serves to underline the point. Where is the tolerance in that?

If these people are so ignorant of your wonderful religion, what are you doing about it? Do you peacefully and respectfully share your message with these ones? Well, no Muslim ever came and knocked on my door to share their enlightenment with me. Plenty of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a few Mormons, and even the local vicar, but definitely no Muslims.

You can’t beat people into submission to try and make them believe and follow your ideals. That’s been tried already. It doesn’t work, and the man responsible died miserable in a bunker in Berlin.

God can and will (when the time is right) fight his own battles. It is up to Him to judge not you.

Now, get off your high horse and read other people’s comments properly before you insult them.

the same thing applies here, there are dozens of muslim countries ion the world they have also relationship with west. when such thing is published then relations will of course alter. Lars have free will to do that, but publishing these things is not by single person its by whole nation as the sweeden or denmark has supported it.

by this those muslims who love their prophet much more than as they do by their family so doing this will of course make them aggressive.

its showing your hate which will result in bad relations

and the other thing you said is killing cartoonist.

as he has teased millions of Muslim those Muslims how love their prophet much more than their own family, Prophet comes first and then family or other thing.

so by doing this your buying Muslims hate and aggressiveness.

cartoonist must be killed for doing this, what this statement would be wired for you because you people don’t kill those who are killer, crimminal

Serious response: the Vicksburg Campaign is not taught in history classes these days. My son graduated recently from a top high school in Texas, and his American history class spent maybe one week covering the period between Nat Turner, the escalation to war, and the war itself. Personally, I think the Nat Turner rebellion is an important catalyst event in Southern History that sent the Southern States into a tyrannical xenophobic spiral which would persist for nearly 150 years. We have many important lessons we could learn by studying Nat Turner and the Southern response to his rebellion, I’m sure none of which were learned by mentioning Nat Turner as a passing footnote in a 40 minute discussion.

Aggravating the situation is that the study of military campaigns is not “in style” in academic history these days, which means that most battle/campaign histories are written by amateur historians. For this reason, the Vicksburg historiography for the past 25 years has been fairly flawed and somewhat derivative in nature. Like tykes sitting at a glowing hearth listening to tales of David and Goliath, everyone seems to love the telling and retelling of “Grant the Bulldog” mired in the swamps but refusing to admit defeat, incorrect as the story may be.

If you ever make it back to Vicksburg, be sure to look me up. I would be more than happy to give you a personal tour if I can carve time away from work. Be warned though … my vernacular is “modern surfer” so if you have trouble understanding “Grant landed at Milliken’s Bend and thought DUDE! This city is like so vulnerable from the interior it’s SICK!” you may need a translator.

There are several battlefields within 30 miles of where you were standing, none of them actually in Vicksburg … Chickasaw Bayou battlefield, Milliken’s Bend battlefield, Port Gibson battlefield, Grand Gulf battlefield, Raymond battlefield, Champion Hill battlefield, Big Black River Bridge battlefield. In Vicksburg itself, there really wasn’t much of a battle … just a protracted seige punctuated by a handful of assaults.

However, local people refer to several locations by the name “battlefield:” there has been the Battlefield Mall, Battlefield Theatre, Battlefield aparments, Battlefield Campground, Battlefield Museum, Battlefield Hotel, and Battlefield Discount Drugs … just to rattle a few off the top of my head.

Probably if you were smart enough to ask for “the battlefield” by name you would have gotten better results. I think 10 out of 10 could have told you how to get to the Vicksburg National Military Park.

DVB: Well said.

John: Not okay. At all.

Shair Shah: Essentially what you are saying is “Islam is all about love and Lars Vilk should be murdered for offending us.” This is deeply, deeply wrong. This attitude is the heart of what is wrong with Islam. If you want to live in love, you must be accepting of others — even those with whom you disagree. Seriously, if you think about this at all, give some thought to the Christian concept of “turn the other cheek”.