Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?

gabec asks: "This weekend my mother bought a grille lighter, something like this butane lighter. The self-scanner at Kroger's locked itself up and paged a clerk, who had to enter our drivers license numbers into her kiosk before we could continue. Last week my girlfriend bought four peaches. An alert came up stating that peaches were a restricted item and she had to identify herself before being able to purchase such a decidedly high quantity of the dangerous fruit. My video games spy on me, reporting the applications I run, the websites I visit, the accounts of the people I IM. My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles, the companies I trust to free information are my enemies, the people looking out for me are being watched. As if that weren't enough, my own computer spies on me daily, my bank has been compromised, my phone is tapped--has been for years--and my phone company is A-OK with it. What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?" The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get? Am I just accustomed to old ways? Does the new generation, born with these restrictions, feel the weight of these bonds and recoil from my fears as paranoia? What can I, a person with no political interests--a person that would really rather think that the people in office are there because they're looking out for us, our rights, and our freedoms and not because their short-sightedness is creating a police state--do to stem the tide?"

Comments

Go Fig

[acxr is wasted]

I click the link, what do I see? "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

Its Big Brother, but its a distributed Big brother.

So you won't see much at any one spot. Its thin and everywhere.

Re:Go Fig

[Planesdragon]

Its Big Brother, but its a distributed Big brother.

*sigh*

Big Brother was not a tryanny of observation, it was a tyranny of control.

Go back and read that (god-awful) book again. Note the (thorughly depressing and rather insipid) plotline. Pay special attention to the description of how Big Brother operates.

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

I did not mention either position. Personally, Big brother means control. So, I agree. My point was this: If there is a big brother controlling us today, it is one that is an emergent property of millions of smaller decisions.

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

My view is this. If we had a perfect government with perfectly just and compassionate laws, then I would submit to total observation by the government. But we don't have a perfect government or a perfect world. Therefore, I do not want total observation.

Re:Go Fig

[monoqlith]

Obviously, you didn't read it carefully enough either. This is interesting, since you seem to feel quite superior to the rest of us that think it's a very relevant piece of work.

Surveillance and control are intimately linked. Once you remove the barriers against observation, you also remove the barriers against control. This would be one of the main themes of that entire book.

It is very relevant because in our hyper-informational society, it is becoming easier to surveille people than ever, and information is being used *against* us as opposed to *for us*.

The government should not be able to leverage what you do in your private life, what you do with your property, what you do with your money, against you, as long as you're not harming anyone else with your actions - and even when we do harm other people, we have institutions in place to protect ourself against the government - habeas corpus, the right to not incriminate ourselves, etc. It's the government that should be transparent and open to surveillance - not the populace. This is, after all, a *democracy* where the people, not any autocratic police government, are in power.

If at any moment it is possible that you are being observed by someone - anyone - aren't you less inclined to exercise your freedoms? I certainly am.

Re:Go Fig

[SpryGuy]

It's the government that should be transparent and open to surveillance - not the populace.

Amen. Mod parent up.

Re:Go Fig

[Planesdragon]

This is interesting, since you seem to feel quite superior to the rest of us that think it's a very relevant piece of work.

It was an anti-communist rag written with characters shallow and plot weak even by science fiction standards. If you think I'm being superior just because I think that book is no better than its contemporary critics held it to be, well, then you may want to rethink your position.

Surveillance and control are intimately linked.

They are, but not in the way that you think.

The manager of an amusement park must survey his park in order to control it. The Red Cross at an American Prison can survey all they want, but they don't have any control at all over the prison that the warden doesn't give them.

1984 would work if you removed the double-screen and just used technology that was contemporary to Orwell's day. In fact, it did work for the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Cuba. But if you turned Big Brother into a democratically-appointed survellience system that could only watch and didn't have the Thought Police, well, then Orwell's story becomes about as spooky as Minority Report. Less, even.

If at any moment it is possible that you are being observed by someone - anyone - aren't you less inclPined to exercise your freedoms?

Nope. I presume that someone, either man or God, is observing me every minute of every day. I exercise my freedoms as I see fit, with the full expectation that someone will observe and, eventually, I will be called to account for my actions. (This is one of the surprisngly modern parts of Christianity, btw -- "and what you whisper in shadows will be shouted from rooftops" and all that.)

If you are less inclined to exercise your freedoms when you are being observed, well, then you probably are confusing "excerise your freedoms" with "break the rules of good behavior". Please go back to kindergarten, I think you missed a few lessons on how to operate in civilzied society.

(There, now I'm being superior.)

Re:Go Fig

[Planesdragon]

If we had a perfect government with perfectly just and compassionate laws, then I would submit to total observation by the government.

What makes you think that just and compassionate laws are in any way necssary for fair application of total observation?

What makes you think that total observation won't lead to just and compassionate laws?

Ghandi and King both worked in the open against unjust laws, and they won--by being in the open. If you're too cowardly to do whatever it is that you do out in the open, then you shouldn't be doing it.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

That's interesting. I've always heard it said that your character is determined by how you behave when you know nobody is watching.

So, if you are a Christian or a member of another religion that believes in an omniscient deity, how can you honestly say you know yourself? What do you hear in the silence of your soul, apart from an ever-present, nearly-inaudible mewl of submission?

Re:Go Fig

[TapeCutter]

"Ghandi and King both worked in the open against unjust laws, and they won--by being in the open. If you're too cowardly to do whatever it is that you do out in the open, then you shouldn't be doing it."

Neither Ghandi or King masterbated in public.

Re:Go Fig

[hoskeri]

Why cant you people ever spell Gandhi correctly?
Sorry, but I have seen it spelt wrong too many times on Slashdot now.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you are less inclined to exercise your freedoms when you are being observed, well, then you probably are confusing "excerise your freedoms" with "break the rules of good behavior". Please go back to kindergarten, I think you missed a few lessons on how to operate in civilzied society."

I don't like the idea of any government or person spying on me and my wife in bed or listening to the phone if I am on a road trip and we are talking dirty. Hey guess what? THOSE ARE MY GOD GIVEN RIGHTS THAT I MIGHT NOT WANT TO EXCERSISE IF SOMEONE IS SPYING ON ME

Rethink your argument BROTHER. As a fellow believer in the risen Lord I think your comment boarders on the current insanity that is gripping the Christian Right.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. I presume that someone, either man or God, is observing me every minute of every day. I exercise my freedoms as I see fit, with the full expectation that someone will observe and, eventually, I will be called to account for my actions. (This is one of the surprisngly modern parts of Christianity, btw -- "and what you whisper in shadows will be shouted from rooftops" and all that.)

I presume that someone, either man or Underwear Gnome, is observing me every minute of every day. I exercise my freedoms as I see fit, with the full expectation that someone will observe and, eventually, I will be called to account for my actions. This is one of the surprisingly modern parts of believing in Underwear Gnomes, btw -- "and what the underwear gnomes whisper should be shouted from the rooftops" and all that)

See that? That's how stupid you sound. It's also why any logical debate with you would be a complete waste of time.

Re:Go Fig

[roystgnr]

(This is one of the surprisngly modern parts of Christianity, btw -- "and what you whisper in shadows will be shouted from rooftops" and all that.)

If you are less inclined to exercise your freedoms when you are being observed, well, then you probably are confusing "excerise your freedoms" with "break the rules of good behavior". Please go back to kindergarten, I think you missed a few lessons on how to operate in civilzied society.

Spoken like someone for whom "civilized society" has always been synonymous with "my own cultural mores". Ironically, that culture only survived to become a mainstream belief by carefully protecting its privacy amidst a larger, often hostile society. The fish symbol which car owners and companies use to advertise their Christianity today was originally intended to do the opposite, as a passcode to help Christians keep their beliefs secret from observers who might do them harm.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

Drone. Robot. Slave. Yours are the words of a broken man. You gave me the image of a person chained to the wall screaming "I'm free!".

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

Sheeze, a little bit of an over reaction. Here we go again. I just meant that the only way I'd want to submit to total observation would be to an entity that I can trust without question to do the right thing. There is no such body, so I do not willingly submit to total observation. I am not, however an idiot. I do know that the influence that society has on an individual is very important. This is why I submit to some observation.

As far as your example of Gandhi. What the hell are you talking about? Gandhi was a public figure, yes, but he didn't peek into everyone's bedroom did he? No. I think you are confusing the issue.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

Well said!

It's just like quantum mechanics -- observation changes.
Can be for shame, fear of punishment, or any number of reasons. If the government watches us like hawks it's only a matter of time before that becomes abused in ways that are outside of what the stated purpose of the survalince was, and by then it's too late to speak up about it because that would be a thought crime.

Re:Go Fig

[Znork]

"I will be called to account for my actions."

With the expectation that you will be judged by the totality and the context of your actions.

With enough data, if you _pick and choose_, you can create a circumstantial case, insinuate, change appearances, and more or less make up whatever suits your preference.

You make the assumption that God will be Fair.

I guarantee you, however, someone going after you for being a political opponent wont be.

Lets just take the words in your comment and play with them a bit, and see what a quick pick comes up with.

"I'm a communist. I work for the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Cuba. I'm observing the kindergarten every minute of every day."

Ouch. Just your own words rearranged a bit, and that really makes you sound like someone that should be monitored closely, if not actually locked up at once. Wont somebody think of the children.

Now imagine the case that could be constructed against you at whim with unlimited data available.

Re:Go Fig

[Elektroschock]

You forget that most acts of surveillance are on proper legal grounds. Data protection laws one the one side, surveillance regulation on the other.

There are many interests involved and you as a stakeholder were unable to make your voice heard. It has a lot to do with access to political decision making and strength of interest groups.

However, there are so many opportunities. Act when regulation is prepared, and don't complain when regulation is applied. Why don't you spent your time writing about upcoming regulation rather than current rule of law.

Think of this here:

Commission Communication on the Review of the EU Regulatory Framework for electronic communications networks and services and launch of public consultation

Quite intresting. Good and high quality input could make a difference.

Re:Go Fig

[jcr]

It's the government that should be transparent and open to surveillance

I'm maybe 92% with you on that. Legislation, litigation, and so on should be public activities. The problem though, is how do you prevent bad actors from using monitoring of the cops to evade arrest, for example? Or, when an investigation is underway, do you tell the world and possibly smear someone's good name, whether or not you have enough to indict?

Personally, I rather like the proposals I've seen for sunsets on classification, although there too, I would keep restrictions on things like how to build a nuke.

-jcr

Re:Go Fig

[rock_climbing_guy]

Amen, my AC brother. I hear you.

I just hope I don't wake up one day and see that the new boss is the same as the old boss.

Re:Go Fig

[E 99]

Surveillance and control are intimately linked. Once you remove the barriers against observation, you also remove the barriers against control. This would be one of the main themes of that entire book.

But we're not removing those barriers, we're adding more barriers. Observation has existed as long as civil law. Civil law would be impossible without it, and thus therefore would freedom. Every technological advance has increased the capacity for going unobserved. Today we can send messages encrypted, so the government has no ability to read them. That certainly was not possible in the past.

It is very relevant because in our hyper-informational society, it is becoming easier to surveille people than ever, and information is being used *against* us as opposed to *for us*.

Technology makes it easier to collect and process information, but not necessarily to observe in the first place. It's subjective to say whether it's used against or for us. It falls to our elective representatives (hopefully, rather than the unelected judiciary) to decide what uses should be pursued. And the majority of the people want the government to be clever and resourceful in finding terrorists and other criminals who prey on the people.

The government should not be able to leverage what you do in your private life, what you do with your property, what you do with your money, against you, as long as you're not harming anyone else with your actions - and even when we do harm other people, we have institutions in place to protect ourself against the government - habeas corpus, the right to not incriminate ourselves, etc. It's the government that should be transparent and open to surveillance - not the populace. This is, after all, a *democracy* where the people, not any autocratic police government, are in power.

The people exercise their power through a government of representatives (ignoring the judicial usurpers for now). And while I agree that the government, in general, should be transparent, niether criminal investigations nor military intelligence gathering can be transparent and still function. And the people overwhelmingly want those things to function. Again it's a basic fact that without observation, there can be no enforcement of law, and so no freedom, and no enforcement of the laws through which the people express their power. And the more life, both public and private, moves into the virtual domain, the more it is necessary to move observation into the virtual domain as well for the same reasons. Not to change the nature of the observation, just the setting.

If at any moment it is possible that you are being observed by someone - anyone - aren't you less inclined to exercise your freedoms? I certainly am.

I am certainly not. What good is free speech if no one is listening? And if the government wrongly wants to outlaw what I want to be freely do, I would rather do it defiantly than secretly. If I really want to say something privately, I use x-im.

Re:Go Fig

[E 99]

That's interesting. I've always heard it said that your character is determined by how you behave when you know nobody is watching. So, if you are a Christian or a member of another religion that believes in an omniscient deity, how can you honestly say you know yourself?

1) Because the knowledge of God's presence is never forced upon anyone. If we could actually percieve how all our life comes from God, we would indeed have no freedom.
2) Because the independence of the existence of man is an illusion. One who doesn't know his relationship with God, inherently cannot know himself.

What do you hear in the silence of your soul, apart from an ever-present, nearly-inaudible mewl of submission?

Interesting question. As for me, I hear the gushing waters of life flowing in from God's mercy and love.

Re:Go Fig

[E 99]

See that? That's how stupid you sound. It's also why any logical debate with you would be a complete waste of time.

Not only a waste of time, but an impossibility, seeing how your capacity for logic is apparently limited to determining whether or not a thing "sounds stupid" to you.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

"I will be called to account for my actions."

With the expectation that you will be judged by the totality and the context of your actions.

With enough data, if you _pick and choose_, you can create a circumstantial case, insinuate, change appearances, and more or less make up whatever suits your preference.

You make the assumption that God will be Fair.

I guarantee you, however, someone going after you for being a political opponent wont be.

Lets just take the words in your comment and play with them a bit, and see what a quick pick comes up with.

"I'm a communist. I work for the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Cuba. I'm observing the kindergarten every minute of every day."

Ouch. Just your own words rearranged a bit, and that really makes you sound like someone that should be monitored closely, if not actually locked up at once. Wont somebody think of the children.

Now imagine the case that could be constructed against you at whim with unlimited data available.

Michael Moore, is that you?!

Re:Go Fig

[MrNougat]

Indeed, it's been demonstrated that even the suggestion of surveillance is effective to control our actions to some degree. Consider then what effects actual surveillance has.

Re:Go Fig

[Meccanica]

You're the one getting confused here. He said Gandhi did not try to hide the things that he did. Nothing had anything to do with Gandhi invading aomeone else's privacy. In other words, he feels that being constantly observed and recorded is acceptable because... I'm not sure why. But that you can work to reform the government while being observed, because you should have nothing to hide.

What makes you think that just and compassionate laws are in any way necssary for fair application of total observation? What makes you think that total observation won't lead to just and compassionate laws? Ghandi and King both worked in the open against unjust laws, and they won--by being in the open. If you're too cowardly to do whatever it is that you do out in the open, then you shouldn't be doing it.

Also, they were both assassinated (note: I'm not saying either was neccessarily done in by their gov't). This doesn't change the fact that they were both excellent human beings, but get serious. Critisizing the gov't can be a dangerous thing, aspecially when it knows everything about you. Privacy is necessary for the safety and security of the citizens. (Think of, I don't know, Soviet Russia, Iran...) I would not want to be observed even if the gov't was the most competent and benevolent the world has ever known.

Re:Go Fig

[MoneyT]

The flip side to that is if it's your god given right, then what does it matter if other people know? Just look at them and say "It's my right".

Re:Go Fig

[MoneyT]

With the right ammount of data, any convoluted collection of data can be disproved. In your senario, since we have his original post, we can show that your example is made up and untrue. The trick is, we need access to all the same data you have. For a modern and real life example of data mining protecting you from a concocted story, see the recent Duke University rape case.

Re:Go Fig

[MoneyT]

Feeding the troll but is there something flawed with his reasoning or are you just attacking him because you think you're cooler because you don't believe in a god?

Re:Go Fig

[pkatzman]

Absolutely correct.

What we have collectively forgotten, unfortunately, is that a government is intended to be a tool of the people. It's not an organization that naturally evolved, or has to compete with other organizations - it's something that was thought up and put in a position of power by we, the people. Which is why it really makes no sense when people think that it's "unpatriotic" to question, or even disagree with, our government and its policies. It truly is a shame that people accept government decisions just because of the position they're in; governments shouldn't be self-regulating, they should answer to the people.

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

"The just shall live by faith." Gal. 3:11

Re:Go Fig

[Planesdragon]

As far as your example of Gandhi. What the hell are you talking about?

Ghandi changed the world by working in public. Whatever it is that you want to do in private, especially if it's currently illegal, should be something that you would still do if everyone knew about it. It's the basic foundation of being able to call oneself "moral", and it's the only way you'll ever get said laws changed.

what exactly do you think "the right thing" is, anyway? Beyond "be honest and open for any criminal or civil charges", there isn't a lot that mere observation can do that isn't "the right thing." It's not a standard that requires saintlike moral authority--all that's needed is sufficient funding and independence to be as seperate from power as a general-jurisdiction judge.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we saw the same movie.

You know that Neo dies in the third one, right?

Re:Go Fig

[monoqlith]

But we're not removing those barriers, we're adding more barriers. Observation has existed as long as civil law. Civil law would be impossible without it, and thus therefore would freedom. Every technological advance has increased the capacity for going unobserved. Today we can send messages encrypted, so the government has no ability to read them. That certainly was not possible in the past.

Civil law would be impossible without some observation, but it is possible without *every kind* of observation. If you're speeding on a public road, you are being observed. If you are stealing money from a bank, you are being observed. All of these are *public* matters that endanger public safety and public wellbeing. What you do in your home is deliberately priveleged so that the government doesn't extend any excessive means of observation or control into your private(and FREE) life.

What are these barriers that we're putting up? Any comparison between now and five years ago will result in the discovery that we have if anything *fewer* barriers against government observation than we started with.

Technology makes it easier to collect and process information, but not necessarily to observe in the first place. It's subjective to say whether it's used against or for us. It falls to our elective representatives (hopefully, rather than the unelected judiciary) to decide what uses should be pursued. And the majority of the people want the government to be clever and resourceful in finding terrorists and other criminals who prey on the people.

Wha? Observe = collect and process. The government has access to all of our "tubes" if it wants it - the only thing preventing it from accessing our phones, internet, etc is the LAW. As we have seen witht he wiretaps, etc, people are taking liberties with that law. I put to you that it's not subjective - that would be the confusion here. Our leaders are asking us to exchange our liberty for our security. That's a situation ripe for abuse and manipulation. Moreover, any erosion of our constitutional liberties does *us* harm, against the ideal our constitution sets up, which eventually motivates further action against us. We've seen it already. United States citizens have been detained without trial for 4 years in an off-shore prison. What the hell is going on? The founder of the ACLU said that the hard part with defending liberties is that you end up defending scoundrels. Those are the people who lose their rights first.

I am certainly not. What good is free speech if no one is listening? And if the government wrongly wants to outlaw what I want to be freely do, I would rather do it defiantly than secretly. If I really want to say something privately, I use x-im.

Good for you, you are a stronger man than I. You feel free to speak your thoughts in any situation or context - 99% of people don't agree, rightly. Question: If you're being watched by the government or anyone else for that matter, you would honestly feel perfectly free say "I want to assassinate the ?" I'm not saying that you would say that - I'm just trying to ascertain that you would feel *free* to say that. It's perfectly within your rights to say that - that's free speech, not conduct, as long as you don't act on it. But the government can use it against you in as many ways as it wants to. Why do you think there's even a distinction made in our society between private/public? This sounds a lot like that flawed argument, "If I'm not doing anything wrong, there's no reason to worry that the government is watching me." Are you really that confident in your knowledge of the law and trusting of the people who enforce it to gather and report evidence honestly, without any agenda whatsoever?

Re:Go Fig

[monoqlith]

1984 would work if you removed the double-screen and just used technology that was contemporary to Orwell's day. In fact, it did work for the Soviet Union, Communist China, and Cuba. But if you turned Big Brother into a democratically-appointed survellience system that could only watch and didn't have the Thought Police, well, then Orwell's story becomes about as spooky as Minority Report. Less, even.

Fundamental disagreement. Observation and manipulation are practically the same thing for 99% of people. It's well known that bringing a camera into a situation changes the dynamic of that situation. If you tell me point blank you wouldn't act any differently when being observed than when not beign observed, then either 1) you are lying or 2) you're not human. If you didn't find Minority Report principally spooky, well, then, we have bigger problems.

Nope. I presume that someone, either man or God, is observing me every minute of every day. I exercise my freedoms as I see fit, with the full expectation that someone will observe and, eventually, I will be called to account for my actions. (This is one of the surprisngly modern parts of Christianity, btw -- "and what you whisper in shadows will be shouted from rooftops" and all that.)[...] If you are less inclined to exercise your freedoms when you are being observed, well, then you probably are confusing "excerise your freedoms" with "break the rules of good behavior". Please go back to kindergarten, I think you missed a few lessons on how to operate in civilzied society.

That's a pretty scary life. Remember, not a
ll of us believe in that kind of God, and not all of us feel comfortable with being observed. If you think we should be, you are suggesting nothing other than a technocratic or theocratic state, and religious law should be the governing force, not civil law.

Please go back to civics class - I think you missed the part where we talked about the constitution. "Good behavior" isn't set in stone, and beyond the basic questions of public safety, it is not something the government gets to decide. That's a cultural question, not a governmental one. Every major social change the country has seen has been because of "bad behavior." Even our revolution was a giant - and illegal - conspiracy against an occupying power -and you don't fundamentally respect our freedom to assembly, and freedoms of speech - our freedmo to say anything at all in our own homes? The point is that there is a distinction between conduct and speech, and there is a more important distinction between private and public life. For further information and rebuttals to your other arguments, see my reply to another person with a similar argument below.

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

Excuse me, he was replying to my comment. My response was telling him that his comment did not understand my comment.

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

A corrupt government will use perfect observation to crush their opposition. How is this controversial?

So in the end, you misunderstand me.

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

As much as I love Gandhi's movement, Hitler would have slaughtered them.

Re:Go Fig

[mrraven]

So many errors in logic it's hard to even know where to begin.

You said: "But if you turned Big Brother into a democratically-appointed surveillance system that could only watch and didn't have the Thought Police, well, then Orwell's story becomes about as spooky as Minority Report. Less, even."

How can you have a true democracy and the sort of secrecy the Bush admen (or any police state) engages in? If you don't know what the government is doing you don't know what you are voting for and democracy is dead, it's just that simple.

You said: "Nope. I presume that someone, either man or God, is observing me every minute of every day. I exercise my freedoms as I see fit, with the full expectation that someone will observe and, eventually, I will be called to account for my actions. (This is one of the surprisingly modern parts of Christianity, bow -- "and what you whisper in shadows will be shouted from rooftops" and all that.)"

By that standard we'd still be the British commonwealth of the Americas and we'd still have a U.S.S.R. All those nasty dissidents would have been "called to account" by the laws of those respective nations. Does it ever occur to you that laws can be wrong and sometimes the good guys are held "accountable" by bad people? Remember everything Nazi Germany, the U.S.S.R., and 1760s Britain did to the U.S. did was LEGAL in their respective countries.

Finally you said: "(There, now I'm being superior.)"

If by that you mean being a smug elitist asshole. An attitude entirely toxic to the openness necessary for democracy to function.

Re:Go Fig

[Meccanica]

Sorry, I got distracted while I was writing. I was replying to both of you, telling you I don't think you understood his reply to your comment, and just throwing in my two cents. I also made one post out of what should hav been two, because I didn't have time... I should have more clearly separated the two different trains of thought. Also, sorry if I sounded hostile or rude.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

true, they were masterdebators...

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

+1 gentle heart.

Thanks. Sorry if I seemed rude myself. I've gotten bashed on the last bunch of posts and was being defensive.

Furthermore, I see the point of the Gandhi example. Often our best behavior occurs when we are in the public eye. My point was slightly of a different nature. I would willingly submit to constant observation by a ruling body that was fair and just. Since there is no such ruling body, I am wary of submitting to total observation by a governing body because it would be likely that it would abuse that power. However, making yourself available to the whole public when acting as an example of morality or when fighting for justice is a good thing. The key difference here is that in one only the government has this access.

have a great day.

Re:Go Fig

[Anonymous Coward]

I know King didn't womanize in public.

Re:Go Fig

[douglaid]

We haven't got a perfect government because we haven't got perfect citizens. Society needs to be organized because it can't be expected always to do "the right thing", and Governments are made up of the same kind of people.

It reminds me of the Microsoft employee who said that freedom of access to the Web would prevent 1984 from becoming a reality. The technology of the Web spawned XML, which can be easily adapted to drive telescreens, and Microsoft would be one of the first to tender to supply them. A family member told me about a country where surveillance cameras are routinely put in TV receivers to catch criminal activities (drug preparation, etc.) done while watching TV. One guy caught this way then had sex with his wife on the sofa. The Defence got the prosecution to play the entire video, and the affront to privacy resulted in an acquittal. Winston and Julia?

Re:Go Fig

[WgT2]

If we had a perfect government with perfectly just and compassionate laws, then I would submit to total observation by the government.

Either you're saying that you are already perfectly just and compassionate yourself or you don't realize that you would then be required to become absolutely perfect and just as compassionate, in the eyes of those laws, so as to not offend the one observing you 100% of the time. Or, is there another side to your reasoning?

Re:Go Fig

[plasmacutter]

New mad tv sketch.. gandi the kindly peeper!

Re:Go Fig

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Ghandi and King both worked in the open against unjust laws, and they won

Noteworthy that the two examples you picked were both murdered.

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

Good point. In fact, it is the same reasoning that, according to Christianity, we need Jesus as a savior. The argument goes: God cannot be both perfectly compassionate and just toward us when faced with our imperfection. The compassionate forgives, but the just judges us guilty. The perfect God, who has 100% observational powers, cannot abide the imperfect. We are not perfect, so the compassionate aspect of God provided a savior that removes that spiritual imperfection from us. What is left is innocent in the eyes of the Justice aspect of God. In this way does He show both compassion and justice. Anyway, that is what Christians believe.

Away from those matters..It is because we are not perfect that I would submit to a perfect just and compassionate all-observing governing body. I think such observation would lead us to become better people. However, such power should not be held by an imperfect governing body, because it is too tempting for the corrupted.

If such a perfect governing body did exist, and it found me guilty, (and I am sure they would), then I would plead for their compassion. But this is moot. Such a body does not exist on this earth.. In the heavens only, maybe.

Re:Go Fig

[thetwatinthehat]

"The manager of an amusement park must survey his park in order to control it. The Red Cross at an American Prison can survey all they want, but they don't have any control at all over the prison that the warden doesn't give them."

The red cross can survey and then use public opinion to change the way a warden acts, or even to have the warden removed...they can publicise any wrong-doing they perceive and record. If it's done "justly", this would be a good thing.

Now look at it the other way, a body observing a warden who is humane in his treatment of prisoners, with a well run prison producing a high proportion of reformed individuals. However, the observing body contains someone who has a reason to want that warden removed. The observations are edited to highlight minor issues and make them appear worse, the evidence is selected in such a way to incriminate the warden, footage and evidence of a single bad-apple employee (who may have been removed days after) is highlighted, footage of the way the warden angrily shoos a dog off his lawn is cut to make it seem like he is using hate words against minority children...and another 50 instances of such "evidence" are produced - some of which the warden may be able to counter, but how would he counter the evidence of him on his own lawn unless he has also recorded the incident?

Assuming that the warden has a chance to defend himself...the evidence is shown only to a select few members of the committe responsible for awarding the contract to run the prison. Each of whom see an individually crafted selection aimed at their own personality, which the observer knows as they have also been watching them for a while. Nothing that could be used in court, or likely to be raised in an interview, but what chance has the poor warden of keeping his job the next time the contract to run the prison is up for review?

Now imagine a 50 million dollar contract is the thing at stake, not a wardens livelyhood, reputaion and salary. Would it be worth spending the money to have that done? Imagine that the infrastructure is already in place for most of the surveillance (phone conversations, credit card transactions, cash transactions, vehicle movements all being recorded and analysed; CCTV cameras in many public and private places, but with the possibility of viewing private property as well; a general acceptance of being monitored), and that the cost of doing it is negligible for both private organisations and for your caring government.

Do you trust them all to be nice to you?

Re:Go Fig

[tk702000]

Nor will you ever see a perfect government, as there is no such thing...and most likely never will be. Why? Because people aren't perfect and will most certainly never be.

Re:Go Fig

[ladoga]

It was an anti-communist rag written with characters shallow and plot weak even by science fiction standards. If you think I'm being superior just because I think that book is no better than its contemporary critics held it to be, well, then you may want to rethink your position.

I think 1984 is just rewrite of Evgeni Zamiatin's "We".(written in 1920) "We" was supposed to be critic aimed towards new soviet state, but got banned in USSR. Orwell must have acquired copy of this book as similarity to his 1984 is striking.

Re:Go Fig

[Znork]

"The trick is, we need access to all the same data you have."

Indeed. Take a look at David Brin's The Transparent Society for a further exposition of that. And look up Sousveillance on the wikipedia.

However, in the current situation you can pretty much assume that access to exonerating material will be scarce more often than not. CCTVs proving you were somewhere else will probably be wiped long before you even know something's afoot, mined systems will be classified, the framers will be outside monitoring, etc.

Big Brother likes to watch, but he doesnt necessarily like to be watched back.

Re:Go Fig

[buswolley]

Exactly. My post did not make such a claim.

Re:Go Fig

[WgT2]

I am not adverse to such governance, in the light of compassion, provided that compassion be given not just to mercy/forgiveness but to correction and the empowering of myself to not make the same mistakes over and over again.

By they way, that was a very good witness.

Re:Go Fig

[smchris]

Neither Ghandi or King masterbated in public.

But Gandhi admitted to drinking his own urine.

So which would you rather admit to in public: masterbating or drinking your urine?

Re:Go Fig

[HermMunster]

Even when you are wanking off? Because you might, should we all?

Re:Go Fig

[sydbarrett74]

In a perfect world, government would be unnecessary....in other words, government is a necessary evil BECAUSE our world is imperfect.

Re:Go Fig

[HTH NE1]

Why can't you people ever spell Gandhi correctly?

Blame Ghana?

Re:Go Fig

[adavies42]

Diogenes did.

Durrrrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask Slashdot: Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?

I... wonder... what... Slashdot's... answer... will... be.

Re:Durrrrrr

[Anonymous Coward]

...42

Re:Durrrrrr

[kimvette]

In soviet russia, . . ah hell, every thread gets this reply. Nevermind, carry on then!

Peaches?

[bcore]

I don't think you can claim that the store told you that four peaches was a "restricted item" without at least explaining the situation a little bit further.

Re:Peaches?

[schon]

Maybe they thought he was moving to the country.

Didn't Ted Kaczynski lived in the country? :o)

Re:Peaches?

[Pax00]

Interesting thing about peaches is that they contain cyanide. From that respect I could see why the scanner would go off...

Re:Peaches?

[filtur]

I don't think you can claim that the store told you that four peaches was a "restricted item" without at least explaining the situation a little bit further.

Maybe they were underage? :)

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Millions of peaches, peaches for me.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, that's what the imaginary dog was saying to him as he checked out at the grocery store.

Insantity: It's not just for the DailyKos crowd anymore!

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also fruit contains alcohol. Drunk from peaches.

On the other hand, how many peaches are we talking about? Enough to feed the terrorists?

Re:Peaches?

[lawpoop]

Besides peaches being a source of cyanide, also note that the only source of ricin, one of the most deadly poisons known to man, is castor beans.

Re:Peaches?

[binarybum]

after oranges, peaches are known to be the second most popular weapons in Drive-by Fruitings.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but 4 peaches?!? I bought a case of at least 10 the last time I was at SAMS club...no hassles.

Re:Peaches?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Speaking of Ricin, US Patent 3060165 "Preparation of Toxic Ricin" is a famous example of a redacted patent. It is available from European sources, though not from the USPTO.

Although ricin has been prepared in crystalline conditions in the laboratory in small quantities, it becomes necessary for purposes of toxological warfare to prepare relatively large quantities in a high state of purity. This neccesitates that as much as possible of the nontoxic material present be removed in the process.

This document, however, implies that the production method described in the patent results in a impure mixture of various denatured proteins.

Re:Peaches?

[bckrispi]

But what if he has a point-ed stick??

Re:Peaches?

[Traiklin]

if peaches are so dangerous why are they allowed to be around?

seems like the grocery stores have some major plot for killing everyone.

Re:Peaches?

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Best Python Reference Ever.

Re:Peaches?

[Concerned Onlooker]

Clearly there is no need for explanation. Or perhaps you've never had to defend yourself from a man armed with a bowl of fresh fruit?

Re:Peaches?

[babtrek]

It's not hard for something to come up as restricted at a grocery store it, in fact its really easy for those mistakes to happen. I used to work for a grocery store chain, and they used software to read the product description as it was entered to determine restrictions, Ginger Ale was always comming up restricted because it had the word ale, just like rubbing achohol did, I bet you all can geuss what word set it off there. One of my favorite items that came up restricted was Budwieser holiday glasses. Also some stores us the restriction on quantity so that one person can't buy them out of a sale item, or so that they dont loose so much money on their draw items which they usualy make little on at best.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Misinformation. Fools who follow the "patented" procedure will produce a very weak toxin that will still pass any tests they perform to verify successful production.

And the comment about it being very weak is relative to a nearly pure sample... even 1/2-strength ricin is more lethal than many toxins.

Re:Peaches?

[TheDarkener]

FTFA: cyanide is found in a number of foods and plants. In certain plant foods, including almonds, millet sprouts, lima beans, soy, spinach, bamboo shoots, and cassava roots (which are a major source of food in tropical countries), cyanides occur naturally as part of sugars or other naturally-occurring compounds.
 
C'mon. I'd like to see you take all of this stuff up to the self-checkout and get a deep rooted anal search for it.

What a day to shop.

Re:Peaches?

[Cappy Red]

What's really interesting is that I would know about none of this if the scanner hadn't gone off and led to that anecdote.

Not saying that that was why the scanner went off, or that steps must be taken to protect us from the fruits, but that high profile reactions to items perceived to be inoccuous can spread around information you'd rather stayed put.

Re:Peaches?

[Jeremy Erwin]

even 1/2-strength ricin is more lethal than many toxins.

"half -strength" may be an exceptionally optimistic yield. The patent doesn't address the efficiency of the process.

Re:Peaches?

[nocomment]

A pointed stick, and when someone comes at you with oh oh oh getting all high and mighty eh? Well let me tell you something, when some great homicidal maniac comes at you tonight with a bunch of loganberries, don't come crying to me!!!

Re:Peaches?

[theonetruekeebler]

Maybe they were underage? :)

That's cherries.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

I kind of think you missed one of the points with the 1984 reference.

"They" can do whatever "they" want, and *you can't ask any questions*. :-(

Re:Peaches?

[2Y9D57]

Peach seeds: ~40 ppm cyanide. Apricot seeds: ~500 ppm. Lucky you didn't buy apricots, or you'd be in Guantanamo by now.

Re:Peaches?

[Alioth]

The extract from two beans off Ricinus communis is enough to kill an adult. However, it's often grown as a garden plant. Make sure your children know not to go chewing on this one!

Re:Peaches?

[Eggplant62]

I think if I were confronted with that same situation, I'd say, "Excuse me?" I'd then say nothing more, leave the entire order there at the checkout, and leave the store.

I refuse to shop with merchants who agree to help our currently corrupt government turn American into the Home of the Paranoid and Land of the Caged.

Re:Peaches?

[maxwell demon]

seems like the grocery stores have some major plot for killing everyone.

Now that you say it ... we better watch all those grocery owners. And of course all their customers!

Re:Peaches?

[Bogtha]

I think if I were confronted with that same situation, I'd say, "Excuse me?" I'd then say nothing more, leave the entire order there at the checkout, and leave the store.

That wouldn't do any good, you'd just get the person working the checkout calling you a crazy. If you're going to make a point, explain why you think it's stupid to the manager, and do it at the checkout queue.

Re:Peaches?

[TommyBear]

Does anyone known how much cyanide there actually is in the stone of a peach? I mean have there ever been reported deaths or incidents to do with the stone in a peach???

Re:Peaches?

[houghi]

I refuse to shop with merchants who agree to help our currently corrupt government turn American into the Home of the Paranoid and Land of the Caged.

What telecom operator do you use? What telecom operator do the people at the other end of the line use? It will be very higly likely that im at least 50% of the calls that are made by you or to you, the govenement is onto you.

If you only talk about groceries, better only shop at mom&pop stres and pay cash. Thinking about it: pay cash all the time, everywhere and shred you credid cards. Close you bank account as well.

It is easy to say: I don't agree with that, yet it is much harder to do. Not least because you have no idea who is working together with 'The Man'.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Government is now so deeply entangled in the market that it is near impossible for buyers and sellers to make decisions 100% out of free will. The influence of government can be found on any "voluntary" transaction today. At the very least a transaction will be somehow taxed, impeding the participants' ability to choose 100% for themselves how to invest their earnings. The only question is to what extent government alters the transaction from how it would be conducted under purely voluntary terms. (Typically the influence of government will go much further than simply taxing the transaction. Government, and its special "right" to employ coercion as a business model, can easily flip business around 180 degrees from what it would be under voluntary terms.)

For example, government will undoubtedly throw a bone to any merchant who agrees to spy on customers. The influence will eventually become so great that merchants who refuse will suffer a competitive disadvantage and be forced out of business. This happens all the time under today's government.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, please explain this a little more. I don't believe peaches came up "restricted." Was there some sale where by you're only allowed a certain amount? Was is peach schnops? It's a cute little anecdote but it's not as you describe.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides peach pits being a source of cyanide (and apple seeds too!), and castor beans being the source of ricin, another of the most potent toxins known to man is botulism toxin, produced by the bacteria of the same name which can be found almost everywhere in ordinary dirt.

The world's a dangerous place.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

... deadly poisons known to man, is castor beans.

Beans and deadly poisons. I know there's a joke in there somwhere.

Re:Peaches?

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I think if I were confronted with that same situation, I'd say, "Excuse me?" I'd then say nothing more, leave the entire order there at the checkout, and leave the store."

But if you did that then there would be VERY little incentive for them to change policy. I mean, you're just one person. However if you made a BIG stink about it, refusing to leave the checkout lane until they explained themselves, and refused to provide that information then you would not only be costing them money (cashiers time spent waiting, managers time spent explaining) but you would also be alerting other customers in the vicinity to the ridiculousness of the situation.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, one've my friends only shops with cash. You have to make regular withdrawals, just like the olden days of 20 years ago, but it works. Bank accounts are for basic savings and the occasional necessary cheque.

It started as more of a concern about the stolen debit/credit card fraud that started popping up a regularly at our place of business. Avoiding the personal purchases tracking was just a bonus.

Other than that, things like letting name typos on bills go uncorrected, or scattering services amoung various roommates is also a bit more hassle for companies tracking personal lives. He enjoys leaving as little financial trail as possible more as a game, which is probably the attitude to have.

Paranoia isn't good.

Re:Peaches?

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

While we're on it, please note that you can sicken and possibly kill many people (including myself) if you spray a fine dust of ground peanuts into the air. If you add lactose, soy, etc. into the mix, you can incapacitate everyone with food allergies - which is a considerable percentage of people.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good, about time someone applied a little evolution to the human race....

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's been some hours now. Is he still "clinging" to the peach story?

Re:Peaches?

[Paul Carver]

Last time I went grocery shopping I used the self checkout. Out of a variety of deli and produce products that I bought, there were two items I didn't buy. One was a pre-sealed package of sliced turkey. The bar code registered correctly, but then the computer removed it from the screen and said the product required "assistance" to buy it. The other was a bag of seedless green grapes. After picking them off of the produce lookup screen it told me to weigh them. After weighing them, it told me that "this product cannot be purchased at this time".

So I left them at the check out counter, paid for the rest of my groceries and left the store.

It didn't really occur to me to attribute this to Orwell/Big Brother/1984. I just assumed that some underpaid supermarket employee screwed up somewhere when configuring the computer system.

Re:Peaches?

[jrieth50]

I for one don't shop at government-operated grocery stores just to stick it to the man even further.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, because all the truly paranoid Big Brother is watching types are historically LEFT WING in the US. Or maybe that's just my insantity kicking in again.

Re:Peaches?

[1nt3lx]

"Really like your peaches want to shake your tree"

Hmm.

Re:Peaches?

[Crazy old man]

Hmmm, my two cents on that would the person checking your groceries really could give two squirts about what you think. With economics as they are the last thing they will do is take your perceived paranoia to the manager ... even if you do speak with him do you really think that Albertsons / Safeway / Kroger or any other uber grocery store will care either? The point is moot ~ our rights as individuals is compromised and will stay that way until we run outa the resources needed to support our current world infrastructure & we return to an undeveloped status. Even if the masses revolted (as if they aren't revolting enough) it would eventually settle back into the same skulking protectionist state of affairs again. Egalitarian ideals won't fly because en masse people are petty shallow and ignorant. Keep their bellies full and give them a few toys to keep them distracted when not working (NFL, NASCAR, NBA etc) watch them so they don't decide to think for themselves and see how your business will flourish at their expense. But what do I know ... I'm only a crazy old man

Re:Peaches?

[pingveno]

Computer glitch?

Re:Peaches?

[thorgil]

Actually its the kernel that contains prunasin and amygdalin which are cyanoglukosides.
When they break down in the body, cyanide is released.

All species in the Prunus genus contains these substances. Mainly in fruit kernels but also in bark, leaves, roots and flowers.

They highest concentrations of these substances can be found in Apricot kernels...
A couple of kernels is enough to kill an adult.

Re:Peaches?

[Upsilon Andromedea]

My water contains arsenic.

Re:Peaches?

[magnamous]

However, I'm a certified peach hound from California - I buy 16-20 peaches at a time. I've never even heard of this before. No one's ever stopped me and said, "Sir, we're going to need to see some ID before you can have those peaches."

I think your thought is a pretty decent explanation, but that's still weird as hell.

Re:Peaches?

[kimvette]

So does nearly every seed-bearing plant, some in higher levels than others. Apricots have a much, much higher cyanide levels, as do apple seeds (although the seeds are much smaller), bitter almonds, and many other fruits and nuts. What is so special about peaches which should trigger such an alert?

Re:Peaches?

[kimvette]

A couple of kernels is enough to kill an adult.

BULLSHIT. I eat them quite often (very yummy, very much like almonds!) and you can even buy cookies imported from Mexico which are made from Apricot seeds.

(by the way, did you know that if you eat watermelon seeds, they'll grow in your tummy? Also, eating apple cores can kill you because of the cyanide, OMG the horror!!)

Re:Peaches?

[Upsilon Andromedea]

Not to mention the customers driving to the store in CARS.

Re:Peaches?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, inside the pit of a peach is a little thing very much like an almond. This part contains most of the cyanide. The cyanide in just one isn't likely to kill you, but don't go eating them anyway. Luckily it's usually near impossible to open a peach pit, though there are some "split-pits".

The relation between peaches and almonds is interesting; you'd never guess at first sight but they are fairly close relatives. The peach pit is the almond shell; the almondy bit inside corresponds to the almond, and the flesh of the peach is a thicker and more edible version of the almond hull, which you never see in the store. The hulls of almonds are stripped by the millions before they get to the store and stacked in enormous piles; they are edible for cows and some are sold as feed.

Yeah, I grew up on a farm.

Re:Peaches?

[adamgolding]

Maybe they were underage? :) That's cherries. That's overage...

Re:Peaches?

[lightning_queen]

And as a retail worker, I would consider you crazy, or simply weird, and know that there are a dozen people walking in the door to replace you...

And thus, your little show of protest will be lost in the sea of time and forgotten by lunchtime.

Re:Peaches?

[lightning_queen]

....you do know that banks are government funded and regulated.....right?

As for the fraud, that's negligence on the part of the store that could have/should have had them shut down.

Re:Peaches?

[Qacker]

Ricin is hardly one of the most deadly - you need to study toxicology better before spouting off.

Re:Peaches?

[Pax00]

It could very well depend on the species... The bitter almond contains enough to be banned in the united states

Re:Peaches?

[The_REAL_DZA]

yummy foods...foods I don't mind...more yummy foods...lima beans...more foods I don't mind...more yummy foods...etc.

Lima beans? LIMA BEANS?

THANK YOU! Now I have a plausible reason to never eat another of those disgusting little orbs again!

Re:Peaches?

[LunaticTippy]

You're wrong.

Cecil Adams addressed this over 30 years ago. You need to eat 50-70 apricot kernels to kill an adult.

It may be too late...

[alshithead]

"What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?"

First thought...more educated and informed than the masses of sheeples?

Seriously, I think a lot of us feel the same way and see that we aren't on a slippery slope any more. We are plummeting down a sheer drop off. The way I see it the government and big business will control more and more of our every day life as we lose more and more privacy and individual choices. Some of us will get sick of it and cash out and go live off the grid in the most remote boondocks we can find and some of us will suffer in relative silence and reminisce over the "good old days" before we lost so much of our privacy and constitutional rights. Others will never notice they lost anything. Maybe there will be another American revolution some day to try and put back into place a government whose altruistic ideals can be effected indefinitely. Hell, 200+ years is pretty good when looked at in the big picture of history but eventually power and money corrupt those who should be looking out for the good of everyone. I guess this sounds kind of defeatist but take the federal minimum wage as an example. How come 30 million people have to try to live on $5.15 an hour? How are their voices not heard? How are our voices not heard?

Money talks and the politicians and big business have the money.

Re:It may be too late...

[nickos]

If you're that worried you can always leave the US. Personally I've lived in many countries and right now I can't see any reason why anyone would want to live in the USA - there are many countries that are more democratic and value the rights of the individual more.

Either that or you could just stick it out until Bush leaves office in 1.5 yeras time. I mean - it's unlikely to get any worse right?

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it is that simple... Just get up and leave.
Because, you know, so many countries have immigration policies that scream "Come here! We want to increase our population!"

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

30 Million People live on minimum wage because they are too lazy to do anything else. Seriously... anyone over the age of 18 that is still making minimum wage has made a conscious decision to just sit on their asses. If you want to make more money do better in High School... or sign up for a couple community college classes _and actually do the work_ (I see a lot of people sign up for those classes and _still_ be lazy and end up back on their asses at McDonalds)... or, in general, just make better decisions in life.

I don't think there should be _any_ minimum wage at all... let people work for what they're willing to work for. If the work and pay suck then people will try to do better... and if they're too lazy to do better then that's their own damn problem.

I'm so damn tired of this crap... people need to take responsibility for their lives... that's part of the reason we're in this mess. People have become so lazy and complacent that they want the Government to do everything for them... including figuring out a way to make them money. If we all took care of our own shit this wouldn't be a problem.

Sigh.

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[ivan256]

Others will never notice they lost anything.

You can't lose something that you give away.

Most of those things he mentioned people think are great, because those things mean that they either get a bargain, or that they're protecting 'the children'. The rest of them people either don't notice or wouldn't care about even if you managed to successfully get them to understand why it is that you care about them.

Maybe there will be another American revolution some day to try and put back into place a government whose altruistic ideals can be effected indefinitely.

Yeah, right. Most of that stuff in the post didn't even have anything to do with state or federal govenrment. It was mostly corporate and people giving their privacy away under their own accord.

The best part was where he described journalists as 'the people who are supposed to be looking out for him'. What a hoot. Somebody needs a lesson in capatilism, and some friendly advice not to be so trusting lest he look in the mirror and find out he's one of the people giving away bits of himself for no good reason.

How come 30 million people have to try to live on $5.15 an hour? How are their voices not heard?

Here's a hint: More than half of them aren't even old enough to vote if they wanted to (and if they were, they'd be statistically unlikely to vote anyway). The minimum wage is a heart-string issue. The Democrats tote it out to get emotional votes out of the section of their base that hasn't engaged their brain. It's the Democrats' version of school prayer.

