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Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech
MacDork writes "As most /.'ers know all to well, Copyright is increasingly being used as a means to suppress free speech these days. And the trend has not been lost on our 2004 US Presidential candidates. Both George and John are using copyright law to 'vaporize' information considered embarrassing or harmful to their campaigns. Don't worry about basing your vote on copyright issues though. Like most other domestic issues (gay marriage: no, offshoring: yes), their stance is pretty much identical (i.e. pro Hollywood)."
Like in all great republics, democracy is but an illusion.
The Good Life
First 4 times I clicked on the link (before I tried de-fuglifying it) all that loaded was:
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
Paizurishitetai desu ka?
Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.
In a system without runoff voting, yes it most certainly is. How do you expect people to rally around a worthy third candidate (out of the hundreds out there) when there is such a compelling motivation to vote "NOTKerry" or "NOTBush"? Maybe when they truly are identical someone else can challenege them, but right now there are just too many people willing to vote for the lesser of two evils.
If you're on a college campus and want to work to make copyright law more sane, join FreeCulture.org.
Colleges and universities have a huge amount of power to influence this debate and reasonable copyright law is perfectly inline with the mission of a public education and research institution. So go get linux in the campus computer labs and work up from there!
This brought to you by the Republican party, the political group led by an imbecile cokehead who didn't even have the balls to turn up to his cushy National Guard posting. I have little sympathy for their copyright complaint...
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
GW Bush is censoring free speech because NBC won't let Michael Moore use a clip from Meet the Press.
And John Kerry is censoring free speech because his friend George Butler won't let people slandering John Kerry use a picture he took for their book cover.
Uh huh.
You got something to say, then say it. You don't need these stage props to make your point.
Fucking whiner.
For a long time I've believed that a third party vote is a waste because of our lousy voting system. But I'm beginning to change my mind. If the dems lose enough elections because of spoilers like Nader, maybe they'll eventually back voting reform and we can get a decent system like instant runoff.
I think I may vote my concience this time. I'm begining to think that voting reform is a more worthy long term goal then replacing Bush the tool with Kerry the tool.
Cheers.
"Republicans, Democrats... All the same."
Bullshit. Similar maybe but not the same. Do you really think there is no difference between the Bush administration and the Clinton administration?
Kerry and Bush have similar positions but only the dumbest of the dumb would claim that "letting the states decide if gay people should get married" == "let's amend amend our most sacred document to make sure gay people never get married".
The editor is a dumbass for thinking those two positions are identical.
evil is as evil does
It is becoming more and more clear that the focus on tightening up intellectual property law to make it more like a form of "real" property is not just affecting geeks and pirates anymore. As the entertainment industry and members of congress continue to pound it into our heads that "taking any expression from anybody from any reason is bad" we are going to realize extraordinarily negative consequences to our democracy. Will we be able to show the "State of the Union" address after the original airing? I most certainly can't get into Congress to tape it, so it seems that the networks can lock down political information very tightly. Sure, there are transcripts, but political messages aren't just about what's said, it's about how it's said and who the message is said to, and what the reaction to that message is. The use of copyright as a tool to stifle opposing viewpoints or criticism in politics is a very powerful - and extremely dangerous - political weapon, and it is one that could kill democracy as we know it. If we aren't even free to draw up words and images of the leaders who we elect, who we pay out of our tax dollars, and who we let govern us, then the ideals which this country was founded on are dead (if they aren't already). Just because NBC or ABC or CNN shot the film of a leader doesn't mean the public shouldn't have certain rights to choose who can or can't use it or how it can be used. These networks use public airwaves, receive public services wherever they shoot (i.e. the extra police protection around the press corps at the Democratic Convention in Boston) and take the time of our elected leaders. Surely the public deserves a little fair use.
"pro hanoi" is quite a charge. Do you honestly think questioning the US's actions in Vietnam automatically means "pro hanoi"? If so, there are very very few voting Americans who would agree with you.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
That is the stupidest title I have ever read. If you think this is 'only in America', you need to open your eyes and take a look around. When it comes to free speech, the US is pretty damned liberal. I can still fly a confederate flag and wear a white hood if that tickles my fancy, but in free thinking places like Germany you can be arrested for doing a stiff armed salute or displaying a Nazi symbol - and it isn't like Germany is the most toltalitarian of places in the world.
