Slashdot Mirror
Presidential Answers, Round One
1) War on Drugs
by Tim Doran
The War on Drugs has been a consistently neglected topic in discussions surrounding this federal election. My question is, do you believe the War on Drugs has been an unqualified success, and if not, what would you change about it if elected president?
Browne:
The question I most wanted to ask Al Gore and George Bush in the debates was, "Would you be a better person today if, for your youthful indiscretions, you had spent 10 years in prison? If not, why do presume to sentence young people to punitive sentences for doing nothing more than "experimenting" with drugs as you did?"
The War on Drugs has been every bit as successful as the War on Poverty, the War on Prostitution, and the War on Gambling - meaning it's been an absolute failure. As with other wars, the War on Drugs has bred enormous crime, corruption, and expense. I want to end the nightmare of Prohibition - with its black market, criminal gangs, drive-by shootings, bootleg drugs, and corrupt law enforcement.
I'm so committed to ending this insane war on our civil liberties, that I've promised that the very first thing I will do as President, from the Inauguration stand, is sign an unconditional pardon for all non-violent drug offenders currently serving their sentence in federal prison.
McReynolds:
The war on drugs is not only a failure, it is the wrong war. Heroin is a sad addiction but one we need to accept and allow addicts to get heroin through doctors. Marijuana, the most widely used illegal drug, is not addictive, no one has died from an overdose, it is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, and it should be legalized. Unlike Bill Clinton, I did inhale and from time to time still do.
I'm not sure of what to do about cocaine but one thing I know you don't do is send American helicopters into Colombia, and you don't spray crops in Bolivia, Peru, etc. The problem isn't there - it is here, in education and treatment. End the drug war.
2) Minority Religions...
by Electric Angst
What will you do to protect the rights of atheists and those who hold minority faiths, such as Wicca, Santaria, Shinto, et al?
McReynolds:
As an atheist I have an interest in this topic. (Perhaps I'm a Buddhist atheist, which is not actually a contradiction, as "orthodox Buddhists" out there will understand). All faiths, from Wicca to Shinto should be protected on the same basis as Judaism, Christianity, etc. All I could do is make clear the Bill of Rights covers this, and pledge to defend the Bill of Rights, which remains a radical document which probably could not be passed into law today. Thank God we have it. I believe in it.
Browne:
Minority faiths should vote Libertarian because we're the only party that will take away the power of government to inflict one person's values on another. This not only will make those who practice minority faiths safe from those of differing values, it will also make groups like Christians feel safe from other faiths - so each will no longer feel the need to fight the other.
Specifically, I intend to do more than talk a good game - as so many politicians have. I intend to get the federal government out of everything not authorized in the Constitution, so that all anti-religious, or religious for that matter, will be eliminated automatically.
By preaching "family values," conservative politicians like Pat Buchanan and George Bush keep you on the hook - even though they are doing nothing to actually promote such values or free you from government oppression.
I want to completely repeal the Income Tax. This would better enable individuals to live by their values, and would empower parents to choose schooling for their children that supports their values.
I am the only politician in this race who refuses to pretend I know what's best for you. I don't want to be your leader, deciding everything about your life, especially who and how you worship. That's a decision for each of the 270 million "leaders" that live in our nation.
3) Why give a tax cut?
by funkman
With the surplus, everyone has been saying "Let's have a tax cut, Let's have a tax cut." In the meantime, Alan Greenspan and friends are trying to keep inflation and the speed of the growing economy in check so it doesn't burst. Which they are doing by raising interest rates periodically. (6 times this year)
A tax cut flies in the face of what Greenspan is trying to do. A tax cut will inject more money into the economy and do what Greenspan is preventing.
Why is a tax cut so big? Wouldn't the money be better spent on the deficit so when worse times roll along, a tax cut can be easily given by not paying as much on the debt?
Browne:
What deficit? Al Gore and George Bush are both claiming we don't have a deficit? Gore says that we have no deficit because Bill Clinton managed the economy so well. Bush says we have no deficit because we had Republicans in Congress.
But the deficit does exist, and the way we know is that the national debt is still increasing. We're robbing Peter to pay Paul, or more precisely the politicians are robbing your future to pay for all their wonderful programs today. The Social Security program is currently bringing in more money than it spends, and that money is being used to pay for the current operating expenses of government.
We're really the ones paying the bill. It's not the Russians, or the Martians who will end up paying the bill -- it's you and me. That money the politicians are spending is ours.
If there were a surplus, that's money were being overtaxed. If, on the other hand, there's a deficit, that's money that's a debt our children will have to pay. Deficit spending also means higher interest rates for home, auto, consumer, and college loans. You're paying one way or the other.
There is a solution, and only I am proposing it -- not Bush, Gore, or Nader. End the Income Tax and the IRS, and replace them with nothing. Our country became the greatest, free nation in the world without an Income Tax. But the Income Tax funds all the unconstitutional programs that exist today. If we ended the Income Tax we could finance all the constitutional functions of government such as, defense, the courts and a couple other permitted functions.
But more importantly, you would be free -- free to save, invest, or spend as you see fit.
McReynolds:
I'm not for a tax cut. I'm for higher taxes, lower for the poor (in fact a "negative income tax" for those at the poverty level, which means they would get cash back) and much higher for the wealthy. I'm for an estate tax on the very rich which would confiscate the bulk of their money at the time of death - not because they were bad people, but because vast concentrations of economic power distort the fabric of democracy.
There are many projects - from expanding Amtrak to health care - which need funding. Some of that can come from the Socialist Party's proposed 50% across the board cut in military spending.
4) electoral reform
by carleton
Some people, especially those that favor '3-rd' party candidates, have called for the ending of the electoral college system to be replaced by a simple purely popular vote, or at least allowing for splitting the electoral votes by each state. The best recent example was the Bush-Clinton election. Clinton received 43% of the popular vote (but a sufficient majority of the electoral vote), whereas Perot got at least 10% of the popular vote but zero electoral votes. If memory serves, Vermont is the only state which does currently allow for its votes to be split; if someone wins 60% of the Vermont popular vote, they get 2 votes and the 40% candidate gets 1. This in contrast to California, where someone can get 51% of the popular vote, and therefore gets 53 (or whatever it is nowadays) electoral votes. What is your position on this issue?
Browne:
(no answer)
McReynolds:
First, abolish the electoral college. It discourages voting (if
you live
in Texas and are a Democrat why vote? If you live in New York and are
a
Republican, why vote?). Second, have an instant run off system for
the
President, which is how the Mayor of London was elected. It is very
simple
and "empowers" smaller parties. You would cast your ballot with, as
one
example, your top five choices. Let's suppose it was:
McReynolds #1
Nader #2
Gore #3
Bush #4
Hagelin #5
If Al Gore got enough #1 votes on the first count, he is the winner -
end of
story.
But if on the first count no one gets a majority you take the lowest
candidate (let's say it was me) and find out who my #2 choice was, so
that is
added to Nader's total.
It is possible - not likely but possible - that Nader might be #2 on
enough
ballots that he would have a majority. But probably he wouldn't and
you'd go
on down the list, transferring Nader's "second choice" to the next
candidate,
etc.
This means that if you voted for a Socialist Party candidate you weren't helping elect Bush. Also means if you voted for the Libertarian candidate you wouldn't be helping elect Gore.
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
by Phil Gregory
In this age of the Internet, intellectual property has become a very important concept to many people. Many companies make their living on the artificial scarcity provided by intellectual property laws, selling information that they have either created or aggregated. Some others, mostly in the Free Software world, make their living seemingly in spite of these laws, selling their services based on information that is freely given.
Do you feel that our current system of intellectual property is a good one? Which parts of it (e.g. trademarks, patents, copyrights) do you feel are well suited to the world of the Internet and which do you think need to be changed (and, if changes are needed, what changes are needed)?
McReynolds:
I'm not going to dodge - I'll admit I have not studied this enough to know where I stand. I certainly am against the monstrous profits going to studio chiefs, but I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off. Have to pass on this one./i>
McReynolds:
Browne:
I believe the marketplace will develop ways of protecting intellectual property if the government stays out of it. Witness the way software companies send you trial programs that automatically go dead after 30 days. Similar innovations will be found to protect other kinds of intellectual property. No, they won't be perfect, but they will work a lot better than laws written by politicians and enforced by bureaucrats.
6) Encryption....
by SquadBoy
Many tech people think that strong encryption is one of the best ways we have to protect freedom both now and for future generations. For example to preserve information that future not so friendly governments may think we don't need to have and to make sure that things we want to have remain private remain private. Given this what would you do to help preserve our right to privacy through the use of strong encryption? Also in a related question what are your thoughts and what do you plan to do about the fact that we can not export many forms of strong encryption?
Browne:
No one should prevent you from encrypting anything you want, and the government should have no access to your encrypted messages, unless you want it to.
I favor a total absence of export controls. They are not used for national security. They are used to favor those with access to political power and to harm the competitors of those with access to political power.
McReynolds:
While I doubt any form of encryption can defy decoding I think people have a right to use it, the government is wrong to try to block its use or prevent its transfer to other countries.
7) Rising Political Protests
by sterno
In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals. Do you believe that these people have reason to be concerned? If you do believe that they have reason for concern, what steps would you take as president to deal with their concerns?
McReynolds:
Obviously they have reason to be concerned! At two levels. First, workers in this country see their jobs floating to other countries were trade unions and environmental protections are weak, wages are low, and thus profits are higher. To have a level playing field we should support the international organization of working people, so that workers in Korea or Thailand can fight for protection, increase their wages, and force the capitalist investors to settle for a lower profit. The struggle is to increase labor's share of the pie. As a socialist I am very strongly for that.
The problem is, however, much deeper. Captialist modes of production, unless controlled by strong state intervention (or unless placed under social ownership within a democratic society) exploit the resources of the world without any concern except for profit. Biggest and best example - the Tobacco Corporations, who have known for decades they were selling death, but found it profitable. The forests of Brazil are being destroyed because it is profitable. Cars instead of railroads are produced because it is profitable. The environment is threatened by industrialization and technology - but very much more so when those processes are carried out by profit-driven global corporations which are more powerful than almost any nation state.
Browne:
The greatest guarantor of peace isn't a strong military or an international organization. It is free trade among countries. When people can buy and sell freely with people in another country, they have a good reason to discourage their leaders from going to war with that country. This interdependence is a far more reliable guarantor of peace than foreign aid, arms sales, and treaties.
Winston Churchill put it very well back in 1903: . . the fact that this great trade exists between nations binds them together in spite of themselves, and has in the last thirty years done more to preserve the peace of the world than all the Ambassadors, Prime Ministers, and Foreign Secretaries and Colonial Secretaries put together. When a government excludes other countries from sources of raw materials or from markets for their wares, it undermines the economic motives for maintaining peace.
Lost Jobs?
Free trade doesn't cost jobs, it improves them. Money spent on foreign products doesn't disappear from the American economy. It's true that an American company loses a sale when an American buys a Japanese car. And if it loses enough sales to foreign competitors, it will stop hiring for a while--or even lay people off (just as it would if it lost sales to an American competitor). But the total number of American jobs doesn't decline, because the money spent abroad will come back here in one form or another.
When an American buys a foreign car (or any other foreign product), the foreign seller receives dollars. He (or some other foreigner to whom he trades the dollars) will use the money to buy an American product. Or he'll buy an American investment--which also puts the money into circulation in America. Or he'll leave it in a bank--which will lend it to someone who will spend it in America. One way or another, the money creates jobs somewhere in the American economy. When a foreign industry outsells an American industry, the lost American jobs are highly visible. But the new American jobs aren't so easy to see, because they're spread out over many different industries. So politicians can score points railing against foreign competitors--even though their arguments have no basis in reality.
Trade Aggression?
Politicians describe foreign trade as though it were a war between countries--with winners and losers. Here, for example, is a statement by one of the 1996 presidential candidates: The Japanese in the last 25 years have bought 400,000 American cars and sold us 40 million. Now if that is not trade aggression, I don't know what is. You've got to wake up and start defending the national interest of the United States and of American workers, American businesses, and American auto workers.
But every one of those 40 million Japanese cars was bought by an American who wanted it. Providing what someone wants isn't aggression. Barring Japanese companies from selling cars in America is forcibly preventing Americans from getting what they want--which is aggression. And if someone thinks Japanese sales here are aggression, what are American sales in Japan? Here are a few areas in which U.S. companies "aggressed" rather aggressively in 1994: Was this trade aggression? Should American companies be forcibly prevented from selling products they can make better than foreign companies?
Most politicians miss the whole point of international trade. It isn't a game or a battle or a war. Each transaction benefits both sides. To quote Winston Churchill again: . . both the selling and the buying of these things were profitable to us; that what we sold, we sold at a good profit, for a natural and sufficient return; that what we bought, we bought because we thought it worth our while to buy, and thought we could turn it to advantage. And in this way commerce is utterly different from war, so that the ideas and the phraseology of the one should never be applied to the other; for in war both sides lose whoever wins the victory, but the transactions of trade, like the quality of mercy, are twice blessed, and confer a benefit on both parties.
Punishing the Innocent
But what about American companies that are shut out by foreign governments? Just as the sale of foreign goods in this country blesses both buyers and sellers, a foreign government that prevents its citizens from buying American goods injures both the would-be buyer and seller. But our government's response to such wasteful policies is to double the harm by imitating them. If the Japanese government interferes with American car companies, our government wants to forcibly reduce the number of Japanese cars sold here. But why should American car-buyers be punished for the sins of the Japanese government? The politicians don't address that point because they don't care about the American buyer. But if pressed for an answer, they'd probably say it's the only way to pressure the Japanese government to open its trade doors. Hurting innocent people in order to make someone else bend to one's will is the tactic of a terrorist. Governments have been using this tactic for centur ies--which it why there still are so many trade barriers.
Again, Winston Churchill in 1903 had something to say to those today who believe we can open foreign markets by closing our own: There's a feeling that England has only to retaliate and foreign tariff walls will immediately collapse. But all the great nations of the world are Protectionist; they have been for 100 years past, and perhaps for many years before that, endeavoring by every dodge of reciprocity or negotiation to force each other to reduce their tariffs in each other's respective interests. Where have they come to? Have they reached Free Trade? On the contrary, their tariffs have risen higher and higher, and at this moment Free-trade England, which does nothing, Free-trade England, with masterly inactivity, occupies in regard to the nations of the world so far as tariffs are concerned, a position of advantage to which few of the Protectionist countries have attained and which none of them has surpassed.
With virtually no tariffs of its own, England had become the world's leading exporter--while governments that used trade barriers to jockey for advantage did more harm than good to their own exporters. Too bad England eventually fell off the Free Trade wagon.
8) Asteroid Defenses
by Ethelred Unraed
Would you renew funding of programs to research and develop global defense systems against asteroids or other such threats from space?
Browne:
In 1983 Ronald Reagan made the most sensible military suggestion of the past 50 years -- that America should have protection against a missile attack. Unfortunately, he assigned the job to the Department of Defense, and now -- 17 years later -- we are no closer to being protected than we were then. The only thing the government should do is post a reward -- $25, or even $50 billion -- to be given to the first private company that can demonstrate a working, functioning, fool-proof missile defense system. Not a prototype, not a plan -- but the actual system.
Perhaps a properly functioning system could deal with "global threats from space" though that wouldn't be our first or primary objectives.
McReynolds:
An interesting idea. If this can be totally separate from the crackpot idea of a Star Wars program, and made an international program under the United Nations I would favor it.
9) The Future of the Country, and of Humanity
by 11223
I'm very concerned with the future of the country, and about what our national mission seems to be. Looking back through American history, every period seems to have a defining popular mission - like the "manifest destiny" movement in the 19th century, the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. During these times, there would be one struggle or idea that captivated the attention of the nation, sort of providing a national mission.
I'm a little confused as I look around today. What is our mission? To me, it seems to be "to watch TV and use the Internet." What would you say the defining national mission of today is? What should it be? Furthermore, how would you show this in your activities as a lawmaker? (For instance, if our national mission is the pursuit of science, then would you increase funding for scientific pursuits in the budget?)
McReynolds:
This nation doesn't have to have a "mission". The United States is an exceptional country in many ways, and certainly unique. But one problem we have is this damn "need" for a mission. Finland doesn't have a "mission". China doesn't have a "mission". Costa Rica doesn't have a "mission". Beware of missionaries! Build a good and decent country, compassionate, democratic, heading toward socialism, and make time to sniff the roses on the way. We don't need a "mission".
Browne:
This question concerns me. I have no national mission in mind and no broad plan to herd you into, as if this was the Fatherland. You're an American. That means you have a rich history handed down to you from men who risked, and in some cases lost, their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in the pursuit of liberty.
Not only would I not increase scientific funding in the budget, I'd end it altogether because the truth is government doesn't work. It doesn't keep our streets safe, educate our children or provide a secure retirement. It doesn't aid progress, it hinders it. Government is politics, not progress. Government is bureaucracy, inefficiency, and brute force. It is the least desirable, least effective and least likely to succeed means of getting anything accomplished.
What is my vision for you? I want you to be free -- you and every other American. You should be free to live your life as you see fit, not as Al Gore, George Bush or Ralph Nader see fit. I want you to be able to spend, to save, or to invest all the money you earn. I want you to be responsible for your life. And if you choose to watch TV and use the Internet all day, that's ok with me, so long as the rest of us aren't required to subsidize your lifestyle choice.
Probably from the money received from auctioning off all the federal government's unconstitutional assets. This process would probably leave the federal government with enough money to operate in the Libertarian manner for at least a few centuries.
The same way the government was funded before the income tax. Check the U.S. Constitution for details.
I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off. I'm sure he meant " aren't ripped off"... but what do I know?
Revision 0.1 Democrat/Republican/Socialist/Green Party ---->Totalitarian regimes who decide how much you can earn, own, do, and finally what you think. Libertarian ---->Believe that you know best what to do in governing your own affairs and that you don't know best when trying to govern others affairs.
Lets see here...
Who's come to my door and tried to peddle their beliefs at me? (To the point that I got fed up and put up a 'no biblethumpers' sign).
- Jehova's Witnesses
- LDS / Mormons
- Lutherans (yes, it happened.)
Guess what one of the part of the Wiccan belief is? That a Wiccan will answer questions asked about their beliefs, but not try to "convert" anyone. If someone wants to become Wican, that is their choice. If they would rather not, that is also thier choice. And both choices are valid and respected. No proselyting. No infidels. No heretics.
That, right there, makes them very respectable in my opinion. Sounds like they 'get' the Golden Rule better than mainstream religion.
No I'm not Wiccan. I was raised Lutheran, actually. What am I now? Does it even matter, really, to you?
Some interesting points. Definitely also makes me sure not to vote for either one of these candidates. The socialist seemed a bit unprepared (can you be unprepared for an email interview?). Although I can admire someone for flatout stating that they don't know the answer to a question, he didn't seem knowledgable enough to run a country. Seemed like a nice enough guy, maybe you could kick back and smoke a joint and chat with him sometime, but I'd rather not make him president. The libertarian has some radical ideas. He seemed very knowledgable but I'd have to say I don't personally agree with some of the conclusions he draws. As tempting as the idea of no income tax is, I severely doubt that the country could get accustomed to that after being conditioned by the world we presently live in. Take-home income in the U.S. is spent on houses and cars and TVs and computers. If you have more take-home income, you buy a bigger house, car, TV and faster computer. However all of a sudden no one is paying for the public services that we have come to expect. It was also interesting how he mentioned Bush, Gore and Nader together as if Nader wasn't a third party candidate. I realize that he is the most popular of the third party candidates, but that doesn't make him part of the political establishment as Bush and Gore are. sigh My vote is still for Nader, because at least in my simple mind he is the most qualified candidate. Can't say I care for his running mate though.
One question for Mr Browne. Can he name a single major technology invented in the last 100 years that hasn't been a direct result of government funding in science?
Hayek wrote a book about this "The Road to Serfdom."
Read it and the answer becomes abundantly clear. By definition, socialism
requires massive government planning to succeed. Massive
government planning, of course, leads to totalitarianism because it
*must* to work.
IOW, contrary to belief of those on the left, economic freedom
and personal freedom *do* depend on one another. NOTE: they aren't the
*only* things that depend on one another.
Surely you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at you?
I find it funny that there are so many libertarians here on slashdot. Read through Browne's comments carefully. He says he will cut science off all together from the government. He wants to cut the military. Government needs to stay out of people's lives he says. And many of you echo this...yet the *only* reason you are all here discussing this in the first place is because of big government you idiots. The internet was started by the US military funded by the big government. The big government largely oversees its continued function to this day though it carries a substantial commercial interest. How did the world wide web get started? All that big government money that was thrown at particle physics by the US and European governments made it possible for the good folk at CERN particle physics lab to invent this thing for you. So cry about your taxes. Cry about how you love anarchy. Cry about how you want government out of your lives. But don't do it here because you wouldn't be able to here in the first place if it wasn't for big government. Some projects are just too big or have unforseen benefits though apparently of little commercial value to be taken on by corporations alone.
The success of the internet was very much a result of the fact that it was created by the government. The things that make the internet a success is its open structure and standards. All private companies that entered into similar networks sought to keep control of their networks and thus all these networks resulted in failures. (aol is may be successful but its proprietary network wasn't). What made the pc successful is more or less the same thing. Of course the government did not create the pc, but the openness of the pc was a result of anti-trust pressure from the government. Of course once the politicians get to the internet (and try to make it safe for our children, etc), the government may break the good think it started. That still does not go against the point that the government investment in science and research can be of enourmous benefit, if used correctly.
Capitalist or dead, yes. The United States is a Federation, the most time tested form of government in existance. If you are claiming that a Socialist government is ``better'', you need only look at the existing failed systems to see that such a system is self-destructive. If you ask because of the demise of all democracy through temptation (let's vote ourselves free money!) it is a valid concern, and possibly even likely given to two major-party dimwits currently running. That's why it is so important to reduce the federal goverment back to a constitutional minimum - let the states experiment and fail, but keep the whole intact.
Disclaimer: I am not a US resident nor US citizen.
For all the people out there who shout for higher taxes for the rich and less for the poor, I hope that none of you ever complain about paying income tax. Otherwise you'd be a hippocrite.
What defines 'rich'? In my country, a college graduate starts work in the 30% tax bracket. Sure, people earning more can get into brackets up to almost 50%, but it would seem to me that taking a third of your money would suggest that you are too 'rich' already. I heard the tax rates in the US are already higher than ours.
The ultra-rich don't pay their taxes. They have lawyers and accountants to help them get around the system. You keep increasing taxes and more people in the rich category get enough incentive to evade taxes. The people in the middle with mortgages are going to be the ones paying more taxes.
As for the 'tax the poor less' argument, OUR tax free threshold is about 3000USD per YEAR. Not enough to pay the rent, but enough to justify paying 20% of their income above that amount eh?
Face it, when you lift taxes for the 'rich', when tax brackets aren't indexed to inflation, you end up with everyone paying more than they can afford, and the really rich taking their money offshore.
Very high taxes on drugs is not a problem given the already high markup due to the trade currently being illegal. We can make masses of money taxing them and still undercut current prices and increase quality. They should be taxed to just below the point where smuggling becomes attractive.
Admittedly any paricular drug is a luxury, but changing our consciousness is a fundamental drive and therefore satisfying it is no more a luxury than allowing people to practice their chosen religion.
Whether drugs ever get legalised is largely academic - they will always be readily available because they fulfill a basic human need. Of course keeping them illegal ensures that they are easily available to children and more dangerous than they need to be.
We don't need to silence the conservatives, but rather just ignore them and over time they will fade just like the alcohol prohibition supporters.
The money would come from the Constitutional excises and tariffs that Congress can levy in order to pay for govt and national defense. I'll admit that the idea is a bit strange, not paying taxes and all, but it could work and did work up until the early 20th century.
go to www.lp.org - www.self-gov.org - www.harrybrowne.org for info on libertarian thought, yes - hes a would-be politician - but we're actually not terribly fond of typical poliicians and our modern government at large - I'm a libertarian and I think more should be - btw, we're the LARGEST third party out there - with the only real chance of qualifing for federal campaing funding, once that happens then we realisticly can stand a chance during the next election - right now we're supporting ourselves entire by donations. Harry Browne's webpage has some info comparing us to other third parties - we're more then twice as large as Nadar's Green Party (Socialists with a fluffy name, btw) and yet they get more media attention then us...we have libertarians in congress and all over the us, theres hundreds of us holding public office - literally no other third party can claim that yet our name is rarely heard in the media...perhaps because we represent a real threat and change?
I too am a Libertarian. However, this statement is incorrect. Libertarians do not and should not accept taxpayer money to fund campaigns. In fact, this year Harry qualified for over $1 million in federal matching funds, but TURNED IT DOWN.
It would be hypocritical to speak about binding federal government to its constitutional limits while simultaneously taking political welfare money from the hands of the taxpayers.
>Before I say anything, I should note that I'm a scientist on the public dole, so I'm biased.
So am I.
>That being said, even though I have some libertarian tendencies I think that Browne's plan to end all government scientific funding is foolish. The reason: basic research is one of the best investments you can make. It is almost guaranteed to pay off.
All the more reason that private individuals can (and do) invest in an umbrella corporation. It pools the resources and spreads the risk.
>Some corporate funding of research has worked well in the past (Bell Labs?), but it just doesn't seem to be feasable today.
Yeah, there would be no way that a private company could even attempt to map the human genome.
>Investing in basic scientific research is just too long term for most corporations.
Those that don't, die. Those that do, have a chance at prosperity. Capitalism is messy. Change is constant.
>Never mind "five year plans" or even retirement times for top executives, you may not be able to fund enough projects to have any statistical confidence that any but the most applied of research programs may pay off for you. And the payoffs may be something unexpected, which you will have trouble reaping the benefits of anyway.
Like the transistor, the IC, the sticky note? If it is useful, benefits will be reaped. If not by you, then by someone else. You can then go to work for them to do more research.
Harry Browne is the Anti-Nader! (or is it Nader that is the Anti-Browne?)
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
That's the whole *point* of the Libertarian platform. You care enough about the environment to start a group to help it, and to educate others on why helping the environment is a Good Thing, etc. The goal of the Libertarian party is for it's citizens to have enough "enlightened self-interest" to overcome the tragedy of the commons. If you don't think that's possible, then you shouldn't vote Libertarian.
Amongst the myriad things you can do with your freedom, I don't think screwing over the shared environment or whole nations of people should be one of them.
That's fine, but your constitution (that's right, you haven't left the country, so you accept the constitution enough to stay) doesn't make a provision for "saving the environment", and therefore, it is not legally in the domain of Government control.
(Forgive me for making assumptions that you are an American if you are not. Your comments imply that you are.)
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
If by right, you mean right wing....
You want to end AIDS education because it somehow encourages homosexuality? Have you thought about what this means? Will it be illegal to setup www.aidsinfo.com?
You want to ban flag burning as a legal activity? What follows that? It's dangerous precendent.
You don't want any homosexuals defending your country, even if they're completely capable? You truly believe that a homosexual has no control nor any ability to work with non-homosexuals in an effective manner to accomplish a task?
You want quotas ended by a guy who makes it clear that his reason for ending them is to legalize discrimination?
You want a nationalistic leader who doesn't recognize the importance of foreign policy?
If this is what you believe, fine. It scares me, but it's your right to believe it. If you don't believe all that, please do more research into your candidate's views so you don't accidentally say something you don't mean.
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
Huh? Amtrak has a train from Los Angeles to (I think) Jacksonville, FL via the southern states. I wonder why they didn't give you that schedule.
but I agree that Amtrak often costs more than flying. And if you can't sleep on trains well, you'll have a sucky 3 days. I did it 3 times. Didn't learn the first two. Now my Amtrak trips are limited to 5 hours or so... more than that and I fly!
Heh. The USA has a much suckier public transportation system then even most 3rd world countries. As someone who can't drive, I've seriously considered moving to Central America, partly for that very reason. I can get anywhere cheaply on a bus down there.
Here in the USA you have $30 Greyhound fares just to go a few miles down the road. What the heck? And their schedules suck too. Only one or two per day on most routes.
I'd be seriously tempted by Harry Browne. As it is, I'm fairly happy to support Bush -- my only goal for this year is to sent the algore back to Tennesee, and Bush is the only way I can do that. Plus he's a pretty cool guy for the most part.
I have some disagreements with Browne, abortion and drugs being among them, but his views on cutting taxes and government are a whole lot more on target than what the Republicans are proposing.
OK, I'll bite. If Wiccans believe that their religion is true, why would they not try to convert others? I mean, there really only can be one "true" religion. Various religions might have various degrees of truth, but a maximum of one can be completely true. If they believe they're it, shouldn't the try to convert others? If not, why do they bother believing it themselves?
It's very possible that the LA->jAX doesn't run every day. I know the Empire Builder (Chicago->Portland) only runs 4 times a week. The website is pretty dumb about that, so that's probably what happened.
Teaching schoolchildren to "fear" Socialism in the public schools is like teaching politicians to "fear" campaign finance reform by giving their campaigns millions of dollars in the hopes that they'll implement it.
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Exactly. And if the Libertarians get their way, you are free to do whatever you want to do with the money you save from not paying income tax, such as donating it to a cause that will help pay for the needs of the less fortunate.
I'll admit it. I used a Socialist political event as an excuse to go out with an unattainably cool (yet socialist) girl. "There's going to be lots of really weird people there," I warned her before we got there.
There must have been about thirty people in the audience, which probably comprises the entire journalist population of the city of Boulder who had written something about it in many of the left-leaning rags there. And it seems as though McReynolds knew them all by name. I'm not making this up. He did his speech (which was remarkably eloquent, if not nonsensical at points), and afterwards took questions. "Bill, then Susan over there, and, um, I think Hal has his hand up in the back..." I was tempted to ask a question just to see if he had some psychic ability to guess my name.
What was particularly amusing was that he seemed like he was campaigning for Ralph Nader. "Ralph is not a socialist, and I am. So if you're not a socialist, vote for Nader." Okay, David, I think I will.
That's the bottom line. You can like it, or not. Approve of it- or not. Encourage it, or fight it. But across the board, what 'free trade' means is "if you can come up with slave labor and kill people off in your factories to undersell us union-beset industrialised nations, we'll happily punish our own companies by giving all our business to you!"
There are some interesting variations, such as "if you can grab a copy of W2K and replicate 100,000,000 copies of it in Taiwan, we can treat you as a supplier of that product, look the other way and start buying from you rather than the official Microsoft sources". Free trade is not an automatic homerun for business- there are some nasty boobytraps in it. Primarily, however, it isn't about gray or black market- primarily it's about 'he who wields the biggest whip wins the bid', an excuse to massively reward the most ruthless industries that exist on the planet and punish anyone forced to behave more reasonably.
Of course, the libertarian perspective can be 'spun' to make it seem like Libertarians all _want_ to remove any controls and allow the entire world to turn into a big sweatshop ruled by the most ruthless and powerful people and organisations. Not all libertarians feel that way. Some do. Which is to say, some people _like_ whips and the subjugation of the weak and powerless, and vehemently dislike the idea of protecting anyone just because they are weak or powerless.
Oh... "which will be reflected in employee salaries"... *chuckle* no comment. *chuckle*
Present-day capitalism: the government tells you what to do, takes all your money and gives it to giant multinational corporations which fire you and hire 6 ill-paid malaria-ridden sweatshop workers in a country whose name you can't pronounce.
Libertarianism: the government gives up and goes home, at which point the giant multinational corporation buys your town/state/country and tells you what to do while (see above)
I mean, come on... let's be practical...
One particular aspect of the Progressive platform struck me very forcibly- the idea that wealth needs to correspond to work, not position or power. Basically, if I work 18 hours a day, the deck should be stacked in my favor so that I can take home wealth. If I don't work at all but I 'own people' and my employees do all the work, currently I'd get even more wealth, and the Progressive opinion is that is inequitable.
The thing is, intellectual property's based on the idea that my ideas or creations exist out there in some nebulous intellectual space and go on 'working' WITHOUT me. As if it made sense that I could record a super hit song, and (in theory- ha!) sit back and never lift a finger again, with my income guaranteed for the rest of my life by the fact that I'd done terrific work- once.
Even though the industry I'm associated with is completely committed to this twisted fantasy, I personally find it inequitable- to the point that it has profoundly affected my expectations and the way I see my work.
At this point, I see no use for intellectual property at all. I'm letting my expectations on my music change dramatically- it is not and will never be allowed to be the 'engine' for generating wealth for me. Instead, the _process_ of recording such music is the engine- I have a somewhat unusual and eclectic musical style and can work on commission, I have equipment and software resources (some of the software I wrote myself because there was nothing out there to do what I needed!) that can be used for this type of work, and most significantly the expectations for pay for this type of professional work are very decent.
The actual music gets to be a lot freer in its expectations- I can basically guarantee a certain level of technical quality and the artistic judgements don't need to make any compromises to popular taste because the idea of THE MUSIC going out and earning money is doomed. Instead the music goes out and gets attention and mindshare, which can then be used to attract business. The role of intellectual property earning money through scarcity in a digital information economy is completely doomed...
The one area that may or may not still warrant protection is simply authentication- if 50 guys all claim to have recorded my album, that could be a problem. Yet even here, this is not a completely persuasive argument- it simply turns into a 'caveat emptor' situation, because the sort of person who _would_ attempt to pass themselves off as a more skilled worker is not the sort of person who can actually do the work- 'stealing' credit for IP is a con and cannot be backed up by action. You'd turn to the person and say "Great! I'm sold. Now let's go to work, record me something new!" and they'd absolutely fail- and of course if the IP is valueless and ubitiquous, neither they nor I can actually sell it no matter who claims they invented it- they can only use it as leverage to win bids for other work, and there I'd have a really serious advantage. So even _authentication_ might be dispensed with- at the cost of completely rethinking what a musician's "job" is. You'd have to entirely give up on the idea of IP and fall back on a level that's much harder to fake or cheat- the ability to perform a task in the real world. Only that act would correspond to wealth- and the musician would need to do it as a consistent job, continuing to produce new material (perhaps on commission or patronage, or work for hire) in order to have consistent income. You'd have to work- you'd have to want to work. Now, I'm wondering (if you can be distracted from throwing rocks at the Eugene anarchists ;) )- how much of this sounds like your anarchist radical viewpoint on intellectual property?
Yea, like thermonuclear devices will discriminate based on who paid their yearly "missile defense fee".
I know! We can let private enterprise handle missile defense on a town-by-town basis. I mean, it works for cable TV and telephone service, right? Right?? RIGHT???
Okay, so Mr. Browne wants to abolish the IRS and the Income Tax (yay!). But then he wants to offer $25 or $50b to whomever comes up with the first working missile defense system.
If not for the income tax, where will the money come from? National Sales Tax? Propery taxes? What? Are there other "necessary" projects that would be funded this way? If so, how will those get money?
That certainly sounds like it could be an O'Rourke quote.
Here's another:
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
If you vote for either of these guys, you are just plain nuts.
The president cannot enact tax legislation--only the legislature can do that.
Eliminate income tax. You have to be kidding me. You really do. I mean, I was dubious about Bush's plan, but that is just insane. Do you have any concept of what would happen? How many seniors (that's your grandma and grandpa) would be on the street, dying because they don't have ANY money now to try and buy drugs. Who care about Drug Plans if you don't have ANY money? What about underprivileged groups and populations? I guess it is their fault they are poor? Oh no, I get it--it's because they pay sooo much in income tax!