Not everybody needs to earn a living wage. Some people are dependents to other people, or are children. It is important that low wage jobs exist, or it would be difficult to get that first job that lets you start climbing the ladder. Stop and think, and read a bit. You will find that politicians and armchair economists are the biggest supporters of a minimum wage hike. It's never the people who are supposedly harmed by the low minimum wage crying for an increase, and most of the groups that advocate for those very same people think it's dumb too.... All those people want an expansion of the EITC instead.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it just means that you're another nutcase. But if you are going to go live in the boondocks, better make sure that it's deep into the wilderness 50+ miles away from anyone else. There's no such thing as anonymity in a small town.

Re:It may be too late...

[Secahtah]

Having recently read 1984, the principle of the story was that all of the loss of privacy was to ensure that people were not committing "crimethink" - aka thoughts that stood against the principles of Engsoc, i.e. Socialism to the extreme.
(Enough of the book report).. while I do agree with you that big business and wealthy politicians ultimately hold an undeniably gross level of power in the United States, we aren't headed for the "1984" society in the same sense. Perhaps your personal freedoms may be compromised, but "big business" is the epitome of capitalism, which you may recall, Engsoc is totally against. From the book (roughly paraphrased), Engsoc seeks to destroy wealth by wasting profits on meaningless wars. Big business is ALL ABOUT profits, thus there is somewhat of a contradiction here.
At any rate, being a law-abiding citizen, I would have no real problem with the privacy loss IF the government weren't corrupt. We all know that can never be the case. As you accurately state, the situation is depressing indeed... we have politicians in power that make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year - how can they possibly accurately represent the people who do make minimum wage? The answer is simple - they cannot. A large majority of politicians come from wealthy, politically-inclined families. Even the ones who worked their way up from lower class families, once they reach the office and have been in it for awhile, can no longer think on that level. It isn't possible to represent anyone if you have no clue how they live. This goes beyond party lines, too. Ultimately, and unfortunately, it seems to me that most politicians have one and only one end goal - staying in office, and staying in power.

Re:It may be too late...

[dodobh]

Cool, so you support the Indian developers and call center employees who are willing to work for far less?

Re:It may be too late...

[megaditto]

Let me play Devil's advocate here:

The 'free market' ended in 1930's for the same reason 'anarchy' ended in the stone age: a single strongman will fuck up the playing field for everybody by assimilating, subjugating, and repressing everyone else (while getting even stronger in the process). To take it to extreme, in a 'free market' there is nothing to stop some asshole buying a nuclear weapon, then collecting 'protection' money from you and me. There is nothing to stop GSK from patenting antibiotics as a concept, then charging $10,000,000 per pill. So what that 50% of children will not survive to adulthood (a la 19th century America), that's because they are too lazy to do anything else.

Yes, the free market is the best possible scenario, except that human nature being what it is, the market will quickly degrade into something horrible if completely uncontrolled.

Re:It may be too late...

[poppen_fresh]

30 Million People live on minimum wage because they are too lazy to do anything else.

Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones... Strawberry picking, aspalt laying, etc aren't hard at all

If you want to make more money do better in High School

You should visit some public high schools in poor areas some day. Hard work won't change that drugs are rampant, gangs rule the hallways, and you can't get a real education.

Maybe you should go talk to real people that are poor. Two parents working two full time minimum wage jobs have trouble supporting a family. It may open your eyes that even though hard work can often result in success, for those in impovershied areas, or for those who are born with disadvantages or into a disadvantageous situation, hard work is necessary for survival, and that is often barely achieved.

You're the one that needs to get real and realize that not everyone is born with a bevy of opportunities, and it's not easy to succeed, even with hard work.

Re:It may be too late...

[illuminatedwax]

First thought...more educated and informed than the masses of sheeples?

Here's the first thing everyone can do to help stop this: don't call people sheeple. You really sound like an idiot when you do. "Sheeple" makes rms's cute phrases (Treacherous Computing?) look clever.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

or for those who are born with disadvantages or into a disadvantageous situation,

They should have picked better parents, you know, instead of expecting the Big Government to give them free food and education.

Yes, this is what the conservatives actually believe!

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

There is nothing to stop GSK from patenting antibiotics as a concept, then charging $10,000,000 per pill.

Sure there is: If they price themselves out of the mass market, they wouldn't make any money that way.

In any event, a patent is a government-enforced artificial monopoly. In a libertarian paradise (which you appear to be substituting for "free-market economy"), they wouldn't necessarily exist.

Re:It may be too late...

[NigelBeamenIII]

Oddly enough, my first job was as a custodian for a local school district (not my own though). Their minimum requirement was a high school diploma and I know for a fact that they were almost always hiring because they could never get enough help. My starting pay in June 2004 was $12.14/hour (with a yearly raise to account for inflation) and they include health insurance for one person in that (doctor, hospital, optometry, dental). The work wasn't easy, but we got a 15 minute break every 2 hours, a 30 minute lunch, and ample opportunities for over-time (at 1.5x normal). And every building in the district was air conditioned.

All of that and all you needed was a high school diploma. Never even checked my grades. They were too desperate for help. It's not impossible to find a decent paying job even without doing great in high school.

Just my $0.02.

Re:It may be too late...

[RajivSLK]

Dude, not everybody is as smart as you. A lot of people who seems lazy are actually just a little stupid. Half the people have below average IQ. Yes it's true. Simple things like highschool can be difficult and overwelming for some people and as a result they seem lazy to you. A grade 11 math course for them may be the equivilent of fully understanding string theory for you. Imagine if in order to make above minimum wage, you had to fully comphrened advanced theoretical particle physics? If you had an IQ of 83 that's what life might be like for you.

A country as rich as the USA should give people a strong incentive to work hard but also take care of all those less fortunate. It's a shame that there are hungry people without medical care in the world's richest country.

Re:It may be too late...

[miskatonic alumnus]

30 Million People live on minimum wage because they are too lazy to do anything else. Seriously... anyone over the age of 18 that is still making minimum wage has made a conscious decision to just sit on their asses. If you want to make more money do better in High School... or sign up for a couple community college classes _and actually do the work_ (I see a lot of people sign up for those classes and _still_ be lazy and end up back on their asses at McDonalds)... or, in general, just make better decisions in life.

Right, because everyone has an I.Q. of 200+ and unlimited resources to put them through college while paying their living expenses at the same time. Meanwhile, Richy Rich (who never learned how to cook because Mommy or McDonald's always did it for him) starves since there are no more hamburger flippers --- they are all making minimum wage as architects, electrical engineers, and medical doctors after the wages for these professions plummet due to an overabundance of skilled labor. You really are clueless, as well as unsympathetic towards your fellow man.

Re:It may be too late...

[ranton]

Wow, looks like someone must have just taken a "social problems" class in college last spring.

Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones...

Actually yes, minimum wage jobs are the easy ones. Minimum wage jobs are either for lazy people or stupid people. No one, under any circumstance known to man, should be making minimum wage in America if they are motivated at all. I worked with illegal aliens when I worked at KFC in high school, and they made around $8-$9 an hour (and overtime). Some made more than that. They did a job that most Americans would hate (expecially for that pay), but they are not making nearly minimum wage

I dont care if your parents were homeless, you still have just as many opportunities as your average illegal alien. Find a program that helps homeless get a first job. If your area doesnt have one, walk 100 miles to an area that does. Do some hard work. I did roofing for one summer in college, and worked with a guy who actually got the job while he was homeless in a shelter. It paid $14 an hour under the table (about 50-60 hours a week, no overtime pay). That was about $750 a week, but it was the worst work I ever did (and I grew up on a farm). You could afford an apartment in 2 weeks.

The ONLY people making minimum wage are LAZY, STUPID, or in highschool. I have known many people who made minimum wage, have known illegal aliens and homeless people, and have NEVER seen an exception. But in this "politically correct" world, we cannot call anyone what they are anymore. They are disadvantaged, not lazy. They are uneducated, not stupid. Survival does not require a high school education. Someone who cannot survive in this society (and at least can speak a language, any language) cannot blame anyone except themselves.

I still think we should be doing more to help disadvantaged people work their way up in society. But anyone who is still making minimum wage today is beyond help, because they are the problem.
--

Re:It may be too late...

[Moofie]

"If they price themselves out of the mass market, they wouldn't make any money that way."

What a silly notion. There are any number of luxury brands that are not mass market sellers, but still make plenty of money. How many boats do you suppose the super yacht builders build in a year?

Re:It may be too late...

[Nephilium]

As I sit here and blow my ability to mod, and get every mod I put on this story rated unfair...

For minimum wage jobs... even the fast food places pay more then minimum wage... When I was 18... several years ago... I worked at McDonald's... at the time I was hired... they payed minimum wage... when I was 18, they raised the starting pay to $7 an hour... $1.85 more then the minimum... why? Because they needed people... and they wouldn't work at McDonald's for $5.15/hour...

Also... check the stats on how many people are actually raising a family on minimum wage, as well as how long people stay at minimum wage...

Despite what some people believe, it isn't hard to get a job that pays more then the minimum wage, as long as you can either count, clean, or use tools... (Working for an inventory service, Janitorial, Construction/Landscaping), you may thing the job is "beneath you", but it'll pay you, as well as keep food on your table...

Asking for the government to get you a job is as smart as asking for the government to take care of your health, retirement, or investments... Why is it that no one trusts the government... but wishes they would make most of the important decisions in their lives?

Nephilium

"I like the idea of democracy. You have to have someone everyone distrusts," said Brutha. "That way, everyone's happy." -- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)

Re:It may be too late...

[linguae]

The 'free market' ended in 1930's for the same reason 'anarchy' ended in the stone age: a single strongman will fuck up the playing field for everybody by assimilating, subjugating, and repressing everyone else (while getting even stronger in the process).

Wrong. I'm tired of the old Great Depression "free markets failed" bullcrap that many history books spew and a lot of people believe. The Great Depression was a normal recession made much worse by the Federal Reserve's mishandling of the money supply. Getting off the gold standard and switching to fiat money didn't help situations, as well as higher tarrifs.

But free markets did end in the 1930s, or at least became much less free. We have fiat money that inflates often. We implemented socialistic programs that didn't really help with the depression and arguably made it worse (World War II is what got us out of the depression, not the New Deal). Government went from very small to very large. We now mired in massive federal debt that only increases every year. Classical liberalism was thrown out in place of socialism and fascism, and now whenever people believe in classical liberal and libertarian ideas, they're written off as silly people.

Now, interestingly enough, some of the problems that you have stated are caused by the government, not by free markets. Patents, for example. Patents (and other "intellectual property" like copyrights and trademarks) are a governmental creation. I don't advocate getting rid of copyrights, patents, and other "IP," but don't blame the free market for that. I am a staunch free market supporter who also supports anti-trust legislation and other similar measures; they help keep the market free. (Being controlled by mega-corporations is just as bad as being controlled by big governments, in my book. However, governments hold a legal monopoly on force, which makes them worse, IMO.). But I don't believe in redistributionist policies. Perhaps we should focus on helping the poor in the marketplace instead of welfare. After all, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; but if you teach a man how to fish....

Re:It may be too late...

[megaditto]

pricing themselves out of the mass market requires that there be a competition, which is a 'free market' cannot persist.

In a libertarian paradise the Monopoly-in-charge (and there will always arise a monopoly!) will certainly be able to afford to buy off the competitors (or send them to sleep with the fishes).

And this is why there must be some (limited, but enforceable) antitrust laws.

Re:It may be too late...

[Nephilium]

As a side literary note... I personally believe that 1984 should not be read without also reading A Brave New World... it provides a balance of the far left wing dystopia with the far right wing dystopia...

Nephilium

I drink because people keep hassling me about my drinking. -- Brandi Belinski, bartender

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

"Two parents working two full time minimum wage jobs have trouble supporting a family."

I knew this would come up (it always does). I have absolutely _zero_ sympathy for either the parents or the children in this case. If the parents couldn't support children they should have made the right decisions and (gasp!) _not had kids_! Responsible decisions? What the hell are those? It is not my job to go around and fix everyone else's problems because they weren't responsible with their lives.

"But think of the children," everyone cries... the problem is that by artificially propping up families that shouldn't have happened in the first place we are teaching the children that they don't have to make responsible decisions either.... because the government will bail them out. This creates a vicious cycle where people become more and more dependent upon the government... leading us toward a complete socialism.

(Also note, that I don't necessarily think that socialism is bad... it's just not the society _I_ want to live in... and there are plenty of socialist societies to go around... so stop messing with my capitilistic society!)

"not everyone is born with a bevy of opportunities"

You don't know anything about me. My parents both just barely finished high-school... they worked their asses off to give my sister and I what we had... but it wasn't much. _I_ worked my ass off to do better and rise above what my parents had done, and I hope to instill that same work ethic into my kids so they can continue to increase their quality of life. When all of my comrades in high-shcool were off getting drunk and making babies I was studying and making good grades so I could have the things I wanted in life... which is the way it should be...

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

This gets modded insightful? How about sociopathically cynical?

These people working dead end jobs create billions of dollars of surplus value every year that their capitalist bosses just take off the top, yet you still have the nerve to try to degrade them even further. But they're just too lazy?

Let me ask you, how would your world work if everyone "actually did the work?" So everyone pulls themselves up by the bootstraps and gets A's in highschool and goes to college to become engineers and business administrators, etc. So who in this world lays the asphalt that everyone drives on? The MBA's, or the just the CompSci majors?

In order for you to be rich and "not lazy", guess what, there has to be a whiole load of poor people who subsidize your lfiestyle through generating surplus value which you get your cut of. How much actual goods required for living do you produce in your day? None? Someones picks all those vegetables and raises all those chickens that you eat and he gets paid subsistence plus basic cable package, or, in other parts of the world, subsistence plus a bullet to the head when he criticizes the government.

If you want to be rich that means you, to some extent, must push other people into poverty. Not totally, perhaps, because its not zero-sum, but it's still not infinite sum. In order for you to have advantages others must have disadvantages. They are the meek that get crushed, yet you apparently seek even to remove any moral superiority for them. You want not only to take away their money, their physical comfort, but also their dignity, their moral comfort. That's true sociopathy.

Re:It may be too late...

[frickendevil]

Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones... Strawberry picking, aspalt laying, etc aren't hard at all

Laying asphalt isnt an easy job, it isn't mentally demanding, but that doesnt make it easy. I have never seen a nerd (other then myself) lay asphalt, they whinge too much and want to work inside.

Re:It may be too late...

[Jartan]

"there are many countries that are more democratic and value the rights of the individual more"

It sounds good until you look around and realize the US is just putting presure on said countries to follow suit.

Or to sum it all up: Welcome to the Global Hegemony of America (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegemony)

Re:It may be too late...

[miskatonic alumnus]

So you advocate eugenics then?

Re:It may be too late...

[lokiomega]

Did you not read his post?? Try visiting someone who is poor and destitute, working two jobs to support their families. Try that, and then you can call them lazy and stupid. Then I can call you ignorant and callous.

Re:It may be too late...

[tehwebguy]

"Two parents working two full time minimum wage jobs have trouble supporting a family."

of course they will, which is why they should:

• 
     
• not have kids right away
• 
     
• work to earn a raise
• 
     
• look for another job

have you ever worked a low paying job? i couldn't find a minimum wage job if i went out and looked. i just grabbed a bite to eat at a small plaza that had 4 help wanted signs -- and i can guarantee they all pay at least $1 over minimum.

but go find a minimum wage job if you can, and see how hard you have to work at being lazy in order to not get a raise. your mind will be blown by the laziness of the workers around you if you have any kind of work ethic.

when i worked at a grocery store i was 16 (5 years ago). i started at 5.75 and got a raise every 6 months. i come from a upper-middle class family and in reality i didn't need that job. i didn't work incredibly hard at it, i just did what i was asked to and didn't complain. i was usually on time and i didn't go over on my lunch breaks. essentially the bare minimum.

i couldn't believe how many people, including those who seemed to need their job far more than i needed mine, simply didn't work hard. so many people were lazy, unmotivated, and dishonest. some people would even try to trick me into doing the work their manager had just asked them to (which they complained directly to them about).

you talk about raising the minimum wage like it is going to change the world -- it's barely even going to be noticed. the people who continue to make minimum wage will be making the new minimum, as lazy as ever. the extra dollars per month (yes dollars, not tens of dollars) will not be saved, but wasted like the rest of their money. then when your grocery store has to pay all of the lazy people more money, they will probably just fire one.

the only people woh will notice will be the one who is fired, and you when there is no one there to bag your groceries because there is a shortage of employees. you will probably blame the grocery store too.

Re:It may be too late...

[emilng]

anyone over the age of 18 that is still making minimum wage has made a conscious decision to just sit on their asses

I don't think laziness is a conscious decision. It takes no thought to do nothing. It's doing things that takes conscious decisions.

It's very easy (lazy even) to blame the high number of people on minimum wage on laziness, but it's really not that simple. A person who has to work two minimum wage jobs to barely scrape by is not lazy; stupid, uneducated, or underprivileged but not lazy. Often it's not just an issue of trying to do better it's knowing how to do better or realizing that it even possible for them to be able to do better.

Given a middle income neighborhood, a decent school, decent home life and an average brain capacity. If they are still working a minimum wage job after the age of 18 then yes I think that's a good indicator that they are just plain lazy, but how many of the 30 million people will meet those 4 criteria? I think you won't find many.

Re:It may be too late...

[miskatonic alumnus]

Responsible decisions? What the hell are those?

I don't know. It's not like many governments or corporations are making any lately. Monkey see, monkey do.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people who seems lazy are actually just a little stupid. Half the people have below average IQ. Yes it's true.

And, surprisingly, about have of us have IQs considered to be above average. Time for a math review, maybe?

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither field work (strawberry picking) nor construction (asphalt laying) are easy jobs. They are, however, UNION jobs. No member of any union in the US gets paid even near the federal minimum wage unless there's a very high piece-rate associated with their job.

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Firstly, I'm not saying that everyone needs to be rich... or should even want to be. We all have different goals in life, some people would love to work a part-time minimum wage job as that would afford them lots of free time to devote to their hobbies and friends.

Others would like to purchase things to make our lives more comfortable/easier. A place to live (with air conditioning! Man it's hot this summer!), a T.V. to be entertained by, good food to make our tongues happy... and so on. These people work harder (or should) at gaining more capital for the purposes of buying the things we cannot make ourselves. That doesn't mean we're greedy, it just means we want some things that we don't have, so we do something for someone else (work!) and in return we recieve the ability to get what we want.

That process doesn't "push other people into poverty"... it just gives me the ability to get what I want... everyone else has the same opportunity (or they already have a headstart because someone in their past worked... and decided to pass that capital on... which is their perogative and shouldn't be held against the current recipients).

The problem comes when some people don't want to do the work to give themselves what they want. They work the same minimum wage job as the happy hobbiest above... but blame "the system" for screwing them... when in reality it was their own decisions that led them to this point. They yell and scream that they don't have enough money for [insert whatever good/service you like] and that they are "entitled" to that good/service and the government needs to provide it for them... which in our current culture happens fairly often.

But where does all the money come from to provide these people who don't work with things they don't deserve? Oh, that's right, from us people who actually made responsible decisions with their lives and are doing well at providing both the things we want and the things [we/our families] need. Now how is that right?

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[Arker]

There is nothing to stop GSK from patenting antibiotics as a concept, then charging $10,000,000 per pill.

Umm sure there is. Free markets don't have monopoly grants. Doh! That's the entire point!

Re:It may be too late...

[Mistshadow2k4]

Ok, I'm done with /. for a while, with arrogant, self-congratulatory and utter bullshit like this getting modded up. "or sign up for a couple community college classes" -- oh sure, they teach you in community colleges for free now, don't they? And the government stopped charging interst on student loans and gives them to everyone who applies? I have also seen college graduates wind up working at McDonald's but that's because they actually COULD NOT get another job. You really believe that everyoen who lives in poverty does so because they don't want to work? Most of them would not work a hell of a lot harder than you ever have in your life to make just half of what you probably do but would also be willing to have a limb apmutated simply to be hired. Don't believe me? Go work at a homeless shelter for a littel while, or even one of those places that just provide food -- that is, if you can stand to hob-nob with people who are so below you, that is. Especially take a gander at the sick ones who can't get social security despite many tries and have to spend every almost every penny they earn on medicine they have to have or die, and tell them they deserve their fate because they're lazy. Jerks like you deny the fact that they've been more fortunate than most and take the opportunity to be bigoted against anyone not as fortunate as themselves. "I'm successful because I earned it! Everyone else is just a lazy sack of shit so I'm better than them!" Many have worked harder and should've earned more but ended up with nothing because they apparently didn't get lucky like you have. Maybe when your luck runs out someday you'll learn.

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

pricing themselves out of the mass market requires that there be a competition, which is a 'free market' cannot persist.

Demand is never completely inelastic: As much as folks may have an absolute need for medicines, your hypothesized $10M/pill is sufficient that most folks (even among the super-rich) cannot pay it [for an adequate duration of time as to have the intended effect] no matter how great their need. Consequently, it is indeed possible to price oneself out of a market even in the absolute lack of regulation.

Further, you completely ignore the point (and it's an important one) that it's the action of government itself, by creating the artificial monopolies we call "patents", that reduces competition and increases prices in this field.

I'm not going to argue that a completely unregulated market is a good thing, but your intended points miss their mark.

Re:It may be too late...

[lokiomega]

Mod parent up...where is the compassion in this world anymore??

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

$10M/pill for antibiotics, as was proposed as a consequence of an unregulated free market, is a price out of range not only of the mass market but the luxury market as well: Almost all courses of treatment for diseases serious enough to warrant that kind of expendature require sufficiently large numbers of pills that even the super-rich would rarely be able to afford a full course of treatment.

I encourage you, further, to look at the top of the Fortune 500. Of those companies who produce consumer goods, how many of them focus only (or even primarily) on specialty- or niche-market goods? To be sure, there's some amount of money there -- but certainly not nearly as much as there is when seeking the sweet spot on the curve.

Re:It may be too late...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I see a lot of people sign up for those classes and _still_ be lazy and end up back on their asses at McDonalds)

So Ms Rand, how is it that you see these people sign up for cc classes and then end up back at mcdonalds unless you are working at mcdonalds yourself? Hhhhm?

Either you work there too and are the worst kind of syncophant, or you are one of those freaks who goes to mcdonalds to socialize with the employees because they are hoping to can convince them to give them a job which they really have no hope of ever qualifying for.

Re:It may be too late...

[Lord Kano]

Hard work is the best opportunity that one has for success, but success is never guaranteed by hard work.

I know people who were poor, or at least middle class and worked their asses off and became what most of us would call "rich". I also know people who were poor, and worked their asses of and are still poor.

Basically, life isn't fair but complaining about it won't improve your station.

LK

Re:It may be too late...

[Moofie]

The interests of the top of the Fortune 500 are utterly irrelevant to me. The only concern I have is that my freedom as a citizen is not impeded by their pursuit of profit.

Yes, individual citizens are free, and encouraged, to pursue profit. But NOT at the expense of other peoples' freedom.

Free market does not mean that corporate actors should be able to do as they wish to corner markets and raise prices. It means that purchasers have much fredom to choose between sellers (and vice versa), thereby encouraging optimal economic exchanges.

Re:It may be too late...

[megaditto]

Do you agree that IF the antitrust laws are to be applied, the system also NEEDS patent/IP/copyright laws? (or else you end us with a stagnant Kraplikistan of middle ages).

In a 'free market' scenario, patents will still exist in that the Monopoly will have the power to enforce its own 'patents' without the help of the government. Agreed?

In that case, the middle-ground would be some antitrust regulations, with some very light patent/IP protections (to ensure the adequate return on R&D investment)?

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Don't quit slashdot because of me! I might come off sounding a little harsh... but that's only because what I usually read on slashdot (and other news outlets) is the other way around! There is a very excusionist attitude that runs rampent not only on this site, but in our society in general.

I will concede that some people get screwed by the system (Enron!)... I will also concede that some people get lucky. The thing is, I believe that both of those situations are outliers.

Yes, there should be programs in place to temporarily help people out who have fallen on bad times. Our economy is a tumultuous one... and it could happen to any of us... and it's in all of our best interest to help eachother out during these times. The problem is that, as much as people would like to believe it, this is only a _fraction_ of the cases that actually put people in minimum wage type positions. In the vast majority of cases people can do better... and have just made poor life decisions.

I've worked at fast food joints (Everyone should have to for a little while... if for nothing else than just to feel like what it's like to be on the other side of the counter!)... and as others have mentioned in this thread I saw a rampent laziness that was just unfathomable... especially from the people who actually needed the money (because they made poor decisions like popping out children when they couldn't support them). I've also worked construction jobs and saw similar. It also seemed to me, that the people who bitched the most about what they "deserved" were often the people lounging around when there was work to do. In my daily life I am constantly encountering these same type of people at all stations in life... from minimum wage all the way up through upper-middleclass... and I'm just tired of it. People get what they work for... and should work for what they get and that should be the end of it (with the above caveats of genuinely bad luck).

I know, I know... I'm just one data point and all that.... whatever. Go read some of the other comments around here and start to open your mind to the possibility that a good portion of our society is just too damn lazy (or deliberately slacking) to work for what they want/need. I know it's not a popular stance (especially around here), but that doesn't make it any less true.

At any rate... keep reading slashdot... but feel free to "foe" me! I'm not always on my soapbox, but it feels like lately someone needs to be...

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

To take it to extreme, in a 'free market' there is nothing to stop some asshole buying a nuclear weapon, then collecting 'protection' money from you and me.

Asshole with nuke (actually lots of nukes) CHECK!
Collecting "protection money" from you and me CHECK!

That sounds suspicously like the US government to me.

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Well... let's see.

I'm still in Grad school and as such we don't have much money right now (even though I did work my ass off in undergrad so I could get a good job that sent me away to Grad school and is paying me a stipend while I'm here... like I say work for what you want)... but my wife is still working on her degree.

Seeing as how we don't have much money we decided that she could do a lot of her classes at community college until we can pay for better. She has been going to CC for the better part of 3 years now (there was some break in there so she could work full time because she wanted to pay for a nice wedding [and both of our parents are fairly poor and couldn't help us out]... working for what you want... what a great idea!).

At any rate she has made many acquaintances along the way, whom I both get to meet and hear about.... and my (admittedly un-scientific) statistical sampling has led to the above conclusions.

Not too mention that I had lots of high-school friends who went down (are still going down?!?!) this same path...

Regardless of what your kid brother used to say... it _doesn't_ take one to know one. Just pay attention to the people around you...

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Troll? I don't know about that!

Flaimbait? Maybe. After re-reading my post it was obvious that I did use inflamatory phrasing... and I apologize for that!

At any rate... thanks to everyone for the good discussion! Now that this has dropped to 0 there probably won't be as much traffic.

It was good to see some people with supporting remarks... I wasn't expecting that! And the opinions that ran counter to my own generated several well thought out responses.

I enjoyed reading them all! And as I said in another post... don't let my ramblings turn anyone off from this site! Just "foe" me and move on ;-) Or don't... as I'm not always so preachy!

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[NoMaster]

That's a very interesting and astute post - not all of us are interested in making the proverbial million; we're more interested in making a nice happy rewarding life for ourselves - and if we can collect a few toys along the way, well that just makes it a little bit nicer ;-)

However, keep that in mind while together we jump forward to your third paragraph:

That process doesn't "push other people into poverty"...

Au contraire. Maybe not directly, but indirectly it does.

Y'see, the other side of this thing called "capitalism", sometimes mistaken for "the free market", is that the grower / manufacturer / supplier / vendor is tasked to charge what the market will bear - the market as a whole, that is, not the poorest in the market.

Take this as an example:
A grocery shop sells to 75% of the potential market, making an average of 40% profit. Would it make sense for them to reduce their profit to 10% in order to sell to 100% of the market? No way! And if the operators tried it, their backers/shareholders would run them out of town on a rail.

You might say "well, someone else could open up shop and corner that bottom 25% of the market - what a brilliant idea!". True, but in real life there are other near-insurmountable barriers to that. To pick one: your suppliers. Why would they supply to you over the bigger shop, at possibly less profit for them (and certainly higher admin costs per line/order)? They wouldn't; they'd stick to where the biggest profit is. To pick another: the other, bigger shop. Why wouldn't they lower their prices to match or beat yours, sure in the knowledge they can outlast your capital (and even possibly subsidising their temporary loss at that location with profits from other locations)? Now, all that is simplified - but, simplified or not, it's how it works in the real world.

So, while your initial attitude and premise is spot on - and, if people took heed of it, the world would be a much better place - your concluding attitude sucks. Worse than that, in your fourth paragraph, you descend into the usual "blame the victim" attitude which is a rampant disease in our society. You've read too much Ayn Rand, and not understood enough about (very basic) economics...

Re:It may be too late...

[michaelnz]

Yes, having children should be just another luxury only afforded to the rich.

Re:It may be too late...

[itchy92]

I read through most of this thread, and didn't seem to find anyone else that was up to the task, so I'll go ahead and take care of it here: you're an idiot.

Please don't take that as flamebait, but in your incredibly close-minded rant you fail to realize one very simple thing: class-division is a basic tenet of capitalism. There is no conceivable way to have everyone succeed; it is a sliding scale. If everyone "stops being lazy", "does better in high school" and pursues better jobs, then no one is left to do the minimum wage shit-work. That shit-work will ultimately have to raise its wages until it is appealing to some people. So now, instead of minimum wage jobs being $5.15/hr, they're $25.15/hr, but anyone not in a minimum wage job is making relatively more than that, so the cost of living slides up to compensate for that. The system is structured this way; there must be people in poverty who do the shit-work, because there must be a reason to strive for more. Capitalism is a wholly relative system; the quality of life would not go up a bit in such a scenario.

Suppose all the people making minimum wage decide to go study robotics, and they all build a fleet of robots to do shit-work. They have effectively put an end to people performing shit-work (by the way, I use this term affectionately; I recognize the importance and (sometimes) difficulty of minimum wage jobs), hooray! But wait, now the next lowest class of workers has slid down to becoming minimum wage, and their work is considered shit-work, oh noes! This is how it works. Perhaps as a race we'd advance much faster towards our flying-car-future if this cycle perpetuated, but there would still be people struggling to live, because the cost of living is tied to minimum wage.

Again, I'm not trying to be a name-calling dick in this post, but your statement comes off as so narrow-minded that it pisses me off.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

diet pepsi all over the monitor!

and my nose burns

LOL

Re:It may be too late...

[dbIII]

Hard work won't change that drugs are rampant, gangs rule the hallways, and you can't get a real education.

That is exactly what will fix it. Hard work is required to keep education going and to turn out students with a decent level of education, including english literacy in english speaking countries. The lazy way to do things is to just give up and excuse token efforts by teaching some sort of pidgin english called "ebonics" instead of giving the children the education they need to function well in society. The hard work needs to be carried out by those who are complaining about the poor - becuase the poor don't have the resources to fund schools themselves. Your tax dollars could build more jails and pay for increasing amounts of law enforcement or some of that could be used in education and infrastucture and reduce the need for more jails and a senseless waste of humanity.

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

So the only factor that should go into the decision to have a child should be that one is biologically able to make one? Having a child isn't a luxury it's a massive responsibility that requires money, effort, time, patience and basic common sense. Working minimum wage jobs elliminates or greatly limits your ability to provide most of those things. Intentionally having a child in that situation is irresposible and an injustice to your entire family.

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Rich? Why do people have to be either rich or poor around here?

Having children actually has nothing to do with _money_ in the strictest sense... but it has everything to do with your ability to provide the things necessary for your child... which in our society most often translates into money.

If you are living on a farm... and you grow your own food and can provide everything that's necessary for raising your child without any money at all... then that's great. The fact of the matter is, you're doing work by tilling the land and whatnot in order to provide for your child.... and the responsible thing to do is to make sure the land is fertile enough to provide for the child before you ever make one...

But that isn't the norm in our society. Most people in our society don't live on farms... and as such we work to make money to buy ourselves and our families the things we need/want. A responsible person makes sure that they can provide for another human being before creating one. You don't have to be _rich_! But if raising a family was your goal in life, then you should have made decisions along the way in order to make sure you had enough income to be able to provide for that family... anything else isn't being a responsible parent.

Further, expecting the responsible citizens in society to bail you out doesn't make any sense. Why should money that I make for my family be taken away and given to another family that wasn't responsible enough to do the right things along the way? It simply makes no sense... and further cements in people's minds that they aren't responsible for their own actions.

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[NoMaster]

Aw, c'mon, it's such a catchy phrase! And it makes the sayer feel soooo superior, as it he sits in his Aeron chair in front of his Dell computer, watches his Sony LCD TV, or drives his Chevrolet past all the sheeple at Wal*Mart on his way to the buy a new pair of pants at 'Fat-Arsed-And-Stupid'...

Re:It may be too late...

[save_the_fauna]

If the parents couldn't support children they should have made the right decisions and (gasp!) _not had kids_!

Perhaps they had hope for the future.

Nevermind the fact the economy requires that for every rich person you have many poor people. For every mansion you need people to clean, cook, garden, etc. For every city you need street cleaners, police officers, etc. For every mcdonalds you need a dozen people with mcjobs.

It is cruel to declare that those people have a responsability not to have children.

OT:

"Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment. It's been 35 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment"

This is absurd

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

I don't think someone working 2 jobs could be considered destitute... And how bad does someone have to screw their life up before you'd be able to blame *them* for it? Working 2 jobs... with a "family"... which they clearly have no time to spend with, as they are working 2 jobs... Sounds like poor planning and bad decision making to me... You can call me callous and ignorant... but I didn't drop out of school... I didn't have children before I could support and care for them... What is more ignorant, expecting people to take care of themselves or expecting others to take care of you? Systemic bad decision making entitles you to nothing.

Re:It may be too late...

[rts008]

"You really sound like an idiot when you do."

Name calling to support your little crusade does not add to the discussion, it detracts from it.
Get over it, our language changes, it's dynamic. New terms always pop up, old ones change their meaning with successive generations. You ranting about it will not change that. The USA version of the English language has traditionaly changed, mangled, misconstrued, and adopted words from a lot of different languages to get it to where it is today, and will probably continue to do so.

So, go away troll, and BTW, SHEEPLE! SHEEPLE! SHEEPLE! SHEEPLE! SHEEPLE! SSHHEEEEEPPLLE!!!

Re:It may be too late...

[Jeremi]

You don't know anything about me.

Actually, everyone who has read your last few posts knows quite a bit about you. And it isn't pretty.

Re:It may be too late...

[TekReggard]

I agree they shouldn't have kids, but I disagree on the minimum wage part. National Minimum wage, maybe, but state? No. Here in Washington our minimum wage is 7.63 an hour. Its nice, but not great for local costs of living. I mean just trying to find a one bedroom apartment [in my area] is going to cost you around 600$ a month. At minimum wage, PART TIME, thats just insane.

MOST of the companies out here start you out at minimum wage, and part time. That way they don't HAVE to give you benefits, so they don't. I had to get promoted, TWICE, to make more then 10$ an hour at my job, and another time to make it to full time. Otherwise, the guys still at the entry level when I got hired, are making... gasp... 30 cents more. They get TEN CENTS every year, if they're LUCKY. Thats the "maximum" raise. Talk about awesome right? They got MORE of a raise due to the state minimum wage going up based off inflation rates, than the company was willing to give them.

The CEOs of the corporation I work for are all making huge incomes I am sure. Our first quarter revenue was over a billion dollars. I think what the average person wants to know, seriously, is WHY do corporate leaders think its okay to make billions, pay their lower scale employees minimum wage, and themselves millions upon millions.

I mean look at Exxon. I LOVE the idea of a strong US Oil company stickin' it to the Mid-East. I DO NOT like the idea of them making 1300 dollars per second in profit, and not turning around and giving that to their customers/employees/communities. I mean seriously... 112 million dollars a day? Thats about $115 per US citizen per year. You could give every citizen of the US 100$ in groceries once a year.

Thats the kind of stuff people with lower incomes look at with disgust.

Re:It may be too late...

[EngMedic]

As my American History professor was so fond of saying, "The end result of free capatilism is not capatalism. It's monopoly."

Re:It may be too late...

[Jeremi]

Further, you completely ignore the point (and it's an important one) that it's the action of government itself, by creating the artificial monopolies we call "patents", that reduces competition and increases prices in this field.

I'm not sure that's true... the reason they invented patents was because otherwise every company would have to keep every invention a tightly guarded secret, or fall victim to cheap knockoffs. With patents, companies get a government-sponsored monopoly (for a limited time) in exchange for sharing their invention with the public. At the end of the patent period, the knowledge enters the public domain.

So patents don't create a monopoly so much as substitute one monopoly for another. Instead of a natural monopoly based on secrecy and lasting potentially forever, you get an artificial one based in law and lasting a fixed amount of time. Arguably this increases competition because (a) companies are able to build on each other's inventions, at least in the long run, and (b) companies can afford to develop products whose nature is not easy to keep secret, because they know they can make a profit on it before the patent expires.

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

"Perhaps they had hope for the future."

I have hope that there will be peace in the middle east... But I'm not going to buy real estate until I see some evidence of it.

"Nevermind the fact the economy requires that for every rich person you have many poor people. For every mansion you need people to clean, cook, garden, etc. For every city you need street cleaners, police officers, etc. For every mcdonalds you need a dozen people with mcjobs.

It is cruel to declare that those people have a responsability not to have children."

He was talking about people unable to support their own children... If you're working a mcjob... you have no business having children.. it's not fair to you or the child. Just because you want something (child.. car.. furniture) and have the means (biology, too much credit, rent-a-center) doesn't mean it's a responsible choice... ESPECIALLY when there's a tiny little defenseless human being hanging in the balance.

That's not to say that some exceptional individuals couldn't manage to work a mcjob and support a child I'm sure it happens... But in general I think that it should be a great big giant red flag in your decision making process.

Having a child when it's beyond your means is basically saying... "I want this so society should help me have it". That's BS.. I've worked hard to make the right decisions and forgo short term wants for long term stability.. why should I get stuck with your kids food bill?

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

"That's a very interesting and astute post"

Thank you... your post was also well struck.

I do see what you're saying with the grocery store selling to the upper 75% remark. I do agree that having a pool of people with the ability to pay more does limit the choices of the people who don't.

(Note, I'm going to use your statistics throughout... just to make things easy... I honestly don't know what the actual percentage of people who have been reasonably responsible yet still find themselves unable to buy milk actually is)

My first response is that there is no way around this... beyond instituting extreme socialistic policies which require everyone to be given the same allotment of goods/services. In our society there will _always_ be a lower 25% and taking money from the upper 75% and giving it to the lower 25% won't help the situation... and neither would raising minumum wage by a couple of bucks.

My second response is that in our society there are special provisions set aside just for the purpose of making sure that fairly responsible people that find themselves in the lower 25% can still get the basic necessities of life. This comes in the form of housing incentives, food programs, etc. I'm not talking about welfare or food stamps either... there are food programs which make common foods that are deemed "necessary" cheap enough for the lower 25% (you'll see a little sticker by them in your grocery store that says something like "WIPA Approved"... sorry I can't think of the actual acronym). In the same way there are _many_ different housing assistance programs that any well-intentioned person who finds themselves at the lower end of the scale can avail themselves of. No, these things don't pay for steak dinners or scenic views... but they do try to provide goods and services to the lower 25%.

My third response is that the irresponsible people in the lower 25% who have just made poor choices and are in the lower 25% because of them... well... I don't feel sorry for them. If the above mentioned programs aren't enough then that's not my problem. I realize that might sound cold... but you can't help everyone. There really are people in this world who are straight up leeching off society... they _know_ they are doing it... and they keep wanting more and more. It's this portion of the population that burns my ass.

I'm all about helping a fellow citizen who has fallen on hard times... like I said in another post... it could happen to any of us at any time. I just believe that the cases of an actual well intentioned person falling through the cracks is a statistical outlier compared to the number of people who are at the bottom because of their own poor decision making.

"you descend into the usual "blame the victim" attitude which is a rampant disease in our society"

I don't know about that. The most "rampant disease" I see in our society is the "blame everyone else but myself" disease. It's the one where people don't want to take responsibility for their own actions... and instead blame society. I think the rise in frivolous lawsuits bares out this general line of thinking fairly well...

And as for Ayn Rand... well, I just found out about her a couple of weeks ago (not exactly true... I have heard of Atlas Shrugged and a bit about it's basic premise, but I just found out more about her actual philosophical views recently)... and all of her books are already on my Amazon wishlist ;-) So while you were spot on that my thinking is very much in line with some of her writings... I haven't actually read anything of hers yet!

And sadly... yes, I haven't had as much economics as it sounds like you have. It's alarming that it's so apparent! ;-)

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[telbij]

You don't know anything about me. My parents both just barely finished high-school... they worked their asses off to give my sister and I what we had... but it wasn't much. _I_ worked my ass off to do better and rise above what my parents had done, and I hope to instill that same work ethic into my kids so they can continue to increase their quality of life. When all of my comrades in high-shcool were off getting drunk and making babies I was studying and making good grades so I could have the things I wanted in life... which is the way it should be...

You need to get the chip off your shoulder and stopping judging others. Just because you think you had it hard doesn't give you the right to judge a billion other people whom you know nothing about.

You also need to stop worrying about a vicious cycle that leads towards socialism. The natural order of things is that the rich increase their power and concentrate their wealth. Things like tiered tax rates and the minimum wage are checks on the ability of the rich to take complete control of society. We institute these things to create a stable society which benefits everyone. Your moral indignation about someone getting a handout is more of an emotional response than an actual threat to capitalism.

Re:It may be too late...

[Jeremi]

It's not impossible to find a decent paying job even without doing great in high school

.... in your town, at that time. The world is neither homogenous nor unchanging.

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

"Actually, everyone who has read your last few posts knows quite a bit about you."

Heh... you're probably right there ;-) I don't hold a lot of cards close to my chest...

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Yes... someone always has to be at the bottom... but I do believe that anyone who is serious about changing their station in life can do so through hard work.

You give an extreme example of all "shit-work" people simultaneously trying to better themselves... and not getting anywhere. The thing is that wouldn't ever happen. In my experience there are ample people all around us who are just fine with where they're at (or don't care to do the work to change it), these people will always be there.

My problem with people comes in when they are in the position they're in because of decisions they have made... but they want to blame everyone else in the world for it instead. My attitude is that no matter your position in life is you can always work harder (or smarter!) to rise above those around you.

Don't worry about calling me a dick... many others before you have done the same when this topic has come up. I know that I can sound a bit cold at times... I just wish people would take some responsibility for their own actions. Yes, there are sometimes events that are beyond our control... but I really do believe that any mostly responsible person with a good work ethic can/will get the things they need/want in this society.

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Do you agree that IF the antitrust laws are to be applied, the system also NEEDS patent/IP/copyright laws? (or else you end us with a stagnant Kraplikistan of middle ages)

Copyright at least is completely unnecessary. Patents may be as well, but their uses are significantly different from the uses of copyright that I haven't thought enough about them to say.

The reason why copyright is unneccessary is we are now at the point of societal development where distribution of information has zero marginal cost. Similarly, distribution of money could also have zero marginal cost, if we didn't have so much banking related legislation clogging up the tubes.

So, given zero cost to distribute information and zero cost to distribute money in return, it is entirely reasonable to expect a commission-based market for creative works to thrive. Just as the vast majority of white-collar workers and just about all blue-collar workers are paid for their work and not the end product, artists can be paid for the work of creating and not for the end product. And, just as the vast majority of white-collar workers and about all blue-collar workers are evaluated for FUTURE pay by the quality of the work they produce, so can artists.

Or, to put it more simply, artists are hired to produce "something" - a song, a painting, a movie, whatever. They are paid via a comission which is the sum of money paid into escrow in aggregate by all the people on the net who are willing to hire the artist. Artist releases the end result and collects the money. If the work sucks, he's going to have to accept a lower rate of payment for his next project. If it rocks, then he can expect to get a hire rate on his next project. If his work his popular enough, he may find the apparently contradictory situation where he can get a higher rate, and yet because his last work drew such a large audience that the number of new customers brings the average payment per customer down to less than what it was for the previous job. A win-win situation for all concerned.

This is true capitalism - private ownership of the means of production - the artist owns his own skills, time and equipment and sells their use for as much as the market will bear. No need for redefining information as property, property that is not a means of production but only the result of production and thus not really property under the definition of capitalism in the first place.

Patents can be different because they are not always a 1:1 translation into the end product. They may only be related to tools used, but not ever delivered to the customer. So there is a bit more to think about than there is for simple copyright. I tend to favor trade secrets over patents (trade secrets for which there are no laws enforcing their secrecy either, if you leak it, that's your problem, and you can't unleak it, you might sue the leaker, but that's it) but that's just a gut feeling, not one based on any analysis.

PS, I am beginning to think that companies like VISA and Mastercard are to electronic funds exchange as the MAFIAA are to electronic information exchange. They both have a vested interest in preventing society as a whole from realizing zero-marginal cost exchanges and have probably purchased pleny of legislation to keep themselves entrenched. I expect that VISA and MC are just the tip of the iceberg though.

Re:It may be too late...

[Mr_Tulip]

Talking crap when you have absolutely no idea is basically saying... "I am an ignorant selfish idiot who will tread over everyone else to get what I want". THAT'S BS... Everyone should have a chance to live the life they want, why should they live and work like slaves so that a privilged few can enjoy life's luxuries?

Re:It may be too late...

[Swordsmanus]

Yeah, that makes me think of the difference between me and my childhood friend. Both my parents have mental illnesses and don't make much. My dad's 40k in debt, and doesn't file his taxes, but sends a check to the IRS so they don't bug him. My mom's credit is ruined too. She's had over 20 extended manic episodes of bipolar disorder, and had to go to the mental hospital each time for 6+ weeks. Each episode included her not sleeping for 3-4 days in a row, increases in hallucinations, nonsensical speaking and yelling, harassment, and violence. And due to our financial situation, we couldn't send her to the hospital, because we couldn't afford it. We had to let her go nuts until she'd go out and do something so crazy that she'd get picked up by the cops, who would forward her to an institution. However my parents did the best they could to get the necessities and a little extra by skipping out on luxuries like air conditioning. I was taught to read at age 3, and encouraged to read and spend time on art before I started school. I busted my ass in school and passed up on alot of luxuries that my more well-off peers enjoyed, and saved money for college. My parents pushed me hard. Anything less than an "A" was failure and grounds for accusing me of being on drugs. In college, due to the tax situation with my dad, I couldn't get any financial aid from FAFSA. My university's scholarships are largely linked with FAFSA as well, so despite my 3.9 GPA (with the non-A's being in electives) I couldn't get any university scholarships beyond the entry scholarship I recieved for a great SAT score, despite applying for the general academic scholarship and others every year. So I had to work two jobs and once again, pass on luxuries that my more well off peers could afford due to their parents not being fucked in the head.

My friend on the other hand, had divorced, drug addicted parents who would bounce him around between the husband's custody, the wife's custody, and the custody of the grandparents on either side of the family. He never had a stable place to live, or a stable source of caregiving. When I would visit him (ages 7-10), we were not well fed, despite complaints. In most the places he had to live, there simply wasn't much food around the house or trailer. In some places there wasn't any food around the place of living because the people that lived there only ate out. My friend had a somewhat emanciated build and stunted growth until his late teens, when he got jobs at food places to both eat and pay for food. Not having sufficient nutrition in your formative years hinders your mental capabilities, a simple fact found by developmental psychologists. So it's not unexpected to me that while I did well in school, he did poorly. In highschool he got into drugs and dropped out. He then had a kid with his girlfriend at age 19 and broke up with her in less than a year later, so he's repeated the vicious cycle. I haven't spoken with him in years.

