Slashdot Mirror

You make several claims that I believe are not supported by the empirical evidence. I'll pick a couple:

You suggest that new immigrants do not want to assimilate (or wish to do so less than immigrants in the past.

FACT: "the vast majority of immigrants speak English well. In 1990, only 1/4 of immigrants reported speaking English poorly or not at all" National Bureau of Economic Research

It is true that adults that arrive with poor English skills often continue to have poor English skills. This has always been the case to varying degrees, and is more related to critical periods in language acquisition (e.g., its easier for children to learn a new language than adults) than a general lack of effort or interest.

FACT: "Only 7 percent of the children of Latino immigrants speak Spanish as a primary language, and virtually none of their children do." Washington Post citing data from the Census Bueau, 2000

Overwhelming statistical evidence is that by children of immigrants, regardless of country of origin, are highly assimilated, much less tied to their parents country of origin than the United States.

OK, As long as i'm getting all empirical on your ass, I'll also add the following regarding the economic costs of illegal immigration:

FACT: "we find that the average immigrant family received $1,404 in welfare services in years 1-5 in the United States, $1,941 in years 6-10, $2,247 in years 11-15, and $2,279 in years 16-25. Natives averaged $2,279..."

and

FACT: "the average native family paid $3,008 in taxes in 1975. In comparison, immigrant families here 10 years paid $3,369, those here 11-15 years paid $3,564, and those here 16-25 years paid $3,592--in all those cases, substantially surpassing natives' payments."

Finally, this suggests "the consolidated data on services used and taxes paid show substantial differences to the benefit of natives: an average of $1,354 yearly for the first 5 years the immigrant families are in the United States, and $1,329, $1,525, and $1,383 for years 6-10, 11-15, and 16-25, respectively. These are the amounts that natives are enriched each year through the public coffers by each additional immigrant family on average. "

Julian L. Simon, Cato Institute and the National Immigrant Forum

ME: Alot of claims are often thrown around, about immigration and how it is somehow different from the past. I can't speak to your motives, but alot of what seems different these days is that our newest immigrants are brown people that the Europeans immigrants of the early 1900s just don't feel comfortable with. Statistically speaking, there seems to be little different about these new immigrants. Evidence suggests that they will become American as thuroughly as yesterday's immigrants and that America benefits enormously by their presence.

I say, welcome to America, and thank you for supporting me in my old age!

What difference does that make?

It can make a significant perceptial difference, if not a difference in how things actually pan out. Things like the REA (Rural Electrification Agency) tax are "hidden"; they're actually taxes levied against utilities, who then pass them through to us as part of those "federal taxes" listed on the bill. People don't care about taxes levied against evil utilities, even ignoring the fact that they're paying them indirectly. The so-called "Gore tax" was an increase in the "Universal Services" fee levied against the telcos when its mandate to "provide telephone service to rural areas" had its definition expanded to include "extended universal service support for any school, library and rural health clinic". When telcos announced that they planned on itemizing this extra levy on phone bills, the FCC went nuts. They didn't want it known just how big the bill was going to be, and still don't.

Even itemizing it as an income tax item is "safe", because people who work for others don't consider their gross pay to be a real number - only the net take-home pay means anything. There's a reason we have payroll withholding in this country - only the evil wealthy (anyone making more than $50K a year) realize just how much is being taken off their plates. Do factory workers really believe that the "employer share" of FICA and MED aren't coming out of their pay? Yes, they do, and the government wants it to stay that way.

Here is a good place to start. I think her contention that a soybean conspiracy at the CSPI is at the "heart" of this is bunk, her charges of revisionism stick. The food police seem to be becoming an infallable religion. Rather than say we were wrong given the research at the time, but now we are changing, they stick with blaming the corporations, but as of 1988, CSPI was running flack for trans fats.

Either get rid of the electoral college or change it so that the vote distribution per state is proportional to the actual voting, like I understand Maine and one other state are allowed to do.

I'm afraid you already have. Go ahead and exercise your freedom of speech at the nearest biker bar and see what happens. Why don't you exercise your right to bare arms on an airplane? For that matter, go to the airport and talk about your bomb collection or even yell "fire!" in a crowded theatre.

The idea of rights as absolute in a society is essentially incoherent. It's simply a logical impossibility, as the "rights" of one person will intrude on the rights of another. No one believes in such a thing, so it's essentially a straw man. It does not follow that therefore any infringements on one's rights is acceptable, as you seem to imply.

As for the rest of what you said, it's basically the same as a thread from a previous article, so forgive me if I simply quote my previous response:

First of all, if you think about it rationally, the statistical chance of you dying in a terrorist attack is quite low, by any reasonable estimate. You're far more likely to die from any number of causes, e.g. a car crash. The government and media have played up the threat and gotten people into an irrational frenzy over the matter, but really the threat is quite small for most of us. Right now what you are saying, rationally, is that you are willing to accept a larger risk for the privlage of driving a car than for having your fundamental liberties.

I live in the suburbs of Washington D.C., just a few miles from the White House. I often go into the city, ride the subway, etc. I am probably at a statistically greater risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack than 99% of Americans. I'm also still in my twenties and in no hurry to die. However, there are a few things worth taking a risk for, and one of those is liberty. That was actually one of the few points I thought almost every American could agree on. If I have to accept these small risks to my life in exchange for my liberty, then I say it is a small price to pay, and I pay it gladly. After all, many have risked far more to protect the same.