I hate my tax rate. It is very high. But in an country that has built so much infrastructure (or cruft, whatever), you can't just eliminate it.
If you think you can, I am shocked at your naivety. The fact that these canidates are popular with this crowd only further proves my theories on geek crowds: they are different just because they want to be different.
Flame away, I really don't care. These canidates are so shocking in their plans that I am stunned that so many of you are behind them. I hate the leading canidates and only half agree with my favorite. But these people are just bad for this country.
(And I thought I had Libertarian leanings. Thank you, Slashdot, for curing me of that illusion.)"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
That was actually exactly my point, thanks for being so concise.
Regards
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
To be honest with you, these are the first candidates that I've been able to understand on issues that are important to me. Gore and Bush are well trained double-speakers that will spew what they think the American people want to hear. At least Brown and McReynolds are giving you their opinions rather than the opinions of their political correctness cadre of panelists and specialists tell them they should say to get the vote. I for one applaud them for being able to take the time to respond to a small group such as ours (lets be honest, we're small) with issues that we present to them. I'm curious to see whether the " Majority Candidates" take the time to respond. /dev/null
As always, please redirect all flames to
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
Soviet Union is gone, US is the biggest nuclear power on this planet, no enemies to defend from, at least with Army - to defend from all those terrorists that exist according to current Govt., you would need law enforcement, not Army.
So is there any reason for strong military other than justifying budget spending ?
Obama 2012: our incompetent asshole is slightly less of an incompetent asshole than the other incompetent asshole !
Seriously, Libertarians believe that there should be no government-funded police, and of course, no gun regulations. Therefore, you're either rich enough to hire your own private army for protection from crime, or you're hired in some rich guy's private army, because the only other alternative is funding your own arms race vs. some rich guy's army, who will pretty much be using his private army to kill you and steal all of your belongings, because, frankly, who's going to stop them?
Then all the rich guys' private army's will fight eachother until only one rich guy remains.
So, eventually, I think we'll all be working as security guards for Bill Gates. (who will win, of course, because he has the most money)
The sales tax revenue generated by all the gun sales will fund the missile/asteroid defense.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If Crack were legal, the CIA would not be in the business of selling it. It would be about as profitable as aspirin.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
BULLSHIT!
You cannot get rich by working hard.
You can only get rich by being born rich, or being extremely lucky. A much higher percentage of "rich" people had it fall into their laps, than people who worked hard.
I worked my ass off at my job for 8 years. I know other people who were not as fortunate as I, working for companies that just happened to be not as successful. My company was VERY successful, and now I'm rich, because of stock options. But it had almost nothing to do with how hard I worked. I could have coasted along (like many of my colleagues) doing just what was required to not get fired - and they're just as rich as I am. I don't necessarily feel good about the money I have, but damn, it's great not being poor anymore. I probably could even retire now, and maybe, I don't work as hard as I used to before we got bought, maybe I spend a little more of my own time on my hobbies or family, but I could have done that before. But I have friends working at other companies, still putting in 12-16 hour days, and not getting anywhere financially. When you're paying your bills, you can't necessarily afford $10,000 for playing in the market.
Working hard in this country gets you nothing but tired.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
personally, I think that the best solution to the whole "flag burning" problem, would be if the President burned a flag as part of the official 4th of July celebration. To celebrate the fact that we are free, free even to burn the flag, and the fact that the flag is a symbol of that freedom, and that that freedom is not destroyed along with that symbol.
First off, people would stop burning the flag as a sign of desecration or protest. Second, I think Americans would start to think a bit more deeply about the freedoms they have, and understand how to think the way the writers of the constitution were thinking when they came up with this whole idea.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
That's because Socialism is a nice specification with no workable implementation.
Socialism within a democracy? A democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. And even in a totalitarian regime, Socialism just becomes essentially a monarchy, where the prime minister and his cronies dictate policy - within the ideological framework, except in cases where the ideological framework can be perverted, or where the absolute power of the government can provide the necessary secrecy to function with impunity.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Or maybe it's a typo, and he meant "thank god", not "thank God".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Wicca is no more a cult than Christianity is. In both, practitioners are asked to believe blindly in the faith's teachings. Other than the number of participants, I don't see the difference.
Put another way, how is Christianity not a cult if Wicca is? By your logic we should be rushing to outlaw Christianity (or at least not treat it as a "religion"; whatever your definition of "religion" is). Far more blood has been spilled by "rightious" Xians than all the most wacked out modern "cults" combined.
Personally I don't belive in *any* religion ... I prefer to take my reality straight up, thank you. But I respect those who prefer it on the rocks. I don't give a fuck if you do, but I'm damn sure going to tell you how ignorant I think you are if you don't.
--
If your map and the terrain differ,
trust the terrain.
Your big mistake here is that you think that people who make $10,000 a year are necessarily not working hard. Some of them are working EXTREMELY hard at that level. I think you'll notice that the higher up you go on the salary scale that the amount of physical work actually goes down and the amount of mental work goes up. (Sometimes the level of work overall goes down, because you delegate it all.)
Don't make the mistake of assuming that $10,000 is easy and getting that raise was hard. Perhaps they'd worked their butt off at the plant for 10 years and the company finally decided to give them a cost of living raise. Sure, it amounts to $1,000 more in the end, according to your example, but they may be doing the exact same work as before.
Don't demean people who work hard for measly wages. They don't deserve it. What would YOU do if you had to work at a lumber mill for $15,000 a year?
There is no connection whatsoever between the availability of land and income tax. Please check out this link for some facts on the history of the income tax in the United States.
The poor also receive more in tax-funded benefits than rich people. Perhaps there is some logic in taxing them more. The government is effectively saying to the poor that, by being poor, they have demonstrated a lack of money management skills. Therefore, the government must take their money away in taxes and manage it for them. Only by doing this can it be ensured that the poor will still get some sort of health care (or other social safety net benefit such as social security) even after blowing their paychecks on beer.
OpenSourcerers
Speaking of selfishness and capitalism vs. socialism: ever notice how many "socialists" are materially well off? If socialists were truly concerned about the plight of their fellow human beings wouldn't you expect them to give away their own surpluses voluntarily?
Maybe the attitude of non-socialists is more a case of I worked hard for it and I am not going to let you steal it and give it to someone else, just so that you can either enjoy a warm fuzzy feeling or garner political support among the feeble minded.
OpenSourcerers
You are right and I am sorry I didn't make it clear that my second paragraph was not a statement of a Libertarian position.
My second paragraph was a general observation on the issue of regressive taxes. It is my view that regressiveness in a tax is not an inherently bad thing (assuming that you are going to have a tax at all).
Taxes in general are not supported by Libertarians because taxes imply violence (pay up or we'll get you).
OpenSourcerers
Actually, not bore everyone with the details, I did grow up in that sort of environment in many respects.
Those of us who know first hand what that is like also know that it is a cop-out to blame your upbringing or environment. Those without first-hand experience should count themselves lucky and stop talking about things they know nothing of.
The fact of the matter is that if you cannot rise above poverty in the United States it is because there is something fundamentally wrong with you. It is absolutely not for any other reason.
OpenSourcerers
That sounds a lot like an explanation to me. :-)
Seriously, I think the details you are looking for are here. On that page they explain that the Supreme Court declared income taxes unconstitutional. Since income taxes were unconstitional, the only way to legalize their collection by the government was to enact the 16th Amendment which granted that right to the government.
As to why the U.S. needed those revenues, big bills from adventures such as the Spanish-American War (largely engineered by William Randolph Hearst to sell newspapers) figure prominently.
As to your hypothesis, I would counter by saying in response to "For small towns, government maintenance is very low" that the potential tax (via excise taxes) base is low as well. Correspondingly, for "larger population centers require much more infrastructure" I would say that they have a larger available tax base. Therefore, the government-costs/tax-revenue ratio is roughly constant regardless of the population. The revenues from property taxes on large tracts of undeveloped property would be pretty poor and irrelevant.
My theory would be that as the U.S. matured the opportunities for the few to exploit the many reached a critical mass. Once this happened then it was in the interest of the few (the rich) to enact income taxes that could be levied against the entire population.
Taxes in general are a good thing from the perspective of rich people who are the owners of the companies the government buys from. If I owned Dow then I would strongly favor a tax of almost any sort to support a war that used a lot of napalm. The cost to me of my share of the tax would be greatly outweighed by the benefit I would receive from increased napalm sales.
OpenSourcerers
I would say that the real danger is when the government throws it weight behind a corporation (monopoly or not). That is where the real danger lies.
It is very difficult to build a monopoly in a free economy. Every monopoly I can think of including oil, railroads, steel, and communications has had strong government support in the forms of tariffs and regulations.
For example, why can't I be a cable TV station to my neighborhood? The answer is that the government has made that enterprise a monopoly. In order to use the facilities rights-of-way grants (the right to run wires across your property to reach someone else) you have to have the OK of the government. That OK is handed out selectively, largely based on campaign contributions and other graft.
I don't know that there is a non-government solution to some of these problems but we all need to be aware of the potential for abuse that the combination of business and government creates.
Btw: I think that the future will look back and say that Microsoft's big mistake was in not learning that the government endorsement of a monoploy is a good thing. If Microsoft had argued to the government sometime around 1993 or 1994 that they needed to be recognized as a form of necessary monopoly and protected as such then they would have lasted a lot longer. The most brilliant thing would have been declared a critical industry necessary to the national security and defense. Then they would have been unassailable!
OpenSourcerers
The point remains that no one (who is not disabled in some way) needs to live in poverty in the United States.
By living in poverty and not achieving even a middle class status they have demonstrated that, for whatever reason, they do not have the ability to manage money properly.
Therefore, there is a certain logic in taxing poor people at a proprtionaly higher rate than rich people. Poor people are not spending their money in a rational fashion and therefore their money must be doled out to them like an allowance for a child who has not yet learned how to save or run a lemonade stand.
Rich people (or even middle class people) don't need government benefits nearly as much as they have proven an ability to take care of themselves. Since they are less of a burden on government services, they shouldn't pay as much, proportionally speaking.
Therefore, a regressive tax is not a bad thing and may even be the most logical thing.
There are some government facilities which we all use (military and emergency services for example) and therefore some level of taxation on everyone might be rational.
I could even argue that rich people should pay no taxes at all since through their efforts businesses, jobs, and economic growth are created which are more valuable to society than simple money.
OpenSourcerers
The problem in the U.S. with unions is that they do not bargain in a free economy. The government interferes with the threat of force.
If workers go on strike and make demands, that's a government backed right. (US Code Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, Section 157)
If the management threatens to fire the striking workers and hire people who will accept the position and pay originally offered, that is negotiating in bad-faith and the government may step in. (US Code Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, Section 158)
If the mangement does fire the striking workers and hires people who will accept the positions and salaries as offered, that is union-busting and almost certainly the government will step in. (Also in US Code Title 29, Chapter 7, Subchapter II, Section 158)
There have been egregious wrongs by both labor and management all over the world, under all economic models. The observed differences between unions in socialist vs. capitalist economies has more to do with the (unrelated?) fact that socialist societies have tended to be communist and that capitalist societies have tended to be democratic.
OpenSourcerers
I don't want to come across as rude, text is somewhat limiting at times but... Do you actually know any poor people? Have you ever been in the home of a person who is on welfare as a career? Have you ever employed people who know exactly when they have worked enough hours to collect unemployment? Do you have any real first hand experience of what you are talking about?
I don't think anyone here has advocated letting people croak in the street. What has been said is that poor people collect a disproportionate percentge of government services and that taxing them at a higher rate proportionally makes sense (i.e., regressive taxes are logical).
Let me try some specific, but extreme examples as illustrations.
As far as not working 8 or more hours a day is concerned, that to me is a flag that we will never agree. I don't understand people who don't feel a need to be accomplishing something with their lives (by that I mean work on something, not necessarily for someone). When people don't feel that need, I just have to agree to disagree with them.
OpenSourcerers
As a matter of fact, I started and ran a recycling company when I had nothing back in 1989. I asked people if they would pay me to haul off their recyclable materials because the city had no curbside pick up of recyclables at that time and people didn't like hauling garbage in the cars.
People thought that was a great idea and prepaid for the service. I then used that money to pay to rent a truck which I used to haul the material to the recycling plant. I was able to haul enough material to make a profit and to pay for the truck the next time I had to make my rounds.
I then made connections with places like department stores who had a lot of corregated cardboard to get rid of (which is clean by comparison to aluminum and glass food containers and, at the time, more profitable) and I hauled off their stuff now that I had ongoing access to a truck.
Eventually I bought a truck and the rest, as they say, is history!
I continued this business while I put myself through engineering school.
In this world there are people like me who can think and who aren't afraid to work. We will always get ahead. There are also people like you who are lazy and stupid and who will always fail even if they are given everything.
By the way, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
OpenSourcerers
Yes, it is true that the characters I created are somewhat caricatures but their purpose was to illustrate particular types.
I have done some sort of work continuously for the past 27 years (ever since I turned 16). Sometimes it was digging ditches or bussing tables for minimum wage, sometimes it was being a heavy equipment operator or an engineer for 6 or 7 times minimum wage.
As a result, I have lived next to all sorts of people and the characters I created are not at all uncommon. In particular, I have known more of the John-type than I can count (as will anyone who has done construction or similar work).
Certainly, the Jack type is at risk of being wiped out in an economic downturn but there are no guarantees in life. Even in the US we are only promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
As far as James is concerned, I have seen several times people inherit millions in a family business and then lose it all within a few years because they weren't up to managing it. The James character is different, he inherited his start that is true but successfully maintaining a company through the years, especially when there is a payroll to be met, is hard and stressful work. He deserves the credit he gets for the employment that he really does continue to make available.
All I have been saying is that some people are not good with their money, that these people are (as a result of the their lack of money skills) typically poor, and that all taxing them is doing is managing their money for them (they get back all their money and more in government benefits).
Therefore, it makes sense that their taxes (their government managed money) are a higher percentage of their income than people who are better off and who are managing more of their own affairs.
Therefore, there is a logic and fairness in a regressive tax such as a national sales tax.
As far as how long people work, I am all for people living however they like. Myself, I was a "professional student" for over ten years and I lived very much a non-materialistic life.
Then I decided that while that was fun in my 20s it wouldn't be so great in my 70s so I went to work. I then found that I really enjoy creating things and getting stuff done. That's fine, I used to be a philosopher and now I am a business person. I can see both sides.
Maybe the problem is that some people have trouble reaching a balance between the material things they want and the amount of effort they are willing to make to earn them. As a result they are unhappy and feel that they have somehow been cheated by others.
OpenSourcerers
I don't understand Oi Hoffers but I will attempt to respond to the rest of your comment.
It is precisely because I have been "kicked in the face for no apparent reason" and got over it that I say the things I do.
Have you ever been out of your country? Do you have any clue as to what things are like Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Zimabwe, or Kazakhstan? I didn't think so but I have and I do know what it is like elsewhere in the world from first hand experience.
People in the western world have no idea what real hardship is.
I also suggest that people learn how to read, and then actually read what I have written, and then think about it instead of flying off the handle.
In this discussion people said that ideas like a national sales tax were not a good solution because such schemes are regressive. I simply observed that perhaps that is not a bad thing because [1] the poor don't handle their money as well as the rich (otherwise they'd be rich) and [2] they collect more government benefits.
Therefore, a regressive tax is nothing more than a government run money management program for people who have not yet learned how to manage money.
I did not say this is a good thing, and I did not say I was in favor of it. I did say there was a certain logic to it.
It used to be that Slashdot was populated by people who could read and think. Now it seems it is largely populated by knee jerk idiots who write before reading what was actually said.
OpenSourcerers
Are you really a moron?
Yes, I did everything I said I did. The company was called Gaea Corporation and that is exactly what we did.
Of course I didn't go up to people looking like you and beg for money to haul their stuff. I took a shower, I got cleaned up. Oh that's right, you sat on your butt whining about how tough life was treating you until your water was cut off and you couldn't clean up. I guess being stupid is tough.
Anyway, I took some change and ran off photocopies of a handmade flier. I took my wife and three year old daughter with me when I distributed the fliers. If someone was home when I dropped off the flier, I talked to them from the perspective of someone who was obviously a bit down on his luck but trying. I made what is called a positive impression. This is called sales.
The fliers were bright yellow and whenever somone came to the door and talked to me, they could see fliers at every house down the street. This gave them some confidence that we were doing something real.
The fee was $15 for 3 months of hauling and because we went into a yuppie neighborhood on purpose, yes they were willing to pay that because they [1] could afford it, even if was a handout to a bum; [2] they were typical tree-huggers; [3] they definitely didn't like hauling garbage in their Volvos. Duh! This is called knowing your market.
As a result of these efforts we were a human interest story in the newspaper on the front page of the local section of the Sunday newspaper. The picture of my three year old putting garbage in a bin while her parent's exhibited some iniative was priceless - you can't buy advertising like that.
This lead to people being more willing and interested in working with us. Now businesses were willing to talk to us because we carried the newspaper clipping with us to jog their memories.
We worked 14 hour days (this is called hard work), we hauled tons of garbage, we learned what was profitable to haul and what wasn't (this is called learning the business).
This story is true. I will make this simple enough so that a drooling mouth breather with a room temperature IQ like you do this much.
I repeat: you are either a liar or an idiot, probably both. I will add that you are a lazy whining baby whose concept of the world hasn't evolved past "mommy will make it all better".
I am not surprised you claim to kiss my mother with that mouth.... my mother is dead.
OpenSourcerers
Well said (as another scientist who has been on and off the public dole from time to time).
:)
Harry Browne just sounds plain _dumb_ in showing his lack of understanding about how scientific research works. He says that scientific research by "the government" "hurts progress" without realizing that what the govenment does is simply sub-contract out research to private researchers who do it themselves. "The government" simply provides a framework for the researchers to police themselves about how the money is spent. It makes me wonder how well informed he is about anything outside his field of investment banking.
Just gives me another example of why I don't trust humanities majors because most of them just don't have a well-rounded education.
-Dean
The excise tax on telephone service goes back to 1898 to pay for the Spanish American War. I think we have pay off the debts from that war and yet the tax remains.
There is nothing so permanent as a temporary tax.
I take a more forgiving attitude. You expect people to never make irrational decisions that they regret when they are older and wiser. I think it's pretty easy to dig yourself a hole that can be hard to get out of. When you're in high school, you'll be inclined to do whatever makes you most happy at the moment. For me, this was playing with electronics, and then computers. Luckily for me, there is a big market for physics and computer skill. Some people like to do other things, many of which it's hard to get paid for.
As I see it, the whole point of life is to have a good time. I personally feel better if I know that other people in the world are having a good time. You might not. I don't hold this against you. It's just the way your brain is wired (and probably influenced by childhood experience).
In any case, I'm lucky enough to be able to get paid for doing physics and computer stuff. As long as I'm making enough money to keep myself happy and not have to worry too much about annoying crap, I'll gladly pay enough income tax to keep my country (Canada, BTW) working right, so there's even less annoying crap to worry about. I could move to the US and make probably a lot more money. I'm not going to, because I don't like the way things are shaping up in the US. You have terrible laws like the DMCA, and thanks to the RIAA and MPAA, it's getting worse. The US is too complicated. I don't want to have to make decisions on every little detail (e.g. health care, which is basically free in Canada.) I want things to take care of themselves unless I want to get involved. (This is like adminning a Debian system. Just apt-get update;apt-get dist-upgrade every now and then, and things take care of themselves. You can pay more attention to a package you have a special interest in, if you want.)
#define X(x,y) x##y
#define X(x,y) x##y
Peter Cordes ; e-mail: X(peter@cordes ,
But, they're not trying to be true anarchists either, sticking with property and the like. Libertarians are one of the least of the evils in the list of available presidential choices...
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
I think the basic point of his statement is that people live better with less government interference. The Tao Te Ching describes the ideas pretty well.
--
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Browne doesn't beleve in passing (or promoting) laws that violate the constution. So he may hate the electoral system, but were he elected he would not be able to alter it. It isn't a presendital power. So I'm guessing he doesn't want to waste time talking about what he won't change when there are so many things he will (given the chance).
He talks about it on his web site somewhere. I don't agree with his answer, but I agree with his positions more then the other candiates, so (baring the unexpected) I'll be voting for him.
Why? Once reduced to it's constutional limits the federal goverment won't really need much money at all. It won't provide much in the way of services, but that's OK, we mostly don't use them now. Those that we do will be provided by someone else, probbably cheeper too.
The state goverments are more of a problem. The provide a lot more useful services. That means it would be much harder to live through a transition from public provided services to private provided services at the local level.
He talks about it on his web pages. The short answer is private charity, which manges to do more for the poor now then the goverment does, and could do even more if people who cared actually had spare money to donate, and who would have to do even less for the working poor as theur pay checks wopuld go twice as far.
Good. Go visit his web pages. See if you still agree after you read in depth. Visit the Libertarian Party as well for more background.
You won't agree with 100% of his choices. I don't. But it is wonderful to find someonw where you agree with more then 20% of the choices!
The monopoly was actually created by the goverment. The Bell compony conviced the goverment that a single phone compony was a must, having one phone compony hooking up doctors, and another for lawyers, and another set in the next town over was loony. Of corse they downplayed that the diffrent phone componies were in the act of hooking together (so had allready).
We got a usable phone system out of it. Faster I think then otherwise possiable. But we got a goverment mandiated monopoly out of it.
Or to say it Browne's way "frist the goverment broke our legs by creating a phone monopoly, then to prove how we couldn't live with out them they gave us cruches later by breaking up the Bell System -- arn't they a great bunch of guys?"
Are they? Monopolies tend not to make more monoplies (but who granted the cable compony monoplies?). Monopolies don't imprison people for doing things they don't like (but goverments will send you to jail for smoking the wrong kind of plant, or impound your car because you decided to pay by cash rather then check).
I don't like monoplies. I fear goverments.
Not allways. The goverment may have haul'ed Microsoft to court and declared them guilty, but their market share appears to be eroding on it's own. IBM was never declared a monopoly by the goverment, but it imploded on it's own (well with help from Microsoft).
In both cases there may have been help from public perception brough on by goverment's investigation, but the goverment didn't directly do anything.
I thought the other phone componies were forced to connect to the Bell System, or prevented from starting service in new towns (with the exception of GTE for some reason). But my recall on this is somewhat murky. Does anyone out there know? I poked around on the history channel's pages, but no dice.
That was up in B'more - almost local to me. I think EEtimes had the original article. Comcast couldn't put her in jail. They had to ask the goverment to do it for them. And I don't think the goverment would have (if she had any reciepts). It was still a very unplesent situation, and Comcast acted poorly. But monopolies can't put you in jail. Only the goverment can. They will sometimes use it at the behest of monopolies, sometimes for large campaign contributors, sometimes for totally innane reasons, sometimes for good reasons.
That isn't the definition of monopoly, controling more then some percentage of the market is a monopoly. They probbably had one in mainfram class machines, depending on what percentage you argue for, and what counts as a mainframe. Amdahl, Burougs, and others notwithstanding IBM pretty much owned the mainframe world (literally -- you only leased their machines...).
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that Browne as Prisident would try to mandate state policy. He is pretty dead set against it. But the Libertarian Party has candiates for 1500 to 2000 state and local positions as well. In fact they have 343 in office now. I was making a statment about them.
Oh, I'm definitely not against cars. Even though I take the bus every day to go to and from work, which is cheaper, faster and more convenient, I use my car to go shopping, run errands, etc. I mostly drive at night or on the weekends.
(Sadly, my car was chosen b/c it was my parents' and I could buy it for cheap. I'd like to get a little turbo diesel, but I can't afford the up-front costs, even though I would save money in the long run. Feh)
When I lived in Boston, the same sorts of pattern emerged. Best to take the T to the Back Bay or Financial District. Best to drive to Harvard Square or Quincy. And I lived at Cleveland Circle - one of the most convenient places to get the T that there is! Flexibility in choosing your mode of transport on any given occassion is essential.
And yeah, most people got off of the Hindenburg when it started to go. Very few deaths, just very showy. The Navy lost a lot more people when it's zeppelins went down. But everyone knows about it, and so no one frickin' trusts the things anymore. (admittedly, zeppelins were never very successful, even at their peak. but the romantic in me would like to see them make a return)
Regarding the difficulties in getting better mass transit to my side of the lake in Seattle, I think that it's really both that there is a big pissing contest going on with the various factions involved, and that the suburbs here are way too spread out to make connecting only a few points to the new system worthwhile. OTOH, anything that gets people across Lake Washington would be a plus for commuters, even if it were rowboats.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
And you want it to be cheap? Zeppelins are better than most things for long distance travel, but they're still slower than planes. And most people, myself included, prefer to get from point A to point B as fast as possible, because point B is what I'm interested in, not the trip itself.
.8 mach bullet trains criss-crossing the country)
Zeppelins would probably end up having to occupy about the same niche that ocean liners currently do. Sadly, the Zeppelin that could carry as many people and as many facilities as an ocean liner would be the size of Rhode Island.
Unless vacations get a lot longer, so that I can accept spending a week in the air going cross country to see my family every winter (WA to FL - not a fun trip, lemme tell you) and the price isn't any higher than a plane is anyway, I just wouldn't do it.
(I'm also afraid of flying, so what I really need are
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
While I'd love to see passenger trains become common again (I _hate_ flying) it shouldn't replace highways.
Each mode of transport has it's pros and cons.
Trains are relaxing and fairly inexpensive. Unfortunately they're slow compared to airplanes (except when competing against shuttles like Boston - NYC), the routes are inflexible compared to cars, and they require a fairly hefty investment in laying tracks. Remember, trains are still used for a LOT of cargo, so a significant increase in passenger traffic would result in delays or the need for additional track I suspect.
Cars are very flexible, but I think we're all well aware of the problems of traffic and the cost and social problems that have resulted from organizing most personal transportation around cars. (like having to put in the Big Dig, or that ugly bridge up by North Station) Still, there are many places in this country where cars are essential - primarily rural areas.
Airplanes are fast as hell, except in heavy traffic areas like NYC, but are essential for long distance travel. I don't want to spend half of my annual vacation just getting to where I'm going, which would be the problem if I had to rely on trains or cars.
(Zeppelins would be nice, but they haven't overcome a rather significant image problem, and if they were going to be cheap, they'd not only be huge, but probably need hydrogen for lift. Not as fast as planes, but better than trains IIRC)
In cities of course, depending on the layout of the city, cars become a big liability. Public transit (buses, streetcars, monorails, subways, els) and hired transit (taxis, rental cars, private buses, pedicabs, etc.) are very important, but these cost a lot, and for best results you'd want a mix of systems. Boston does well, having a system of subways, commuter trains, streetcars and buses. Seattle, where I currently live, is only buses, though we're getting a subway (which is being poorly managed) and a lot of people want a monorail. Sadly, no one wants to connect either to the Eastside, where a LOT of suburbs are, so I doubt we'll see any great improvement.
So let's not get stuck in the ideology of favoring rail over everything else either. There are plenty of places for everything... until teleporters come along, at any rate.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
<p>
While I do not feel comfortable with either of the
extreme views of the Socialists or Liberterians..
I am happy to see that they take Net forums
seriously and have answered in a thoughtful manner.
<p>
In reading the replies of both men, I see that they are honest to themselves, and believe in what they say. Being able to see them allows me to be a better voter.
Here are 2 reforms that I wish were made nation (US) wide. [This will mean Constitutional amendments.]
<OL>
<LI>
Electorial votes be made percentage wise for CANDIDATE performance. It does mean in states with small amounts of electorial members that parties that score less than say 33% do not show up.. but it does mean that parties will be represented in EC.
<LI>
States must streamline the ability of non-major parties to be listed in elections. I dont like living in a state where only 4 parties will be on the election sheet this year (Dem/Rep/Lib/Natural Law).
</OL>
The reason I believe in the electorial college was do several mathematical proofs that showed that these indirect methods of electing central officials actually helped protect minority groups from being overwhelmed by a majority rules.
<p>The multiple selection method listed by the McReynolds would also be a useful method.. though I dont know how to judge their strengths and weaknesses.
-- SJS smooge at smoogespace dot com
2. A system of religious belief and worship.
:)
Sound like the definition of religion? It's not; it's the definition of cult according to Webster's 1913 Unabridged Dictionary. It goes on to state that 'That which was the religion of Moses is the ceremonial or cult of the religion of Christ.' The point is that cults and religions are essentially the same thing. In modern times, cult is also used to mean a religion where a single living person is revered as God or some such thing, but otherwise still essentially the same. So, even though I don't agree with what you said in one sense, you failed to make your point in another. Wicca is most certainly a religion, and most who subscribe to the religion believe in at least one God and one Goddess, though some believe in more. Though many Wiccans are solitary, some belong to a Coven (a small gathering similar to a congregation). Now this certainly sounds like a religion to me, even though it may not be terribly popular. Wicca is a Pagan religion. Not all Pagans are Wiccan, but all Wiccans are inherently Pagan.
Furthermore, Paganism in general does not claim to be the "one true religion" as many others do, nor does it encourage the bigotry that often exists in popular religions (even though those religions don't necessarily encourage it). Part of this is probably due to the fact that almost nobody (or at least nobody I've ever met) has taken a belief in Paganism in any form without knowing and understanding it, and because of that, they may follow their religion more closely. Most Christians are forced into their religion by their parents or other family members and may consequently know almost nothing about it.
What *does* bother me about religion is the number of people who will merrily make claims about a religion they have almost no information about. This plague of feigned expertise is far more disturbing to me than any religion or cult I've ever dealt with. Pretending to know about something you don't is a pet peeve of mine regarding anything, not just religion, but it's especially bad in the area of religion since it's a very deep and important subject for most people.
It's bad enough that people already have misconceptions about less popular religions (Paganism, Wicca, whatnot), but people like this one who make stabs in the dark at a religion they know little about is infuriating. I'd almost be willing to bet that you believe the pentagram is nothing but a symbol of evil, though in fact this is a misconception popularized by Christianity while they tried to stronghold paganism out of existence.
OK. Enough ranting.
Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again to all Pagan readers of this comment
--
Ben Winslow..........rain@bluecherry.net
bluecherry internet..http://www.bluecherry.net/
pronoblem
How many would choose to fund Fermilab? What private concern would or could find the money to support Jet Propulsion Laboratory? Don't forget, the government funded the manned lunar landing to which we should thank for our own microcomputer industry.
The list goes on and on and on. First, and foremost it includes the very infrastructure that supports Slashdot and everything else that matters to geeks. Without government funding there would be no Internet.
Pshaw! No matter what your political persuasion, naive extremism is rubbish. This includes libertarianism.
Social policy
- Social Darwinism (better word?): a social policy believing that people are responsible for their own welfare with no governmental assistance.
- Socialism: a social policy which espouses that a government has some responsibility for the welfare of its people.
This is wrong if your going to say Social Darwinism is no governmental assistance. Then you must say Socialism is a policy in which people's welfare is the responsability of the government.
and
I think people know the difference between Germany and USSR.
weo
#=-weo-=#
There's actually been a case on this very point in the supreme court recently. Someone was distributing films of children which, in their framing and general presentation were clearly intended as child pornography, but which contained no evidence of kidnapping or abuse, as they'd been filmed by a secret camera in a public place. The court found they counted as pornography (fair enough), and were therefore obscene (true), and found the defendant (who was not the producer) guilty.
My personal take on this is that, as you say, kidnapping and abuse are the problem, not pictures intended to excite perverts. Not that the pictures are not repugnant, of course, but if no actual harm is done in making them, there is a case for their not being illegal. Its a bit like gun control: should things closely correlated with harmful acts be made illegal in order to reduce the incidence of the harmful act itself ?
Yes, but its not exactly constitutional literalism, is it ? "We support government by the constitution, except the bits we don't like much. Oh, and by the way, states should have the right to ceceded".
I love the way libertarians go on about how simple everything really is, with this amazing faith in the founders of the US, and "natural justice", but when pushed will cheerfully agree (implicitly) that their positions are really just as tendentious as everyone else's.
This is so incorrect I can't believe people are still using this to denounce Christianity. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all killed more people in just this century than were killed in all the Crusades and Inquisitions combined.
Remember that one could say all of the new-world exploreres were on religious crusades when they went exploring. Last estimate that I heard was that 80 million people over the course of the last 500 years in the new world lost their lives due to the likes of Columbus and his sucessors.
Mr. Browne proposes to use the current tariff and excise taxes to fund the constitutional functions of the government. Also remember that individuals can contribute to the government's treasury. So if you thought a missle defense system was a good idea you could send a contribution into the treasury. If Libertarians are ever elected I could see them implementing a system whereby an individual could log on to a web page, click "fund missile defense", and then give whatever money they felt was necessary.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
I agree that basic research has a lot of benefits to society as a whole. Where would we be without our understanding of physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy, etc? However, basic research, like everything else is best handled in a market environment. Individuals should be free to fund the basic research they see as the most valuable. Instead the government forcibly collects taxes in order to fund science for "our own good". Politicians respond to political action groups and special interests. They are not scientists and usually don't care about the advacement of science, but rather getting re-elected. Many scientists have complained to me about the government's preference to fund AIDS research over anything else. Many great cancer researchers find themselves out of luck and out of money and having to switch their research to AIDS just to continue doing any sort of research. This model is clearly inefficient. If people truly value basic research then they will find a way to fund it. Arguing that most people don't care is irrelevant. I don't need 100% of the population to fund a cure for AIDS. I just need a group of concerned people with disposable income to fund it.
As for funding the arts through the government I would argue again that the arts benefit society, but no one, not even the government, has the moral authority to put a gun to my head to force me to pay for it. Libertarians , unlike many people, hold government to the same moral standards as anyone else. I can't see many people saying it is moral for me to mug someone in an alley and say to them "but this is more my town's ballet program". It wouldn't matter what the money was for, I was still mugging them. The government not only mugs you but makes you fill out annoying forms while they do it.
Stuart Eichert
Stuart Eichert
Vote for the Silly Party
There's a reason Gore and Bush don't do the same thing, which is that they have a chance of winning. By virtue of being ahead in the polls, Gore and Bush have a lot to lose and little to gain by taking risks. Third party candidates have nowhere to go but up in the polls; taking the chance of answering controversial questions directly and honestly helps them.
The moral of the story: we need to broaden future debates to include more candidates, in order to get more information out and raise the standard of debate.
Browne and McReynolds both strike me as more intelligent and intellectually involved than The Two Nitwits. I'd love to see both of these guys -- and Nader -- in the TV debates.
(As for me, I'm voting for Browne.)
I play Nerd-Folk!
On the question of intellectual property Harry Browne just recites the libertarian mantra that free markets can handle it. I believe a truly freedom oriented society could live very well without copyright and patent laws. But it would still need trademark laws.
According to libertarian principles people are free to do anything they want as long as it does not involve force or fraud. Trademark law is extremely important in facilitating a society with a lower rate of fraud. Remember that I am only talking about the original sense of trademark where you cannot sell or advertise a product that is likely to be confused with my trademark. Later perversions of trademark law not included. If you make someone buy your product or service believing it is my product or service this is fraud.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Bell had several (government sanctioned) patents, central among them was the patent on loading coils that reduce the high frequency rolloff on long lines. These patents protected it from competition long enough to become an extremely powerful monopoly.