Now, a good chunk of why he's fucked over includes the choices he made. But part of it had to do with the situation he was born into. I had it worse than nearly all my peers, but he had it far, far worse than I did. I fully agree with you when you say that you have no sympathy for the parents...but for their children? The kids are wasted potential. You can say they shouldn't have ever been born in the first place, and I can see the reasoning. But it's not like the child chose to be born into that situation, or born at all for that matter. Some people get dealt a hand so shitty that there's little they can do about it, because so early on in their development they got screwed by lack of nutrition, secure emotional attachments, and other fundamental factors needed for healthy development as a human. Sure there are people like Oprah, who had a hard life but thrived anyway. However in her first six years her grandmother made sure she developed well, and taught her to read at age 3. Her dad also pushed her hard in her teens. She still had support and opportunities that many n

Re:It may be too late...

[Fizzol]

>It's never the people who are supposedly harmed by the low minimum wage crying for an increase

Good Grief!!

What planet do you live on? It's obviously not the same one I'm familiar with.

Re:It may be too late...

[mcrbids]

You should visit some public high schools in poor areas some day. Hard work won't change that drugs are rampant, gangs rule the hallways, and you can't get a real education.

I sure have. That's why I'm a proud and vocal advocate for alternative education. I've made a career of it, and I enjoy the altruism that my career affords!

Maybe you should go talk to real people that are poor. Two parents working two full time minimum wage jobs have trouble supporting a family. It may open your eyes that even though hard work can often result in success, for those in impovershied areas, or for those who are born with disadvantages or into a disadvantageous situation, hard work is necessary for survival, and that is often barely achieved.

There will *always* be those who don't make it. No amount of wealth or economic success can change that. What's important is to provide the "hooks" necessary so that the very poor can become the very rich if they set their minds to it.

You're the one that needs to get real and realize that not everyone is born with a bevy of opportunities, and it's not easy to succeed, even with hard work.

What you describe is the ideal, not the reality. Not everybody can be rich/successful. But the developed world has probably gotten closer to this ideal than at any other time in human history. Don't underestimate this achievement - not only is this the best time in human history in this regard, but if we don't preserve this civilization through it's many challenges, we may never again do so.

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Wow... thank you for the enlightening post!

Maybe I am overly harsh towards the children. My coldness only comes from the current state of our welfare system which, as I pointed out, tends to reinforce the anti-social behavior instead of lifting the children out of the loop.

Like you mention, I have no idea about what _should_ be done... all I know is that the current system sucks. It sucks for the children who are stuck in it... and it sucks for the tax payers who are paying for lazy parents to continue to make poor choices. The thought of giving even a single dollar to the people leeching off the system just boils my blood.

And the reason I make statements like I do is because I'm not convinced that giving them money so they can raise the next generation of leechers is better for the children and for the rest of society than _not_ giving them money. But, I guess I can see both sides of that argument (how could you just _ignore_ a child... even with all of my talk, I can't).

It also feels like the leechers and excusionists have started to overrun society to the point where people like me who just want what we work for, and want others to work for what they get are considered (as many other posters in this thread put it): Dicks.

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[adolfojp]

Minimum wage jobs are a necessity, whether the minimum wage is 5 bucks or 10. Do you really believe that society doesn't have a need for fry cooks, fruit pickers and Wallmart clerks? Those are required jobs that need to be filled, and if all of those employees decided to climb the economic ladder society itself would collapse and the standards would be set even higher.

As long as there is a need for low end jobs society itself must protect the low end employees from exploitation.

Thank god (whichever one you like) for the people that work the worst jobs so that we can enjoy our little piece of Utopian society. Pretending that those jobs don't have to be filled or don't need to exist is simply moronic.

Re:It may be too late...

[Vicissidude]

"I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

blah blah blah... whatever whatever whatever... yada yada yada... LEARN ENGLISH dot dot dot

Re:It may be too late...

[Vicissidude]

the problem is that by artificially propping up families that shouldn't have happened in the first place we are teaching the children that they don't have to make responsible decisions either.... because the government will bail them out. This creates a vicious cycle where people become more and more dependent upon the government... leading us toward a complete socialism. (Also note, that I don't necessarily think that socialism is bad... it's just not the society _I_ want to live in... and there are plenty of socialist societies to go around... so stop messing with my capitilistic society!)

Wow, you say that as if we're not the wealthiest society in the world. You say that as if there is a shortage of money and capital, where somehow we couldn't change the structure of our society such that people actually got paid a livable wage for an honest day's work. You say that as if corporations, which are completely undemocratic social structures, don't actually set the wage structure according to their needs of taking the profit employees earn and giving the CEO another million dollar raise. You say that as if corporations don't themselves participate in corporate welfare of IP, copyright, and patent controls, imported H1-B labor to subvert the labor force, tax breaks and giveaways, etc, etc.

From my point of view, we already live in a socialist society, one set up explicitly to benefit corporations.

If the parents couldn't support children they should have made the right decisions and (gasp!) _not had kids_! Responsible decisions? What the hell are those? It is not my job to go around and fix everyone else's problems because they weren't responsible with their lives.

And let's see, screw the parents and screw the kids that are already alive and kicking? Wow, that sounds familiar. Are you sure you're not quoting Charles Dickens? You sure sound a hell of a lot like Scrooge. Maybe they should just die and "remove the surplus population."

Re:It may be too late...

[mesterha]

I don't think you understood what the AC was saying. In today's society, we need these minimum/low wage earners to keep things running. That's how society is set up. Everybody can't train and get better jobs because there are so many necessary low skill jobs.

So given that these low skill jobs exist, do you think it's OK for our market economy to set their wages. Does the market take into account cost of living and social responsibility? Do you care. Why do you hate these people so much that you want to give them as little as possible. As the AC said, these low skill workers are the ones who actually do the work and keep this country running. You act as if they are the ones screwing us over. They are the ones doing the crappy low pay jobs that allow you to live your comfortable life.

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

In a 'free market' scenario, patents will still exist in that the Monopoly will have the power to enforce its own 'patents' without the help of the government. Agreed?

If one goes beyond the strict "free market" definition to include a government conformant with libertarian ideals -- trade secrets, yes; patents, no.

In that case, the middle-ground would be some antitrust regulations, with some very light patent/IP protections (to ensure the adequate return on R&D investment)?

The historical record with regard to whether patents promote or retard innovation is inconclusive. See http://web.mit.edu/moser/www/pat501.pdf -- which finds that rather than increasing the total amount of innovation, a patent system's primary beneficial effect is encouraging a wider variety of fields to be studied. There is evidence elsewhere that in several specific fields patents tend to retard innovation -- textiles is one of these, historically; I suspect strongly (but with a lack of experimental data) that software is another.

Anyhow, I'm not personally in favor of a libertarian paradise -- but I do think patents should be available only in those situations and fields where their presence promotes, rather than harms, the public welfare; and I think that the case in favor of patent protection in general, while persuasive, is frequently overstated.

Re:It may be too late...

[Razed By TV]

Maybe you can help me with this. I have a friend who is into slashdot, into hacking, into linux. He's even read 1984. He seems like the sort of person that would fit right in with this community.

However, he doesn't seem to understand why privacy is so important. I just don't get it. I tell him I shred my credit card apps, he scoffs at me like identify theft doesn't happen. He doesn't think its a concern when an organization loses a list with a bunch of people's names and contact information on it, because "All those people are in the phone book." It's nobody elses ****ing business whose name is on that list. Seriously, what the fuck? What can I say to this guy to give him a wake up call?

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

The interests of the top of the Fortune 500 are utterly irrelevant to me. The only concern I have is that my freedom as a citizen is not impeded by their pursuit of profit.

How does choosing to sell something I own at a higher price than you wish to pay impede your freedom as a citizen? How does this vary based on whether I am an individual or a corporation?

If I have a government-granted monopoly on that thing which I wish to sell (as is the case if, for instance, I hold a patent), then my choosing to sell that thing at an absurdly high price may indeed be against the public's best interests -- but had the government not granted me that monopoly, the threat of new competitors would force me to keep my prices reasonable. Further, even while such behavior would be against the public good, I hardly see how you can justify describing it as an infringement of your freedoms. (Obviously, natural monopolies are a corner case not covered here. I believe government regulation is appropriate in such situations -- but I'm more interested in understanding your beliefs regarding the common case than exploring this outlier).

Free market does not mean that corporate actors should be able to do as they wish to corner markets and raise prices.

A strict definition of a free market means that said market should be regulated only inasmuch as necessary to prevent fraud. To be sure, this is the strict definition rather than the more commonly used one -- but it's a valid definition nonetheless, and the one on which this discussion so far has been predicated.

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

The interests of the top of the Fortune 500 are utterly irrelevant to me.

On looking back, I think you completely missed my point.

The most profitable companies -- as exemplified by the Fortune 500 -- are those which target the sweet spot on the curve between price and units sold. Artificially raising prices so high as to sell only to a luxury market in cases where the mass-market segment is not already saturated with comparable goods reduces one's total profits, and so is not done by companies acting intelligently. It is even demonstrably stupid, because not one company taking this approach has landed itself near the top of the Fortune 500.

In short -- the idea of a company pricing a vital but cheaply-manufactured good out of reach of the general public is silly, because aiming for the luxury market when the mass market is not yet flooded is stupid: As demonstrated by the nature of those businesses on the Fortune 500 (which are, by definition, those which have done well for themselves), aiming for the mass market is The Right Thing even if acting only out of self-interest.

Re:It may be too late...

[Eye-of-Modok]

Of all places in the world, I feel happy as a clam in "Red" China, except for constant hassles circumventing the "Great Firewall of China." People here are amazed at my views against blind following of the agendas set forth by the oligarchies that control the world's largest governments, which in turn have nearly successfully consolidated all the little governments to create the first de fact world government - never mind it's done in the guise of trade agreements, debt "forgiveness", etc. In China, big government is all they know. All the "thinkers" here are eagerly embracing everything WTO, and I sometimes have to wonder... Has the US finally found another country to balance the power? Well, not for a good long while, that's for sure. With the EU in one corner, Africa in another, a dubious burgeoning alliance with India in the making, China has the potential to make a huge splash on the world scene, as long as they are willing to let the world walk all over them for a goodly while first. (Get cher slave labor here! Get it while its hot!) Twenty or thirty years from now, those who underestimated the sheer volume of Chinese influence will be wondering what happened. In the mean time, I live in a land where I can do pretty much anything I want without my neighbors looking over my shoulder or casting stones at me, eating great food for next to nothing. I do miss the beautiful clean streets of American suburbia sometimes though...

Re:It may be too late...

[Ginger Unicorn]

there's some fascinating stuff on this website:

analysis of the cause of the great depression

another explanation of how the US recovered from the depression

Re:It may be too late...

[tukkayoot]

It is important that low wage jobs exist, or it would be difficult to get that first job that lets you start climbing the ladder.

In a great number of low wage jobs, there is no ladder to climb.

It's never the people who are supposedly harmed by the low minimum wage crying for an increase,

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. I am a big advocate of raising the minimum wage and I don't make much more than the minimum wage at present. Since you haven't quoted a study or poll, or even personal anecdotes about the opinions of low-income workers that you've heard expressed, I must think that this comment is a product of pure delusion.

All those people want an expansion of the EITC instead.

Or they want to get rid of the income tax entirely and a person's assets instead.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think of at least one class you either didn't take or else slept through - American History. Go back and review that text again, especially the section on the Great Depression.

Re:It may be too late...

[SpacePunk]

Just bitch-slap him. You can't fix ignorance.

Re:It may be too late...

[Hercules Peanut]

Because everyone knows all the minimum wage jobs are the easy ones... Strawberry picking, aspalt laying, etc aren't hard at all


No, strawberry picking isn't hard, it's easy compared to learning how to apply statistical measures to processes to find improvements (I know, I've done both).

Sometimes laziness is defined by the choices people are willing to make not the physical effort required to do their job. Are (were) they too lazy to get an education? Are they too lazy to put the work in necessary to lift themselves up?

My wife is a school teacher of many years and she has never said that a child was too dumb to do well in school but many times too lazy.

Hard physical labor is easy compared to the effort of building yourself into something better and more desirable to employers. I'm sure we've all seen our friends or high school classmates take the easy way out and not study, not work, not use their minds. I don't care if they do lift more than me everyday, they can still qualify as lazy.

Your example of some public high schools in poor areas doesn't quite hold either. All it takes is one success story to demonstrate that it CAN be done. If it CAN be done (through a lot of hard work, no doubt) then you need to look at the real cause for why it isn't done every time. The best private school in our city (considered one of the best in the country) spends almost exactly the same amount of money per student that our abysmal public school system (considered one of the worst in the country) does on theirs. MONEY IS NOT THE ANSWER! Repeat that with me, please. MONEY IS NOT THE ANSWER. That goes for our social issues as well.

Oh, and don't confuse "hard jobs" with "undesirable jobs". Just because a job is undesirable doesn't mean its worker isn't lazy. I worked hard for MANY years to ensure that I wouldn't have to lay "asphalt" for a living.

Re:It may be too late...

[Xyrus]

10% of the population controls 90% of the wealth.

When you think of it that way, it should really come as no surprise.

~X~

Re:It may be too late...

[jamesshuang]

I think you have a slightly skewed view of the world. My hometown sounds very much like yours - you literally can't go anywhere without seeing help wanted signs. The issue is, the place is probably completely inaccessible except via car, and the cost of a car CLEARLY puts you out of reach of these jobs.

After I came to college, I moved from rich suburbs to what amounts to the slums. Baltimore, specifically by Johns Hopkins, is NOT a rich area. Most of the people here are probably on welfare. The first thing I noticed though, was that almost ALL of the jobs are associated with the school. None of the stores had "help wanted" signs. There were no jobs. I think the only thing keeping the area alive was the school, who was basically handing out all sorts of low-wage jobs to students and to the residents alike.

I admit that some people are REALLY lazy. They avoid work at all costs to continue working at low wage jobs. However, some people here simply don't have that option. The only job they CAN work at, no matter how hard, is the low-wage, low-raise job that you currently hold, and if you don't want that job, there's 30 other people in line for it.

Re:It may be too late...

[houghi]

If you want to make more money do better in High School.

Let us asume that somehow your great idea catches on and everybody studies hard to get the great education. Who will serve your fries then? There are X amount of jobs and no matter how much people study and educate, there will be X amount of jobs.

Re:It may be too late...

[rawb]

Sounds like poor planning and bad decision making to me...

Poor planning right now? Perhaps. But once they make abortion illegal again, it becomes an accident that you have to pay for for the rest of your life. And if you think abortion rights aren't being chipped away at, why are we passing laws that make it illegal to carry minors across state lines to get abortions?

Re:It may be too late...

[iminplaya]

How are their voices not heard? How are our voices not heard?

Because you don't speak up as one. You're all fighting each other. Divide and Conquer, works every time. When comes to election time, you all still vote mainstream, supporting the status quo. You're afraid of change. It could get worse. Better to work with the devil you know. You accept these things, when you should reject them out of hand. You act instinctively. You follow the herd, giving Microsoft 95% of the market. Don't make waves. Don't rock the boat. We still have cable. What's the problem? There's always a bag of weed or coke around the corner, any corner. Easier to get than a beer after hours. Turn on and tune out. That's how they deal. And take solice that it's all perfectly natural. It can't happen any other way. The universe has a fixed set or rules, and we haven't broken a single one, and we're not about to anytime soon.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but neither strawberry pickers or asphalt layers make minimum wage.

In fact construction type work (like road work) typically pays better than $12 an hour.

Re:It may be too late...

[bogjobber]

We implemented socialistic programs that didn't really help with the depression and arguably made it worse (World War II is what got us out of the depression, not the New Deal).

That is a ridiculous oversimplification of what happened. Just like there were many factors that caused the Great Depression, there were many factors that ended it. The economy steadily improved (even taking into account some heavy downturns) after the low point of the depression (which generally correlates to the time Roosevelt came into office). The military/industrial jobs that the war provided didn't have a large effect until 1942, long after the depression is considered to have "ended".

Re:It may be too late...

[Shihar]

Big brother is not controlling your life. You can basically do and say what you want these days without any worry that anyone gives a shit. That goes double and triple if you live in New York. The best you can say is that Big Brother is watching you. Big Brother is paranoid because we live in a time when a handful of nuts can kill tens of thousands.

Iraq is a perfect example. The number of fighters compared to the number of civilians is a very small ratio. Despite this, a handful of fighters have been able to kill tens of thousands. Further, these fighters are not even a formal army, just a bunch of poor Joe Nobodies with access to explosives. The fighters in Iraq are hardly the worst that can happen. In Iraqi fighters have not yet armed themselves with truly horrific weapons like the infamous "WMDs".

My guess is that the US government (and many other governments) are terrified that someone is going to get a hold of a real weapon and employ it. The consequences of a nuclear bomb going off in New York are too horrific to even contemplate. Forget the lives lost (which would be in the tens or hundreds of millions), but the economic and political impact would be world shattering.

Even if the US didn't respond to a nuclear attack militarily, the economic damage would be almost immeasurable. The economic damage would not just send the US into a deep depression, but it would drag the entire world with it. We are talking about Great Depression style depression that hits every corner of the Earth. The damage to the economies could take decades to repair, massively cut life expectancy all around the world, and in general do very bad things.

That isn't even the worst of it.

The US wouldn't take the nuking of New York kindly. Nukes would reign down somewhere else in the world - sure as shit. US troops would invade, the draft would be called up, and the world remember what it was like when nations fought total war where civilian casualties meant absolutely nothing. No laser targeted bombs and silk gloves trying to put nations back together. We are talking about B-52's carpet bombing cities flat so that when troops move in there is nothing over 3 feet tall to hide behind. It doesn't matter who is the president at the time. The US will scream out for blood and no US president, democrat or republican, will deny them.

The Western world is in a tough spot and I am sympathetic with their concerns, even if I am leery about their methods. They understand the consequences of failure. Ratcheting up surveillance is the only thing they can think of to defend themselves without true Big Brother / USSR style changes in society. I imagine they think of it as, better to watch the people and let them remain free in action, rather then to clamp down securely in ways that would require the tossing of the constitution. I think they have picked between the lesser of two evils.

Doom and gloom aside, the world is not such a bad place yet. There was a protest outside of the Israeli embassy a week or two ago. These protestors might be in a government database somewhere, but I doubt they have vanished. I particularly like the "Islam Will Dominate" sign that has a picture of the White House with a black flag on top of it.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=2164 7_Terror_Supporters_Turn_Out_in_US&only

Re:It may be too late...

[FloodSpectre]

"let people work for what they're willing to work for. If the work and pay suck then people will try to do better... and if they're too lazy to do better then that's their own damn problem."

No, this would never work. If I ask for more money at my job, I'm ignored. If I make any noise in the matter to anyone I can't trust, I'm out of a job and replaced despite my experience. People at my job go years without raises (and no adjustments based on min-wage changes), and not because they never speak up or don't deserve it.

We'd all happily quit and find new, better paying jobs with bosses who'll listen to our concerns... but we can't. No one's hiring, and no one wants to pay you "what you're worth". So we're all stuck here, really.

Re:It may be too late...

[fatboy]

Things like tiered tax rates and the minimum wage are checks on the ability of the rich to take complete control of society.

How does that work, exactly? Do they give the money directly to the "poor" or do they distribute it to other "wealthy" people who compete against the very "wealthy"?

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

I can be compassionate for those in need and still be pissed off about those who believe their mere existance entitles them to my effort and consideration. I support charity and being neigborly and having a society where we do unto others... But people who think it's owed to them... scum of the earth... and being forced at gun point to give charity is no charity at all.

Thanks for the dickens though... If I had to pick a character to model myself after.. it would probably be Scrooge.... PRE ghostly encounter.

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

Abortion isn't the only option... Although I do oppose the goverments involvement in it.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could, you know, not have sex if you can't afford the consequences. Allow me to give you an example from my own life. Back when I first started living on my own with my wife, I made about $8 and she made about $7. Not exactly a whole lot of money and certainly not something that you can easily raise a family off of. At times (because she could not work for one reason or another) we did not have the money to afford any forms of birth control. You know what we did during those times? Didn't have sex. Having a kid is NOT an accident. It's a concious choice you make and if you can't afford the consequences of your choice, you should not be making that choice.

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

"Talking crap when you have absolutely no idea is basically saying"

dude... I'm the only one making real arguments here... your one liners and personal insults don't really qualify as saying anything at all... you're spewing propaganda with out even attempting to provide an original thought or back up your view point. but your bleeding heart leaders would be proud that you're getting all the good talking points in there "ignorant selfish idiot", "work like slaves", "privileged few", "live the life they WANT"... the brain washing is going quite well... 2+2=5....

"I am an ignorant selfish idiot who will tread over everyone else to get what I want"

You don't know anything about me... I'm no ignorant idiot... but I do cop to selfish... I want my life to be the best it can be... interestingly enough... that involves those around me... so I donate to local charities and contribute to my community in a positive way... I'm polite to people and lend a hand when I'm asked.... because doing what is best for me is also what is best for the community... Just because I'm not willing to rip out my own heart and hand it to the first drunk on the street I see... doesn't mean I don't care about people and their general welfare... I WANT people to have babies.. I WANT people to get better jobs... but I DONT OWE IT TO THEM!!!!

Everyone does have "a chance to live the life they want"... Merely existing doesn't entitle you to live whatever life you dream up in your head... Hard work does... a handful of people get lucky and are born into a better situation than others... but tough shit.. humans are not created equal... but we all have opportunities if we look and work for them.

Re:It may be too late...

[Winlin]

Just a quick 'fyi' to your post...the foods you have seen marked are most likely WIC approved. This is a program that subsidizes certain foods for mothers and children under five.

Re:It may be too late...

[Blakey Rat]

I think the submitter is paranoid, and most of the people who post to Slashdot (at least in stories like this) are paranoid, and that this story is pretty much just dumping gasoline on the flames.

I mean, hell, probably half the people here think that RFID tags are going to start beaming the brand of their underwear to airport metal detectors. They're JUST BARCODES! Christ.

Re:It may be too late...

[roman_mir]

To take it to extreme, in a 'free market' there is nothing to stop some asshole buying a nuclear weapon, then collecting 'protection' money from you and me. - that's mighty stupid. Free market does not imply a society without any government. That would be my preference though, but I am a libertarian/anarcho capitalist, who would cheer if a free-market appeared and some asshole had legality of buying a nuclear weapon. I would be that asshole. But see, if there was no government and everything was totally possible, as long as there was money, than nothing would have prevented anyone else from buying a nuclear weapon.

There is nothing to stop GSK from patenting antibiotics as a concept, then charging $10,000,000 per pill. - who would care about patents, copyrights, trademarks and all that protection nonsense in a free-market? Patents would mean nothing.

--

Imagine if there was some sort of a tool, that emmitted radiation that forced the entire world into 'free-market' state of mind. That would be something. Complete and constant competition in every segment of the market, totally fair and balanced prices on the very edge of profitable.

Theoretically in this situation noone would have any extra money at all, everything would be completely spent at all times. However, someone would come up with an idea of credits. THEN the system would rebalance itself. It is all about CREDIT that screws up the free market idea. Once there are credits, there are banks, there are large accummulations of money, there is a possibility of one entity growing very large and forcing everyone else out of the market, out of all markets one by one. It would be possible for this entity to do so, because due to credits it could survive below the edge of profitability, unlike other small players.

Even if more than one super-player appeared in this market, they would merge or fight until there is only one.

I think that balance in a free-market can only be maintained by regulations, unnaturally, and this is the tragedy of free-market, it is completely unstable due to various unforseen inventions, like the credit. I think all systems, no matter which one you chose lead to one single outcome:

A market with only 1 player. One government, one business, one corporation, one conglomerate. The world will be dominated by the one. That is unless there is regulations to enforce that this does not become a reality, but basically, once globalization starts, it will lead to that state of one.

And it doesn't matter which road you take: socialism, capitalism, communism, dictatorship, or a religion-centric system. It all converges to one.

The only balance against this in our real world, is that there are all of these systems fighting each other. As long as there are seperate people, they will want this 'one' to be their 'one' and so they will wage wars that will split the world into pieces. The wars are the balancer of the world. Wars and revolutions.

Once there are no wars and no revolutions, the 'one' will dominate.

Re:It may be too late...

[roman_mir]

You and your friend should not have been born. The society should not have allowed your parents to mate. That's my take on your story.

Re:It may be too late...

[Blakey Rat]

So you're saying that using "sheeple" is desirable (apparently, it's not name calling according to you), but using "idiot" is not?

For what it's worth: I agree. "Sheeple" is the worst possible word you could use. It's the "start ignoring this person" indicator when you're debating... like somebody spelling Microsoft with a dollar sign, it indicates that they are so close-minded that they'll never budge on any of their views, no matter how idiotic.

Re:It may be too late...

[Logic and Reason]

...a single strongman will fuck up the playing field for everybody by assimilating, subjugating, and repressing everyone else (while getting even stronger in the process).

You mean like the government? Isn't that exactly the topic we're on right now? It's either the strongman you fear or the one you make yourself, and frankly I'd rather take my chances.

Yes, the free market is the best possible scenario, except that human nature being what it is, the market will quickly degrade into something horrible if completely uncontrolled.

Even if that were true, then the relevant question would be whether a statist system is likely to resist such degradation longer than an anarcho-capitalist one. I'm not going to try to answer that question now (though you can guess my thoughts on the matter); I just want to point out that your argument cuts both ways.

Re:It may be too late...

[friedmud]

Ah, thanks... couldn't remember.

Friedmud

Re:It may be too late...

[Darby]

(Also note, that I don't necessarily think that socialism is bad... it's just not the society _I_ want to live in... and there are plenty of socialist societies to go around... so stop messing with my capitilistic society!)

Well, that's really the heart of the problem right there.
We do not live in a capitalistic society. We live in a fascist corporate-welfare state.Until you can realise that simple basic fact, you won't really be able to address the issue rationally.

This doesn't mean that minumum wage laws and the like are the answer, but it does mean that until that fact is addressed in an effective manner that the problems that corporate welfare creates will continue and increase.

Re:It may be too late...

[Swordsmanus]

Thanks for your perspective!

Re:It may be too late...

[Omestes]

I doubt its as bad as you make it out, though there still is a problem, I don't think it critical.

The solution probably comes through activism, and education. If people (the poor few who care enough to vote) would stop voting for who/what ever the television tells them to vote, and actually vote from their convictions and goals. This requires education, and a developed sense of agency, the former is now hampered by plummeting budgets, drugs (not crack, Ridalin), inept teachers of the blindly liberal touchy feely type. And the latter is hurt by our increasing commercial conditioning as good consumers (where thinking is bad).

We need more opinions, loud ones, in the idea market (not the internet, since there is little oppurtunity to reach those not already agreeing/searching for x opinion). We need more angery (educated) liberals pressing their agenda, more educated conservatives, and more educated libertarians/greenies/or what ever else fringe alt views can raise their voice in an adult manner. Debate brings abuses to light, and our avatars of debate (the big media) is broken, hence the need for a real grassroots action (again, not online).

People need to get over their petty ideological distractions (I don't like Bush, but I voted for him since he won't take my guns away/allow abortion/etc). The problems are three-fold:

The government has dilluded itself to thinking its an end in itself
Religion is breeding morons distracted from the problems of the here and now
And Corporations are gaining more and more control over our lives (via culture/government and technology)

The solution to these issues... Hell if I know. Probably getting pissed off and doing something about 1 or all of them, instead of whining on online forums.

I am an optimist though, I think perhaps our grandchildren will be mad enough to fight, our children are lost already, and we are pretty much useless.

Re:It may be too late...

[roman_mir]

anytime.

Re:It may be too late...

[Weedlekin]

"I think what the average person wants to know, seriously, is WHY do corporate leaders think its okay to make billions, pay their lower scale employees minimum wage, and themselves millions upon millions. "

Because we let them do it. If everybody simply refused to work for or buy from companies who behave that way, or their employees (who vastly outnumber the bosses) hauled the entire board of directors out of their plush offices and lynched them, then you can be pretty sure that things would change very quickly indeed. But because we are basically a bunch of spineless pussies who do nothing more extreme than whine about things we don't like, the industry fat cats can shaft us any way they please in the full knowledge that we'll just come back for more.

Re:It may be too late...

[Nyall]

By taxing the "wealthy" more and taxing the "poor" less lets the "poor" keep more of their own money. So its indirectly giving money to the "poor"

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew this would come up (it always does). I have absolutely _zero_ sympathy for either the parents or the children in this case. If the parents couldn't support children they should have made the right decisions and (gasp!) _not had kids_!

Because, you know, people always plan on having two kids and then promptly loosing their job. They not only predict when times are tough, they jump into the jaws of tribulation with gleeful abandon. "Hey, honey, we're going to loose our modestly-paying jobs in a few years, why don't we REALLY make life hard on ourselves and have a couple of kids while we run up a few hundred thousand in debt?"

Not every one of those who are below the poverty line chose to be there by way of irresponsible action.

You don't know anything about me.

I certainly don't, and I don't give a damn. You worked hard -- great! Good for you! What about when you get fired/downsized, the economy turns to shit, your investment portfolio gets enron'd, debtors start to claw at your door, you end up paying alimony/child support because your spouse divorced you, and/or any of a hundred other things that (gasp!) arise from no fault of your own! Except maybe the divorce part.

As a citizen of perhaps the richest and most fortunate nation on the planet, you deserve a chance at a good life, and a safety net when things go so utterly south that you find yourself impovershed through no fault of your own. Honestly, I don't think anyone will argue against the fact that hard work should be rewarded. It's what defines the criteria for being eligible for the safety net that we're getting hung up on. Unless you have a hell of a lot more faith in the economic system than any sane person should have. Shit Happens, and sometimes bad things happen to good people.

And if you say you don't feel there should be a safety net, then you're a liar. Keep telling yourself 'This is the way it should be' if you, Responsible Well-Educated Man, are scraping together coins in order to pay that week's heating bill. Get out of the silver-lined world and learn how far too many hard-working real people are living, and you'll see. And if you can't, hell, forget about it. I sure as hell hope you can, since otherwise that's that kind of selfish dick who would sell out their entire community for a quick buck. They equate a person's wealth with their worth. Nothing wrong with working hard to live well; something wrong with thinking that's all there is.

Re:It may be too late...

[Moofie]

Specifically talking about life-saving medications, it's not POSSIBLE to have a free market. See AIDS medicines. Either you pay the $100-1000/month, or you die. Don't have insurance? Live in Africa? Tough. It's a free market, and you're free to die in the street.

"the idea of a company pricing a vital but cheaply-manufactured good out of reach of the general public is silly"

I think Nike should be allowed to charge basically whatever they want for shoes. There are plenty of shoe manufacturers for me to choose from. Likewise cars...charge what you like. If I don't like the price, I'll go elsewhere.

However, when a market player is big enough to control access to the market, it isn't a market anymore. See Microsoft, Monsanto, and the drug companies.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously no one can pick their parents
Even if DYFS replaces the parents, the child will not pick the foster parents

The issue at hand is the second half of your statement (The non-inflammatory part of your argument)

What business does the government have giving out resources like food and education for free?
Do you not think someone, somewhere pays for this?

I am continually amazed at the level of argument here on Slashdot.

Good day.

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

Specifically talking about life-saving medications, it's not POSSIBLE to have a free market. See AIDS medicines. Either you pay the $100-1000/month, or you die. Don't have insurance? Live in Africa? Tough. It's a free market, and you're free to die in the street.

Why are these medications so expensive? Because government regulation (such as patent laws) prevents 3rd parties from entering into competition to reproduce them. Eliminate the government's involvement and market forces come back into play. Natural monopolies exist, but pharmaceutical production is an artificial one.

Even if this weren't true, I don't see why it is a personal-liberties concern. The claim that health care is a natural right (despite enshrinement by UN declaration) is as ridiculous as the claim that food is a natural right. While artificially depriving an individual of food (by removing their freedom to contract for said resource or receive it as a voluntarily-provided gift) is an obvious abridgement of rights, I do not trample on the rights of the beggar on the street when I refuse to give him my meal -- and to lay some imperative on me to do otherwise would be an abridgement of my own freedoms.

However, when a market player is big enough to control access to the market, it isn't a market anymore. See Microsoft, Monsanto, and the drug companies.

Operating system software is a natural monopoly, like electricity distribution. Monsato and the pharmacos, on the other hand, have artificial monopolies -- they would not hold monopoly powers if the government had not granted it to them.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, so tell us how you'd go about marketing antibiotics as a luxury item.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still think you should realize the number of people that you take advantage of economically in order for you to get those things like air conditioning and television.

How many third world farmers survive with just bare subsistence? Their food enters the market at a low price because they get paid the absolute minimum; it would not be able to pay them any less without them being unable to raise up the next batch of slave farmers. Yet you still buy food from this market.

You may say that you play by the rules of the system, so its all fair. But people are born into this system without their consent. These people didn't choose to be born as slaves yet you still get their commodities at prices which suit you, but do not exactly suit them; at least, it doesn't supply them with anywhere near the money that would let them live at your standard of living. You may say that you work hard so you deserve a car and everything, but how could you say that a Chinese rice farmer in some part of Hunan doesn't work harder than you? The GDP per capita in Hunan is 8380 yuan. That's 1,050 american dollars. And you can bet the average rice farmer makes less than that. What do you want him to do about? He can't go to school; he couldn't afford it. He can't form some independent union; he'd be shot by the secret police. He has no choices, he makes just enough to keep himself alive.

I'm not saying you have the power or responsibility to stop world poverty or something, but how can you justify saying you deserve such and such luxury, when most of the world toils in pain? You may work hard, but it doesn't matter how hard you work if the system isn't set up for you to be able to live comfortably. You should be thankful you have what you have because you're by and far on the better end of things. Sure, there's lots of people much richer than you, and they don't produce anything. What about guys who make money off of central bank shares? Treasuries just print more money and they get a cut. They don't do anything, they just sit around and get money handed to them because they are at the top of the system. Or any owners of banks which have fractional reserve banking. They just inflate the money supply and get a little cut of it. No risk, no work, just pure money, money which buys them the labour of the guys on the opposite end of the spectrum, indentured farmers who work for subsistence. But you're closer to the banker than to the farmer.

Re:It may be too late...

[*s.panzer*]

"I'm so damn tired of this crap... people need to take responsibility for their lives..."
Yes.

"30 Million People live on minimum wage because they are too lazy to do anything else."
No.

"Seriously... anyone over the age of 18 that is still making minimum wage has made a conscious decision to just sit on their asses."
Sorry, wrong.

"I don't think there should be _any_ minimum wage at all..."
Okay. In a world where employers actually care about their employee's welfare and health, yes. But you're still wrong.

"If the work and pay suck then people will try to do better..."
Who does their jobs then?

Re:It may be too late...

[Mr_Tulip]

"Merely existing doesn't entitle you to live whatever life you dream up in your head... Hard work does..."

Absolutely. What about if I work 40 hrs per week at minimum wage? As it stands, I am likely to be living well below the poverty line, and this is what bothers me. Currently, only about 5% of people in the US are living on minimum wage, but the number is increasing, and the gap between minimum wage and minimum living wage is also increasing. This means more and more people cannot, and according to you, should not reproduce.

Any civilisation that makes it impossible for a large percentage of their population to reproduce is unsustainable. And don't forget that educated, well-off individuals are much less likely to enter long term relationships, have fewer kids, and have them much later in life. There are many reasons why this is very bad, especially combined with the fact that people are living longer than ever, with increased medical costs the older you get.

Re:It may be too late...

[hunterkll]

Barcodes that can be read by any passerby and possibly by long range without your consent or knowledge...

Re:It may be too late...

[alshithead]

Someone has to clean the toliets. That's a shitty job (pun intended). If they are willing to do it and do it well, why shouldn't they earn enough to live on? They would probably be happy to live in a studio apartment and put food on their table and maybe have some reasonable access to health care. Why do you assume they are lazy? Because they are not smart enough or well educated enough to be able to get a better job? That doesn't mean they are lazy. Your prejudice is showing strongly. Didn't you ever have a menial job when you entered the workforce or did mommy and daddy give you everything? Did you even have a job in high school? Personally, my first legal job was at McDonald's at the ripe age of 14. My first non-legal job at the ripe age of 12 was at pet shop cleaning shit in order to be able to pay for things my parents wouldn't/couldn't...that doesn't include my paper route which I did at the same time. That wasn't under the table. I made the most of my public education and paid for my higher education by doing menial jobs. Of course I'm lucky, I had the IQ to be able to benefit from post high school education. Not everyone else is. Just because they aren't doesn't mean they are lazy and certainly doesn't mean the jobs they work are worthless.

This ended up being a much nicer post than I felt so I'll say this in closing...YOU are an arrogant fuck.

Re:It may be too late...

[Trifthen]

I don't think someone working 2 jobs could be considered destitute...

And that is what this all really comes down to. As intelligent, successful, and hardworking as you may be, you lack perspective. Let me tell you a story; don't worry, it's short.

When my mom became pregnant with me and word got out, her boyfriend vanished one night, never to be heard from again. Sure, she managed to raise me while working two, sometimes three jobs and living in trailers or bad neighborhoods. We got by, barely sometimes, thanks to the kindness of people she befriended. One year, the only reason we had a christmas was thanks to her boss donating various canned goods and a turkey to us, because she respected my mother's work and hoped the best for us. It was a hard and thankless way to live, and I resented it. Maybe the only reason I worked so hard to get an IB diploma in High School and finish college was to ensure my escape from such a meager existence.

No matter what anyone thinks of my mother, whether or not she was lazy or bad at making decisions, why was I saddled with the consequences of her actions? What did I do to deserve eating canned beets between visits to the grocery store?

Regardless of what your experience has led you to believe, there are situations where no amount of resolve or skill can bring relief. Whatever suffering my mother earned for herself fell upon me as well, and that's partially why we have social programs in the first place. Now I'm a successful DBA and have little concern over finances, but then I had no outlet but to survive for the next day.

I know, the "it's for the kids," argument is old and played-out, but sometimes overused arguments have a sliver of truth behind them.

Re:It may be too late...

[alshithead]

Thank you for an intelligent reply and not claiming all of the minimum wage earners are lazy. I agree with most of what you said except a couple of items. More than half of them ARE old enough to vote. And, minimum wage is not a heart string issue. It is about adults who can't afford to feed, house, and get medical care for themselves because the important jobs they do don't pay enough. Politicians beholden to big business interests are the last ones to consider minimum wage issues. Why in the world would they ever push for higher wages when their election financial resources come from businesses who want a minimum wage that is as low as possible? I think we as group here at Slashdot often forget that we (well most of us) are at the top rung in IQ, education, and abilities. There are many who just are not as capable and never will be. That's why they end up cleaning toliets. Just because they aren't able to function at our level doesn't mean they shouldn't have the basic necessities of food, shelter, and health care.

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

destitute means:

1. Utterly lacking; devoid: Young recruits destitute of any experience.
2. Lacking resources or the means of subsistence; completely impoverished.

as bad as it sounded for you... you weren't destitute.

That's a sad story... but it has a happy ending.. I didn't see you mention government programs helping you out... your mom worked hard to provide for you and you not only got out of the situtation you became a successful and educated person...

I'm not going to pass judgement or pretend to know anything about your moms situation... But could she have done better for herself if she'd made better decisions? not having a child so young... not hooking up with a guy who might run out on her... staying in school... joining the army... It's not like fate or "god" decided she was going to end up in that tough spot... it was a long road to get there and a long road to get out.

It's sad that there is suffering in the world... especially when there are children involved.. but the worst possible answer is government programs and charity by gunpoint (same thing). minimum wage causes explosive illegal immegration, fewer jobs and a higher cost of living for everyone... welfare causes systemic laziness and teaches people how to survive by exploiting the system and in turn exploiting their neighbors. We can help eachother out (and do!) without the government getting involved.. all they do is steal our money, hire idiots and make the life more complicated.

I've never been homeless or even close to it.. but I've known people in a situtation not far from what you describe and I think my perspective is just fine.

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

"Absolutely. What about if I work 40 hrs per week at minimum wage? As it stands, I am likely to be living well below the poverty line, and this is what bothers me. Currently, only about 5% of people in the US are living on minimum wage, but the number is increasing, and the gap between minimum wage and minimum living wage is also increasing."

I'm not sure where you got the 5% number or the fact that it's an increasing number.. But I'll take your word for it.. If you're only working 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job... I'll contend you don't care about making your life better... work two jobs... save up for some night classes... learn a skill in your off time.. 40 hours a week at a minimum wage job is a stepping stone to something else.. not the end of the road... and if it is the end of the road.. you CERTAINLY shouldn't be having children as you hardly have the motivation to live your own life, much less help someone else live theirs... Is that even debatable? I'd love to hear a counterpoint.

As to the high "living wage".. I attribute that directly to the fact we have a minimum wage and various other ill-conceived public programs.

"Any civilisation that makes it impossible for a large percentage of their population to reproduce is unsustainable. And don't forget that educated, well-off individuals are much less likely to enter long term relationships, have fewer kids, and have them much later in life. There are many reasons why this is very bad, especially combined with the fact that people are living longer than ever, with increased medical costs the older you get."

large percentage? 5% on minimum wage? lets call it 15%... what percentage of those are too young to have children, too old to have children, no desire to have children, no partner with which to have children or on their way to something better at which time they plan to have children... I think alot.... so even if there's 5% of the population living in poverty that would like to have children... I think that's pretty damn low... and in reality, I think it's probably lower than 5%.

again... If you can't help yourself, I have no interest helping you have a child.. it doesn't make sense.... you probably couldn't do even a marginal job of raising the child anyway if you can't get yourself out of poverty.

Re:It may be too late...

[Trifthen]

I didn't see you mention government programs helping you out... your mom worked hard to provide for you and you not only got out of the situation you became a successful and educated person...

I didn't mention it, because it went without saying. We were frequently on welfare, food stamps, and I always had reduced lunch at school. Every time we dipped below her ability to pay the bills, that was our last resort. She told me that being on welfare made her feel like a failure, and even working multiple jobs and having no life was a better fate.

Sure, I'm successful, but only through my own abilities and latent genetic predisposition. I score well into the "genius" range in IQ tests, so while I'd like to credit some kind of work ethic, I can't. What about the "normal" people out there who can't get by without parental involvement or guidance? I'm fairly certain that a child incapable of raising itself in my situation would have been SOL. As good as my mom was at keeping a roof over our heads, that's all she was good for. How can you raise a child you never see, because you're always at work?

And while I'd like to continue this conversation, your response shows you missed the entire point of my first response. This is not a what-if game: it's reality. What if many men weren't worthless pieces of shit with little responsibility for their actions? What if she didn't come from an abusive household? What if she didn't give birth to a child with multiple severe heart defects that required yearly followup from congenital specialists (the only reason I'm even alive!) without insurance? What if the moon was a source of limitless cheese that would feed the starving throngs? What if there were little happy fairies in a fruity little wonderland where everything went according to plan and everybody shit gumdrops? Regardless of what could have been done to avoid the situation in the first place, it happened. It always happens; human nature does not restrict itself to theoretical or philosophical imperatives of morality or ideal circumstance. Shit happens. We can either ignore the shit, and sweep it under the rug, or be caring human beings and clean it up.

We pay more for the war in Iraq every day than is ever given to charity or distributed by social programs. We prop up corporations with bad business plans with billions from the public coffers, yet as soon as someone suggests we show kindness to the less fortunate, there is outright revulsion and accusations against the listless and lazy poor. From a supposedly Christian Nation (tm) (the religion of peace and charity!), this sickens me, and proves that we are a society of self-serving opportunists and sanctimonious simpletons regardless of social status or economic position.

Now excuse me, I have to go finish my plan on uniting all the world's religions in peace and harmony, ending war, and curing cancer so we can all sing and dance and play in this alternate dimension you think exists were nobody ever fucking needs help from anyone else because we're all geniuses capable of knowing everything and doing anything short of breaking the laws of physics.

Re:It may be too late...

[Mr_Tulip]

I'll add one last thing to this rather pointless debate :)

I was arguing this very point with an (older) colleague of mine, who has already paid off his home mortgage, and is now planning his retirement. We did some white board calculations which showed, that in real terms, had he been starting his working life now, he could expect to be working 15 years longer than he is planning to, purely to pay off his mortage while maintaining the standard of living he was accustomed to.

This is what scares me - I'm on a good income, my wife does not need to work, and our children are well cared for. However, I can easily see a day where my kids will simply not be able to achieve as much as I have without working an extra 15-20 years.

As far as the requirement of a 'good' job to have children - how many generations since someone in your family tree was an unskilled labourer? Are you happy that they were somehow able to afford to have kids?

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

"didn't mention it, because it went without saying. We were frequently on welfare, food stamps, and I always had reduced lunch at school. Every time we dipped below her ability to pay the bills, that was our last resort. She told me that being on welfare made her feel like a failure, and even working multiple jobs and having no life was a better fate."

At least she felt bad about it.. which is more than most who feel it's owed to them.. working multiple jobs and not having a life to get out of a bad situation is the RIGHT thing to do.

"This is not a what-if game: it's reality"

I was simply presenting alternatives that may or may not have caused a different outcome... As opposed to accepting that this was the only way things could have been... just because things suck right now doesn't mean you didn't have options.. as much as some people don't like to hear that.

"Regardless of what could have been done to avoid the situation in the first place, it happened. It always happens; human nature does not restrict itself to theoretical or philosophical imperatives of morality or ideal circumstance. Shit happens."

shit does happen... but lets not pretend it's fate.... there's a fairly small percentage of people that get into horrible situation through no fault of their own.. and I hope there are people in their area that are willing to give them a hand.

"Shit happens. We can either ignore the shit, and sweep it under the rug, or be caring human beings and clean it up."

And to you that instantly means taking money from our citizens at gun point to redistribute it to those who "need" it? ... as opposed to letting us keep our money and support those causes we feel strongly about.

"We pay more for the war in Iraq every day than is ever given to charity or distributed by social programs. We prop up corporations with bad business plans with billions from the public coffers"

I don't think "we" (government) should be spending money on iraq... or supporting failing companies or industries... or social programs... or the war on drugs... or almost anything else they/we "do".

"yet as soon as someone suggests we show kindness to the less fortunate, there is outright revulsion and accusations against the listless and lazy poor. From a supposedly Christian Nation (tm) (the religion of peace and charity!), this sickens me, and proves that we are a society of self-serving opportunists and sanctimonious simpletons regardless of social status or economic position."

being Christian is a mental defect and has nothing to do with anything.... in fact it's probably a bigger force for suffering and evil than it is for good... but that's another discussion.

again... I'm all for basic human kindness and lending a hand.. can we just not do it at gun point? You use "self-serving" like it's an insult... but it's one of the most important traits we have.. it's what allows us to get above situation we are born into... it's what allows us to care for our families... doing what is best for yourself ultimately guides society... it's called the Invisible Hand Principle and it's a bigger force for good than any government could ever be.

If you think some (fairly large) percentage of people on welfare aren't lazy freeloaders, you're deluding yourself... The entire welfare system rewards the lazy and encourages the exploitation of the system... breading entire generations of people who think exploiting the system is "earning a living".. Privately run regional charities could better track the progress of those that it's helping and provide more localized and efficient services.

"Now excuse me, I have to go finish my plan on uniting all the world's religions in peace and harmony, ending war, and curing cancer so we can all sing and dance and play in this alternate dimension you think exists were nobody ever fucking needs help from anyone else because we're all geniuses capable of knowing everything and doing anything short of breaking the laws of physics."

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

"I'll add one last thing to this rather pointless debate :)"

it's not pointless... hopefully it's something to think about... and at least it's entertaining.

"I was arguing this very point with an (older) colleague of mine, who has already paid off his home mortgage, and is now planning his retirement. We did some white board calculations which showed, that in real terms, had he been starting his working life now, he could expect to be working 15 years longer than he is planning to, purely to pay off his mortage while maintaining the standard of living he was accustomed to."