Catchy phrase, but pure bullshit karma whoring.
They're our ruling class. They take positions that benefit them, and only them. It bugs me to hear starry eyed morons going on about gov't for/by the people, and never stop to consider that America's got rulers just like any Dictatorship you care to name. The fact that you can sometimes join the ruling class doesn't change that. If the people ever really do wise up and start trying to change things, you can bet your @$$ our facade of democracy's gonna colapse real quick.
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This article makes it sound like both candidates are engaging in a campaign of suppression. If you actually follow the links, you find out that there is (as far as i can tell) only one lawsuit per candidate, and that the suits were not filed by the candidates.
I think copyright holders are wrong in both cases, but the candidates aren't necessarily behind it.
If you want to know where a politician stands on an issue, you should ask them and check their record. It's not enough to find one example where they've benefitted from someone else's lawsuit.
Come to think of it, how come these suits are only evidence in one direction? The candidates aren't party to the lawsuits. You could just as easily say that both candidates are against copyright suits because a movie that helps Kerry is being suppressed and so is an ad that helps Bush.
-- . . ramblin' . . .
That's why I'm voting for Kerry. His party is much less effective at passing legislation restricting citizens rights than is the Republican Party. And with the Republican control of Congress, the balance of power between the Legislative and Executive branches will defang them more than ever. Moreover, the more precarious position of the Democratic Party makes it more responsive to activism from the people. Through individual donations to the DNC and anti-Bush "527" corporations, especially over the Internet, the people are much more important to the DNC than they are to the RNC, which protects their corporate "donors" more effectively, at the expense of the people.
--
make install -not war
GW Bush is censoring free speech because NBC won't let Michael Moore use a clip from Meet the Press.
l ?pg=5?tw=wn_tophead_6
BZZT! Sorry, but that is incorrect. It is not Micheal Moore, but another Iraqi War documentary maker: Robert Greenwald, who is trying to use the clip.
Source: This editorial from Wired about, not-ironically, big media and copyrights suppressing democracy.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.08/view.htm
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I RTFA. The point was that Bush does very few interviews, and so media are so concerned about losing that privilege that they will self-censor and not allow reuse of interviews that put him in a bad light. Bush doesn't have to say anything, but by only offering interviews with companies that toe the line, he is endorsing their attempts to intimidate using copyright. This would be fair enough if he was a movie star concerned about controlling his image, but as a paragon of American values, including free speech, he should hold to a higher standard, and should explicitly allow free use of his public statements.
How about, for the one that didn't try to carve its position into the actual living flesh of the Republic, the Consitution?
I am getting so sick of people saying that there is no difference between the two parties. Guess what? We heard "It doesn't matter which one wins" in 2000. Then we ran the experiment. If you honestly believe this nation would be where it is is now, had Gore been sworn in, then you are either ill-informed or insane.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
It doesn't really matter - they're both unacceptably bad. Although Reagan's deficit was larger as percentage of GDP (GNP, then), eg. 6% in 1983, vs. Bush's 5% of 2004 GDP, -$500B in 2004 brings us to something like $8.5T of debt. And remember that Reagan's debt was also Bush Sr's debt - especially as Bush Sr ran the "deregulation" of the banking system that enabled the $1.5T S&L heist. That was the 1980s, when a trillion dollars was still worth something :).
--
make install -not war
I really want to vote for Nader. I just wish there were a 3rd party (4th party?) candidate on the right siphoning votes from Bush as well. Then there would be less complaining about Ralph being a spoiler. (what is a spoiler anyway? Couldn't Kerry be a spoiler for Nader?)
I went to the local Nader nominating convention here in Portland. It was a 3 ring circus. There were Rupublicans there who wanted Nader on the ballot. There were Democrats there filling the seats and refusing to sign the petition because they wanted to keep him off of the ballot (they were unfortunately successful). And then there were those of us who thought that it would be nice to have Nader on he ballot so we could have a real choice if we decide in November that we can't go with Kerry.
Amazingly, at the end, Nader took questions from the audience. Unfiltered questions. Some of the questions were form angry Democrats. One question was from a guy that was not mentally all there (and Nader was quite gracious with him, I thought). I was so impressed by this Q&A session. Not that the questions were all that great, but that Nader opened himself up to questions like that and handled then well. It would have been unimaginable at a Bush or Kerry rally.