Later it got further government protection with the excuse being "universal service". The benefits it got from its government protected monopoly far exceeded the costs of having to supply telephone service to remote and unprofitable clients.
The government only stepped in to break the monopoly it has created after decades of uninterrupted operation at unreasonable prices.
----
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Wow, you have a pretty funny idea of "working". At the risk of injecting some common sense into this thread, allow me to point out that this plan of yours only "works" if you fix prices, and hold them at whatever level they were at before you instituted your idea, otherwise prices will simply inflate to account for the increase in everyone's gross income. Basically what you'll see is a gradual (or possibly very rapid) increase in prices of roughly the same percentage as whatever percentage of per capita income $5000 is.
So, in gross terms, yes you've "increased" everyone's income by giving them a check for $5000, but in terms of net purchasing power (i.e., what they earn minus what they spend), they see zero benefit. All you've done with your plan is, essentially, wave a magic wand and redefine what zero-income means. This is, by the way, precisely why minimum wage requirements don't alleviate poverty - prices adjust to account for increased wages. Period.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I don't want to sound rude, but have you ever studied large scale economics? Inflation of prices will occur in all economic models, but a government with sound politics will be able to keep it in check.
Don't worry 'bout it, but, yes, I have. So, what policies will government pursue in order to increase net purchasing power, which as I stated, your plan doesn't do?
And by no means would the citizen wage be fixed - it should of course follow the inflation curve and raise (or lessen) accordingly.
Okay. So, you institute your $5000 minimum existence benefit, but prices rise to negate any any real benefit to this. "No problem," you say, "We'll just adjust my citizen bonus upward accordingly." At which point, prices again inflate to account for your newly adjusted bonus. And then you are back at the beginning, except now you've inflated prices that much more.
I'm sorry, but my original criticism still stands. Unless you fix prices, citizens will see no real benefits from such a plan.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Like I said, too many party animals, especially third party animals, take themselves way too seriously. Despite that, I vote almost exclusively libertarian, and am fully aware of their platform.
I can see the fnords!
From pornography.
No, hold on a sec. I'm serious.
Be realistic here. Yes we're talking a hypothetical situation of a libertarian-controlled federal government, but we're still responsible to make it "hard" poly-sci-fi. Just one element of fantasy - the rest has to be plausible.
Not everyone in this country is a libertarian. If we elect Browne (fantasy element), there are going to be conservatives and moralists who are going to howl bloody murder that things like child porn and drugs are no longer prosecuted (logical repercussion). How do you shut them up?
One answer is to tax the hell out of it: huge tax margins that make people think twice before abusing the stuff. Sure it's a regressive tax, but it's also a vice - in no way are cigarettes, pot, booze, or Natalie Portman naked and petrified necessary for existance. They're luxuries.
And (I have to get this off my chest) never forget that socialism, libertarianism, conservatism, liberalism, and any other 'ism' are ideals and that in practice, government is going to be a compromise between them. You're never going to have a purely libertarian government, despite what the Libertarian Party promotes. It seems that a lot of people forget this. Until Libertarians, Socialists, and other third party men-on-a-mission admit this to themselves and the voters, they don't have a chance in hell of getting elected.
I can see the fnords!
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
People do have the time to make decisions for themselves. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to fight against the decisions made for us.
Surfing the net and other cliches...
Surfing the net and other cliches...
(Who Meta-Meta-Moderates the Meta-Moderators?)
That's nothing, I hear in some of this cult's sects, the wine and bread actually turn into flesh and blood in the body! Or so they claim.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
If not for the income tax, where will the money come from?
Eliminating the income tax would cut the federal income immediately to around a trillion dollars a year.
That's before the massive increase in income from excise taxes etc. that would follow in the wake of the massive growth of the economy that would occur as 270 million people suddenly had double their old effective income.
A trillion dollars a year is plenty to fund the Constitutionally-permissible functions of government, such as defense.
-
--
Rob Carlson
Well, maybe he is in politics to "scratch an itch", that itch being caused by the rash we've gotten thanks to big government riding all of our backs for the last century. Just a random thought :) That's the kind of itch I expect the majority of /. has felt from time to time.
:)
Question to ask yourself sometime - if you were president (not running, but actually president) what would you do? Think about it
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
Um.. by the look of it, you should have read the poster's bio. That's Siqnal11, not Signal11.
Most of you live in the USA, where you can freely discuss the policies and politics which will affect your real ability to eat, live, play, and think. Yet most of you are far more worried about the capabilities of the next Playstation more than whether or not Socialism is a bankrupting political virus.
We will therefore get what we deserve, which is, that we will continue to repeat the history which we continue to ignore.
No, he said "Government doesn't work". (particularly the FEDERAL government - I see no reason that states, if they/their citizens so desired, couldn't continue to themselves fund research. Or Counties. Or Cities. Or private individuals or groups thereof.) Our 'Friend', the Federal Govt Inc, doesn't just "throw free money at researchers". No, they have a great deal of influence on where large chunks of our money (i.e. money earned by US taxpaying citizens) are spent. Millions on "Cold Fusion". The FBI's "scientific" investigations into using "psychics". The FDA being paid to block access to possibly lifesaving drugs because not enough money has been spent on getting it approved yet. There are plenty more examples, but I'll stop there. (This is, of course, AFTER the administrators, assistant administrators, middle-managers, secretaries, janitors, and kickback-recipients within and around the relevant federal agencies get their share of the money first.
As I recall, around $5000 was taken from me in taxes. I would much rather have directly spent that $5000 on lab equipment. (Yes, I'm serious. There are plenty of us out here willing to do research because we like it, rather than because of economic need or bribes from federal agencies.) Better still, if I could find a few more individuals with similar research interests, and we ALL had $5000 that the Federal Gov't Inc hadn't taken from us, I don't see that it would be too difficult to start our own research organization and lab. Even WITH punitive tax rates, people still give large amounts of charitable donations to, for example, the American Cancer Society to help fund cancer research - how much more might they get if EVERYONE had thousands of dollars more each year to spend or donate as they wanted?
Besides, it is in a companies' best interests to keep research going. Companies involved in science need trained scientists to run and operate their programs, and research is, I would argue, the best way there is to train scientists.
That, in summary, is how I interpret what Harry Browne just said about scientific research funding.
Realistically, on the other hand, I don't think ALL Federally Funded scientific research would go away, even under a purely Libertarian-controlled Federal government - scientific research will always be an important part of national defense. The military doesn't just need 'new guns' - ways to make transportation more efficient, better ways to cure and maintain the health of, and FEED military troops, better communication, and so on are vitally important to maintaining a strong, capable military, and I think most of us can agree that more efficient transportation, better medicine and 'health maintenance', better food, and better communication are all things that benefit everyone.
That's my opinion, anyway.
A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for Evil.
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Anyways, I used to live in Seattle too, and though I don't know the particular local politics today, I suspect the primary reason for resistance from east siders would be the "not in my backyard" syndrome. No one wants to have their houses taken by the government or their immediate neighborhood trafficed, etc. It may be best for the larger neighorhood, but no one wants to bear the cost themselves. While almost no one wants it in their backyard, it's fair to say that more affluent neighborhoods tend to be more sensitive to any percieved threat against their real estate and, of course, they've got more political and legal clout which they can fight it with. It's silly and destructive, I know, but that's a distinctly seperate reason.
I wouldn't want to vote for any of them over Bush, or even Gore (though I wouldn't vote for him either). If you were to include McCain and Ventura, I'd still vote for Bush, but McCain would be my second choice. The point is that not everyone is just settling for the candidates because they think they'd be "wasting" their vote or what have you. Bush isn't perfect by any means, but the alternatives are even less desirable. It's not inherently evil to not get everything you want--in a democracy/republic it's simply impossible to give everyone everything they want.
I don't think anyone will disagree that the future will be as free or freer than the present, as the world gets rich and war fades away. The drug war will end, in time, and be looked back on with mortal embarrassment, as we now look back on, say, segregation. Diversity will continue to bedevil states until they let people be free. Taxes and militaries will decline.
Well, combine private property and freedom, and you have capitalism. It is a very, very stable system; it took decades for socialists in this country to effect the changes they did, and that with the full compliance of every politician, and almost every intellectual of any note in the society, including almost all the economists.
In the future, things will be different.
Even now, almost any reputable economist will tell you: capitalism/freedom is good. Public ownership of almost everything is bad. They don't put in such simple terms, but there it is.
In the future, this concensus will become more and more obvious, spreading out from economists into the social sciences, and to the people, and then, finally, to the politicians.
I don't think you too are old enough to remember, huh?
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Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Erm, the airplane? I agree with your point, though. Cutting science funding is not likely to get you a lot of Slashdot reader's votes.
Yes, the phone system came about, for the most part, without government involvement. Unforntunately, it created a monopoly that lasted decades before the government stepped in and broke it up. Monopolies are even worse than the government. There are no checks and balances and you can't vote them out of office.
Maybe you aren't old enough to remember, but Ma Bell was a government created and "regulated" monopoly. Blame Uncle Sam for Ma Bell, not the market.
Actually, Canada has had four major parties since the 70s at least, and there has been an explosion of small parties since then. I believe that the federal election held in the early 90's had no less than 14 parties. Since then there have been laws passes to reduce the number of parties (you have to have a candidate in at least 50 ridings, etc).
I prefer it this way actually. The big parties are mostly alike (they'll get in office, screw something up, get ousted, repeat) so you can vote on specific policies that are important to you and your opinion actually does get reflected in the election results rather than getting mixed up with the wide-pleasing policies of the large parties.
Using the Internet as a model of free enterprise is a joke. The "market" was busy building AOL and CompuServe while government funding was deploying the Internet. No company would have ever dumped the funding necessary to deploy the Internet without doing something to assure their future control over it. Even now most companies are doing their damnest to replace open protocols with closed. TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, along with the orginal web browsers and servers all came out of government funded institutions. It would do you well to remember that companies do not invent things to help people. Companies don't give a rat's ass about helping people. They exist to make money. Period. If they can make money helping people, they will. If they can make more money screwing people, they will do that instead.
Don't get me wrong, I voted for Browne in '96. And while I still consider myself a libertaian on social issues such as religion, war on some-drugs, etc, I have come to believe that their economic policy would turn this country into a shithole. The already disturbing amount of power that corporations would wield would increase dramatically. Pollution would increase. Poverty would increase (almost certainly increasing crime at the same time.) This would not be a pretty place to live.
The only part of this theory that doesn't fit is the almost total lack of donations the Libertarians get from large corporations. You would think their pro-business stance would get them millions in corporate donations, but that isn't happening. You can argue it's because they are a small party, but the money that corporations have available could create a viable third pary out of thin air. My main theory is that more large corporations believe that they are much better off with government regulation than without. Let's face it, the government spends trillions of dollars, large amounts of which are used to buy things from corporations. How many defense contractors would even exist if the budget was cut drastically? How many billions would the telecommunications giants lose if the goverment actually got smaller? In many industries, government regulation greatly increases the barrier to entry, decreasing competition and increasing corporate profits. All the rules and regulations also make the marketplace more stable. Changes get slowed down, which helps multi-nationals keep pace. Companies don't want no regulations. They want regulations which benefit them and hurt their competetors. For that matter, companies don't like competetion. Oh sure, they claim they do, but that's only when they are not the dominant player in a market. Once a company is dominant, it wants to be a monopoly since that allows for the highest profits.
I believe the heroin stance is not passive, but rather looking at addiction as a medical problem instead of a criminal one.
Wrong.
Libertarian: Lots of things are bad and you can do them as long as it doesn't interfere with the free market.
But my original question is still unanswered. If Atheism is the belief in no god then "a god of reason" or "a god that is reason" is still a "god" and seems to violate the principles of Atheism. Even if he was speaking metaphorically, i still find it an interesting and paradoxical statement.
Think of it as an analogy like in the SAT:
Christian::God
Athiest::Reason
capiche?
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Vidi, Vici, Veni
--
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
Capitalism:
Take from the worker, give to the owner (money gathers money, since you can hire people, build industries, etc)
Socialism:
Take from the successfull workers and give to the not-so-sucessfull ones (regardless of if the reason is lazieness or unability).
All economic and political system thusfar have killed a lot of people. People kill people.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
I think Einstein would have said "Here, here" to the scientist writing above.
And he definately said:
"If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"
He was a scientist on German's programs for a LONG TIME. Only when he came to the US did he have to "go looking" for money. (Which of course he didn't have to do, because he was Einstein, but the point is that he had to move to private money because America can be so dumb)
Yes, I believe that, barring any civilization
ending war, the world will be under modified
capitalism, such as most of the world is now. The thing is, it's the best anyone's come up with yet. The more "pure" the capitalism, the more efficent the production of goods, and the more fair the distrubution of said goods (I understand that my definition of fair is going to be radically different than a socialists definition of fair).
Honestly, the only way I could ever see capitalism being phased out is far, far in the future, technology is lifted to such a level that consumer goods are essentially free. The "Star Trek" economy, if you will. Things like food, energy, and shelter are so incredibly cheap, the need for money goes away. Barring that, though, capitalism will stay. The purer the better.
-Card carrying Libertarian
"We are all but packets in the Internet of life." -User Friendly
Errr, that's not Signal 11, that's Siqnal 11. Completely different account.
--
The gift of death metal does not smile on the good looking.
And don't forget, the income tax was enacted as a TEMPORARY MEASURE to repay war debt. After the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional, it was sent to the states as an amendment... with the understanding that the state legislatures would be getting a fat kickback.
Passports are also a "temporary measure" to keep Nazi spies out of the country. Funny how the Nazis supposedly lost, but the principles of national socialism are still evident all around us... the drug war being an obvious example.
--Charlie
Eli argues: Most Americans find it hard or impossible to believe that there are military oganizations and terrorist groups that despise the idea of relative freedom and individual thought.
This is absurd. There are a lot of people out there who are not big fans of political freedom; I don't doubt that for a second. But is it worth bombing a country just because they have free speech? I would argue that it isn't, but if you disagree, I'd appreciate it if you could explain why Canadian and European embassies don't get bombed with anything approaching the frequency with which ours are bombed.
No, it is not because other countries are jealous of our much-loved "free speech;" it's because our government acts as an imperialist military and political power which thinks it ought to be running the entire world. We don't need military bases in foreign countries around the world. It's totally absurd that we have a military base in Cuba, which is, because it refuses to be ruled by us, somehow our worst enemy. Our tendency to dictate international policy makes us hated, not just by your crazy terrorists, but by sensible people all over the world.
[If I were sufficiently bored, I might argue that we actually only have free speech in this country within some very narrow bounds; try to express an opinion out of the mainstream and get it into the corporate media; try to protest the President when the Secret Service is around; etc. But, that's a topic for another day.]
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
AT&T was not a government-established monopoly. AT&T established itself as a monopoly quite successfully without government intervention. When the government realised that monopoly was natural in the business AT&T was in, it decided to exampt AT&T from the anti-trust laws, provided tht AT&T allowed itself to be 'regulated.' All of AT&T's profits came from the sales of their products and services - and government regulation just added extra rules that had to be followed. In other words, Bell Labs was funded entirely with private money, and all the government did was get int he way.
And you think Bush is going to do anything about it?
Vote for Browne, and maybe we'll have a free country within a few years.
Moderate taxation is what the Libertarians are going for. Currently, about half of the federal revenue comes from tariffs and excise taxes. Browne isn't going to touch that.
Income taxes, on the other hand are quite oppressive, and remove a crucial check on government power. With tariffs and excises, you can boycott the taxed goods if you really detest what the government is up to - remember the Boston Tea Party? With income taxes, you're not going to stop working.
The legitimate constitutional functions of the federal government can indeed be funded by the tariffs and excise taxes already being collected. Repealing income taxes will limit the government's ability to waste money on pork-barrel projects and enforce unconstitutional laws like those against drugs. It will also make the federal government more accountable, and most importantly, free us from the burden of having to pay file income taxes.
Well, the only thing that can end (or reduce) government is government. That's one of the real work from the inside issues. A government should regulate trade between the states and nations, defend our asses, then get the hell out of our lives. In order for this to happen, politicians have to decide on it.
That is, unless we want to take up guns and revolt. I'm a pretty bad shot, so that's out. naught.out
-- build a man a fire and he'll be warm all day. set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
There are 216 people running for president. Only 2 have a hope in hell of winning.
If these two were not running, which of the other 214 candidates would you vote for? (Surely *one* of these 214 would be at least as good as Gush and Bore)
Nader?
Hagelin?
Browne?
Buchannon?
McReynolds?
If John McCain or Jesse Ventura were running, would you vote for them?
Reality has a liberal bias
I've actually thought about this, and, as an athiest, I have started to concsiously change the phrases I use.
Whenever I'm about to use a phrase like "Thank God" or "Bless you", I stop myself, think about what I really want to say, and if it is nessesary to say something, I choose a statement that does not mention any fictional entities.
(BTW, the part about lying to get elected: That was a joke... for all you humor impaired slashdotters)
Reality has a liberal bias
According to this page, there are 16 candidates for President who will appear on the ballot in at least one state. They are:
Cathy Gordon Brown (TN Only)
Harry Browne (All except AZ & PR)
Patrick J. Buchanan (All except DC, MI & PR)
George Dubya Bush (All 52)
Earl Dodge (CO Only)
Al Gore (All 52)
John Hagelin (38 States)
James Harris (14 States)
Denny Lane (VT Only)
David McReynolds (CO, FL, IA, NJ, RI, VT, WA)
Monica Moorehead (FL, RI, WA, WI)
Ralph Nader (44 States)
Howard Phillips (41 States)
L. Neil Smith (AZ Only)
Randall Venson (TN Only)
Louie G. Youngkeit (UT Only)
So of these 16 candidates, 7 have a mathematical chance of winning. Why not have a debate between the 5 who are not Gush and Bore? That would be an interesting debate... probably a source of some ideas that we would never hear from the Republicrats. Has anyone made an effort to get these 5 people (Browne, Buchanan, Hagelin, Nader and Phillips) all together in one place? Make it a choice between them!
Reality has a liberal bias
What if, instead of asking "Who are you going to vote for?" one poll was done that simply asked:
"Of the 216 candidates for President, who would you prefer the winner to be?"
I bet the numbers for Nader would be alot higher. Maybe even higher than for Gore.
If people started to realize that it was Gore who was taking the votes away from Nader, and not the other way around, things might be very different.
(Same might apply for Browne or Buchannon vs Bush)
Reality has a liberal bias
Perhaps I should clarify for the mathematically impared...My numbers were illustrative, not fixed. Since McReynolds does not list solid proposals on his site or in his post, I cannot use real numbers. Instead, I use an example and trust that the average slashdot reader has the ability to draw the same conclusion. For Pentagram who may not be an average reader, I offer the following:
Of course, the income tax would be a sliding scale. You will notice that my numbers do not indicate a cut-off point. But I see I will need to clear the idea up for you:
a = your income
b = your tax
c = fixed income point at which a - b = 0
So long as c > a, there will exist some point at which the poor are paying a substantially higher marginal tax rate than the rich. Thus, they have a substantially lower return on their additional work.
No, socialist utopia is a reference to Sir Thomas More's seminal work outlining modern socialist theory (as opposed to Communist, Marxist, et al). I mean no insult to you or socialists in general.
And in answer to your last question, you would need to define capitalist society. Pick up a copy of the Marx-Engels Reader and find Marx's definition of the ten goals of Communism. Now answer me this, how many have been addressed already? The answer is more than most Americans would think.
Look at my numbers again. A person's income goes up $5,000 and their negative tax goes down $4,000. That is a measured decrease which could lead to a gentle asymptote as you suggest.
Now, if you want to see this, get out a piece of graphing paper, put total income on the x-axis and earned income (work) on the y-axis.
Now, again using descriptive numbers (if you want use p and q), plot work at earning $10,000 and total income at $15,000. Now plot work at $15,000 and total income at $16,000. See how steep that line is? The slope of that line represents unrewarded work. The steeper the line, the more work you have to do to get the same amount of reward.
Notice now, lets gradiate the curve even more. What happened? The line got steeper! The more we try to gradiate the introduction to the average tax rate, the steeper the line is at the beginning of the gradiation and therefore the harder the poor have to work for the same reward.
Eventually, as people get richer, they will have to move above the 1:1 line because we want to tax them more than average. I challenge someone to point out how we can provide massive subsidies to the poor while not overly-taxing them on the margin and thereby encouraging them to remain poor. If you can do that, you deserve a spot in the next administration's cabinet.
McReynolds I'm not for a tax cut. I'm for higher taxes, lower for the poor (in fact a "negative income tax" for those at the poverty level, which means they would get cash back) and much higher for the wealthy
Looking at this statement, he supports giving additional money to people who are at the poverty level. Let's say I make $10,000/year. Under his plan, I would get perhaps $5,000/year from a "negative tax" to bring me up to some pre-set standard.
Now, let's say that I get a raise. I am now making $15,000/year. Now I am no longer at the poverty line, so I do not get nearly as much of a "negative tax" as before. Let's say that I only get $1,000 now.
Before I was making $15,000/year after taxes. I worked my ass off to get a raise and now I make $16,000/year. That is a marginal tax of 80%! I would have been much happier to not work as hard and stay at $15,000 than to work myself to the bone for a measly $1,000.
Don't be fooled by Socialist economics. They will do nothing but keep the poor poor.
But what about the rich, they say. McReynolds is for much higher taxes for the rich and almost complete estate tax at death. The argument goes that then we will have sooo much money to give back to the poor.
I call BS
If I have a couple million dollars in the bank, I can afford lawyers and accountants. In fact, I can afford lawyers and accountants in multiple countries. See where I am going with this? If the US starts to tax people's assets at death, the rich will simply displace the assets into non-taxables. Whether that be fixed capital (buildings, land, machines) or foreign assets, if you are rich, you can afford to move your money around. In fact, if you spend a couple of months of the year outside of the US, you don't pay taxes. You could live on Euros or Loonies paid to you through a bank account in Switzerland for which you have a VISA check card.
Do you think the poor or middle-income families in America can do this? Not a chance. They are stuck here with their mid-level mediocrity enforced by the income tax/gift tax/estate tax and everything else that McReynolds wants to institute in his Socialist utopia.
it was a JOKE!
. ..E......................!
The signature "John Rocker, Atlanta Braves" didn't alert you?
Here, let me say it so you can understand it:
i................t.....................
w................a..................s..
a................
J................O..................K..........
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
I love candidate Browne's commercial where they blow up the IRS and everyone runs around cheering. That was some funny stuff!
I'm on a chair.
Gas: Take the total number of gallons of fuel used by cars ina year, divide it by the number of dollars spent on road infrastructure, you now have a tax rate in $/gal.
Cigs: Well, in this hypothetical libertarian government, there would be no tobacco subsidies. And presumably no government healthcare for the people who get lung cancer, so there probably wouln't be any taxes on butts -- the gov. doesn't spend any money on the tobacco industry, so there isn't anything to recoup.
Disclaimer: I'm not a libertarian, this is just how I imagine it would work.
The Bell System.
Plain Old Telephone Service was developed at Bell Labs, funded entirely by American Telephone and Telegraph, nary a dime of Uncle Sam's money. (The things they did develop for the government were add-ons, like encryption and wiretap devices and such.) The ubiquitous telephone, the sine qua non of business the world over, was developed by a company who then was broken up by the American government not once but twice.... IMHO the latest time, happening even as we speak, the result of the sheer weight of government regulation, forcing old "T" to break itself up along regulatory lines.
Actually, I just thought of another one... the commodity PC. It can be argued that there were various levels of involvement and interference, but the bottom line is that once the court system told the Patent Orifice to STICK IT and let the cloners reverse engineer, the market went ballistic, thus enabling Linus....
Oh, jeeze. UNIX, for Seldon's sake.
And one more, for good measure. The Internet. Yeah, it was *invented* by DARPA... but it wasn't until they killed funding for NSFNet and the various commercial network companies came to the fore that the Web made like unto a mushroom cloud....
So, there, Mr. AC, the telephone, the PC, Unix, and the Internet as we know it. All those things that are absolutely necessary for business today were either done sans government, or enabled by government getting the hell out the way.
That's why I'm voting Libertarian.
--
"See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too." -- Linus Torvalds
Oh come on, what's more insane, voting for some politician you don't want in office because you think he'll win, or voting for the guy who you actually want running the country?
I don't know when people started feeling that voting was about picking the winner, it's not a horse race and there's no prize at the end for voting for the wrong guy. Really, I can't imagine any more wasted vote than for Gore or Bush, regardless of who wins.
er... yeah. riiiiiigggghhtt. there are a number of countries (the scandinavian one's in particular) where a tendency to be more socialist has been very successful. high tax rates. high minimum wage. government sponsored everything and a populace that tends to be better educated and not in any obvious economic difficulties.
this is not a vote for socialism but rather a comment that it works for some and some it's ideals should at least be considered. socialism is not a death sentence.
the dictators that you mention were exactly that. dictators and their governments were dictatorships regardless of their supposed underlying doctrine. tyrants can be capitalists too.
And Mussolini made the trains run on time.
and mussolini was a fascist not a socialist.
The worst part about being atheist is that we don't know what to yell out during sex.
"Oh-my-lack-of-God! Oh-my-lack-of-God!"
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
How do you collect the taxes? This scheme requires a LARGE collection force (due to the HUGE amount of porn available), and a massive effort to prevent a black market from arising. And it is inherently unstable (if there is no money to fund a tax collection bureaucracy, no taxes are collected, and hence, no money is available for tax collection).
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
Who exactly is "they"? Mondale wasn't a socialist.
I think, of all candidates, once the third-party candidates -- the only ones actually running on what they believe -- start pandering to get more votes, then we are truly finished as a democracy.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
"I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off"
--
RumorsDaily
I'm not trying to troll but you've probably missed another important possibility:
:)
3) The United States is a huge, diversified country with a large standing army (to be politically incorrect, an imperialistic power). To maintain internal cohersion and have a rationale of such a large military spending, nothing is better than a scary, unhuman enemy...
In the past half century, we had the good old Soviet - to be fair, they're probably also using the "evil imperial capitalistic" US as the same tool. Now, we're forced to turn to some faceless, evil terrorists or some wimpy rogue nations. Sadly, they aren't really that up to the roles. Tomorrow, we may need to good back to the "communist" China or the reborn "corrupted, mafia-controlled" Russia for some new arch-enemies. Afterall, as long as we're not really nuking one another, big military spending is good for economy, right?
I'll concede part of the point about AT&T being a government mandated monopoly. That was more through government inaction than government action. AT&T said "We can be a monopoly, can't we?" and the government shrugged and sure, "Sure, do whatever."
As for monopolies not being able to put you in jail, I would say they can (almost). On April 26th, there was a Slashdot article called "Get a Cable Modem...Go to Jail" (link is dead, can't find another) about a woman who signed up for Comcast@home but not Comcast cable TV. She was facing jail time for "stealing" cable despite the fact that she called both Comcasts repeatedly saying that she was not supposed to be getting cable TV. An awesome read if anyone can track down a working link.
I could argue with you that IBM was never a monopoly. My evidence would be that the public did in fact vote them out of office using their checkbooks.
-B
Yes, the phone system came about, for the most part, without government involvement. Unforntunately, it created a monopoly that lasted decades before the government stepped in and broke it up. Monopolies are even worse than the government. There are no checks and balances and you can't vote them out of office. A free market is supposed to be the checks and balances and your checkbook is supposed to be your vote, but by the time a monopoly is in place that system has already broken down.
-B
Remember that income tax isn't the only tax the Federal government collects. The Libertarian position is that duties and excise taxes would be sufficient to cover the Federal functions that are allowed by the constitution.
$25-50 billion could easily be covered by duties alone. Keep in mind though that if the Federal government was smaller, we would have to have a whole new model for our society. It's all do-able but can be scary if you don't have a plan for the transition. For example, if the government isn't fixing the roads, somebody has to do it. And somebody has to be paid to do it. That means some sort of sytem where people that want to use the roads have to kick in for repairs. This could be overseen by state and local governments, but I would like to see some sort of private model.
The point is, state and local governments can still do what they want. If Libertarians are everywhere then damn near everything gets privatized. That means competition. Nobody is competing with the government in most areas so people in government bureaucracies have no real incentive to be efficient. In the private sector, you can't get away with that for long because somebody leaner and meaner will have you for breakfast.
A dyslexic man walks into a bra.
I'm not for a tax cut. I'm for higher taxes, lower for the poor (in fact a "negative income tax" for those at the poverty level, which means they would get cash back) and much higher for the wealthy
Heh, yeah, the "higher taxes" thing worked oh-so-well for Mondale in '84. You think they'd learn....
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Has anyone hear ever heard of the United States Constitution? I'm libertarian and strong supporter of Mr. Browne. I absolutely do NOT want any govenment to spend my money support science research or the arts. But, if I did, I certainly wouldn't support the government doing it in violation of its constitution. The constistution was conceived of as chains on the federal government. Decades ago, politicians figured out they could ignore the constitution and get away with it, and now the monster is loose. If you want funding for something like that, fine. You're entitled to such a belief. Get a constitutional amendment passed, and then at least it will be legal to do so.
David Corbin Promote Freedom - American Liberty Foundation
Sure, initially it will be more costly, but if you only ever look at the short term results, you get a system, well, like we have now. Since the great depression American's have been electing leaders who are focusing only on the next election, and how they're going to get more votes, and not on what is going to work best for our country in the long run.
Currently, the majority of people on welfare are single women with children, most of whom have more children so they get more money from welfare. Is this what we need? People with no motivation to work, having children who will be raised with no motivation to work?
Personally, I would support giving someone a middle class income for life (Say, $25-$30k/yr) if they agree to get themself sterilized, not have it reversed, and have not yet had children. Use this instead of welfare. That way, the people too lazy to work will have removed themselves from the gene pool, and not propgated yet another generation of lazy children.
Sure, we'll lose a lot of great genes from artists and others who will use that $30k/yr to live as they choose, but I'd be willing to bet they'll leave other things to us that will be just as valuable.
Of course, I'd be more happy to see the Government off my back, which is why I'll be voting for browne in a couple weeks.
--
When I was able to do my own spam-armoring, you got a chance to email me. Now you can only hope I see your reply.
I think we need to take a serious look at what we fund. Which companies have built giant telescopes to look for black holes? Or what company is going to spend the cash to find out if gravity waves exist or not? Do we benefit from these things as a nation and the human race. Hell yes.
Look at the space program. Many people say it was/is a waste of money. Sure getting from point A to point B didn't we didn't reap a lot of benefits, but look at the technology we accumulate along the way, everything from space metals to Tang! Sure private companies are starting to take some interest in space now, for launching satellites and such, but look how long it took them. I don't see many commercial companies trying to land stuff on the Mars. You might not see the benefits now but they will be there in the future.
I think these tasks though should fall back onto our education system. The funding for these projects should be directed at Universities and even local High Schools and Private Schools that want to take a stab at scientific research. True, we spend more on science and the Arts than we should, but maybe we just need to redirect the money to were the need is greatest, where there isn't any public sector interest.
Please tells us more. Freedom is something every religion is OK but it is also saying what you want to say. So you preach freedom of religion at the expense of freedom of the press.
If I feed poison to my children, regardless of reason, I have committed murder. period. Whether or not I my motives were religious should not even be an issue, only that I had motives.
Rebublican: These things are immoral, you shouldn't do them.
Democrat: You don't need to do that, let me do that for you.
Socialist: If you make money doing that, I'll take it from you.
Liberatarian: You can do that, but I won't help you.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
FEAR.
At least that's why I'm voting for Bush this time. It's the fear that Clinton's offspring will win. Gore supporters are using the same fear to get votes away from Nader.
(I voted for Nader last time, and I'm proud to come from the only state where Clinton came in THIRD!)
This subject has actually come up in Slashdot many times before. It's a standard problem with capitalism, in that people can't discern intangibles.
The other problem is that people are busy. Imagine if you wanted a yacht, then, and had a very good reason for it. Maybe your dying crazy uncle knew of a cure for cancer and you just needed a yacht to get there. Whatever. I don't care. Let's just say that you *could convince people if you had the time*.
If you had the time, you could probably raise money from everyone to buy that yacht. I don't see why not - except for the fact that people don't have time to listen to half a million people like you. In order for a system of 250 million people and growing to work, we need to actually have delegation of authority, and some organization which takes that 'listening to everyone' load off of people's backs so they can go and live their lives.
This is the main argument I have with individualistic-government ideas - society today simply does not have the time to handle their own lives, plus all of the responsibilities that 'individualistic governments' want to give them. I barely have time to investigate candidates!
Government-funded science is useful because it creates a beauracracy whose job is to determine what's valuable to society and what isn't. Letting corporations decide this is idiotic - corporations exist to make money, and some things may have phenomenally huge benefits with huge costs but are not cost-effective - that is, space travel. The beauracracy, therefore, has some semblance of giving funding to programs which deserve it.
On the arts side, I am actually rather frightened to hear people suggesting that arts do not have value to them. This is distinctly an artifact of America as a relatively new country, and one area we desparately need to learn from Europe. I shudder to think what would have happened to Leonardo da Vinci under your society.
But this is essentially what the benefit of hard science is - spinoffs. In this case, Apollo was pure 'engineering' - also known as 'proof-of-concept.' Research for science's sake usually has unexpected benefits in many unrelated areas. That said, you do raise a good point - it's just that Apollo is not a good example of what you're trying to say. Apollo was a good spending of money in the same way that Hubble was a good spending of money.
Keep in mind that 'humanity' != 'average person.' I can't stress this enough - partly because I am a pure scientist (practical benefits are for engineers) but mostly because it's true. Pure science is akin to the arts - it doesn't have a direct effect on the average person, true, but it helps society and culture by boosting morale and people's self-image and opinions on the society.
For instance, let me ask this question: we spend millions attempting to work out the age of the universe. Suppose we figure it out, and we're absolutely sure it's right. What does that do for the average person? Some people would say 'nothing' - well, that's partly true. Nothing tangible. But to many, it would give a sense of closure and a sense of their place in the world. It's a good aesthetic benefit.
It's hard to explain to people in America that the intangible things in society are more important than the tangible. This in contrast to Europe, where they name parks and roads after artists and scientists, whereas in America, we name roads after politicians who wanted the road built to boost the stock of a construction company who works on it. Not to say that Europe doesn't have its problems - but when it comes to art, culture, and society, they could run rings around us.
How exactly did George W. Bush earn his wealth?
Perhaps if people in the US really did hate the [unearned] rich like those sensible people in Europe do, we wouldn't be faced with the prospect of another Bush presidency.
--
--
E_NOSIG
Politics:
Please please please don't equate the form of government (dictatorship, totalitarian government, etc) with the official method they are elected.
Democracies elect all kinds of governments, and often they are non 'liberal' in the classic sense at all. Marx had a funny one liner that goes something like 'Democracy is the system where the people get to pick a new oppressor every few years'.
I would say instead that in democracies people get to pick their leaders every few years, sometimes they are oppressors, and sometimes they are freedom lovin' capitalists (which is how we in the US generally think of democracies).
-spRed
.sig Karma out the wazoo, better to spend points elsewhere if this is above 2 or below 0
Thought you were going to ask them 10.....
As soon as the election is over... as soon as the election is over...
--
"As an atheist I have an interest in this topic."
:)
"Thank God we have it."
I love it when atheists say "Thank God"
It's easy. Just have the CIA sell some more crack. And have corporate-sponsored courtrooms.