I can't really comment on that without understanding more of the circumstances and variables in your conversation... land is worth more now... they're not making more of that... maybe values have gone up even more in your area do to regional circumstances... but that's hardly proof of anything.

"As far as the requirement of a 'good' job to have children - how many generations since someone in your family tree was an unskilled labourer? Are you happy that they were somehow able to afford to have kids?"

probably every generation before my parents... there's a big difference between "unskilled" labor and a mcjob... my great grandfather cut down trees in the woods... started as a young man limbing fallen trees for a neighbor... and died with 10 employees and several pieces of large equipment... not to mention his large house, pool, and multiple cars... just a single example.. You can make a good living at nearly any trade.. especially if you learn the business well and pay attention.. not just try to do your 40 a week and go home..

actually.. I take back what I said about the mcjob... I worked at mcdonalds as a young man... the guy who owned the franchise was a high-school drop out who started working a register... he had opened his 3rd franchise at the age of 50. I don't have much sympathy for people "stuck" in a "dead end job"... it's what you make of it... get all the experience and knowledge you can out of a situation and leverage it to your advantage... my grandfather was NOT a smart man... his wife handled the money.. he just knew how to run a chain-saw and tell others how to do the same.

anyway... Minimally, one should be able to take care of themselves before considering bringing a life into the world to take care of... or have society take care of, as the case may be... is that to much to ask? No one NEEDS to have a child... that is a WANT. I mean... you don't necessarily even need a job.. you could live on some farm land in the country and just eat what you grow and trade for... just don't demand anything from me... I'm not responsible for anyone else's bad CHOICES.

Re:It may be too late...

[ivan256]

While I agree that our politicians are too beholden to big business, it is essential that they look out for businesses. After all, without them, we'd be unemployed and either bartering, subsistance farming, or most likely, still be on the slave and plantation model. For all the bad people say about the world of big corporations, it is certanly a model that has dramatically improved the quality of our lives over the last eighty years; even dispite it's more egregious failings.

Like many issues, there is a lot of middle ground when you're talking about reducing poverty, but like so many issues in our society it ends up boiled down to the two extremes. There is a place in our culture, and our economy for low wage jobs, yet at the same time we can't have people supporting a family on $5.15 an hour. The response has to take the needs of business, the needs of highschool kids who want spending money, and the needs of every day hard working people into account all at once. This isn't a problem to be hit with a hammer, even if the hammer is the only thing that can be easily described on a bumper sticker.

As for clamining that all minimum wage workers are lazy, well... I don't understand those people. I can't imagine how you can consider somebody who works fourty hours for only a tiny reward to be lazy.

Re:It may be too late...

[Moofie]

"Eliminate the government's involvement"

What makes you think that your Fortune 500 will permit that? They like it the way it is.

Re:It may be too late...

[fluido]

I really love the living utopian minds who spend big slices of their time posting on Slashdot. No matter what your current sets of convictions (if we are evolving, our convictions evolve with us), I get the impression that you do really care.

What I have realized, after many years, is that the effort to work with the noble goal to improve objective world, even by little, has no way to guarantee objective changes. While it is true that large-scale changes are always sparked by individuals' acts, it is also true that, in almost all cases, those individuals are not at all conscious of the future effects of their acts. This would require the ability to have a perfectly objective outlook on reality, and our outlook is always, unescapably biased. This bias can change, it can be reduced, it can be better understood, but it cannot be completely erased.

So, what do I do? I accept all challenges that life offers me; I act; I operate on reality with enthusiasm. But I try with as much serenity as possible to not decide beforehand what the best outcome of my actions has to be. I focus on defying laziness, my strongest enemy.

Then, if I am confident that I have done all that life has asked of me for the present time, I can, I must leave no space to frustration at the state of the world. As long as I have completed what I know is my present duty, as long as I have done my best to limit suffering upon living beings to whatever minimum I can reach, I am entitled to whatever happiness welcomes me. It is unjust towards myself to lose myself in cosmic anguish (unless this is what I consider a healthy pastime. I do not.)

Sincere, spontaneous compassion towards whatever suffering I come to witness is a feeling I carefully consider and welcome. If the feeling comes together with clear indications of something concrete to do to relief the suffering, I must overcome laziness and provide help: I must help an old lady change the tyre of her car if I encounter her on my way. But remote, large-scale problems, problems for which no direct act of mine that I can think of can have a confirmed constructive effect, must not distract me from my present circumstances.

The present US government smells fishy (to say the least). But what government doesn't? I can foresee that whoever wins between Condi and Hillary will provide the world with an equivalent aroma. Security-justified freedom curtailing is running wild everywhere, regardless of the fact that freedom limitation cannot protect any subject from sufficiently determined "terrorists". But there are way too many interests involved in this trend. I cannot envisage any practical plan that could result in its reversal.

What can I do then?

• Make sure that I constantly challenge my laziness so that I do not postpone forever what I know I must do.
• Make sure that I do my best to avoid hurting other sentient beings.
• At this point,I will actively search for personal conditions of life that will allow me to constructively evolve. I know that drinkable water is bound to become a precious asset, so I have the duty to search for myself a corner of this beautiful world where water is good and abundant, and things promise to remain like this for a decent time span. Then I know that there are vast amounts of people in Africa who are starving. But I also know (source: U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base) that the population of Africa was 228 millions in 1950, 471 millions in 1980 and 891 millions in 2005. How did this happen? And now we are force-feeding them with transgenic, sterile crops and anti-retroviral poisons.
• I do also have to do what is possible so that my conscience is not tainted by my day-to-day activities. I write software. The most interesting software that is there to develop dabbles with genetics or arms (or both) (not with security -- security jobs are extremely well-paid but a royal PITA). I know that, should I be offered a thrillingly int

Re:It may be too late...

[zsau]

Thanks for the dickens though... If I had to pick a character to model myself after.. it would probably be Scrooge.... PRE ghostly encounter.

You have learnt nothing, then? I do not understand the way Americans have a tendency to be Christian as well as selfish. Jesus said to love one another as he has loved us, Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to fit through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter heaven, he didn't say God helps those who help themself. (I don't mean to accuse you of being a hypocritical Christian if you're not one; regardless of whether or not you are one, I still do not understand the way it happens.)

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that there are some people in this thread who really need a good reality check, if not just a simple bitch slap.

There are some people who are just "born lucky", so to speak. Their parents were already successful. They got to go to the private schools, and were given the opportunity at a real education. They got all the assistance they needed to make sure they graduated at the top of their class, and got that scholarship to attend the Ivy league school of their choice. Basically, they got the world handed to them on a silver platter, and go about life thinking that everybody else got just as lucky as they are, and/or have nothing but contempt for those who they feel are "beneath them."

Then of course, there's the ones who "make it." They're born into poorer families, but still have at least some opportunity. They go to public school, but at least the public school is one of the better ones around. They bust their asses to make it to the top of their class, attend a community college, and maybe a 4 year school afterwards if they get the scholarship. They don't become the next Bill Gates, but they can live comforably -- at least better than their parents did.

And of course, there's the other extreme -- the ones who can't make it no matter what. The kid who's the third child of the crack-addict mom. He gets bounced from foster home to foster home, struggles in school due to the mental deficiencies that crack did to him from being a crack-baby. Even if he does have the mental tools to make it, he has two choices when he hits high school -- join the gang that's running the school, or get beaten up (or killed) by them. Education is virtually nonexistent, as most of the school's funds are tied up in security -- fighting the futile battle to keep the gangs at bay, and making sure the kids don't kill each other. Most decent teachers won't work there, so they only get the inexperienced ones who don't have enough seniority to get transferred, or the ones who long ago stopped caring and are "mailing it in." Most decent colleges won't even look at a student from these schools, as their overall level of education tends to be quite low. The few who do make it out of these schools find themselves ill-prepared for even community college, so they drop out, and it's off to one McJob after another.

Let's face it. Some kids get life handed to them. Most others make it through hard work. But there are those who, through no fault of their own, will never make it above the level of "Working poor", no matter how hard they work, simply based on the situation they were born into.

Watch the movie "The Principal". There are some schools that really are that bad in some of our inner cities.

Re:It may be too late...

[chowda]

I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the christian cult... or any other cult... Morality through fear of eternal damnation is no morality at all.

Selfishness is the root of the Invisible Hand Principle and is the largest force for good on the planet.

Re:It may be too late...

[maxpublic]

You've read too much Ayn Rand

Yes, Ayn Rand was over the top. No doubt about it. She herself admitted that very fact on numerous occasions, although her detractors here on Slashdot and elsewhere either a) conveniently seem to forget that little gem, or b) do what most slashdotters do and mouth off about crap they know nothing whatsoever about. Not exactly surprising, especially when it comes to what passes for college students these days, but disappointing nonetheless.

Ayn Rand was very *deliberately* fanatical in part because of the society she grew up in (Soviet Union), and in part because the people she was arguing against (the self-proclaimed "intelligentsia" of the '50s and '60s) were equally fanatical. In case you're completely bereft of historical references, Ayn Rands foes at this time were what I technically label "fucking douchebags", of the sort who were utterly convinced that their particular brand of socialism would bring eternal happiness to the masses - and those who couldn't see it were just plain unenlightened. Worse, they advocated FORCING their perverted dystopia on everyone else at the point of the government gun, for the 'greater good' - so long as THEY were the ones calling the shots, of course. All things capitalistic were evil, all things socialistic were good, the individual had a "duty" to sacrifice themselves for others (except the self-described intelligentsia, of course - they would "sacrifice" by running the whole show), and anyone who disagreed with them ranged from deluded to downright evil.

Rand overexaggerated her points to make herself heard. And guess what? It worked. Here we are in 2006 and she's STILL pissing off the same pseudo-intellectual socialist scum, long after she and her original enemies are dead. Her books sell better now than they ever have before.

Mission accomplished. A brilliant bit of PR, when all is said and done.

What's amusing is that the Rand-haters don't realize just how well they've been played. As vociferous and vocal as they are, they even unwittingly act as the sales force for a woman more than twenty years in the grave! Makes me chuckle every time I think about it.

Max

Re:It may be too late...

[cduffy]

What makes you think that your Fortune 500 will permit that? They like it the way it is.

I don't think it's politically feasible to remove the artificial monopolies presently in place through anything short of revolution -- but that's not to say we can't discuss it from a theoretical standpoint. (Yes, "my fortune 500" are beasts -- but they are such because overexpansive government made them so. A federal government more effectively limited to a strictly defined charter could not be used as ADM's instrument to promote corn syrup at the expense of cane sugar, or GM's get-out-of-debt card, or the sales tool of so many medical software companies, or... well, you get the picture, and should understand why I object to the idea that expanding government's powers will enable government to better control the corporations rather than simply providing a better tool with which the corporations can control the people).

So, as for the other claims you've made which you're no longer trying to defend (price of healthcare as a personal-liberties concern; pharmaceuticals and genetic engineering as natural monopolies; etc) -- can I presume that you've yielded?

Re:It may be too late...

[Qacker]

Luckily I don't care at all about poor people - but if I became one I would set to work arguing for social reforms and such

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Selfishness is the root of the Invisible Hand Principle and is the largest force for good on the planet.

Thank you, Ken Lay.

If you're not Ken Lay, perhaps you'll do us all a favor and join him.

Re:It may be too late...

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting read. Thank you.

Just walk away

[AndroidCat]

Id for grille lighters and peaches, huh? And why didn't you just walk away loudly commenting on the store's idiotic policy?

Re:Just walk away

[Anonymous Coward]

Id for grille lighters and peaches, huh? And why didn't you just walk away loudly commenting on the store's idiotic policy?

The peaches incident was probably a register mistake. But in a number of states you need to be 18 or older to purchase a lighter by state law. I tried to purchase one once when I was 17 so I could burn the trash out back like I had done every week for nearly a decade, and I was denied. Apparently the law presumes that lighters will only be used for smoking, and couldn't be used for things like, you know, burning trash, or making smores. It's another classic example of lawmakers restricting a wide spectrum of basic freedoms to fight a single pet cause of self-endangerment.

This is the same mentality as occurs in sweeping laws to fight "child pornography", and sweeping laws to fight violence in video games, and sweeping laws to protect people from the internet, or the prevention of pseudophedrine purchases for fear of meth labs getting it. If we could get people to stop asininely voting for politicians on the basis of those pet causes, then freedom would not be encroached nearly as much as it currently is.

What we are living in is a culture war between people who want personal freedom, and people who are immersed in irrational emotional fear.

Re:Just walk away

[drooling-dog]

Id for grille lighters and peaches, huh? And why didn't you just walk away loudly commenting on the store's idiotic policy?

Somebody who "just walks away" in that situation is probably trying to hide something. At the very least, he should be taken into a back room and thoroughly interrogated, Gitmo style.

Only then will we be Truly Safe.

Re:Just walk away

[Petrushka]

Sometimes if you need the thing you're buying badly enough, you just have to put up with the shit. I remember one time I was in a small, poor country -- I don't want to offend anyone by naming names, it isn't really important anyway -- and wanted to buy an AA battery for my alarm clock. I was out in the suburbs and the only shop I could find selling batteries was an electronics shop specialising in larger items, like stereos et al. So to buy my AA battery I had to fill in two forms, give address and phone number, etc etc ... but I needed it so that my alarm would go off next morning so I would wake up and catch my plane. I've no idea how places like that stay in business though.

Re:Just walk away

[Dachannien]

and wanted to buy an AA battery for my alarm clock. I was out in the suburbs and the only shop I could find selling batteries was an electronics shop specialising in larger items, like stereos et al. So to buy my AA battery I had to fill in two forms, give address and phone number, etc etc...

Let me guess: the small, poor country you were in was the United States, and the store you went to was the local Radio Shack.

Re:Just walk away

[Petrushka]

Um, no. I have had only positive experiences when buying things in US stores or online, though I neither live in the US nor am an American. (Mind you, I wouldn't touch peer-to-peer transactions from a different country -- like e.g. eBay -- with a bargepole.)

Actually no, I tell a lie. Once I bought a Budweiser by mistake in a hotel bar. That was not a positive experience.

Re:Just walk away

[Dachannien]

Actually, I wasn't being serious. I just couldn't pass up a chance to make a dig at Radio Shack's policy of collecting ridiculous amounts of personally identifiable information even when you buy something as small and inexpensive as a battery.

Re:Just walk away

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the law presumes that lighters will only be used for smoking, and couldn't be used for things like, you know, burning trash...

If burning trash in your garden is what you consider a better thing to do with lighters than smoking, well, I don't mind they didn't sell it to you...

Re:Just walk away

[dbIII]

I remember one time I was in a small, poor country

Tandy Electronics in Australia used to make everyone do that for every purchase. With that and US import prices for south east asian goods they did have trouble staying in business and were bought out by a local company.

Re:Just walk away

[dbIII]

BTW - Tandy Electronics was the Australian branch of the US company Radio Shack.

Re:Just walk away

[KDR_11k]

'round here firecrackers are restricted as well. I think they assume there's nothing legitimate an unsupervised minor could use a lighter for. Is burning trash even legal? For roasting marshmallows you'd need a campfire and I don't think they want unsupervised minors to start those either (since someone might be stupid enough to start a camp fire in a forest and not extinguish it properly).

Re:Just walk away

[Alioth]

Lighters aren't usually restricted because of smoking - but substance abuse. People get high on the butane. I'm not saying it's right - I was a bit annoyed when I was denied buying a can of butane when I was 17 (being a geek, I had a gas powered soldering iron, and I was out of gas). To make it more annoying, it was the shop I usually bought the gas from (perhaps due to the frequency of my visits they decided I must have been sniffing the stuff, but regular use of the soldering iron/blowtorch quickly went through the stuff). I just started patronising another store instead who didn't check ID.

Re:Just walk away

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't require it. Just say "No thank you".

Is that so hard?

All it does is hurt their "metrics" (yes, the salespeople get rated on percentage of names & numbers they collect, at least they did when I worked there around 2000). But nowadays most people I see working there are there just for the minimum wage and don't even try too hard for commission. They also tend to back off when you walk in and go right to the electronic components and switches ;-)

Re:Just walk away

[AndroidCat]

I thought they dropped that policy a few years ago?

Here in Canada, there now is no Radio Shack. Due to a legal fish-slapping fight, they had to change the chain to "The Source" or something. (I doubt anyone at AOL remembers that they might have rights to that name, acquired via buying Compuserve who bought The Source ages ago.)

Re:Just walk away

[b0s0z0ku]

People get high on the butane.

I never understood that phenomenon. I've been intoxicated by solvents when I was painting something, and it wasn't a pleasant, fuzzy, 'high.' It was more like feeling really sick - dizzy and feeling like I was going to vomit all over my shoes. Not something that I'd really like to repeat.

Give me nitrous or weed any day, but petrochemicals don't seem to produce a high that's even remotely pleasurable.

-b.

Re:Just walk away

[misanthrope101]

It's another classic example of lawmakers restricting a wide spectrum of basic freedoms to fight a single pet cause of self-endangerment.

That's like blaming lawsuits on lawyers, not on the people who hire them. Government by definition will try to expand its scope and power. The problem is when you have a population that is too stupid, or is ideologicaly polarized, or has too short of an attention span, or is too ignorant, to think of it as a problem. The U.S. is a bit strange right now, because the very ones expanding government power the fastest are saying that they believe in small government, even as they expand government. You have a nation of people who are failing to notice the blatantly obvious. Even when issues like the NSA wiretapping case, or torture in Iraq, shine a glaring, flashing, bright light on the issues, people just refuse to talk about it. People just don't deal well with complexity. They can't reason out a position, because they have been cornered into a black and white, good-vs-evil worldview where there is just no nuance to be had. People are discontented, but most of them are going to vote Republican anyway because of abortion or gay rights, so their objections to the deficit, or to Iraq, are irrelevant. But they have to be internally consistent, so once they've decided to vote Republican, they can't really object with any enthusiasm to the wiretapping case, or to torture in Abu Ghraib, or anything else. The same applied to Clinton supporters, and probably applies to politics everywhere, but it's always galling to witness.

The book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini has a great chapter on how people can be made to agree to big things they wouldn't otherwise support by getting them to agree to little things that seem innocuous, and even unrelated, earlier on. Once people are brought on board via their objection to gay marriage or any other social issue, they can be expected to buy the rest of the platform, bit by bit, because they don't want to abandon their original committment. Well, that and the fact that they don't want to be associated with Michael Moore, which I can completely understand.

Re:Just walk away

[b0s0z0ku]

So to buy my AA battery I had to fill in two forms, give address and phone number, etc etc ...

John Doe 435 Clitoris Hollow Road. Vulva, VA 11235 Tel: 911-666-1234

-b.

Re:Just walk away

[jdbartlett]

"Give me nitrous or weed any day..."

Your IP address has been noted. Your ISP will be contacted. Your credit card number will be acquired. Next time you go to buy peaches; bam! Cavity search!

Re:Just walk away

[morcheeba]

What we are living in is a culture war between people who want personal freedom, and people who are immersed in irrational emotional fear.

I think it's more like:

We are living in a culture war between "people who stoke irrational emotional fear in others as form of control and to make themselves more powerful" and the people who see this as b.s.

Re:Just walk away

[Blakey Rat]

I'm thinking Magnolia Hi-Fi? God I hated that place... I go in for a goddamned universal remote, $100, and I had to practically give a blood sample. That store is only for upper-class snobs buying at least $20,000 in AV equipment, and entirely out-of-touch with the whole "walk in and buy something" concept. It's an electronics store run like a car dealership. Oh, they sell batteries and universal remotes and standard normal stuff like that, and the prices for them are even reasonable, but it's not worth it.

Anyway, I don't go there anymore.

Re:Just walk away

[limekiller4]

Dachannien writes:
"Let me guess: the small, poor country you were in was the United States, and the store you went to was the local Radio Shack."

Radio Shack does not require you fill out a form for anything other than a cellphone (the contract).

Radio Shack does not require you give your personal information for anything except extended warranties, returns and some subscription-based items like cellphones, satellite radio, etc.

As for warranties, your info is taken in case you lose your receipt, your warranty can still be found. Give dummy info if you want.

As for returns, same deal; give bogus data.

In either case, no ID is checked.

I have this theory that a new age of Enlightenment would blossom if people just stopped talking about subjects they don't know jack shit about in an effort to appear witty, erudite, learned, whatever.

So do me a favor. Shut the fuck up when you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Pretty please.

Re:Just walk away

[Anonymous Coward]

They did up to 2001 or 2002. I remember them asking for my address, phone number, et cetera for a five dollar purchase.

Re:Just walk away

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the law presumes that lighters will only be used for smoking, and couldn't be used for things like, you know, burning trash

I live in the rural U.S.-- 60 miles from any other civilization. It is illegal to burn trash. Something about clean air.

Which law is more restrictive? No lighters? or no fires?

Re:Just walk away

[Dachannien]

Admittedly, I haven't been to Radio Shack in a few years, but they most definitely were collecting that information with even the tiniest purchase the last time I went there. I have about as much of a clue what I'm talking about as you do, so you can take your hard-earned flamebait point and shove it directly up your ass.

Re:Just walk away

[zipn00b]

A little harshly worded but a pretty good summary.
For basic purchases no info is collected although the zip code is optionally taken for marketing data like many stores do.
For warranties it's a good idea to give valid name and address in case you lose your receipt so it can be looked up if you ever need to make a claim on the warranty.
If you pay with a check though full address and such is taken so if the check bounces they can try to collect on it.

A long time a go in a galaxy far, far away Radio Shack DID collect addresses for the purpose of mailing out flyers. HOWEVER most people gave them the address of the White House so they stopped that a LONG time ago...........

Re:Just walk away

[zipn00b]

You've not been at Radio Shack in quite a while have you?
They used to collect addresses for their mailings but stopped that some years back.
I love Slashdotters policy of commenting without checking the facts..... :)

Re:Just walk away

[Petrushka]

Yup, pretty much. It helps to have a false phone number memorised.

Re:Just walk away

[limekiller4]

Wrong again!

The original poster wrote:

"I was out in the suburbs and the only shop I could find selling batteries was an electronics shop specialising in larger items, like stereos et al. So to buy my AA battery I had to fill in two forms, give address and phone number, etc etc"

You replied:

"Let me guess: the small, poor country you were in was the United States, and the store you went to was the local Radio Shack."

I noted that you were dead wrong and you replied to me, in part:

"Admittedly, I haven't been to Radio Shack in a few years, but they most definitely were collecting that information with even the tiniest purchase the last time I went there."

(emphasis mine)

Radio Shack, at the height of their intrusiveness, has never asked for more than name, phone and address for purchases. And, it should be noted, it was requested but not demanded. It has always been their policy to honor your request to not give that information.

Regardless, at NO time were there any forms to fill out for battery purchases. So your assertion that Radio Shack "most definitely" required forms to be filled out for "even the tiniest purchase the last time I went there" IS 100% false. Period.

This isn't my opinion. It's an objective fact.

Repeat after me.

I am wrong.

I am talking out my ass.

I am sorry.

Then STFU. Sorry if it's hash but there are few things more annoying in life than a person who pretends to educate people by misinforming them.

Except for maybe someone who can't cop to a mistake when they're caught stone-cold.

Re:Just walk away

[limekiller4]

I mean "harsh," not "hash." =)

Hmm... lets see

[tubapro12]

I hate big brother... computer crashes, reboots, finishes writing this ... I love big brother.

Re:Hmm... lets see

[Saint V Flux]

Just remember comrade, 2 + 2 = 5!

Re:Hmm... lets see

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. 2 + 2 = fish

Nope, nothing suspicious

[Hydryad]

Big brother is your friend, by the way chocolate rations are cut in half as of today.

Bring out the tin foil hats...

[Mikachu]

IT'S GO TIME BABY!

Re:Bring out the tin foil hats...

[texaport]

The current data is rather conflicting. With inflation-adjusted dollars, tin foil is actually 10% cheaper than in 1984.

However tin foil futures for post-election December delivery are up 10% on expectations of typical, low voter turnout.

Re:Bring out the tin foil hats...

[jo42]

Those, In The Know, wear copper mesh hats grounded to the nearest water pipe...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[alshithead]

So if there are many other real-world, "legitimate" examples of our freedoms being eroded how can you not have sympathy? Are your examples more important than the ones he considers important?

The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout"...

[NotQuiteReal]

I smell BS. An ID for a lighter? Bah.

The only time I was flagged at a "self checkout" was when I was buying bullets at Wal-Mart.

Someone came over, looked at me, muttered something about how I was obviously old enough, punched a button and let me finish.

No ID, no nothing.

Paid cash, got my change and left.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[TrisexualPuppy]

"What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?"

First thought...more educated and informed than the masses of sheeples?

Seriously, I think a lot of us feel the same way and see that we aren't on a slippery slope any more. We are plummeting down a sheer drop off. The way I see it the government and big business will control more and more of our every day life as we lose more and more privacy and individual choices. Some of us will get sick of it and cash out and go live off the grid in the most remote boondocks we can find and some of us will suffer in relative silence and reminisce over the "good old days" before we lost so much of our privacy and constitutional rights. Others will never notice they lost anything. Maybe there will be another American revolution some day to try and put back into place a government whose altruistic ideals can be effected indefinitely. Hell, 200+ years is pretty good when looked at in the big picture of history but eventually power and money corrupt those who should be looking out for the good of everyone. I guess this sounds kind of defeatist but take the federal minimum wage as an example. How come 30 million people have to try to live on $5.15 an hour? How are their voices not heard? How are our voices not heard?

Money talks and the politicians and big business have the money.

I have a better question.

[aldeng]

"The big question now is: how much worse can it get?" Wrong. The big question is what are we going to do to stop this. It's our government, dammit.

Re:I have a better question.

[Anonymous Coward]

thats why some of us are taking our own action anonet.org if anyone wants to front some cash to buy our own island/country or a cruise ship, we'll happily move, i believe there are still 3 unclaimed areas of the world still, antartica might be ok since it'll cool our equipment for free.

Re:I have a better question.

[Almost-Retired]

"The big question now is: how much worse can it get?" Wrong. The big question is what are we going to do to stop this. It's our government, dammit.

The only way is to clean house, senate, and white house all in the same general election. Otherwise the old boy network continues uninterrupted because at the end of the day, the party affiliation doesn't mean as much as just maintaining the so-called elite group in power.

The last time around I couldn't stomach either of the republicrat parties candidates, gave it a bit of thought & voted libertarian. ISTR My wife felt the same way & voted green. So they got one vote each in our home county. Big fscking deal. OTOH, if enough of us have had it with these lying jerks to do something about it, THEN WE CAN FIX IT. BUT, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GET OFF OUR COLLECTIVE FAT ASSES AND DO IT! DON'T JUST VOTE IN THE LESSOR OF THE 2 MAIN EVILS, VOTE IN SOMEONE WHO HONESTLY THINKS AS WE DO, THAT THE POLICE STATE GEORGE ORWELL DESCRIBED IN '1984' HAS GONE FAR ENOUGH AND ITS TIME TO SWING THAT PENDULUM THE OTHER WAY. And I frankly don't give a damn if a few wanna be Ken Lay's jump out of 40th floor windows as things get back to an even keel.

Go talk to the candidates face to face, and if you cannot get that close, then they are too damned paranoid and don't deserve your vote. I've stood literally nose to nose with the govenor of this state, telling him his pet project was going down in flames (and it did) but neither of us had any worries about that nose to nose confrontation. He is an honest, approachable human being that despite our differences, got my vote the last time based on his performance in that situation.

Participation in the political process is what this country was founded on, and those that sit as couch warmers, and base your votes on party lines, what Bill OReilly says, or other mainstream media propaganda artists, fully deserve the traitorous, sell out to the highest bidder, representation you'll get. This may be the last time we get a chance to fix things because if it continues with the present erosion of private, personal freedoms at the present rate, you won't recognize the election as a democratic process by 2012 unless you are one of the sheeple we denigrate here on /. so often...

The choice is ours to make, and we should make it as wisely as we can. We, as a whole, voted ourselves into this box, and hopefully we can vote our way out of it. We at least owe the republic a try at fixing it.

--
Cheers, Gene

Re:I have a better question.

[nitsew]

yeah right...

#begin redundant Thomas Jefferson Quote

"When the Government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the Government, there is tyranny"

#end Thomas Jefferson Quote

I fear the government. It is no longer ours.

Re:I have a better question.

[cje]

Not only what are we going to do to stop it, but why are we allowing this in the first place?

If some pimply-faced grocery clerk gave me a hard time because I was buying a peach, I'd tell him to go fuck his mother. Crude, vulgar, and obnoxious? Sure it is, but it's no less crude, vulgar, and obnoxious than the state of affairs that's being visited upon us by the elected officials that we've chosen to represent us. If you believe in freedom but your representatives in Washington do not, then it's time to kick them to the curb and vote for somebody who does -- while you still have a chance.

Re:I have a better question.

[joe 155]

I think that the American people like to think that one day there could be a revolution or that one day they will get back perfect liberty, but it just won't happen. If you fear the government then you do it with good reason, and you know that if you tried to overturn it or have a coup it'd be your bollocks on the BBQ. In a situation like America and the fact that a revolution would be seen by some as a public good (in which case they can not act but still get the benifit anyway) or a possitive harm (in which case they might fight against it) - a revolution can't happen.

I'll take my chances having a Queen over a political head of state.

Re:I have a better question.

[mshiltonj]

The first step towards change: Stop voting for the damned Democrats or Republicans! A pox on both their houses! Fuckers!

Re:I have a better question.

[Surt]

Thanks for posting that, this is exactly why I vote for the non-incumbent in every position I don't care about.

Re:I have a better question.

[Almost-Retired]

Better yet, if there is a 3rd candidate, and hes not a certified nut that you know of, vote for him. Anyone whose part of the republicrat machine needs to be sitting on the curb with a tin cup. We're not gonna fix it any other way.

--
Cheers, Gene

It's not just about privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget that it's not just about privacy. The government basically has to create a state of perpetual fear, stir up hatred of the enemy, torture people, have an ongoing war, control information, and basically convince you to willingly see things that are false.

Now, don't get me wrong, but I don't think we've come to that yet.

cough cough fake terror alerts hussein abu ghraib war on terrorism fox news wmd in iraq cough

Re:It's not just about privacy

[drooling-dog]

Now, don't get me wrong, but I don't think we've come to that yet.

How will we recognize it when we do?

Re:It's not just about privacy

[lokiomega]

Read the last line.

Re:It's not just about privacy

[ichigo 2.0]

That last line is hard to spot at first glance. For some odd reason it resembles a signature and gets automatically skipped. :P

Re:It's not just about privacy

[eMbry00s]

create a state of perpetual fear, stir up hatred of the enemy, torture people, have an ongoing war, control information, and basically convince you to willingly see things that are false.

Perpetual fear is what seems to be the latest and greatest trend. Torture? Gitmo.
Ongoing war? Terrorism is the concept of using threat of violence and fear to force political change. A war waged against a concept will not end unless it is declared over, as it does not have a specific set of goals to achieve but instead is targeted at an enemy that could be anywhere. Anywhere.

Hatred of the enemy isn't achieved in all of the populace, and neither has controll of information been established yet. I believe that hatred will come as information is controlled. Nobody will be able to express differing opinion, and thus can not convince anybody that the war on this and that enemy is really unnecessary. Bystanders and deserters will be shot. 2 minutes of hate.

I don't really think that doublethink is necessary for Big Brother to reign supreme, even though it is necessary for it to be a carbon copy of the Orwellian "prototype". Like you said, it's not here yet, but I think we've traveled far enough down the road for it to be closer to there than to home.

Re:It's not just about privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember Barry Goldwater? "How do you boil a frog?"

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[Renraku]

The cash went into a scanner which picked up your fingerprints too. It now has a picture of you, your voice, and your fingerprints.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the point is, his examples are definitely exaggerated. Anybody work at Kroger's care to comment?

Listen closely

[DesireCampbell]

This isn't a real question, this is a thinly veiled attempt at getting a conversation going about how terrible the US government is.

Yes, there's a lot of censorship and surveillance going on. Yes, we have to be vigilant about everything we've heard.

My fear is, the fact that we find out about these domestic wiretaps, secret European prisons - means that the people put in charge of these things are morons. Most people in the position to be doing important secret 1984-type dealings are smart. The things we know about are pretty bad - how much worse are the things we don't know about?

Re:Listen closely

[zCyl]

My fear is, the fact that we find out about these domestic wiretaps, secret European prisons - means that the people put in charge of these things are morons. Most people in the position to be doing important secret 1984-type dealings are smart. The things we know about are pretty bad - how much worse are the things we don't know about?

So are you proposing that we should or should not keep electing morons? Your argument could go either way...

Re:Listen closely

[Anonymous Coward]

We'd tell you but we'd have to kill you.

Re:Listen closely

[buswolley]

Right. There isn't an evil, all powerful, super intelligent group of people controlling the world. Its the emergent effect of millions of smaller scale decisions by many many people.

Re:Listen closely

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just it.

The fact that we know about these things make the information sometimes less obscure. Anyone in America can go to a local library and read about dirty actions the US has taken in South America, Asia, and every other corner of the world. Because there is so much of this information-- Halliburton, WMDs, 9/11, Afghanistan, Peru, Eastern European prisons, we get overwhelmed. Eventually, having the information in the open makes it so difficult to parse information that we just give up.

That's basically what happened now.

Re:Listen closely

[kfg]

Most people in the position to be doing important secret 1984-type dealings are smart.

But only smart enough to do them.

KFG

Re:Listen closely

[Anonymous Coward]

Morons will be bad leaders no matter what.

Smart and good (morally) people will be good leaders. Smart and bad (morally) people will be terrible leaders.

Now, in the case of Bush who's clearly a dumbass, he has managed to do the secret prison and wiretapping shit because he's surrounded by smart (and bad) people, so it's a little different.

Re:Listen closely

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, I wonder if the little quote at the bottom of the page has anything to do with this:

Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence. -- Henrik Tikkanen

Re:Listen closely

[drooling-dog]

My fear is, the fact that we find out about these domestic wiretaps, secret European prisons - means that the people put in charge of these things are morons.

Unless, of course, they want us to be aware that our every move may be monitored. I know of no better way to keep people in line and afraid to speak out.

Re:Listen closely

[DesireCampbell]

"I know of no better way to keep people in line and afraid to speak out"

Four words: Colour coded alert levels.

Re:Listen closely

[Kadin2048]

I didn't see anywhere in his post where he was implying that there was some "super intelligent group of people controlling the world." Your response was a non sequitur.

The point is that if a government has been trying systemically to put one over on its citizens for as long as a generation or more -- as I think the US Government clearly has -- it's very difficult to ever know when you've uncovered everything they're hiding. Obviously it's the most boneheaded schemes that get discovered first, followed by the more subtle ones, but there's always a significant chance that there's some internal spying going on that is just less-sloppily done than the stuff we've found out about so far.

I think that's a pretty good point; I think it's likely to the point of near necessity that we haven't heard the last of the government's internal surveillance efforts. Considering how the ones we know about today were made public, it's clear that more tightly-managed (and perhaps more narrow in scope) projects probably would have remained hidden.

Re:Listen closely

[drooling-dog]

Four words: Colour coded alert levels.

Nope. My way's still better.

Re:Listen closely

[Anonymous Coward]

I think, to a certain extent, some of this will go on whether or not we elect morons.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for electing people that are better than Bush and the current congress. But, our government's corruption goes way back further than the Bush administration, way back further than Clinton, and is beyond the scope of party politics. The NSA will do creepy 1984-type stuff regardless of who is in office.

That said, I am voting Democrat this fall, and encourage others to do the same. Electing democrats will get an investigation going which will shed lights in places Dick Cheney has been trying to hide for years, with the cooperation of congress.

Re:Listen closely

[NoMaster]

There isn't an evil, all powerful, super intelligent group of people controlling the world.

Except those reptile alien half-breeds. And cats. The Queen Mother (she's not dead, you know!) has the first under control, but I'm still worried about the second...

defend

[MECC]

Defend freedom of information from government and corporate influence.

That's what really protects freedom, liberty, democracy, and people's rights. If you're lucky.

"OH Brother" ...

[jabberwock]

It's really nothing to worry about until you wake up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney.

Re:"OH Brother" ...

[roman_mir]

Well, you don't have to worry about it then either, after all you woke up. If you haven't had woken up, then you wouldn't worry about anything at all.

In either case, the most important thing to remember is this:

Don't panic.

Re:"OH Brother" ...

[sgt_doom]

Which sounds funny, until one reads the Amnesty International, and UN reports of the Russian Mob doing just that sort of thing in Eastern Europe. Please note: everything that America has done elsewhere, and the organized crime outfits do elsewhere, eventually becomes a reality in North America.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you paid by credit card a digital copy of your signature.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[alshithead]

No ID? What state do you live in? You must obviously look over 18. Most ammo at Wal-Mart is behind the counter. The only ammo I can think of that isn't is shotgun shells that are on sale.

Bush and his cronies are to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier.

Disagree.

Most of these things came from the Bush administration. The last 6 years has been a cancer eating away at the very fabric of what it used to mean to be american.

Phrases like 'truth, justice, and the american way' ring very hollow these days...especially to the rest of the world.

Re:Bush and his cronies are to blame

[Pikoro]

Time to tote out my favorite quote again:

"In the United States, freedom is no longer the ability do do what you want. Freedom is the means to stop others from doing what they want."

- Aaron Anderson

Re:Bush and his cronies are to blame

[Anonymous Coward]

> Phrases like 'truth, justice, and the american way' ring very hollow these days...especially to the rest of the world.

I dunno, sound okay to me. You have three options:

(i) truth
(ii) justice
(iii) the American way

Just keep in mind that the American way is different from truth and it is different from justice.

Re:Bush and his cronies are to blame

[CTachyon]

"The Reagan years were the worst. And the Bush years. They were the worst, too. The Clinton years I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline..."

Don't know why that popped into my head, but it seemed apropos.

Re:Bush and his cronies are to blame

[TempeTerra]

Phrases like 'truth, justice, and the american way' ring very hollow these days...

I've heard that phrase before... that's like "Fast, Cheap, Good - pick any two" right?

State v. private interests

[Infonaut]

1984 was about the state controlling everything. In the current situation, the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of Islamic terrorists that they're willing to give the state more power. This may or may not be a temporary situation, but the state obviously hasn't reached the level of control that Big Brother did in 1984.

As for corporations watching what you do, the real question is whether Microsoft checking to see if you're using a pirated version of their software is somehow going to affect your political rights, or if it is just a stupid move on their part that will only push customers away from their products. After all, you only have one state. You can choose software vendors.

Re:State v. private interests

[honkycat]

I'm not a huge fan of sippery slope arguments (although I do think the sentiment is often in the right place), but do you think we need to wait until things are as bad as they are in 1984 before reacting? The real government may not be as authoritarian as the one in the book, but a major element that allowed that in the book to enforce its rules was the existence of the surveillance technologies. We are clearly at or very near a point that matches the technical sophistication in the book.

We need to be careful to keep this technology from being used for ill. When something that's "kind of bad" is proposed, we need to react STRONGLY. Rights have a way of being chipped away and it's usually through violent conflict that these rights are regained. Better to protect them in the first place.

Further, it doesn't really matter who it is that's doing the surveillance. If Walmart has the information, it's only a subpoena from being in Uncle Sam's hands...

Re:State v. private interests

[izakage]

..because a lot of people are so afraid of Islamic terrorists

Now, I know you're commenting on the thoughts of the masses, but part of what you said shows just how much influence that our government has on our thoughts and beliefs. Ever noticed that whenever the media is reporting on an attack, they don't just say that the culprit is a group of radicals, but it's a group of Islamic radicals, even when they don't know who the group was? It sounds like a subtle difference to many, but we're being told that there's a group out there that we have to hate.

My point is, the media and government have a lot of influence on what we believe, and much of it is very difficult to measure.

Re:State v. private interests

[Anonymous Coward]

"...because a lot of people are so afraid of Islamic terrorists that they're willing to give the state more power."

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! Have you ever walked outside and thought to yourself, "Man, I hope no Islamic terrorists kill me today." Of course not.

The reason the state has more power isn't because the people have given it to them, it is because Americans are too lazy and apathetic to stop the state from taking that power.

Re:State v. private interests

[Infonaut]

The reason the state has more power isn't because the people have given it to them, it is because Americans are too lazy and apathetic to stop the state from taking that power.

Bush was re-elected. You can say that was apathy, or you can say it was the people talking. I say it was both. The bottom line for me is that Americans were scared enough to give power to Bush a second time, when they knew very clearly how he would use that power (or should have, if they were paying attention). A lot of people ARE scared of Islamic terrorists, and vote accordingly. People are notoriously bad at evaluating risk.

Re:State v. private interests

[Infonaut]

Ever noticed that whenever the media is reporting on an attack, they don't just say that the culprit is a group of radicals, but it's a group of Islamic radicals, even when they don't know who the group was?

I think that's a sweeping generalization. I don't watch TV news at all - haven't in years. I get my news from newspapers and weeklies, and I find that the news sources I read tend to name the organizations and define them fairly well. This comes back to apathy by citizens. If we're too lazy to get real news, we'll watch infotainment and delude ourselves into thinking we're actually getting serious news. TV news is the least factual, most emotional media source of all because it relies on images, which are of course easily manipulated through editing, scale, and selection. See the carnage on TV and you've learned nothing.

Re:State v. private interests

[Kadin2048]

I think you need to check how tight your tinfoil hat is; I have yet to see the news accuse something of being the work of "Islamic terrorists" when there wasn't good reason for that to be true.

And, quite frankly, given recent history, if a major terrorist attack were to happen in the US tomorrow, I'd say they're probably within the realm of justified speculation to ask whether it was 'Islamic' terrorists. You know, with 9/11, Madrid, London...it's not some huge conspiratorial leap.

It's one thing to not accuse groups of people out-of-hand without evidence, but it's quite another to delude oneself about the nature of a particular enemy because you're seemingly uncomfortable with it. There are many Muslims in the world who are not strapping on explosive vests and buying plane tickets for the US; I don't think anyone is suggesting otherwise. However, a rather sizable number of recent terrorist attacks have come from groups motivated by a violent religious ideology, and we'd be fools to just ignore that.

Re:State v. private interests

[drooling-dog]

Private interests may be collecting much - or even most - of the information, but even the privately collected stuff is increasingly available to the government, and with little or no judicial oversight. Thus it makes very little difference who collects the data, or for what original purpose. It just saves the government a lot of money and effort to let your phone company do the heavy lifting and then issue a secret warrantless subpoena whenever somebody in authority gets curious.

Re:State v. private interests

[SanityInAnarchy]

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! Have you ever walked outside and thought to yourself, "Man, I hope no Islamic terrorists kill me today." Of course not.

It's just more subconscious, and for that matter, the damage has been done. Look, in 2001, the government said "We have to fight terrorist!" And we all cringed in fear and said "ok, just save me from the bad bad bearded Arab men!" Today, yes, people are lazy and apathetic -- it's hard to change something -- but on 9/11/01, something changed, and we suddenly decided we'd be willing to give up our essential liberty for a little temporary security.

Since then, we're just overreacting (societies tend to do this) until we hit the other end, and the government (or corporations) do something so obviously horrific that we snap and correct it.

It's already happening, somewhat. Bush finally proved to the world what a moron he is with Katrina, and his approval ratings are through the floor, too bad we can't actually kick him out yet. I mean, I never liked him, the country was completely divided in 2004, but now we've all decided we hate Bush.

So it could happen that way, but I'd rather not let our privacy get bad enough first. I'd rather that just once, common sense prevails over sensationalism -- people hate Bush now because it's fashionable, and the economy kind of sucks, not because there's a real reason to. I'd like people to actually remember what country they're in, and fix it.

I'd also like a jet skateboard, a quad-core/quad-SLI computer with an Apple Cinema display that plays any game flawlessly in Linux, and a few million dollars of spending money, as long as I'm wishing for things that will never happen.

Re:State v. private interests

[kfg]

This may or may not be a temporary situation, but the state obviously hasn't reached the level of control that Big Brother did in 1984.

The time to oppose black cars coming to take you away in the middle of the night is not when they arrive at your doorstep, but rather before they are given the authority to do so.

We have already passed that point. The rest of the story is just commentary.

KFG

Re:State v. private interests

[soft_guy]

In all fairness, you could buy an Apple Cinema Display.

Re:State v. private interests

[NoMaster]

1984 was about the state controlling everything.

Then you must have read a different, shallower book called "1984" than I did. Because, in the "1984" I have sitting here, the state didn't actually do much 'controlling' beyond setting up the basic structure whereby people wittingly or unwittingly controlled themselves. Remember, Winston - himself a replaceable everyman, just doing his unimportant little job - was part of the problem in his position at the Ministry.

Rocket bombs? (What colour is the Terror Alert level today?). Eurasia/Eastasia? (Who are you 'at war' with - Afghanistan? Iraq? Is it Iran yet? What about tomorrow - Lebanon? Venezuela?). Hate Week? (Watch much Fox News?). Prisoners being driven through the streets (seen footage from Gitmo lately?) on their way to an uncertain fate? (Military courts, anyone?). The constant state of fear? (Are you with us in the War on Terrah, or against us?). The soothing voice of the figurehead Big Brother? (When is the next State of the Union address anyway?).

There's very little overt control from the state in there; just the appearance of. There's a reason the book is mostly written from a POV inside Winston's head - that's where the problem lies. Was that a physical or metaphorical bullet at the end? Which do you hope it was?

And I agree with others - it should be read alongside "Brave New World", as a warning against all types of dystopian futures. I'd add "The Fountainhead" and/or "Atlas Shrugged" to the list too...

As for your second statement: which would be easier - moving to another country, or living a completely Microsoft-free computing existence?

Re:State v. private interests

[permaculture]

How did the Islamist terrorists destroy WTC building 7, without crashing a plane into it?

Not even the NIST report attempts to explain that.

Re:State v. private interests

[Anonymous Coward]

2000: "...the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of Islamic terrorists that they're willing to give the state more power."

1990: "...the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of drug cartels that they're willing to give the state more power."

1980: "...the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of Satanists that they're willing to give the state more power."

1970: "... the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of the Vietnamese Communists that they're willing to give the state more power."

1960: "... the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of student radicals that they're willing to give the state more power."

1950: "... the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of Soviet Communists that they're willing to give the state more power."

Re:State v. private interests

[MosesJones]

but the state obviously hasn't reached the level of control that Big Brother did in 1984.

Are you sure? Okay so TVs don't look back at you but equally they will track you when you take a train out to the country. They will know the books that you get from the library, and the most important thing they have created (which is what enabled the goverment in 1984 to do what it did). They have created a war that cannot be won with a constantly changing enemy. Its perfect, since 2001 we've had

1) Its Osama
2) Its Afghanistan
3) Its Iraq
4) Its North Korea
5) Its Iran
6) Its Syria

Somalia surely has to be pretty high on the list too right now. Its perfect. Its even BETTER than 1984 because being "asymetrical" they can introduce things that even Big Brother couldn't find an excuse for straight off, so you introduce a law aimed at making extradition of terrorists easy... then you just use it against white collar criminals. Its a brilliant plan that Orwell would have been proud of, its got lots of advantages over the remote war of 1984

1) "They are everywhere" - so you get to crack down at home
2) "They don't respect our laws or way of life" - so we have to play the game using "their" rules = torture, renditions, detention without representation or trial
3) "We have to hit them in their heartlands" - Invade other countries
4) "Its us or them" - So what if some of "their" civilians die
5) "You are either with us or against us" - Debate is not allowed
6) "You don't understand what they can do" - So we must do things you can't believe we would
7) "We have to destroy them at all costs" - More dead civilians
8) "We must support those who are with us against this menace" - India gets Nuclear help, Iran gets condemned for doing less than India.