If you don't feel the same way, that's your right, but I would say that you are not really suited to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. There are some other places where their priorities might suit you better. In China, for example, most people accept that it's more important that the government have the power to protect them from dangerous people and ideas than that the people have freedom and privacy. If you wish to remain in the US because it provides you a cushy life, again that's your right and I respect it, but I think most of us would prefer you not to interfere in our politics, because you fundamentally don't understand what it is to be American. My hope is that, rather than ever leaving, you can learn one day what being an American is truly about. I'll close with a famous quotation from Patrick Henry that expresses what I'm talking about:

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Let me add two things: First, if you want to see further discussion of the statistical risks from terrorist attacks and rational versus irrational responses, I suggest checking out this paper published by the Cato Institute. I have no love for that (or any other) think tank, but I think that particular article is worth a read. Second, I am not trying to claim to be any sort of great patriot here. On the contrary, my point is that the sacrifice most of us are being called upon to make to uphold our liberties is so small that it is basically ludicrous in comparison to those that were made by American revolutionaries fighting the mighty British empire, soldiers who stormed the beach at Normand

There is a spectrum of economic systems that run the gamut from the extremes of true capitalism to true communism (I'm not an economist. Some people might find fault with this statement, but it's reasonably accurate even if there are exceptions or caveats). Most economic systems fall somewhere in between. On of the most core concepts of Libertarianism is that of an unrestrained free market. You may condsider yourself a Libertarian, and that's fine, but you are disagreeing with one of the core principles. That's fine-- there are pro-choice republicans and pro-life Democrats for example-- but Libertarianism is still by definition extreme, you just happen to be redefining it.

By phrasing the question the right way, you can imply that net neutrality would limit services and download speed. In that scenario, you'll get an overwhelming response (from those who don't know what net neutrality is) that net neutrality is a bad thing. Phrased another way, you can imply that without net neutrality, Comcast and the baby Bells would be able to make web sites harder to reach. In that second scenario, most respondants would favor net neutrality.

For comparison, Cato has similar things to say about polling for support of school vouchers. When you imply in the question that other countries are doing it with great success, people are in favor. When you imply that it would hurt the public schools, people are against it. Shocking.

"We must remember that we have more power than our enemies to worsen our fate." From "It's Not Another World War" by Ted Galen Carpenter.

You can refuse to be terrorized by them. Get them out of power. Soap, Ballot, Jury, Ammo. If you care about your country you'll use them.

Second hand smoke has NOT been proven harmful to your health: http://www.cato.org/dailys/9-28-98.html

1. Just because I am not for a Mobocracy (your idea of a Democracy), does not mean that I am for coercion by the minority. I am for liberty, get that? I am not for oligarchy, nor am I a fascist. Fascism is a LEFT WING ideology (they were nationalistic SOCIALISTS).

2. I am not for invasion of privacy. Where do you get that from? If you read my posts, you'll see that I am NOT for corporations or government gathering, storing, or trading our privacy.

3. You should be glad the Majority can hardly impose their will. The Republicans are in power, and they are the majority, and you hate them remember? How would you like it if the majority told you that you could no longer live where generations of your family lived, or wear your hair a certain way, or practice a certain religion? Get my drift?

4. From: http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-dg061198.html

"
The first myth is that the overall U.S. trade deficit is caused by unfair trade barriers abroad. Foreign barriers are certainly a problem, just as our own barriers to imports remain a problem. But trade restrictions do not determine the overall U.S. trade deficit, nor do they fully account for the differences in bilateral trade balances. For example, the United States runs a large trade surplus with Brazil, a country with relatively high trade barriers, while we run deficits with Mexico and Canada, two countries virtually open to U.S. exports.

The second myth is that trade deficits are caused by a lack of U.S. industrial competitiveness. This myth has been refuted by the stellar performance of the American economy, which today is the envy of the world. Since 1992, the U.S. trade deficit has tripled. During that same time, U.S. industrial production has surged 24 percent and manufacturing output 27 percent. The American people sell more goods and services in the global marketplace than people of any other country.

A third myth is that trade deficits destroy jobs. Again, the performance of the U.S. economy in the last decade should lay that myth to rest. While the trade deficit has expanded, so have American payrolls. Indeed, there is a strong correlation between rising trade deficits and falling rates of unemployment. The reason is simple: The same expanding economy that stimulates demand for labor also raises demand for imported goods and capital.

The final myth is that trade deficits are a drag on the U.S. economy. With the slowdown in East Asia, this seems a reasonable claim. But the drag is not the trade deficit itself, but falling demand for our exports in the Far East. A trade deficit that reflects both rising exports and even more rapidly rising imports can be a sign of health. That has been the case in the United States for most of past two decades. Since 1980, the U.S economy has grown an average of 3.1 percent in years in which the current account deficit has expanded from the previous year, and an average of only 2.0 percent in years in which the deficit has shrunk. If trade deficits are bad for growth, why does the U.S. economy grow more than 50 percent faster when the trade deficit expands?

Frankly, we would have more reason to worry if the U.S. were running a trade surplus. In Mexico in 1995 and more recently in South Korea and other East Asian countries, trade balances flipped overnight from deficit to surplus because of plunging domestic demand and the flight of foreign capital. In Japan today, a soaring trade surplus has been accompanied by record high unemployment. It's no coincidence that America's smallest trade deficit in recent years occurred in 1991--in the trough of our last recession.
"

For approximately the last 15 years, the United States has been engaged in the largest imprisonment program ever attempted by a democratic society.

That was back in the early 90's when the US prison population was around 900,000. In the time since then, the prison population has more than doubled again to nearly 2.2 Million prisoners. To put that into perspective, there is currently only about 1.4 million people on active duty in the US military.

We condemn China for their practices involving prison slave labor, yet we conduct those same practices ourselves... Slavery is back in America, and it's mostly for the poor black people again. Meanwhile, every time we have an article discussing incarceration on Slashdot, we get a bazillion prison bitch jokes that fly in the face of the 8th amendment of the US Constitution. You people KNOW their rights are being violated and you don't care.

"Oh dear they're annoying me with spam. Fuck the 1st Amendment, send them to the salt mines!!" Land of the Free indeed...

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemoller

They don't decide questions of law.

Actually one of the most important duties or rolls of a jury is to decide if a law is constitutional. Ever hear of Jury Nullification? As Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."

Osamma wanted to destroy America, and he only knocked down two buildings, and killed three thousand people.

Try cops killing you while you are doing something perfectly legal, and the cops get away with it. It's ironic that the cops want to install cameras everywhere (because one of YOU is a criminal), but it's not ok for you to tape them.