"Guilty - the choice of a new generation"
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather have research done with tax dollars than private investments.
First, ownership of ideas. If my government makes the discovery it's mine too. While I might have limited access to it's benefits, I can almost guarantee they would come to me at a cheaper price than from the free market. One area I think this argument holds is for drug companies. With the social security argument ongoing, I've noticed that a large percentage of the costs come from prescription drugs. By the time I'm old (25 now) every single drug on the market should be available cheaply from the government, not the drug companies. There's a certain look a corporation gets in its eye when it has something you need to live. And it makes a sound, chi-ching.
Second, motivation. This is always a rallying cry for privatization of services. "People will work harder when they have a carrot." But what we're talking about here is pure research. Given some of the technologies that will be developed over the next 50 years, and the profound effects they might have on our living environment, I would rather the people discovering them not be on a deadline. Rushed to pass research so they can bring whatever to market, and get the patent to eliminate competition.
There were also a couple of contradiction in Browne's platform (no big gov't, just big gov't projects), and his answer "umm, yeah those 30 day deals should solve software/entertainment copyright issues." And considering what would have to be a very business friendly vs. citizen friendly platform, I don't like what that would mean in this industry.
I'm sure you are closer to these actualities than I am, but there's my pennies for the day.
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+&x
There were commercial networks before commercial traffic was allowed/popular on the internet. You could use compuserve, or delphi, or prodigy, or applelink, or (etc etc etc).
To say that government had nothing to do with the internet as we know it completely ignores the fact that it was the government-researched network which created the standards base. Without that base, you just have a bunch of balkanized, incompatable private networks. The most important feature of the internet is that it is an internetwork of *compatable* third-party networks.
Read the whole comment. He was joking you goof.
I guess the "Sincerely,
John Rocker - Atlanta Braves" went over my head. I automatically filter sports related news out of my consciousness unless it is some weird sport like curling or archery. I'm guessing it has something to do with the subway series going on in NYC?
My apologies, Icebox -- you were too subtle for me.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
So let's not get stuck in the ideology of favoring rail over everything else either. There are plenty of places for everything... until teleporters come along, at any rate. I used to work for an environmental organization. I noticed that a lot of people who could take the train drove their cars, so I suggested that we charge a nominal amount for parking (which was subsidized by our rent) and use the revenues to buy people transit passes (which were not subsidized). Boy, did that ever go over like a lead baloon. The point is that even environmentalists know it's really nice to have a car -- in fact I own two of them (chosen for high gas mileage, I might add). Maybe my point also that many environmentalists are hypocrites -- plenty of them drive SUVs. In any case I don't think most transit advocates think we should stop building or maintaining roads. It's more often the case that people of a certain political stripe get this idea that mass transit is this horrible, socialist plot to take away our God given right to sit in traffic jams. I'm with you -- intermodal is the way to go -- cars, buses, commuter trains, bike routes, pedestrian routes too. Taking 50% of the commuters off the roads benefits people as much as doubling the capacity of the roads and parking areas. Personally, I like the zeppelin idea too. As air disasters go, the Hindenburg was relatively benign. Sadly, no one wants to connect either to the Eastside, where a LOT of suburbs are, so I doubt we'll see any great improvement. Which points out the reason people of a certain stripe don't like mass transit -- it not only can whisk you downtown, but it can whisk the great unwashed uptown.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Well, we subsidize the roads don't we? The state highway department, last time I checked, had a monoploy on road construction.
We subsidize airports, don't we? The local port authority has a monopoly on major airports.
The government wouldn't have to build roads if there were a market for them.
I'm totally serious. There is no market for roads, and there is no market for rail travel. They are public good, their benefits (like street lights or national defense but to a lesser degree) are not excludable.
The fact that there is no market for them doesn't mean people don't want or need them, it just means you can't succeed by expecting private enterprise to take up the slack.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Some people economists claim that there would be a market for private highways if the government opened things up, since most highways are also excludable (see toll roads if you need proof of this).
Those people would be wrong. All toll roads I know of are publicly constructed, maintained and subsidized. It would be feasible to create entirely private highway systems in areas with practically no development, but then those are not the areas that require additional highway development. Furthermore and more to the point the existence of toll roads only proves there is an economically exclusive element in road usage -- obviously so or nobody would pay the toll. It does not show that the benefits of toll road use are entirely or even predominantly exclusive.
If I choose to take public transportation to work, there are private benefits to me (I get into), and public benefits to other commuters (who enjoy reduced congestion), and to city residents (who enjoy reduced pollution and traffic). Individually, the public benefit from my using the subway is small, but in aggregate it is enormous. For example I believe about half the commuters goin into the city of Boston take the subway; it follows that there would have to be a two fold increase in highway, street and parking capacity. Clearly there is an enormouse benefit from the existence of a public transportation system in the city of Boston.
Economic excludability is not an either/or proposition. Many private goods have public benefit and most public goods have private dimensions. The question is not whether a good falls entirely in the public or private sector, but whether the public good is sufficiently great to warrant public support; and whether the marginal dollar spent yields a sufficient good to warrant its spending.
By exact mechanism of support and production does not have to be through government agency. For example, the 19th century railroad barons made their great fortunes not mainly on the profitability of their operations but on a huge(but off budget) government subsidy. Recognizing the public value of having fast reliable travel between the coasts, the government incented private companies by offering vast rights of way around the new track laid. They were granted by the government a fraction of the public good that would be generated by their private investment -- land that would become valuable.
Another example would be vouchers for private schools. Clearly private schools have a public benefit as well as private one.
OS industry may be a natural monopoly, because the larger the market share, the more software runs on it, and the more software that runs on it, the more its market share will increase),
The OS industry is almost certainly not a natural monopoly, and is definitely not one of those monopolies which must be granted by government (e.g. monopolies which could not without legally guaranteed monopoly profit incentives attract sufficient investment).
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'm guessing that he is advocating public transportation by train. If so, he won't be getting my vote.
We're building the most expensive mile of road in human history up here in Boston because we're an old city that's maxed out on cars. About half of the people who commute in Boston take public transit. Public transit may not be the most luxurious way to travel, but if we eliminated transit this very expensive project would be utterly overwhelmed. I'd shudder to think what New York would be like with out the subway.
As far as Amtrak is concerned, we've already maxed out air travel capacity. That's why there are so many delays at Newark -- the airlines are scheduling half again as many flights there as the airport can handle. Almost every other major airport has the same problem but to a lesser degree. And don't forget the feeder systems -- the airport car routes that are routinely congested.
On the other hand, I can take the new Accela train from Boston to Manhattan in three hours -- less time than flying when you factor in the delays due to an overloaded air system (not to mention the delay in getting from Queens downtown). I get of at Penn station and walk a hundred yards to the subway which whisks me anywhere I want to go in minutes. Plus, on the train I get half again the leg room and seat width, and an outlet to plug my laptop into. I get tons of work done because it is comfortable enough to work on the train.
Build roads or transit? It makes sense to put your money where the greatest marginal increase in commuter capacity will be achieved. You can't double the road capacity in a place like Boston (or LA for that matter), but you could increase the amount of trains and busses relatively cheaply, making public transit faster and more convenient.
That's how the private sector optimizes its profits -- by putting money where the greatest marginal benefit exists. It makes no sense to bash this rational strategy because of an ideological bias for roads over transit, and then conclude that government is "inefficient".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
AT&T was handed a monopoly over all new telephone systems by the Communications Act of 1928 (or something like that). You have a nice theory, but it's contradicted by the facts. -russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
You're funny. You claim that corporations have too much power (they do) because they seek out government regulations (they do), and then you say that a libertarian society would change this. Well yeah!! Of course it would! Corporations would have to compete instead of being handed a business through regulation. A libertarian society would result in less corporate power, not more.
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
BUT it's NOT REALLY a democracy. Read this:
http://www.vaix.net/~api/23118.htm
MarNuke
Not really brainwashed, it's just goes against the brainwashing of the American way. American is about being free. Free to do what you want. Free to do what you want to do with your tax money. In American, you shouldn't be forced to do anything you don't want to do.
Socialism isn't a bad system. Many people around the world love it. They are people who don't value personal freedom. Americans has always value personal freedom. We had brave countryman die for our freedom of choice. America histroy is about freedom. Sure socialism help people, and it provide for people, but it takes away from personal freedom.
Do you see how a personal freedom loving person fear socialism? I do and I fear socialism.
MarNuke
n. Abbr. rep., Rep., Repub.
-
- A political order whose head of state is not a monarch and in modern times is usually a president.
- A nation that has such a political order.
-
- A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible to them.
- A nation that has such a political order.
- Often Republic. A specific republican government of a nation: the Fourth Republic of France.
- An autonomous or partially autonomous political and territorial unit belonging to a sovereign federation.
- A group of people working as equals in the same sphere or field: the republic of letters.
democracy (d-mkr-s)n., pl. democracies.
I believe there is a clear diffenrent between the two. If you don't see it here it is:
Republic - power lies in a body of citizens. (states)
Democracy - Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. (national goverment)
Your statement at the courts is damn wrong. Look around, you tell me. Every law, enforcement of law, ruling on law, not in the constitution, by fedral goverment is superceding the Constitution.
MarNuke
Hmm. So a man who reads geek news thinks that geeks aren't real men? Are you feeling insecure about your masculinity? Or are you a woman who checked my picture and is now consumed with jealousy because I'm sexy AND smart? :)
Anyone who reads here on a regular basis knows that my inability to spell only proves I'm a geek, the majority of posts on here have at least one error. For instance, it's spelled Tennessee. 2 N's, 2 S's, 4 E's. Got it?
Cheers,
Geek-grrl in training
"The quickest way to a man's heart is through his chest."
To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
I can't get no respect... Nobody likes my spelling... :) So I am officially changing my title to Mistress of Existentialism, in the hopes that nobody cares how it's spelled.
Mistress of Existentialism
Two wrongs are only the beginning....
To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
Is it just me, or did the Socialist candidate state he FAVORED ripping off poor writers? What kind of an attitude is that for a socialist? You're supposed to rip off the rich to feed the poor starving writers, not vice versa...
* *
Geek grrl in training
***********************************************
A recent poll tells why the people of New Hampshire are supporting George Bush. 40% like my foreign policy, 40% support my economic policy, and 20% believe I make a good premium beer. - George Bush campaigning in 1988
To truly understand recursion, you must first truly understand recursion.
bu guo san dai...
~ppppppppö
people who get their life on a plate don't try hard. The person above the person I replied to was recommending doing away with poor people, kinda like the PRC system, but more 'no money, no kids'.
:)
I was just positing that if you don't need to achieve anything then you won't. And that any such system such as s/he was propsing will eventually lead to a decline in innovation, check out the romans and us british.
And yeah sorry about the fortune bit, I used to have pure beijing mandarin (beuatiful language) but I was corrupted by malaysian chinese....
they're very economic....
also sorry, I was just pissed of by that harry guy, I mean if you want to sell snake oil you should at the very least have dancing girls
the only good polition is a lost one, in a dark room where we have knives.
hey hey watch this comment dissapear
~ppppppppö
The condensed version is that he sees nothing wrong with globalization, and that we should open up to worldwide trade even more than we do.
Might those who (for an example) weave baskets in america lose their jobs? Perhaps, as its much cheaper to get baskets from basket weavers in indonesia or south america. But, OTOH, all those basket weaving companies sprouting up in south america now need computers and forklifts which they will buy from whoever makes those the best / cheapest (thats us!)
Free trade is not about taking peoples jobs, although thats sometimes a temporary side effect. It's about using the strengths of each region to produce products better and cheaper and thus creating a whole system which is more efficent as a whole. People will end up producing things they are more capable to produce, providing them at a lower price, and at the same time increasing profit margins (which will be reflected in employee salaries).
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Compared to Facism, America is a democracy.
To a layman, America is a democracy (dictionary.com offers the layman's definition: Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.)
But to a political scientist, there is of course a difference between a republic and a democracy.
As for your link, that's interesting in theory, but hardly bears any resemblence to reality. When was the last Supreme Court ruling that openly endorsed superceding the Constitution because the country is in a state of emergency?
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I'm sure everyone had heard of him, and knew who he was and what he had done. But my point was that he lived in an age without TV or radio, probably no one had heard him speak or seen him or even knew what he looked like. The only knowledge people had was probably based on reputation and word of mouth (and we know how accurate that is...). Radio was a major step in the right direction, as was TV, and the Internet is the next step that makes the process even better.
And let's not forget, he did win the war....
...with the help of the French, who were fairly powerful and hated the British anyway. I agree that his best skill was holding things together, none of the historians I've heard talk have anything gushing to say about his military ability though. In the French and Indian War, he was an officer sent on a few missions that he failied miserably. I wish I remembered more of the specifics to be able to say just which ones.
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It is true that we are not at war, but as history will prove, you *always* have to be prepared for the slightest chance of conflict and maintain a realistic image of strong national defense.
Thanks for doing your part to maintain the self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope you keep a bat or a gun under your bed at night, you never know who could be out to get you.
Meanwhile, next time you and your counterparts from other countries decide to go duke it out because your leaders think it's a good idea, I'll have changed my address to perhaps British Columbia, though Alberta seems nice enough.
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Isn't this amazing?
/. for managing to arrange this interview, and kudos to the candidates for participating.
When George Washington was elected president, I bet that more than half the population had never so much as seen a picture of him. Who can guess how many knew anything significant about his ideas, aspirations, or plans for the presidency? He happened to be the General of the Continental forces during the revolutionary war, but from what I've read, he wasn't even very good at that.
Fast forward to now. Anyone who has a computer (and between home, school, the library, and work, who doesn't) can post a question that the presidential candidates will read and respond to, and if it's good enough (judged not by the media, not by campaign spokespeople, not by some faceless beaurocrat, but by your peers). You could be a 12 year old student or a senior citizen, of any race--a handle doesn't discriminate.
It's amazing how the Internet is bringing democracy to a level the world has never seen. Kudos to
--
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
Of course corporations would actually house and feed you if they could force you to work down in the mines breathing coal dust (which they did for a long time) but even then they would routinely kill or maim those who tried to break free out of their bondage.
The only reason corporations don't revert to that mode of working is because the government agreed to do it for them.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
I can't stand it when delusional fucks like you keep spreading lies about how a bunch of scrap aluminum you are going to gather in the ditches can fetch you $25.00. I did not have a car and all I had was a bike I bought for $10.00 from a kid how do propose I get a truckload of aluminum to the recycling plant (way out of town) so I can pay my bill.
While I am at it. How do you propose to collect more taxes from the poor. Only an idiot would propose that you go the people with the least money in your country and get enough money out of them to run the country while letting the rich go. Even if you confiscated a 100% of all the income from the poor you could not raise enough money to run the country for a day. How do you punish the homeless people when they refuse to hand over that dollar that they made when loaded up their nonexistent trucks with the scrap aluminum and took ti across town to the recycling center. Send them to jail? Whooo that's smart give them shelter and food cos they did not give you dollar.
Every night I would get calls from collectors and I would tell them the same thing. Sorry I can't pay you I have no more money. You can't collect blood from a stone and I got no more left. For years I scraped by like that living on the handouts from people around me. People who helped me out and fed me when I most needed it. I now glady help others in need because I know what it feels like to starve (literally).
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
You had nothing right? You were able to convince people to prepay you for hauling recyclables in 1989 right?
People were so eager to part with their money and so eager to recycle and so busy that they would give someone who had nothing enough money to rent a truck to haul their recylables right? Now these idiots were stupid enough to pay you knowing that a poor person like you might just take the money and never see them again right?
OK then having found enough environmentally friendly yet lazy and stupid people to pay for a rental truck for a day. You hauled all that garbage to the recyling place right?
So your profit margins must have been massive if you did this and it payed for your living, food, rent, etc AND you had enough money left over to buy your own truck right? In fact you made so much money that not only did you buy a new truck but you also paid your way through engineering school.
SO let me ask you something. When did the drugs kick in and on what planet were you. This is the best fairy tale I have ever heard in my life. If you are going to make up shit at least try to make it belivable willya.
Oh yea I kiss your mother with that mouth.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
Socialism is centralized
Your ideas about socialism are wrong. I have never heard a socialist promote a society like the one you describe. And as for being centralised... well, there are many different types of socialism. For example, Anarcho-socialism. (I was going to put a link to the A-S FAQ there, but someone seems to have nicked it).
Personally, I think I'll go along with the vast majority of the major thinkers of the 20th Century in preferring socialism over capitalism... George Orwell, Ché Guevara, John-Paul Sartre, Asimov, Malcolm X, Einstein, Aneurin Bevan, Oscar Wilde etc. etc.
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I'm suprised McReynolds replied here to Slashdot. If he's paid any attention he's got to know that it has a very large Anarcho-Libertarian user base
Of course. There's no point in preaching to the choir, is it? If he wants supporters, he needs to appeal to different areas. Maybe someone who read the interview is even now reading a bit of George Orwell or Karl Marx, or a biography of Ché Guevera to see what all this Socialism shit is all about. Probably not though.
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OK...
:) Of course, I doubt McReynolds is that radical, but then you have to define "substantial". The graph can almost be as gradual as you like, depending on the relative wealth of rich and poor.
geezer == generic British term for a bloke, guy, etc.
Perhaps I should clarify for the mathematically impared...My numbers were illustrative, not fixed.
They seemed fairly fixed to me. $15,000? Yeah, they could have been illustrative numbers, but you happened to pick numbers that gave an 80% marginal tax rate.
Of course, the income tax would be a sliding scale. You will notice that my numbers do not indicate a cut-off point
OK, fair one. I read your post a bit quickly and didn't realise it wasn't actually a cut-off you were talking about.
So long as c > a, there will exist some point at which the poor are paying a substantially higher marginal tax rate than the rich. Thus, they have a substantially lower return on their additional work
Not if you're applying the inverse of whatever function you're using to calculate negative income tax to calculate tax to be paid when income > c, eg exponential function
But this is implementation-specific. I happen to agree with the sentiment; the strong support the weak rather than the law of the jungle. At some point it comes down to philosophical preferences.
Of course, lots of socialists believe that money is a rather crude form of rationing.
No, socialist utopia is a reference to Sir Thomas More's seminal work outlining modern socialist theory
Modern? Didn't More live c. 15th century?
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Mmmm... moderator crack... *drool*
No, seriously, who the hell moderated this up? There are various arguments you can make against Socialism, but this geezer has picked numbers out of the air. If anyone ever decided to implement a 'negative income tax' for the poor, it would be a sliding scale, not a cut-off point at some poverty level made up by HerbieTMac. By making up arguments like this, you just make yourself look stupid.
And 'Socialist utopia'? Is that meant to be an insult? Presumably you think a utopia would be capitalist, yes? Does anyone think in 200 years time we will still be living in a capitalist society (serious question)?
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Well, of course ... I mean, the *title* is part of the post =)
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
McReynolds : I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off.
Damn! Sign me up!!!!
"Oh, I hope he doesn't give us halyatchkies," said Heinrich.
Give me a break, the title 'Socialist' can mean very different things. Of course the Nazis were the 'National Socialist' party, so they must all be like that, right?
There are a good many stable democracies in the world that are currently run by center-left parties, calling themselves 'socialist'.
Unfortunately, linguistically the economic policies get mixed up with the social and political policies which don't necessarily have to go together. If I was naming this stuff I'd call it:
Economics
- Capitalism: an economic policy espousing competative production and private ownership.
- Communism: an economic policy favoring centralized production and collective ownership.
Social policy
- Social Darwinism (better word?): a social policy believing that people are responsible for their own welfare with no governmental assistance.
- Socialism: a social policy which espouses that a government has some responsibility for the welfare of its people.
Politics
- Democracy: a political policy where people vote for the laws which govern them either directly or indirectly through their representatives.
- Authoritarianism: a political policy in which those in power make all political decisions.
That way you could make the following kinds of statements:
- The USSR was a communist, socialist, authoritarian state.
- China today is a mixed capitalist/communist economy, with a socialist social policy and a mostly authoritarian political structure.
- Germany has a capitalist economy a moderately socialist social policy and a democratic political structure.
Unfortunately, today all three of the above are called socialist, even though Germany virtually nothing in common with the USSR.
-Bruce
This is the worst sort of anti-Libertarian FUD. Of course child porn would be prosecuted! Libertarians are:
- Anti-Violence. Child porn = violence against a child.
- Aware of the concept of adult consent. If you are consenting adults, a Libertarian govt would stay out of your bedroom and not think of telling you what chemicals you could introduce into your own body. They are also aware that a child cannot consent.
Please consult resources like the National Platform of the Libertarian Party before spouting nonsense like this...I'd've put "REFUSED TO ANSWER" in big red capital letters.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Essentially, the effect of the Electorial College is to concentrate voting power (e.g. a voter in Michigan this year has considerably more than 1/#ofvoters influence over this year's Presidential election; a voter in Massachusettes has none whatsoever because that state's electorial vote is as preordained as tomorrow's sunrise).
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
You know, I found it refreshing to hear what these two individuals had to say about the questions they were posed. You could tell it was honest opinion when MyReynolds opined on "inhaling" once-in-a-while, even now.
At first, this statement shocked me ("WHAAT! A candidate admitting to casual marijuana use? The nerve!") - but as I thought about it, I liked his honesty. This is one trait you have to admire, even if you don't agree with anything else the man says: He was being honest.
This in itself is something we rarely see in normal, everyday individuals, let alone politicians...
I support the EFF - do you?
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
The original guy didn't say his was a god of reason, he said that reason is his god, in other words for him reason is the ultimate power/driving force of the universe.
Atheism takes two general forms, one camp believes there is no god. The other camp (to which I belong, btw) simply doesn't believe in any god, but could presumably be convinced if one made a convicning apperance. It's a subtle but important distinction.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
The income tax was first collected in 1863 to pay for the Civil War. It was stopped in 1872, but declared constitutional in 1881. A new income tax was passed in 1894, but declared unconstitutional. This led to the 16th amendment in February 1913, and a new income tax in October of that same year.
As the mystic said to the hot dog vendor, "Make me one with everything"
Umm... so who/what parties *do* you support?
Monkey boy,
:P
I'll be waiting here with Bill Ruger at my side.
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
> I think the basic point of his statement is that people live better with less government interference.
Yet he wants to pretend that corporations do not provide their own form of government - their own ruling class (shareholders), laws (contracts), taxes (prices, fees, etc), conquering armies (lawyers), immigration (HR or marketing/sales), and serfs (employees or customers).
I appreciate that the Libertarians want to cut off the Hydra's head - but I don't want to pay the price when a hundred more sprout out of the stump.
> The government is effectively saying to the poor that, by being poor, they have demonstrated a lack of money management skills. Therefore, the government must take their money away in taxes and manage it for them.
But that goes exactly against the Libertarian principle of governmental noninterference.
Right, because private charities have so much more money and can always outbid the rich.
> has anyone noticed that people become socialists after they realize that they will never make any money?
All valuable contribution to society isn't rewarded with lots of money. Success isn't the same as merit.
Taking away the products of other peoples' labor is exactly what capitalism (to the extent that capitalism is the economic structure used by the very rich in the US) is all about, and it is what unions exist to prevent. A factory union, or a trade union, whatever, is basically a microcosm of socialism: a bunch of normal, hardworking people getting together and telling The MAN that they're not going to pay some kind of tribute (read: work for less than their labor is worth) just because he ended up in charge somehow. Gee, doesn't that sound like the libertarians telling the federal government that they don't want to pay income tax?
All of these political parties are just different voices for the ongoing conversation between the ruling class and the rest of us.
Microsoft charges whatever they want, too.
> To me, capitalism is as obvious a force for societal improvement as "survival of the fittest" has been for genetic improvement.
Okay, this obviously ignores several things.
#1: popular (you can sell it) != right (helps people) - this isn't very important, because
#2: capitalism is not necessarially an evolutionary system, because it only fits one of the two criteria (variation and selection). it does have strong selection, namely for money management skills, but it only has optional variation in the form of venture capital, and the very rich don't need to invest that much, so it's not really a destabilizing factor.
You might be pleased to note that a very strong socialism is not an evolutionary system either, because it lacks selection. The difference is that giving individuals the power to select, and assuming variation, is freedom ("do what you like, and we'll make sure the rest is done too"), but giving individuals the power to vary, assuming selection, is oppression. ("sure, you can go off on your own, but we retain the right to hunt you down if we don't like you")
#3: Isn't there anything more important that you can think of than money management skills? like merit? corporations have no real limits; they can change products without blinking, abuse their employees (who often don't have anywhere else to go), use low-quality parts or ingredients, etc etc all in the name of driving down costs. And a corporation doesn't have a conscience. It exists as a profit-making entity.
The only way to resist this power is with other power; if need be, the poor will engage in violent revolution. But imo it be nicer if they didn't have to.
> Imagine how much more companies could spend on research if they didn't pay taxes.
Actually, many corporations already do get tax breaks for doing research. This is how GM avoids paying taxes - they paid $0 tax last year.
> if an employer's private security forces are shooting union organizers that is a failure of government, not capitalism.
Right. Capitalism doesn't condone or prohibit people shooting each other or otherwise being jerks. Which is why a capitalist economy is incompatable with a weak government.
> There are alternatives to using Microsoft products. Many many viable alternatives.
Sure, but people don't see it that way, and they have the same perception of the government. It's "the OS we're given" and "the gov't we're given." Nobody thinks about "the OS we made," (ie Linux), or "the gov't we made."
New governments aren't handed down from on high with all the rules defined and enumerated, they're constructed from the ground up by dedicated individuals. People who want it to be different need to fight for it no matter what the existing regime is like.
When people complain that the government is too paternalistic, I wonder who it is that is being most childish - the people who are organizing to protect their interests through the government, or the people who are organizing to destroy that tool.
>>If I have a couple million dollars in the bank, >>I can afford lawyers and accountants. In fact, >>I can afford lawyers and accountants in >>multiple countries. See where I am going with >>this? If the US starts to tax people's assets >>at death, the rich will simply displace the >>assets into non-taxables.
/.'esque kind of way...what would you rather see...Bill Gates paying estate taxes or the rest of the public paying them?
Personal disclosure: I make a living by helping rich people lower their estate taxes.
Here is my little exposé on how the rich avoid paying the full estate tax. The rich already displace their assets and as a result, pay less in estate taxes. The estate tax is largely an "avoidable tax." With proper estate planning, you can avoid getting taxed up the wazoo after you pass away. If you were rich, what would you rather do...spend a few grand in legal and professional fees to preserve most of your estate or pay the full estate tax? This can be done with various types of trusts and charitable donations.
Another *very* popular form of estate planning is the family limited partnership, or FLP. The IRS and the tax courts have "blessed" the use of FLPs for many years. An FLP is a legal entity, in the same sense that a corporation or limited liability company is. To reduce your estate/gift tax liability, you transfer the legal ownership of your assets (stock portfolio, real estate, etc.) to the FLP. In exchange for your capital contribution, you receive a limited partnership interest. You can almost think of it as a private mutual fund...but unlike a mutual fund, the number of ownership units are finite. Instead of gifting your assets outright to your family members, or dying with full, direct ownership of your assets, you are now gifting/dying with interests in a privately-held partnership. Let me emphasize this...with an FLP, you do not own the underlying assets...you own an ownership interest in the FLP...it's just like owning stock.
At this point, you may be thinking..."hey, this FLP is just a shell." However, all FLPs that are used in estate/gift tax planning have serious restrictions placed upon them. The FLP agreement places restrictions upon the owners of interests in FLPs. Specifically, a minority interest (non-controlling) owner has no ability whatsoever to control the underlying assets...they cannot determine how the assets are to be invested and they may not receive a return of or withdraw their capital. The only thing they usually receive is a cash distribution from any income that the FLP may generate. In addition, it is very difficult to sell your interest. Usually, the FLP agreement states that you can only sell your interest with the sole consent of the general (managing) partner, or you may only sell your interest to other family members, who may not want to buy your share.
For all of the above purposes, an ownership position in an FLP is worth less to an investor than owning the assets directly. With an FLP, you have lack of control of the underlying assets and sometimes lack of marketability. It is my job to determine the value of FLPs. Not surprisingly, the value of the total FLP itself is worth less than the value of its individual underlying assets. Look at it this way...what has more value to you...100 shares of Andover.net that you own directly, or a noncontrolling interest in a partnership that owns 100 shares of Andover.net. Common sense would dictate that you would demand a discount from the net asset value of the partnership interest due to lack of control concerns. In the public marketplace, the exact same thing happens with closed-end investment funds...If you look at the prices of closed-end funds in Baron's, you will see the net asset value per share column and the market price column. The net asset value is the total value of the underlying assets and the market price is what people actually pay for a share of the closed-end fund. In every case, the market price is less than the net asset value.
So, in the case of an FLP, the gift/estate tax liability is lowered because you're starting with a lower value to base the tax on. IE, Instead of being taxed on $100, you're being taxed on, say, $60 - $75. And it's not really a dirty, underhanded trick...if I had a large estate, I'd want to protect some of it, too.
Also, I would like to note that the estate tax is only payable by people with assets greater than ~$1e6. However, it affects us all...the estate tax is one of the fastest growing revenue streams in the US today. The government is receiving that money and is getting used to *spending* it. If the estate tax was eliminated (almost happened if Clinton didn't veto it), that tax burden would get pushed down to the middle and lower economic classes. Let me put it to you in a
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Don't you know that all us Open-Source people are just communists? So naturally we'd be predisposed to the socialist McReynolds, not against him.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Browne does have a good argument on several issues, and really seems like a nice trustworthy guy on CSPAN, but his laissez-faire attitude towards the environment and free trade rub me the wrong way. There are just *some* things that can't be individualized to be prey for the tragedy of the commons. I believe the environment, and the plight of humans in general are two of those things. Amongst the myriad things you can do with your freedom, I don't think screwing over the shared environment or whole nations of people should be one of them.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Great, Great
So I want to believe that one of my deities likes human flesh.
Ok, I won't kill the first person who appears because i dont like the local jail.
But I will spread my belief that my deity wants fresh meat...
How much until we have JUST ONE murder?
He is the Path, the Truth and the Life
un-earned wealth is the very basis of Capitalism: the appropriation of Product from the workers by the owners of the means of production, using the wage system, direct slavery, the global financial systems, etc.
That's pretty naive. Direct slavery is antithetical to capitalism. "Appropriation of Product from the workers by the owners of the means of production?" So you're saying that, if I set up a factory and give people good-paying jobs, I'm stealing from them? Haw. And in a lot of companies, the workers are owners, anyway. "The global financial systems" -- money by fiat -- I agree here. A commodity-based currency is honest; but fiat money is institutionalized theft.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
How about a one-time special-purpose assessment to be voted on by referrendum?
Or, since the miltary is a legitimate constitutional power, from all the other taxes the government collects?
How about this: because the income tax cannot immediately go away because of outstanding obligations, including paying off teh debt, and because it will take a constitutional amendment to do it, that the income tax pay for it.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
we have been brainwashed to "fear" Socialism?
Although I disagree with the terms you put it in, here is my answer:
Americans have been trained to be suspicious of authority in all of its forms. We glorify the rebel and demonize the tyrant. Because socialism requires the government to invade our lives and tell us what we "deserve" and how we will live, we have a natural reaction against it as an authoritarian scheme that should not be trusted. Americans have also always valued merit, personal talent and individual hard work; they balk at teh idea of politics deciding allocations and deciding what a "fair share is." Most Americans think that a person's fair share is whatever they earn for themselves. That's why, in this country, people generally envy the rich instead of hate them; because they know that, by and large, the rich earned their way up. In Europe, they hate the rich because most of them inherited their wealth. Unearned wealth is bad on many levels. This is what's wrong with Bush's inheritance tax plan -- if anything, it should be raised. If people are worried about losing the family business, they can just make a c-class corporation out of it and not worry. It's only sole proprietorships (and perhaps s-corps) which are "personmal property" to be inherited.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Economics
Social policy
Collectivism/Socialism: a social policy which espouses that everyone is their brother's keeper, and either forces each person to help other people (in prescribed manners), or punishes people for not helping (in prescribed manners).
Politics
That way you could make the following kinds of statements:
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Perhaps if we prevented wealth from being unearned... rather than hating the rich...
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
God: Lots of things are bad and you shouldn't do them. You have to do these 10(or 613 if you're Jewish) things that I think are good.
LOL!
* Satan: Lots of things are bad and you should do as many of them as possible! And whatever else you want. But especially the bad stuff! Extra points for murder and blaspheny!
grin!
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
High inheritance taxes destroy any incentive to produce more wealth than you can consume.
No, they don't.
To take a simplified model, say you're a farmer in ancient times when about the only product available to farmers was food (and again, for simplicity, we'll assume that it really is the only product available). Now say that during the course of your life, you produce double the amount of food needed to sustain yourself. If you keep the food, it'll rot. If you sell it, what's the point? There's nothing you want to buy, because you're already well fed, and you can't pass it along to your kids.
Food isn't inheritable, in most cases. It rots nearly immediately; especially back when your example takes place.
Substitute "money" for food, and you've basically got modern society.
I don't see how that follows. Money doesn't perish (unless the nation does, or due to debasement).
Another simpler argument is that this is essentially a tax on people who die unexpectedly.
They're still dead. And if it is given to someone else, then they have unearned wealth. Now, insurance for familes to survide the breadwinner is one thing. Inheriting $80million is another.
Check out Europe's heriditary aristoracy: the rich. Most rich people in Europe inherit their wealth rather than earn it. In the USA, most rich people earn it. Look at the difference in freedom and productivity.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The US was able to survive without income tax because they owned an extrememly large piece of real estate: all the land west of civilization.
I don't see how that's true. They were selling the stuff for $1/acre and still own 31% of it.
The government was able to survive without income tax because its powers were limited, and it did a lot less.
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
corporate feudalism ... Personally, though I like some of his ideas, etc.
Actually, his plan to increase inheritance taxes is a good one, and pro-capitalist at that. Unearned wealth is massively non-capitalist, and tends to create a priviledged and self-sustaining aristocracy, as seen in Europe. The Libertarians would do well to adopt that plank of the Socialist party platform: unearned wealth bad!
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Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
In the same paragraph, McReynolds calls himself an athiest, and then at the end, he thanks God.
Is he lying? Just using cliche to get himself elected?
"Thank god..." is a phrase that has pretty much become divorced from the actual meaning of the words. I'm atheist, yet I use it. And also things like "holy shit!", "god damn!", or whatever. Heck, when people sneeze you say "bless you" - do you really intend for some higher entity to give them their blessings over a sneeze?
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
You left out the "threat of force" part and that is crucial. Under capitalism workers trade the products of thier labor away in return for a wage, no force involved.
Bull. Physical force isn't the only force. Being told you have to work to be able to have shelter and food is economic force. You are not free to "opt-out" of the economic system in the US; you have to participate to live. You are FORCED to be involved.
It doesn't matter whether the choice is between "turn over your work products or get shot" or "turn over your work products or starve"; and in some ways, the former is nicer because your death is quicker and less painful.