The point was that Bush does very few interviews, and so media are so concerned about losing that privilege that they will self-censor and not allow reuse of interviews that put him in a bad light. Bush doesn't have to say anything, but by only offering interviews with companies that toe the line, he is endorsing their attempts to intimidate using copyright.
Ultimately, you really have to conclude he is as free to only give interviews to those he choses as we all are. I submit it is less about "endorsing" and more about "toeing".
Part of free speech is having the right not to speak, and President or not, Bush still has that right.
You are free to draw whatever conclusions you choose based on his choices.
Speaking as a gay, this is pretty much a no-brainer.
Bush: actively opposes gay marriage. Engages in mindless hate-speech against gays and nonsense rhretoric in an attack on my position in society. Attempts to pervert the Constitution of the nation in order to enshrine his personal bigotry in it.
Kerry: Will not actively work to create national marriage parity, but instead will allow states to decide as they have already begun to do. Will make at least some effort to avoid supporting obvious anti-gay bigotry as in Bush's above-mentioned constitutional amendment.
Wow, this is a really tough choice!
Sure I'd love to vote for someone who believes fervently in equality, but for a given office there is often no likely candidate who closely aligns with one's views. You make the best choice you can.
-josh
By your reasoning, anyone who is against a US invasion of Cuba must be pro-Castro. Honestly, this whole "if you're not with us, you're against us" logic is just idiotic -- the real world is much more complicated than that. There were plenty of valid reasons to pull out of Vietnam that had nothing to do with "supporting Hanoi".
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Let me start this with I work for lobbyists out here in Colorado. I've been working in politics for a while now and it's safe to say the President doesn't hold nearly as much power as everyone seems to think. The biggest movers and shakers reside within the federal senate, congress, and your state legislative representatives (if the senate holds a contrary majority to the President nothing will get done, etc.). Remember he can't do much unless the congress and senate approve it (you voted them into place too). So, in your effort to vote out bush, or keep him there, remember there are other elections on your ballot that you all should be watching!!
"It's not that hard"
Well actually it is. The two major parties have created countless hurdles in most states that are designed to prevent a third party or independent from ever gaining traction. Iowa officially disbanded the Green Party because they couldn't muster 2 percent of the vote in the 2002 governor's race at which point the party ceased to exist, it was disallowed a primary this year and candidates have to petition to get on the ballot. Of course since its disbanded its even harder to garner the 2% this year to regain party status.
It takes enormous effort just to get on the ballots in most states if you aren't in the two major parties, and of course a 3rd party presidential candidate has a very slim chance of participating in televised debates.
If there was ever a cause for an addition to the Bill of Rights it should be an amendment to allow unfettered formation of political parties and to forbid the parties in power from suppressing formation of opposition parties. It is something you expect from a totalitarian state, not the worlds "Greatest Democracy".
Another problem is both the Reform and Green parties have deteriorated in to a complete shambles on their own, they simply lack a coherent organization and appear to have fallen in to chaos which is killing them without all the barriers the Dems and Republicans are throwing in front of them.
And finally most people who would opt for Nader or other third parties are so keen to see George W. go down they will vote for Kerry, even though he is a truly pathetic candidate. Fact is in the current system voting 3rd party really is throwing away your vote and the two major parties don't really care if you do it. They'd like your vote but as long as you don't for the other major candidate its the same as if you don't vote at all.
The two copyright issues cited here really aren't the most serious things in the world. Like it or not Meet the Press is copyrighted and NBC can do with it what they will. It is a little lame holding back something unflattering to the President but there is a wealth of other video and transcripts available that will do that.
There are other things about both candidates that I'm amazed the press doesn't cover though.
President Bush's cocaine use and the fact that he apparently refused his national guard flight physical when they instituted drug testing, and that he was apparently convicted in Texas for something, probably Cocaine possession, should disqualify him as President but the press almost never touches this, possibly because the Bush family did such a great job of disposing of all the proof. Its a near certainty Bush political operatives were given unsupervised access to George W.'s Guard records and amazingly the Army recently admitted some of his records, probably the embarrassing ones have in fact been destroyed.