An example of abused drug laws?

http://www.cato.org/raidmap/

In an early morning drug raid on October 2, 1992, 31 officers from five police agencies break down the door to the multimillion dollar home of Donald Scott.

Frightened, Scott's wife screams, "Don't shoot me. Don't kill me." Hearing his wife's screams, Scott emerges from his bedroom holding a handgun, still groggy from a recent cataract operation. When Scott raises the gun in the direction of the police intruders, the raiding officers shoot him dead.

Despite assurances from the L.A. Sheriff's Department that Scott was farming more than 4,000 marijuana plants on his property, thorough search of Scott's property fails to yield any contraband. In fact, Scott's friends would later say he was adamantly opposed to illicit drugs.

Though Scott's grand Malibu ranch is in Ventura County, California, no Ventura police agency was represented among the five police agencies (the L.A. Sheriff's office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol, the National Guard and the National Park Service) that conducted the raid. A blistering subsequent investigation by Ventura County district attorney Michael Bradbury suggests why.

Bradbury found gross misstatements of fact, omissions, and outright falsehoods in the application for a search warrant issued by the L.A. sheriff's department. He found that the department had conducted numerous investigations of the ranch, including flyovers and firsthand visits, which found no evidence of marijuana cultivation. Finally, during a low-level flyover one DEA agent suggested to the sheriff's department that he had spotted some plants beneath tree cover that might be marijuana -- but stipulated that his observation ought not be the basis of a search warrant. On that evidence, the L.A. sheriff's department obtained its warrant.

Bradbury concluded that, confirming Donald Scott's fears, the L.A. sheriff's department conducted its raid for the purpose of seizing Donald Scott's property through drug asset forfeiture laws. Under federal law, the department would have been able divvy up proceeds from the $2.5 million ranch with the four other agencies joining in the investigation. Bradbury found documents in which the investigating agencies had expressed desire for Scott's land on various "wish lists," and one notation in which sheriff's department officials had taken note of the recent sale value of one parcel of Scott's land.

According to an L.A. deputy district attorney at the time, two of the agents conducting the raid posed for a triumphant photograph after Scott was shot and killed.

In January 2000, the L.A. Sheriff's Department settled with Scott's family for $5 million, though the terms of the settlement admitted no wrongdoing. In fact, officers from the department who conducted the raid have insisted from the beginning that both the raid and the shooting of Scott were justified, despite the absence of any illegal substances. L.A. Sheriff's Department Captain Larry Waldie told the Los Angeles Times, "I do not believe it was an illegal raid in any way, shape or form." Five years after the raid, Garry Spencer, the officer who both led the raid and who killed Scott told the same paper, "I don't consider it botched. I wouldn't call it botched because that would say that it was a mistake to have gone there in the first place, and I don't believe that."

Sources:

Michael Fessier, Jr., "Trail's End; Deep in a Wild Canyon West of Malibu, a Controversial Law Brought Together a Zealous Sheriff's Deputy and an Eccentric Recluse. A Few Seconds Later, Donald Scott Was Dead," Los Angeles Times Magazine, August 1, 1993, p. 26.

Michael D. Bradbury, Report on the Death of Donald Scott, Office of the District Attorney, County of Ventura, State of California, March 30, 1993.

"Fair End in Police Abuse Case," Los Angeles Times, editorial, January 13, 2000, p. B9.

Daryl Kelley, "Ventura D.A. Says Fatal Raid Was Unjustified," Los Angeles Times, March 30, 1993, p. A1.

Scott Hadly, "Officer criticized over 1992 raid still wants vindication," Los Angeles Times, December 3, 1997, p. B3.

But do you think that W. and his admin will really jail people like Michaels and his buddies at the oil companies? I do not think so.

Funny, whenever I hear or read about someone else's asthmatic experience, I instinctively gasp for breath.

One of the common confusions in this topic results from the ambiguous word "public", which I try to avoid. "Government" or "state" are much more clear. Government property belongs to everyone, so we fight for control over it. This means smoking rules in government offices, and prayer and the pledge of allegiance in government schools. There is a saying that good fences make good neighbors--there would be a good deal less political rancor if we privatized government property and depoliticized the debate. However, as this discussion thread has shown, there will always be people who want to tell you what you can and can't do with your private property.

>This would include in my opinion baseball stadiums

Which raises the question of why our tax dollars are subsidizing stadiums. Bread and circuses for the masses, and millions of dollars for the rich:
http://www.reason.com/sullum/111204.shtml
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/bandow-03101 9.html

>It's also funny how the bar/restaurant traffic has severely declined
>in the Phoenix metro area in those cities with smoking bans.

I've heard about that, and I really don't understand it, but then I still can't understand how people can put such poison in their bodies.

So one incident of the canadian government giving money to a copyright lobby, is somehow greater and more negative than the between $75 billion and $125 billion, depending on who's counting, that the U.S. Federal government alone hands out per year in corporate welfare.

Good to hear it.

Libertarians need to learn some marketing. From what I can tell, they are the party that supports selling off all roads and sidewalks, essentially abolishing the right to travel.

Indeed, if that's your impression, then marketing certainly isn't working.

So what did people do before the government owned all the highways? They built them themselves. Look up "turnpike" in a history book, and be amazed.

They seem to be inconsistent in some messages (i.e., they are pro-business, when they should be for limitations on corporations based of how they describe liberty).

Limitations of what? Do you really mean, allowing the people who own and run organizations to be held responsible for their "organization's" actions? That isn't pro- or anti-business, that's anti government-granted-limited-liability.

Why should I change if public roads work so good?

They do? As someone stuck in traffic on the only road between A and B some time.

Yes, public schools are cheaper than private.

Actually, they're not. The public schools spend more than $10,000 per student, per year, every year, and it's only going up. Private schools charge far less than that, and get better academic performance on every measurement. Homeschoolers spend a fraction of that and beat public and private schools.