At least in a socialist society, everyone benefits from everyone else's work In a capitalist society, only a few already wealthy people really benefit from that work.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
I'm suprised McReynolds replied here to Slashdot. If he's paid any attention he's got to know that it has a very large Anarcho-Libertarian user base. (Including the fringe who seem to want to eliminate government and turn the world into something that resembles corporate feudalism "for the good of capitalism")
His Socialist views surely are going to get little more than attacked and razzed by the majority on this site. Personally, though I like some of his ideas, and do believe that some decently intelligent people running the gov't with the best interests of the public (and not just themselves like today's politicnas) in mind can do some things better than any money/greed driven could ever do. Mind you, not ALL things better, just some of them.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
McReynolds made alot of good points, but I guess what I would like to know is why as school children, etc., we have been brainwashed to "fear" Socialism?
Cold war/anti-communism (and socialism by extention) mentality that they tried to entrench in us. See, they're the enemy, they do things differently, and their way is wrong, which is why we're fighting them. Or something like that.
And I think there's also a lot of that protestant work ethic in this country, where you are defined by your work and how hard to work at it, and you get your rewards in life based on that work - so financial success means you're a hard worker, and lack of success means you're lazy and a leech. (See just about any anti-welfare tirade for more evidence of this) Of course, bad luck and bad situation don't come into play in it...
I'll be honest, I think a lot of it is selfishness; the "I earned it, it's all mine" attitude. That having some of your money taken away for some "service" that is hard to quantify seems to be unfair. And the richer you are, the more you pay for these "services" that people would rather pay "on their own" instead of to the government - of course, never mind the people who can't pay for it on their own for whatever reason.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
has anyone noticed that people become socialists after they realize that they will never make any money?
Well, actually, I make plenty of money and I'd consider myself a socialist. I don't think your observation holds much water.
--GnrcMan--
I dunno, maybe the 30 million people that Stalin killed? The 10 million Pol Pot did in? The 40 million who died under Mao? Socialism is death.
Boy, standards for critical thinking at MIT have gone down quite a bit since I last visited. I challenge you to show me a causal link between the economic principle of socialism and any one of those instances. I'm looking for something along the lines of, "Redistribution of weath directly lead to the deaths of 30 Million people because..."
You know...the US is a republic. So, apparently, was the USSR. And the Peoples *Republic* of china. It must be the principles of the republic. Or maybe republicans are responsible. Who's to know?
--GnrcMan--
Uhhh...he's from Finland genius.
--GnrcMan--
I thought they wanted to eliminate both?
Intolerant people should be shot.
Well, I have to agree on this one. I live in Denmark and we have such a tax system. I have a rather well-paying job as a programmer, and I pay my ~50% tax with no anger. After all the state payed for my entire University education =)
As far as I know all the scandinavian countries have a high tax - free education and hospitals system.
-Raz
In 1983 Ronald Reagan made the most sensible military suggestion of the past 50 years -- that America should have protection against a missile attack.
I'm curious about this. What was really good with the cold war? Other than the fact that we propably wouldn't have computers if it hadn't been for the existance of just the Cold War...
The solution to prevent war can't possibly lie in the prevention of beeing hit by a missile, in which case there would allready be a war...
I get tired of just thinking about it...
Now i'm going to enlarge the bumper on my car, so that if i mess up and i drive into somebodys side, i will have a better chance to survive...
--
The big difference between ballet and boxing is that in boxing they have no choreography, there's no music, and the dancers hit eachother...
Don't flame me just because you might be offended in the first place, instead try to early realise that there is actually a serious thought behind this message...
Don't forget Vichy France. Hey, we're only really going to invade half of your country, the other half can simply volunteer to do exactly as we say.
The only reason they're not all speaking Russian right now is West Germany's ability to prevent a 1960's Soviet invasion. If France, rather than Germany, had been the border state to Poland, we'd have had another Vichy France.
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
because socialism is not a capitalistic way. we are suppoesed to be a capitalistic society, contries like France and Spain are socialist, where the government has a monopoly on mail, banks, phones, etc. and can charge what they want. where as in a capitalistic society such as ours there is free competition (at least supposed to be) and this drives DOWN prices and RAISES quality of goods and life. hell i don't want the government running everything, it can't even run itself very well!
JediLuke
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
The only selfishness I see comes from the socialists who believe they are entitled to forcibly take the products of other people's labor because they "need" it more. Capitalists want to make money by providing products and services that other people want. Socialists want to take money that others have made under threat of violence. This is where the previously mentioned 100 million dead victims of socialist governments come in.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
word.
Sorry, I don't mean to be nit-picky, but you mixed up the candidates with their positions. Browne is the libertarian and McReynolds is the Socialist. Browne wants to end the income tax, not McReynolds. His view (and my view, being that I'm also libertarian) is that when people have more money, because of no income tax, they will be more able to afford private schools that are better than the public schools which the gov't can provide. Just wanted to clarify that, being that I support Browne and his campaign.
-Matt
Phluid!
I couldn't have said it better.
This, for one, is an awefully tight race. We normally cant care crap but this election decides a lot of things:
1. 4 supreme cour justices.
2. The man in charge when Microsoft trial really comes to an end.
While Japanese did the same thing in New York City, they failed miserably - people simply moved to the burbs.
The fact that the electoral process was designed to blocks blacks from voting and the fact that pre-registration means you can't decide to go out and vote on the last minute because of a tight race cannot be explained. I'm a Math person and I fail to see how this can be explained.
I personal wished the question about the election process would include the simple question, "Why is it so damn hard to vote?"
I used to laugh at people who vote for a third party, but I changed my mind.
Browne definitely sounds like a man of great vision. There are, however, some weak points:
- I agree with everything he said up to the "No income tax" part. I think that is quite irresponsible.
- Then he failed to give any answer to the question about the current electoral system.
- Browne also fails to explain "Free Market's" naughty effect - monopolistic behavior such as that of Microsoft.
- The point that Free Trade is better than defense is very brilliant. Look at Russia. And the notion that Free Trade doesn't cost jobs is also correct in any modern economists point of view.
- Browne fails to explain how a lot of people will survive in his vision. If wellfare system is taken off immediately, the country will no doubt be in chaos and violence. Simply put, some people will go out and rob if they don't have food in thier hands. This is more costly than wellfare.
Overall, thought. I feel that at least we are not fed with bullocks. We got honest answers to problems without any moral references. That's what I like.
>Jacksonville, FL via the southern states. I
>wonder why they didn't give you that schedule.
Hmmm, perhaps so. I did not know that route exists. I used their automatic trip planner on their website to get the schedule and price quote. (I wound up using travelocity for my plane tix)
I wonder if the LA/Jax train perhaps does not run every day, or only once a day at an oddball time? If that's the case, perhaps Amtrack's web app was not smart enough to know that I'd have been willing to adjust my schedule, or leave a day early or late if it would save me three days of mucking about in Chicago and New York.
Even if that's the case tho, it's still inexcusable. Travelocity, in addition to flights leaving near the time I specified, gave me a BIG list of various options, letting me choose everything from leaveing hours BEFORE my plan to get fewer layovers, to leaving just before midnight (a few hours AFTER my specified time) and catching the redeye so as to save some money and be able to sleep overnight on the flight.
Most of the other "airline tix" sites I checked offered the same flexibility. Amtrack did not.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
>It's good for the environment. It's good for
>lower-class people (think of the cost of a
>car...not just buying it, but the insurance, gas,
>etc)
Well, I dunno 'bout the parent, but I'm all for public transit. I use a combo of BART and MUNI every day; to get to work during the week, and to go out on the weekends. But the system's not perfect. Wanna take public transit north of Market? Well, there's the F-line and the cable cars, but they are so infested by tourists that you're pretty much SOL. Everyone from Richmond, the Marina, and North Beach pretty much *HAS* to drive in.
But the original poster was criticising Amtrack. And I agree 100%. They suck. I WAS actually considering taking a train to Florida to see my family this xmas. *BIG* mistake!
To get to Florida from SF via Amtrack, I'd have to take a shuttle bus to some town called emeryville I think. From there, I'd have taken a train to Los Angeles, then to Chicago(!!!); from Chicago to F-ing Penn Station in *NEW YORK*; and then FINALLY, a train down the east coast to Florida.
It would have been a hellish five day trip each way, and would've wound up costing me MORE than my plane ticket that'll have me home in nine hours with only one layover in Atlanta.
I'm sorry, but any organisation so boneheaded as to route you through LA, Chigago, and New York over five days to get from SF to Palm Beach, and have the audacity to charge MORE tor that hell DESERVES to be put out of business.
Amtrack deserves not your endorcement, support, or custom; nor that of anyone ELSE, for that matter!
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Imagine all the people...
(For the moment let's ignore whether the connection you make is valid.)
The US was able to survive without income tax because they owned an extrememly large piece of real estate: all the land west of civilization. You'll notice that once the land dried up, that's when they implemented income tax.
But the US STILL claims ownership or "stewardship" of much (about half?) of the land west of the Mississippi, and non-trivial amounts east of there. And it's constantly grabbing more.
Suppose the portion of that land that properly belongs to someone else were returned (for instance: indian lands to the descendants of tribes improperly "terminated", i.e. declared extinct), and the rest sold off.
Even taking into account a resulting drop in land prices that could easily pay off the national debt, with a pretty penny left over.
If you're concerned about the "delicate ecology" of some piece of the land being ruined by its new owners, get together with others who believe the same way and BUY it!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Some corporate funding of research has worked well in the past (Bell Labs?), but it just doesn't seem to be feasable today.
How about Xerox PARC? B-)
Bell Labs was an artifact of government regulation.
The Bell Telephone system was granted a set of monopolies and their rates regulated. But part of the "costs" that went into computing the rates, when they were adjusted, was money spent on research on improving telephony.
So they set up Bell Labs. And hired a BUNCH of new PHDs. And gave them lots of equipment. They had a free hand, provided they published (in the publicly-available house journal) an article now and then that had something to do with improving SOMETHING related to telephony.
And no matter how much they spent, Bell got to up the rates to make it all back plus a profit. (6%, I think it was.)
So Bell Labs' mission was really to spend as much money as they could. Because the more the spent, the more the AT&T made. B-) They worked on metalurgy, and voice recognition, and speech synthesis, and graph theory, and cyphers, and semiconductors, and assistance for the deaf, and remote-controlled servos, and... (I could keep this up for days.)
But it DIDN'T WORK!
You see, anything they invented belonged to AT&T. They could patent it and licence the patents for a fee. (In fact, they HAD to license it, and HAD to release it if it had applications outside telephony. Think UNIX...)
And the licensing fees made Bell Labs ENORMOUSLY profitable! They never WERE able to spend more than they made.
So Bell Labs was an unintentional case study showing that well-funded basic-plus-applied research can turn a profit (big time!) Despite the fact that with basic research you have no idea, in advance, what will turn up and where the resulting profit will be made. You just know that if you do enough of it SOMETHING will turn up and you'll make out like a bandit.
Xerox PARC, on the other hand, was a case study in management error. This was Xerox's version of Bell Labs, dedicated to research into things related to office workflow.
Early in their existence they designed a computerized control panel for Xerox copiers. What it replaced was a mass of hardwired discrete components (relays, semiconductors, switches, etc.) It saved a bundle.
So they got credited with saving Xerox a bundle. And they KEPT ON being credited with saving Xerox a bundle, as all future production used their bright idea, indefinitely. So they could spend a lot of money and still look, on the books, like they were making money for the company, even if management NEVER USED any of their new bright ideas.
And that's about what happened. They came up with a lot of great stuff. And people in Silicon Valley cloned it, or bought rights for peanuts, while Xerox didn't pursue it themselves. (Think Ethernet - once known as "The Xerox Line". Think Graphical User Interfaces ala Mac & Windows.)
So again basic research was enormously profitable. And it could have been even more profitable for the company that funded it - IF management had had a clue. (Fortunately for the rest of us, Xerox's other product lines were profitable enough to keep the money flowing...)
Or at least that's the way I heard it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
That depends on your definition of Christian, doesn't it?
As I see it, "Christians" are adherents to ANY of a set of belief systems that can trace their origin to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They generally think there was something special about him. But beyond that there's a LOT of variation.
That includes the early church - the Roman immortality cult.
It includes "The Church" of the middle ages - and its current incarnation: the Roman Catholic church.
It includes the Russian Orthodox and the Episcopalians.
It includes the classic protestant sects.
It includes the Unitarians. (Or it did until a few years ago, when they got together and voted, deciding that they WEREN'T Christians any more. B-) )
It includes the Satanists. (They believe in the same holy and unholy teams. They're just rooting for the other side. They apparently got their origin from some of "The Church"'s own propaganda.)
It includes snake handlers.
It includes Holy Rollers.
It includes Pentecostals.
It includes Mormons. (Their theology is a similar sort of expansion on classic Christian teaching as Christianity was an expansion on the Jewish sects that preceeded it.)
And it includes all sorts of apocolyptic sects. Members of that class include the several kinds of Seventh Day Adventists, one of which was (still is?) the Branch Davidians.
Now different sorts of Christians often decide that their particluar form of Christanity, or some set of religions similar to it, are the True Religion, and those OTHER things are NOT. (Sometimes they can be quite insistent about it. Especially if they think that God is going to be mad if those OTHER people keep doing whatever it is they're doing.)
But just because some religion is VERY different from yours, and shares very few (if any) beliefs, doesn't mean it didn't grow from the same roots.
And if it grew from those roots, it can also claim the tag "Christian".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
By Jove, I think he's got it!
The cake is a pie
... and what does it have to do with any of this?
You know that slashdot is changing when you have to read this kind of stuf...
For now I'm bored.
Hey! Could we focus on stuff that matters? (hope I wasn't too offensive)
Just another coder...
For those of you thinking about the preferential voting system proposed by McReynolds, you should first look outside the U.S. to other countries that have implemented such systems.
In Australia, preferential voting is used, and we still have what is called "two-party preferred" effects - there are only really two parties that matter, and it is difficult for minority parties to have a voice in government.
There has been an argument that the voting system should revert to "first past the post" (i.e. primary vote only, no preferences), or perhaps use a system such as the Hare-Clarke proportional voting system, although such systems also have their own problems.
All I can say is: yup, they're politicians.
Dave
'Round the firewall,
Out the modem,
Through the router,
Down the wire,
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Granted, I got $4000 when I sold my porno collection, but I doubt that even the libertarians have $50bn worth of old Playboys.
:)
Hehe. No comment
--
I thought Libertarians favored free trade. Why is eliminating income taxes better than eliminating tariffs and excises?
Excise taxes are levied on goods at the manufacturer prior to reaching the point of sale. They are built into the cost of goods, and so are self-limiting. If the cost of certain goods rises too high, people quit buying them, and taxes are kept in check.
There is no such mechanism to limit the income tax. If politicians decide they want more of your money, they take it.
So, as far as trimming down our federal bureaucracy, getting rid of the income tax is a good start. We got by without one until 1913, which is about when the waves of social welfare programs started and all the acronymic bureaus and agencies came into existence.
--
There were also almost a hundred decentralized, competing global networks prior to the Internet's rise. TCP/IP took off because it was built into BSD, which a lot of universities used.
Market 'network effects' actually favor open standards and 100% compatibility.
--
If not for the income tax, where will the money come from? National Sales Tax? Propery taxes? What? Are there other "necessary" projects that would be funded this way? If so, how will those get money?
The same place it came from in the first 120 years of the country's existence, before we had an income tax.
The federal budget is $1.9 trillion. I have no idea how many zeros that is. Of that, about half comes from income taxes, and the other half is from tariffs and excise taxes.
--
He's in politics because he and his followers simply can't grasp that government is the shadow of business. There's much ado about nothing with complaints like Social Security which has lowered the poverty level of seniors from 50 to 10%, or income tax - tempting but that does include dismantling most of the federal government. College loans/grants that I'm sure most Slashdotters are partaking in. I just love college kids who preach Browneisms after submitting a FAFSA or have grandparents collecting S.S.
The lesson he failed to learn is that we should set up a democratic state that protects people from business, not the other way around. A mature government has the responisbility to take care of those who can't take care of themselves. Not engage into this wild-west mentality of "lets let market dictate our everyday rights and choices."
Considering we're living in the age of he multinationals, boycotts have no power and Browne will simply cut out the messy government part of our society and let business do all the talking. Soon enough federal child-labor laws, minimum wage, etc will be abolished because "Hey I can't find it in the constitution, I looked twice!" Great plan to push us straight into the third world.
Instead of embracing Canadian or European governments and politics which are rated highly on quality of life issues not just GDP we have a plan from a man who's ready to sell us out to an ever-scarier criminal capitalist machine.
The best thing Browne has going for him are his views on drugs and guns. Those alone get one issue righties and lefties to the polls. Good work Browne you've earned your 1%.
I don't see Nader advocating the governments ownership of means of production, which is what socialism means. Feel free to call me a commie too, lots of 50s propaganda is now public domain.
Caring and help social causes isn't the same as Socialism. Nader advocates capitalism, but not criminal capitalism.
Oh come on.
Ever hear of TCP/IP or any open standands? I have a feeling that card of yours has the words "Lobotomized on 10/5/95" at the bottom.
Canada, Sweden, and most other progressive states aren't falling into a financial blackhole, perhaps you'd like to back that up with facts?
Your use of "comrade" just shows your extreme bias and name-calling is simply immature.
Actually according to the Swedish themselves they're doing quite well:
s p
With demand growing so strongly, employment is now rising faster than at any other time in the past 40 years. The rapid increase in employment is expected to bring the unemployment rate down below the Governments 4-percent target during the fourth quarter of this year.
http://www.konj.se/Eng/prog_analys/konj_laget.a
Private insurance has never nor never will provide each and every citizen with healthcare.
European healthcare varies in different countries but its sure beats nothing, and being a slashdot tech savvy user you probably haven't gone very long without it. Not to mention the ridiculous debts that have been put on people after life-saving surgery and pharacutical costs that are out of control. Even though we subsidize a lot of pharmacutical companies citizens do not get a price break. Nor are our HMO's a smashing successes and we're paying quite heavily for them.
Oh course it doesnt 'always works.' Nothing 'always works.'
As to the name calling, sorry but you are immature. Criminal capitalism is when business gets away with healthcare fraud, breaking environmental laws, gross negligence, etc. I was NOT saying capitalism = criminal. The free run Browne and company would give big business would be disasterous.
Capitalism produces revenue, democracy produces justice, there's a compromise in there to eveyrone's benefit and that's exactly what your man doesn't get.
Stop this thread, I wanna get off.
'coz it's remarkably inefficient given human nature.
The vast bulk of the populace are, by nature, looking out for their self-interest -- if you need evidence, you've no doubt read, watched or listened to people asking, "What's in it for me? Why should I vote for you?" and so forth. Any system focusing so much on redistribution of the wealth is generally built around income taxes, which dramatically reduce the incentive to earn more or work harder. It may be noted that a few administrations ago, the US income tax scales were MUCH more skewed towards "soaking the rich" due to '80s-style Democratic class warfare, and likewise the capital gains tax rates were higher; it's not entirely coincidental that the economy wasn't faring nearly as well, either.
Of course, IIRC we still have oddities like the AMT, which needs to be updated. ISTR a Forbes magazine article a year or so ago, noting real cases of people getting more income taxed at greater than 100% marginal rate when the AMT kicked in -- that is, they would have done better, net, with less earned income and not triggering the AMT. This is, frankly, bizarre.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The President's CIC. While the Congress still can declare war, those troops shouldn't be going anywhere without the President's consent.
And, incidentally, they can go before Congress consents, as well, judging from recent history... Congress can threaten to cut off funding, but by then it's usually a fait accompli and the President can note how horribly poor it looks for the US to back out of a commitment.
Also as a note, many Socialists and others on the Left called for unilateral disarmament plus withdrawal from Europe during the Cold War...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
To help defend our interests.
It would have set a fairly poor precedent, for instance, to have acquiesced to President Hussein's involuntary annexation of Kuwait on the basis of ancient claims -- both in terms of giving the green light to petty dictators settling scores everywhere (and there are a LOT of places one can dispute on the basis of previous ownership...), and in terms of destabilizing the Middle East. Like it or not, anything that significantly raises the price of imported oil hurts our economy in a BIG way.
This means we have to have sufficient ability to, preferably rapidly, deploy forces in multiple places around the world simultaneously to counter fairly large threats (North Korea has an unusually large military, and Seoul is CLOSE to the DMZ. Iraq *had* a very large army before Desert Shield/Storm. We are committed for now to defending Taiwan should China choose to attack. And so forth.).
In addition to our more direct interests, in certain cases perhaps we should intervene on moral grounds (many complain that the US and UN have largely ignored most of the conflicts in Africa -- notably Rwanda).
Remember, when waging war you don't want to merely achieve parity; you want to bring overwhelming force to achieve a favorable peace with as little loss in personnel, materiel and time as possible. The objective of war is peace... This is especially true for a republic in which the people may not have the stomach for a long, bloody war; bringing a carrier group and launching cruise missiles is *pricey*, but that's nothing compared to the potential human costs in terms of a ground assault.
And the more your potential enemies are convinced that you can, and will, bring such tremendous force to bear upon them should you desire, the less likely it is that a remotely rational leader will risk pissing you off.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The reason that Koresh started getting attention in the first place is that they were buying guns. From this, the government thought it was it's business to find out why and thus provoked everything that happened from there on.
I am repeatedly disgusted by the actions of the government (the ATF in particular) but even moreso by the LACK OF REACTION or awareness of most people. However, after seeing what gets broadcast on popular media, I can hardly blame them.
(Zeppelins would be nice, but they haven't overcome a rather significant image problem, and if they were going to be cheap, they'd not only be huge, but probably need hydrogen for lift. Not as fast as planes, but better than trains IIRC)
Man, this is exactly what I want.. I want to take a zeplin from point A to point B, eat off of fine china and have waiters in little white jackets do waitery things... but most of all, I want Indiana Jones to throw some Nazi out of the aircraft and then say "No Ticket."
You say you want a revolution?
Just brilliant Mr. Browne. Only one question: Then why the heck are you in politics?
If you look into the Libertarian Party, you'll see that its history is full of people who run for an office, get elected, and then either shut down that office, or greatly reduce its size and tax intake. The other classic thing is to find one Libertarian on a city council, dissenting on every tax increase.
Mr. Browne doesn't even take the gov't funds he's "entitled" to in order to fund his campaign. He's very clear that he is in politics to restore the Constitution of the United States of America, which provides for a small Federal government with very limited powers. It does not grant the Federal gov't the power to create agencies like the IRS, the ATF, the DEA, and the INS. He just said on this very Slashdot page that the first thing he will do as President would be to free political prisoners. I mean, the man is fighting for freedom. Before you snicker at that, please take some time to answer these questions for yourself (use the Internet ... it will be a wild, and educational ride):
I have to pause here to say RIP, my friend, Peter McWilliams. Read Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do (free online, or also available at your bookstore), and think about the fact that its author died because the gov't stood between him and his doctor.
This shit is enlightening, and painful, and shocking. It demands action. It's hard to open your eyes (red pill or blue pill, etc), but you have to sometime. If you're a White American, you are standing idly by while the gov't harasses, imprisons, and kills Black and Hispanic Americans for political points every day. They are doing this. It is a fact. People are dying. Families are being destroyed wholesale. Try and get used to it and then decide what you are going to do about it, if anything.
This is the perfect election to vote Libertarian. George W. Bush and Al Gore are such interchangeable bozos, it just doesn't make a difference if you "waste your vote" and we get one instead of the other. What counts is to send a message of protest, to show that there can be political change in the US, so that the 2004 election campaigns will be about real issues. Harry Browne is the candidate for President for America's third largest political party, and he said right here on Slashdot that he had a question that he'd really like to ask Al Gore and George Bush. He has not had the opportunity. A substantial Libertarian vote this November might lead to Mr. Browne or his successor being involved in the 2004 Presidential debates. By then, the media may have adjusted for all of its current infotainment leanings and we may have more actual journalism (why did David Letterman ask G.W. Bush the toughest questions he's faced so far?). You can make your vote actually count this November by voting Libertarian.
> Any state which profitted as people killed
... this is missionaries with lots of money and guns. We are feared and derided the world over because of the Drug War. There are people dying of terminal illnesses the world over who can't get pain relief because opium and cannabis are internationally outlawed (thanks to us), and that was all they had. There are places where people can't afford an aspirin, but they could have grown their own cannabis, or it grew wild, except that the US gov't sprayed their town with pesticides that kill cannabis. The newest thing to come out of the DEA is a fungus that kills the hemp plant. I guess it will be good for Pfizer.
... they were also going to eradicate that.
> themselves with cocaine or heroine would not be
> looked at favorably by the rest of the world.
As opposed to how we're looked at now? We are the laughing stock of the world when it comes to "illicit" drugs. Former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey has traveled all around the world telling lies, buying complicity from other gov'ts, and threatening the Netherlands. This is true missionary stuff
The only reason people die from cocaine or heroin in the first place is that it's hard to get proper doses from a guy on the street, so it's easy to OD. Pharmaceutical companies are forbidden (by the gov't) from manufacturing safe, labeled, quality controlled doses of these drugs, so people die. Doctors are forbidden (by the gov't) to prescribe heroin for a heroin addict, even though the addict needs heroin as much as a diabetic needs insulin. A small, but regular, dose is all the person needs to live a normal life. If they miss a few days, then they need a big dose, which gets them high and stops them from functioning at work, etc., so they lose their jobs and houses and families and end up in the street. The number of heroin and cocaine users is completely insignificant, though, which is why cannabis is still illegal. You need to round out the numbers so you can spend $50,000,000,000 per year on cops.
Whatever ways there are to create revenue for the gov't besides income tax, there are surely better ways for the gov't to spend $50,000,000,000 per year than hiring cops to harrass doctors, patients, drug addicts, drug users (only a small percentage of cocaine and heroin users are addicts, unlike caffeine or nicotine), and everybody else who gets in their way.
> Ayn Rand advocated a voluntary contribution
> system (which, of course, is unworkable for
> items of public good
People are happy to pay when you give them something in return. People are happy to give to charities when they a) have a little extra to give, b) know there is a true need, and c) have confidence that the people they are giving money to will actually use it to help someone. If you map charitable giving on a graph against tax rates, you will see that they are exactly opposite. After income tax and the New Deal, people started giving much of their income to the gov't, and stopped giving money to charities and churches. I mean, wasn't that the idea? The gov't was going to take that money and eradicate poverty and human suffering. Also, intoxication
However, when the gov't takes half of someone's money, they are not going to have a sympathetic ear when you come around for some money for a real purpose. This distortion -- the fact that you think people won't give money to charity unless they're forced, as they are now -- is another tragedy of this kind of size of gov't. I already "gave at the office", right? Unfortunately, my money is being used to hunt down pot smokers and ruin their lives, or to kill peasants in the coco fields in Columbia, or to shoot migrant farm workers who cross the US-Mexican border. These people have been following the harvest for centuries, but it's only since the Federal gov't started taking income tax that they could afford to put people on the border so they could shoot all the brown-skinned people they see. These people are picking avacadoes for a ridiculously small amount of money so our food prices stay cheap. I'm not saying that's right, either, but is shooting them right?
Fact is, charitable organizations that are actually on the street, doing the real work, would almost kill for just a tiny fraction of what the Federal gov't wastes by its very existence. Actual man-years that just go down the toilet all the time. That 20 year-old college kid that just got busted for LSD and put in jail for 15 years could have been the next John Lennon, or the next Einstein, but we'll never know. North and South America could be completely at peace, but the US gov't just can't stop shooting people who live to the south of us. They are always willing to send the military thousands of miles to kill brown-skinned people. Why aren't those soldiers at home with their families? Because the military surely doesn't want a smaller cut of the income tax pie next year than they had this year, and they killed X number of brown-skinned people last year, so they need to kill X+5% if they want a 5% budget increase this year.
This unchecked, drunk-on-its-own-power Federal gov't has been a very bad ambassador for the US. In the history of the world, there has never been a bigger, more powerful, answer-to-nobody organization than what we've created by just blindly giving over so much money to the few people who really run the gov't. The only thing to rival our gov't's power are the drug cartels that have become so rich by taking advantage of the world's biggest unregulated recreational drug market: the United States. When you can sell $1 worth of cocaine for $1000, you are not looking for things to change anytime soon. Pfizer wishes it had it so good, but then again, Pfizer doesn't want to Valium(tm) to have to compete with cannabis(no tm), either.
The US was able to survive without income tax because they owned an extrememly large piece of real estate: all the land west of civilization. You'll notice that once the land dried up, that's when they implemented income tax.
The Federal gov't still owns something like 47% of the western states.
What's the user fee for things in the public good, such as missile defence?
We don't have a missile defense. That's one of the big Libertarian points. The gov't spends its defense bugdet on offense. The military is killing brown-skinned people the world over instead of defending America. In fact, it is also pissing off a lot of brown-skinned people that it hasn't killed, who now want to kill Americans, therefore making us even less than neutrally safe.
Actual, real, defense against foreign threats would be one of the few things that a Libertarian Federal gov't would spend money on. It doesn't make sense for the states to do that individually.
> Without income tax ...
... I fear it shall not come to pass in my lifetime". He obviously had hoped at one time that it would come to pass in his lifetime. Here we are 200 years later, with the ability to send a letter across the world in the blink of an eye for almost-free, and the United States gov't is one of the leaders in the mission to censor the Internet. This is astounding and sad.
> the United States as a world power will
> just be a memory looming in the back of our minds.
The US is a "world power" because a) the US is the best hunk of land in the world, bar none (look at a map that includes glaciers and farmable land and you'll see what I mean), and b) it has traditionally been very free, and that attracts smart and/or hard-working people like flowers attract bees. Einstein left Europe and came to America to avoid Hitler, y'know?
So, all these smart and/or hard-working people, living in the Land of Milk and Honey as they do, did amazing things like create the personal computer, which in turn made everybody around them that much smarter and hard-working. Now, we hit the start of the 21st century and as all these smart and/or hard-working people take stock of where we are as a society, we are beginning to notice that a small group of politicians have been forcibly taking a huge chunk of the dividends of all this smartness and hard work and have been using that money to censor and imprison the politically unpopular domestically and abroad, to fight and export a senseless war on non-patentable drugs, and to basically kill and make enemies of a lot of mostly brown-skinned people all around the world. What's more, they spent the projected income tax take from our children and grandchildren, too.
What should be done about this? Should we all just go back to our hard work and hope that somehow, in some way, this small group of (mostly old, mostly rich, mostly white) people will eventually be able to find it in themselves to properly spend half the nation's money? Or do we tell them all to get real jobs? Do we say to George W. Bush, "you are not smart or hard-working, and we're not going to let you pretend to be"? He made his fortune selling a baseball stadium that was built by taxpayers to private investors. He is your Lord and Master by birthright, and he may soon be your King.
We have more prisoners than any other country in the world. We kill more foreigners than any other country in the world. Think about those two things. Is that the America you learned about in school? Thomas Jefferson once said "this freedom of writing and speaking one's mind
Our grandfathers made a deal with the gov't: we will give you half of our money if you will eradicate poverty, suffering, moral bankrupcy, and intoxication. Did the experiment work? Now is the time for us to really ask that question, at the beginning of this new century. Personally, I don't think it has. I don't think the gov't of the United States is a very good representative of its people at all. We paid a King's ransom over the last 90 years, and all it bought us was Kings. It's time to go back to the Constitution and leave power with the people, where it rightly rests, where it belongs. It does not belong with a succession of George Bush's and Al Gore's, smiling and waving their hands like crown princes while their politician fathers look on.
There is nothing in the Libertarian Party platform that says child pornography will be tolerated. The true crime of child pornography is not the lustful satisfaction of the pedophile, but the kidnapping and abuse of children.
Having said that, though, drawing a picture of a naked child (even without a live model) can get you jail time in many countries, and the US is heading there, too. In a libertarian society, you could think and draw and say what you want, but you could not force children into fake sex acts, whether you sell pictures or movies of it or not.
It'd be nice if it was so simple, but how do you explain taxpayers building the Ballpark at Arlington and Prince George W. Bush selling it to private investors and keeping the money? This is how he made his fortune, this is how he achieved enough "business success" to claim he is ready to take his place as our next King.
Of course, he still has to convince us that he's a better man for the job than Prince Al Gore.
Either you have freedom of religion, or you don't. Freedom to choose between government-approved or majority-approved religions is not freedom. Why is it any of your business whether 1 person, or 100 people, or 100,000 people in the world satisfy their religious desires with Wicca? Why do you care? How do you propose to stop them? Why does it impress you that Dubya denounces a small and politically powerless group of people?
Einstein was an atheist, but he believed that humans have a common religious feeling, as if there were a "religion gland". He "saw god" through his work studying the universe itself. Other people see god in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, the music of John Coltrane, or the rituals that are passed on to them by their parents. But where people see god and what they choose to do about it is their business, as long as they don't harm the person or property of another person.
Or, we could just send in the FBI or ATF with tanks and grenade launchers. How those people sleep with themselves at night is beyond me. It seems like you blame Koresh for Waco, though. Bizarre. Why was the ATF even there in the first place? They said Koresh was a Drug Lord with a meth lab and a stockpile of automatic weapons. Once it came out that there was no lab and no drugs, Koresh was recast as a Cult Leader. As long as he's a Menace to Society, I guess it's OK to roll up a tank and kill him.
> It's nothing more than a cult based around a
> liberal interpretation of witchcraft.
What do you call raising the dead, healing the sick with a touch, being conceived without intercourse, and having armies of winged helpers at your beck and call? Or parting the Red Sea, flaming hailstorms, and solor eclipses on command? That is some magical shit. You can piss on Christianity or Judaism with the same line you used on Wicca.
Oh, jeeze. UNIX, for Seldon's sake. and the other comment: Unix and C
C wouldn't have meant much without unix, I mean it could have, but I doubt it would have. Unix would never have meant much without it's openness. Leading to its popularity in academic communities and hence fostering BSD, Linux, and a bunch of the comercial unixes. The areas which Unix covers so well are largely a result of collaboration of people who were allowed in by the openness.
Unix would never have been open if the government hadn't /FORCED/ it to be so. The line was: okay, your a monopoly, but you can't start using that to extend your monopoly into the realm of computers, so you must make a license available to other people for anything you develop. And /thats/ how Unix got to be what it is. Notice too that the license used to be cheep, and the price of it just keept going up; still does really.
-Daniel
The question is, what is the exact mission of the Airborne Laser project? If it is indeed engineered (read: planned) to be used around the clock -- meaning that many aircraft are in the air at all times, then that is a step in the right direction.
I seem to remember reading that there will always be at least a couple planes in the sky at once. ICBMs are not quick, and the airborne laser is capable of shooting down a missle that is hundreds of miles away. In the worst case, I would expect that with few aircraft deployed, they will at least circle around or near the most "dangerous" regions of the globe.
Like many others have said since the 50's, "no country in their right mind would yadda yadda yadda". The flaw in this is that the statement is TRUE. No one in their right mind would launch a nuke against us, for fear of retaliation. But terrorists do not strike many, including myself, as being very rational or "in their right mind", rather they are cowards with weapons. I am for a real defense, and I simply do not see what we have as a defense, it is the threat of retaliatory offense, nothing more....
I'm afraid I don't completely understand... you first said that the "deterrence is defense" statement was true, then later said that you would like to see something better.
All I can offer is that in light of the fact that it *does* work, why not just let it? Besides, though it may be our *major* defense, it is not our only one. For example, the airborne laser blows up enemy missles over their own country. They don't even get outside of the borders. I would call that a pretty decent defense, even if the deterrent didn't work.
I like your idea of the space-borne system, but it's not even near affordable right now, let alone with a 50% military spending cut.