Kerry has his skeletons too that the press never touches. His Vietnam record and the ease with which he racked up medals cetainly does deserve scrutiny. For some reason the press lets everyone think Kerry is a Kennedyesque Irish Catholic when his paternal grand parents were actually Austro/Hungarian and Jewish. His name would be John Kohn if they hadn't changed their name to Kerry when the immigrated to the U.S. in 1902. When you are electing a President these little things are good to know, since they may color his decision making on Isreal in particular, but for some reason today's Press only fillets candidates like Dean they want to drive out of contention because they aren't pro establishment enough. Dean was toast the day he had the audacity to suggest the U.S. treat Israel and the Palastinians equally. You want to get elected in the U.S. you always side with Israel all the way or you are going down.
@de_machina
Agreed. Mod the parent up some more. Cryptnotic's comments reak of Bushisms. You don't have to be pro-communist to be in favor of the US pulling out of Vietnam. That's one place we never should have gotten involved in to begin with. To say that anyone in favor of pulling out of Vietnam and letting it be is in favor of Communism is absurd. That's like Bush saying that anyone not supporting him invading Iraq is unpatriotic and in support of terrorism. Kerry may not be perfect but he's not a fan of communism. Bush sure as hell isn't perfect and he may very well be in favor of communism if his little family is at the top of the food chain. Unfortunately we'll probably never know Bush's true thoughts on that topic because quite frankly Junior can't possibly form logical sentences that spins^H^H^H^Hums up his family's^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpersonal thoughts on the matter.
" In your example, you clearly miss the point that these judges are going against the will of people they don't even represent."
That's what judges are for. The judicial system is a counter to the legislative branch. It exists to assure liberty for people who are in the minority. America is a republic and not a democracy. Do you know what the difference is? A democracy is five wolves and a sheep arguing about what's for dinner. In a democracy the sheep dies, in a republic the sheep lives.
Of course the 95% of the people who are straight don't want the 5% of the people who are gay to have the same rights as they do. Just like the 95% of the people who are white at one time didn't want the 5% of the blacks to have the same rights. In that case judges ruled that the majority was wrong and that the rights of the minority were guaranteed by the constitution. If the judges rule the same way for homosexuals then it's incumbent on the states to let them marry.
The judicial system exists solely to balance the the other two branches of govt. Our forefathers accurately predicted that the majority would seek to opress the minority and set in place not only a constitution and a bill of rights but an entire branch of govt to make sure those documents held up and were the law of the land.
evil is as evil does
"Oh, and the reason we have to go with Israel is because they don't strap bombs on kids and have them walk into pizza parlors full of other kids and blow themselves up."
Not sure I follow your point. They don't need to strap bombs on kids, instead they can just drop them from an F-16 or shoot a missile from an Apache. Remember the 500 pound Israel dropped on a crowded apartment building in Gaza, as a ham handed way to assassinate one guy. It ended up killing, inevitably, all the innocent women and children in the building. A number of loyal Israel pilots sacrificed their careers, and lives, to protest that incident, along with targeting of cars with missiles on crowded streets because it shows Israel is no better or different in the indiscriminate killing department.
The world needs to realize that both sides in that conflict have issues. As long as the world divides up in two camps and chooses to pretend one side is always a saint and the other is the devil, and vice versa, its going to insure perpetual blood shed and a breeding ground for extremism on all sides.
This is a key reason why the U.S. can't win the "War on Terror" on its current path, because it can't fathom it has to fix the root causes of the animosity of the Arab world towards the U.S. and Isreal. Doing that would deprive the extremists of much of the support they are now getting from more moderate Arabs.
@de_machina
Hey, that's how you control the people. Seed fear and uncertainty and make sure to divide the people into good and evil groups.
This is a time tested strategy. Honestly, if everyone would read a little bit of history they'd see the pattern. Some leaders are altruistic yet succumb to the whispers(and $$) of the lobbyists. Others, like our fearless leader Bush, have an agenda and will do what ever is necessary to make it happen. Then there are a small minority of leaders with integrity. Sadly, they don't stand much chance usually.
Actually, although I don't like Kerry that much more than Bush, I think he is the lesser of two evils. A government which has trouble passing bills because there's no clear majority is also less likely to infringe on the constitution. Bush has too much power and is willing to wield it to further his administration's own goals. He believe's he's more a benevolent king than a public servant.