Try http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/ for a little background on the subject of "public" education.

If you like video instead of reading, try doing a little bit of piracy and finding "ABC's 20/20 Stupid In America". While John Stossel comes down hard in favor of vouchers, the reasons why are what will shock you to your boots if you are paying attention.

Social Security is run with a lot less overhead than Wall Street funds doing the same T-bill investments.

Social Security is not an investment at all, it's a ponzi scheme. Present beneficiaries are being paid out of present donations. There is no trust fund, there is no set-aside, the money goes into and comes out of the general fund.

The only reason SS is said to "cost less" is because the government doesn't include sallaries of government employees or costs of the buildings and facilities in their "cost" estimates.

When the Libertarian message gets me benefits (and I think those that run can manage to impliment their ideas), I might consider them.

Those lists of benefits are out there. http://www.fff.org/ http://www.lewrockwell.com/ http://www.mises.org/ http://www.cato.org/ http://www.pennradio.com/

If the only information you are listening to comes from government, as your statements of "fact" indicates, then no wonder you have a bad impression of "libertarians".

Until then, they are the party for government-hating gun nuts (and no, people that support the 2nd Amendment aren't gun nuts, the people that get upset they can't have their Desert Eagle strapped to their hip wandering around their children's kindergarden are gun nuts).

When someone comes to the school your child is in and starts killing them (even though murder is illegal) with whatever weapon they choose to use (regardless of any law to the contrary), you'd better pray that some principled gun owner who chose not to be disarmed by law is there to stop them. ...like what happened in Pearl, Mississippi, when a killer decided to visit a "gun free zone". Oh, you didn't hear about that? Then may I suggest http://www.johnrlott.com/ _The Bias Against Guns_ by John R. Lott?

But that would re

A new study by the Tax Foundation gives Michigan a mediocre overall rating for its business tax climate. Dragging down the state is the Single Business Tax, which was ranked the 49th most onerous tax out of 50 states.

Each year, CFO magazine asks financial executives to assess the business-friendliness of tax policy in their respective states, which the magazine then compiles and ranks. Ranking in the bottom 10? California, New York, Michigan, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Massachusetts -- the very states that seem to be bleeding jobs. The most recent unemployment figures from the Labor Department put California, Texas, Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan all in the bottom 10 there, too, all with unemployment rates at 7.0 percent or higher.

The Bain report concluded one of the major reasons for moving jobs out of California is the cost of doing business here:

        * Taxes are 19 percent higher than in other western states.
        * The cost of electricity is 127 percent higher.
        * Property costs are 77 percent higher.
        * State regulatory costs are 105 percent higher.
        * Employee costs are 25 percent higher.

Recent polls have shown that 28-35% of US voters lean libertarian. It is essentially the party that has a firm and hard stance on issues based upon principle.

You should really study it a bit more:

http://cato.org/about/about.html
http://www.lp.org/issues/issues.shtml
http://www.theadvocates.org/ruwart/categories_list .php

http://www.cato.org/people/harper.html

Cato already came out against net neutrality, two years ago.

Also, it probably doesn't hurt that he's on the DHS's privacy advisory committee, according to the name on his ticket, and his employer (the Cato Institute) is a well-known think tank and has a high-res photo of him on their website.

What do you want to want to bet the security supervisor's phone call went:

"Any idea why a Jim Harper might be trying to fly without an ID? He says he mailed it home instead of carrying it with him."

"Jim Harper... like the Jim Harper? White, brown hair, balding, thin widow's peak, short beard and mustache, grey eyes?"

"Uh, yeah, that sounds like him."

"He's on the DHS privacy committee. Make sure he's not sneaking a fake bomb on the plane or anything, but don't keep him from flying. And don't let on that you know who he is."

I mean, the people checking him out probably had access to hard-to-fake photographic identification than anything he could possibly be carrying himself. And a quick Google reveals that his new book is about "How Identification is Overused and Misunderstood". It seems obvious that, if he attracts enough attention that somebody looks him up, he'll be given exactly the treatment that he got: pretend to ignore his identity and check him sufficiently thoroughly that you'd catch it if he had anything prohibited.

Some of your congressman's message is quoted directly from the Cato Institute opinion that someone mentioned above. Here's the link: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa507.pdf

As one might expect, that paper is a bit more comprehensive (and interesting) than Congressman Boehner's letter.

and yet, here is a case where the government has decided NOT to add additional regulation, and just hear the hue and cry! Ultimately, if I or you, or ABC Giant Corporation(tm) pays for the infrastructure and owns the equiptment, don't they have the right to charge as they see fit for access? If I run a dry-cleaner can't I charge more for same-day service? Isn't reasonable that I might charge a frequent customer less, or I might charge more to clean your sequined tube-top? (sissy). The Cato Institue explains a more libertarian perspective on things
"The regulatory regime envisioned by Net neutrality mandates would also open the door to a great deal of potential "gaming" of the regulatory system and allow firms to use the regulatory system to hobble competitors. Worse yet, it would encourage more FCC regulation of the Internet and broadband markets in general."
Is it just me, or are a lot of people asking the government to regulate our businesses?

and yet, here is a case where the government has decided NOT to add additional regulation, and just hear the hue and cry! Ultimately, if I or you, or ABC Giant Corporation(tm) pays for the infrastructure and owns the equiptment, don't they have the right to charge as they see fit for access? If I run a dry-cleaner can't I charge more for same-day service? Isn't reasonable that I might charge a frequent customer less, or I might charge more to clean your sequined tube-top? (sissy). The Cato Institue explains a more libertarian perspective on things
"The regulatory regime envisioned by Net neutrality mandates would also open the door to a great deal of potential "gaming" of the regulatory system and allow firms to use the regulatory system to hobble competitors. Worse yet, it would encourage more FCC regulation of the Internet and broadband markets in general."
Is it just me, or are a lot of people asking the government to regulate our businesses?

Which is why you should vote libertarian. They beleive that less government is the best government.