Thanks for doing your part to maintain the self-fulfilling prophecy. I hope you keep a bat or a gun under your bed at night, you never know who could be out to get you.
Ah, so I see that you've never had the pleasure of being depolyed to a hostile country where more than 60% of the population loathes Americans simply because of what we stand for. I have.
Most Americans find it hard or impossible to believe that there are military oganizations and terrorist groups that despise the idea of relative freedom and individual thought.
You seem to believe that if we were to just let down our guard, that certain eastern and middle-eastern leaders wouldn't take such an inviting opportunity to do what they might to further their political agendas. Do the phrases "US embassy bombings," "US Navy ship explosion," and "Yemen terrorists" have even the *slightest* bit of meaning to you? We're at an age now were the threat comes not from a single, organized, and internationally recognized country, but from almost a hundred different and somewhat-interlinked terrorist groups.
China (and others) are going to have a good laugh when we fall because blind citizens like yourself fail to support the military and our defense crumbles into dust.
No I do not keep a bat or gun under my bed, because unlike you, I have faith in our defense and it's ability to protect us. Even you, though you hardly deserve it. I do not believe in having guns in my household.
Meanwhile, next time you and your counterparts from other countries decide to go duke it out because your leaders think it's a good idea, I'll have changed my address to perhaps British
Columbia, though Alberta seems nice enough.
Hey, that's fine with me. You want to leave a country that you don't believe in, go right ahead, that is your right. You are only using up our precious resources anyway. Although with the kind of attitude you possess, I highly doubt Canada would want you either.
Stupid fingers, there is no telling what they will tipe next.
I'm assuming that was intentional... either way, it made me lol.
And I do agree with the rest of the points you made. I think what you're trying to get at, though, is that deterrents alone aren't enough. And I'm trying to say that deterrents will *have* to work and they aren't all we have anyway.
The heart of the matter is the defense of the people who live in this country. If China wants to bomb the shit out of New York, they shouldn't be able to. And I believe that with today's defenses, they cannot. The deterrents are there to prove that we *can* hurt someone *if* they hurt us. The defenses are there to make sure that we don't get hurt. The Airborne Laser project I mentioned is one example of that. It acts as a defense, because no globally-reaching missle can make the trek to our continent without getting shot down, and it acts as a deterrent because we have the ability to shoot down said missle before it even leaves their territory, dropping the payload on the ones who launched it.
The Airborne Laser is not going to stop every possible threat to our safety, but it is, like you wanted, a step in the right direction.
I am a geek in the military (education benefits), and I have to say that I take exception to two things said by these candidates.
McReynolds suggested he would give no tax cut, but more fairly distribute taxes (and tax breaks) amoung the different earning classes. I admire this. But he also proposes cutting military spending by HALF.
This is the worst idea I've seen yet. It is true that we are not at war, but as history will prove, you *always* have to be prepared for the slightest chance of conflict and maintain a realistic image of strong national defense. As it is right now, the US military is not even receiving close to what it needs to support our missions and excersises. Training, in particular, is in desparate peril. The Air Force (for example), is below 2/3 the size of what it was in the mid-80's and due to Operations Tempo, we are deploying twice far more, and in general, doing twice as much. All services right now are suffering large, looming retention problems and cutting member's benefits to make up for cut spending will be a direct blow to what they are trying to accomplish.
Later on, Browne noted that the nation has no global missle defense system in place. That is true, only to a very minor extent. First of all, we do have many monitoring stations and satellites to watch what other countries military forces are doing, missle-wise. If we get attacked, we may not be able to prevent it, but we know who did it and can decide what to do about it. In other words, no country in their right mind *knows* that they can get away with sending a missle towards us and expect no Americal missles to come back at them.
Second, the Air Force does have such a program underway. It's called the Airborne Laser program. Basically, it's a very high-powered laser system built into a 747 that's capable of detecting and shooting down enemy missles right over the country of origin. The prototype is still being built, but plans are for several of the planes to be in the air by late 2004. So far, everything is ahead of schedule and no roadblocks, apart from the work yet to be done, have presented themselves.
(A link to the official Airborne Laser page.)
If anyone would like to debate me on these two issues, I will more than gladly prove you wrong.
For insight as to where your views line up with the candidates, try the quiz at:
www.speakout.com
Well, he is talking about Federal funding. Don't forget that the state and local governments would be free to invest as they want. Also, for every invention that was government funded, I could name ten that were not. Maybe more.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
But now we have a "War" on Drugs.
I agree completely.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Any other phone company could have gone into a town and run phone wire into everyone's homes and provide them with a competetive service. (The government still doesn't allow that.)
However, if you had Bell's service and your friend has NewBell's service, how can you call each other? Bell and NewBell have to connect to each other. If Bell owns all of the country's long distance and local service, how can NewBell provide long distance service? The cost of installing a national phone network is huge.
Now the government is mandating that a competitor can use Bell to provide service to the consumer. NewBell connects to Bell at one location (a central office) and Bell connects that office to the end user. NewBell has to pay Bell for the line to connect, so they have to take a serious cut in profit. So far, this is only happening on local service, and is really only cost effective for digital voice service (T1 or PRI).
But without government mandating that Bell has to do this, you think they would let competitors near their networks? HA!
Cable is a different story.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Oh, bull. Anyone can get a job and get better at it and make more money. You think I have a decent job cause I was born into the right family? I scraped to get my first computer, worked hard as hell to learn everything about it, worked shit jobs making automobile shocks second shift, doing phone surveys, until I got a decent job because my current employer saw that I was worth it? Why? Cause I worked my BUTT off.
My family had nothing to do with it, except encouraging me, getting me to school (which was public), and supporting me when I decided that a public high school had nothing to offer me at all and dropped out to teach myself.
Anyone who doesn't want to live life in the gutter can pull themselves up by their bootstraps by getting a job, moving to a place where there are jobs, whatever. It CAN be done. It IS BEING done right now, all around us.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Sorry that I wasn't more specific, I was at work...
I agree that the government shouldn't be involved in this, however, the fact that they created a monopoly in the first place created a situation where it is impossible for a comptitor to break into the market.
Your analogy to a protocol is inaccurate. If AOL was the only online service for 80 years, and there is no internet. You want to compete with them, who is going to sign up with you if they can't send email to their friends with AOL? AOL would have no interest in letting you connect to their system to send e-mail?
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
Heroin is a sad addiction but one we need to accept and allow addicts to get heroin through doctors.
Am I the only person here who thinks that this is a ridiculously passive attitude?
Passive? Are you suggesting heroin home delivery?
=^)
Re question 7.
Too bad neither of you understood or answered the actual question. 'I would be protectionist.' 'I would promote free trade.' This isn't about trade, it is about global corporate power! A stock answer of campaign finance reform would have been more useful.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
Umm... I find it funny you point out UNIX as some great massive innovation that the government had no part in... which really doesn't make sense, since *computers* (at least in the modern sense...) were developed with government funds (and usually government scientists). I think the computer itself is the more important innovation than UNIX...
Ok seriously though...I think the best attitude I heard was when I mentioned a friend who was part of what I thought my abe a cult.... "Just because the people who run it may be bad, doesn't make the believers wrong"
If someone believes in something - truely believes in it - then it is a religion for them. Neither you nor anyone else has ANY right to try to stop them from believeing in it or practicing their rituals - whether they be dancing around a fire in the woods or eating stale bread given to them by some weird guy with a stiff collar.
Okay, call me intolerant, but I think you've missed a very important distinction here. IMHO, the "believers" of Jim Jones who poisoned their childeren were WRONG. Not wrong for poisoning themselves, mind you, but wrong for poisoning thier children who had no say, and no understanding of what was happening. If the "believers" want to do thier part to thin out the shallow end of the gene pool by doing themselves in, I'm all for it. But they have no right to do harm to others in the name of practicing the "rituals" of their "religion".
I do agree with your basic premise, though I would add, as long as those "rituals" do no harm to others inside or outside of the "religion".
Merde, il pleut encore!
Prior to President Truman, I will argue that a person would be hardpressed to find significant and direct government influence or funding of science. There are some exceptions, but government was not as far reaching as it is today.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
It was President Regan and the DOD that instituted that "prize", not Brown. It would be probably be by presidential mandate if that was still in effect, though.
The money to support the government will be derived from excise taxes and tarrifs. Necessary projects are the constitutionally mandated duties of government. You know, common defense, protection of freedom, print money all that jazz. All of these tasks can be funded by a) the taxes collected I mentioned above and b) by selling public lands that are not being used or reserved (ie. retired military bases and non-protected open land).
All of this is outlined at www.harrybrowne2000.org
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
I wouldn't really call them the best thing since sliced bread. Excise taxes have been around since Washington was President. Which I beleive predates sliced bread.
For some interesting history, do some reading on the whiskey rebellion in Pennsylvania. THat was all about excise taxes.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
You're already paying excise taxes, it's the income tax that would be no longer needed.
Income tax came into being on Februaury 3, 1913 with the ratification of the 16th Ammendment. Prior to that, taxes were levied based upon property owned. This included personal items in addition to real estate.
The only reason we have such a high tax burden today is due to social programs and the huge cost associated with a huge federal government. I will conceed that it will not be an absolute drop in the total amount you pay in federal tax because the states will have levy taxes to make up for lost federal funding and to institue program the federal government cut. But in the end, there will still be more money to go around and we have the added benefit of more direct control of our money as it stays in the state.
"Draw them in with the prospect of gain, take them by confusion." Sun Tzu
This is so incorrect I can't believe people are still using this to denounce Christianity. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all killed more people in just this century than were killed in all the Crusades and Inquisitions combined. (Look up Kennedy's references in What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? if you want.) Even today hundreds if not thousands of Christians around the world are being killed for professing their faith, not much different than in Nero's empire. Injustice is endemic in humanity as a race, not just in "religious" people. God calls it "sin".
Calling myself a tomato wouldn't make me one. The Branch Davidians were very clearly not Christians. All Christian denominations agree on certain core beliefs, and there is freedom to differ on particulars.
Constitutionally Correct
So how could that be financed? Easily: the wage people are getting would be taxed not by flat rate but by the common progressive meter - the more you earn, the more you pay taxes. That way, the richer would compensate the society more and the wealth would distribute more evenly. This also allows the free medical care, schooling and other basic services for everyone regardless of background.
Sadly though, the model is yet to be realized exactly like this anywhere.
And before you ask the obvious, I get taxed 48% (yes, almost half) of my income (which is pretty good I must say), and I think it's just dandy fine.
______________
______________
OTTERS RULE.
I pay 48% of my (pretty good) income to support, amongst other things, welfare. And it's fine for me. Welfare, free medical care, free universities, etc. are IMHO all good things in life (which are too few anyway).
______________
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OTTERS RULE.
And you think it's somehow wrong?
Ever heard of humanity? Something all religions preach. Something even I as an atheist endorse. I've made some fine decisions in my life, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't feel that it's my responsibility to happily pay half of my income (as taxes) to take some burden off the less lucky. And I do it. Voluntarily (as I could leave for some less taxing country as well).
______________
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OTTERS RULE.
I make a good money. I pay 48% of my income as taxes. I do it happily, 'cause it goes to good things, like free lifelong medical care, free schooling (all universities in Finland are free for all) and welfare for those less lucky. I do it even though we don't have a socialistic government or regime. I do it because I care.
Call me commie if you will, but I will make more than enough money still.
______________
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OTTERS RULE.
I am involved in politics, so I am part of the process. I elected some of those in charge, so I decide (not some anonymous governmental demon).
But to answer your question: I believe in democracy - if majority of the people would like to raise the tax level it should be done. And I know, I'd still be left whistling happily with more than enough dough.
But I guess it's hard to see things like this if you don't live in a democracy (which any two party system really ain't).
______________
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OTTERS RULE.
For an example of a real socialist government, try the post-war Labour government in Britain. They introduced the National Health Service, which ensures proper medical care to the millions of people that could not afford it, and has saved an enourmous number of lives.
As another poster has already noted - your reply doesn't answer the question of why America brainwashes its schoolchildren against socialism, but merely provides frightening evidence that it is taking place.
Socialism: The goverment tells you what to do, and takes all your money to "redistribute".
Not too far off with totalitarianism, but way off base with socialism. A socialist government doesn't tell you what to do. It may well have a policy of progressive redistribution of wealth, so that everyone in society gets a similar opportunity regardless of accident of birth, but it needn't "take all your money" or dictate how you live your life.
I hardly think that a system which requires people to wait upwards of 10 months to see a doctor is something to be proud of. NHS is a failure, and even the Britons know it. People complain about healthcare in the US, but at least you can handle your own medical needs without the government's approval.
Yes, the NHS has its problems (although I think you exaggerate - I can see my doctor more or less any time I like at no notice, although it's true that I might have to wait for certain procedures). However, I am also completely free to choose to have private medical care should I be prepared to pay for it. Hardly an oppressive regime.
Regardless of the merits or otherwise of socialist economics, the point is that it's a heck of a long way from your trollish "socialism is death" statement. The NHS may not be perfect, but people weren't sent to concentration camps by the British government.
I understand the reasons why you are so brainwashed. (And you are brainwashed if your only notion of socialism is that it automatically leads to the slaughter of millions.) During the cold war it was much easier to simply paint the entire opposing philosophy as fundamentally evil, than to have a more complex argument that accepts that socialism might not be intrinsically evil and that Stalin et al. had a very twisted view of what socialism actually meant.
Concerning China, it's not nearly as cut and dried as you think. Yes, the regime did plenty of horrific things. But they also fed everyone - which given China's history of widespread famine is actually no mean feat. I don't agree with the way the Chinese regime operates, and I think their bullying of states like Tibet is appalling, but not everything they did was bad.
Also, it seems to me like his trade arguments are wrong anyway. Japanese trade and investment was encouraged in Hawaii in the '80s, for example, and all it did was put most of the tourist industry into the hands of the Japanese and drive land prices through the roof. It basically ruined Hawaii's economy, and only now is it even attempting to rebound (and failing miserably, by all accounts).
Also, I'd like to know how the hell McReynolds can justify a 50% cut in defense spending when
--Who keeps the corporations in check if there's no strong government?--
Everyone seems to forget: Corportations *exist* by the power of the state alone. They are not natual people.
No govt == No corps
Microsoft was not an abusive monopoly because it had the power to do it alone. It used the courts to *force* people. It used the politicians to *force* people.
Weak govt == Weak Corps.
The libertarian party does a very good job in selling their program with a lot of "liberty" rhetoric, so slashdot-type people who are very concerned with personal liberty issues and disappointed by the US pseudo-democracy are going to trust them. I fail to see anything else in their program than the replacement of relative state domination by total corporate domination, however.
It's great that someone from the left who is also very much in favor of personal liberties counters these "libertarian" rants.
It seems to me that they also do a good job in confusing terms. Why is this kind of thinking called "libertarian" or "anarcho-capitalist" anyway? "Anarcho-capitalism" is an oxymoron because anarchism literally means "no rulers", not exactly what capitalism - especially the corporate feudalism of the "libertarian" flavor is about, and in a large part of the world, "libertarian" means anarcho-socialist.
and now for something completely different
Being forced to buy a product - that's really the worst problem you could run into under "libertarian" capitalism - but you don't, because a company can't do that. Want to grow your own food, that's not a problem because, as we all know, everyone has enough land under capitalism to be self-sufficient. If you don't have the skills, or, maybe, the resources to build your own television, you surely have enough stacks of paper lying around ... (You don't have to work to get your stacks of paper, they magically lie around in your backyard, and if you do, surely not in a company that can exploit the hell out of you because there are no laws. No, a company would never, ever do that.)
and now for something completely different
> I do agree with your basic premise, though I
> would add, as long as those "rituals" do no harm
> to others inside or outside of the "religion".
Ahhh well I meant that implicitly - Once again another lesson that one should always explicitly state everything.
How about "As long as they do not harm any non-consenting parties". Generally speaking - they don't. Its the rare crackpot group that do these things and give all such groups a bad name.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> I say, outlaw religion. Once the first few
> generations got over the "I'm outraged" stage
I look at it this way - Marx was right...
"Religion is the opium o the masses"
And you know what...thats great. I have no problem with individuals wishing to smoke opium! So I have no problem with them following some religion - if it works for you thats fucking great.
I think the church of satan had it right - stop subsidizing it. Tax them just like any other for-profit corperation. (at least until such day as taxes can be phased out - thats my main problem with libertarians - they want to abolish tax. Yes taxes are wrong - its extortion. However - much like toxic waste we can't just sweep i taway with our hands. Its something that has to be taken care of carefully and slowly - we are a few generations away from being realistically tax free)
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well yes they can but - not necissarily by that definition :) - mostly because I wasn't trying to define cult - I was trying to define when the Gov should be stepping into a religous issue.
I think that if som epeople are doing something to harm a nonconsenting party - it should be treated the same whether they call it religous practice or not.
That said - I think the ONLY time that the government should step in to religous affairs (or personal affairs of any type) is when a non-consenting person is involved against their will.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
> Whilst freedom of religion is an important part
> of a free society, let's not get so hung up on
> it that every crazed lunatic with a set of
> "beliefs" can pretend that they're a religious
> guru.
Yea like that damne dheritic Jesus guy from Nazareth! Where does he get off preaching that heresy anyway?
Ok seriously though...I think the best attitude I heard was when I mentioned a friend who was part of what I thought my abe a cult.... "Just because the people who run it may be bad, doesn't make the believers wrong"
If someone believes in something - truely believes in it - then it is a religion for them. Neither you nor anyone else has ANY right to try to stop them from believeing in it or practicing their rituals - whether they be dancing around a fire in the woods or eating stale bread given to them by some weird guy with a stiff collar.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
First of all, there is a moral problem with collecting on taxes on drugs. Any state which profitted as people killed themselves with cocaine or heroine would not be looked at favorably by the rest of the world. (yet we already do this with cigarettes and to some extent gambling/alcohol).
Second, sales tax is gorvernment intrusion into the economy, and excise taxes and tariffs are ESPECIALLY intrusive, since different products have different taxes. Who decides how the tax rate of gas is relative to cigarettes?
Third, I'm not sure that the LP actually wants these taxes. They are militantly pro free trade, which tariffs would contradict. Ayn Rand advocated a voluntary contribution system (which, of course, is unworkable for items of public good).
What's the user fee for things in the public good, such as missile defence?
Does everybody get a bill when it shoots down something?
Corporations are artificial "persons" created by the government in order that businesses might enjoy rights formerly exercised only by natural persons. These rights are guaranteed to them by the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Which, contrary to popular belief, did not free the slaves.
Ask Browne, and I bet he'll tell you the libertarian position on ending government protection for corporations, too.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
Gee, kinda like if you've got MSN and your friend has AOL, then how can you send email to each other? I'm so glad that the government created and enforced such universal standards as SMTP, so we can all get along! If it weren't for government regulation, we'd never be able to communicate with each other, would we?
</sarcasm>
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
Let me ask you this. Can you imagine what would have been invented if it weren't for the government? I'd say technology has made improvements IN SPITE of the government. One good example of government stifling of technology is encryption exporting.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
Soon enough federal child-labor laws, minimum wage, etc will be abolished because "Hey I can't find it in the constitution, I looked twice!" Great plan to push us straight into the third world.
At the turn of the century, the government was least involved in the market and we were extremely economically sound, hardly Third-world. Additionally, our immigration inflow was at its highest because, relative to the rest of the world, our working conditions were heavenly. Everyone takes the "child-labor/factory/minimum wage" issues at the turn of the century out of context. Instead of embracing Canadian or European governments and politics which are rated highly on quality of life issues not just GDP we have a plan from a man who's ready to sell us out to an ever-scarier criminal capitalist machine.
Comrade, considering that countries like Canada and Sweden are admitting that the system is not working due to typical governmental waste and are turning into financial black holes which will eventually fail ALL people if left unchecked, I don't think it would be wise to emulate those countries. You should ESPECIALLY consider in your thoughts that the USA has the highest standard of living anywhere by far, and that includes our poor. You're desire to promote Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt of philosophies such as Libertarianism belie your sadly specious reasoning.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
Lighten up! The whole criminal-capitalist machine spiel reeks of the Russian Revolution propaganda.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
"My man" is all about compromise. He's about free choice. YOUR view of the government and YOUR MAN are not about compromise or choice.In a Libertarian Society, you would have states with high taxes where the state government holds everyones' hands, as you obviously would like. In other states, there would be minimal taxes, and private services, where I would choose to live and take full responsibility for my actions and my life. There's no better compromise than to let EVERYONE have their way. The main thing Harry Browne is saying is the Federal Government should not force everyone to follow its rules--pigeonhole everyone into the same category. It's similar to the I.S. mentality. I am perfectly capable of configuring a scheduling service in Windows NT, but IS refuses to allow me privileges to access that service because EVERY USER IS THE SAME, AND WE MUST CONTROL THEM ALL! I am sorry if you took the Comrade joke as immature or name calling (it does only mean friend, doesn't it?), but if you can't appreciate a little levity in a debate, you might consider loosening up a little.
Zed's dead baby. Zed's dead.
I'm so committed to ending this insane war on our civil liberties, that I've promised that hte very first thing I will do as President, from the Inauguration stand, is sign an unconditional pardon for all non-violent drug offenders currently serving their sentence in federal prison.
(I think he fails to notice that most of the people he's trying to get to vote for him are sitting at home eating cheetos rather than out voting).
Heroin is a sad addiction but one we need to accept and allow addicts to get heroin through doctors.
Am I the only person here who thinks that this is a ridiculously passive attitude?
it will also make groups like Christians feel safe from other faiths - so each will no longer feel the need to fight the other
Amazing -- thousands of years of religious conflict, all solved by voting for Browne!
I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off.
I'll take that as a typo. :o)
Anyway, it seems to me that both of these guys have exactly the same rhetoric, and the same plan on how they're going to get elected: "Vote for me, and I'll let you do whatever you want!" Unfortunately, I don't think that sort of attitude is particularly healthy for this country. I hope the other candidates have something halfway intelligent to say.
(and please don't mod me down just because you're Libertarian and don't like what I say. Thanks!) :o)
Got Rhinos?
Got Rhinos?
makes no difference how it got there, it's in the consititution. some ppl worship the original document, but don't forget the original consititution recognizes slavery (obliquely) and does not contain the bill of rights.
Starting with Carter, the Democratic party has been infiltrated by Republicans. The real role of Gore is to hide the fact that the Democratic party no longer exists.
I guess you must have slept through Michael Dukakis.
I'll agree that Clinton and the like are not Real Democrats. But the Democrats are not gone so much as they are hibernating. It's just that the country has become so much more conservative during the 80's and the 90's that they have to put up these pseudo-Democrats in order to survive.
I don't blame them for it, but they have lost my vote.
Ever read the Bible? It _sort of_ supports socialism. More to the point, that Everyone share all that they own, so that no one lacks anything.
Acts 4:32-35 says of the Christians in jerusalem, that no one said anything they owned was theirs, but instead, sold everyhing and brought the money to the apostles' feet. The apostles then gave it all out again to anyone who had need.
read it for yourself, including God's response to capitalist greed in the next chapter.
Fish
This is where "User Fees" come into play. Things like the fees/taxes you pay on your phone bill, Road tolls, park fees, sales taxes. Things like that. There would be alot more of that, but there also would be alot less government to pay for too.
Well it is more along the lines of when you go to a national park, you would pay to enter like you do now and some of that money would make sure the trees are not glowing when you go there. Rather then pay up front like you do now (income taxes) you pay as you use something (user fees).
Now, regarding the two candidates. They have such a limited outlook that they are laughable. Abolish major taxes? Taxes exist to make sure our nation functions. Total freedom? Government restricts some freedoms to ensure that the fundamental freedoms of others are maintained. Our nation, as intended by the original founders, needs a moderate government. Government has the intent of preventing tyranny of the mass; it exists to provide the rules and the execution of those rules to keep society running. If majority will always persisted, the natural rights of the minorities would be ignored and infringed upon. Plus, an extremist nation would not be respected internationally. I do disagree with many of our governments restrictive and imposing policies and therefore [would] try to vote left-of-center in our right-of-center nation. Stopping up the "damn" government is not the way.
Nice try. Abraham Lincoln's Republican party was a third party candidate in the 1860 election.
Of course, we had a civil war afterwards, so we all might want to think twice about this third party stuff..
PaxTech
All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
Because socialiasm is very similar to communism, and we spent most of our time after World War II in a "war" against the Soviet Union -- a communist state. I terms of why the government fears communism, that is also fairly easy to explain.
(1) Communism is, by definition (well, Marxist communism, anyway) a REVOLUTION. If you are in charge, you don't want to get thrown out.
(2) Communism is bad for a capitalist economy. Socialism suffers from the same problem. If you are willing to ditch capitalism and capitalist theory, communism or socialism could be feasible, but first you have to get out of the mindset "What is good for the economy is good for everyone."
Rhapsody in Numbers
True enough.
Acctually, I tend to agree with you in large part. Socialism is an ideaology, just like communism or true (I don't know how to spell this, but) laise faire capitalism. Ideaologies tend not to work because they tend to assume that people fit into some perfect mold.
Still, I would personally prefer rule by an elected group to rule by corporate leaders. (Socialism vs. Libritarianism)
Rhapsody in Numbers
Righto, forgot about that one, and its so obvious too!
Rhapsody in Numbers
I believe he asked why people were brainwashed, not for an example of said brainwashing.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Well that just goes to show you that he isn't going to say what you want to hear to get your votes. He actually takes a stand on something.
By the by, for your other/write-in choices, check out this site for your 'other' alternatives (Cruel site of the day). My favorite is the guy who's running so the government wills top stealing his mail.
"Oh Bother", said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
I'd abuse my power to appoint brigadier generals at will and flood the military with my supporters, then stage a government coup to force everyone to become libertarian, damnit!
"Oh Bother", said the Borg, "We've assimilated Pooh."
'fear socialism'?
because this guy wants to raise taxes. his answer to the questions should anwer your question. he says that he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy and raise estate taxes to even more absurd levels.
so, why is that bad? put some money in your pocket and you'll know.
ironically, the same people you are accusing of teaching a fear of socialism are unionized trolls.
what you should remember, is that the children are forced to see their socialist teachers go on strike every 4 years. maybe that is where some people develop their hatred of socialists?
exactly, anonymous.
i'm going to slave away my entire life to build up some wealth, just so the government can give it to poor people.
has anyone noticed that people become socialists after they realize that they will never make any money?
you said something funny!!
"....I have no problem with ignorants as long as they're aware of it...."
duh.
Very simple... If you want to change the game you have to first play it.
First of all: The economic ideas of your Socialist Party candidate for the Presidency are NOT socialist. Those ones who do not agree should read Marx: socialism is about the "dictature of the proletariat". Your so-called Socialist Party is still democratic and its candidate still sees a role for the private sector. This Socialist Party should rather be called Center-Left Party, Social Democrats or something similar.
Next, the most important point: introduce progressive -in the financial sense- taxes on the rich and "negative taxes" on the poor. "Negative taxes", a better word for that is subsidies but anyway.
This idea is not that bad, considering it works more or less in Europe, since 100 years, of course in a constantly evolving form. For those among you who think progressive taxation and subsidising poor does not help them because you would take away (through indirect taxes like sales tax or VAT) from the poor what you give them (through these subsidies): may I be so frank to point out that one can establish different taxation tarifs depending on the necessity-for-life of the goods considered. e.g. Luxury products could get a high tarif whereas basic nutrition just a few percents.
That is what we (try) to do in Europe. You can judge it yourself of course. However it would be interesting for the US and its citizen if they would broaden their political horizon and ideological tollerance not only in their own country but also elsewhere in the world where they have an enormous influence.
After all, competition between ideologies, the left and the right, made us, the lucky ones in this world, to what we are, sitting comfortably behind our computer screens, healthy, educated and free to say what we think.
The nice thing about Windows is: it does not just crash; it displays a nice little dialog box and let's you press 'OK'
How about if you worship Yoda. Not the force, just Yoda..
I'm with you 100%, buddy. The time to stop dangerous, deviant cults is the first time they pop up, before any lives are ruined.
And the situation is worse than you thought. I just found out there's a group of people in my own neighbourhood who get together regularly and ritually consume blood and human flesh. Sure, they're just using wine and bread for now, but the intent is clear, and any thinking person can see that eventually they'll move on to the real thing.
Now, I'm not a violent person, so I'm not in favour of torching their church or anything like that -- though I probably would if my own son got involved with these people.
However, I already have written my senator and congressman and asked for legislation and an expanded police force in order to deal with these people. At the very least, they should have their children taken away from them.
I liked a lot of his answers too, especially the bit about asking Gore and Bush whether they'd be better off if they spent 10 years in jail for their "youthful indiscretions".
Too bad he's a nutcase. Anybody that thinks you can just do away with income taxes and the entire IRS needs a bite of a reality sandwich.
Um, duh. Why do you think companies spend so much on lobbying? Because they get laws passed that help them at the expense of consumers. This is precisely why repealing regulations would distribute power more widely. Take the ICC (Interstate Commerce Commission). The ICC was orginally created to control the railroad "monopolies" around the turn of the century. However, it quickly became a tool of those railroad companies, allowing them to charge higher rates than they could have under a competitive system, and allowed them to stifle competition from trucking and cargo planes when that developed. Had the ICC never existed, the railroads would not have been able to charge as much (because they were never really monopolies anyway, anymore than Microsoft is; people had choices, even if those choices were limited), and they would have lost what control of the market they did have the moment trucking became viable. The best protection against overly powerful corporations is the free market.
I agree that Harry Browne is not the greatest proponent of free market capitalism, for a truly brilliant explanation, read Milton Friedman's Free to Choose. Browne's a pretty good canidate and all, but he just isn't as good at explaining as at Nobel Prize winning economist...
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
No, money doesn't rot, but if you've got more than you're inclined to spend, and you can't pass it along to the next generation, then the result is the same. The only reason I used food as an example is to show why inheritance taxes lower incentive to work by using a one commodity system. My point though, is that a large inheritance tax is not the solution to unearned wealth. The solution is property tax. Sure, you could "avoid" the tax by living in a crappy house in a bad neighborhood, but what's the point in being rich then? An annual tax related to assets (a property tax being the easiest way to accomplish this), rather than an income tax or a one time tax (be it when you die, or on your 50th birthday) is the best way to prevent idle rich.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Railroads, however, most certainly are excludable. Some people economists claim that there would be a market for private highways if the government opened things up, since most highways are also excludable (see toll roads if you need proof of this). Many of these things are under control not because there's no market, but because the government believes they are natural monopolies (meaning that due to the way the market is set up, one company will invariably rise to prominence; the OS industry may be a natural monopoly, because the larger the market share, the more software runs on it, and the more software that runs on it, the more its market share will increase), and therefore things will be better if the monopoly is under government control than if it were a private monopoly. Of course, the reality is that government monopolies are no more consumer friendly than privete ones, just the money is going to a large number of wasteful bureacrats instead of a small number of efficient executives. Decide for yourself which is the lesser evil :)
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Now, make this a bit more general. Substitute "money" for food, and you've basically got modern society. If people can't pass it on to their kids, they've got no reason to try to make any more money than they plan to spend.
Another simpler argument is that this is essentially a tax on people who die unexpectedly. Anyone who knows they're going to die can simply give their money away. Sure, any money given away within 3 years of death is counted in the estate, but if you're around 65, you've probably got a few more years left in you, and you can count on your heirs to financially support you in the event that you accidentally gave away too much. I see no reason to punish those who die in tragic accidents while rewarding those who die old, generally living a long life is considered quite a reward in itself.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
lordy you are dumb, freedom of religion- so long as it's an approved religion- is no freedom at all. I also suggest you learn a little about Wicca before denouincing it as mere crystal power, you only demonstrate your own ignorance
J-aims
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Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
Freedom is something every religion is OK but it is also saying what you want to say. So you preach freedom of religion at the expense of freedom of the press. I don't think I said for one minute that freedom of religion is more important than freedom of press. Both are equally important- I was using the freedom of the press in this example to point out that the initial poster was imo wrong, freedom of speech allows us both to put forward our viewpoints and intelligently debate over them, hopefully with the result that we will come to the best conclusion and that is way it is so important.
J-aims
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Yo, whatever happened to peas? Join T( H)GS
My 17-year-old daughter and I went to see Harry Browne speak in Philadelphia last night.
I was seriously impressed. I was not so much impressed with the ideals; they are my ideals after all. Rather I was impressed by Harry's ability to express those ideas, to answer questions. He patiently explained why a constitutional amendment wasn't necessary to end the war on drugs to a teenager unaware that alcohol prohibition had to be repealed, to a kid who isn't old enough to vote anyway, I had a very moving realization. Harry is not stumping for votes because of a personal desire for political power, he doesn't expect to win anyway. Rather, Harry is working fulltime to give voice to my ideals, to market freedom, to teach and explain the importance of liberty to people.
These are not *my* ideals in the sense of original thoughts I had that I want to share. Rather they are along the lines of thoughts I've had while reading the writings of Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams, wondering why our country isn't really like that, wondering why people don't seem to be aware of what the founding fathers intended. These thoughts have deeply effected my values and ethics, and profoundly matter to me.
Do I do much about this? Not really. I'm a single mom, I work, clean my house, tend my garden, take care of my child. I rarely get enough sleep, let alone have much time to involve myself in politics. But these values effect my life nonetheless, I believe strongly in both individual freedom and personal responsibility and make every decision I can based on those beliefs. As my liberty is gradually eroded by "my" government, I don't do much more than bitch and maybe write off another check to the Libertarian Party.
One of the things that bugs me - while I rarely initiate conversations about politics in the work force, in the past weeks due to the election, lots of people have been having these conversations. And when asked who I am voting for, interesting conversations result. When I begin explaining ending the war on drugs, disbanding the IRS, eliminating social security - every single person I have spoken to about this stuff agrees with me. People AGREE with these ideas, they just don't know that they have a choice beyond the two mainstream parties, other than the real looneytoon third parties.
I have heard these comments from people I work with:
"I went to that Harry guy's web site. Is this really for real?"
"So what exactly are libertarians for besides liberty? Come to think of it, that'd solve a lot of problems right there."
"Ending the war on drugs? Disbanding the IRS? Where do I sign up for THAT?"
People are hungry for the Libertarian message; it's simply a matter of marketing. People WANT this kind of government in droves! But I'm not really a marketing person, and even if I had the talents, I don't have the time or energy to be really good at this. For one thing, I'm volatile - it's easy for me to go into flamewar mode about anything I feel strongly about. For another, I'm sarcastic, if some kid asked me about needing a constiutional amendment to end the drug war, my response would likely be less patient - and have to do with the federal government decimating the educational system in this country, DARE classes having pre-empted history. And finally, I am entirely too busy earning a living (particularly after paying my "fair share" for government), to really have the time to invest in chagning things significantly.
And what I realized last night was... Harry has worked fulltime through two elections to represent me, to make sure my ideas get heard, to take my message to the voters, to provide the www.harrybrowne.org URL I hand out, to stand against the erosion of freedom and liberty that I experience in my day-to-day life. I was honored to meet him, shake his hand, and thank him for standing up for me.
It has been awhile since Poli-sci, but I thought that one of the main reasons, or perhaps one of the main justifications, of the electoral college was to help solve the problem of inneffecient exchange of information, since there was no TV, radio, internet, etc. this made it rather hard to get accurate information everywhere without having the kind of "signal loss" much like in the children's game of "gossip". The reprecussions spoken of, were known at the time (again, this is from what I can currently recall), but deemed an acceptable trade off. Obviously this is not the case now.