From the good folks at snopes: link.
I trust you won't be repeating such bullshit lines again.___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Even Slashdot is incapable of demolishing the most creative inventions of the mass media. Watch "Outfoxed" (outfoxed.org) if you don't believe me. Imagine all those FOX News viewers hearing these deliberate falsities repeated everywhere and having their world picture altered to include all of it. Or to include SCO's latest fabrications? What room does this leave blogs and the alternative media to reveal to the mainstream that Kerry really isn't that French and that the Bush administration really wanted invade Iraq long before 9/11?
I wrote a decent essay on this topic four years ago.
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
I guess I'm not following your point. I guess you are saying all of Israel's killing is justified, they only kill terrorists, never civilians, and its just the Palestinian's who are the indiscriminate killers? Anyone who says Isreal kills civilians is a Palastinian propagandist?
You are saying bombing an apartment building was justified because someone you don't like was in it. I don't remember exactly who the target was in the incident I'm thinking of. If it was such a noble act I doubt the U.S. would have condemned it as much as they did or not would 20 or so Israeli Air Force pilots would have forfeited their careers over it. There are so many civilians killed by both sides I lose track.
To make of for my bad memory here. is an article on another bombing that just happened, 17 dead, 15 civilians, 11 children. Is Haaretz Palastinian propaganda? Perhaps the children were body gaurds or relatives of some terrorist so maybe its OK they were killed too.
You see I don't think you should, with good conscience, try to pretend one side is always the right one in this particular situation. Its reached the point both sides are very wrong and they should both be very ashamed.
@de_machina
It's worth noting that if Rossevelt hadn't died, we might have seen a peaceful end to French colonialism. The US war in Vietnam wasn't about our freedom or anyone's freedom in particular, it was about preserving the status quo. Rather than seeking to learn from the mistakes of the Korean conflict, the leadership at the time made the unbelievable and calculated move to attempt to repeat its mistakes.
The tragedy for the US, particularly those who served over there, was tremendous. They paid dearly in blood for the hubris of callous cowards like Bush and Cheney. What men like Max Cleland, John McCain suffered is bound inexorably to adjectives like "unspeakable" "horrific" "unimaginable," but they would likely count themselves amoung the lucky. And the price that the Vietnamese paid for their ignorance of American politics was nothing short of awesome (the bad kind).
That John Kerry saw his youthful idealism for what it was, and used an obscure by the book regulation to try and correct what he saw as the problem at its source (poor leadership an ocean away) is a mark of what might well be the early onset of his wisdom. It's a far cry from how Cheney avoided his draft board, of how Bush Jr. used his father's influence to insure another man took his place.
I suppose we shouldn't be so supprised that it's the cowards in positions of power who stand between the dead and the country that dearly wished to make amends with the inequities of past and present by honoring them. Or maybe they're terrified that people will remember honor, duty, sacrifice, and dignity when they see it, and find them lacking.
"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." ~Herman Goering speaking at the Nuremberg trails after WWII
~S
Also consider that both parties are becoming more and more evil.
Do you think that I was as evil as George W Bush?
Heck, do you think I was as evil as John Kerry?
It is time for a real change. Vote Nixon 2004!
I'm much less evil that the politicians of the 21st Century.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
Okay, bub, I don't care what Bush knew or didn't know about the torture of the Iraqi prisoners. When a president asks his people to find some legal loophole to justify using torture on the prisoners he's already declared "enemy combatants" and stripped of rights held dear by Americans, I don't think it matters.
Because when people join the ruling class, they don't become happy go lucky champions of freedom, they become greedy little bastards like Bush, Cheney, and hell Kerry too.
That upward mobility is largly an illusion. It took a while, but the rulers have finnally figured out how to keep people down (and preserve their God like standards of living). The trick is to have a small middle class, and the occasional new entry in the ruling class. The poor of the world end up spending all their energy trying to move up, and the middle class are wasted just trying to stay middle class.
The large amount of upward moblity seen in America/Europe around 1950 was largely due to the population crash following WWII. Now that the baby boomers have fucked thier way back to a surplus of laborers (and the cold war's ended) Globalism can kick in full steam with all it's truely nasty implicatons. Capital flows to where ever labor's cheapest, and just the mere threat of closing factories will keep unions from ever exisiting. That's the real scary thing actually. When unions form, the bosses just leave. No workers protests, no beatings, no sensational stories about worker abuse. Just a bunch of starving people nobody cares about.