For more info:
http://lp.org/issues/issues.shtml
http://cato.org/about/about.html
http://theadvocates.org/ruwart/categories_list.php

Have you read Patriot Act I and II?

If he has, he'd be a few steps ahead of the legislators who actually voted for it.

I wonder how U.S. will rank in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index after this.. We already rank in the bottom of developed countries, at 44th.

Contrary to what some supporters claim, there are only several places where such degree of Internet survaillance is enforced, most notably China. And interestingly, China is relatively transparent - their employees speak rather openly about their jobs and Chinese government definitely doesn't lie to their citizens - again, a scary, stark contrast to how things are handled here "we don't spy" --> "ok, we spy but not so much" --> "ok, all your information belongs to us, but it's for your best!" --> "hey, we were finally thinking to work on our budget deficit, could we outsource our $3 billion survaillance backups to ISPs?". In U.S., we pour who knows how many billions of dollars in NSA and other entities that are heavily protected from any scrunity and can be above any laws without white house or press ever hearing anything (just how long they have succesfully operated black sites in Egypt and elsewhere before anyone heard about their existence? and what the white house did when we heard? "i guess they are not big problems, uh?"). In European Union, UK succesfully lobbed for legislation that requires companies to store dialed numbers, etc. That has been done in U.S. for the past 30 years or so, and not merely just dialed numbers, but the content as well. For comparison, except for perhaps UK, there is not a single country in European Union which engages in any kind of content survaillence (in France, courts can intervene in Nazi movements if someone blames, but they have never considered survaillance). And no, they don't have big problems with "terrorism" or "child predators". Are we Americans so much more evil that we need all this "protection"?

And no, their economies don't suffer because they lack a national industrial policy integrated with goverment intelligence. Do we really need to protect Halliburton and other 'nice companies' from free markets?

This new bill is just a precautionary development in case mainstream companies such as Google would introduce heavily encrypted versions. They know that the public will yell if encryption weakening or data mining software is implemented on user side (i.e. a deal with microsoft), but hardly anyone yells if anything is done on server side (as it seems, a mandatory data access/transfer to survaillance officials). If you want to provide encrypted freedom to your users, locate your servers in countries like Netherlands.

The data presented here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-157.html

Shows that prison populations, murder rates, organized crime, etc... all went UP during prohibition and went down after it ended....

from that source:
"The most telling sign of the relationship between serious crime and Prohibition was the dramatic reversal in the rates for robbery, burglary, murder, and assault when Prohibition was repealed in 1933. That dramatic reversal has Marxist and business-cycle crime theorists puzzled to this day. For example, sociologist John Pandiani noted that "a major wave of crime appears to have begun as early as the mid 1920s [and] increased continually until 1933 . . . when it mysteriously reversed itself."[50] Theodore Ferdinand also found a "mysterious" decline that began in 1933 and lasted throughout the 1930s.[51] How could they miss the significance of the fact that the crime rate dropped in 1933?"

I don't know if this is what you were implying, but it isn't really society's fault that people get so caught up in the persuit of physical wealth.

The problem:

Big Business
Big Media
Big Government
Big TROUBLE!!!

I disagree. In a nutshell:

Big Business - The undisputed engine of modern civilization. Without it....'Dark Ages' (pre late 18th century, the time of the Industrial Revolution)

Big Media - The megaphone of Big Business which are the true customers of it. Inescapable (advertising everywhere -- even in bathrooms!) Persuasive (image/emotional/'branding' based ads instead of concise, product facts and benefits based advertising). Rapacious (pop culture is cannibalized to sell stuff i.e. CHEVY TRUCK'S 'LIKE A ROCK' campaign -- Why did Bob Seger let Chevrolet use his song for that (in)famous ad campaign? Surely he didn't need the money and the 1983 film Risky Business made him (and Tom Cruise) household names). Wasteful (U.S. commercial TV is about 25% advertising. How much postal junk mail did you throw away today? How many full-page magazine ads did you flip past today?). Assinine (the worst offender is probably the Enzite commercials and the hot water the company is in....). When Big Media is used in the service of Big Government, the results can be disturbing yet eye-opening! (Remember the fuss over Willie Horton or Lyndon Johnson's infamous 'Daisy' campaign ad attacking opponent Barry Goldwater?)

Big Government - An outgrowth of the above two items. USA's bipartisan political system is essentially 'two sides of the same coin'. Doesn't matter if the Republicans or Democrats (or both) are in power in Washington D.C., big business is always running the show behind the scenes. Just look at how the U.S. tax code balloned from a few pages when it was introduced in 1914 to several feet of shelf space!...

Big TROUBLE!!! - Unless people 'vote with their wallets' and stop patronizing the handfull of 'big businesses' out there, there could then be genuine competition in a marketplace inhabited by dozens...even hundreds of smaller businesses in various industries. Real innovation could take place instead of being suppressed by 'dirty tricks' and lots of cash.... Decentralization appears to be our only hope to 'undo' this mess in a controlled, peaceful, economically oriented manner.

"Net Neutrality"
Digital Discrimination or Regulatory
Gamesmanship in Cyberspace?

The regulatory regime envisioned by Net neutrality mandates would also open the door to a great deal of potential "gaming" of the regulatory system and allow firms to use the regulatory system to hobble competitors. Worse yet, it would encourage more FCC regulation of the Internet and broadband markets in general.

The Internet is the success it is today because the FCC did not regulate it. Let's not screw that up.

The SSN was never intended to be an identification system. In fact, its proponents promised up and down that the SSN would never be used for anything but keeping records of individual retirement accounts.

Also, the rate would never be more than 3%. And "your employer pays half". And it wasn't "insurance" for legal purposes, until the Supreme Court agreed that it wasn't insurance, at which point they started calling it insurance. The entire program is based on deceptions.

Sorry for replying to my own post, but I found a nice summary of the CATO Institute's concerns regarding this program.

This morning on NPR, they interviewed a guy from the CATO institute (not exacty a bastion of left-wing liberalism) who said that while the NSA program, on initial review, appeared to meet the letter of the law, it certainly wasn't implemented in the "spirit" of the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution.