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
I understand the fear that many have, they look around and see smoke stacks, toxic producing plants, and people littering everywhere. They then conclude that people, if left to their own devices, will slowly destroy what you (and I) consider sacred. That is based on sampling observation. Another observation would be that with all the locations that have anti-littering, anti-dumping, anti-corporate chemical producing, releasing, etc, we have not seen an elimination or even an overall reduction in the destruction of the environment. However, where you do see a vast reduction of this destruction is in privately owned places... whether they are parks, forests, front lawns, commons, beaches, etc. Why, because most people don't want that crap in their area.
I have a coworker that is fighting a "battle" with a rather large energy company that wants to put in a electric (gas operated I believe) plant close to her home. Everyone in the neighborhood is against it, and they organized on their own to fight it. The only potential snag is what is in Federal and State code, something about it being a state issue, not a public one. Meaning that if ol state congressmen bob and his bunch vote for this, regardless of what the local community wants, it would pass. THAT is the problem. The company is empowered by the very government that claims to be for "the working family" and "for the environment".
As usual, I am rather long winded, but this is a very important issue to me. I have seen more waste and blatant misappropriation in the government to trust that they can POSSIBLY have my best intrests in mind. Since the national forests are so horribly maintained (and often burned by "well-meaning" individuals) yet privately owned areas are so pristine, I think it becomes obvious what the most efficient means of environmental protection are. **warning, spell checker currently disabled**
I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
Either way, where has that attitude gone today?
Kathleen Dixon, the director of the women's studies department, of the sociology department at Bowling Green State University. This in response to a professor quiting because he was blocked from teaching a class about Political Correctness and its Censorship.I seek not only to follow in the footsteps of the men of old, I seek the things they sought.
I am huge supporter of Browne and a card-carrying Libertarian. Your question is common. The answer is that the money will come from excise taxes and tariffs. This is not the trillions that the government rakes in now, but with a Constiution-sized government, it would be enough. Browne would also sell useless government land. This would generate A LOT of money, because currently the government loves to own land for no apparent reason. Carl
Vote Libertarian
Oh really? Well if we are going to be so bad without income tax, how did we ever manage before 1913 when it was put into place?
Are we better now or pre-1913 (financially)?
Of course we aren't better now. We have trillions of dollars of deficit. Did you know when Theodore Roosevelt was president, the government had to LOWER the cost of a stamp? Can you imagine that happening now?
Carl
Vote Libertarian
Their view on the war on drugs is spot on! They don't want to punish people who don't know any better/have a problem/made a mistake/got curious etc. They don't need prison, they need whatever helps them to cope, or review whether what they did was wrong. This IMHO could be applied to other areas in crime, if it already isn't! The mother who shop lifts to feed her children for example. Just having a war on soething doesn;t work, as any general will tell you, if you want get things done, you need a plan of action and a goal for that plan. This brings me to my last point.
I'm not sure I agree with their comments that the US doesn't need a mission. Yes a lot of nations don't have specific missions but with countries like China, leaders obviously have a goal to become more of a world leader instead of just a power. They have an idea of how to get there as well, just look at the way the press has covered them in recent years. They seem to become more open in some areas and are starting to gain more influence. A mission for a nation doesn't have to a big one but it helps. Look at what happened when JFK announced the moonshot effort! The whole nation went wild. It's a well known fact that when people have a goal and can see where their going, they're a lot happier. Just you watch, if the US has a goal, people will become more focused because they will have a role to play and they will be able to see how their role contributes to the whole. You'd be surprised how much of a boost this can give to someones moral and general well being. If this is the case then I guarantee that things like crime will drop, if not radically then markedly. Just you wait. If a president did all these things then change the constitution and let him/her stay in the driving seat until death by old age!
dnnrly
Well, I'm sorry to say, but you're totally wrong here.
Communism is not a totalitarian, authoritarian version of socialism. If you read Marx, you will find that it actually favours the abolition of bourgeios totalitarianism, and the management of the state by committees of average workers. It does not favour state ownership, but communal ownership by the people. In fact, a key target of Communism is the abolition of the state, and governance by the workers for the workers.
I think you are making the common mistake of confusing Stalinism and Maoism with Communism. I urge you to go to The Marxist Archive to learn what Communism is really about.
The government did take action against IBM in the 80s if you remember. They were somewhat crippled in the wake of that due to the pretty harsh restrictions imposed on them. -17028
both candidates seemed to have very similar answers for alot of questions... kinda interesting considering nader's complaint that gore and bush are very much alike.
i was very impressed when mcreynolds said he didn't know, and that he'd have to investigate. admission of ignorance isn't something most people would give, in any situation.
i like the tax cut question, two completely opposite responses.
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
John Rocker stated that he doesn't like to ride the Subway because of all the gays with aids and the foreigners.
so we have an ignorant guy with too much karma, and another guy who got moderated up for responding to a post he didn't read. joy.
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
the whole point of our checks and balances system is to be inefficient. the govt isn't supposed to be able to get anything accomplished efficiently because then either one branch would have too much power or the citizens wouldn't be able to counteract govt action they did not approve of. a politician who wants to make things more efficient either has his heart in the right place or wants to stomp us like the little insects we are.
*ahem*
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Peace,
Lord Omlette
ICQ# 77863057
[o]_O
Don't be too hasty about Gore and Bush! Remeber, these are just the two candidate who answered most quickly, i.e. the ones with the most time on their hands. (I'm holding out for Nader's reply myself).
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I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
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I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
--Dr. Seuss
He was also a womanizing alcoholic, but otherwise a reasonably decent fellow.
Also, while disputable, it is pretty widely held that Washington was pretty much "placed" as the first president just to get the ball rolling.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
...the single most frightening story I've ever read on slashdot.
These are two of the most historically ignorant people I have ever seen quoted in print.
I no longer feel guilty about voting for Gore or Bush. Either choice is a genius compared to these loons.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
As long as they do not harm any non-consenting parties
By that measure, many Christian groups in the US could reasonably be called cults.
I like it!
It didn't start with Carter. The Dixiecrats were Republicans-in-Democrat-clothing long before then. It basically came down to: in the South, you couldn't get elected if you were a Republican. There was too much of a stigma attached, going back to the fact that Lincoln was a Republican (never mind the fact that the parties had swapped places with the Dems going left and the Repubs right). But issues-wise, the South had more of a tendency towards the right. So there were a bunch of candidates from the South who were technically Deomcrats but were actually on the right.
The Republicans have a similar sort of leftists-who-call-themselves-Republicans (I forget what they're usually called), but they've traditionally had much less power or authority than the Democrat equivalent.
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Zardoz has spoken!
Oper on the Nightstar
Why Harry Browne is running for President.
When elected, Washington was pretty much the most famous guy in the colonies. Everybody knew who he was -- in the 1789 election he got 69 electoral spots (next closest was John Adams with 34). In 1792 he got 132 (next was John Adams, with 77). Both he and Jefferson were regularly beset by strangers who would walk up to their houses and just stand there to watch them go about their daily business (kinda like early paparazzi).
As regards the military campaign, IMHO his greatest achievement was in simply holding things together. And let's not forget, he did win the war....
I have no
While it's nice to see responses from Browne and McReynolds to these questions, why hasn't Slashdot asked some anarchists who aren't running for office what they would say in response to these questions? After all, since most people don't vote, it would be nice to hear from people who advocate not voting. ;-)
The questions almost cry out for an anarchist response. Anarchists have been involved in all of the anti-globalization protests this past year. We have a radical viewpoint on intellectual property which is just now being illustrated by P2P technology, Napster, Gnutella, and the like.
What do anarchists think about asteroid defense?
We'll tell the Eugene anarchists that there is a new McDonalds on the threatening asteroid and they'll throw rocks at it until it crumbles to pieces.
You know, major candidates don't like to answer people's questions today. They only like to run ads on television.
A Green Party activist, I'm voting for Ralph Nader.
Of course, Ralph Nader would rather hold rallies with his celebrity friends than answer questions. I don't see his replies up here, and he hasn't exactly been willing to take any questions from non-partisan sources. He continues to complain about being excluded from the debates, yet has repeatedly refused online, multi-candidate interviews such as this one, Web, White and Blue, and many others. (Even the major parties are participating in these forums.)
It's time that the liberal and progressive in our society looked beyond the hype, and began to realize that Nader doesn't have our best interests at heart.
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Feminism is the wild notion that women are human beings.
Having said that, the eventual winner was both an independent and a socialist (still not quite a rude word in the UK, despite the efforts of Blair and Thatcher) so I can see why McReynolds liked it.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
"Corporations don't aid progress, they hinder it. Corporations are profits, not progress. Large corporations are bureaucracy, inefficiency, and market forces. They are the least desirable, least beneficial, and least likely to succeed means of getting anything meaningful accomplished."
Yawn. When discourse comes down to an exercise in political posturing, every argument turns into '[insert favorite bogey-man here].'
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share and enjoy
Christianity is about as deviant and unethical as I can imagine; if Christians are to be taken seriously, then I see no reason why not to take Wiccans seriously.
(If it offends you that I might say such a thing about Christianity, then just substitute Islam or some other religion you don't like for it.)
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share and enjoy
Ah, what the hell, I'm bored enough to respond to anonymous cowards.
I looked at the sig a while ago, and decided that 'democracy' is not quite the right word, but that it sounded better than 'society in which the press is owned by the government.' Whatever, I don't make it a point to be particularly insightful in .signatures.
Sorry if my argument confused you. I guess I'll spell it out literally.
If you take the Harry Browne quote from the interview, and you replace the word "Government" with the word "Corporations," then what you're left with is a rather banal piece of political tripe. Why is this? Well, it's because the original statement was just as boring and non-novel as the edited version. It seems to me that statements of this sort are popular nowadays, yet fulfill no real use in political discourse. Standing up and saying that everything is the fault of (Government|Corporations|Communism|Capitalism|secu lar humanism) is a sign that you are willing to over-simplify everything in order to be able to broadcast a 'political message.'
I'll try to stay away from implying my arguments in the future.
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share and enjoy
You got that right. Sorry folks, but I just don't trust the 'free market' enough to let it run everything. What happens when the free market makes a mistake? You can say "vote with your money", but what can you do when everything out there is made by a handful of multinational corporations?- ----------------------
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Surface dwellers can be so stupid.
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I bent my wookie
That's OK, because I'm an ultra liberal, Tikka rifle owning, revolution-waiting communist Che Guevara hero-having type who can't wait to take a crack at your reactionary cracker white devil selfish ass.- ---------
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Surface dwellers can be so stupid.
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I bent my wookie
Or you can do what most people will probably do in the libertarian paradise: let those people rot. We live in a society. YES! It is your responsibility. Some of these folks sound like objectivist Randroids.- ---------
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Surface dwellers can be so stupid.
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I bent my wookie
For those of you who don't get it - the U.N. is a Good Thing. We are living in an era where physical borders are becoming more and more irrelevant, yet there's this nutty stuff about black helicopters. I remember the whole deal where Clinton was gonna declare martial law and bring in the UN after New Year's 2000. Still waiting for that to happen.
Of all the things in the world to worry about, they choose THIS? Geez. Get over it, don't waste any more brain cells thinking about it, it ain't gonna happen.- ----------------
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Surface dwellers can be so stupid.
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I bent my wookie
Sounds like that should be one of this guy's platform points. :)
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Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
A few years ago Discover magazine ran an article on the electoral system.
It was shown mathematically that the electoral system protects the minority voice,
and it gives more power to "swing" voters in a close race (like the current one).
The statement about how it keeps people from voting is true, but only because the
general public doesn't understand the numbers.
Have you seen my sig?
> Tell me that people in socialist countries like
> China and France are better off now than they
> were before.
1st, France is not socialist. You may call its system "social-democrat", as in most western continental Europe countries. This means that it's just an Anglo-Saxon style capitalist system, tempered with a more generous welfare, more social protection, more public money for healthcare and education. And consequently, higher taxes.
Second, yes, the French are _much better_ than they were before (when is that "before", by the way?), and you're obviously incredibly ignorant on the rest of the world. I have no problem with ignorants as long as they're aware of it, but I have a problem when they start voicing strong and integrist opinions on topics on which they don't have a clue, and when they start offending and insulting other people.
Last but not least, I have a simple fact that you may want to think about it. If France sucked so much, well, the French which come temporarily to the US would not choose to come back to their country after a while. The French are simply the people, which, proportionnally, decide the least to stay in America. Besides, the proportion of Americans which come temporarily to France and decide to stay forever is higher than the proportion of French which go to America and decide to stay. So may be the oh-so-socialist France is not such an ugly place to be.
I forgot to mention that the most Socialist country in the Western world is Sweden, which is an exemplary democracy, and which is also the place where the poverty rate is the lowest in the world. And, no, I don't think they kill their people...
I would also like to ask you where the hell does the number of 19% unemployment come from? That would be very interesting... Also, one of these days, as mentioned for Sweden, you may want to compare the poverty levels or the percentage of people who do not have access to a good healthcare.
You may also try to learn the difference between official unemployment, ie the count of people who are actually registered as job-seekers at the employment agencies, and actual unemployment, which includes people who are completely out of the system and have no administrative existence as job seekers. In continental Western Europe, both numbers are very close. There's another big country in which it is definitely not the case...
> The government is effectively saying to the poor
> that, by being poor, they have demonstrated a
> lack of money management skills.
No. They have demonstrated a lack of "being born in the right family" skills.
As far as I undestand, your family had nothing to do with it from a material point of view, but they encouraged you, they didn't make you be confronted to domestic violence when you were a kid, and they didn't make you live in a terrible environment where criminality, drugs, prostitutions, racism, despair and dirt are part of your daily life. This makes a world of difference.
> By living in poverty and not achieving even a
> middle class status they have demonstrated that,
> for whatever reason, they do not have the
> ability to manage money properly.
I'm sorry, but this really is a crazy idea. What they have demonstrated is that they don't have the ability to _make_ money, which is a very different matter. But most of these poors do spend their money in a very rational way: food, clothes, and, when possible, housing, or taking care of their kids. Most of them are spending all of their money for vital needs, and they simply have no choice. This would be completely insane to put higher taxes on them.
As for richer people, the whole infrastructures, the whole legal system, the repressive arsenal, etc..., are designed to make them always more properous and secure. The system is made by them, for them. The amount of money spent by the government for welfare and benefits, which really is the least the American society can do, is ridiculous as compared to the amount of money spent by the government for other matters which will benefit in priority to the wealthiest (and to business).
Besides, as I consider that solidarity is one of the most important moral values, and as I really don't understand how people can let others croak in the streets, arrogantly saying "hey, I've worked hard to get where I am, and I can tell you he did not", I have very little sympathy for this way of thinking. As I also do not consider work as a central moral value in itself, because I'm not heavily influenced by the protestant ethics which are prevalent in America, I do not approve a system in which you _have to_ work hard at least 8 hours per day, just to be able to eat and to live in a decent place.
Well, yes, I happen to know some poor people pretty well, or people who have been very poor, and I don't have to look very far: my wife. While I personnally grew-up in a well-off family (my parents are physicians), my wife grew up in a poor family, and we've spent a lot of time confronting our experiences.
As for your examples:
1- John is a moron, but John is a highly caricatural and biased example, and he is definitely not typical. He is an exception, and a system is not designed to deal in priority with exceptions, but with the mainstream. By this, I mean poor people who really run into difficulties, even if they are using their money in a very rational way.
2- Jack can succeed in a strong economic environment, but he will simply fail during a period of depression because opportunities just don't exist. In this case he may need indeed some help from the government. Besides, if Jack was living in a country in which the welfare is generous, Jack could quit his factory and still receive a full salary from the welfare for 6 months to one year, during which he could concentrate full-time on starting his business. The welfare is also a safety net that encourages people to take risks.
3- James is born in a golden room, good for him. But what creates employment is not his own achievements, it is the company and the wealth he inherited from. Wealth and employments depend on his company, his wealth and his luck rather than on his merits. Thus, claiming that he's a wonderful guy to whom the society should be thankful just because he _happens to_ be rich is an imposture, even if it is a very common one. Also, in a similar vein, note that some (many) people do not become rich by actually _creating_ wealth, but just by taking it elsewhere. These people have consequently made others dependent on their wealth, but cannot in good conscience claim they now are the nice guys who are providing employment.
As far as your opinion on working 8 or more hours is concerned, well, you may not understand people who don't really feel a need to professionally accomplish something, but there's no reason why this point of view should be enforced to people who disagree. Many people are hedonist, and can find real happiness by enjoying the world surrounding them, or collecting simple pleasures (gastronomy, art, litterature, sex, whatever). Others accomplish great things by other means than their profession. It can be via human relations, via their family, their hobbies -unfortunately many hobbies canot be transformed in a job to make a living-, etc...). Once again, I don't see why a system should make it mandatory to work hard in something they're not necessarily interested in (quite franfly, how many people are really _happy_ at work?), just to be able to live in decent conditions.
> The fact of the matter is that if you cannot
> rise above poverty in the United States it is
> because there is something fundamentally wrong
> with you. It is absolutely not for any other
> reason.
Yes, but first, this is the case in most of the Western world and this is something that many Americans seem to forget, and second, it is more likely that there's "something wrong" with someone if he grew up in the kind of environments we were talking about than if he grew up in a peaceful and prosperous environment. You're telling me that you succeeding in extracting yourself from a terrible environment. Congratulations, good for you. But let me point out that, with the qualities you had to show to achieve this, well, you probably would be in an even much better situation if you had grown up in a better place and in better conditions, growing in peace of mind, with parents able to send you to an Ivy League College, or to Stanford,etc... So, even if it is possible to rise, the inequalities are still greatly reproduced generations after generations.
Last, what is possible these days in this period of strong economic growth is not possible in days of depressions, which did happen, do happen, and will happen. When these times show up, you'd better not be the poor guy trying to rise, 'cause you simply won't find any opportunity. But the rich will hame much less to worry about.
Hey, Mr President, you wanna smoke a blunt?
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
Question 7 was:
In the last year or so we have seen a tremendous escalation in the quantity and size of political protests against globalization and the rising power of corporate multi-nationals [bla-bla]
The question seemed pretty clear. At least to me. It was indirectly referring to the WTO manifestation at seattle. You know, this kind of stuff.
The answer of Browne is amusingly off topic. Talking about free-trade, etc, etc... Or, when talking about Lost Jobs, he only talks about money spent on foreign products, not products made in coutry with lower wages.
And this anwser is also very very long. Much longer than others. I suspect it have just been copy/pasted from somewhere. Any pointer?
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
The aeroplane pops immediately to mind. The liquid fueled rocket, while eventually developed with government funds was invented entirely without such. We've just passed the 100th anniversary of the invention of the automobile by Benz and Daimler, but I'll throw it in anyway. Just one word,Plastics. The theory of Relativity was devised entirely supported by the salary of a patent clerk. . . 3rd class, as was the solution to the photoelectric effect, which resulted in quantum theory. The chain saw, think about it, it has truely changed to world, literally. The Jarvic 7. Radio ferchristssakes ( 2001 is its anniversary), which brings us to the vacuum tube, video tape, Sound synced motion pictures, which brings us to the point that damn near everything out of Bell Labs for the first 50 years of its existence had little or no government backing at the point of its invention and that includes UNIX, C and radio astronomy.
I could go on, and on, and on. The government has injected funds into much of the above AFTER its invention, but had not a damn thing to do with the invention itself.
I'd like to add the digital computer, but that was invented much longer ago than 100 years, by a single individual, with no resources other than his own.
Government funding has brought us modern high energy particle physics, which would be impossible without the large amounts of money that governments provide. Radar and Sonar came from strictly military projects, as did atomic power. The space program has injected a fair amount of money into research projects that would have been delayed a decade or two had they not had the goverment funding, but Teflon, fireproof cloth, the transistor and the IC all were in development before the government put any money into them and most of the medical research done by the space program has been eclipsed by sports medicine research.
The private sector has done, and continues to do, just fine by way of inventing things.
Yes and no. You have a point, but it's a more complicated history than that, and the anti-trust suit that broke up the AT&T monopoly was the second, the first lasting several years.
AT&T came by their monopoly by the sames meanst MS has come by theirs, brute force in the private sector. By the time of 1921 when AT&T was granted a "natural monopoly" over long distance service they had already achieved one de facto.
Contrary to popular onpinion AT&T NEVER had 100% of the market, in fact, over all, they had 80 something percent at their peak.
From exactly the same sources that allowed the government to operate for over 100 years.
The Federal income tax was first deployed within the lifetime of people who will be voting in this election, and within the lifetime of people holding office in the Senate.
The income tax as we know it was invented by Napoleon to wage war, and all income tax has been, essentialy, a military funding measure.
In America the Federal income tax did'nt come into being until 1913, just in time for WWI, and corporate income tax generated far more revenues than the personal until after WWII.
Of government not bent on waging war has little, or no, need of a personal income tax at all.
Gentlemen... I think we've been trolled.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
I honestly think that is not a fair representation of socialism at all. Yes economically Communism and Socialism are the similar, but there is a huge difference in them inherently. Communism, with its belief in revolution, spreads a thought that killing for this higher economic good is a good thing. Hence people such as Pol Pot and Stalin have no problem wasting half of their population. Socialism plays within the current political system. They want to be elected, and killing your constituents is not a good way to get reelected, and hence they are still accountable to the people. Socialistic policies have done well in many countries such as the Sweden, Norway, and to a lesser extent Canada. They arent perfect, and in some cases they may need to be replaced, but the politicians are still held accountable. That is the problem with communism, the lack of accountability inherent in a totalitarian state. So get your facts straight. Saying Communism equals Socialism is about as responsible as saying Facism equals the Republican party.
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
As an atheist I have an interest in this topic. (Perhaps I'm a Buddhist atheist, which is not actually a contradiction, as "orthodox Buddhists" out there will understand)...[see above]...Thank God we have it I believe in it.
:-)
I for one find it interesting that an atheist can believe in God
Somebody set up us the bomb!? All Your base Are Belong to Us!
... what the www.freshmeat.net is! ;-)
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
Judaism is pretty clever in not trying to inflict itself on the entire world. It is highly expressed "tribal" religion. The conversion ritual even has the question to non-Jew if (s)he is sure (s)he wants to convert, and this question is repeated 3 times.
Even more, Judaism does not deny Heaven to people of the other faiths (like the Chrisitianity does).
Tigers respect lions, elephants and hippos. Maggots respect no one. (C) S. Dovlatov
The only sane vote is for Harry Browne...
Who was the last independent candidate voted into the Presidency? Personally, I don't know if there were ANY. Therefore, voting for Browne would very neatly fit into your description of insanity.
--
Secondly, I am hoping to someday be president (yes, I know you all are thinking that I'm just a 20 year old with pie-in-the-sky goals, but I hope despite that), and I am very much a Libertarian, I want to work from the inside out to reduce the Federal (cap. "F") government because it has overstepped its bounds. It has the duty to protect our life, liberty, and property but all these *nice* programs they made for us have all failed. I would love to see a Federal Government that is self-sufficient that doesnt require income taxes but still takes care of it mandated duties. The extra's have got to go... if not for my generation, but for all those that follow.
Simplicity is the peak of civilization. - Jessie Sampter, Peot and Author.
- Carl SeaboldThere are many projects - from expanding Amtrak
I'm guessing that he is advocating public transportation by train. If so, he won't be getting my vote.
Sincerely,
John Rocker - Atlanta Braves
Icebox
Ever heard of a little thing called the "international Socialist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids"?
Ha! I kill me!
According to MSNBC the only two states that split electoral votes are Nebraska and Maine (not Vermont).
nuf said
Well people in Northern Europe seem to do ok, even the dole (welfare for the unemployed) in most of Northern Europe is higher than the US minimum wage, yet they can still find people to work in fast food joints. Plus there's a lot less poverty in Europe, plus everyone get at least 3 times as much holidays & leave as what Americans do. Oh they all get virtually free Cradle to grave healthcare & virtually free cradle to grave education. Maybe its the US system that doesn't work & its socialism euro style that work. Afterall what does it matter what economists say about how good or bad an economy is spose to be doing if everyone is doing ok.
This is a fallacious argument called "begging the question" It assumes that people were in fact brainwashed when this is not necessarily the case simply because this fellow thinks so.
I've taken history classes--it's plainly clear to me that socialism, while a fine ideal, cannot succeed in anything humans are involved in. There is an inherent desire for returns from our work--take the rewards away, and whether you like it or not people are not going to work as hard or care as much.
Certainly, this is my opinion, one I have arrived at not by being brainwashed but by -thinking-.
You can bash us Brits for a lot of things, but the NHS is *not* one of them. I don't know one single person who has a bad thing to say about it.
In fact, our health service is one of the only things that we do better than you. Check your facts before you post, and don't be so willing to believe the hype.
(I've just read that bit about Socialism being no better than AIDS, which now firmly convinces me that this this a troll. But, WTF, I've written it now, I might as well post)
-------------------------------------------
No matter how much we like to say McCarthyism and the Cold War were bad and wrong, the fact is that they have made Communism and Socialism into bad words.
Most people don't even understand what these things are, but they know that Russia used to be big and scary and evil when it was a communist nation. They know that socialism is like communism in some ways, so it must be bad too.
Most people don't understand that communism, socialism, and capitalism are purely economic systems that can be attatched to virtually any form of government. Americans have been trained to believe that Communism and Socialism != Democracy.
Most red-blooded Americans would be shocked to learn that they live in a socialist country. Public education, public roads, fire departments, hospitals, police. All Socialist agencies!
I suppose this really answers the how, not the why. During the Cold War, it was all done to get support for the military-industrial complex. Now it's just habit. The people who were raised during that time period raise their kids the same way. To paraphrase Doctor King, "Ignorance breeds ignorance."
It's perfectly OK to believe that Communism and Socialism are not good economic systems, but quite another to demonize the names and associate them with all the evils of humanity.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Think of the land argument like this: When we still had 'frontier' land, population growth tended to be 'out' rather than 'up'. For small towns, government maintenance is very low, but larger population centers require much more infrastructure. Therefore, not only had the government's primary asset dried up, they were in need of more money.
That's not the only cause, of course, but considering that the early 1900s was about the time that we ran out of 'new land', and it coincides with the beginning of income tax, it seems like a very convenient coincidence.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I sort of wonder about this: A lot of people complain that the poor get hit harder by taxes than the rich. What do you think eliminating income tax would do? Essentially, what you have is a tax on the money you spend (sales tax, tarriffs, payment for government services, etc all end up inflating the amount of money you pay.) However, those at the poverty line tend to spend a larger percentage of their income than the rich. Suddenly, you have the same effect as the graduated income tax, but those who make the least money pay the largest percentage. And you think this is a good idea?
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
I'm not going to dodge - I'll admit I have not studied this enough to know where I stand. I certainly am against the monstrous profits going to studio chiefs, but I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off.
I too would like to see more and more poor writers ripped off. Long live the recording industry!
_______
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
http://www.quackwatch.com/11Ind/bates .ht ml
-- Don't call me "Sir," I increase entropy for a living!
Don't expect 4 years of deregulation to fix 100 hundred years of government interference (thats about 25 for cable and 75 for phone)
We (the United States) actually fielded a missle defence system (as opposed to anti-aircraft) in the early 1970's. It was the Safeguard program, descended from the Sentinel program that was a follow-on to the Nike-X.
Sentinel was meant to be a "shield" over the whole country; Safeguard was much smaller in scope and was meant basically only to preserve our own missles from first-strike attacks. Only one Safeguard installation ever came on-line, and it was closed after less than one year.
Safeguard consisted of two missles and two RADAR systems. The first radar called the Perimeter Acquisition Radar (PAR) was used for long-distance detection of incoming re-entry vehicles (RVs). Today this radar I *think* is still used for tracking orbiting objects. If an RV was detected, the first missle would be launched. This missle, called the Spartan, was based on the Nike Zeus missle, but had more power, and was used for exo-atmospheric interception. The Spartan used a nuclear warhead and depended on the X-rays generated by the warhead to disable incoming bombs.
In the event of the Spartans failing in their mission, another radar and missle system came into play. The Missle Site Radar (MSR) provided pinpoint guidance to a new kind of missle, the Sprint. Sprint missles were the highest accelerating missle ever fielded by the United States, leaving their silos already supersonic and accelerating towards the target at 100 G's. The Sprint had a range of about 25 miles, and was intended as a last-ditch interceptor. It too was nuclear-equipped, but could use blast as well as radiation to disable incoming RV's.
The sprint went from zero to Mach 10 in a mere five seconds. The missle was only about fifteen feet tall and had an ablative nose cone to dissapate the heat generated by its extreme velocities. It was steered by injecting cool gas into the exhaust stream of the rockets; it would turn in the direction that the gas was fired from.
Contamination:
As you know, the materials used in modern nuclear weapons is actually quite small. The smallest weapon fielded by the US was the Davey Crocket, and it only weighed about 50 pounds. Of that, only thirteen or so was the nuclear fuel.
I'd be more worried about irradiated soil (fallout) than anything directly from the bomb. A good reference for American nuclear tests (atmospheric and surface bursts, anyway) can be found at this page.
References: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/safeguard. htm
http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/vigilant/chap 4.html
http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/mpainf/missiles/HNik eX.html
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/nike_x.htm
Jeff
> Before I was making $15,000/year after taxes. I worked my ass off to get a raise and now I make $16,000/year. That is a marginal tax of 80%! I would have been much happier to not work as hard and stay at $15,000 than to work myself to the bone for a measly $1,000.
:)
WHAT?
you're telling me you wouldn't work for a 7% raise? I'm sure your current employer would absolutely love to hear that.
Go ahead. Walk into his office right now and say "if I don't get at least a 10% raise this year, I'm going home to sit on my butt and eat Cheesy Poofs."
Watch as he looks at you for a second and says, "ok - here's a dollar to buy some on your way home."
I mean, really. I'm voting Libertarian, not Socialist, but I can still do math.
In post-9/11 America, the CIA interrogates YOU!
Uuh...I guess Browne doesn't watch PBS or the Discovery Channel very much. It seems to me that the general concensus among astronomers/astrophysicists/space types is that another asteroid hit like the one in Tunguska back in (when?) is imminent, and we currently have little means of early detection (to say nothing of actual defense). I believe this was the focus of the poster's question.
At least it seems like McReynolds "gets it".
Question: Answer (Browne): [emphasis added]
Wh...what? Am I reading this wrong? Was this a typo on Harry Browne's part? Did he actually just say that he's going to eliminate government funding for scientific research because "government, um, sucks and stuff"? Am I taking this to mean that scientific research is going to be an innocent victim in the Libertarian fight against governance as a whole, or was he actually trying to make a point about something?
"Sweet creeping zombie Jesus!"
-The Professor, Futurama
I think he was using that wry wit those crazy socialists tend to have... chill out bro :-)
Bush is a Democrat (as much as Clinton was a Republican) and Gore is a Socialist. So what?
The libertarian party has a much better web page than the Socialist party.
I'm not going to dodge - I'll admit I have not studied this enough to know where I stand. I certainly am against the monstrous profits going to studio chiefs, but I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off.
I'm a socialist, and I sure as hell hope that that was a typo.... He wants to make sure poor writers are ripped off? I don't think so......
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.
The Bell System benefitted from emminent domain. They "got" land the Gvt stole from the citizens. Sorry wrong answer. Just another Lucent hack speakin' atcha. Cheers, Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
last time politics was a discussion on slashdot someone from slashdot said that no one ever submits stuff for the green party except party pages. well i submitted this twice and it was rejected both times. so here it is.
Just because the government stops funding programs for science and the arts does not mean the end of those things.
BTW, I am an artist, and i don't want -any- of the government's (read: taxpayers') money to fund my work.
The Libertarian party wants that money to come from private investors, who actually -want- to spend money on things like these. The problem with the money coming from the government is that we all have to pay for it, no matter what we would rather do with our own money.
I'm voting for Browne.
I'm thinkin' that it has to do with the fact that the "christians" still have a big say in our education system, never mind about the supposed seperation of chuch and state,....and we all know what socialism says about the church....
I have Question 10:
/. politically. I bet Ross Perot woulda answered this in his day... not that he didn't scare the be-jebus outta me, but at least he took on CFR. Like McCain.
How would you reform the way politicians currently campaign; would you reduce, more highly regulate, or otherwise obviate the need for politicians to spend 99% of their time raising money from fat-cat greedy un-American corporate bureaucrats who don't give a rat's ass for the citizens of this country and only want to subvert the legislative process toward their own gains? Or something like that...
I suspect that 'outsiders' like Browne, Nader and the rest would offer creative solutions, be more insightful of the problem, and be more highly motivated to reform. Gore Vidal is right: Nothing can improve or change without first removing the chokehold of special interests and lobbyists.
On another note: It is good to see the ascendancy of
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all killed more people in just this century than were killed in all the Crusades and Inquisitions combined.
That's only because Richard and Torquemada didn't have weapons of mass destruction at their disposal. The Crusades and the Inquisition were tools of the Government using religion to further their aims (Kind of like the "Religious Right" does today)
Calling myself a tomato wouldn't make me one
Unfortunately a great many 'tomatoes' throughout the ages have waged war against the "infidel" while the 'real' tomatoes looked the other way
Then how does one define "religion?"
There are those who consider practicing celibacy and chanting to be 'deviant' behaviour.
Why is a guy who can call lightning bolts and thunder down and owns a hammer that returns to him when thrown considered a myth, yet a fellow who pisses off the local government, gets nailed to a tree for his troubles and then comes back three days later to party considered devine truth?
Both stories run counter to human experience. Myths and traditions, when used for teaching, can bind a community together and help the new generations come of age with a shared sense of values, but when these parables are put forth as divinely inspired TRUTH instead of being used as hypothetical examples to explain a moral dilemma, they become dangerous in the hands of an ambitious zealot. How many wars have started because one group has thought "We are the posessors of ABSOLUTE TRUTH. Any who do not believe as we do are foul blasphemers and must DIE!"
Religion in general, and Christianity in particular has been responsible for more and bloodier wars than anything else in Human history. Religion is a tool used by the powerful to keep the populace in control. ("Do what I say GOD told me to do or his anger will be great!")
The only good thing to come out of religion has been the music.
Religion is a powerful force even today, and we don't want people abusing its potential to change people's lives. We don't need a new wave of Waco incidents hitting our country.
Need I remind you that the Branch Davidians were a Christian cult?
Isn't that money the proceeds of crime? So surely the government doesn't get to keep it?
nal 11
Plain Old Telephone Service was developed at Bell Labs, funded entirely by American Telephone and Telegraph, nary a dime of Uncle Sam's money.
You're forgetting that the fact that AT&T had the billions necessary to develop technology itself is the result of their ripping of U.S. citizens for years - the only way they were able to hoard all of those buck$...
And, of course, they've had decades to use proprietary technology to extract even more money from the population.
I'm not saying that government-controlled development is good, mind you: I'm for democratic control of workplaces and research institutes by the people working there, and a free distribution of all knowledge obtained by such research.
I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons. -R.W. Emerson
Actually there are many times when socialism was embraced at school.
Mr. Modular, did you bring enough candy for everyone?
this is exactly what Browne is advocating: military withdrawl from foreign lands.