I guess the point I'm driving at (albeit poorly) is Capitalism is perfecting itself. It's approaching a perpetual system of hard working fools and the Capitalist Kings they work for. The only thing I see stopping the trend is another population crash. Which is all well and good, unless you happen to be a member of the crashing populace.
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the real world is much more complicated than that
Not if you're George W. Bush.
paintball
If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it
Ken Livinstone, the current Major of London, can be a bit of a prat sometimes, but other times he has a point. When did voting (by all the people in the country), alone, last change something?
In the UK the 'opinions', and I use the term in the looses sense of the meaning, between the two main parties are almost identical. It's becoming like the US (or how the US is portried in the UK), of "(s)he with the most money" or "(s)he who is most photogenic" will be elected
It could be worse, much worse, but the present system of politics dominated by large corporations, almost buying their way (or their cronies way) into power cannot be good, in the long run, for the average Joe on the street
Jaj
Rather than picking something that is more than 100 years old and settled, try for something now. Go in front of the white house and wave a picket in favor of Al Qaeda. Put on the picket things like
etc. etc.etc.
Get a tv crew to come down, and then watch what happens.
Also, ask any national news person how free things really are these days. Other than fox news, you might be surprised what these journalists would say.
Freedom is not the ability to bitch about a long ago war. Freedom is the ability to critize the current and even recent government. Think about Bush allowing Reagan and Poppa Bush to hide all sorts of things. The Freedom of Information act was put in place for a reason. Now Bush preverts it and allows them (and himself) to hide past actions. BTW, I do note that Kerry has not said that he would remove that presidential order. I find that sad.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You're trying the "slippery slope" argument, but we can discuss all of cannibalism, necrophilia, incest, paedophilia, beastiality as seperate issues:
Let's start with incest, paedophila, and beastiality, because they all come down to the same principal: informed consent. In our society it is generally believed that sex should be consensual (rape is illegal) as otherwise we would be infringing on anothers rights. The problem is, to be able to consent, the other party has to understand what it is they are consenting to. That's more than just understanding the physical process involved, but (in our society anyway) understanding the emotional issues attached to such things. This is why paedophila is considered criminal - it is harmful to the children, because the children (even if they do "consent") don't really understand the full implications of what they would be consenting to. My understanding is that beastiality falls into the same category. It is interesting that we extend this protection to animals where otherwise we would not, but that's how it is. The other issue with beastiality is a "cleanliness" issue. Mostly this the same sort of "cleanliness" that directs the finer points of a kosher diet, but there are some remaining issues (transferring diseases across species, which has been known to happen through beastiality and related pursuits can definitely be problematic). Still going with holdover taboos we come to incest - a large part of our reaction to incest is based on an old taboo which centers around the issues of inbreeding. All very reasonable and sensible. The issues with incest do extend beyond this though - we're essentially back to the informed consent: most incestuous relationships involve exploiting the familial relationship into something more, and at least one party is usually not in a position to give informed consent.
I believe that leaves us with cannibalism and necrophilia. With these certainly no obvious harm is being done (presuming it is post-mortem cannabilism, and the person isn't being killed to e eaten) to the immediate parties, however, our society generally holds that a person (and their immediate kin) has rights over their remains - refer to organ donation, leaving your body to science, what have you: there are plenty of laws that consider damage done post death to still be harm to the individual. Based on that, necrophilia is out, as a dead person cannot give consent. Likewise cannibalism. That, of course, leaves the possibility that a person could will their remains to be used for such purposes. Why they would choose to do that I do not know, but that is their choice. In that case, personally, I don't think I would stand in the way of such thigns. Cannibalism, on some level, makes sense (read Stranger in a Strange Land).
And then homosexuality - well, that's sexual intercourse between two consenting adults who have full knowledge and understanding of what they are entering into. No harm to either party, so I don't see the problem there.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I have a couple of pretty severe issues with the the Libertarian platform, which I finally got around to reading last night.
First, they oppose "victimless crimes". This means some changes that I'm not entirely comfortable with. Plutonium is a controlled substance in the United States, and an elimination of consentual crimes would make it uncontrolled. I want possession of plutonium to be controlled, frankly.