I completely agree with this thought. It may or may not be a legal program, but whatever the legality, it is wrong on so many levels.

Great thoughts! I totally agree with you! However, the only problem is this station is huge! In fact, according to the NASA Mission Page it's 404,069 pounds with a width Across Solar Arrays of 240 feet. It's 146 feet long from Destiny Lab to Zvezda; 171 feet with a Progress docked and 90 feet high!

Whilst if you take a peek at the Shuttle info page you'll find that the cargo bay is 60 ft long, 15 ft in diameter. so there's almost no way you could get that station anywhere inside the orbiter. The only possible way to get it down, is the same way we got it up there in the first place. Which means dismantling it ! I found a nice array of photos showing the process here.

I find the station has cost billions already and is a decade behind schedule. Here's a summary:
INITIAL DESIGN PAPERWORK -- $10 billion
HARDWARE -- $25 billion
SHUTTLE SERVICING COSTS -- $20 billion
MAINTENANCE -- $41 billion
YEAR 2001 COST OVERRUN (disclosed immediately AFTER the presidential election of 2000): $5 billion.

So, multiply this by two and you get the cost of bringing it down. Are you a tax payer? If so, I'm guessing you don't want to pay that :). Hope this clears the question of why they let sattelites burn up there too ... In case it doesn't, it costs around 2000 USD per pound to send a sattelite to space. It costs twice as much to recover it (sending an empty shuttle, a space walk, operating the hand, bringing it down) and we're taking a serious risk here, I mean, sending it up requires no humans, so if something goes wrong, we just blew up a few millions, but hey, if a shuttle explodes -- all hell breaks lose. So I say, leave them to burn out!

"In Somalia, there is no regulation, and there is also no government protection of property rights, thus the economy is not doing well"

That's a little too simplistic.

<sarcasm> The solution to poverty in Africa is government protection of property rights? </sarcasm>

Seriously, I think there is quite a lot more wrong with Somalia than government lacking property law/enforcement.

How about violence and a drought?

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-205.html

$5 a gallon won't make a difference when people will spend $8 a gallon for bottled water. A 20 bottle of water on my school campus costs $1.25. How 'bout $12.80 a gallon for coffee, (two bucks for a venti brewed at Starbucks.)

And the same people that consume pricey beverages will bitch and moan about outrageous profits at $3.00 USD / US gallon at the pump.

The ethanol evangelist are drinking Koolaid made with corn syrup. The Cato Institue reported on the inefficiencies of running a car on moonshine yesterday.

Let corn be used for what God intended it to be used.

People might suffer more chronic illnesses in the U.S than the U.K but when you look at survival rates for cancer and other serious diseases, the U.S does much better than the U.K. Also many people live with chronic ailments that would have killed them much earlier without quick access to things like heart bypass surgery and transplants that we receive in the U.S.

Probably the best study I've found debunking the "utopia" of nationalized health care: 12 Popular Myths About National Health Insurance.

This will likely be an unpopular opinion here, but there's a few things that irk me about the above reference. 1. Benjamin Franklin never said "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.", It was written by Richard Jackson. Benjamin Franklin himself denied writing this phrase in a letter to David Hume dated a year after the book that attributed the phrase to him. Franklin's nearest quote to the same effect holds quite a different meaning: "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power" [1] 2. "This is the same apathy we see every year with laughingly low voter turnouts" - This statement is patently absurd [2] 3. People who frequently pen, "The majority of people in America are too stupid..." are typically intellectually insecure, obnoxiously arrogant, or both. In either regard, they presume to perform with superior judgement to the common sense, which is the antithesis of democracy. 4. "Many Americans sadly enough have no clue the NSA has been spying on Americans." There's 2.2 million webpages on the internet dedicated to reporting the NSA spying efforts. I don't have access to Lexis Nexis anymore or I would happily tell you how many front pages the story has made. The idea that people are 'unaware' of this is stupid. Unlike you, they understand the need to obtain valid intelligence information to fight a war. [3] 5. The Clinton administration claims that it can bypass the warrant clause for "national security" purposes. In July 1994 Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the president "has inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes." [4] What I would rather argue, is which of security or privacy are a more essential liberty, and in fact, is privacy even essential. The Constitution requires reasonable privacy, not absolute. Privacy is not essential for freedom, other than the fact it requires accountability. so you are no longer free to be unaccountable for your actions, given the times, would it be reasonable or even prudent to allow this? There's a big difference between the NSA spying, and say, Bill Clinton using illegal wiretaps to spy on Senators. How many people survived the Rose Law firm scandal by the way?

"Lack of insurance coverage for full-time employees."

As someone pointed out, that's a lie.

"Low wages for employees."

Not all wages can be high, for crying out loud. Wages are a business cost. High wages, high prices for consumers. The point is increasing productivity in economy, not nominal wages. Otherwise you could legislate $100,000 minimum wage and everyone would be well off and happy and working little. It simply doesn't work that way.

"Products that are cheap in quality as well as construction."

They are good enough for consumers who buy them. It's up to them, in economic, political and moral sense to make the choice.

They save the money on it. Get rid of Walmart and you're left with expensive stores for the rich, which you would have probably complained about then as well, asking "and what about those who can't afford buying there?". Doomed if sell cheap and doomed if sell expensive? Is there any way of making it right short of nationalizing entire economy?

"Artificially low "Invade and take over" pricing with smaller communities, destroying local livelyhoods, then raising prices."

This is classic myth of predatory pricing:

http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-169.html

This layman's error, one of the most popular intellectual errors out there. It just can't stand serious examination.

"Attraction of the lowest common denominator to stores, bringing problems to the neighborhood."

You mean "unwanted element" people? How democratic.

Of course, when they show up in the welfare office you have no problem with them?

"Lack of benefits from the company forces the community to pick up the costs, which aren't trivial."