I'm sure other countries would feel a lot less threatened by a country that can defend itself well but that rarely shows military might outside its borders.
Instant Runoff Voting simply isn't the answer.
Besides, there are already nearly 300 Libertarians serving in office, including more than 20 right here in Massachusetts.
Now, the Greens, Reform, and Natural Law, can't say that. Nor can any of the other "wet dog" parties around the nation.
The future of America is the The Libertarian Party
Because "the price of avoiding politics is to be ruled by one's inferiors."
Old words, still true today.
Whatever you do folks, please go out and vote.
But we've never seen a true communist country. Maybe on a smaller scale, like the Summertown Hippy commune in middle Tennessee, but never on a national level. Why? Because communism has to be voluntary, we can't force people to be loving members of the state. If we do, then obviously you really have a authortarian government in disguise, claiming to be a voice of the people. But, time and again the masses realize that they are duped into giving up their worldly possessions for the good of all, only to make the elitists wallets fatter.
Libertarians believe the problems of the world can all be solved in time if you give the individual the power and more importantly THE RESPONSIBILTY to live their life the best way they know how. After all, a wild animal caged will never give up trying to gain freedom, but an animal born in captivity will always be afraid of leaving the security of his domecile.
Noble
http://www.egroups.com/group/infowars
"An invasion of armies can be stopped, but not an idea whose time has come." -Victor Hugo
Take the total number of gallons of fuel used by cars ina year, divide it by the number of dollars spent on road infrastructure, you now have a tax rate in $/gal.
Actually, you have a tax rate in gal/$.
- Excise Taxes
- Tariffs
- Flat Tax
No, 1 & 2 don't provide nearly the amount of the current government. However, they would cover a minimized government that isn't spending as much. According to the libertarians, 1 & 2 would provide for a military to protect America. (note that we would essentially be isolationist). 3 does not require the IRS and the massive bureaucracy behind it."Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Who keeps the corporations in check if there's no strong government?
Is the government doing this NOW? Wake up! The main reason corporations are so powerful right now is due to the extra power the government has. If the government doesn't have the power, there won't be any incentive for corportations to GIVE THEM MONEY to pass bad laws like the DMCA. I don't want the government OR the corporations deciding for me what I can do with something that I own. The only way to insure that is to take the power away from THEM, and give it back to ME. I know best how to run my life and spend my money, and I should be allowed to act as I choose, so long as I don't cause harm to anyone else. THAT'S what the government's for: To protect the intrests of the PEOPLE, and to provide for their security and defense.
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
I can't presume to answer for all Americans (I assume that's who you're referring to since most of the rest of the world is Socialist already) but as someone in their late 20's I remember the cold war. As a child I was under the impression that Socialism was a step closer to Communism.
The ironic thing is, as much lip service as America pays to Anti-Socialism, we've become more and more Socialist in the last 70 years.
Scientific research is one of those things where everybody benefits (even if they don't realize it), and it is in everyone's interest to pool their resources to fund.
You can say the same about Education, Healthcare, The War on Drugs ("Drugs are BAD!"), Welfare, or any other program that the republicats push.
The arts have (mostly intangible) cultural value, but (with some very obvious exceptions) not much commercial value. Do we really want to let this part of our humanity go? Or is it worth some very small fraciton of our collective resources to support this endeavor?
They have value to you obviously. They don't have value to me whatsoever. I value a yacht. Should the rest of America pony up and buy me one?
That's the problem with having a government that plays parent. I say let everyone be individuals and choose what is valuable to them personally. Yes, it might take us a while longer to start living in space or achieve other far reaching goals but at least it won't be 'bought' at the point of the government's gun.
Before you start selling it off think of the outroar people would have if they discover the government had just sold New Mexico off to a private company.
Or just think of all the happy Green Party members and other ecology-minded people would be when Yellowstone got purchased by the Sierra Club or some other ecologically friendly group.
Strong atheism is the belief that no gods exist.
Weak atheism is the lack of belief in God/gods.
Agnosticism is the belief that the existance of God/gods is/are unknowable.
Too bad Nader couldn't take time to respond. I think Slash should interview a past 3rd party candidate - ask 'em what kind of politics you play when you know you can't win. Not 'cause they're bad... Just the general non-thinking brainwashed public... When the Eco-Geeks are voting, we'll see some change (*pray*). Well anyway I mean, c'mon, do they just be honest knowing it can't hurt, or do they try to look poor and abused by the big dogs (not that that is not true)? I like the Libertarian party, but think we need to try and get some of the political-activist fake celebrities out here make them state their views, not which candidate they're gonna promote to look cool. And let's ask the thinker-Celebrities. I want Stephen Hawking, Ani Difranco, and Steve Jobs' views on politics and the elections. And will someone PLEASE tell me why Rolling Stone is subjecting us to Al Gore's giant peepee!?
/jm (jeebus on irc.cotse.com, irc.wiretapped.net becca on irc.newgold.net)
--
Where do you get that Ani Difranco isn't a thinker? Because she's not a tech-geek? Ok, let's ask Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode then, mmkay? Who says lyricists aren't thinkers? Would you argue Bob Dylan and John Lennon could not have ever been thinkers because they were lyricists?
--
Fluffy techno bunny! (Traditional Witches will understand)
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You know, if the U.S. were a civilized nation with good people, that wouldn't be an issue because family would take care of their elderly members when they get older. This crap of sending them off to some old folk's home is bad. People are too lazy to care for their own parents and such, even though their parents gave at least 18 years of their lives to raise them. I know that not everyone can afford it, but Social Security payments and Medicaid are a very little help. It would be better if you could invest in stocks, bonds, or just let the money sit in the bank to collect interest.
Now, as far as Browne's perspective, I don't believe he would want to do all this suddenly. The goal is to end income tax, shrink the federal government down to the size the constitution called for, and basically let everyone be in control of their own lives. He wouldn't just suddenly end all the social programs, he would have to have congress backing him to get anything done in the first place. This whole thing would take time to do.
What about underprivileged groups and populations? I guess it is their fault they are poor?
It is their fault if they stay poor. The U.S. provides so much, without government help I mean, that you can go from being poor to middle class easily. And what about the middle and upper classes? A lot of them only appear to be wealthy. They are so far in debt that they end up going bankrupt. In many ways, we end up footing the bill for these people as well.
I hate my tax rate. It is very high. But in an country that has built so much infrastructure (or cruft, whatever), you can't just eliminate it.
You can eliminate the high tax rate if you eliminate the beaurocracy as well. It is not as simple as that, but it is possible.
I hate the leading canidates and only half agree with my favorite. But these people are just bad for this country.
There's noone running for president that is worth anything in my opinion, with the possible exception of Browne, because he wants to get rid of all the excess. The federal government got to the point that it is today over a long period of time. Things progressively got worse and worse until you are where we are today. The only thing is that now, we need someone to clean out the garbage a bit so we can have some of our freedoms back that were taken from us. They are very shocking plans indeed, but in the case of Browne, I think his plan is the one our country needs. I know he won't win this election, and I know that even if he was president he couldn't enact all this stuff, but I have to vote in my best conscience for me, so that I can say I am not responsible for putting Gore or Bush into office.
Mas vale cholo, que mal acompañado.
don't forget, the acadmeics who initially embraced unix had jobs whose salaries were/are heavily subsidized by the government.
I strongly support government funding of research and development (although I prefer it to happen in places like Universities than at defense contractor corporations). However, it is not clear to me at this point how much existing R&D is actually funded by government. What about drug companies? They claim they spend millions to develop new drugs-- and luckily for them the patent system (which I oppose) protects their monopoly on those things and allows them incredible opportunity for profit. How do you counter such an example of the positive ability of corporations being able to rely on intellectual property laws to further the advance of science?
I do not have a signature
Income tax isn't the only way the federal gov't makes money. There's all the taxes on telecommunications, excises taxes on gas, cigarettes, whatever. There's plenty of other sources for the government to take your money. Income tax is just the biggie.
I am a pagan myself, and I totally disagree with the idea that there can be only one "true" religion. My belief is that by the nature of our finite brains, and the limits of logic (ie Godel) it is impossible for us to know the ultimate reality. Religion mearly serves as a language for us to access aspects of reality that we might not otherwise be able to access. Sharing a common myth with a community can draw that community closer and into tighter connection with the divine.
I see the different religions as more akin to different languages than different absolute truths. They are maps rather than the reality itself.
While I don't try to convert anyone, I do believe some stories are healthier than others. Christianity in particular I find to have a lot very destructive beliefs (mankind has dominion over the earth, the deity is transcendent, homosexuality is bad, men are better than women, we are all sinners etc.). I would love to live in a society that lived in a pagan story rather than a Christian one. I also feel that my atheist friends are missing out on a vital part of the human experience, but beyond sharing my experiences with them, I do not try to convert them.
michelle
> From pornography.
Granted, I got $4000 when I sold my porno collection, but I doubt that even the libertarians have $50bn worth of old Playboys.
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Sometimes, to change the system, you have to be a part of the system.
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at leest I ken spel... Notice that I am Segfault 11...
I registered my hate for Jon Katz
I mean, there really only can be one "true" religion.
Well, that depends on your belief system. According to Hinduism, for example, there are four paths to enlightenment. One of these is devotion. Now, it doesn't matter to what you are devoted, just as long as it's true devotion. By that token, you can live as a Christian and still be a good Hindu, whereas you can't live as a Hindu and still be a good Christian.
As far as I know, there are just three primary religions (although I'm sure there are a number of minor faiths, as well) that specifically say they are the only true religion. They are Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
Of course, look at how far technology has advanced in the past 50 years, as opposed to the 2000 before that. Particularly medical and computer technology.
You can see by my handle that I have interest in your statement.
Well, I was about to point out the flaw of using the Tao Te Ching as an example of libertarian thought. I don't have my handy copy here, so I looked it up on google, and found dozens of translations. Each one has a different focus. Some seemed to have more of a libertarian bent, some more totalitarian. So, my point now is that the TTC is amazing in that it have so many different interpretations, including yours.
That being said, I am curious about how you interpret the passage ties theft to ownership, and the passage that advocates emptying ones subjects' minds and filling their bellies. Those two sentiments seem (to me) diametrically opposed to Libertarianism.
No, I'm pretty sure you're right. I know Orthodox Judaism is not opposed to trying to get Reformed and Conservative jews to switch, but I'm pretty sure there is no Envangelical Judaism.
Whoops! That subject line should read:
The ass that can be assed is not the true ass.
Why? It's not a given that you're better off for knowing The Truth. There must be a faith somewhere that holds that The Truth is too horrible for you to contemplate and that you'll be happier in your helpless ignorance.
More to the point, my wife's Buddhism teaches (as near as I can tell), that their teachings should be available, but that seekers should find them, not the other way around. She describes it as "elitist".
Not all religions are into keeping score like some flavors of Christianity.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Jeez, I forgot the most obvious one (well, at least the most obvious one in the US). As far as I know, Jews believe in their faith, but there hasn't been a whole lot of recruiting since Jericho.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
The US government pollutes more than any other source...
"please could you stop the noise im tryin a get some REST? from all the unbornchikkenVoicesin my head?"
For those who still insist on making a big deal out of it, perhaps instead of truly being an athiest, he's actually an agnostic. He's not sure, but perhaps there's a "God" up there to thank... Or maybe he was Christian, became disenchanted, and old habits die hard?
It's really amazing... people have the chance to pick who is going to run their country, but they get razzle-dazzled by the smallest, insignificant mistakes and irregularities. They're human - try seeing them that way.
Mr. Ska
He was talking about the asteroid defence system, not Star Wars (he was responding to the question, not to Browne's answer). Since the whole world has an interest in such a system, they should all contribute.
If you're a jock, inflict some pain / If you're a nerd then use your brain - DAPHNE AND CELESTE
If you live about 30 miles outside New York or Washington, you should be very afraid no matter what system America gets. But then you probably deserve it, suburban scum.
If you're a jock, inflict some pain / If you're a nerd then use your brain - DAPHNE AND CELESTE
OTOH, the Karma Cap makes any positive moderation irrelevant, at least for a week or two, when his Karma is depleted.
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You are a fucking moron.
Yeah, they should be proud that they beat the mad rush of candidates flooding Roblimo's inbox with their responses.
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You are a fucking moron.
Of course, Stalin and Pol Pot's regimes weren't really socialist, they were totalitarian.
Totalitarianism: The government tells you what to do.
Socialism: The goverment tells you what to do, and takes all your money to "redistribute".
For an example of a real socialist government, try the post-war Labour government in Britain. They introduced the National Health Service, which ensures proper medical care to the millions of people that could not afford it, and has saved an enourmous number of lives.
I hardly think that a system which requires people to wait upwards of 10 months to see a doctor is something to be proud of. NHS is a failure, and even the Britons know it. People complain about healthcare in the US, but at least you can handle your own medical needs without the government's approval.
As another poster has already noted - your reply doesn't answer the question of why America brainwashes its schoolchildren against socialism,
Why does america "brainwash" it's students against getting AIDS? Because it's a horrible thing. Socialism is no better: a painful and slow economic death which will slowly spread to those around you. Tell me that people in socialist countries like China and France are better off now than they were before. Tell me that death camps are a positive benefit of a "people's revolution". Tell me that 19% unemployment is normal. Tell me that socialism is more than a sick joke.
No one will believe you.
-- Floyd
-- Floyd
Nah, there's also violent overthrow to establish new government. (And before you shake that one off as being radical, remember that's what America did in 1776...)
The reason that the US didn't create a strategic defense initative in space was largely due to cost and ineffectiveness. The cost of running such an operation would reach into the trillions a year for all the care/maintaince.
Respond to s
Makes as much sense as any religion - if they wanna call their earth mother crap a religion - let it be.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Hmmm... I'm kinda interested in what Nader's running - if you know what I mean.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Well, aside from the usual comments, Nader is a posey wannabe greener.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Mr Hoffman is either extremely lucky in life or a fantasist. Check out the parallel thread!
He has the far right-wing views of someone who has managed to live for 43 years without ever having life kick him in the face for no apparent reason.
Oi, Hoffers, sometimes things happen over which you have NO CONTROL, OK? People fall through the net. It happens.
Because the richest 16% of us have more than 80% of the money.
Your argument would only hold up if wealth were distributed more evenly.
Obviously he meant that the current government has those qualities and he would like to change that and reduce the number of things that politics has an influence on. But i guess you would rather ignore the obvious just to stir up controversy rather than contribute something useful to the discussion.
I disagree with most of Browne's opinions but i at least attempt to interpret him in an objective manner.
wouldn't a God of reason still be a God? and isn't atheism the disbelief in *any* God?
excuse my ignorance i'm not an atheist and no little of its philosophy beyond the obvious.
Ok, sounds like your 2nd camp is Agnosticism which is not the same as Atheism.
But my original question is still unanswered. If Atheism is the belief in no god then "a god of reason" or "a god that is reason" is still a "god" and seems to violate the principles of Atheism. Even if he was speaking metaphorically, i still find it an interesting and paradoxical statement.
Human beings are very diverse. Assuming you are a christian (which is my impression) you believe that we are made in the image of God. Is your view of God so narrow as to believe he/she/it is not vast enough to speak to us all in a way that will have meaning to us? If christianity has no meaning to me, do you not think god could still speak to me in a way I would understand? Maybe that 'way' would be the teachings of buddhism which strike a chord in my soul that christianity could never reach. (Disclaimer, I am not a member of any religion, including buddhism)
A personal relationship with god is just that...a personal relationship, no matter what 'religion' you claim to be a part of. God's big enough for all of us - too large and too diverse to fit in one group's back pocket.
And who knows how much further ahead we'd be now if government hadn't gotten involved.
I can't imagine any technology moving ahead more quickly when government has it's hands in it. It just doesn't work that way.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
In the mid-90's, severe rationalizations, tax cuts and budget cuts were made in order to balance the financial state of the nation, and today Sweden not only has a rapid GNP growth, but also low and falling unemployment rates. We also have the money to pay our foreign debt.
All this is accomplished while maintaining high taxes, an extensive welfare system and public free-of-charge education even on university level.
To many Swedes, the USA is a terrifying example of what would happen if we cut government funding any further. The reason why public health care doesn't seem to work in the States is that the government doesn't have sufficient funds to support it properly.
In the approximate words of Robert Heinlein, "A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore."
On art I tend to agree with the libertarians; if people want to support art let them form private associations that do so. Science, as rknop points out, can't be handled so well on that small scale, so government involvement is probably a good idea (plus it pays off in the tangible ways that art doesn't).
Easy Answer: The cold war.
Not, of course, saying that was okay or it's still okay to brainwash. But's it's the government, what do you expect?
They teach whatever they want and _force_ children to learn it. Can you really be surprised when the teach lies?
"When the going gets Weird, the Weird turn Pro." - HST
2. Microsoft products are more affordable than some other commercial UNIX vendors.
Daniel J. Kelly
Instead, a global initiative protecting all nations from nuclear attack could convince many to massively reduce their now innocuous nuclear arsenals.
The alternative is that someone, someday will start a nuclear war.
----- How does "All I can say is: yup, they're politicians." get a score of 2? Some of these moderators are crazy poofters.
Okay, so Mr. Browne wants to abolish the IRS and the Income Tax (yay!). But then he wants to offer $25 or $50b to whomever comes up with the first working missile defense system.
If not for the income tax, where will the money come from? National Sales Tax? Propery taxes? What? Are there other "necessary" projects that would be funded this way? If so, how will those get money?
You would have so much more money by not being taxed, you could make a vountary contribution to this. If everyone who felt threatened by missiles kicked in a few bucks, we might raise hundreds of dollars. Maybe the missile defense would only protect households who voluntarily paid (oops, that sounds like extortion, or a tax).
Plus, you would only send money to things you support, so no more free ride to the poor, crippled retarded and old. Just let them work for a living (but take thier guns first).
He did say it. I've seen it on TV. His exact words were "I took the initiative in creating the internet" It wasn't made up by anyone but Al Gore. Anyway, vote for Harry Browne!
I thought Al Gore took the initiative in creating the internet?
Bell Labs at the time of all these developments was totally government subsidised. Not directly but remember that AT&T was given a guaranteed profit margin as part of their being a government established monopoly. The more they spent, the more they made. Putting money into Bell Labs meant that they were given a guaranteed profit on all those expenses.
Some interesting results from all of this but probably the most inefficient use of funding. (With the exception of DOD funded research that remains classified so nobody even knows it was done)
Rob, I too am on the gov't dole (NSF). For the past 1.5 years I've been doing basic molecular biology research, but I'm definitely liberterian. Imagine how much more companies could spend on research if they didn't pay taxes. Imagine what kind of salery we would require if we didn't pay taxes! The gov't has to pay for us because they broke the system.
We need Lord Vetinari. (Apologies to those who've never read the Discworld books)
End of lesson. You may press the button.
:-)
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The New World Order is upon us, and it's about damned time.
I'm not going to dodge - I'll admit I have not studied this enough to know where I stand. I certainly am against the monstrous profits going to studio chiefs, but I also want to make damn sure that poor writers are ripped off. Have to pass on this one.
I do hope that this was simply a typo. Otherwise, the 3rd party alternatives just don't seem any different than Bushgore.
The REAL jabber has the /. user id: 13196
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
McReynolds made alot of good points, but I guess what I would like to know is why as school children, etc., we have been brainwashed to "fear" Socialism?
Here in New York State, we have Hillary Clinton running for Senate against Rick Lazio, a Republican. There also a number of minor candidates, such as Mark Dunau, our Green Party candidate (native new yorker, organic farmer) as well as libertarian, independent and right-to-life candidates.
The League of Women Voters produced a nice brochure which, on one side, had procedural information about how to vote -- even the complicated stuff like how to get an absentee ballot. On the other side they have answers that Senate candidates have for three questions.
Turns out, the major parties hate the LWV, so they refused to answer the questions. You see, the LWV believes in democracy, the LWV wants people to vote, while the major candidates want you to stay home. The LWV made the critical mistake of allowing John Anderson in the 1980 presidental debates. As a result, the major parties formed the bipartisian Comission on Presidental Debates, which refused to let Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan participate. To make their pamphlet, the LWV had to copy answers to the question off the major candidate's web sites.
Starting with Carter, the Democratic party has been infiltrated by Republicans. The real role of Gore is to hide the fact that the Democratic party no longer exists. A vote for a major candidate is a vote of confidence in a political system that is deteroriating rapidly.
A Green Party activist, I'm voting for Ralph Nader. Still, I think Reynolds and Harry Browne have a lot of good things to say and would be a great choice of you believe in him. Remember that, even if you like Gore or Bush, you can do a lot more than voting. Call up your local campaign, put a sign in your lawn, volunteer to sit at a table and pass out literature. There is a lot to do every election season, and every campaign welcomes volunteers. It makes a difference, and it's one of the most fun things you can do.
I dont see why some posters argue that these answers were "politics as usual". They argued the fundamentals of thier idea of what government should be. I wish some of the other candidates would explain thier ideas in fundamental terms; instead they base thier campaign on specifics, because nobody is going to sit thier and compare the specific numbers of Plan A and Plan B, just to get that elusive "mushy middle" vote. With the fundamentals at hand, you can clearly see the difference between 2 candidates. Typical politicians dont want that when they go after the middle ground. Judging the TV debates can you see a clear distinction between Republicans and Democrats? Not always Judging by this /. debate Can you see a clear distinction between Libertarians and Socialists? Absolutely
Most of this useless land that the Libertarians talk about is vast majority of the land area the Western States and Alaska. Before you start selling it off think of the outroar people would have if they discover the government had just sold New Mexico off to a private company.
my platform is serious missile defense:
let's build a death star!
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
In Houston over the last few weeks there has been a controversy over the fact that people are calling 911, getting ambulances, and going to the emergency room for simple things like headaches and filling prescriptions. Less than 5% or so ever pay for the ambulance ride, much less the treatment.
If you need care here in America, you can get it, anytime, anyday. Period. In Houston it is at Ben Taub hospital. In the small town I grew up in, it was at the only local hospital. They would not turn anyone away. Pay if you can, over time even.
I just don't see where all this hype that the Gore campaign has been spewing has come from. It really annoys me. They only do it because they need some issue to scare the American people with. That is what they are doing with Prescription Drugs for Seniors, and the Social Security issue. The Democrats are nothing more than fear mongers and it irritates me that people fall for their dribble.
"...(Government) doesn't aid progress, it hinders it. Government is politics, not progress. Government is bureaucracy, inefficiency, and brute force. It is the least desirable, least effective and least likely to succeed means of getting anything accomplished."
Just brilliant Mr. Browne. Only one question: Then why the heck are you in politics?
My Second Vote Was For Gore
great comedy company.
You can say the same about Education, Healthcare, The War on Drugs ("Drugs are BAD!"), Welfare, or any other program that the republicats push.
Very true. The trick is to figure out which ones are worth supporting, how much they're supporting, the degree to which government support of them mucks things up compared to private sector support of them, the degree to which private sector support fails.
Perhaps I'm painting myself as "part of the mindless mob" in saying this; a true libertarian feels that government should do nothing but mutual protection. I guess I'm not a true libertarian.
Yes, parents who value education will, under a completely free-market system, ensure that their kids get good education. Even if they are poor, I suspect that systems would evolve that would allow them to get a decent education. But it is my opinion that we *all* benefit the more that *everybody* is educated-- even the people whose parents won't pony up. I don't see it as strictly an entitlement; it's also "enlightened self interest."
-Rob
Before I say anything, I should note that I'm a scientist on the public dole, so I'm biased.
That being said, even though I have some libertarian tendencies I think that Browne's plan to end all government scientific funding is foolish. The reason: basic research is one of the best investments you can make. It is almost guaranteed to pay off. The problem is, you will invest in 1,000 research programs, and only have one program pay off. That one program will pay off to more than make up the investment for the other thousand-- and you will not be able to predict which one it was back at the beginning of the research program.
Some corporate funding of research has worked well in the past (Bell Labs?), but it just doesn't seem to be feasable today. Investing in basic scientific research is just too long term for most corporations. Never mind "five year plans" or even retirement times for top executives, you may not be able to fund enough projects to have any statistical confidence that any but the most applied of research programs may pay off for you. And the payoffs may be something unexpected, which you will have trouble reaping the benefits of anyway.
Scientific research is one of those things where everybody benefits (even if they don't realize it), and it is in everyone's interest to pool their resources to fund. But how to manage that? Well, isn't that what government is? My libertarian tendencies show themselves when I think that most people talk about government in the wrong way nowadays. The "we are your children" incident from one of the Clinton debates, which wasn't disupted by any of the candidates present, was a bad sign. To many of us see government as our parents, our protectors, those people who have control over us. They are our benign keepers. Yeah, they listen to us, and via voting we get to have some input into what we want done, but in the end many people in the USA see government as a particularly nice Big Brother.
Really, it should just be our way of acting collectively. The government should *be* us. It should be the way that we, as a society, perform the things that can only be done on a whole-societal level. My differences with libertarians come in as to what some of those things are. Scientific research is definitely one. Support of the arts is another-- rich individuals, and governments, are traditionally patrons of the arts. The arts have (mostly intangible) cultural value, but (with some very obvious exceptions) not much commercial value. Do we really want to let this part of our humanity go? Or is it worth some very small fraciton of our collective resources to support this endeavor? (When I say very small fraction, just compare arts funding in any government to defense, infrastructure, and sundry entitlements.)
-Rob
I hereby suggest that the next punk-ass that posts about this already-beaten-to-death-horse be taken outside, have both his kneecaps shot off, then be forced to kneel in a pit of beerbottle glass and salt, until they learn their lesson.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
You appear to be saying, from your article, that you don't see such a high level of non-coverage as an issue. You imply that health coverage is unnecessary, as apparently for some types of treatment/service you might be able to get away without paying, or pay very little.
I don't want to turn the situation of close friends of mine into a political argument. All I can say is that I know first hand the hardship caused by poor (let alone non-existant) health insurance when a serious, life threatening, condition forms. And I know that anyone who dares claim that medical insurance isn't important, that someone without it can get along just fine and wont go for inferior treatment or delay it for financial reasons, has obviously not devoted more thought than an ideologue traditionally does.
I can't comment on whether the Democrats are "fear mongering" or not, but if yours is the attitude typical of Republican health care free thinkers, then there's potentially a lot to fear from a Republican administration. Perhaps Democrats aren't shouting loudly enough?
BTW, when you described Gore as a socialist, did you mean the "evil dictator" Stalin sort that certain people in this thread think all socialists are, or the Harold Wilson type (British PM during the second half of the 60s), or what exactly? I mean, right wingers in this country seem to use the term as an insult so much I'm never quite sure what they mean nowadays. It tends to be something like "I don't like X, X proposed taxing Y, that's the sort of thing a socialist does, therefore X is a socialist. Oh, did I tell you Stalin was a socialist? You see, you vote for X, and you're voting for STALIN."
Damn Republican fear mongers.
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Largely, I'm guessing, because despite the obsessions with writing off each other's ideologies as extremes, both fundamentally are about freedom. Libertarians for freedom through as little state intervention as possible (do I even need to say more?), socialists for using the state to promote freedom and prevent people from being restricted by other shackles such as by the behaviour of shareholder controlled corporations and the real restrictions imposed by poverty.
It's a shame that these two are not the two big parties running, with cynical people complaining they wont vote for either "because they're pretty much saying the same things", but instead we have two parties who lean more on the side of interference and allowing interference. The republicrats seem to be more obsessed with people's private lives, from sexuality issues to the information they see and say. Yet one feels it can beat the other as being "more pro-liberty" because it promotes fractionally lower taxes, or because the other would impose religion on people's lives and ability to make choices.
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You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I was thinking about why the government is so inefficient. It occured to me that the federal programs are not accountable to anyone; which causes them to go about their business whith the inginuity of voice mail system.
For instance, a traditional libertarian would argue that welfare is inherantly flawed and a misuse of government. But welfare provides a service that profits all corporations....A consummer base. If welfare was a privatised institution that didn't rest on its laurels as being an altruistic institution but stated its goals honestly It could recieve funding from multiple sources.
Furthermore, the organizations are not composed of people who use the services themselves. When the department of education makes a decree as to lunches or religion in schools they should be influenced by the people who actually have children in school not some old f*rt who thinks we will all go to hell cuz we are the grandchildren of a monkey!
I know I am rambling but my point is this- Policy should be determined by those who are affected by it not by those who think they know better. And the benifits of the programs should be advertised as such not shoved under our noses as a neccessary evil/good.
Excise -
1 : an internal tax levied on the manufacture, sale, or consumption of a commodity
2 : any of various taxes on privileges often assessed in the form of a license or fee
I'm from Atlanta, and I love your joke. :]
Read the whole comment. He was joking you goof.
My opinion? Better to deal with a few top hats than lose your head.
I think socialism is a wonderful ideal, I really do. I can see why men like Orwell and Einstein could be enraptured by it.
They loved it because they saw no need, in this age of great technology, for anyone to starve in the streets. They felt that capitalism degraded the altruism and purity of men, and that there was no need to threaten terrible death on the working classes.
The tragedy is this: our compassion has created an army of bureaucrats whose income depends on the very things they have been called upon to extirpate! Poverty, crime, drugs -- all transformed into institutions of the state!
There is poverty! Why, give the government some more money.
There is crime! Why, give the government some more money.
There are drugs! Why, give the government some more money.
What makes Big Brother real happy? What pays his bills? Poverty, crime, and drugs!
Consider the War on Drugs. Old Uncle Sam needed a little extra cash, so he invented a new form of crime: the victimless crime! Ha! You know what? He makes seventeen BILLION bucks a year off it. Think about it -- the government steals our natural rights, and we reward it with BILLIONS of dollars! You and I reward it. We pay taxes. We obey the law. We will get what tax paying, law abiding citizens deserve. We will get fucked.
We will be impoverished. We will be addicts. We will be criminals. We will get all the state compassion we can take. And then some.
"Wicca is not a religion."
Technically true. AFAIK there are no established Wicca churches (not sure about California), and they don't get tax freedom/breaks like recognized religions (in the US). However, I know several Wiccans and have done some research on it as part of the discussions I have had with them. And what I have been able to determine is that Wicca is not wholly based on anything found in history. It _draws_ from the Druidic, Celtic, and Wotanic (sp?) faiths in varying degrees, but for all intents and purposes is a 'new religion.' The biggest thing that the Wiccans I know impressed me with was their philosophy on life which could be summed up as "Do as little as possible to upset or harm others." That's it. I don't know whether or not they deserve religious protection. Heck, some of them might be upset to be put in the same grouping as Scientoligists.
Eric Gearman
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Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
You are mistaken. I, like you, am in favor of globalization and a one-world government. I think that this could be a fine arbiter for the prevention of war. The United Nations, however, is not a good model for this. It is a centralized, bureaucratic organization. It has no respect for the differences between peoples and cultures, and would force each and every member nation to bow down to a single lowest-common-denominator standard if it had the power to do so. I would much rather see a global republic, where each member state was free to have whatever form of government it desired, rather than trying to force the UN's socialism or mercantilism upon us all. Don't believe me? Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pay close attention to the parts about every person having a "right" to a job at a certain wage. This is much like saying that some business has the "right" to sell you their product at the price that they desire, whether you like it or not. HJ
-- A New World, Unordered http://www.anwu.org/
For those of you who want a big government to protect you from big, evil corporations, remember this: a government is not fundamentally different from a corporataion.
... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
A government is a business, like any other. It's product is violence. When used in the right manner (against criminals or foreign aggressors), it can be a good thing. When used against its own non-violent citizens and businessmen to extort money, it is an evil.
It is conceivable (though unlikely) that a free market could eventually allow a large monopoly to flourish, in which case that corporation or trust will have become the government by default. Only under these circumstances does it make sense to use violence, government or otherwise, to defend yourself.
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins
-- Thomas Paine
HJ
-- A New World, Unordered http://www.anwu.org/
No Libertarian, or any other minor party candidate for that matter, will ever get elected until we adopt a fair election method. The Instant Runoff Voting system that the socialist recommended is the WRONG system. To find out about the right one, check the link below.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
Governmnet doesn't work without taxes. The original government in this country under the Articles of Confederation wasn't allowed to collect taxes. This way gave states all the power, and federal government none, as the gov't hd no money with which to do stuff. It was well known that the government was going to be VERY slow paying its debts, and that the soldiers who fought for our freedom in the Revolutionary War weren't going to be well off, as they'd be paid in a worthless currency backed by nothing. Without income tax, our already ineffective government will become even less so, and the United States as a world power will just be a memory looming in the back of our minds.
The first question you should ask yourself before you vote is: Does the government work for me, or do I work for the government?
As a citizen of a Free nation, you should feel that the government is working to protect your interests.
Remember that the Government is a body that our nation (the people who compose our mega-conglomerate modern tribe) has composed to keep itself from being harmed by outside influences (read: invasions). We often forget that as individual, thinking, feeling, intelligent human adults we are responsible for our own actions. Should I emphasize that? "our own actions" Which we freely choose.
You are free! Start acting like it and demanding to be treated as such!
The issues that are so commonly raised by our fine country's politicians are specifically geared at distracting you from any real progressive thought. The issues all involve forcing someone to do something so that others won't be offended. Consider that the words "polite" and "politics" have the same root, what the hell does politeness have to do with my business dealings, my creative endeavours, my private home life, or who I choose to marry?
It has to do with social acceptance.
Let me ask you a question: what words do we use to describe something that has greatly improved our lives on a grand scale, or advanced us in some field vastly beyond our previous understandings? Words like revolutionary, unprecedented, unbelievable, discovery, innovation all come to mind.. all of which present the concept that something new, different, previously unaccepted (or unacceptable) has occured and has "revolutionized" our way of life.
No revolutionary idea has ever been socially accepted.
Do you want to live in a society that decays from its own stagnation? I can't believe that a single person reading this would be willing to accept the responsibility of giving-up in such a fashion, if they understood that that is what they're doing. Modern society in our country (and abroad in many places) is a drug, it is geared at giving you the exact thing you want to hear and doing as little to damage that hope as possible while it whittles away at your freedoms.
How much regulation is necessary in your own home? Do you spend your day thinking of new ways to structure and organize a formal method of interacting with your significant other (if applicable), or would you consider that to be a bit wasteful? How many house rules do you have for guests? For your children? Which do you see the people of the US being treated as by our "benevolent overseers"?
Politics are for politicians, and everyone knows they make their money with lies. Cut out the middle man and start thinking for yourself, why is it that you willfully view a "toned-down" version of a movie on television - aren't you big enough to stand up to a little difference of thought and not be offended?
Any society that would consider a mere word to be obscene obviously has a major problem. When you see the word F+U+C+K do you become righteously indignant?
I'm open to flames, but I won't listen to anything that's not at least a bit thought-out.
The US government recieves enough money in tarrifs to fund all goverment operations. In addition, the federal government could raise money the same way states do, certain small (1/8 cent) sales tax on certain goods.
I preface by saying that I am a Libertarian. I still cannot believe that Nader has all the support he does. The record has deomonstrated consistently that he is a paranoid, union-busting, trial lawyer. He himself is in the richest 1% of the country (and he and his organizations own stock in several of the globalized corporations that he rallies against). He is unbelievably secretive (thanks to his paranoia). The reason he's spending less than $5K on his campaign is because if he spent that amount, he'd have to disclose financial information about himself. His organizations never reveal where their assets are invested. All in all, I am convinced that Nader is a hypocrite. (source: http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm)