Slashdot Mirror

"it will hand yet more power to the financial sector in that banks and related fintech companies will oversee all transactions."

Banks compete with each other and have to please me to keep my business. The real danger is the government. It already forces banks to snitch on customers, will gleefully confiscate "suspiciously large" amounts of cash, and are already talking about eliminating large bills to further discourage you from using cash.

While folks are up in arms about the FBI, the real threat to privacy is the taxman... Can never buy yourself enough civilization, can you?

So you've never been to Chattanooga then.

You would do well to read http://www.governmentisgood.co...

It would correct a significant portion of your ignorance.

Encryption is a weapon. Like other weapons, it can be used to defend one's own self or someone else, and to commit murder. Like other weapons, it is dangerous and governments hate it like they hate all weapons — they make governing harder.

So, it is not surprising to see governments agreeing here.

What is surprising is to find other Statists — those enablers of the governments' mission-creeps, the lovers of taxes (with which they are "happy" to "buy civilization") to suddenly disagree.

Look strawman

This is not "strawman" — such government overreach and assertiveness is an inevitable outcome of Statists, who think, their taxes buy them civilization.

Even an incredibly weak government can take everything you have.

No, not if I am reasonably armed and have my neighbors' support.

Moreover, an "incredibly weak government" would not even know about me and there being anything worth taking from me...

you do realize that it is government that enables capitalism to exist right?
that without it, capitalism wouldn't exist?

ah, but you're confusing the free market and capitalism.
you see, they aren't the same thing.

Read and be enlightened.
"Capitalism requires government"
http://www.governmentisgood.co...

Nutshell: capitalists make the most money when there is a healthy and vibrant middle class. But the middle class does not exist on its own, as the free market and sheer human nature, both naturally tend to eliminate it. So the middle class also requires government to exist.

And there's the LLC laws, property rights, basic law and order, bankruptcy laws, stable currency, infrastructure (roads, electricity, water, communications, internet), banking regulation and insurance....

the list is quite large, and really the number of ways in which capitalism benefits from and needs government to exist is extensive.

Is not it great, how much civilization you can buy with your taxes today?

Hear hear!
sigmon needs a dose of reality and basic civics.

Further support for reality can be found at ( http://www.governmentisgood.co... ).
Government and bureaucracy brings its own issues and problems to the table. But government being the reflection of hte people, the representation of hte people's collective will is the ONLY counter-weight to corporate power.

Time and again, throughout history, it is proven repeatedly that individuals on their own cannot stand against corporations. It requires large collective action to successfully oppose a corporation.

It's not that corporations are good or evil, its precisely that they are neither, they are amoral, that the problem comes from. In their pursuit of hte almighty dollar they do not care for the good or ill effects of what they do. All that matters is $$$. But in that pursuit they have great capacity to do harm. And that is why we require regulation, to prevent that harm.

If they want to do great good in the pursuit of $$$...let them knock themselves out.
But there is absolutely zero reason why we should allow them to cause harm in the pursuit of that $$$.
Hence: Government and Regulation.

It looks like you need to read: http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=7
A little enlightenment as just what exactly government has achieved.
A little dose of reality for your bias filter.

Irregardless

People without the brainpower to realize that this is not a word, annoy me.

I think the "system" is designed to swallow all money you throw at it and beg for more, regardless of quantities. It's a bottomless pit. Saying you will fill it with more people doesn't stop it from being bottomless.

You've been hanging around the Tea Party/Ree Tardy crowd too much. "The System" works more-or-less as it is intended to work: to try to balance the schizophrenic, contradictory desires of the population.

Seriously, look at the aggregate set of various polls. Here's a good article that helps sum it up.
The problem is not "too much government." The problem is that everyone wants certain things but can't agree how to pay for it.

And in a country where just 400 people control over 50% of the wealth, we have a major oligarchy problem as it stands.

We're forced to fork over more and more tax money every year for idiotic social programs and wealth redistribution. We may not be serving time, but our money sure is.

Wow, things must be tough on your planet!

Here on Earth, however, both taxes and social programs in the U.S.A. are being cut: http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=14

And the politicians are happy to bankrupt your children and grandchildren to make it happen, through ever-increasing deficit spending.

By the way, I don't know if you count industry subsidies and other forms of "corporate welfare" among the "idiotic social programs and wealth redistribution," but it continues to grow:

"Government subsidies and tax breaks to corporations outpace all the federal money spent on programs for the poor, including welfare, food stamps, housing subsides, and student aid."

We're forced to fork over more and more tax money every year for idiotic social programs and wealth redistribution. We may not be serving time, but our money sure is.

Wow, things must be tough on your planet!

Here on Earth, however, both taxes and social programs in the U.S.A. are being cut: http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=14

And the politicians are happy to bankrupt your children and grandchildren to make it happen, through ever-increasing deficit spending.

By the way, I don't know if you count industry subsidies and other forms of "corporate welfare" among the "idiotic social programs and wealth redistribution," but it continues to grow:

"Government subsidies and tax breaks to corporations outpace all the federal money spent on programs for the poor, including welfare, food stamps, housing subsides, and student aid."