Again, as someon pointed out, that's a myth. BTW: "picking up costs" == "safety net". You wanted it there apparently to be unused? That's what everyone is supposedly paying taxes for. Hey, when you break your leg and ER shows up I'm going to tell you that you force community to pick up the costs.

Now on the other hand if we just had the government maintain it and fairly lease it out to bidders [that being the gotcha] we wouldn't have these problems. As for the "let capitalism run its course" folk look where we are at now.

The cable market has nothing to do with capitalism or a free market. Rather, the cable market is a good example of what happens when government grants state-enforced monopolies to private companies. If you want to know more, check out this article:

Cable Television: An Unnatural Monopoly

"Nearly every community in the United States allows only a single cable company to operate within its borders. Since the Boulder decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that municipalities may be subject to antitrust liability for anticompetitive acts, most cable franchises have been nominally nonexclusive but in fact do operate to preclude all competitors. The legal rationale for municipal regulation is that cable uses city-owned streets and rights-of-way; the economic rationale is the assumption that cable is a "natural monopoly."

"The theory of natural monopoly holds that "because of structural conditions that exist in certain industries, competition between firms cannot endure; and whenever these conditions exist, it is inevitable that only one firm will survive." Thus, regulation is necessary to dilute the ill-effects of the monopoly. Those who assert that cable television is a natural monopoly focus on its economies of scale; that is, its large fixed costs whose duplication by multiple companies would be inefficient and wasteful. Thus, competitive entry into the market should be proscribed because it is bound to be destructive."

"Most natural monopolies turn out to be self-fulfilling prophecies. Once a governmental entity has determined that a certain activity is a natural monopoly, it is within its power to so decree by limiting entry into the market to a single producer. Such is the case with cable television."

Maybe so, but the current system is much more prone to abuse. In any case, no system will be perfect, and the fairtax reduces copliance costs by a factor of 100, and also reduces the number of collection points significantly, allowing government to focus their enforcement efforts more efficiently.

2. The arguments that interest rates will fall by 0.25%, and that the costs of all retail goods and services will fall by 20-25% are really, really tenuous, at best, and they are integral into the supposedly neutral effects of the change.

I assume you have research to back up your statements?

Please refer to these documents for more information. Americans for Fair Taxation (creators of the FairTax) was founded as a research organization, and is supported by research from places such as Stanford, MIT and Harvard.

This public policy paper by the CATO Institute on a national sales tax specifically refers the the drop in interest rates. The revenue-neutrality refers only to the fact that the FairTax would raise no more or less revenue than the current system, while reducing compliance costs and broadening the tax base. This reduction in costs is where the savings comes in, hence the reduction in prices and interest rates.

3. The issue with new homes versus existing homes seems fishy, at best. The market doesn't work that way.

I one again refer you to the research on the effect to the housing market.

Congress, which only has powers given by the Constitution, does not have any power to delegate legislative authority to other bodies (especially not unelected ones). We fought and won a war over that principle.

I fully understand that this and many other Constitutional limitations are effectively ignored, but that does not change the facts (nor does a Supreme Court ruling which concludes that "black is white"). The Constitution itself is quite clear that legislative power may not reside anywhere except Congress itself - "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." It gives no power to delegate those powers, and of course the regulatory situation runs headsquare into the always ignored 10th Amendment.

Interesting reading: https://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv18n1/reg1 8n1-readings.html

Oh. So this whole "let's vote to continue funding NPR" thing is just an elaborate joke?

So your response to "stop taxpayer funding of NPR" is "there is no taxpayer funding." And your source is "the NPR website."

I'm sure if you went to the Josef Stalin website, it'd tell you that he never murdered 10 million Kulaks, either.

(Of course, you also consider their information "unbiased," so I think you're pretty far gone anyway).

Why do we have region codes? We pay $15US (or more) for a DVD here in the US. In China they sell pretty much the same DVDs (sometimes without the extra commentaries etc, what a big loss) for $2-$3US, a fraction of the cost we pay. Obviously, taking into consideration how much the average citizen of China makes, that's a lot for them. But relative to our $15+ DVDs, even if we had to not only buy the DVD in China but pay for shipping back here, it would be cheaper to buy it in China.

So basically, we have region codes to ensure the distribution model of the movie industry works without interference from us pesky consumers being able to expect a price reasonable to us while still being profitable to them. It allows them to choose who's wallets they can pick more without fearing the usual consequences of supply and demand. If we can only get DVDs from one place at one inflated price, we have to go that route.

Ask yourselves... if selling DVDs for $2-$3US was not profitable enough, why would they even bother selling DVDs at such prices in places like China? While you may be prompted to say "to fight back against piracy, they are willing to take a loss", but take a moment to think of all the logical flaws with that, including the fact that by lowering their prices they also make it cheaper for those that pirate there to make copies for even cheaper and still sell them for less than legit DVDs. They would simply get out of that market if selling DVDs at that price was a 'loss' to them. Much the same way Apple will get out of France if iPods become a loss there soon.

While CATO isn't a think-tank I tend to agree with on many issues, I found their take on DRM and such very insightful. The article was carried on /. yesterday but here is the link again in case anyone's interested. They have quite a few explanations and analogies, including a better explanation of why we have region codes than I've provided here.

CATO was once upon a time a libertarian think-tank. Now they are to a very large degree responsible for the reprehensible right-siding of American libertarianism.

Check out their RSS commentary feed. Not one of the ten is about civil liberty. No true libertarian think-tank would simply ignore the recent news regarding warrantless spying on US citizens in their commentary.

CATO posted a incredibly acquiescent acceptance of the 2002 FBI guidelines allowing their agents to monitor Internet sites, libraries, and religious institutions without first showing cause. The author is Roger Pilon, CATO's vice president for legal affairs, a reagancomic, who "held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a National Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution".

CATO has shown itself to be afflicted with the same moral relativism as contemporary conservatism, when they unfurled their banner onstage behind the hand-wringing homophobe, and probably most anally retentive US Senator, Rickey Santorum. They haven fallen far from the Libertarian grace that they once basked in. Three of CATO's best foreign policy analysts have departed in the recent past.

Leon Hader is the earliest think-tank criticizer of Neoconservatism I am aware of:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 125 December 29, 1989
• "Creating a U.S Policy of Constructive Disengagement in the Middle East"
• by Leon T. Hadar

Charles Pena was always anti-imperialist, whether it emerged from liberals or conservatives:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 502: December 15, 2003
• "Iraq: The Wrong War"
• by Charles V. Peña

Ivan Eland was prescient as a CATO old schooler:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 306 May 5, 1998
• "Protecting the Homeland: The Best Defense Is to Give No Offense"
• by Ivan Eland
• --*--
• Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 50 December 17, 1998
• "Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism?"
• by Ivan Eland

Another anti-foreign interventionist, albeit second stringer, Doug Bandow, was recently righteously terminated from CATO, for his less than ethical moonlighting. Now there are just two remaining, Ted Galen Carpenter, and Christopher Preble.

CATO has sold their birthright for a fancy new house within the beltway. In this era of an executive administration, so arrogant, ignorant and incompetent, that the WTC destruction occurred on their watch, which has furthered dishonored itself by callously ignoring Constitutional restrictions, CATO has instead focused upon property rights, social security reform, and slandering the Federal Judiciary, while barely mentioning Republican hypocrisy inherent in the rampant deficit spending, and the increase of governmental invasion of personal liberty in the name of religion.

CATO was once upon a time a libertarian think-tank. Now they are to a very large degree responsible for the reprehensible right-siding of American libertarianism.

Check out their RSS commentary feed. Not one of the ten is about civil liberty. No true libertarian think-tank would simply ignore the recent news regarding warrantless spying on US citizens in their commentary.

CATO posted a incredibly acquiescent acceptance of the 2002 FBI guidelines allowing their agents to monitor Internet sites, libraries, and religious institutions without first showing cause. The author is Roger Pilon, CATO's vice president for legal affairs, a reagancomic, who "held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a National Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution".

CATO has shown itself to be afflicted with the same moral relativism as contemporary conservatism, when they unfurled their banner onstage behind the hand-wringing homophobe, and probably most anally retentive US Senator, Rickey Santorum. They haven fallen far from the Libertarian grace that they once basked in. Three of CATO's best foreign policy analysts have departed in the recent past.

Leon Hader is the earliest think-tank criticizer of Neoconservatism I am aware of:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 125 December 29, 1989
• "Creating a U.S Policy of Constructive Disengagement in the Middle East"
• by Leon T. Hadar

Charles Pena was always anti-imperialist, whether it emerged from liberals or conservatives:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 502: December 15, 2003
• "Iraq: The Wrong War"
• by Charles V. Peña

Ivan Eland was prescient as a CATO old schooler:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 306 May 5, 1998
• "Protecting the Homeland: The Best Defense Is to Give No Offense"
• by Ivan Eland
• --*--
• Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 50 December 17, 1998
• "Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism?"
• by Ivan Eland

Another anti-foreign interventionist, albeit second stringer, Doug Bandow, was recently righteously terminated from CATO, for his less than ethical moonlighting. Now there are just two remaining, Ted Galen Carpenter, and Christopher Preble.

CATO has sold their birthright for a fancy new house within the beltway. In this era of an executive administration, so arrogant, ignorant and incompetent, that the WTC destruction occurred on their watch, which has furthered dishonored itself by callously ignoring Constitutional restrictions, CATO has instead focused upon property rights, social security reform, and slandering the Federal Judiciary, while barely mentioning Republican hypocrisy inherent in the rampant deficit spending, and the increase of governmental invasion of personal liberty in the name of religion.

CATO was once upon a time a libertarian think-tank. Now they are to a very large degree responsible for the reprehensible right-siding of American libertarianism.

Check out their RSS commentary feed. Not one of the ten is about civil liberty. No true libertarian think-tank would simply ignore the recent news regarding warrantless spying on US citizens in their commentary.

CATO posted a incredibly acquiescent acceptance of the 2002 FBI guidelines allowing their agents to monitor Internet sites, libraries, and religious institutions without first showing cause. The author is Roger Pilon, CATO's vice president for legal affairs, a reagancomic, who "held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including at State and Justice, and was a National Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution".

CATO has shown itself to be afflicted with the same moral relativism as contemporary conservatism, when they unfurled their banner onstage behind the hand-wringing homophobe, and probably most anally retentive US Senator, Rickey Santorum. They haven fallen far from the Libertarian grace that they once basked in. Three of CATO's best foreign policy analysts have departed in the recent past.

Leon Hader is the earliest think-tank criticizer of Neoconservatism I am aware of:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 125 December 29, 1989
• "Creating a U.S Policy of Constructive Disengagement in the Middle East"
• by Leon T. Hadar

Charles Pena was always anti-imperialist, whether it emerged from liberals or conservatives:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 502: December 15, 2003
• "Iraq: The Wrong War"
• by Charles V. Peña

Ivan Eland was prescient as a CATO old schooler:

• Cato Policy Analysis No. 306 May 5, 1998
• "Protecting the Homeland: The Best Defense Is to Give No Offense"
• by Ivan Eland
• --*--
• Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 50 December 17, 1998
• "Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism?"
• by Ivan Eland

Another anti-foreign interventionist, albeit second stringer, Doug Bandow, was recently righteously terminated from CATO, for his less than ethical moonlighting. Now there are just two remaining, Ted Galen Carpenter, and Christopher Preble.

CATO has sold their birthright for a fancy new house within the beltway. In this era of an executive administration, so arrogant, ignorant and incompetent, that the WTC destruction occurred on their watch, which has furthered dishonored itself by callously ignoring Constitutional restrictions, CATO has instead focused upon property rights, social security reform, and slandering the Federal Judiciary, while barely mentioning Republican hypocrisy inherent in the rampant deficit spending, and the increase of governmental invasion of personal liberty in the name of religion.