Second, the libertarian approach toward justice is somewhat different than that I approach. I view justice as a dissuasive mechanism, something that can be used to stabilize situations. Libertarians view it as a restitutive mechanism, a method of restoring the state before the crime was committed. I believe that this approach leaves crime profitable unless law enforcement operates perfectly and 100% of damaging crimes are caught.
Third, I very, very strongly disagree with their proposed changes to jury trials. They propose a combination of juries being volunteer and having the ability to override existing law. This effectively reduces the value of a written code of law, means that laws may basically be retroactively changed after a crime was committed, and means that extremists may use jury trials as a political platform, which I do not think is an appropriate place for rational and open discourse. I can understand how frusterated they are with being a minority party and wanting minority parties to have more political power, but I do not think that this is a good mechanism. I am particularly surprised that vote reform, one of the most valuable changes that would allow minority parties to gain political influence, is not a fundamental part of their platform -- I guess that if they ever get into power, they are unlikely to want to give up power to minority parties. Sigh.
Fourth, their platform on American Indian Rights -- the return of Indian lands to Indians -- is simply ridiculous. It might sound nice, and there might have historically been some nasty games play ed to obtain land ownership, but you can hardly kick people off of land where they now live.
Fifth, I utterly disagree with their "zero regulation" model of business. Their claims that all monpolies arise from government intervention is, frankly, wrong. I can't see how they intend to deal with natural monpolies, unless they expect to simply ignore them. They do not deal with artificial mopolies, which I can't believe the government directly causes in all cases...unless they want to also repeal all forms of IP, which will be, well, overly extreme in my book and almost everyone's.
Sixth, their "no taxes" model makes no sense. It's just ridiculous. We've tried not having *federal* taxes, and that just didn't work. The mind boggles at the thought of local and state taxes being eliminated. How do they expect to have a functioning government? Even they must allow for the operation of certain skeletal structures, like a judicial system, or their own rules will not be enforced.
Seventh, their proposed method for dealing with pollution simply ignores the game-theoretic models that have convinced people that pollution is a public-good problem that requires intervention. Who cares if the children 100 years down the road get screwed over? The person causing the damage will be gone!
Eighth, they propose deregulating the postal service. This would probably mean an end to mail that can reach anywhere in the United States, even if it reduced costs to the other people.
Ninth, I think that their policy on secession is stupid. Sounds very idealistic, but why doesn't, say, GM Seattle secede from the United States, and avoid paying business taxes? Their workers can still *live* in the United States and enjoy the no income taxes that the Libertarian party promotes. I just don't see it working.
Tenth, their policy on annexation is like the Guano Act plus a million. It would produce an unmanagable United States if a
May we never see th
I can see the reason why GW does not often do interviews:Bushisms. The man is so obviously unable to articulate himself in his own language, and very probably think in it (His latest one on Tribal sovreignty was really painful) that I'm am pretty sure his campaign advisors such as Karl "Goebbels" Rove almost crap themselves every time GW has to answer impromptu questions in public. A good deal of the USA might be unable to use their own language properly and appreciate the fact that their president is as dumb as they are, but I think the majority are probably more than a little worried now that GW "The Chimp" Bush is really an utter idiot acting as puppet for a group of far right fanatics.
There are 100 people in society
There are 2 brilliant people
There are 20 greedy people
There are 20 gullible people
There are 10 who are opposed
There are 48 apathetic people
5 greedy people ambush 2 brilliant people
5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people
20 gullible people make lots of noise
38 apathetic people restrain 8 who are opposed to restore calm
5 greedy people, 20 gullible people, 10 apathetic people, and 2 who are opposed vote
5 greedy people sit back, enjoy the show, and profit.
Using copyright to quell political speech is a tactic of the greedy people perpetuated by the apathetic people who simply want things to quiet down so we can go back to trying to pay bills and keep up with rising taxes.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
The US president owns neither his words nor his image - at least not when he speaks in public on important matters. Anyone is free to use what he says, and the way he says it, to criticize or to praise. The president, in this sense, is free. But what happens when the commander in chief uses private venues to deliver public messages, holding fewer press conferences and making more talk-show appearances? Who controls his words and images then?
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