Orwell would have looked upon the current situation and thought "damn, asymetrical war... what a brilliant plot device that would have been"

Re:State v. private interests

[Mac Degger]

It ain't that bad YET!?! When you have doublethink in real life, you're pretty much there. Think I'm overstating? Kerry had a spotless military record, Bush's was...amazingly appaling, to say the least. And still, Bush managed to run part of his campaign on a 'Kerry is a military pussy' platform. And many other political races are won that way...somehow making Rove's opponents strenghts work against them.

As for the surveilance...well, that's pretty much an established fact. There's this whole 'war is peace' thing...you've got an attorney general doing his damndest to legalise torture...deep administration ties to the military-industrial complex (you know, that thing many people including ex-presidents have been warning against) and established energy concerns (which is the only one which didn't make 1984, iirc).

Then there's laws which favour drug companies, allowing them to not be sued through riders included in the USA PATRIOT ACT or the freaking national budget. And lets not forget the 8 billion dollar entertainment industry somehow getting the government to regulate a I-don't-know-how-many-hundreds-of-billions dollar electronics industry.

Face it...Wells was right, only his definition of government didn't include the current state of fascism (merging of corporations and state) the USA finds itself in nowadays.

Re:State v. private interests

[b0s0z0ku]

1984 was about the state controlling everything. In the current situation, the state is peering more heavily into everything we're doing because a lot of people are so afraid of Islamic terrorists that they're willing to give the state more power.

Nah, the problem started before the current fear of Islamic terrorism. Think excessive hate speech and sexual harrassment laws in the early 90s. The 'liberals' aren't immune to encroaching on people's rights, either, unfortunately.

That being said, the *only* proper way of dealing with Islamic terrorism is to scare the living shit out of those people. Let it be known that if another attack occurs against targets on US soil, our response will be total isolation of the Middle East. No trade. No oil purchases. Perhaps then the governments of certain countries would be forced to crack down on the terrorist organizations.

Another attack after that? Our response might be swift and uncaring about civilians (to use a polite euphemism).

-b.

Re:State v. private interests

[Anonymous Coward]

"Kerry had a spotless military record, Bush's was...amazingly appaling, to say the least. And still, Bush managed to run part of his campaign on a 'Kerry is a military pussy' platform. And many other political races are won that way...somehow making Rove's opponents strenghts work against them."

Exactly. I see this pattern repeated over and over when something is so blatantly wrong. The solution for the people who do the wrong doing is to ignore the obvious and focus on the details. Rove focused on the details of Kerry's service: was he on this boat or that? did he wear black socks or brown? and completely ignored the fact that he put his life at risk to help his country and then had the courage to come back and challenge the government. In every scandal this happens.

Re:State v. private interests

[Infonaut]

Then you must have read a different, shallower book called "1984" than I did. Because, in the "1984" I have sitting here, the state didn't actually do much 'controlling' beyond setting up the basic structure whereby people wittingly or unwittingly controlled themselves.

No, I think we did read the same book. My point is the same as yours. The state clamps down because the people tell it to. Individuals buy into the fear, which collectively creates a state that feeds the fear, and so on.

Rocket bombs? (What colour is the Terror Alert level today?). Eurasia/Eastasia? (Who are you 'at war' with - Afghanistan? Iraq? Is it Iran yet? What about tomorrow - Lebanon? Venezuela?). Hate Week? (Watch much Fox News?). Prisoners being driven through the streets (seen footage from Gitmo lately?) on their way to an uncertain fate? (Military courts, anyone?). The constant state of fear? (Are you with us in the War on Terrah, or against us?). The soothing voice of the figurehead Big Brother? (When is the next State of the Union address anyway?).

As for these items, I'm not sure what you're getting at. If the state doesn't really exercise much power, then why do they matter one way or the other?

Plus, I'm not sure how well your examples match anyway. The Terror Alert is widely regarded as a joke in the US. I don't know anyone, including the wingnuts I know who swallow the whole War on Terror notion, who believes that the Terror Alert system has any relationship to real life. Eurasia/Eastasia doesn't work either. We're at war with terrorists and Islamic states that sponsor terrorism. Whether you accept the premise or not, I think the enemy is fairly well established. Venezuela has nothing to do with it and the exchanges between the US and Venezuela are not going to lead to war. Chavez gets street cred for showing the US the finger. Nothing new in that. As for Hate Week and Fox News, there are, believe it or not, a lot of people who don't watch Fox News. Even then, it's an absolutely asenine organization that has built itself around jingoism, but equating it to Hate Week is excessive. Gitmo is a travesty of justice and a black eye for America. But there is tremendous outrage over Gitmo here, and intense politics around how to make a better system for detained enemy combatants. The constant state of fear is waning, even in the most intense nitwits, the ones who for a while were afraid to go buy TV dinners at Wal-Mart for fear of being bombed into oblivion. Finally, the President's poll numbers serve as proof that while there are some staunch holdouts, most Americans wouldn't trust him enough to let him eat with a foreign dignitary, much less run the country.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[supasam]

"Sorry, sir--not to be rude--but I don't quite buy into your "big question". (c'mon... peaches??) [Cause I have the same "big question" in mind.] There are many other real-world, legitimate examples of our freedoms eroded." Thats right, everything in the article is wrong because he might have stretched a peaches story, right? You pick one point to poke at and then everything else is, of course, wrong, correct? Why not, instead of saying you think he's wrong, come up with some of those "real world, legitimate examples"? Hum?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[rodgster]

I was going to moderate. (4) points about to expire today. But I just cannot let this example of ignorance sit at the top of a story.

Have You ever heard of CYANIDE?

Suggestion: think before you open type and demonstrate how ignorant you are.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Cyanide+peach+pits

Don't tell anyone but pressure treated wood contains arsenic.

Waiting for the knock on Cliff's door.

[transporter_ii]

Well now, I think we all know one little submitter who is going to get a visit from Homeland Security tonight.

Transporter_ii

Admitting you have a problem is the first step

[MarkusQ]

What can I, a person with no political interests--a person that would really rather think that the people in office are there because they're looking out for us, our rights, and our freedoms and not because their short-sightedness is creating a police state--do to stem the tide?

It should be obvious, but I'll spell it out:

Get some political interests

Sticking your head in the sand will not help. So pull it out, shake out the sand, and get involved. And I don't mean you should flip a coin, pick the red team or the blue team, and blindly follow them.

I mean that you should get active in holding your elected officials accountable for their actions, regardless of their party affiliation. Keep up on the issues and be vocal about them. Read and listen to opposing points of view and try to form and propagate valid opinions. Make sure your representatives know that someone is watching them, and follows what they do. If they lie, cheat, steal, or sell you down the river, nail them. Vote them out in the primary if you can, and in the general if you can't. Cross party lines if you need to, because you are far better off with an honest member of the opposing party than one of "your own party" who is willing to sell you to the devil for a few hookers.

And, for that matter, do the same with your news outlets. And your local ballot boxes. If we paid half the attention to keeping the system honest that we do American idol or celebrity babies, we wouldn't have this problem.

--MarkusQ

Re:Admitting you have a problem is the first step

[Guppy06]

"And I don't mean you should flip a coin, pick the red team or the blue team, and blindly follow them."

OK, should I go with the party that overwhelmingly voted in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act, or the party that overwhelmingly voted in favor of the USA PATRTIOT Act? Where are the distinguishing characteristics?

"I mean that you should get active in holding your elected officials accountable for their actions, regardless of their party affiliation."

That will accomplish nothing thanks to our system of entrenching incumbents, thanks to gerrymandered safe districts and our system of party primaries that favors the extremes.

"Keep up on the issues and be vocal about them."

Because if those staffers don't have vaguely relevant form letters to send out in response, they'll have nothing to do all day.

"Read and listen to opposing points of view and try to form and propagate valid opinions."

99.99% of the "opposing viewpoints" in political debate are "My opponent is a facist who hates freedom." What sort of "valid opnions" can I form from that?

"Make sure your representatives know that someone is watching them, and follows what they do."

Why should they care if they're being watched? 65% of the people in your district will still vote for them, otherwise you'd be moved over into another district. Please forgive the "in Soviet Russia" cliche, but in the United States the representative chooses the voter, not the other way around.

"If they lie, cheat, steal, or sell you down the river, nail them."

If they lie, cheat, steal, etc, 65% of the district will still vote them back into office. Period.

"Cross party lines if you need to, because you are far better off with an honest member of the opposing party than one of "your own party" who is willing to sell you to the devil for a few hookers."

You're assuming that there's anybody on any ballot, anywhere, that can both be considered "more honest" and "has a chance in hell in unseating an incumbent."

"And your local ballot boxes."

For the umpteenth time, the ballot boxes don't matter. Elections are decided in the state legislatures.

But in general, how can this regurgitated idea of "Work within the system to change the system" accomplish anything when the system in question is designed with the sole purpose of isolating any possible dissent? The system is created especially to resist you.

Re:Admitting you have a problem is the first step

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure your representatives know that someone is watching them, and follows what they do

Don't write too angry letters though, or you'll end up on some list you really don't want to be on.

Re:Admitting you have a problem is the first step

[bergeron76]

We need to mobilize.

Steal a Diebold voting machine this election season. Take it apart, and post pictures on the web for the rest of us to analyze/critique.

Someone has to stop Diebold from giving the elections away.

Of course, be careful about doing it - if you get caught, you'll be labeled a 'terrorist' and be held at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely without a jury of your peers. Remember citizen - during wartime as an "enemy combatant" you have no rights. That includes virtual wars against "ideals", and not a real declared war.

Re:Admitting you have a problem is the first step

[GaryPatterson]

Those that don't care about politics often get the government they deserve.

I write this from Australia, where voting (or at least turning up) is compulsory. I believe this is a good thing, although a solid case can be made either way. Even people who don't care have to turn up and make a decision. Sure, they can donkey vote, but at least they make some decision.

Re:Admitting you have a problem is the first step

[MarkusQ]

• "That will accomplish nothing thanks to our system of entrenching incumbents"

  The people of CT, GA, and MI beg to differ.

• "If they lie, cheat, steal, etc, 65% of the district will still vote them back into office. Period."

  Tell Joe Lieberman. Please. You also might mention it to Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Galen Fox, George Ryan, John Rowland, Tom Noe, Marion Barry, Bob Ney, Vince Cianci, Bill Janklow, Jim West, and...well, let's just say there is a limit.

• "You're assuming that there's anybody on any ballot, anywhere, that can both be considered "more honest" and "has a chance in hell in unseating an incumbent.""

  Yes, I am. They don't have a great shelf life, but they do exist.

• "But in general, how can this regurgitated idea of "Work within the system to change the system" accomplish anything when the system in question is designed with the sole purpose of isolating any possible dissent? The system is created especially to resist you."

  Ah, but I was created especially to resist it. And "it" in this case is a relative newcommer, while I have the benefit of millions of years of evolution. BTW, the whole "work within the system or not" dichotomy is misleading. Ignore the system and focus on the fact the humans are highly skilled at detecting and smacking down cheaters. This isn't about "the system" it's about standing up for what's right.

--MarkusQ

Re:Admitting you have a problem is the first step

[Guppy06]

"The people of CT, GA, and MI beg to differ."

Three seats out of 435? That is literally less than 1%. And even then, all three will be on the general ballot this November, but even if they lose it will be anything but signifigant.

"Tell Joe Lieberman. Please."

He got his second and third terms with 67% and 64%, respectively. As for this year, the election hasn't happened yet.

"You also might mention it to Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Galen Fox, George Ryan, John Rowland, Tom Noe, Marion Barry, Bob Ney, Vince Cianci, Bill Janklow, Jim West,"

Indicted, indicted, concvicted, convicted, convicted, convicted, convicted, withdrew, convicted, convicted, and Jim West is the only name listed who was removed from office by a popular process. On the contrary, Marion Barry was re-elected to be mayor of DC after he served his sentence (and currently sits on the city council) and Vince Cianci was the longest-tenured mayor in the history of the United States.

All but one of the names you listed seem to be more indicative of how the system is broken, not how it works.

"Ah, but I was created especially to resist it. And "it" in this case is a relative newcommer"

"It" is the product of intelligent design, with a goal of obfuscating your vote, while your goal is, at best, to procreate.

"This isn't about "the system" it's about standing up for what's right."

You "stand up" all you want, several hundreds of thousands of people will still be "sitting down" in each and every House district in this country this November. Whether or not you cast your lone, insignifigant vote means nothing in the modern political scheme.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[alshithead]

Maybe they aren't. I can't buy Day-Quil at Wal-Mart without showing ID.

Surveillance cameras

[Anonymous Coward]

There's ridiculous numbers of surveillance cameras everywhere. Even millions in a single city.

Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[WidescreenFreak]

I particularly enjoy how I can't shop for good deals on my doctor-recommended loratidine with decongestant that I take every day for my allergies. Apparently, if I purchase more than 15 pills of 240 mg pseudoephedrine each in one day I am obviously running a meth lab.

I never knew. I guess the government knows me better than I know myself. Thank you, government, for stopping me from creating a narcotics lab that I never knew I wanted!

The peach situation baffles the hell out of me though.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[blanks]

It's simple, its profiling or random checking for criminals.  Even criminals have to buy food, and if they scan in their license there is a general known area s/he frequents.

The funny thing is that people are totally happy with letting companies and goverment track them.  Every purchase with your CC is tracked.  Every purchase with an "awards card" is tracked, and people are totally fine with this type of tracking.

Personally I think it will get to the point where you no longer just punch in for a job.  You punch in to leave your house, enter your house, enter buildings,  ride public transit and so on. it will be so simple, we all ready have a trackable ID on us.  It would be simple too since they all ready do it with people on house arrest (talk into the phone and a device).

But with RFID it will be even easier, and less noticable.

SORRY, YOU ARE NOT CLEARED FOR THAT

[StefanJ]

Please strip to your underwear and sit with your hands folded behind your head in preparation for a courtesy visit from your friends and fellow Class 1 citizens from Homeland Security's Produce Control Division.

And stop thinking about goats when you play with yourself.

Re:SORRY, YOU ARE NOT CLEARED FOR THAT

[TheUz]

I wish I had mod points to mod you file system checking hysterical.

thanks for the guffaw = )

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you've convinced me.

Your random anecdote, and enormous sample size (of one whole person/incident)
has convinced me that any musings on possible privacy encroachments
and abuses of technology can be ignored.

Your Attention

[amrust]

Your attention, please! A newsflash has this moment arrived from the WalMart front. In honor of the massive overfulfillment of the ninth three-year plan... it's been announced that the NASCAR T-Shirt ration is to be increased to 3 per month!

DoublePlusYeeHaw!

Re:Your Attention

[ngrier]

Of course the sad part is that this should probably be modded 'Insightful' rather than 'Funny'...

Re:Your Attention

[The Wicked Priest]

Beautiful.

Some of this is true...

[Zelph]

I was ID'd for a lighter the other day. Now, I am a bit younger looking, and I know that restricting lighter sales is the first step to restricting consumption of other products. In California, and at a Walmart, at that. The real issue that would make me start to worry is data aggregation. And that is where I think it all falls apart (knock on wood). If they could aggregate all the data of my purchases, communications, etc, I would be a lot more worried. If you ARE paranoid, a major step to eliminate tracking is to go cash only. Stop using electronic payments of any kind. Stop using grocery discount cards too. They track spending habits.

But again, data aggregation is key, and they don't have that yet.

Re:Some of this is true...

[AndreiK]

Or use someone else's cards. That always works.

Re:Some of this is true...

[DerekLyons]

I was ID'd for a lighter the other day. Now, I am a bit younger looking, and I know that restricting lighter sales is the first step to restricting consumption of other products. In California, and at a Walmart, at that.

Now why exactly are you so surprised that it happened in California? California is (via it's enviromental laws) one of the most restrictive states in the US as regards to what you can purchase. (And why exactly do you think that restricting lighters is the first step? We've been tightening the restrictions on who can buy what and when for decades now.)
 
 

The real issue that would make me start to worry is data aggregation. And that is where I think it all falls apart (knock on wood). If they could aggregate all the data of my purchases, communications, etc, I would be a lot more worried.

What, precisely (I.E. no tinfoil hat nonsense), makes you frightened about such data aggreation?

Re:Some of this is true...

[Zelph]

It wouldn't bother me if it didn't give the holders of that aggregate such a great potential for power over freedom.

Re:Some of this is true...

[Anonymous Coward]

| If you ARE paranoid, a major step to eliminate tracking is to go cash only. Stop using electronic payments of any kind. Stop using grocery discount cards too. They track spending habits.

You IMHO are totally wrong here. If you want 'them' to look real close at YOU then you stop acting like everyone else.
If you want to hide: Live your life. Your the same as everyone else. Just be sure to take random amounts of cash out on the odd occasion.
Keep the cash someplace safe and use it when you DONT want anyone knowing what your doing.
At all other times make sure you are 'normal'.
When cash is eventually phased out use jewelry or other goods that can be bartered.
Dont attempt to drop off the grid, you were born and until they find your body they will always know or atleast think your alive.
The more normal you look and act the the less anyone looks at you.
If you have to stand up and fight for something you think is right make sure you do it in such a way that people think your not a zealot (Miss the odd meeting, Come late, If someone advises something that you agree with but know would be viewed as subversive say you dont think thats a good idea)

Re:Some of this is true...

[jimicus]

Funny, when I went to the US I was asked if I had a store card and when the answer was "no", the checkout clerk swiped their own.

Fairly obviously not being a US citizen may have helped there...

Re:Some of this is true...

[markdavis]

"If you ARE paranoid, a major step to eliminate tracking is to go cash only. Stop using electronic payments of any kind. Stop using grocery discount cards too. They track spending habits."

And as was used as an example in the original post, they keyed in a driver's license number. So it doesn't matter if it was cash or not. Now, why anyone would allow cashiers to do that is beyond me. They can LOOK at a card to verify age, keying (scanning/whatever) in an ID number is an instant violation of the customer's privacy. There are many ways to tie someone's identity to cash purchases and it will get much worse.

Some examples might seem "far fetched", but they will come- checkout aisles already have cameras- easy, cheap, accurate facial recognition is not far away. Carrying a cell phone? Another window into your identity. Have anything purchased on you with an active RFID tag (that contains a unique serial number)? A cross-reference will reveal the purchases. You leave DNA and fingerprints all over the place. There is no question in my mind that the incidence of compulsory AND covert identification will increase exponentially over the next few decades.

Besides, at the rate we are going, cash will be outlawed in probably less than 50 years. And even before that, your cash withdrawals will be recorded and tied to the machine-readable serial numbers on the cash, providing another trace.

The vast majority of the American population won't understand (or care about) the technology/methods that will lead to their steadily declining freedom and privacy. It has already been made quite clear that perceived safety is much more important than freedom in the USA.

Re:Some of this is true...

[DerekLyons]

In other words - the only reason you can come up with is tinfoil handwaving.

Re:Some of this is true...

[Zelph]

If tinfoil handwaving is being concerned about privacy, then yes.

Re:Some of this is true...

[Zelph]

If you want an example where video recognition has reached the limit in a certain industry, take a look at the gambling industry. The moment you walk in their doors, your face is matched to a computer facial recognition system and if you match the profile of a card counter or "specialist", then you'll get the boot.

Re:Some of this is true...

[TempeTerra]

As a Damned Foreigner, I'd like to ask why lighters are restricted. How is that meant to help stop underage smoking? (real question, not rhetorical). Are matches restricted too?

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[blanks]

" smell BS. An ID for a lighter? Bah"

Because in many states you have to be over 18 to buy one.

And it could also be corporate policy that they have to run the license through the system now matter how old they look.  But also a good way to collect data on who the person is incase they dont use a CC (or to check for fraud).

I'd find another store ...

[Secrity]

I call bullshit. If my grocery store hassled me for buying a butane lighter or fruit I believe that I would find another store to buy them from. I recently bought a lighter similar to the one in the link from a local mega-drugstore and nobody asked for ID (they do require an ID to buy Sudafed). What's going to happen when the thousands of roadside fruitstands start selling bushels of peaches to anybody who has the cash to buy them?

Re:I'd find another store ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind he was using a self checkout lane sp some things might be handled differently there than in a normal lane with a cashier.

Chances are he got flagged for the lighter because it contains butane. That's one of the things kids will huff to get high. Some localities may well have age restrictions on purchasing this. They do in the UK.

If he'd attempted to purchase spray paint or model glue then chances are he'd have been flagged as well. Those are two items I know for certain to be age restricted in many places in the US.

As for the peaches? Heck if I know.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[supasam]

I can't buy sudafed at the walgreens without them writing down how much I bought, at when, showing id, and then signing the entry.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, everybody knows that. But when was the last time you triggered an alert over an apricot in a store? Come on, dude, don't be a fool. I agree w/GP, the guy is a demogogue.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[rubycodez]

maybe the peaches issue was just a data entry glitch, but the rest of the items are true. I myself am very angry at the absurdity of age/license checks for purchasing cough medicine. As if the big drug dealers will be buying 6 oz bottles of cough syrup to make the hundreds of gallons of narcotic. "But a few high school students made small amounts of drugs with this!", cry the Nanny-State bleeding hearts! "Look at me, I care about the children, so I voted for this law", says the power-grubbing dirt bag politician. For that matter, I was recently at the grocery store behind a 50 year old man who was refused the sale of a bottle of gin because he forgot his ID. This society is going to get a big punch in the reset button real soon, as the rewards of this increasing collective stupidity are reaped. For the simple truth is, the government has neither the competence nor resources to protect everyone from themselves, from each other, and from the realities of life.

Easy solutions

[whoppers]

If you want to enjoy modern conveniences, plan ahead. Pay cash for things, don't use kroger cards (at least not in your own name), use someone elses unsecured wireless if you have to be online. It only gets worse if you use all these modern "conveniences".

Think about it, just 10 years ago, I knew no one with a personal cell phone, high speed internet, check card, "savings" cards, etc...

Re:Easy solutions

[Anonymous Coward]

you probably hadn't gone through puberty 10 years ago and no kid is going to have any of those things. It wasn't uncommon for adults to have those things 10 years ago.

Re:Easy solutions

[ferretbot]

You knew nodbody with a cell phone, or check card in 1996?

Re:Easy solutions

[whoppers]

You wimpy ACs, I need to update my filters - car phones were common, not cell phones but still maybe 1 in 100 adults had them, I worked for the 7th largest US contractor back then and cell phones were not assigned to our managers, only the lead PM on a project worth $100MM would be assigned one.

ATM cards were common, not check cards.

Maybe there should be some sort of IQ test for AC posters

Not Quite

[NotFamousYet]

"Big Brother" is supposed to be made of one entity which monitors and seeks to control people's lives and thoughts.

What the summary describes here is merely companies or the government trying to gather information, mostly for a commercial purpose.
These do not constitute a common group with a specific goal, but just different groups that have their own interests. Most of these do not trade information between each other.

However, it is true that the US courts have been asking sites such as Google or Yahoo to forward their user's information, so the tendency could be going towards such a centralized system.

If you're looking for systems in which people's actions and thoughts are restricted, China or USSR would be better examples.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[alshithead]

And it's not even on the shelf. You have to take a card to the pharmacy and then show your ID. They want your phone number too. Like I need all that extra hassle when I feel like shit from having a bad cold.

at least we can still talk about it

[grapeape]

just about the only freedom left is the right to free speech and even that is at times questionable. I used to concider myself a libertarian but leaned republican in elections, now im so ticked off at the state of the world my friends all think ive gone all Che Guevara. I'm just sickened by all the steps taken to "secure" me, what good is it without freedom? I guess im in the majority but I would rather take my chances a bit than deal with some of the BS that is going on now.

The constitution isnt perfect but its alot better than what we have now.

Re:at least we can still talk about it

[tubapro12]

Ya at least we can *This post has been censored by the Ministry of Doublespeak*.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[MyDixieWrecked]

I smell BS. An ID for a lighter? Bah.

Where do you live? perhaps I'd like to move there.

When I used to buy cigarettes in NJ, they'd card me and jot down my license. When I purchase alcohol, some stores jot down my license number on paper or punch it into their cashier devices. I bought a set of markers a couple weeks back and they did the same thing to me. They asked for ID and wrote it down.

Shit's going down, but I think it's regional. It's stupid.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[supasam]

News to me. Who'd a thunkit?

Welcome ...

[jc42]

... to the Brave New World.

This means...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, guess the terrorists won, eh?

I have a better question-Cleanup in aisle freedom.

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's our government, dammit."

Kroger is a government? Hot damn! Now I can bitch in person.

Seriously, how many here have actually read 1984? Did you understand it? If not then why are you posting here?

We're at 1983

[pjt48108]

1984 is when the authorities catch a clue.

Or, as Benny hill once said in a sketch, "My dog likes to chase cars, but if he ever caught one, he wouldn't know what to do with the damn thing!"

Right now, the powers that be are dogs chasing cars, but they are close to figuing out what they'll do when they catch one.

Enjoy this moment while it lasts.

Re:We're at 1983

[MMaestro]

Right now, the powers that be are dogs chasing cars, but they are close to figuing out what they'll do when they catch one.

They'll sniff around it, bark at it pointlessly and then pee on the tires before losing interest and walking off?

Re:We're at 1983

[zippthorne]

Seems like you didn't actually read 1984. If you did, you'd notice that it turned out to be a conspiracy so vast, the victims were actively a part of it. The whole thing had gotten so far out of control, even the party powerful were really just pawns in some massive superorganism of mediocrity. The biggest victim perhaps was imagination, as anything outside of a very narrow expected behavior for any particular caste resulted in extremely ignoble death. In fact, some expected behavior was punished in the same way just to keep the gears rolling.

1984 wasn't about a struggle between man and the machine. man became the machine. It was the ultimate in the authorities NOT knowing what to do with their power, so they just used it.

Of course I don't expect very many slashdotters to do anything more than say "oh some kind of surveillance. I heard there was surveillance in 1984, therefore this is just like it."

Surveillance wasn't what made oceana so terrible to live in. "Common sense" was.

Vote for a party that values human freedom

[StefanJ]

No, I'm not a libertarian.

I would be if they were balls-out scrappers for freedom and liberty for all humans. But too often they stop at property rights, and assume that a good round of deregulation and tax cuts will fix everything else.

Freedom and rights have to be fought for. The enemy isn't just the government; it includes corporations.

Human rights must come before corporate rights. Too many Libertarians I know seem uncomfortable with that.

So, which party to turn to? Right now, there's no clear choice. But for now, the first step is denying Bush the convenience of a rubber stamp congress.

That means holding your nose and voting Democratic this fall.

And stop being afraid.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[dunkelfalke]

green party maybe?

i would vote for green, but the german greens have sold them out years ago.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[loraksus]

With respect, the majority of house and senate members, regardless of their affiliation, are equally corrupt and are more concerned with their own pork projects (and, of course, keeping their current position so that they can push more pork in the future, which means toeing the party line) to of be any real use to the ordinary citizens.
I'd much rather people vote out their current reps and senators unless they have done something that deserves actually re-election. I can't believe that in some states, senators and congress critters run unopposed.
Of course, I'd like a pony too. (ponygirl would be fine too ;)

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[Guppy06]

"But for now, the first step is denying Bush the convenience of a rubber stamp congress.

That means holding your nose and voting Democratic this fall."

How does B follow A? How does giving Congress to the other party that voted overwhelmingly in favor of the USA PATRIOT Act (twice!), the other party that can't even bother censuring (let alone impeaching) the man, the other party that has been moving in lockstep with the Republicans deny Bush anything?

The only thing that might change things in DC is if everybody voted against all incumbents, regardless of party (which simply won't happen, thanks to gerrymandering). But voting straight Democrat? Sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

the only flaw with your biased post is the fact many democrats are guilty of the exact same bullshit that republicans are.

Want a good example? Look at california. Look at what Grey Davis did, look at Boxer and Feinstein. What have they done recently?

oh right, everything that screws the people of the state around.

Look at everything Feinstein votes for, everything that ensures that people suffer, she backs the Big corporate interests as well.

What doesnt she vote for? everything that helps people and ensures the voters get to keep their rights.

She also led a campaign when Davis was being recalled chastising the people and telling them what they were doing was illegal and wanted to have the right to recall banned. Some of you californian residents may remember some of the ads.

Boxer is also on the same boat.

And Davis? Hell, if you're familiar with california state politics, you dont even need an explanation here. To everyone else, he basically ripped off the state and kept outright lying about everything. He also used taxpayer money to fund his re-election.

Also, guess who was pushing the draft to send in more troops into the big mistake in the middle east? Democrats. (so much for the valuing human rights thing, I see the draft as a violation of human rights, as it's basically a death sentence for many just so some rich assholes can play wargames in the 3rd world.)

Democrats are no better than republicans, as they both have one interest in mind:

Power.

Best thing to do is start voting on people based on who they are, what they stand for. Not what political party they're in. As far as I'm concerned, Republicans and Democrats are the same party, but just sell on different face values.

People like you disgust me to the core. You're one of the people who are why we are discussing this.

Also, if you were being a troll, I applaud you for a job well done. But I still want to make it clear to those who do think that voting for a party, not a candidate makes a difference.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[gwbennett]

Careful with capitilization here. Sounds to me you ARE indeed a "libertarian" but feel that you are even moreso that the Libertarian Party of America. I am very libertarian, and also an LP member. I'd say it's the best thing going for us right now, by a long shot. But in a country where most think we live in a democracy, how can we rely on "we the people" to abolish their own government. Especially when most of them think they work for the government. See 14th amendment/"subject to the laws thereof." We libertarians and Libertarians alike need to sread our message as far and wide as possible, or nothing will change for the better. Republcrats and Demoblicans have no problem accepting the status quo, usually for lack of historical education. See also, IRS, Federal Reserve, Dept of Education, etc.



PS: I cannot read that captcha for the life of me. It's worse than microsoft, yahoo, google, aim, or any other I have ever had to read. Wonder how many tries this will take to submit. Ugh. :-/

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[syukton]

The democrats are the ones that are ushering in the nanny state, while the republicans are the ones ushering in the police state. What's the difference, you ask? One of them says "none for you!" and the other says "if you even think about it, I'll shoot you!"

The democrats have all their "for the children!" legislation, but the republicans have all their "omgz terrorists!" legislation. We need a party that doesn't have either type of legislation, and I still don't know which party that is.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[Bogtha]

That means holding your nose and voting Democratic this fall.

"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[lawpoop]

Right now, the Republicans in congress are preventing the democrats in congress from even having a room to hold hearings.

The patriot act was passed with very little debate because, in the short time after Sept 11th, no lawmaker could afford to look like (s)he didn't want to do anything. The country was "under attack" and the president was immensely popular.

If the Democrats win the house, Representative John Conyers will get to hold hearings with witnesses *under oath* about intelligence failures before 9/11, intelligence preparations before the Iraq war, and allegations of voter fraud in Florida and Ohio. If you really want to find out what Bush and Cheney are up to, you will have to vote democrat this fall.

In short, yes, Currently the democrats are doing what they have to in order to politically survive until 2006 and 2008. With the republicans in control of both houses of congress and the white house, the democrats have *almost absolutely no power whatsoever*. They can't get their bills onto the floor, they can't get rooms for hearings, etc.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[bhmit1]

Freedom and rights have to be fought for. The enemy isn't just the government; it includes corporations.

Human rights must come before corporate rights. Too many Libertarians I know seem uncomfortable with that.

When it comes to basic human rights, I agree. But beyond that, over regulating the corporations only moves things in the direction more government control and higher barriers of entry that the big corporations like. Keep in mind that a majority of corporations aren't the huge giants that everyone loves to hate. They are the small ones (<20 people) where the owner is looking to protect their own assets from the business they created. Personally I'd like to see fewer barriers and more people starting businesses. Competition from many small companies is the best way to keep the big corporations in check without growing the government into an even larger bloated mess.

Also, the other reason they get uncomfortable is because they are trying to move all of the public services to private companies. So, the logic goes, you wouldn't want to handcuff the organizations that you are trying to move the power towards, would you?

As for my beef with the Libertarians, it's that the only ones that ever run in my region are the extremist that want to get rid of public education and privatize all the roads, among other things. I'll cast a vote for them when I know my vote is wasted no matter who I vote for, but only to send a signal to the major politicians that their base is splintering and they need to stop pushing the wedge issues. If a Libertarian is ever going to have a chance, they need to move to toward the center and realize that small government doesn't mean a non-existent government, and we still need something to maintain a basic quality of life.

As for the Democrats and Republicans, they have all gone corrupt. It's all about the lobbyist and corporate interests. Candidates only work with the people when they see that it will help them get reelected. Considering all the redistricting and corrupt campaign finances, those in power never intend to give it up. They designed a system that is stacked against true third party competition (otherwise, we would see something like a ranked ballot). When we can only replace one bad politician with another, the government is free to run off against the peoples will and only shift direction slightly based on some pre-selected wedge issue (how is it that immigration reform suddenly became a crisis?).

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[Servo]

I am a libertarian, and I don't agree with your assessment of many of the libertarian membership. I don't agree with all of the Libertarian Party's official position on issues, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't vote for them.

Instead of insisting everyone vote Democrat, why not vote for the party that stands for the closest ideal to your own? Neither the Democrats or the Republicans are truly interested in helping their constituents. Their goal is to give us small tokens in exchange for power. The Libertarian philosophy may not be perfect, but they are the only party that is interested in allowing people to have true freedom. The LP is not a bunch of anarchists. We're people who want to let you do or say whatever you want as long as its not harmful to someone else. Regulating corporations into the ground doesn't help the economic situation, but at the same time they must be held accountable just as we require of any other person.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

That means holding your nose and voting Democratic this fall.

How about voting for the right candidate irrespective of political affiliations? Why do we always have to view everything in partisan terms. "Just because we want to hurt Bush, we should be voting Democrat"? Thats a stupid reason to vote democrat. Americans seem to have completely forgotten the reason elections are held. Its not to rub another candidates face in the dirt or to take revenge, its so that you can elect a leader who listens to _your_ issues and tries to make things better for you. You have the right to hold them accountable for their wrong decisions. Partisan thinking lets candidates get away with murder just because because they are no longer being evaluated for the work they do, instead they are now being evaluated for not being someone else or for not having someone else's beliefs.

It requires people to be in tune with politics and actually keep track of what is happening out there as opposed to asking the question "is he republican or democrat". Only people who work for their constituents and show results should be voted in. Others, irrespective of their political/religious affiliations, should be voted out.

Imagine if we voted Democrat now, and say Hillary Clinto came to power in 2008, and she turns out to be just as much of a psycho that Bush is and she gets all her wars through, what will you say then? "Lets all vote Republican - we have got to hurt Hillary"? See where I am going with this? Realize what your requirements are, ensure that your candidate meets those requirements, keep out stupid questions like the pro-life pro-choice, dem-republican, christian or not, out of it for once and evaluate the candidate purely on the basis on the work that he/she does, other things will sort themselves out. This will also attract the right type of candidates into politics - not power hungry megalomaniacs.

Rant mode off.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[Kanuki]

Watch the film, "From Freedom to Fascism" (www.fromfreedomtofascism.com) Playing at: http://www.fromfreedomtofascism.com/screenings/scr eenings.html I saw it last night (New York), and the audience went absolutely wild. The most important film I have ever seen.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[MoneyT]

A load of crap. So because the president was POPULAR and the politicians didn't want to LOOK bad, they voted to impliment a LAW that they didn't even READ? Excuse me but fuck no, that is entirely unacceptable. As a law maker their job is to protect the interests of their constituents. How does passing laws that they have no clue what they even mean or say protect our interests. Every single congress person that voted (or has ever voted) yes without reading the bill in question is guilty of treason.

Furthermore, your story doesn't hold water given that when renewal time came arround the voting still went yes (and sure as hell wasn't split along party lines. The democrats and the republicans are both out to screw you, it's just a matter of which orafice.

Believing any of this "We can't be heard, we didn't have time to read, it was forced down our throats!" bullshit is just plain stupid. If they really meant it, they would stand up and fight for rights, not back down and play dead.

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[maxpublic]

I think you're confusing "libertarian" with "Libertarian".

The former believes in a minimalistic government whose primary goals are centered about freedom. This cannot be achieved if your property can be taken by force at any time by some external party (including the government) for whatever reason suits their fancy. It also can't be achieved if we own our property in name only, bound by a thousand laws telling us what we can't do with what we own, or what we have to do with what we own - many of them completely inane in a so-called free society (e.g., not being allowed to let your grass grow to 6" because it affects the 'property values' of your neighbors). Since property rights violations are so obvious, so prevalent, and so near and dear to the hearts of pseudo-socialists everywhere (who apparently hate with a passion anyone who dares to own a single square foot of land), they're the ones most talked about (or argued over).

A real libertarian also believes that no person should ever be enslaved; their 'property' includes their own physical body, and nobody else has any business telling them what they can and cannot do with it. The Libertarian Party, with it's new push to be "inclusive", no longer likes to discuss this topic since anti-choice legislation is directly antithetical to core libertarian values. One CANNOT be a libertarian and at the same time support enslaving pregnant women and forcing them to carry unwanted fetuses to term. And yet the anti-choicers, who're practically rabid over just this idea and are more than willing to enslave women to their own moral values (claiming it's for "the (unborn) children", of course), represent a large and wealthy chunk of the Party's newest membership.

Which means that libertarians argue over property rights because their natural enemies, the pseudo-socialists, attack those rights (or what's left of them) the most often. The Libertarian Party does the same because those sell-out cocksuckers threw out the very heart of libertarianism the moment they decided that they wanted a chance to go mainstream - and that a focus on property rights was the best way to convince disenchanted anti-choice Republicans with money to switch sides. So far as I'm concerned the Libertarian Party, which is no longer libertarian by any stretch of the imagination, is just the Republican Party as it used to be back in the heyday.

And then, of course, you have the stupid fuckers in college who don't know shit about real libertarianism (pro or con, neither seems to bother with boring pursuits like 'reading' these days), and the con men who claim to be members of group x so long as it suits them to do so - usually when they're defending their own amoral behavior.

Fuck, now that I think about it I doubt there are enough real libertarians in the entire country to fill a small town. Talk about depressing....

Max

Re:Vote for a party that values human freedom

[Artifakt]

The biggest thing that keeps me from being a Libertarian, is that if they ever get in at the national level, they'd have just enough popular support to start cutting individual oriented welfare programs. That would use up their mandate from the general public, so they would never have the additional support needed to cut corporate welfare programs, even if, in theory, they claim to intend to do that too. We'd end up with no safety net for the 'average Joe', but still subsidising wasteful and inept companies, and that combination would be bad enough to not only total the economy, but probably throw us into a Marxist counter-revolution four years later.
        Any libertarians who can suggest a balanced plan, where we all get more freedom, without making things worse if the initial changes can't be extended without a counter-reaction slowing the transition down or reversing it, I'd be interested in hearing. So far the national leadership doesn't seem to have an answer to this question: "What happens if the Libertarians gain the presidency with only 42% of the popular vote, just 15 libertarians in congress, and both houses still predominantly for either of the two major parties?" Because, if the Libertarians ever get in, it's a lot more likely to be that way than with an overwhelming groundswell of support that will let them make sweeping changes all at once.

What privacy?

[MoneyT]

Let's take a way back machine a little bit. Way back before big faceless corporations, people shopped at corner stores, where the manager knew them by name, knew what their regular order was, and for the habitual customers even had the order ready before the customer came in the store. You couldn't get yourself into too much trouble because everyone in town knew you on sight and all of your local relatives. More often than not the cops knew you by name, and not because you were in trouble but because they were as much a part of the community as you were. Privacy hasn't gone anywhere. If anything the world today has given us MORE privacy than ever before. The difference is not the level of privacy but the range of interested people. Before you worried about the local cops. These days, you only wory about them because they can pass the information to the feds whom you're really worried about. Privacy really honestly does not exist, unless you act in a way to preserve it. In the old days that meant shutting your blinds and not leaving your house. Well you have to do the same thing these days, just electronicaly. Sorry, you can't have a credit card if you want privacy because it isn't your money, it's theirs, and so they have an interest in what you buy. Likewise for your internet and phone connections, use a public service, expect it to be public. The only way to have privacy is to keep to yourself. People don't keep to themselves because it's anti social and destructive. But like it or not, there really wasn't ever any such thing as privacy.

Re:What privacy?

[drooling-dog]

The key difference being, of course, that these corner grocers didn't enter your information into a central database that is accessible by who-knows-whom for purposes legitimate or not.

I've been looking for someone to offer the old "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about" argument so I could jump down their throats, but I'm pleased to say that you're the closest that anyone's come so far. I'm still reading, though...

Re:What privacy?

[mverwijs]

Privacy hasn't gone anywhere. If anything the world today has given us MORE privacy than ever before.

You should read this: http://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWroteP GP.html

A quote:

But when the United States Constitution was framed, the Founding Fathers saw no need to explicitly spell out the right to a private conversation. That would have been silly. Two hundred years ago, all conversations were private. If someone else was within earshot, you could just go out behind the barn and have your conversation there. No one could listen in without your knowledge. The right to a private conversation was a natural right, not just in a philosophical sense, but in a law-of-physics sense, given the technology of the time.

-- mverwijs

Re:What privacy?

[crlove]

Privacy and anonimity are not the same thing.

In those small towns of Wayback, the cops might've known you by name, but they'd knock before they came in your house.

Re:What privacy?

[ant_tmwx]

The difference is between the amount of data and the ease with which is it aggregated (& dispersed).

Back then, someone like a town gossip or a social hub could have tons of information on almost everyone. But it was very broad and not very deep.

Now its ALL the EXACT financial data, utilities, shopping, library checkouts, phone calls, medical records, etc etc etc. Oops, we lost all your banking details! Oops , the laptop w/ the veterans medical records got stolen! Oh you're using an abnormal amount of power for your presumed guilty assumed hydroponics lab, prove you are innocent. It doesn't even take an imagination (luckily I don't have one).

Re:What privacy?

[dcam]

I had an interesting experience recently in a small country town (FWIW this is in Autralia).

I went to a chemist in a small country town ( Camerons (I wasn't). It was an interesting experience. If I had been picking up a prescription for something that was highly personal I would have felt very uncomfortable.

That said, there is a big difference between people in my current location knowing about me and people across the whole country (and the world for that matter) knowing about me. Frankly this is a different proposition to the man in the corner store knowing about me.

I post a fair bit of information about myself online under my own name (I have not need to hide behind a nic, I will stand behind the comment I make and if I am wrong, I will admit it) but I am careful about the information I post.

Re:What privacy?

[49152]

And what was that interesting experience?

Did they shout out your prescription loud or something?

Re:What privacy?

[Mac Degger]

No privacy? Cool....I'm coming to your house and watching next time you and your wife are having sex.

Oh, but why would you not want me there? Do you have something to hide, you bedroom terrorist?

Do you even get the point I'm making here?

Re:What privacy?

[dcam]

Maybe I wasn't entirely clear. The interesting experience was the discovery that in a small country town what might be a private condition could become public. In other words, in a everyone knows everyone else and the public knowledge of any health problems I might have would depend on the whether the pharmacy assistant keeps his/her peace.

Re:What privacy?

[MoneyT]

It still is a natural law. It's just we've removed ourselves from that sort of communication. Back then if you wanted to have a conversation, you had to meet the person explicitly. These days we use phones, IM, email etc, all of which are analogous to shouting your conversation accross the room in a particular language and being suprised that anyone you understands that language and is within ear shot (all hundred some miles) can listen in.

Re:What privacy?

[MoneyT]

In otherwords, it's bad now because the information is more accurate? Remember that expansive collections of data are double edged swords, especialy when anyone can access it. Take for example the current rape case from Duke university. The same data that might be used to frame the players being accused is being used to poke thousands of holes in the prosecutions case (i.e. because of movement tracking between ATM, taxi, and access card records, defence shows that one of the accused was at the party during th ealledged rape for a grand total of 10 minutes. Digging further into cell phone records shows that he accused was making phone calls to his girlfried and the taxi company during those 10 minutes.)

Re:What privacy?

[MoneyT]

Ah, but you've missed the point. I told you already that privacy only exists when you take active measures to ensure it exists. For example, you should assume that every email you send is public, unless you choose to encrypt it. Why? Because you're sending that email through a few hundred or thousand different people all of whome can easily listen in. Likewise, if i'm having sex with my doors wide open and the windows and blinds open, I should assume that people are watching and listening in. Now if I close and lock my doors, and shut the windows and shades, then that's another matter. But why should people assume that their transactions with someone elses money, their conversations across someone elses property and their purchaces from someone elses stock are private unless they take explicit action to make it private.

Re:What privacy?

[Ferretman]

Very well said, MoneyT....I was this close to posting something very similar when I saw your missive.

I think people are used to thinking of credit cards as "their money" since it's become so interchangeable (many folks in the larger cities use them exclusively) with cash and, frankly, often easier to use (I'm thinking of things like pre-pay gas pumps and the like). But as you note it isn't their money, they're borrowing it...and that's why the credit card companies want to keep careful track of what you buy. The bank does the same thing when you get a home loan, as you would expect when you're asking for, say, $300,000....it's just more jarring when it's for a $1.59 beef stick.

Ferretman

Re:What privacy?

[PSC]

You couldn't get yourself into too much trouble because everyone in town knew you on sight

You're confusing privacy with anonymity.

And you're wrong about anonymity, too. Larger cities, the prerequisite of anonymity, did exist even in the old ages. In 50 B.C. for example, Rome had at least 450,000 inhabitants (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome#Roman _Empire), and 400 years before that Athens had about 300,000 inhabitants (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Athens#Ori gins_and_setting).

But like it or not, there really wasn't ever any such thing as privacy.

100 years ago, Alice could meet with Bob, walk into some field, and have a conversation that none could overhear. That is called privacy, and it did exist.

Today, Alice cannot have a conversation with Bob that couldn't be overheard, nowhere.

These days, you only wory about them because they can pass the information to the feds whom you're really worried about. [Emphasis mine.]

Not only they can, but they do.

100 years ago, it was hard work for an investigator to collect and correlate all this information. It did occur, but it was expensive to breach the privacy of a person. This ensured that it was done only for relatively few suspects.

Today, the privacy of the entire populance is breached on a regular basis.

Sorry, you can't have a credit card if you want privacy because it isn't your money, it's theirs, and so they have an interest in what you buy.

Last time I checked my credit card bills, it was my money all right. It was just tunnelled through their network.

Re:What privacy?

[MoneyT]

And you're wrong about anonymity, too. Larger cities, the prerequisite of anonymity, did exist even in the old ages. In 50 B.C. for example, Rome had at least 450,000 inhabitants (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Rome#Roman _Empire), and 400 years before that Athens had about 300,000 inhabitants (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Athens#Ori gins_and_setting).

Ask anyone who grew up in NYC years back about everyone in the nieghborhood knowing you. Just because the city at large didn't doesn't mean the local populace didn't.

100 years ago, Alice could meet with Bob, walk into some field, and have a conversation that none could overhear. That is called privacy, and it did exist.


Unless someone happened to be in the same field that they did.

Today, Alice cannot have a conversation with Bob that couldn't be overheard, nowhere.

Sure they can, it's just not as easy.

Not only they can, but they do.

100 years ago, it was hard work for an investigator to collect and correlate all this information. It did occur, but it was expensive to breach the privacy of a person. This ensured that it was done only for relatively few suspects.

Today, the privacy of the entire populance is breached on a regular basis.


100 years ago, if you were falsely accused of a crime and it was a he said she said case, it was hard work to defend your innocence. Today, because of massive data mining all over, an accused rape suspect can prove that he could only have been in contact with the accuser for 10 minutes total, and during that time he was calling his girlfriend and a cab. Information is a double edged sword and has as many good uses as bad. Provided you have full access to your data, you should have little to fear. Furthermore, your point is self defeating as my statement was that privacy didn't exist. Just because it was harder to get the information doesn't mean the information wasn't readily availible.

Last time I checked my credit card bills, it was my money all right. It was just tunnelled through their network.

Then clearly you misunderstand what a credit card is. Allow me to fill you in. A credit card is a revolving line of credit. That is, it is someone allowing you to borrow X ammount of THEIR money to spend as you see fit. You repay the loan with your money. In otherwords, the only thing that's your money is the money spent on paying back the loan. Or to put it another way, the credit card people bought the product with their money and allowed you to have the product in exchange for your money.

eightyfour

[BandwidthHog]

It wasn’t really about the surveillance. That was merely a plot device. It was about a state of mind and the means to achieve that state.

In the superficial sense, i.e. electronic surveillance, much of what you mentioned has fallen into place over the past ten to fifteen years. And most of it has been implemented by commercial interests. As for the mindset? I, and I’m sure a whole lot of others around here, would say that the overwhelming majority of it has sprung up in the body politic within the past 58 months.

May you live in interesting times, comrade.

Re:eightyfour

[Anonymous Coward]

I would agree with the body politic aspect of this statement.

Most of us (us as in US citizens) actually /wanted/ to be spied on because we thought it would some how
make us secure.

By tolerating it, we are to blame for the situation. I hope the author of this topic walked out, leaving the whole basket unpurchased. Maybe hitting the commercial interest where it hurts (loosing the sale) might trickle up
to the corporations that pay the politicians.

I predict it'll get even worse, but it is our own fault because on the whole, we don't care.

Re:eightyfour

[Blakey Rat]

It also required a long and drawn-out war/revolution to come about, perhaps even a nuclear war (although I don't think the details of it are ever really given in the book; I always assumed it was just the 1950's conception of a nuclear World War III against the Soviets.)

Made easier by

[p51d007]

Computers. Do you think it would have been this easy to build such databases without the computers? What year does Skynet take over anyway? LOL

how do I 'bury' this story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a way to 'bury' a story, ala digg? ;-)

Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[r00t]

Suppose we raise it to $60 an hour. Better? Would you still have a job?

OK, that's too much. Well, how many lost jobs are acceptable? Can you give a number? If we raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour and lay off 15% of the workforce, is that good?

More money is great as long as YOU don't lose your job. Everybody, even those already on minimum wage, thinks it'll be the other guy who loses his job or that some rich guy won't be so rich. Sure, and pigs fly really well.

To pay the cleaning people their new minimum wage, we can get rid of one web developer. The other guys can work overtime to make up the loss. Then again, maybe it's just time for the company to go bankrupt and get rid of EVERYBODY.

It goes the other way too. A smelly drunk isn't likely to get hired at $5.15 an hour, but his value might be above zero. He deserves a chance to work. The same goes for the fat girl with acne that makes people feel ill, the guy who stares inappropriately, the lady who has conversations with her knuckles... They all deserve a chance to work.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

No kidding. That was a nice rant he had going, until he threw in that minimum-wage demagoguery thing. Then the whole thing went off its rails in a manner reminsicent of the plane-crash scene in Fight Club.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[megaditto]

I've got a better solution, which will also address the outsourcing issue: how about we raise the minimum wage in all countries outside America to $10,000,000,000/hour.

And if they refuse to comply, we nuke them!

There, solved it for you.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[miskatonic alumnus]

Well, something has to be done. Take for example the poor man who can't afford health insurance: he waits until his health problems escalate, then goes to the emergency room. Not being able to pay, the hospitals increase their rates, and the insurance companies pass it on to their paying customers. So, those who can afford it will end up paying for the poor guy ANYWAY. Furthermore, if his problem stems from microbial infection, he may have the opportunity to spread the misery through the workforce before getting treated. This costs people and businesses even more money.

The variance of the payscale needs to be reduced. The janitor's function in society is just as important as that of the CEO of Exxon, and he should be compensated at a level that enables him to pay for housing, utilities, health care, transportation, and a little extra for some fun. Why should extremely gifted or the extremely lucky be the only ones to partake of what life has to offer? It's a sad commentary on the history of human civilization that after 5,000 years we still haven't evolved beyond exploiting one another.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[AndreiK]

Dammit, 1 AM my time is no time to be fighting the Communist Propaganda!

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[drooling-dog]

So if we brought slavery back, then everyone would have a job and we'd all live happily ever after, no?

You can't make labor cheaper for employers than that, unless you actually charge people to work. Hmmm...

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Kenrod]

The janitor's function in society is just as important as that of the CEO of Exxon

You have to define "important". A single CEO can be responsible for the gain or loss of thousands of jobs and thus impacts more people than any janitor could. Of course janitors are important, but their duties can be taught in a single shift. A CEO usually needs years of experience in a specific industry to be effective, as well as natural leadership skills (i.e. "gifted").

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[soft_guy]

Yeah, but then all our CEO jobs will just go overseas.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[PaulMorel]

Your assumption that jobs would necessarily be lost is flawed.

Yes, in the short run, big businesses will raise red flags, and they probably will lay off a bunch of people (then turn around and say I told you so!). But the lost jobs would quickly return, as a whole class of people has just gained some extra money.

The extra money they have will be spent at places like Walmart (where the people who make minimum wage work), and since these retailers will see an increase in business, they will, naturally, hire more employees.

That's an oversimplification, but my point is this: Claiming that jobs will be lost due to an increase in minimum wage is total propaganda. Nobody can predict with certainty exactly what would happen to the economy if the minimum wage was raised. Although businesses want you to think that somehow raising the minimum wage would hurt jobs, in the long run (> 6 months), that's just one of many outcomes, and an unlikely one at that.

Just because thet have the money to make their view heard, doesn't mean it's right.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[msaulters]

And this would be a bad thing why???

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[FLEB]

Why should extremely gifted or the extremely lucky be the only ones to partake of what life has to offer?

If I'm not mistaken, it all started with uneven distribution of resources, and people having to compete in scarcity. Then, as the quality of living improved, the scarcity shifted to different items, along with (more abstractly) a "scarcity" of items that did not yet exist (research and striving for higher things and greater efficiencies).

(This is just me musing, not quoting anyone here)

Any system large enough to distribute resources to any significant mass of humanity, must become, to some extent, a personally-removed "economic" or "political" system. Case-by-case distinctions cannot be made-- any sizeable system must operate more like a "sorting machine". Resources are fed in, and a chugging ideological sorter chugs along (be it tooled for Capitalism, Socialism, whatever you like) and divvies out the resources according to the ideological mechanics of the society.

Judging a person's innate deficiencies of ability (disabled, underpriveledged, unnecessary) versus mutable deficiencies of character (lazy, contented, flighty) is not an easy task for the systemic machine. There's too much gray area. If the system allows too much leeway in the interest of protecting the unable, it ends up collapsing under the weight of the lazy who can game it to their advantage.

The system chosen in the US, for good or ill, is (some admittedly warped form of) capitalism. The capitalist sorting machine tends to err toward not distributing to those who do not produce wanted work. The resulting split of rich/poor, and the fact that everyone can't have a car, house, and cable, is not exploitation as much as the bias of the sorting system against people who cannot, for any type of reason, produce wanted work. The ultimate advantage to this system is that the way and motivation for the poorer to become the richer is to create wanted work, which fills holes of scarcity and produces a society that lacks less.

Sure, $5.15/hr sucks compared to $25.15, but $5.15 can still buy a roof and constant nutrition.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[r00t]

"But the lost jobs would quickly return, as a whole class of people has just gained some extra money.

The extra money they have will be spent at places like Walmart (where the people who make minimum wage work), and since these retailers will see an increase in business, they will, naturally, hire more employees.

That's an oversimplification"

Damn right it's an oversimplification. We could as well say that more money for the rich will result in more jobs building private jets.

A more certain prediction: inflation, and all the bad which comes with inflation

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[whitehornmatt]

How about the Government at least tie the minumum wage to inflation, so that you don't get progressively worse off, and there will be no money lost by business, only they won't keep driving down wages. But hey I don't live in the US so I don't really care how low your wages are, but it will only go to help China's dominance

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Senecalp]

The janitor's function in society is just as important as that of the CEO of Exxon...

No, it isn't. If a janitor does his job wrong, someone doesn't have toilet paper in their stall the next day. If a CEo of a major corporation does their job wrong, 100s to 1000s of people loose their jobs, hard working people loose money in their 401K for retirement and we all pay when these things happen. So I think that CEO deserves a but more pay as long as he does his job right. Also, if you do raise minimum wage, and they don't lay people off, then the price of goods go, raising the cost of living, making your now increased minimum wage less of a living wage. Congratz! Lets not get into if the government should be controlling even more aspects of our lives, such as how much the small buisness man has to pay the few employees he can barely afford, which by the way is him trying to return something to his community.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[SpasticWeasel]

Fuck You

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Concerned Onlooker]

It's not necessarily that $5.15 an hour is too little, it's that you can't really live on that. $5.15 an hour is fine if you're a high school kid or college student with some kind of future but not otherwise. You can whine all you want about your free market head in the clouds idealism but I'd like to know where you get the 15% laid off number. And that whole free market bromide is a joke that lives on in spite of evidence that what really matters is political influence and purchased advantages. It makes a joke of Democracy at the same time.

I'm guessing that a more likely scenario is that some people might lose jobs but what would really happen is that businesses will do what they always do, pass the cost along. And yes, I'm willing to pay.

Or try this: Pay CEOs what they're really worth and minimum wage can easily be increased.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[miskatonic alumnus]

If a janitor does his job wrong, someone doesn't have toilet paper in their stall the next day.

Then you won't mind if all the janitors quit their jobs to train to become CEO's. Make sure you bring your own toilet paper, soap, and a toilet brush to work with you every day and take your trash out to the dumpster on the way home.

If a CEo of a major corporation does their job wrong, 100s to 1000s of people loose their jobs, hard working people loose money in their 401K for retirement and we all pay when these things happen.

Since this has happened (Enron) it doesn't so much argue in favor of high pay for CEO's as it argues against the position existing in the first place.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[soft_guy]

They all deserve a chance to work.

I demand that you hire a smelly drunk immediately.

In fact, smelly drunks all around!

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[vandan]

Wages will remain under attack for precisely the same amount of time as ordinary workers attack the wages of people in other countries.

The old 'but if we raise wages, all our jobs will go overseas' arguement breaks down when the working class, as a whole, stands up and says "We will not buy from countries until they raise their minimum wage to the same level as ours".

Of course at this point, items in Walmart will cease to become astonishingly cheap. But I think society should be able to easily offset this by extracting some money from the highest 'earners' ( I use that term very loosely in this context ) and redistributing it amongst everybody else. I'm not necessarily saying everyone should earn exactly the same amount. But there's a point where ordinary people agree that enough is maybe more than enough, and past that point, perhaps these people aren't 'earning', but stealing from their fellow humans.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Senecalp]

Then you won't mind if all the janitors quit their jobs to train to become CEO's

At least I won't be loosing my job if no one cleans up around the office. Do we need the janitors to do their jobs? Of course. Do we need supervisors, managers and CEOs to run buisnesses effectively to assure my job is secure? Absolutely. I can't fathom thinking that I would pay the person who sweeps around my desk the same as the person who determines if my job and my co-workers jobs will exist in a week.

Since this has happened (Enron)...

I am so pleased you were able to read on to the next sentence, where I specifically said *IF* they do their job right. Of course these examples are ones were they didn't deserve their pay, or their jobs, since they did their jobs wrong and people lost their jobs. There are no guarantees in the world, but you can at least try to increase the odds your company will succeed by having a well qualified boss who is compensated appropriately for the importantance of their work.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the cost of consumer goods were to come down to a reasonable level. Then minimum wage would be reasonable. The wage has not increased with the cost of living. If we got rid of all these stupid patents and licenses, I'm sure we would see a significant reduction in the cost of everything.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the minimum wage is driven by a strict need for companies to buckle down, and barely survive--- but by sheer greed, to boost their profits for the next fiscal quarter. You insinuate that companies are paying people these measly salaries, because they otherwise couldn't afford to be in business. Somehow our economy survived during the late 1960's with a minimum wage that's somewhere around 16 dollars an hour adjusted for inflation. Somehow we've managed an economic recovery that involves huge corporate profits (Some of the highest in history for American Oil Companies)--- yet haven't seen a significant rise in minimum wage, or the average working wage, since the 90's. Having a job you can't live on isn't much better than having no job at all--- at least you have time to be more politically active in the latter case (Or to slowly starve to death, for lack of home and food). Generally people working for 5.15 an hour have to decide between food, and paying medical bills (since they have no medical insurance, not to mention medical bills are the #1 cause of bankruptcy).

The "smelly drunk" guy you seem to mock in your example, likely lacks a home, lacks adequate medical coverage, an adequate education--- I think he marks more a failure of society, and a huge waste of potential, all in the name of putting more money in the pockets of the richest 10% of Americans.

I think people clearly lack historical perspective, and are completely unaware of the Gilded Age of American history, when they deny the fact that when allowed to do so--- corporations will drive working wage into the ground, in order to boost their own profits. We are currently at a point in time where the economic divide in this country is similar to that during the Gilded Age--- and we fall behind many third world countries, including Iran, in economic equality.

I don't think there is any clear correlation between a modest, and rational, rise in minimum wage, and unemployment. There may be some correlation between that rise, and a slight drop in the ridiculous profits American corporations have been reaping over the past several years.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Keebler71]

Claiming that jobs will be lost due to an increase in minimum wage is total propaganda. Nobody can predict with certainty exactly what would happen to the economy if the minimum wage was raised.

Yeah... it's all propaganda... well, and economic theory based on math... but don't let that get in the way. Freaking read a book on economics, preferrably by this guy.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument might sway me if it wasn't made every time min wage was increased.

Although I haven't seen any findings that have ever backed them up.

If you can find them, then I'll be swayed... a little.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[(negative video)]

Take for example the poor man who can't afford health insurance: he waits until his health problems escalate, then goes to the emergency room. Not being able to pay, the hospitals increase their rates, and the insurance companies pass it on to their paying customers.

It is a Federal crime for a U.S. hospital to give discounts to poor people.

Why should extremely gifted or the extremely lucky be the only ones to partake of what life has to offer?

The biggest health problem for many U.S. poor people is that their food and advanced electronic entertainment is too cheap.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Jeremi]

They all deserve a chance to work

They also deserve a chance to earn enough to survive on. It's the 21st century, we live in the first world, and wage slavery ought to be a thing of the past. What's the point of having a technologically advanced society if it doesn't keep hard-working, honest people above the poverty line?

It comes down to what sort of society you think we should have: one where the rich get richer by squeezing every last drop of blood out of the poor, or one where enough of the pie is shared with the employees that hard-working people can have a decent life?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[coma_bug]

Well, how many lost jobs are acceptable? Can you give a number? If we raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour and lay off 15% of the workforce, is that good?

Can you give a number? If "we" repeal the minimum wage to lower the unemployment rate and leave millions of the poorest people in the nation to outbid each other into slavery, is that good?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[humungusfungus]

Dammit, 1 AM my time is no time to be fighting the Communist Propaganda!

Modded +insightful? We're fucked.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[ratherdashing59]

From each according to his abillity, to each according to his need, right? :) I totally agree.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[supasam]

"$5.15 can still buy a roof" Lets see, we'll do the math here... $5.15 an hour for 40 hours a week. Thats $206. Times 52 weeks in a year, thats....$10,712. Now constant nutrition may or may not mean stay healthy. Stay healthy means you have to have health insurance. So well do this: $125 a month if you have insurance, $0 if you don"t. Thats a total of $1500 dollars difference. Lets say you can _rent_ a house for $500 a month (if you're lucky and can make some compromises), thats $6000, so for our totals we're left with $3,212 with insurance, $4,712 without. Fo no insurance hat leaves about $393 a month for food, electricity, gas water, the bus (cause you KNOW you can't afford a car!) and the doctor visits when you get sick. My electricity bill last month was $230. Shall I continue? With health insurance, you have about $268 a month for all that. LETS NOT FORGET ABOUT TAXES though! Alright, lets try to bring the rent down some kind of way, maybe there's a slum near by or I can sell some drugs or --- oh wait, I can't do that one, guess who's watching! --Maybe I can skip breakfast and --no can't do that, "constant nutrition," right? Well, maybe I can go down to the check cashing place and write a hot check then maybe I can tell the boys I'll catch up with them next week and put in some overtime? Is this really working? really?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Cheetahfeathers]

Most large companies, especially ones such as WalMart, do not hire more employees as they get more profits. Those profits go to the top half dozen or so owners of the corporations. WalMart is very good at making extra profit. One method it does this is by having less working in sweat labor camps overseas (usually indirectly, through the companies they forced into lower prices, and they only way to get those lower prices were such practices as these), and paying those workers even less than before. Conditions worsen, there are less workers, and the only people to profit are those at the top. Once they open up a shop in a new location, they drive competition out of business, putting 3 people on the street for every 2 they create jobs for. It's a great system.. if you own WalMart and aren't concerned about making the world a worse place to live in.

Corporations have proven time and time again that they absolutely can not be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to the number of people they employ, and the conditions they employ them under. Their natural state is at the robber baron level... this is what you get if you let the market take care of itself.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[dangermouses]

ok so the example wasn't that great but he still made a valid point.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[bitspotter]

Why the hell is it people are so obsessed with the idea that even the most unfortunate of us //deserve// to subject ourselves to the service of those wealthier than we are? Coerced labor is not dignified by a choice of masters.
--
I don't think America can turn around. In the Ukraine, election fraud inspires mass protests. In Mexico, the same. But In the US, Gore and Kerry meekly submit. Almost like that's what they were supposed to do. No protests. No demands for recounts. No occupying government facilities.

The rest of the world will have to carry the torch until this Empire can finally collapse under the weight of it's own corruption and calcification.

I'm thinking there are some major technological changes coming - probably in the form of recursive fabrication tech (precursors of nanofactories). These things will allow common consumers to ween themselves off of consumerist industry while empowering them with the means to at least spotlight corruption and resist it with the same technologies as advanced military and plice forces (look at Hezbollah's UAV "cruise missiles", only made with rapid prototyping machines that multiply like rabbits).

But, I'm getting ahead of us, obviously.

What to do? Some say get out the vote, but that assumes your vote counts. I say get out, THEN vote.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Jeremi]

You can't make labor cheaper for employers than that, unless you actually charge people to work. Hmmm...

Well.... actually, it has been argued that exploiting cheap labor is more cost-effective than slavery, because with slavery you have to buy the slaves, then invest in food, shelter, clothing, overseers, health care, etc to maintain your investment. With the "free market", on the other hand, you have access to a much greater supply of unskilled labour with no up-front purchasing costs, and you essentially outsource all those messy maintenance details to the workers themselves. And if they can't afford to take proper care of themselves or their children with the wages you pay them, that's their problem, not yours. You no longer have to worry about their maintenance at all: if an employee wears out and can't keep working, you simply fire him and hire a new one the next day, at almost no cost to you. (contrast with slavery, where buying replacement slaves can be rather pricy)

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[ghettoimp]

"Sure, $5.15/hr sucks compared to $25.15, but $5.15 can still buy a roof and constant nutrition."

I won't try to address the cost of housing. But, from http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/FoodSecurity/:

"The prevalence of food insecurity was 11.9 percent in 2004, up from 11.2 percent in 2003. The prevalence of food insecurity with hunger was 3.9 percent in 2004, up from 3.5 percent in 2003."

If we assume 300 million people in the US with an even distributed amongst its households, that's 35.7 million Americans who were on the brink of not being able to afford food, with 11.7 million literally going hungry.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The janitor's function in society is just as important as that of the CEO of Exxon"

It probably isn't (if it was janitorial wages would reflect that - at least a little) but any individual janitor is WAY less important than any individual CEO. That's why the hordes of people competing for janitorial jobs drive the price down to a level why the person willing to accept the lowest wage (ie, the one who is the most desperate, and probably most needs it) gets the job. Well, that's what WOULD happen, except minimum wage laws lock out the most desperate, those who most need it, from getting jobs.

"Why should extremely gifted or the extremely lucky be the only ones to partake of what life has to offer?"

Because the extremely gifted have the most to offer society and the world at large. Free markets work remarkably well at giving credit where credit is due. At least until interventionist nanny states start imposing minimum wages and progressive taxes and lotteries (retrogressive taxes) etc.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

You will get paid in direct proportion to what it costs to replace you...nothing more!

If you think a janitor should make the same as someone who has spent their time wisely to get educated an upgrade their skills, then your mindset is sad commentary to me. YES, the CEO of a company deserves ALOT more than the janitor.

Those who strive to do more and achieve it will always earn more than those who don't...as it should be.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[VON-MAN]

Oh sure. Very, very insightfull.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[killjoe]

I might buy your arguments if anybody would be able to show even a correlation between rising minimum wage rates and unemployment. You see minimum wage has been raised numerous times in the past in the US and tons of times all around the world. Sometimes a little, some times a lot. If there was a mathematical or a statistical correleation then you should be able to overlay the minimum wage rate and unemployment rate and see some sort of a correlation.

There is no such thing. Look for yourself. It's a myth. It seems like it should be true but it's not. You believing that raising the minimum wage results in increased unemployment is no different then a hippie believing that crystal's healing power will fix your printer. Neither of you has any evidence, both of you think it ought to be true.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[GarethBrown]

May have already been pointed out, but the money you earn for performing a task is completely dependent on how many other people can do the same job... As a result, football players deemed to have unique abilities get paid huge sums of money while street cleaners get paid next to nothing - because almost anyone could fulfill the role of the street cleaner.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Malc]

"The other guys can work overtime to make up the loss"

That's your problem right there. It seems like a lot of people in the US just won't stand up for themselves and say no to their boss. Why is this, and why does it not seem so prevalent in other countries?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

losing. Since you made this mistake twice, I see it's not just a typo.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[nicklott]

Suppose we raise it to $60 an hour. Better? Would you still have a job?

Funny, they said that sort of thing when they introduced the minimum wage 10 years ago in the UK, currently at about the equivalent of ($10ph). You know what happened? Well it wasn't massive layoffs and economic collapse... in fact since then the UK has been one of the best performing economies in the world.

No, what actually happened is that people doing menial, low paid work all got a small payrise. No one went bankrupt, there was no leap in unemployment, the sky did not fall on our heads. The jobs that were there still needed doing, just the companies that were employing them had to take a (small) hit. They no doubt passed this on to their clients and it all just got dwarfed by the ceo's salaries.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

A single dictator can be responsible for the gain or loss of thousands of jobs and thus impacts more people than any janitor could. Of course janitors are important, but their duties can be taught in a single shift. A dictator usually needs years of experience in a specific industry to be effective, as well as natural leadership skills (i.e. "gifted").

That's why dictators are more important than janitors, and are paid accordingly.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

Are you stupid? The man did not say that all pay should be equal. He said that the variance, the difference, between the low end and the high end should be reduced. Everyone in the wealthiest nation in the world should have enough to "pay for housing, utilities, health care, transportation, and a little extra for some fun." Basically, we should not be complete slaves to our economic conditions. In other words, we should be FREE and have the full rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

These ideas are not communist. They're as democratic and American as mom and the flag and apple pie.

The CEOs that run the corporations decide what people get paid. In fact, the CEOs even decide their own level of compensation since they control the board of directors and who gets accepted on there. You want a raise? Ask your boss. He'll look at his budget, which was handed down to him from his boss, which was given to him from his boss, all the way up to the CEO. You have no control over this organization. You did not vote in your boss. The CEO takes the money that you earn and gives most of it to himself. The corporation is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship.

In fact, the corporation is so decidedly undemocratic since they decide what you can or can not say, even in your time off. They decide who you can or can not associate with, even in your time off. They decide what you can or can not do, even in your time off. The corporation is so undemocratic and so un-American that's it's completely laughable that anyone uses the "Communist" card to defend corporate policies of screwing the janitors making minimum wage in order to give the CEO another million dollars.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

The capitalist sorting machine tends to err toward not distributing to those who do not produce wanted work. The resulting split of rich/poor, and the fact that everyone can't have a car, house, and cable, is not exploitation as much as the bias of the sorting system against people who cannot, for any type of reason, produce wanted work.

Say like, Paris Hilton? We certainly wouldn't know crap about her were she not some rich debutante with absolutely no value to society.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[scottv67]

Most large companies, especially ones such as WalMart, do not hire more employees as they get more profits. Those profits go to the top half dozen or so owners of the corporations. WalMart is very good at making extra profit. One method it does this is by having less working in sweat labor camps overseas (usually indirectly, through the companies they forced into lower prices, and they only way to get those lower prices were such practices as these), and paying those workers even less than before. Conditions worsen, there are less workers, and the only people to profit are those at the top. Once they open up a shop in a new location, they drive competition out of business, putting 3 people on the street for every 2 they create jobs for. It's a great system.. if you own WalMart and aren't concerned about making the world a worse place to live in.

I realize that "Walmart bashing" is a sport that everyone enjoys and requires very little brain power. But you may want to take a look at the August 7th issue of Fortune. The cover story is about Walmart's efforts to go "green". Walmart is big enough that if they decide to start favoring/endorsing environmentally-friendly products, they could actually make a difference. There are some interesting examples in the story like Walmart selling clothing made from organic cotton (as opposed to cotton that is grow with the aid of "chemicals") as well as making their stores and distribution network more energy-efficient.

After Walmart's "green" movement starts to make a noticable difference in the environment as well as causing other large companies to adopt similar eco-friendly practices, Walmart won't be such an easy target any more. But we'll still be able to stand around and complain about high taxes, the high price of gasoline and the weather. :^)

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[jcr]

These ideas are not communist.

Once you decide that anyone has a right to the product of another person's labor, yes, it's communist.

-jcr

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[jcr]

I don't think America can turn around. In the Ukraine, election fraud inspires mass protests. In Mexico, the same. But In the US, Gore and Kerry meekly submit.

Why is it that when people bitch about Bush's election, they never offer to rescind the Kennedy administration?

Bush won both elections. He won them by extremely thin margins, but he won. Get over it.

-jcr

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[15Bit]

These ideas are not communist. They're as democratic and American as mom and the flag and apple pie.

They may well be part of the democratic ideal, but they seem to conflict to some extent with the capitalist implementation. A completely free market economy seems to lead to a polar distribution of wealth. A completely communist economy (at least in the way it tends to be implemented) leads to the same. The problem seems to lies in our inherent need to be better than our neighbour. This is clearly a good thing in that it drives us forward to better and greater things, but if left unchecked you get the disparity which so clearly affects the US and, increasingly, other western countries. Society can only move forward as a whole, not in parts determined by wealth, and to achieve that some balance is required in which ambition and success are encouraged, but still capped.

You are quite right in saying that the key to this balance is the variance in wealth distribution, and it is interesting that the countries with the lower disparity between rich and poor generally seem to have better health, longer lifespans and a higher standard of living. These are often (but not always) the more democratic socialist states, particularly the scandinavian countries http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/ (undp.org). These also rank high in terms of happiness, due to sensible work-life balance and employment regulations that don't force you to work every hour of the day. Not to say these countries have it right, but i only have one life and i'd rather enjoy it, see my family and live to a decent age. Even if it means i have a lower chance to strike it rich.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[jcr]

Paris Hilton? We certainly wouldn't know crap about her were she not some rich debutante with absolutely no value to society.

Of course Paris Hilton is an utterly useless twat, and she will most likely piss away her inheritance before she dies. However, the right to endow one's useless grandchildren with enormous amounts of cash is one of the prerogatives of building a business brilliantly, as Conrad Hilton did. I would point out however, that the whore is an aberration, and that it is only the most outrageous rich kids (like the Kennedys) who regularly make the news in this manner.

For every Paris Hilton, there are many more rich kids who either competently continue the family business, or follow other worthwhile pursuits.

-jcr

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[plasmacutter]

Once you decide that anyone has a right to the product of another person's labor, yes, it's communist.

then I suppose the CEO's are communists, and the oil companies, and ESPECIALLY the **AA organizations, and of course the republican government who thinks its their right to take our hard earned money for their pet wars.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, its not just the people at the top who exploit the system. I live in West Virginia, and I can tell you I see people every day who are dirt poor, yet theyre living "happy lives" on welfare with their 6 kids and no job. These people, and Im not making this up, come into a psychiatric office, and spit out word for word the book definitions of insanity or scitzophrenia (sp?), just so they can get some kind of government compensation.

While I do agree that the wealthiest in our society should be taxed more (add on to that huge tax breaks if they give a certain amount of their money to charity, like Bill Gates), I dont believe for one second that the poorest people are at the bottom because the people at the top exploit the system. Just in my years in high school, I went from making 5.15$ an hour to making 8.50$ an hour and now to 10$ an hour in college, and I can tell you that the people who are still making that 5.15$ an hour are the ones who aren't willing to buckle down and work (or they have a drug problem). And though its not my place to throw out judgement on them, it makes me much more comfortable about my future because I am not like them, and know because of that simple fact that I can succeed.

Forget the Orwellian idea...Every year(maybe month?) someone in the media likes to write an article saying "1984 is here!! zomgwtfbbq!!", but in reality its the media that is most orwellian of all. Words like "Patriot" now mean "control", "secret" now means "illegal"...

All im saying is, don't get too excited. Our system of govt was made to fix problems SLOWLY so that radical change doesn't occur. Give it some time, and until then, study up on all this alarmist propoganda and figure out which is "spying" and which is not.

-The Ghost of Orwell

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[SpacePunk]

Nobody is going to lose a job because minumum wage goes up. Every business that I know of has just enough staff to operate with, nothing more. Less employees, and these businesses will have to shorten hours, offer less services, etc... which will mean that they will lose money, which they will not do.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, we have apple pie in other countries too. It's very popular. We've had it longer than the USA has even been a country. Is apple pie being the epitome of American-ness supposed to represent the American tendency to import culture wholesale and represent it as their own?

You guys invented the fried twinkie, why not get all patriotic about them instead?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[master_p]

In 1980, the salary of an average manager was 10 times more than the salary of an average worker. Nowadays the salary of an average manager is 50 times more...and the profits of CEOs and board members of enterprises are 100 times more.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with a minimum wage is that it is inflationary. It gets raised, then the prices of consumer goods gets raised so that the retailer can cover the costs of paying the higher wage. Something needs to be done about what the CEO's, etc. get paid, so that that money can be spread around the company as wages, and to the shareholders that actually invested the money in the company.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Wildclaw]

Personally, I am very much against using pure supply & demand for labor, while I am for using supply & demand for products. Does that make me a communist or a capitalist? I think the biggest problem in the world today is black & white thinking, and communism vs. capitalism is just one example.

I recognize the advantages of using supply & demand to distribute labor, but I feel that using it costs society too much in other ways. I am more for wages that are mostly based on amount of work done, with an adjustment for how popular the job is. Of course, in that kind of economy, studying would definitely have to be classified as a state paid job, or it wouldn't work.

This is of course an utopian vision, and how it would work in reality is impossible to know, because it has neven been implemented. It is just that todays increasingly capitalistic society is quickly moving away from the goal of an utopian society and I find that options needs to be explored. While reaching an utopian society may well be impossible, I feel that atleast trying to move towards one is imperative.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Pete]

At least I won't be loosing my job if no one cleans up [...]

But you might lose your job if you were too loose with your words.

...No, all right, probably not. But wouldn't it be nice to imagine that happening? */me and fellow pedants imagine it* Ahhh. :-)

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Surt]

Sounds like that would be another wonderful benefit for our society ... helps get rid of more of the leeches when we follow up with the nuking.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[NCraig]

What part of "pursuit" of happiness do you not understand?

America was not created to guarantee that everyone, no matter how lazy and uneducated they may be, can get by just fine.

The CEO is more important than the janitor precisely because he or she decides what to pay employees (and a whole slew of other things). He or she has done the hard work or had the good fortune of making it to the top. That is an enormous achievement in and of itself. And you do vote on your boss - you vote on your boss by choosing where to work. That's the freedom part.

Ever heard of the American Dream? It calls for hard work and - admittedly - a little bit of luck. There's no such thing as the American Promise, thank God.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny how that works.

I've, until the last few days, been going through a lot of handwringing because I've had to have something done about my (ridiculous) salary. The company gave every appearance of not caring, and, indeed, allowing my career to stagnate as I was "the only one" who knew anything about a particular product, based upon obscure technologies as well as not-so-obscure technologies implemented as was state of the art five years ago. That product was, until last year, this office's "flagship" product.

We can probably argue that that's management's fault ("and thus why they should be paid so much!" - except if they're fucking up, clearly they shouldn't) but the bottom line was this: given the circumstances, it was very much in my best interests to get another job. And given the circumstances, realistically, had I done so, an office of 50 people would have ended up closing within six months.

Yeah. That's right. No, this isn't egotism. The office relies upon two major customers. Those customers aren't happy already with the product because, well, it's getting out of date. If they had a serious outage, lasting a month or more, they wouldn't renew the contracts. While we have other customers, the others bring in barely a fraction of the revenue of these big two. Now, in addition to my considering leaving, many have gone beyond the considering process and left anyway. So we're barely hanging on by a thread, and I'm one of the few left who actually knows how the rest of the system (excluding my part) works, at least in generalities. The fortunate aspect for those other parts is they're not that custom.

My code is custom. I wrote it. I documented it. I did everything I could to get them to get other people working on it. But now is now and I'm the only one who knows it.

So the person who can make or break the jobs of 50 people is me. A computer programmer.

Needless to say, pretty much all the managers, salespeople, "consultants", et al, get paid more than I did, in many cases multiple times as much.

The guy who compared the janitor's job to the CEO's was making a somewhat ridiculous exaggeration. But there are many cases of clear pay differentials that do not make sense on a "value to the world" basis. They fit in more obscure fields. Most job categories are treated as commodities, which leaves us in a situation where the "guy who does nothing but data management and maintenance" is treated poorly compared to the "programmer who 'designs' the parameters for the customization of the core system for the new customer" or the "guy who writes stuff in Java 5 as part of the core team that develops the core system". Only the "guy who does nothing but data management and maintenance" might actually be that guy for reasons other than "that's all he's good for", which is something the competitive job market wouldn't reflect.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[E 99]

Why should extremely gifted or the extremely lucky be the only ones to partake of what life has to offer? It's a sad commentary on the history of human civilization that after 5,000 years we still haven't evolved beyond exploiting one another.

Don't lose hope. There are wonderful meccas of freedom emerging. There's Cuba, there's the Soviet U... oh that one didn't work out so well... there's North Korea. China sold out, to the point that now even their own gvt-run newspaper complains about the disparity between rich and poor. But we have Cuba and N Korea. Let's build a raft and make a break for it. No one will think we're insane.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[plasmacutter]

No, becuase CEO's and oil companies are not forcing their rules upon us with the power of police and prisons and the military. If I choose to work for a company I follow their rules. I can choose to work somewhere else.

not really..
-ceo's rule their companies with iron fists, there is no democracy involved in it and they reap multimillion dollar salaries for what basically amount to sinecures, profiteering off the backs of the analysts, managers, strategists, and engineers who actually did the work. Choosing to work somewhere else is kind of like choosing which arab dictatorship you want to live under or which method of execution you prefer.

-Oil companies are collusive and cartelistic (to invent a new word ; ] ), and have been gouging us since at least mid '06 if not sooner, and of course our lovely congressmen refuse to even launch a probe to determine if they really are doing it or not because they know what they'd find.

as for police, prisons, and the military.. if you were to forcibly take back what they pillaged from the populus, then they can call down that wrath upon you for being uppity.

This is what people mean when they call your idea communism. You want the govornment to make these decisions for everyone.

unlike you I guess; you seem to think it's ok for the wealthy elite to make decisions for everyone rather than say.. everyone. A basic living wage is all most people want.. that and the security of knowing their job and pension will still be there decades from now so long as they show dedication in their work, rather than offshored out from under them.

If you'd check your history you would see that communism does not work.

and if you'd check your history you would see that serfdom does not work either, the french in particular had a lot to say about that.

Do you think a govornment that coddles corporations and does not care about the little guy would all of the sudden completely turn around? Do you think an apathetic populas will all of the sudden forge a utopia?

no I don't, nor was I advocating state ownership of all economic instruments, I was debunking an extremist argument with an equally absurd and extremist point.

There need to be regulations though dictating a maximum "wealth gap" and minimum wage in real inflation adjusted dollars. Regulations like this used to exist to guard the middle class, and people were pretty happy with them, then they were eroded away by voodoo economists, now these same idiots decry any attempts to redistribute the top 0.5%'s obscene wealth to the lower 15% who are without even basic healthcare as "communist".

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

America was not created to guarantee that everyone, no matter how lazy and uneducated they may be, can get by just fine.

America was not created to give those with every advantage in life the guarantee of keeping that advantage. Remember that "All men are created equal". We have no nobility here in America, although Paris Hilton comes close. Luckily, there's still an estate tax to limit her advantage over the rest of us and balance that inequality out.

He or she has done the hard work

Hahahaha! Good one!

The founder of the company did the hard work. The CEO comes in after all that and pushes the founder away. That CEO hasn't done anything for the company at that point but win the popularity game that is corporate politics. The CEO is crowned king of his little empire. The CEO is the ultimate, modern-day fascist.

you vote on your boss by choosing where to work

Yes, slave, vote on who your master is. Vote on which emperor you will bow before. Vote on the person to take the profits you generate to give themselves a million dollar bonus.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Rob the Bold]

Dammit, 1 AM my time is no time to be fighting the Communist Propaganda!

You're absolutely right, dude. Please resume watching television. I'm sure there will be plenty of "Communist Propaganda" to fight when you're good and rested.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

Me: The CEO takes the money that you earn and gives most of it to himself. The corporation is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship.
You: Once you decide that anyone has a right to the product of another person's labor, yes, it's communist.

No, my statements were based on the radical idea that anyone has the right to the profits of their OWN labor.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[E 99]

Everyone in the wealthiest nation in the world should have enough to "pay for housing, utilities, health care, transportation, and a little extra for some fun."

Ok, if we do that for 10 years, so that we're no longer the wealthiest nation in the world, can we stop and return to actual freedom and sanity? Should everyone in that nation have all that even if no one works? If so, where would it come from? In the past, nations have done that, and they've gotten their wealth through conquest. But that doesn't seem very nice.

Basically, we should not be complete slaves to our economic conditions. In other words, we should be FREE and have the full rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Yeah, just like the monkeys in the zoo. Who do you want to free you from your economic conditions? Me? But I was going to pursue my own happiness! The government? If you're free, the government is you! The freedom to pursue happiness means the freedom to FREE YOURSELF from your economic conditions. You can do it by any means you like -- find anything you can do that will be of value to other people, and you can use it to free yourself from your economic conditions. It seems like more and more people detest freedom, and would rather be taken care of. That is an ok way for children to think. But it certainly does not befit men.

These ideas are not communist. They're as democratic and American as mom and the flag and apple pie.

Sure, if by "mom and the flag and apple pie" you mean Mother Russia, the hammer and sickle, and an empty bottle of vodka.

The CEOs that run the corporations decide what people get paid. ...{more of the Provda editorial page}...

I feel like every time I hear this rhetoric from anyone, it gets a tiny bit closer to "so we must line up the CEO's against a wall shoot them, or put them in concentration camps. Only then can Germ.., I mean Russ.., I mean America be great.

The corporation is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship.

No, it's a corporation. In a free society, people can form whatever free-will associations that they please. If they register with the state to be taxed, they become a corporation. If you ask to join someone else's corporation, you do so on whatever terms are agreeable to both you and them. And you leave whenever those terms stop being agreeable. That is freedom. If the government tells one or both parties what is or isn't agreeable, then that ceases to be freedom (and, as it happens, also ceases to be prosperous). But the wonderful thing is, if there is anything useful you can do, you can start your own corporation, and do everything your own way. But that's hard work. It's much easier to freeload off someone else's corporation. And then if you can convince people to make laws saying that you have to get a lot of pay for a little productivity, and can't be fired, well, I guess that might seem ideal to you. However, it's not sustainable.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[iminplaya]

...5,000 years...

is but a picosecond.

It took over 4 billion years to get an opposable thumb. You expect the brain understand the dangers of that kind of new tech in 5,000? You give humans too much credit. You're underestimating the power of hundreds of millions of years of instinct.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[AndreiK]

Note to self: Use bigger sarcasm tags.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get over yourself first.

There's no comparison to be made - Kennedy didn't have to have his presidency handed to him by his daddy's Supreme Court judges and his brother keeping his opponent's supporters from the polls.

Now go do something comparatively useful, like becoming a GNAA troll.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Ikari Gendo]

He had fewer votes than Gore did in Florida. See the unbiased research done months after the election. But then, who's counting? Certainly no one who thinks that votes should determine the political leadership.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[jcr]

There's no comparison to be made

Yes there is, actually.

Kennedy didn't have to have his presidency handed to him by his daddy's Supreme Court judges

No, he had it handed to him by the mob, by the Chicago graveyard vote, and the ballot-box stuffers his daddy employed in West Virginia.

Nixon knew the election had been stolen, but he chose to let it go because he thought it would be bad for the country to fight it.

-jcr

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour and lay off 15% of the workforce, is that good?

Right, because everybody knows that poor people burn their money to prevent it from reentering the economy.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[greatcelerystalk]

That would make almost anyone in a managerial role 'communist.'

There is something wrong with $5.15 an hour; there's nothing wrong with taking a look at a minimum wage which hasn't been raised in a decade and saying "Hey, look, over 30 million Americans who work full time jobs cannot make ends meet, and we need to do something about it."

People on the internet are too quick to throw around charges of "communist" or "socialism" when they lack even a rudimentary understanding of what either of those philosophies advocate.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[mrogers]

No, becuase CEO's and oil companies are not forcing their rules upon us with the power of police and prisons and the military.

Who enforces property rights? Police, prisons and the military.

Libertarians claim to be opposed to coercion. Actually they're just opposed to coercion on behalf of the poor. Coercion on behalf of the rich is fine, it's called 'property rights'.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[mrogers]

He or she has done the hard work or had the good fortune of making it to the top.

I assume you're in favour of a 100% inheritance tax, to make sure it's truly the hard-working individuals who prosper?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[plasmacutter]

What is the relevance of the wealth gap? Is the middle class actually shrinking in the U.S.? Is the standard of living going down for the middle class and the poor? Are the health care options for the poor worse than 25, 50, 75 years ago? I think not.

I would say my family is well into the middle class, and we can barely afford healthcare, our money does not go as far now as it did back in the 90's, our standard of living has gone down, and our income bracket is not low.. this means the lowest income brackets must be pretty desperate by now.

oh.. and the healthcare options, while better than 75 years ago, and only as good as 50 years ago, are worse than they were 25 years ago, when most employers had wall to wall health plans that covered things they dont cover now, like my brother's braces and our glasses.

Oh.. and remember all those pension defaults that occurred shortly after 9/11?.. yeah a bunch of people who worked their lives away are now receiving only 1/4 what they were promised because companies and corporate owners are allowed to basically default on their agreements to their employees.

While you were being facetious about the progressive tax rate, that is exactly what I would like to see, though I would rather see actual regulations which set a realistic minimum wage in real dollars. Both would be even better. These people make enough money to keep spare dumpsters for their disposable ferraris, its only fair they pay more in taxes.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Xerxes1729]

That's Marx's complaint about the capitalism. The profit that a corporation makes is the sum of the value added by the labor of workers minus the amount paid out in wages. Each laborer works enough each day to pay for his own wages, but then he works some more to generate profit for the capitalist. Thus, the capitalist appropriates some of the value or product of his employees' labor.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[roman_mir]

In fact, the corporation is so decidedly undemocratic since they decide what you can or can not say, even in your time off. - my own private corporation is a dictatorship and I am the dictator. You don't like it, take it to another dictator, or build your own dictatorship. I fail to see any problems with this. Of-course the corporations are undemocratic. When every employee puts as much of their own initiative, of their own money and time into the corporation as I, the dictator, then you may start having a point.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[BJH]

Hahaha, great way to shoot yourself in the foot there. Dumbass.
In case you hadn't noticed, corporations are organizations specialized for one purpose; taking the product of the workers' labor and giving it to the corporation.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[BJH]

So, by your logic we should pile more and more money in front of potential CEOs in the hope that they won't cause everybody under them to lose their jobs because of their incompetence?
And in the event they do screw up, well, it's the fault of the people who work for them for choosing a lousy CEO in the first place?

Last time I looked, workers didn't get to vote on their CEO, dumbass.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[BJH]

minimum wage laws lock out the most desperate, those who most need it, from getting jobs

You're fucking kidding, right? Maybe we should just go back to introducing slavery, so those who are less worthy will be given the standard of living they deserve as inferior members of society.

Remember that word? Society? It's supposed to indicate a condition where people work together to improve everybody's standard of living, but these days it only seems to be used after the word "high".

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

The founder of the company did the hard work. The CEO comes in after all that and pushes the founder away. That CEO hasn't done anything for the company at that point but win the popularity game that is corporate politics. The CEO is crowned king of his little empire. The CEO is the ultimate, modern-day fascist.

Someday, when you escape the confines of your parents' basement, you will realize that not all CEOs are Kenneth Lays. Some of those guys have names like Hewlett, Packard, Dell, Watson, and (yes) Gates. How are you going to punish the Kenneth Lays of the world while leaving those other guys free to make themselves wealthy by starting empires in their dorm rooms... empires that eventually employ hundreds of thousands of people?

How is dragging Michael Dell down to your level (or some arbitrary multiple thereof) going to help you?

I wish you trust-fund leftist types would listen to your own advice, and quit stereotyping entire classes of people. If I said all Blacks were trash because of the actions of some crack-addled looter in New Orleans, you'd have a problem with that, wouldn't you? Well, why is it OK to assume that everyone who builds a business from the ground up is entitled to be lumped in with the Enron execs?

Worry more about your own success in life, and less about others'. Trust me, you'll end up happier for it.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

> I wish you trust-fund leftist types would listen to your own advice, and quit stereotyping entire classes of people.

Oh, the irony!

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[ElectricRook]

There's a lot wrong with raising the minimum wage... Basically inflation.

When the minimum wage goes up, every minimum wage laborer gets the raise, no problem. All the expenses go up a little, not quite as much as the percentage of minimim wage, so the minimum wage earners do a little better.

The problem is that every union worker, all the way up to the long-shoremen (currently earning ~$100k), get the raise too. Every teacher, cop, firemen, civil servant, defense contract employee, carpenter, electrician... the list is huge. Of course this causes inflation to rise, as every consumer item now costs more, and of course taxes go up to pay the salaries of the government workers who received the bulk of the increase.

Now the losers (those who see little or no income increase) are the elderly, living on a fixed income from their savings.

I sincerely hope, we've put that demon to bed for good.

P.S. I want to say, in closing that in the short term, I would benefit the most from an increase. I have a good job with Intel, and my wife has a good state job. We would get raises, while our house payment stays the same. The long term down side, is that when I want to retire in 15 years (age 60), I won't be able, as the value of my saved dollars is now reduced. So us geeks won't get to retire until we are much older than our parents.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[walnutmon]

Just for fun, I am going to rewrite what you said, but let's pretend that our "government" is not the corrupt group of corporate cocksuckers they are (but I love them too!), and instead treat it like it was meant to be, a government run "by the people for the people" (We all know that people are all good!). So I will just replace, government with people. Let's also get rid of the word company, because it really isn't a very descriptive name, companies are not tangible things, you can't punch a company in the face. Let's replace company with "people who sell things". Let's see how it sounds...

You stated:
No, becuase CEO's and [people who sell oil] are not forcing their rules upon us with the power of police and prisons and the military. If I choose to work for [people who sell things] I follow their rules. I can choose to work somewhere else.

This is what people mean when they call your idea communism. You want the [people] to make these decisions for everyone.

If you'd check your history you would see that communism does not work. Why do you think it would work in the U.S.? Do you think [people] that coddles [people who sell things] and does not care about the little guy would all of the sudden completely turn around? Do you think an apathetic populas will all of the sudden forge a utopia? :end of your statement

So in response to what you are ACTUALLY TRYING TO SAY, people who sell oil don't just make rules for their workers, and neither do other very large groups of people who sell things, they make rules for everyone. I don't think I really need to explain how on this site, most people realize that. The rest, I agree, I do want people to decide things, and I DO think that if people all worked together that it is possible that we would form a society that works.

Now, unfortunately, and at the root of many problems is that in society today, you really can't substitute "government" with "people", in fact, it is FAR MORE ACCURATE to replace "government" with "companies". Don't think about that for more than a few seconds at a time, or you may get really mad and start killing people who sell things...

You see, the problem is that the government has no place in our lives to do anything other that protect us from things that people on an individual basis never could. But when the power of the government is no longer used as a large band of Americans protecting eachother, and instead becomes a small group of Americans exploiting eachother, you have a cycle that looks much like other failed governemts in history. But don't fret, we've done a great job, and made some cool advances. If human kind lasts much longer, we will be able to learn from the mistakes America made and create a type of government that is better. There is no failure, only oppertunities to learn. America kicks ass in a lot of ways. But everything comes to an end, and I think we are really starting to see that now.

What is really the most troubling is this. We NEED to protect ourselves from other people. The fact that people who have everything they could possibly need in life often seem to follow a trend. Instead of using their extra resources to help everyone, they use them to hurt others and exploit them for their own uses. This certainly doesn't seem like the behavior of a group of happy, smart, well adjusted people. THIS JUST IN, people in power are NOT HAPPY WELL ADJUSTED PEOPLE. Every once in a while when a very happy well adjusted person, accidentally raises to a place of power, and uses it, they generally are killed. God damn!

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

Not every CEO founded their corporation. Quite a few walked in straight off the street, just like every other hired employee.

Further, not every founder built their corporation with their bare hands BY THEMSELVES. You did have help. But even that fact does not give you the right to bleed your employees dry on minimum wage so you can give yourself a million dollar raise. Their work is worth more than that.

But, somehow I expect that you'll turn around and sputter, "but, but, -I- don't do that!" Yeah, well, THAT is exactly the right you are arguing here.

Greedy bastard. Burn in hell.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Ex-MislTech]

The CEO is more important than the janitor precisely because he or
she decides what to pay employees

The CEO doesn't decide what to pay, the market economics do that,
and you can bet it is someone in accounting that looks it up.

They pay as little as they can to not lose their ppl to the nearby
competition, so all they do is float the going rate either a little
over or a little under.

Some CEO's at some of the largest corporations in the US "fail" at their
jobs and are rewarded for it "handsomely".

Government tax dollars paid to bail out failed corporate billion dollar blunders.

Huge Scandals of tax payer money to telecom companies:

http://www.newnetworks.com/ShortSCANDALSummary.htm

Global Crossing's CEO running off with 100's of millions before
he knowingly bankrupted it and took the money and run.

It's like legal bank robbery, with nice clothes.

These corporate types write off vacations as "entertainment" expenses.

They write off their breakrooms, their gyms, and numerous other items.

The rest of the population cannot do this.

Corporations have more rights under the law than the citizens.

A lot of the ppl on here and elsewhere that defend this Corporate idiocy
are doing so because they benefit from it and are biased accordingly.

Honest mistakes I understand, but that is not what I am talking about.

I am talking about abhorrent rampant greed and falsified records,
and offshore dummy accounts, and then having the gall to pay ppl
so little they cannot buy coats for their children and organizations
like "coats for kids" has to be formed just so kids dont show up
at the free clinic with frost bite.

The state of humanity in the richest nation of the world is pathetic.

Greed and Selfishness and self indulgence are at a all new high.

If the worker sucks, fire them, if they do their job and the ppl
at the top are obscenely wealthy then it is time to stop treating them
like the share croppers of the great depression era.

If your workers beneath you made you a millionaire or billionaire, reward
them with profit sharing, stock options, or something.

Don't just string them along for as little as possible or rotate
through hordes of temp workers to maximize your profits even more.

M$ for one was sued over the temp issue .

In this country we could build a nation of good and caring ppl, but
when their examples as leaders are blood sucking leeches of unending
stupifying greed and selfishness.

You are not going to get a good end result with that kind of role model.

Lead by example, not by lies, corruption, graft, and fear.

Ex-MislTech

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

Me: The man did not say that all pay should be equal. He said that the variance, the difference, between the low end and the high end should be reduced. Everyone in the wealthiest nation in the world should have enough to "pay for housing, utilities, health care, transportation, and a little extra for some fun."
You: Ok, if we do that for 10 years, so that we're no longer the wealthiest nation in the world, can we stop and return to actual freedom and sanity? Should everyone in that nation have all that even if no one works? If so, where would it come from?

Let's see, CEO's get paid, what? 100x-1000x the salary of the average worker? Maybe more?

Somehow, I don't think lowering that variance will immediately make the average worker up and quit their job. Minimum wage wasn't even a livable wage when it was set at $5.15 in 1997. Doubling the minimum to $10.30 gets close, tripling it to $15.45 would actually be more reasonable. And yes, we certainly COULD do that with the salaries these CEOs and other managers make. Instead of making $50, $100, or $500 million, I'm sure they could get by on $5, $10, or $50 million per year plus stock incentives.

Me: The CEO takes the money that you earn and gives most of it to himself. The corporation is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship.
You: It seems like more and more people detest freedom, and would rather be taken care of.

Riiight. So, my argument that people should receive a portion of the profits they generate instead of having the CEOs take all that profit for themselves means that I "detest freedom". Nevermind the fact that I would actually be more free were I able to keep a fraction of the profit that I actually create.

The person here who really detests freedom is you: the supporter of corporations modelled after dictatorships.

No, it's a corporation. In a free society, people can form whatever free-will associations that they please. If they register with the state to be taxed, they become a corporation. If you ask to join someone else's corporation, you do so on whatever terms are agreeable to both you and them. And you leave whenever those terms stop being agreeable. That is freedom.

You are free to go to North Korea and start working for the dictatorship there. And, if you wanted to leave North Korea later, you certainly could, as long as you respected the law while you were there. The fact that you are free to enter the corporation of your choice does not somehow mean they are not dictatorships.

If the government tells one or both parties what is or isn't agreeable, then that ceases to be freedom (and, as it happens, also ceases to be prosperous).

Bullshit. The government coming in and telling companies that they have to pay minimum wage actually benefits the worker and the economy in general. The states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage have created jobs at a far faster rate than the states that have not. That is because, when you raise the minimum wage, you put money into the pockets of people who will spend it and it spurs the economy. So, it actually makes us more prosperous to have the minimum wage.

As for your freedom argument, that's also complete bullshit. Anyone attempting to live off of minimum wage isn't free. That's poverty level. They are wage slaves for their corporate masters.

But the wonderful thing is, if there is anything useful you can do, you can start your own corporation, and do everything your own way. But that's hard work. It's much easier to freeload off someone else's corporation.

Bullshit again. First off, the founders of those companies did not build those companies by themselves. They hired employees as soon as possible to help build up that corporation. Those employees often take less than market wages just to help out the founder and the business succeed. Do those employees get back everything THEY sacrificed?... Hell no

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

You forget we live in a global economy. Just because we raise the minimum wage a few dollars here doesn't mean inflation will skyrocket, especially since we already buy most of our manufactured goods from places like China.

Further, you ignore the empirical evidence to the contrary. The states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage have created jobs at a far faster rate than the states that have not. That is because, when you raise the minimum wage, you put money into the pockets of people who will spend it and it spurs the economy. So, it actually makes us more prosperous to have a higher minimum wage.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[MoneyT]

Actualy, it does give him the right to bleed them with a minimum wage. You don't have to work for him. No one does. And companies that can't find workers either up their pay or go out of business. You have no right to dictate to him how he can pay his employees as long as the employees have agreed to that pay.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[MoneyT]

It's worth noting that $9/ hour is a certainly a liveable wage for as much as two people. The problem with minimum wage is not that it isn't enough for people, but that people have no clue how to manage their money. I hear people all the time talk about how much their food costs them. When I was making that little amount of money I ate for about $200 - $250 / month and that was eating well. Chicken or beef every dinner, with sides and more. I also fed another person on that money. It takes time yes. It takes work, yes. It takes managing your money too. I managed to get a steak every once in a while, but you don't get to get steak 4 times a week. You can't have soda or milk every day. You can't have alcohol etc etc etc. But if you learn to manage your money, $9 is a liveable wage.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

It seems the obscenely wealthy get that way through risk taking, smarts, and/or luck. As long as they are not breaking any laws then I don't have a problem with their good fortune. If they are raking in the bucks it's becuase they have something other people want to give them money for.

Hahahahaha!!!... Paris Hilton did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to earn her fortune. It wasn't risk taking. It wasn't smarts. And it wasn't even luck, every child of the Hiltons or any rich family is in the same position. Whatever child they had would be in the exact same position. Luck, risk taking, and smarts had nothing to do with Paris Hilton.

What is the relevance of the wealth gap?

The rich CEOs get paid far, far more than the wealth they generate. That is because they take the majority of the profits their minimum wage employees create in order to give themselves million dollar bonuses. That warps the idea of freedom and democracy when these CEOs then turn around and use these ill-gotten gains to access politicians and legislation to further their wealth accumulation. If they break the law, the rich can buy their freedom and in some cases, like OJ, literally get away with murder. Good luck trying to buy that kind of legal protection on a middle class income.

Is the middle class actually shrinking in the U.S.?

Yes.

Is the standard of living going down for the middle class and the poor?

Yes. Wages have actually gone up less than inflation for the last five years, meaning you earn less real money now than you did in 2001. And in fact, wages actually peaked on an inflation-adjusted scale back in 1968.

Are the health care options for the poor worse than 25, 50, 75 years ago?

The health care options are better due to medical advances, if you are able to afford them. Affordability is the real problem.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

And here's another illustration to the problem of assigning an arbitrarily low amount for the minimum wage. $9 may be perfectly fine where YOU live, but it's certainly not where I am. Get out of Hicksville and maybe you'd realize that.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

The nice thing about living in a democracy is that the people decide what rights to give corporations and what that minimum wage is.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[CryBaby]

You are assuming that an increased minimum wage will result in a proportionate degree of job loss. While that's a valid concern, you are not taking into account the economic stimulation that has historically been associated with redistribution of wealth. Higher minimum wages create more disposable income and therefore more spending, which usually leads to more jobs.

This is not to say that redistribution of wealth create's a magical, market-defying cycle of prosperity, but there are positive offsetting effects. A good illustration of this is the GI bill which, through legislation rather than market forces, created increased opportunities for lower-income Americans and resulted in wide-spread economic prosperity.

You also assume that the funds to pay an increased minimum wage must come out of the pockets of other low to mid-level workers rather than the compensation of corporate executives and similarly over-paid top-level employees. If less money was available for excessive salaries and benefits, normal market forces would bring those compensation packages in line with the actual worth/productivity of the individuals who receive them (e.g. I do not believe that the contribution of *any* CEO is worth 500 times more than my contribution as a senior engineer in terms of raw economic value). Many corporations could also withstand a small decrease in profit margins without any noticeable disruption, thus allowing them to retain their current labor force.

Regarding your last point, it is incorrect to equate an increased minimum wage with advocacy of a socialist system with guaranteed 100% employment. The former is a desire for a certain degree of redistribution of wealth within a capitalist system, while the latter is essentially anti-capitalist. Most people in United States support a welfare state that provides relief for the mentally ill and others with little or no ability to compete in the market. Welfare should not be confused with a livable minimum wage for qualified workers.

I think one of the most difficult aspects of this issue is that it is, at its core, a moral position that is often sold in terms of an economic policy position. Ignoring or mischaracterizing the economic effects of redistribution of wealth is undoubtedly irresponsible. So is pretending that the market is inherently moral. As an admittedly hyperbolic, but I believe illustrative, example, slave labor is highly economically efficient and results in huge profits for those who own the slaves. Yet, most people support anti-slavery (and many other worker's rights) regulations that prevent corporations and wealthy individuals from pursuing policies that are in their best economic interest.

Since you asked the question "Suppose we raise it to $60 an hour. Better? Would you still have a job?", I'll attempt an answer. That is obviously a rhetorical question rather than an honest one, so I'll interpret it to mean "to what amount should the minimum wage be raised and at what point does a minimum wage begin to have a catastrophic effect on our economy?" Given that the peak purchasing power of the minimum wage occurred in 1968 at the level of about $9.00 per hour in 2005 dollars, I would say that the current minumum wage should be no lower than $7.00 per hour with individual states free to set a higher rate as they currently are. This is a small enough increase to avoid any immediate catastrophic effect, improve the quality of life for many people and give us a chance to observe the true effect of a meaningful change. I'm basing my "no catastrophic effect" assessment on the fact that we have maintained a much higher minimum wage over the 3 or 4 decades preceding the current one with no real ill effect and many would say an overall positive effect.

Keep in mind that if you do not support an increase to, say, $7 - $8 per hour, you are supporting an increase in the disparity of wealth. The current minimum wage is obviously worth less every year and has not been changed since 1997, so minimum wage earners are much poorer now than in the past. A decision to do nothing is a decision, after all.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[roman_mir]

Further, not every founder built their corporation with their bare hands BY THEMSELVES. You did have help. But even that fact does not give you the right to bleed your employees dry on minimum wage so you can give yourself a million dollar raise. Their work is worth more than that. - my corporation I built with my own hands. When my hands weren't enough, I hired contractors for help. Sure it does give me the right to do anything I wish with the company and its money. I cannot kill people, but that has nothing to do with the corporation.

But, somehow I expect that you'll turn around and sputter, "but, but, -I- don't do that!" Yeah, well, THAT is exactly the right you are arguing here. - you expect wrong, I will do every single possible thing within the law to make the company more profitable.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Gryle]

This is a bad thing why?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[NCraig]

Which part of "good fortune" did you miss?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's a lot wrong with raising the minimum wage... Basically inflation."

You're missing the entire point of the minimum wage. It's not there to help companies, or the economy, it is there to prevent people who don't have very many viable choices from being exploited, so what it does to the economy is irrelevant (as it should be). If there were no minimum wage, we'd have sweatshops right here in the US instead of over in China or the Philippenes. We had that situation in the early 1900s which is why we have the minimum wage, to prevent explotation. In my opinion, not having a raise in 10 years while the cost of everything else has gone up is explotation. Especially while the people who would give the raise (Congress) have given themselves like 9 raises (calling them "cost of living wage increases"), and they even set it up so that they don't even have to vote on it, it's automatic.

"Of course this causes inflation to rise, as every consumer item now costs more, and of course taxes go up to pay the salaries of the government workers who received the bulk of the increase."

If you haven't noticed, the prices of products have gone up despite the fact that the cost of labor (because of China) has dropped by a ton. Think about it, a company goes from making their crap here in America to making it in China and paying the workers like 20 times (or more) less...but their prices don't go down, they either stay the same or go up (think bicycles, clothes, well pretty much everything). Sure, if the minimum wage was increased, companies would use that as an excuse and say "Oh, we have to raise our prices, and it's their fault!". But that is just pure bullshit. Basically ALL of the wage increase would go RIGHT BACK IN to the economy!

And, you know when I was making about minimum wage ($5.30/hour), I paid about 25% in taxes, so it was really like $3.86/hour. That ain't much.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The CEO is more important than the janitor precisely because he or she decides what to pay employees (and a whole slew of other things)."

Okay, lets get rid of all the janitors and ceos...and see who is missed more. A company can function without its CEO (it has to when their in jail hahaha), it can't without its janitors.
Let's see how happy the employees are when there is no toilet paper in the restroom and it smells like piss. Or when there's trash everywhere because no one bothered to clean it up. Or when the building looks like shit because no one cleaned it. And so on, and so on...

"Ever heard of the American Dream? It calls for hard work and - admittedly - a little bit of luck. There's no such thing as the American Promise, thank God."

There is no such thing as the American Dream. If you're ambitious and ruthless enough, you can make it anywhere. That isn't special to America. If you're a good enough drug dealer/gangster, I'm sure you could make yourself a nice life in Columbia. There are successful people in every country, America isn't special in that regard, but it is special because it is the country that has shown that it can change and actually improve. I don't think there are too many other countries that can say that.

And THERE IS an American Promise. It's called the bill of rights.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

>rich CEOs get paid far, far more than the wealth they generate.

This is complete BS. Try starting your own company. Getting investors,
establishing business relationships. Travelling all over the globe to try and
hustle for work while not yet having a huge business resume of clients.
It's not easy.

Are some CEOs overpaid? Perhaps. But in most small to medium sized businesses,
and yes even large coporations -- they earn their money. Most people prefer to slave
away for someone else in relative economic safety rather than take the risk
that running a company entails. They have no right to complain.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[MKalus]

No, becuase CEO's and oil companies are not forcing their rules upon us with the power of police and prisons and the military. If I choose to work for a company I follow their rules. I can choose to work somewhere else.

Sure sure, they just have their bought politicians change the rules in their favour.... I think this could be called "governing by proxy".

This is what people mean when they call your idea communism. You want the govornment to make these decisions for everyone.

While in the "free" market we currently have the businesses buy the laws and rules they like and we have to live by it. That is obviously better because it is not the evil Government, just good corporations (note sarcasm)

If you'd check your history you would see that communism does not work. Why do you think it would work in the U.S.? Do you think a govornment that coddles corporations and does not care about the little guy would all of the sudden completely turn around? Do you think an apathetic populas will all of the sudden forge a utopia?

Capitalism doesn't really work either. Not that we have tried that (or communism), but the current "capitalist" society we're living in is only working for (at best) 1/6th of the worlds population, the other 5/6th are feeding this. How long do you think this can work?

What is needed is a middle ground, but because the 1/6th that reap all the benefits doesn't want things to change (hey, it's great, so why change) things won't change until it literally implodes.

The US system is as broken as Soviet Russia was, it will just break in a different way, and to proclaim "victory" over the Stalinst system after 16 years may be in the interest of the people currently in power, but in historic terms the vote is still out, and in fact looking AT the world right now I think we can conclude that "our reign" will come to an end sooner rather than later, the signs are already there.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[canadian_right]

While I agree that CEO's pay is way higher than it should be, I can't agree that all jobs are equally important and all jobs should pay "enough to live on".

Back in the day that a janitors job did pay enough to live on the standard of living was much lower for poor people. They lived in housing that likely breaks hundreds of new laws. They had one pair shoes, no home electronics, no car, etc... The good old days were not that good for a lot of people.

Some jobs pay very little because they take very little skill and lots of people are willing to do the job. That is how capitalism and the free market works. These low skill jobs should be stepping stones in a career - not a career.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[JesseMcDonald]

No, becuase CEO's and oil companies are not forcing their rules upon us with the power of police and prisons and the military.

Who enforces property rights? Police, prisons and the military.

Libertarians claim to be opposed to coercion. Actually they're just opposed to coercion on behalf of the poor. Coercion on behalf of the rich is fine, it's called 'property rights'.

Property rights, when observed, protect the poor just as much as the wealthy. Without property rights consumption is impossible -- you can't use something up (food, for example) unless you can claim an exclusive right to it. Furthermore, you can't save for the future if the only exclusive rights are limited to immediate consumption. The only alternative to privately-owned property--that treats everyone equally--would be for everyone to have veto authority on how every consumable good is used. While completely fair, such a system would result in widespread starvation as the individual in question would die before managing to get approval from all the co-owners (or even a simple majority).

Having established that a system of private property is at a basic, immediate level a necessary component in any workable society, and that exclusive ownership must be assigned to some specific individual, the question becomes, "Who should be able to exercise exclusive control over any particular item?" There are a number of ways to assign initial ownership, but the only one that manager to do so without some outside (super-human?) authority to make the choice is that of homesteading: property becomes owned by the first individual to make use of it, or to transform it in some way. Only previously unowned property can be assigned this way, of course (since anything else would infringe on the exclusive control granted to the first user). However, property can be transfered from one person to another through mutally agreed-upon exchanges (i.e. contracts). It is important to note that any other form of transfer is necessarily against the will of the owner, and would constitute theft. It is also important to note that one of the items of private property being assigned is ownership of one's own body (who else should have the right to it?); the same arguments apply against universal co-ownership of our physical bodies as apply to the same system of ownership for property, vis., no one would be able to actually exercise their part ownership and the human race would starve to death. By responding to this (or even posting the parent comment) you are necessarily agreeing with this point, since you obviously did not consider it necessary to check with everyone else before employing your body and property in the act of posting; any arguments against these points are thus self-contradictory.

Libertarians tend to believe in a right to self-defense, along with the right to assist others in such defense. It is this right to self-defense that allows for punishment of anti-social behavior in kind. The enlistment of the aid of others (police, prison guards, soldiers) in such self-defense is not free; such services take up scarce materials and labor, and entail significant risks for those who choose to provide them. It is no less costly to fund defense services through theft (taxation) than it would be to do so voluntarily; rather, the theft simply compounds the issue. Clearly there is honor in providing defense for those who cannot defend themselves, but what of those who simply choose not to defend themselves? Is it honorable to encourage behavior that increases the costs of defense for everyone? Private defense charity would, no doubt, attempt to teach its recipients to manage their defense costs, and would withhold charity defense from those who refuse to do so; an all-encompassing public defense system has no hope of doing so.

Of course, if you can come up with a form of civil defense that (a) does not fund itself through thef

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[miskatonic alumnus]

I can't agree that ... all jobs should pay "enough to live on".

That is how capitalism and the free market works.

Then capitalism is unethical and immoral. Our species is doomed because we place more value on accumulating piles of refuse than on helping one another. I mean really, we are putting our ability to play above others' ability to eat. Absolutely despicable.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any other stereotypes you care to spout out? You are such an asshole. $5.15 an hour is not enough to pay ANY human for ANY regular job (in the US).

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[MoneyT]

Conversely, maybe you shouldn't live somewhere where you can't afford the cost of living. I would love to live on the beach, but I can't afford to live there on the wages I can earn, therefore I don't live on the beach. Perhaps we should just eliminate the minimum wage all together and actualy let the market for each area determine the minimum wage. For example, where I do live, while minimum wage is $5.15, no one actualy makes that. Unskilled labor STARTS at $7/hr here with raises in a few months after that assuming you were a good worker. By setting arbitrary price floors, you simply raise the cost of living, drive the marginal cost of not working for minimum wage up, increase the likely hood of illegal wage practices and screw more people over.

Take for example company A which has 5 workers working for $5 / hour and they work 5 hour days. Company A has the capacity to hire a new employee, Joe Poor who is willing a capable of working for $5 an hour, thus bettering his life. Now, imagine that the government in it's infinite wisdom decides to raise the minimum wage to $6 / hour. Now every employee is making an additional $5 / day and totaling out to the price of a new employee so that when Joe Poor comes looking for a job, even though he is WILLING to work at $5 an hour to get it, he can't. He is without a job because costs for labor went up, and therefore demand has gone down.

Sure, there is no guarantee that company A would have hired Joe Poor, but by raising the minimum wage by just one dollar, we have insured that it is impossible for him to be hired.

And this ignores the increased costs in terms of taxes and cuts into profit (thus requiring a rise in sale prices) that company A must incure to comply with the new wage.

In the end, minimum wage is not the answer, teaching people to mange their money and their life responsibly is.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[MoneyT]

Dictating to others what legal contracts they can enter into is not a sign of democracy.

Or conversely if we would like to play with fun hot button issues:

The nice thing about living in a democracy is that the people decide what rights to give every one and that's what marrige is.

Or how about

The nice thing about living in a democracy is that the people decide what privacy people should have, and that's what the government is doing when they spy on you.

Why should you be able to tell me that I can not legaly work for less than $5.15 / hour? Who are you to prevent me from doing so? What right do you have to dictate to me a private citizen what wage I shall work for?

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[chowda]

"I am more for wages that are mostly based on amount of work done"

so the better you are at something (i.e. the more work you do), the more you get paid? interesting notion...

"with an adjustment for how popular the job is."

so... the harder something is... the more you get paid.. "popularity".... "supply/demand"...

I guess we agree....

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[mrogers]

It is important to note that any other form of transfer is necessarily against the will of the owner, and would constitute theft.

That's a circular argument - you can't use your own assertion that theft is wrong to prove that property is right. However, I'm not opposed to property rights and I do understand that the alternative would be worse - I'm just trying to point out that property rights, like every other social norm, are ultimately backed up by the threat of violence. In practice, property rights are socially beneficial (within limits), so we make them into social norms and enforce them with the threat of violence. The same is true of taxation.

By responding to this (or even posting the parent comment) you are necessarily agreeing with this point

Do you write click-through EULAs for a living? I don't agree that my body is my property in the same sense that my possessions are my property - for example, my body responds directly to my will and nobody else's, whereas my possessions respond equally to the will of whoever happens to be holding them. However, I do recognise that the only thing allowing me to stay in sovereign control of my body is a social norm forbidding individual violence - a norm that is backed up, ironically enough, by the threat of collective violence. In that sense my relationship to my body is similar to my relationship to my possessions, though not identical.

It is no less costly to fund defense services through theft (taxation) than it would be to do so voluntarily

It's extremely naive to suppose that a volunteer police force would be anything other than a lynch mob, or that those who funded it would be obliged to behave in the same way as those who did not fund it. Property rights depend on the concept of equality before the law - the question of whether or not you have the right to defend your property does not and must not depend on your identity, or on how much you contributed to the charitable police fund. Otherwise your libertarian utopia will quickly deteriorate into a kleptocracy where the rich get richer by robbing the poor with the tacit support of the police and courts.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[mrogers]

That is an enormous achievement in and of itself.

Being born rich is an achievement? Maybe they should hand out prizes.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[maxpublic]

Paris Hilton did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to earn her fortune

So the fuck what? Who are you to decide that Paris Hilton doesn't deserve the money her parents have given to her, and that it should be taken from her by force? No one, so far as I can see.

Newsflash, junior: I'm going to be leaving behind a fair bit of cash for my kid, too. If she invests properly she'll never have to work a day in her life, and can do whatever the hell she pleases. Those are the fruits of MY labor, and that's what I choose to do with it. If it bothers you, I couldn't give a shit. It isn't up to you to interfere with that. If you try, I and millions of other parents will stomp all over you for trying.

Max

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[maxpublic]

Riiight. So, my argument that people should receive a portion of the profits they generate instead of having the CEOs take all that profit for themselves means that I "detest freedom".

You can do that any time you like. It's called an "employee-owned" store. There are quite a few examples of this sort of enterprise in the U.S., and it's a perfectly legal way to set up a business. What you're advocating, however, is FORCING this situation on everyone at the point of a government gun. It's hard to get more anti-freedom than that.

The person here who really detests freedom is you: the supporter of corporations modelled after dictatorships.

Corporations aren't governing bodies, and are therefore incapable of being dictatorships. You're always free to stop living as a 'wage-slave', or whatever rhetoric you and your buddies whinge about on the weekends, and set up your own business on the employee-owned model. You have the FREEDOM to do so, at least; not sure whether you have the brains or the guts.

The states that have raised the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage have created jobs at a far faster rate than the states that have not.

I'm sure you have cites and sources published in accredited, peer-reviewed journals for this statement. And no, I don't mean support for a CORRELATIVE effect but a CAUSATIVE one. As in, proof positive that raising the minimum wage is a direct and root source of an immediate and measurable improvement in the economy, rather than an improvement in the economy leading people to be more comfortable with voting for an increase in the minimum wage.

No, these CEOs walked in when the company was already established and running. So, they decide to give themselves a million dollar raise while paying their workers minimum wage. The "freeloader" here are not the workers asking for more money, but the CEO who raids the corporate bank account for the 2-3 years they work for the company

The CEOs answer to the board, who in turn answer to the shareholders. The shareholders decide how the company will run, not you. You don't get a vote, nor should you. If they make bad decisions by dropping multi-million dollar salaries on idiots, this will eventually show in the bottom line and convince them to take another tack, or go bankrupt. Apparently their assessment of a CEO's worth differs from yours, but in this case it really isn't your business, nor do you have any right to interfere. If it bothers you, you can either suck it up and deal with it, or buy some shares in the company and vote at stockholders meetings. Put your money where your mouth is, and all that.

Minimum wage wasn't even a livable wage when it was set at $5.15 in 1997. Doubling the minimum to $10.30 gets close, tripling it to $15.45 would actually be more reasonable. And yes, we certainly COULD do that with the salaries these CEOs and other managers make.

Ah, I see: just another fucking pseudo-socialist with a hate hard-on for the rich. Take from all those 'evil' money-grubbers and give it to the poor! You must think you're a regular Robin Hood, fighting the good fight.

Pathetic.

Max

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[maxpublic]

The nice thing about living in a democracy is that the people decide what rights to give corporations and what that minimum wage is.

We don't live in a democracy. We live in a constitutionally-bound republic wherein the government is supposed to have extremely limited powers. The 'government' here being people like you and your neighbors who think it's your solemn duty to tell everyone else how they should live - and enforce that view at the point of the government gun, no doubt chanting horseshit about an illusory 'greater good' all the while.

Democracies are just another kind of dictatorship, with the majority doing whatever the hell they like to the minority. Our founding fathers had a great many things to say about democracy, most of them quite bad; which is the reason why you don't live in a democracy today. And I thank the gods for that, otherwise we'd being suffering through the worst fucking dystopia this planet has ever seen.

Max

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Wildclaw]

Amount as in effort put in, not how skilled you are.

No, not harder, less popular. The adjusment for popularity should also be an exception and only used if it is impossible to find anyone that is interested in doing the job.

I don't think we agree.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[chowda]

you said "I am more for wages that are mostly based on amount of work done"...

Now if I'm better at something than you... and we both do it for an hour... I've probably done more work than you... therefor I'm worth more.. even in your model..

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[CyberdogOSX]

typical conservative rhetoric. creating a problem where one doesn't exist.

yes, there is a number. and it's not some ludicrous, inflamatory number like 60.00 an hour.

you take the minimum grocery, rent(possibly with a roomate), travel, general living expenses of a single adult. then you figure out how much one would have to make a year to afford these things. then you divide it by a typical 40 hour work week.

that is how you determine a minimum wage requirement. it's been done, it was about 7.00 an hour and some change if i recall correctly. that's hardly going to cause mass job loss and business closings.

but then talking sensibly about solving a problem is not realy the Republican thing is it? you'd much rather talk about ridiculous extemes that will never come to pass because that gets people riled up and distracts them from a possible solution to a problem that will mean big business might have to treat workers like they might want to be treated.

and that's just too expensive.

a revolution is coming. the 78 million Americans who were eligible to vote, but stayed home on Election Day, are waking from their slumber. the Republicans stole the election, and that will come to light. but even if they didn't, they still only got 51% of people who voted. that's 30.8% of eligible voters. the other 40% of eligible voters who stayed home are widely thought to be liberals.

when they finally stand up and vote, even a small percentage of them, these proto-fascists will never win again. we're going to relegate you back to the fringes of society where you belong. enjoy the next 2.5 years, they're going to be your last playing any significant role in governing what used to be a great nation.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[JesseMcDonald]

That's a circular argument - you can't use your own assertion that theft is wrong to prove that property is right.

I wasn't trying to use that statement to prove my point; I was simply pointing out that the conclusions tend to match people's innate sense of justice, whereas other systems which later reassign ownership fail to do so.

Do you write click-through EULAs for a living? I don't agree that my body is my property in the same sense that my possessions are my property - for example, my body responds directly to my will and nobody else's, whereas my possessions respond equally to the will of whoever happens to be holding them.

Ownership isn't defined by who the item responds to at all; it is defined by who has the right to exclusive control over the item. The statement was not at all like a click-through agreement; it was simply an expression of the basic logical tennent that you cannot consistently argue for a position that would make the argument itself impossible. If you do not have the right to exclusive control, i.e. ownership, of your body, then you cannot use it to engage in this argument (at least without violating the rights of others).

However, I do recognise that the only thing allowing me to stay in sovereign control of my body is a social norm forbidding individual violence - a norm that is backed up, ironically enough, by the threat of collective violence.

It isn't a question of individual vs. collective violence. Individual violence can be performed in self-defense, and collective violence can violate the "sovereign control of [your] body" just as easily (or rather more easily) than individual violence can. Furthermore, the rights of a group cannot exceed the rights of the individuals that make up that group. If individuals do not have a right to self-defense, then the group cannot have the right to defend its members. (The same may not be true of ability; a group may be capable of defense where an individual would be too weak to defend itself.) The proper categorization is not individual vs. collective, but rather aggression vs. self-defense -- and only with a sound theory of property rights can one tell the difference between the two.

Property rights depend on the concept of equality before the law - the question of whether or not you have the right to defend your property does not and must not depend on your identity, or on how much you contributed to the charitable police fund. Otherwise your libertarian utopia will quickly deteriorate into a kleptocracy where the rich get richer by robbing the poor with the tacit support of the police and courts.

I agree. Any just society depends on "equality before the law". I think it's a bit naive to assume that a democracy of any sort actually provides that equality, however, since the law itself is monopolized by a single legislature under the (presumed) control of the majority, and enforced by a monopoly on the police and court systems. Should that monopoly of defense happen to run amok (suppose that the majority believe stealing from the rich to be a fashionable pasttime, as has happened before), who would stop them? There can be no competitive defense organization of similar capability due to the legal monopoly, so the only meager defense is that of a civilian uprising: civil war. Even that is difficult when those whose rights are violated are a small enough minority group.

On the other hand, private defense would be competitive. There would be numerous defense organizations, and any given individual would subscribe to the one that provided the desired level of defense at an expense the individual was willing to pay. Any one organization that went awry, abusing its defensive capabilities to murder and steal, would be opposed by the others. The market in defense services provides a far more effective check-and-balan

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[pnutjam]

Like Warren Buffet says, I want my children to have enough money to do anything, but not enough to do nothing...(Paris)...

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

Who are you to decide that Paris Hilton doesn't deserve the money her parents have given to her, and that it should be taken from her by force? No one, so far as I can see.

And who are you to decide that Paris Hilton deserves every single penny that she did not earn herself?

I'll answer both questions: I'm a voter in a democracy. If I and enough people like me decide that Paris Hilton is undeserving of receiving all her fortune, then we can push that decision. And in fact we have already made that decision years ago through the inheritance tax. That also has the side benefit of taxing capital gains that would otherwise go untaxed.

Those are the fruits of MY labor, and that's what I choose to do with it. If it bothers you, I couldn't give a shit. It isn't up to you to interfere with that. If you try, I and millions of other parents will stomp all over you for trying.

Oh please... the inheritance tax already exists. And I highly doubt you're a multi-millionaire, so your inheritors are not likely to pay a dime in that tax. The current applicable exclusion amount is $2,000,000.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Vicissidude]

Conversely, maybe you shouldn't live somewhere where you can't afford the cost of living. I would love to live on the beach, but I can't afford to live there on the wages I can earn, therefore I don't live on the beach.

I would love to live on the beach as well. As it stands, I live in a relatively cheap suburb of a major US city. $5.15 a hour doesn't cut it here. Neither does the $9 per hour you cited previously. That certainly does not stop companies near here and downtown from charging $5.15 or less, in the case of illegal workers. The companies don't care if they're not paying enough for their workers to actually live.

He is without a job because costs for labor went up, and therefore demand has gone down.

Interesting calculations there, Armchair Economist. Had you actually studied economics, you'd know the empirical evidence concludes that states which have raised the minimum wage above the federal minimum wage have created jobs at a far faster rate than the states that have not. That is because, when you raise the minimum wage, you put money into the pockets of people who will spend it and it spurs the economy.

In the end, minimum wage is not the answer, teaching people to mange their money and their life responsibly is.

People can not "mange" what they do not have.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Koiu Lpoi]

...are you rich? Because if not, I honestly don't understand why you'd defend them.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is advocating for an increase to $12 an hour, much less $60? Strawmen are, apparently.

Jesus Christ, the minimum wage could go up by one penny, and you'd be screaming "WE GOTTA LAY OFF THE WEB DEVELOPMENT TEAM NOW! WE CAN'T AFFORD TO PAY OUR MINIMUM WAGE EARNERS AN EXTRA $1.60 PER MONTH!". If a company is doing web development et al, it probably has very few minimum wage earners in the first place. Mandating that those few people earn ten to twenty five cents more per hour won't hurt the bottom line that much - and if it did, then that company has bigger problems that it needs to address.

Quit being such a damn reactionary. If the feds don't bother raising the minimum wage, the states will - and then your precious "do no wrong" companies will really be hurting.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[maxpublic]

And who are you to decide that Paris Hilton deserves every single penny that she did not earn herself?

It's her money because it was given to her by her parents. You don't have any business telling people whether they can or cannot give their money to their children. It's that simple.

I'll answer both questions: I'm a voter in a democracy.

No, you aren't. You're a voter in a republic. If this were an actual democracy, we'd all be well and truly fucked.

If I and enough people like me decide that Paris Hilton is undeserving of receiving all her fortune, then we can push that decision.

Real swell of you. Again, I thank the gods we don't actually live in a democracy, but rather a Constitutionally-bound republic.

Oh please... the inheritance tax already exists.

A sop to pseudo-socialist shits who hate the wealthy because they aren't one of them. I'd do away with that piece of liberal tripe in a heartbeat, if the support could be drummed up.

Fortunately, I can always bequeath the vast majority of my wealth to my child prior to kicking the bucket without paying any "inheritance" tax at all. Which is what most of us with money are doing, in case you haven't figured it out.

Max

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[douglaid]

If you think that you can control our minimum wage, you are our "Big Brother" already. But don't trouble yourselves, our own unions are themselves keeping the minimum wage high enough that their bosses can't compete with cheap imports.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[MoneyT]

I would love to live on the beach as well. As it stands, I live in a relatively cheap suburb of a major US city. $5.15 a hour doesn't cut it here. Neither does the $9 per hour you cited previously. That certainly does not stop companies near here and downtown from charging $5.15 or less, in the case of illegal workers. The companies don't care if they're not paying enough for their workers to actually live.

And yet clearly these workers are living, as they are returning to work each day. Furthermore, the fact that they are hiring illegals is evidence that the minimum wage is hurting the comunity was otherwise employable legal workers are being turned away because the business is unable to pay them less than the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage will give the businesses more incentive to hire illegal workers, and they'll still be paid minimum wage. At a certain point, you will find it will start to generate incentive to pay legal workers less than minimum wage but do it under the table benefiting these legal workers (because they don't pay taxes) and benefiting the company (keeping costs down).

Anyone working minimum wage for longer than a year is either A) working at that wage by choice or B) too lazy to get another job or raise. If you've never worked a minimum wage job before give it a try and see how bad you have to perform to NOT get a raise within a year.

People can not "mange" what they do not have.

They have the money plenty, they're just wasting it. But if you want them to have more money, try reducing the minimum wage, which will drive costs down which will in turn drive prices down which will generate more spending power for people making small amounts of money.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have less problems with corporations that didn't ask for handouts. The biggest difference between corporations these days and poor people on welfare is that the corporations have more lawyers to ask for money and tax breaks. I do not think they are offering the services that people want. If they were offereing services that made for happy consumers there wouldn't be as much angst. Wouldn't you rather shop at somewhere you choose then places that are all simular?

Being pro-business is not the same as pro-corporate. It's only a mobility argument. Once they get into business they should have to get their money from their customers not the government. Having a system where only corporations can ask for money is silly. Why not just take it away from everyone fairly if you are going to pick sides as you need to at least be consistent about your idealogy.

Re:Something wrong with $5.15 an hour?

[pen]

You did not vote in your boss. The CEO takes the money that you earn and gives most of it to himself. The corporation is not a democracy. It's a dictatorship.

I did too vote for my boss. I voted for him by accepting the job offer, and I continue to vote for him by coming in to work every day.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[kfg]

When I used to buy cigarettes in NJ, they'd card me and jot down my license.

That's cigarettes, not ammo. Cigarettes kill; and not even just the people who use them. Get with the program.

KFG

1984 was not about the future

[Catamaran]

Orwell was writing about contemporary society. We have been living 1984 for a long time.

Re:1984 was not about the future

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, it was to be called 1948 (swap the 8 and 4). It was renamed to 1984 for marketing reasons.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[Anonymous Coward]

Cigarettes don't kill. *I* DO.

Chill out

[megaditto]

First of all, by Orwell's definition, the Brother has to control not only your present and future, but to also be able to change the past.

Q: When was the last time the Bush administration changed the past?
A: Never, so whatever we have here, it is not yet 1984.

Second, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. Unless you download pornography or plan arson, why should you object to being monitored on the internet or at your store?

Third, biological/organic material is ideally suited for preserving and transporting infectious agents. Peaches are perfect for storing bacteria due to the availability of sugar, moisture, and organic acids.
If anything, eggs should also be added to the watch list as it is the only means for growing smallpox and influenza viruses available to the terrorists. In fact, eggs are currently used to manufacture vaccines against the said viruses.

Fourth, and I paraphrase the Administration spokesman here, I would rather the government collected my call records than my remains

Fifth, the Bluetooth and Wireless technology can be used to control remotely-piloted aereal drones used for terrorism, and must thus be treated as dual-use technology; all foreigners must be required to acquire a deemed exports license to own, operate, or examine the said technology. Manuals should be classified.

Sixth, none of you liberals objected when the Clintons were killing Foster, murdering teenagers with trains, flying in cocaine, and selling missile technology to China (which since then has implemented the sold Aegis, nuclear isotope, and manned-spaceflight technology).

And finally, why do you hate America so much!!!!!11

Re:Chill out

[isotope23]

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

Second : "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." Thomas Paine

Third : "And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions" --Samuel Adams, Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of 1788

Fourth : "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin

FYI, I am not a liberal. I did not like clinton, But I detest Bush. He has IMO clearly vioalted his oath of office
to preserve protect and defend the constitution.

Lastly,in response to your " I paraphrase the Administration spokesman here, I would rather the government collected my call records than my remains"

Patrick Henry was right, and americans today have become complete pussies to the point that most probably do not deserve freedom because they don't like the cost.

Re:Chill out

[supasam]

Q: When was the last time the Bush administration changed the past?
A: Never, so whatever we have here, it is not yet 1984.

Iraq definitely has WMD's.
[wait for it...]
We never actually said Iraq has WMD's, you can't pin it on us.....

Re:Chill out

[Xyrus]

"I paraphrase the Administration spokesman here, I would rather the government collected my call records than my remains."

You're a worthless fucking coward. Period.

You don't deserve to live in a free country unless you are willing to die for freedom.

Asshats like you everyday wave a flag and call yourselves patriots, and then cower in corners when the slightest challenge to your way of life rears its head.

Disgusting.

~X~

Re:Chill out

[Anonymous Coward]

What dumbass with mod points gave this idiot some? (3 at the moment) It's pure flamebait/troll. Also, this moron evidently can't understand anything above gutter-level spewing. He managed to take one sentence out of context and misconstrue the point completely.

Re:Chill out

[isotope23]

Xyrus,

I do hope you realize I was quoting the asshat in the parent post. I'm with Patrick Henry 100% on this one. It is unfortunate that more people aren't.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[Jeremy Erwin]

Exactly how high is the resolution of those signature scanners? The visual feedback implies that it very low indeed, verging on "featureless blob" for certain styles.

hehe

[meshko]

What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?"

But of course you are not paranoid. We never doubted you. No.

How is free software important now?

[ptaff]

Everytime you play the proprietary software game, you lose a bit of your freedom and get nearer to Orwell's world.

How can you be sure your software is not spying on you? For 1 caught Sony case, how many lesser known applications violate your privacy? Not even counting keyloggers and other obvious malware. XP phones home. How many other apps do that?

Even in the political world, proprietary software brings us closer to 1984. Seems every voting machine provider uses closed software, supposedly for "security". How can we trust these black boxes?

In the good old days of desktop computing without a network, closed source software could be trusted to keep your privacy; there was not any way to transmit the information anyway. But now, any trivial program is able to report your activities to the whole world.

Seems to me proprietary software is a dead end when privacy is involved.

If I told my great-great-great-great-grandmother that in the year 2006, most homes would have a box spying and reporting people activities, backed by the richest company in the world, she'd probably laugh. I'm not.

Data Aggregation

[Maverick092588]

I'd hate to turn you into a freaked out, paranoid shut-in, but data aggregation is already a large part of the consumer industry. Up until about a week ago I was a cashier/salesman at Best Buy. Now this is where it gets a little creepy: When checking out a customer there are three three things you must always do:

1. Enter gender and phone number or scan/sign up for Reward Zone.

2. Sign up for a magazine subsription.

3. Sign up for a PRP/PSP (extended warranties on products).

Now the second one is relatively harmless and I'm not certain that Best Buy stores the information gathered there. The first and third however go directly into Best Buy's database. The reward zone card has all the standard info, phone number, address, the works, but with the phone number alone Best Buy can surveil all transactions associated with it. The PSP/PRPs contain all the same information as the reward zone.

Best Buy says they do this so that if someone forgets their receipt but gave their phone number they can print it out for them. But personally, I don't care why they're doing it, I don't want any of my private info getting out.

Re:Data Aggregation

[Zelph]

When I refer to data aggregation, I'm referring to an across the board aggregation. I mean Best Buy's data, Kroger's data, Walmart's data, Chase, MBNA, Bank One, etc etc etc.

Re:Data Aggregation

[SanityInAnarchy]

Ok, you're right, we should all have the option of privacy.

In some cases, though, I'd like things to be public. What I don't want to be public is all locked down tight, encrypted in my computers, or memorized. Just about everything else is public for a reason -- it makes my life easier. The receipts are just one thing.

Maybe I've just gotten used to having my privacy raped, but I just don't care anymore, personally. I think it's an essential right, and I love to waive it all the time. I think I've done maybe one AC post since I signed up for this account.

What I care more about is power. I don't care what MS knows about my computer, I care what they do with it. I honestly don't give a shit what info they collect from my Windows, since I assume they already knew it all. But I'm going to be pissed if they "deactivate" it. And I really don't care if the government collects info on me, but get this Patriot Act shit gone -- when I got my citizenship (well, when I was born, but that's not the point), I was essentially entering a contract with America. This includes due process. If I have to defend myself, fine, but I want my trial public and fair.

But as I said earlier, I may as well make a long list of things I really want -- like my own private jet -- but will never have. Such is the Corporatocracy that I doubt we'll ever get it right.

Re:Data Aggregation

[Maverick092588]

I can't believe I didn't get that. Good point.

"my phone is tapped"

[NitsujTPU]

With all due respect, a wiretap is something different.

You're free to be upset about that, as many people are, however, it's not really "wiretapping."

In wiretapping, they look specifically at your phone, and record the transmissions over it. Records of who called who are just a normal part of the audit trail generated by the network. The government requisition of these has raised a number of eyebrows, however, it's not wiretapping.

Probably doable right now

[Kadin2048]

It's closer than you think; many public transit systems already have the capability.

The only thing stopping them from doing it right now is allowing people to purchase with cash. Cash is a problem, because it's harder to trace cash than it is to trace credit cards.

I'll use for example the metro system near where I live, in Washington DC. It's an admittedly sophisticated system compared to a lot of other places, but it's nothing that futuristic. You can pay to use the metro (including buses) in one of two ways: you use either a credit card or cash, and you put the amount onto either a semi-reusable cardboard mag-stripe card, or a reusable RFID card. The RFID cards aren't (I don't think) stored value; they just chirp a serial number. So if you use one of those, it's fairly trivial to track you throughout the system, particularly if you load it with a credit card. Find the transaction where you added money to it, get the serial number of the card you put money on, and then follow that serial number around as you use it.

With cash the problem becomes one of identification. You can still track someone around the system using their stored-value mag-stripe card, but identifying someone as they come into the system if they pay with cash is still a significant problem. The way to get around this would be either by requiring everyone to use some non-anonymous form of payment to get in (which might mean scanning a government photo ID when paying with cash) or automated face recognition. Since most public transport is filled with cameras as is, the latter might be the way to go.

Of course none of this keeps you from buying a ticket (RFID or regular) and handing it to another person, so it wouldn't be foolproof, but I would be surprised if the police haven't used the electronic ticketing systems to figure out where suspects under pursuit enter and leave already. It's such an obvious use of the technology I can't imagine that they haven't, especially given the very high-crime areas that public-transport systems tend to run through.

Personally, I feel that it won't be very long in the future when using cash is the mark of someone suspicious. (It already is, in large quantities and in certain places -- bought an airline ticket with cash lately?) That is, anyone using cash to purchase anything from food to movie tickets will be forced through additional scrutiny, not to mention odd looks from "honest" people (using their Visa cards as God intended).

Re:Probably doable right now

[Jerry Smith]

The only thing stopping them from doing it right now is allowing people to purchase with cash. Cash is a problem, because it's harder to trace cash than it is to trace credit cards.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,213507 4,00.htm and http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,59565,00. html come to mind, everytime I pull a fresh crisp note from the money machine. In Amsterdam (Netherlands) public transport is switching to a mag-stripe card system. Things are getting worse and worse, every failure of law inforcement results in stricter regulation for the rest of society. Internet, phone, transport: nothing is excluded from spying and prying eyes.

Ira Levin wrote a nice story, This Perfect Day, describing a society in which every action is attached to a person, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Perfect_Day. I said nice, not brilliant, but entertaining.

Re:Probably doable right now

[arminw]

.....With cash the problem becomes one of identification. You can still track someone around the system using their stored-value mag-stripe card, but identifying someone as they come into the system if they pay with cash is still a significant problem.....

The cashless brave new world will come. Almost 2000 years ago it was predicted.

Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

No more unidentified and un-trackable means of doing business and commerce. All this time, until modern technology, scholars throughout the ages have speculated about this prophecy. Even fiat money, beginning with paper, was unknown at the time this was written. Back then, the medium of exchange (usually gold or silver) had real, intrinsic value.

While cash is still legal tender, you pointed out correctly, but payment in cash of certain things arouses suspicion and my get you on a "terrorist" data base. It is only a matter of time, before cash will be outlawed. The prophecy connects this time with a one world governmental system. It seems therefore that there is still a little time before such a cashless world will arrive.

Re:Probably doable right now

[quintesse]

What's the "real intrinsic value" of a piece of shiny white or yellow metal? I can't eat it, I can't drink it, I maybe could make a roof over my head out of it but it would cost me too much work to dig that kind of amount up.

There's nothing "real" nor "intrinsic" about the value of precious metals and stones, it's just us, as a society, that have decided to treat as such, just like we did first with paper then plastic and now electronic money.

Re:Probably doable right now

[Elektroschock]

I think the whole sphere of politics and regulation needs more coverage. There are many opportunities to raise your voice in lobbying, consultations etc.

You cannot rescue the world alone but like an steering and hacking an Open Source Project you can adopt a special issue such as rfid, compile information ressources with a wiki, compile arguments and expertise. And then: Don't talk with your friends, talk to decision makers, politicians and the like.

By the way:
* RFID consultation

* Your Voice in Europe - EU consultations

* Edri.org - a civil rights organisation

Re:Probably doable right now

[Dunkirk]

Personally, I feel that it won't be very long in the future when using cash is the mark of someone suspicious. (It already is, in large quantities and in certain places -- bought an airline ticket with cash lately?) That is, anyone using cash to purchase anything from food to movie tickets will be forced through additional scrutiny, not to mention odd looks from "honest" people (using their Visa cards as God intended).

I'm an American who just spent a month in Europe. Every time I used a credit card, the merchant had to drag out some combersome piece of equipment to complete the transaction. Everyone over there is using "chipped" credit cards which only need tapped on their normal "scanner." Seems to me that this would be ripe for fraud. (Not that signing a receipt is any proof of anything here in the States, but everyone over there checked my signature against the card.)

I predict that it will only be a few more years until this practice explodes here. (I notice McDonald's is already doing it.) At that point, it will be about 2 minutes until the credit card companies "suggest" that the chip to be physically implanted into people for the prevention of fraud. They already lose billions every year due to this, so it's a no-brainer justification.

Where would such a chip make sense to implant? The hand? It would make "swiping" the chip pretty easy. I saw a news program (on the plane back from Europe) that had an interview with a man and his girlfriend who had done away with all their keys in favor of chips implanted in their hands. Seems convenient, doesn't it?

This situation sounds familiar. Hrm. Where could I have heard of something like this? Oh yeah. Revelation 13:16,17: "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

I don't understand who "the beast" is that will "causeth all" in this context, but it's clear that the stage is set for the fulfillment of this prophecy.

One more thing. Note that the book of Revelation concerns itself with events centered around Israel's fight to exist as a country. It's NOT a coincidence that the prophecies therein are possibly fulfillable for the first time at this point in history.

Re:Probably doable right now

[arminw]

....What's the "real intrinsic value" of a piece of shiny white or yellow metal?......

Maybe intrinsic is not the right term. Arbitrary value might be better. Unlike paper, plastic ot electronic bits, the shiny metals cannot be created out of essentially thin air by some arbitrary societal authority. It takes a lot of work to dig these out of the ground, refine them and finally make them into the shiny little disks called coins. Because of this, the money supply cannot be increased by fiat of someone with half a brain and make everybody's savings worthless. A dollar used to be defined as the weight of an ounce of silver. Now its definition is arbitrary. Check the dollars it takes to buy a given weight of silver of gold to get an idea what the value the money. Ultimately of course, what matters is how long you have to work for the neccessities of life.

Re:Probably doable right now

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone over there is using "chipped" credit cards which only need tapped on their normal "scanner." Seems to me that this would be ripe for fraud. (Not that signing a receipt is any proof of anything here in the States, but everyone over there checked my signature against the card.)

The reason Chip & Pin cards don't need signatures is that they require you to enter your pin number instead. This is more secure than signature recognition, so it's the old-fashioned cards that are less secure.

As for the whole Revalations thing, I thought you lot were in favour of all that. I was under the impression that that's why you were supporting Israel, because the apocolypse couldn't come until the whole area had returned to the Jews.

Re:Probably doable right now

[Doc Ruby]

The cost of the currency is exactly its problem. The money supply needs to vary to reflect the varying value of existing wealth (which nearly always increases).

The Western Hemisphere gold rush after Columbus' famous return delivered much more gold and silver to the Eastern Hemisphere than was previously available to everyone there. That flood in the money supply did not devalue Europe's economy into lethal deflation. Because the rest of the booty from the colonies was so vast that the real economy boomed, as it has continued to do for a half millennium. The masses finally had enough money supply to transact in actual currency, rather than barter or mere traditional exchanges. Which unleashed individual economics that had been artificially locked down by the rulers and industries controlling the money supply. The economies of Spain and "Italy", the main controllers of the new money supply, were ruined by their position as the valve on the gushing fountain.

On the other hand, OPEC countries have unleashed comparable wealth in oil without merely increasing the money supply. The actual wealth outstripped the value of gold and silver in denominating it generations ago. We replaced hard currency with arbitrary currency to manage the wealth. OPEC's wealth has similarly "fueled" the global economy to further wealth, even more widely distributed, without hard currency getting in the way.

We cannot afford to allow the scarcity of an arbitrary, but real (with real costs) currency to limit our ability to trade the wealth we now create in arbitrary jumps. If we create mobile devices that half our species can acquire for the price of a meal, which gives us Wikipedia, our favorite blogs on RSS, global conference calling all day for the price of a meal, with voluntary security cameras connected to a police "panic button", all voice activated, there's no hard currency in the world that can measure the transactions we'll exchange.

That's why the money supply is not controlled by an arbitrary decision produced by someone with half a brain. It's controlled by independent, though connected, Federal reserves around the world. Interchanged by an industry of competitive trading entrepreneurs. Governed by various kinds of governments, primarily constitutional democratic republics. And tied to banks and other holders of savings and investments. All stakeholders with balancing powers who won't allow everybody's savings to become worthless, but who want new wealth at least as much.

Money is always virtual. We struggled with inefficiencies that did more harm than good for millennia by limiting the virtuality with real supply/demand problems. Our money governance system is far from perfect, but it's better than it was when it was defined by limits rather than capabilities.

Re:Probably doable right now

[NixLuver]

Oh good grief. Of course it's not a coincidence. Israel wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for the Christian Zionists. I mean, I'm no conspiracy theorist; it's fairly easy to discover that the policies that ended up with the creation of the state of Israel in 1947 began with the assertions of a British general in the 1800s who thought that if 'we' returned all the 'jews' to the 'holy land', then those very prophecies could be fulfilled and Jesus would return. It's true that not everyone who participated in the situation knew what the initial impetus was, and of course the Jews who wanted their own country didn't care about Jesus' return. Many people thought it was a good attempt at a beginning of an apology for the holocaust; I don't have any strong emotional ties to any of those debates. I have little sympathy for the Arab countries bitching about Israel - let's remember that many of them were essentially created at the same time, when the Brits and the Yanks carved up the Middle East the last time - but I don't find any great mystery in prophecies being force-fed to the world by their believers.

Re:Probably doable right now

[lawpoop]

The intrisic value of precious metal and stones are the pleasurable and captivating effects they have on the human nervous system. It's the sort of the same thing that pleasure drugs like herion exhibit on the nervous system. When people look at shiny, pretty things, opioids are released in their brain and they get a little high. It's not that society decided and ordained "Gold is valuable!" It's that everyone who comes across a piece of it is captivated by its color and glow, and wants to hang onto it. This is why all over the world, throughout time, on every continent and in every kingdom, gold, silver, and precious stones have been the ultimate medium of value. If society had decided to arbitrarily place value on it, we should find some place on Earth where people didn't care about gold. But no such place exists. Gold is literally the gold standard, everywhere.

Re:Probably doable right now

[quintesse]

*ding* Wrong. Early economies used just about anything that was scarse and of value to the local economy. Roman soldiers were paid in salt, in other places of the world salt would have been worthless. And then you have the opposite case if you look at native americans in places like Mexico and further south where gold was basically a nice metal to make ornaments from but had no intrinsic value to the local economy.

Re:Probably doable right now

[lawpoop]

" Early economies used just about anything that was scarse and of value to the local economy."

That's true. Early economies did use scarce, valuable things as a form of currency. In some places it was seashells, other other places, beans, in other places, tobacco leaves. The problem is, your sea shells are worthless when you travel to a coastal fishing village and want to trade with them. ( And don't think that trade was rare before modern transportation. People traveled extensively on foot and horseback). The one constant of value throughout the entire world and history is gold, silver, and gems. The reason is because everyone, everywhere, think it is valuable because of its effects on the human nervous system, which all people share.

Native American empires were obsessed with gold, just like every other empire on the planet. When the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca, they looted thousands of tons of gold from royal storehouses. The Incan subjects in the Amazon paid their taxes in gold that they panned from the rivers. In places where gold wasn't readily available, like Ohio, precious, shiny metal like copper and beautiful gemstones like obsidian and rainbow flint were the objects of value, and they are found in gravesites and mounds all over the midwest.

Re:Probably doable right now

[cswiger2005]

Most of the metals that are shiney stay that way because they don't oxidize, ie, they are not very chemically reactive even when exposed to air and water (or the skin oils and salty sweat from being handled by people), which means they make really good jewelery, coinage, wire, and so forth which tend to last a long time.

Metals like gold, platinum, and silver are exceptionally unreactive compared to something like copper or bronze or iron or zinc. This is why a silver dollar or a gold coin that may be fifty or more years old is often in better shape than a decade-old penny or dime.

Re:Probably doable right now

[arminw]

....Our money governance system is far from perfect, but it's better than it was when it was defined by limits rather than capabilities.......

Like I said at the end of my post, what matters in the end is how long a person has to work for a given number of life's necessities. things like food, health care, housing, transportation etc. Some of these, such as transportation (even with high gas prices) and communications have decreased over time, but others such as health care and housing have risen dramatically, to the point that in the USA at least, health care bills are a major reason for personal bankruptcy. Taxes however take by far the biggest bite out of the working people, compared to what they used to pay before the money became an arbitrary value. It takes longer each and every year for the average worker to pay the taxes and finally get to keep the rest of the money for themselves. There is a nonlinear tax rate. This means that the government or whoever controls the money, can increase the tax load on the working people without incurring any consequences at the polls, simply by making each unit of money buy less.

Is having a cell phone or internet access really something that is needed? Nice yes, but essential? No! Where we live, there is no cell phone reception of any shape or form, not even the slightest whisper of a signal. When we get visitors, some of them are quite pushed out of shape by this fact. We also get no other broadcast signals, the signal quality might make them bearable. We get TV and Internet via satellite.

Whoever controls the money, in the end controls everything, no matter who votes for whom in any government. The people we vote for are controlled by those who control the money. When money was real, it was much harder for any one or one group to control money and thus people. The US economy operated just fine even when our money was backed by gold and silver. Right now I am visiting Germany. All of my friends here I've talked to tell me they got screwed by the change from the Deutsche Mark to the Euro. The wages dropped by half, but the prices did not.

Re:Probably doable right now

[timjdot]

Fiat = no value money. Print fiat, get rich.

World bank loans non-existent money. Loan fake money, get servants.

Not hard to figure out. The rest of the ideas are just noise happening beneath the falsification of money by the central banks and their cohorts. They are committing real, well-defined, well-conspired, and well-known theft from the "ants" and placating the "grasshoppers" in order to remain the masters.

"Neither a borrower nor lender be". Now why would anyone say that? Really think about it. WHY.
The reason is intricately tied to the present, rapid, unconstitutional removal of rights. Intricately.

Re:Probably doable right now

[aslate]

Chip & Pin significantly reduces fraud in countries where it's been introduced. This is of benefit to all, but it's great benefit to the retailer. If you have a Chip & Pin card go through and is later found to be stolen, it's the card issuer's responsibility. If the store bypasses the Pin then the burden of proof falls on them if anything dodgy turns out about the card.

Hell, paying with a signature is more combersome now, we (at my store) have to call up for authorisation each time it happens.

And switching signature cards to cards with a pin (Exactly like the system you have at the ATM) isn't an invasive problem. Hell, i find it easier as someone who still hasn't mastered a reproducable signautre properly. Suddenly saying we'll have to have chips implanted into our brain with a direct connection to the issuer every time we buy something is absurd to conclude from this.

And a small pad about the size of a calculator is a combersome problem for you? My biggest problem was finding a pen before this system was introduced, it sucked when someone then walked off with it.

Re:Probably doable right now

[twkrimm]

Here is a historical book written about 50 years ago. Keep in mind that this is real stuff, not science fiction. I find some of the similarities to today's world to be a little scary.

For a more detailed excerpt see:
http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.h tml [thirdreich.net]

"They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer

                                                                                                But Then It Was Too Late
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security." ... "To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

Re:Probably doable right now

[Garrett Fox]

The Pennsylvania Turnpike is installing "EZ Pass Only" exits, thereby restricting the travel of anyone who won't submit to having a transponder on their car. The next phase will presumably to harass the holdouts by reducing the number of lanes that take cash, citing the high cost of manning them. (Never mind that they'll then charge for the privilege of EZ Pass, saying it's so expensive they need fees to maintain it.) The third step, then, is to eliminate cash, thereby forbidding people to use the freeway unless they agree to be tracked.

Re:Probably doable right now

[quintesse]

Well salt was worthless to many people in many parts of the world but the Roman economy still used it extensively throughout their empire to pay their soldier with, so even if those seashells are worthless to those people on the coast that doesn't mean an entire empire can't use it for their money. It just goes to show that the value of your "money" is what your society gives it.

And actually the majority of people travelled very little in ancient times, most would never see anything besides their neigbouring villages. Of course there were people who travelled far and wide but that was mostly because of their profession (tradesmen, troubadours, etc) or because of their culture (eg gypsies). But I agree that trade was not rare at all and could be incredibly farreaching.

About the Incas, read a bit about their history, for example here: http://www.crystalinks.com/incan.html
Yes, they were obsessed with in the way that gold was the "sweat of the sun" nad silver the "tears of the moon", so they probably found it very beautiful, but their economy did NOT depend on it, taxes were paid by working. Working in whatever way possible, that included finding gold yes. But as you can read in the article "Silver and gold were abundant, but only used for aesthetics".

Re:Probably doable right now

[arminw]

....Loan fake money, get servants.....

Debt is indeed slavery. If everybody stayed out of debt, the world's banking system and economies would collapse. There was a civil war fought over slavery, but being a slave to a bank is not much better than being a slave to a plantation owner. At least in the USA they don't put people in prison for debt like they used to do in Europe and others places ages ago. I think they figured out that debt slaves in prison have no way to pay the debt, whereas if they can garnishee their wages or take other steps, there is a chance the debtors will repay their current debt and later get into debt again, even for more.

To make sure they can always find debtors, they want to institute the electronic big brother cashless systems. Doing business anonymously will be against the law entirely some day. Then everybody will be forced to be a slave of the system. Right now, the existence of cash still gives those that want to, a means to escape this at least to some extent by not being in debt, at least not above the immediate ability to re-pay. I have a credit card, but I pay it off every month before they can ding me with money rental fees.

Re:Probably doable right now

[shmlco]

How do you know the existing bank machine isn't already scanning and recording the serial numbers as it counts off the bills?

Re:Probably doable right now

[timjdot]

I sometimes wonder if the mennonites don't have something...

Best wishes,
TimJowers

Re:Probably doable right now

[Alchemar]

(tin foil hat on)
Ever notice the magnetic strip that is in all US paper money now
"I would like to add $50 to this card, do you take quarters?"
(tin foil hat off)

Re:Probably doable right now

[Kadin2048]

Actually where I am, in Northern Virginia, you can actually by an E-Z Pass with cash.

I think you buy it for $20, and the pass comes pre-loaded with $10 in tolls; you get the other $10 "back" when you link it to your credit card. However, even if you don't link it to your credit card, you could still get through the toll lanes anonymously, at 200% of the normal rate.

That said, there's really no anonymity when you're going through a toll plaza; they're full of security cameras. The EZ Pass lanes probably have more of them aimed right at your bumper for plate recognition, but most of the regular lanes have at least one camera on them anyway that will catch your plate. (And once they know when you went through, they can use the entrance/exit ticket to figure out where you went and how fast you were driving.) If somebody wants to track you, they can. EZ Pass does make it easier, though.

Personally, I'm all for EZ Pass -- I don't care if it's underwritten by Satan himself, I have a personal thing against waiting in line, so I'd sell my soul for a transponder if that's what it cost. It would be nice, though, if there was some way that you could add money to your account using cash instead of linking it to a credit card. Maybe they could let you use those ATM-like terminals in 7-11s that accept cash to add money to your account, and pre-pay?

But as you pointed out, the government in particular really dislikes the ability of individual citizens to be anonymous, in practically anything; virtually no system is ever created with that as a goal, unfortunately.

Re:Probably doable right now

[Sketch]

Last year in Illinois they just doubled the price of cash tolls, and kept Ipass tolls the same price. You pay a $10 deposit for the transponder, but over time you will save money in the long run over cash. Chances are that it will save the government money in the long run as well, since they need to pay less toll booth operators, and less lanes are required when you can just keep driving 80^H^H55 through the toll plaza without slowing/stopping.

Of course, they do require you to give them your license plate # to activate the trasnponder, so tracking you is already easy. The terms of service when I got mine were pretty privacy-friendly. Of course, that's the way to get people to get hooked on it now, so they can change them later...

Re:Probably doable right now

[Garrett Fox]

I'd sell my soul for a transponder...

I think your offer has been accepted.

Re:Probably doable right now

[blanks]

"Revelation 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: 17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."

I always loved that passage. If you think about it, what would be the mark?  The persons identity. Man is the beast.

Bottoms up

[mikespenard]

Don't make me call the Ministry of Love... just drink your gin and sacrin already.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[YrWrstNtmr]

Apparently, if I purchase more than 15 pills of 240 mg pseudoephedrine each in one day I am obviously running a meth lab.

Yeah, you probably aren't. You. Other people, given free reign, will use pseudoephedrine in a meth lab. 15/day happens to be where they've currently drawn the line. Should they change it to 50/day? 1000/day? Unrestricted?

15/day. Do you really need to buy more than 15 a day?

Begin fighting back now

[illuminatedwax]

What needs to happen now is for people to understand what is going on. This kind of activity has a draining effect on society, basically sapping them of their notion of "freedom." Ask your neighbors, your parents, your kids, your peers: many of them will tell you that they don't mind that they are being treated like criminals. "Why worry if you're not doing anything wrong?" is the typical response. These people don't understand what "freedom" means. These days the word has come to mean "freedom to love America" when in fact it's the opposite we need to allow. So you can start by making sure the people you know, and others if you can, that if our freedom does have a chance of disappearing, and you need to educate them as to what that means.

I'm not saying that this is happening now, though. We're getting closer, but the real danger comes from people who will welcome it when it comes. The single most important battle to be won is in the battle of ideas - that's politics these days.

The other thing you can do is begin securing all aspects of your life. Try and use encryption over the internet; encrypt your emails and messages. Start using cash to buy stuff - the Japanese do it all the time; paying with credit or debit at a store is pretty much rare in Japan. Refuse to buy from the grocery store if they require your drivers license to prove you won't make cyanide when you buy peaches (are peach trees illegal now??).

But important: if you DO make a fuss, DO NOT LOOK LIKE AN ASSHOLE. This is probably what most of you are capable of doing. If you do "fight the man," please do so in an orderly, respectful, and unannoying manner. If you get asked for your license at the grocer's, don't scream about it - people want to get through the line. Simply refuse to purchase from the store, and explain to those around you that you are being asked for your driver's license to buy peaches. The worst thing that can happen is for your ideals to be tied in with obnoxious behavior (this is what happened to liberals).

Re:Begin fighting back now

[drooling-dog]

"Why worry if you're not doing anything wrong?" is the typical response. These people don't understand what "freedom" means.

The kind of argument to which you refer is really kind of fascinating, when you probe into it. It is often given by otherwise intelligent people, and yet it belies an astounding trust and faith in remote authority figures who are presumed to be always honest, diligent and conscientious. Our overseers always have our best interests at heart, and would never seek to harm us for their own greed or avarice.

Wherever do you find that kind of blissful relationship with authority? Why, with your own parents, of course, when you were a small child.

The "intelligent" people that give this argument often don't literally believe in the incorruptibility of authority. But what they are doing is to create a comforting fantasy for themselves in which unseen government officials take the place of mommy and daddy, watching over us all and guaranteeing their safety. Once this fantasy womb has been created, it becomes unimaginable that they might ever be the target of abjectly malicious government authority. It would be like your loving parents turning on you with no cause or warning.

It is ironic that this most often afflicts conservatives, who otherwise like to rail on about the "nanny state" in economic contexts.

The more we are fearful, the more likely we are to construct this parental fantasy around our government. This is something that people like Karl Rove understand all too well.

Re:Begin fighting back now

[drooling-dog]

The worst thing that can happen is for your ideals to be tied in with obnoxious behavior (this is what happened to liberals).

Yes, those rascally liberals are screwing things up for everybody. Always using reason when force and threats would work perfectly well.

If you want to enjoy the rights of a full citizen and human being, please ask us politely. Your request will be considered (at our sole discretion) in the order in which it is received.

Re:Begin fighting back now

[illuminatedwax]

I take it you've never been to a protest, hippie-style coffee house, or PETA event. Certain liberals tend to get really annoying and say stupid things, and it really hurts me when I agree with them, because then they make me and my ideas look stupid.

This has nothing to do with rights or even anybody's specific point of view. It has everything to do with convincing people of your ideas. No matter how brilliant or correct your ideas are, the fact of life is that if you are an asshole, people will not like you, and what's more, they won't listen to what you have to say. In fact, in all likelihood, they will go against what you are saying if you are a real prick about it.

Re:Begin fighting back now

[drooling-dog]

I don't know... Being an asshole and/or prick has been a pretty successful formula on AM talk radio and Fox News; not many liberals there. Many people want fear and hate, not reason, so persuasion is often moot.

Of course, I agree that it's always annoying when other people who share our viewpoints deliver them clumsily, incompetently, or unpersuasively.

But please, stop with the hippies. It's the beatniks you should be worrying about...

Re:Begin fighting back now

[Blakey Rat]

Holy shit, you just demonstrated the point perfectly, by implying that Liberals make decisions only out of pure reason while Conservatives use force and threats! Now, depending on how brainwashed you are, you might actually believe this... but to 90% of the population, BOTH sides of the debate make good points, and the vast majority of people would vote somewhere in-between if they could.

So congratulations, in response to a post about Liberals being obnoxious, you've said something obnoxious.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[rs79]

"As if the big drug dealers will be buying 6 oz bottles of cough syrup"

That's not the issue. DMX abuse in young kids is.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[Anonymous Coward]

Peaches drive muslims absolutely crazy. They only buy four at a time to keep from raising suspicions, but the seeds can be crushed and used to make suicide LSD.

One word...

[s13g3]

One word:

ECHELON.

To wit: "ECHELON can capture radio and satellite communications, telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and other data streams nearly anywhere in the world and includes computer automated analysis and sorting of intercepts."

Who cares

[llZENll]

Unless you are a criminal, who cares if all these things are spying on you. You can't do anything but complain about it, so just go on and live your life and have fun. Be happy you are lucky enough to live in the USA and not Russia where you have wait in line for toilet paper, or China where you have to be rationed toilet paper, or Iran where there is no toilet paper! God Bless Toilet Pap... oh I mean, America! Oh yeah we aren't doing that anymore, Happy America Everyone!

Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the incidents may be questionable but the truth is the government wants the ability to monitor any phone call without a warrant and soon all car are likely to have tracking devices and black boxes recording not only where you have been but the speed you drove getting there. We are increasingly under the microscope and as computer power increases for storing and accessing the information the situation will get drastically worse. We're in the frog on a hot plate situation. If you suddenly instituted everything they do today on people 25 years ago they would revolted. Do it gradually and they barely notice. Tell them it makes them safer and they insist you do it. Privacy is rapidly becoming an antiquated concept. We should all be very afraid. Already many jobs require good credit. Health insurance requires that you have a good health history. When genetic screening is common place you could find yourself unemployable and unable to get health insurance based on having the potential for desease. You won't be able to join the military because your government profile says that you are probably gay. You can't get a teaching certification because your profile shows you may be a pedophile. Companies are already keeping such profiles on people, TiVo was one of the first to become public. How long before the goverment tries to pigeon hole all of us? Let's say you watch the cartoon channel, go to disneyland by yourself a few times a year and your favorite shop happens to be across the street from a school. If records are kept on your driving habits and viewing and purchase habits and the information is cross referenced you could show up as a possible pedophile and be put on a watch list. Crazy? Remember th TiVo profile that decided a viewer was a pregnant gay man? We aren't there yet but we've gotten halfway there at a frightening pace. It's already a good idea to becareful what you say in any digital form. The technology already exists to record, transcribe and use keywords to search every phone call made. Do you really want to show up on a terrorist watch list because you said to a friend over the phone that the new movie about the White House was a bomb? We are very close to that now. If you happen to work for some government agencies and put it in an email you are likely to draw attention and you might find saying it over the phone could even now set off an alarm in some agencies. We live in very scary times.

Re:Perspective

[Stoutlimb]

"Already many jobs require good credit."

As someone who recently got refused a job that I went to school for on the basis of my credit rating, I agree with you that things have gone too far.

Bork!

Re:Perspective

[enitime]

" "Already many jobs require good credit."

As someone who recently got refused a job that I went to school for on the basis of my credit rating, I agree with you that things have gone too far."

Sometimes there's good reason for it. People heavily in debt are more easily corrupted. You'll find that applying for positions in the military, banks, security, etc. will likely mean they check your credit.

Re:Perspective

[NexFlamma]

You're upset that your prospective employer denied you a job based on the fact that you have proven yourself irresponsible in other facets of your life?

Why should they trust you with their own business' well-being when you have proven unable to manage your own financial well-being?

That seems pretty reasonable to me.

Re:Perspective

[PatrickThomson]

Poor credit ratings aren't always a mark of fiscal irresponsibility - At least here in the UK, a simple credit limit check performed by a company (for example, upon buying a mobile phone) will cause your credit rating to go down.

Re:Perspective

[Atario]

Why should they trust you with their own business' well-being when you have proven unable to manage your own financial well-being?

Because it's none of their goddamned business?

What's next? Requiring meal logs to make sure you're eating right? Blood-alchohol/nicotine/caffeine/etc. monitors strapped to the arm to make sure you're not "irresponsible" with those? Daily car-computer download to check on your driving habits? Logging all your home Internet access to check if you're into porn, and thus of questionable character?

The only thing -- the ONLY thing -- they need to know is how well you do your job.

They're your employer, not your mommy. Grow a pair.

Re:Perspective

[NexFlamma]

Whether it's their business or not, isn't in question.

I agree, they shouldn't be able to find out your credit score, but since they can, why is it so unreasonable for them to think you wouldn't be a fantastic addition to their company if you have poor credit?

Re:Perspective

[49152]

It seems to me that "whether it's their business or not" is exactly the question considering the context (ths ./ article).

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

That isn't necessarily true. If you need money to pay for your Mom's surgery you might miss credit payments and have your TV repossessed - for your home life you have other priorities outside credit. In your work life you basically don't. What this comes down to is that part of being an employee is acting on behalf of your company and behaving differently when you do so. Home and work lives are not the same thing. At work I'm enthusiastic and polite, at home I'm a foul-mouthed apathetic bastard.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

So what happens when these people can't get a job at all? Oh that's right, they'll have to steal to survive.

Zomgz, criminals!

You created them.

Re:Perspective

[sgt_doom]

The most excellent point you make is soooooo self-evident (and should be to anyone with a rudimentary education, be they school-educated or erudite) that it isn't even worthy of debate.

The fact that some choose to debate it with you is proof positive at how far dumbed down portions of this society have become. There have been recent articles of job applicants being turned down for their political beliefs (I have seen this happen to others and it happened to a friend recently with BoA) when the HR googled their names and found "Letters to the Editor," articles on blogs, etc.

This should simply not be tolerated....but Big Brother is now watching...until that day he is castrated....

Re:Perspective

[Stoutlimb]

Yes, I'm irresponsible because I became disabled and lost my ability to work at my previous profession of 10 years. The bad credit rating was ths shit hitting the fan when I couldn't work. I doubt you would do better in my shoes.

Re:Perspective

[Pantero Blanco]

You can get denied things for having no credit history, not just for having bad credit. Deciding not to get a credit card isn't irresponsible.

Re:Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

At work I'm enthusiastic and polite, at home I'm a foul-mouthed apathetic bastard.

Huh. I have the exact opposite problem...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[FLEB]

must avoid starting a tangental flamewar... must avoid starting a tangental flamewar... must avoi... oh, screw it.

How come 30 million people have to try to live on $5.15 an hour?

Because 29,999,999 other people also have a similarily qualified skill/opportunity/motivation set and will work for $5.75/hr.

If a minimum wage exceeds the real value of a minimum-wage worker, especially in the case of a nationally-enforced minimum wage, you'd just be playing leapfrog with inflation that constantly creeps up to drive the real income of a minimum wage worker back down to what their work is actually worth to the market. That inflation would also have the effect of making everyone's savings worth less and less (not taking into account interest, which would mitigate the effect to some extent.)

This is not to say I'm for throwing out the minimum wage or other such "minimum" labor laws. If you cut out the floor, you end up screwing people over throughout the chain by allowing people willing to be underpaid to undercut, and thus lessen the value of trades and push out more qualified workers who actually wish to make a living. (Okay, so I do have somewhat of a protectionist streak to me as well.) Until some better structural solution (and don't give me any fulla'-holes 'isms) comes along, the only real solution is to keep the minimum wage at the realistic value of minimum wage work. At the moment, folks seem to think "$5.15".

(No, I'm not an economist, and yes, I welcome you to shoot these arguments full of holes, especially if you can provide links to informative material.)

Wait... what were we talking about?

Wrong dystopia

[apflwr3]

When's the last time you read 1984? The fact that you can post this question on Slashdot, that you can go to a store and have a selection of products (and have the money to pay for them), even the fact that you have a girlfriend suggests we aren't living in the totalitarian "future" of Orwell's book. Orwell was reacting to Stalinist Russia, and we're about as far in the opposite direction now as you can get from that-- it's a lot more like the capitalism-run-amok chaos of a Gibson or Dick novel.

Hell, many of the examples you gave are about corporations trying to peg exactly who you are to market to you, not some Big Brother entity who wants to enslave you. I would even venture to say that the powers-that-be aren't really afraid of outspoken political speakers any more. It's become so easy to express your thoughts to the world, and there are so many people doing so, it's almost impossible for one person (no matter how charismatic or persuasive) to sway enough opinions to matter.

I could be wrong, and the jackbooted thugs and black helicopters could be waiting around the corner... But I don't think so. I think the reality is everyone just wants your money. And they want your data, but only because it will lead them to your money.

Re:Wrong dystopia

[BlueStraggler]

Orwell was reacting to Stalinist Russia

As the foreword to just about any edition of the novel will tell you, he was reacting to post-war Britain, and using the example of Stalinist Russia to show where he thought Britain was heading. Wikipedia sums it up:

Orwell is reported to have said that the book described what he viewed as the situation in the United Kingdom in 1948, when the British economy was poor, the British Empire was dissolving at the same time as newspapers were reporting its triumphs, and wartime allies such as the USSR were rapidly becoming peacetime foes ('Eurasia is the enemy. Eurasia has always been the enemy').

Re:Wrong dystopia

[Politicus]

The analogy was correct with respect to newspeak, "Healthy Forests Initiative", "Clear Skies Initiative", "Operation Iraqi Freedom", surveillance, indoctrination, militarism, "The US has always been at war with Al-Qaeda", nationalism, political use of fear and hatred and institutionalized ignorance, "Intelligent Design", "Stem cell research is murder". The only aspect that doesn't fit the analogy is socialism but you can have both right and left authoritarian societies. For every Stalin and Saddam, there's a Pinochet and Franco.

If you are comfortable living in a space 10' a side, then you'll never notice the 12' square cell that you're in. American statism has been so successful precisely because controls are hidden since overt controls foment discontent. People are indoctrinated with American exceptionalism from birth. It is a very powerful myth and the backbone of control. Conformity is constantly being reinforced by your employer, church, school, college, customers and the media. Commercial consumerism is the modern day soma, to borrow from another dystopia.

The main difference between 1984 and 2006 is that the state doesn't bother dealing with those who try to affect it rather than submit to its power because it only needs to neutralize effective dissidents. So, Noam Chomsky, for example, is allowed to do his thing because his message is neutralized by lack of access to mainstream media and the media's noise thrown up against it. Those who can't be reigned in by typical controls are incarcerated, disappeared or killed, "suicided" is the CIA term, as in any traditional authoritarian regime.

* WAR IS PEACE

* FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

* IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Re:Wrong dystopia

[goldspider]

I just finished reading it for the first time last night. If you think Orwell was only railing against Soviet communism, you missed half of the book's point.

1984 is about government power and tyrany. Orwell's message was that it could happen to ANY kind of government that seeks to consolidate power. I think we can all agree that such a concept is hardly limited to communist governments.

Re:Wrong dystopia

[SlashDread]

So.. instead of trying to control people for power... they are trying to control people for money... for power. Is that it?

Re:Wrong dystopia

[NewToNix]

Spot on - the correct adjective (or lots closer) would be Kafkaesque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafkaesque

We fight the war on terror by becoming ever more terrorized - by our own government, for there own not quite clear reasons... shadowy people engaged in shadowy dealings - that you can't be told about (AT&T + NSA, etc.).

Nice confusing things like color codes to tell us how afraid to be on any given day.

A vast feeling that the people in charge, aren't really the entities in charge, only the representatives of some powerful cabal.

That you are a tiny cog helplessly caught in a web of half truths and out right lies, over which you have no control.

Welcome to America. The land of the Free and Home of the Brave... once upon a time anyway.

The thing that truly bothers me is that I'm old enough (64) that I know this is largely my, and my generation's, fault. I wish I knew where we went wrong. That we did is obvious... that we can't correct our error is also obvious (old men grouse about things - it falls to young men to act). I wish I could recommend a course of action, but I suspect we (my generation) actually threw it all away, without noticing.

We sure didn't teach one damn thing to our (collective) kids about standing up and bucking the system - we seem to have taught them to go for the Bright Shiny and to have the "I'm a victim" attitude about hard choices.

So blame me - I do.

Re:Wrong dystopia

[ben there...]

The thing that truly bothers me is that I'm old enough (64) that I know this is largely my, and my generation's, fault. I wish I knew where we went wrong. That we did is obvious... that we can't correct our error is also obvious (old men grouse about things - it falls to young men to act). I wish I could recommend a course of action, but I suspect we (my generation) actually threw it all away, without noticing.

We sure didn't teach one damn thing to our (collective) kids about standing up and bucking the system - we seem to have taught them to go for the Bright Shiny and to have the "I'm a victim" attitude about hard choices.

So blame me - I do.

I don't know if you noticed this, but my generation largely voted against Bush, and would vote against any neo-conservative. During the last election, youth vote surged more than any other group.

It has less to do with what your generation taught or didn't teach my generation, and more to do with how your generation voted last election, and for that matter, how they vote on a regular basis.

Re:Wrong dystopia

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post.

* WAR IS PEACE

From studentsfororwell.org:
"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." -- George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States

Re:Wrong dystopia

[plasmacutter]

It all traces back to a common theme... the older you get the more attached you become to your routines..

everyone in their 60's right now grew up on cold war mentality.. it's foreign to them not to have a monster opposing them, they suffer a kind of generational post traumatic stress disorder, and welcome someone who will continue the cold war overtones which have shaped their lives.

Even though i'm young i'm not immune to this either.. I forgot who posted about it, but there is a phoenominon in human populations of people becomming addicted to habit, no matter what it may be.. simply repetitive predictability.

Re:Wrong dystopia

[Mac Degger]

Read up on fascism (merging of state and corporation), Orwell and the spanish civil war.

Re:Wrong dystopia

[Blakey Rat]

Those who can't be reigned in by typical controls are incarcerated, disappeared or killed, "suicided" is the CIA term, as in any traditional authoritarian regime.

How about... PROVE IT?

Re:Wrong dystopia

[Politicus]

Skepticism is good. Apply it liberally.

A good recent example is Gary Webb, who thoroughly embarrassed the CIA, LAPD and Justice Dept. The coroner could only conclude that the two bullet holes in his head were the result of a suicide.

But, I cannot give you definitive proof. No dissident is going to be tried for effective dissent because that would publicize how to resist or change the system. Their struggle inevitably causes them to resist state control which leads to ordinary charges. If they are not killed in the confrontation, then they will be incarcerated for resisting (David Gilbert). Others are simply incarcerated with fake charges and scripted trials (Leonard Peltier). Still others challenge the state's monopoly on violence and take up violent means themselves (Tom Manning).

The state has several defenses against change. Indoctrination is the most powerful and is sufficient to control the vast majority of citizens. The fact that you believe America to be free and just is enough to keep you straight. Belief that the system has the means to change itself will keep you from seeking actual agents of change. Maybe the Democrats will fix America this time? Maybe next time, fixing America will require Republicans? The idea that the system presents choices keeps you from choosing real solutions to your own problems.

The next defense is your milieu. Your employer exerts the strongest control by holding your job hostage. Rock the boat and you find yourself without the means of making a living. Your family and friends participate too.

The final defense is violence in the form of incarceration or death. If you show the ability to resist control through indoctrination, are not subject to consumer desires which would keep you employed, your social relationships like family and friends are not enough to reign you in and you are effectively changing the system or acting as an example of resisting it for others to follow, then the state has no use for you. Typically, officer friendly will make an appointment with you. It's called a pretext stop. Your left tail light could be out, you changed lanes in an intersection or you loitered in a place of commerce too long without buying something. It's the ancient "finger half an inch away from your eye while saying I'm not touching you" tactic.

Believe what you want to believe. Physical reality doesn't demand your belief in it, but eventually you will need to make excuses for what you believe because it won't match your experience.

Re:Wrong dystopia

[vortexau]

> > I could be wrong, and the jackbooted thugs and black helicopters could
> > be waiting around the corner... But I don't think so.

Just don't go out and purchase that book: "Catchers in the Rye" :-)
.

It will only get "worse"

[LowlyWorm]

Try to buy any of the basic needs of life without being on a camera somewhere. Impossible. I live in rural area and I can't. Would this fly 30 years ago. I think not. Our social conscious is clearly changing. Our collective ire isn't likely much of a difference. If it were not more cost efficient to do so we wouldn't do it. But why would we suppose Big Brother is any more efficient than we the masses who can't even balance our checkbooks. Oh yeah, we have a national debt. He can't. I should also add I don't like being on camera.

You asked for it...

[voice_of_all_reason]

What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?

Maybe those crazy guys with exploding vests have a point.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[TubeSteak]

Pressure treated wood used to contain chromated copper arsenate (CCA).

The EPA banned it since 2004 for most anything other than industrial or agricultural use.

There are several other alternatives available. They use significantly more copper than CCA, or they use borate. Both are more expensive than CCA.

I'm pretty sure the EPA gave the lumber companies enough leeway to move their existing stocks of CCA treated wood. The majority of wood available to the avg Joe nowadays should not have CCA in it.

People have the power. Stand up.

[Antony-Kyre]

If EVERYONE refused to comply with such absurd rules when purchasing stuff at stores, the stores would lose business.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[WidescreenFreak]

Ah, yes, there's no reason to perhaps save money by buying a few boxes if a local pharmacy or grocery store happens to have them on sale.

If other people make meth labs, fine. I wish the police or appropriate enforcement agencies the best in their mission to find the bastards; however, I don't appreciate the guilt by association (because of a fraction of a percent of the population) that's directed at me and millions of others who happen to have a medical condition that we really don't want and didn't ask for in the first place.

I would use the phrase, "It's the principle of the matter", but apparently that concept goes beyond you and instead leaps straight to overzealous sarcasm.

In 1985

[Cally]

...Orwell was proved right

Just ask

[DaveAtFraud]

The big question now is: how much worse can it get?

Only your proctologist knows for sure.

Cheers,
Dave

And for the second step...

[MarkusQ]

If you're interested in reading the account of someone who started out pretty much where you are, except that he's an attorney specializing in constitutional law, you might want to check out How Would a Patriot Act

From the back cover:

Glenn Greenwald was not a political man. Not liberal, not conservative. Politicians were all the same and it didn't matter which party was in power. Extremists on both ends canceled each other out, and the United States would essentially remain forever centrist. Or so he thought.

Then came September 11, 2001. Greenwald's disinterest in politics was replaced by patriotism, and he supported the war in Afghanistan. He also gave President Bush the benefit of the doubt over his decision to invade Iraq. But, as he saw Americans and others being disappeared, jailed and tortured, without charges or legal representation, he began to worry. And when he learned his president had seized the power to spy on American citizens on American soil, without the oversight required by law, he could stand no more. At the heart of these actions, Greenwald saw unprecedented and extremist theories of presidential power, theories that flout the Constitution and make President Bush accountable to no one, and no law.

--MarkusQ

Re:And for the second step...

[cryptical]

Glenn Greenwald? Master of sock puppetry and a certifiable net.kook.

http://instapundit.com/archives/031632.php
http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/003902.htm l

Re:And for the second step...

[Short Circuit]

Yeah, but I'd rather pay cash for that at a bookstore than buy it from Amazon.

Re:And for the second step...

[AttilaDHun]

one of the original patriots

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/related/henry .htm

Re:And for the second step...

[dcam]

But, as he saw Americans and others being disappeared, jailed and tortured...

OK, here is a question: who give cares whether they are Americans? The fact is that people are disappearing, jailed and tortured by Americans at the behenst of the US Govt.

Re:And for the second step...

[rincebrain]

The reason it's phrased as Americans is in the context of his having become an uberpatriot after September 11th, because those people really only care about other Americans, for the most part.

Also, it makes a boring piece of prose sound far more dramatic than it needs to.

I don't know the motive, but I can see the effect

[erroneus]

When I was a kid, my mother didn't let me use a fork to eat with for quite some time. She always felt like I would poke myself. No, I'm serious. And to use a steak knife was unthinkable. It was my shining triumph of freedom when I went to public school... kindergarten. They had spoons AND forks with which to eat my lunch. Later on, I recall going on a field trip to the park. My mother was also rather scared of the playground equipment... particularly a very tall slide. It was pretty cool though... it was kinda wavy... and it was pretty darned tall. Later she lied to me saying she saw me on the slide, so I admitted that I had climbed the slide.

Is there a connection to my "big mother" story and the "big brother" topic? Yeah. It's about the "sanitized world" problem. In a sanitized world, we won't learn much, the least of which is how to take care of ourselves. These days, knowledge is restricted. Tools are restricted. Research is restricted. Everywhere we turn, our "big mother" is trying to "protect us" from everything both imaginable and unimaginable. What we will lose is a great deal... we will lose things like how to think for ourselves, how to learn, how manage our feelings and emotions. As this continues, we'll build our society of children... run by the most selfish bullies on the planet.

In other places, when there are terrorist or other cataclysmic attacks, when there are murders, when there is mass destruction, they grieve, they attempt to punish the guilty and they move on. That's what we should be doing. When the disasters are "natural" we even try to prevent or reduce the damage possible. (Like with Levy's or early warning systems.)

Bush is being pretty clumsy in his efforts because intent is revealed in the action. For example: "invaders enter our country and successfully execute a very devastating attack." The results are in forming a single department of homeland security ultimately reporting directly to the executive effectively moving a lot of oversight away from the legislative branches. An inordinantly large number of changes in the surpreme courts with highly questionable appointees being confirmed without much difficulty. (Okay, one of them didn't pass muster...) But all the while, the country isn't being made any more secure! Borders are STILL wide open. Illegal immigration is only recently a hot topic, but nothing is being done. Even the ignorant sees this hole in the strategy to "secure the nation." The natural disaster of hurricane Katrina strikes with plenty of warning and plenty of mistakes are made... I won't speculate as to whether there is intent behind that or not, but it does show that the government is poorly structured to handle the emergencies it was once more than capable of managing a few years ago. And has there been any improvements since then? Nope. Latest reports I've heard are that hurricane season has started and we can't even agree on evacuation plans in most prone areas.

Meanwhile, in the name of security and protection, every freedom and right to privacy that we had taken for granted is under risk or has been revealed to have been violated under our very noses.

And with all the mismanagement and all the secret invasions of our lives, we're STILL not impeaching the president responsible for it all?

There is some real filth going on here. Whether it's intentional or not I won't speculate. But the results are clear for all to see and regardless of the motive, the effects justify impeachment.

Re:I have a better question-Cleanup in aisle freed

[SanityInAnarchy]

I've read 1984. Is there something in particular we're getting wrong?

Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?

[flyncb]

Must be dejavu? I seem to remember making a very similar statement on my blog several days ago. Check it out, it was my first post " Ranting about Bush's Veto of the Stem cell Bill..." last paragraph on CybreLync Chattering blog. CybreLync

Re: Has Orwell's '1984' Come 22 Years Later?

[deanj]

Before you go patting yourself on the back...

Considering he's the first president to allow funding for stem cell research (yes, not creating an embryo to kill it, but using ones that were going to be discarded), you should give yourself a +100 on that scale you used.

State your private interests

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* Here we go again.

Two things. It's not the "reacting" so much as it is the "mis-reacting" and "over-reacting". Second as has been pointed out repeatedly here (in different contexes). Technology is a double-edged sword. Technical sophistication can work in the publics favour, as much as it can the government.

"We need to be careful to keep this technology from being used for ill. When something that's "kind of bad" is proposed, we need to react STRONGLY. Rights have a way of being chipped away and it's usually through violent conflict that these rights are regained. Better to protect them in the first place."

Were were you all when the Sony Bono act was being passed? Certainly a lot weren't protecting their fair use rights in the first place. Maybe a good old fashion storming of the RIAA/MPAA citadel with some hanging will get us back our rights.

"Further, it doesn't really matter who it is that's doing the surveillance. If Walmart has the information, it's only a subpoena from being in Uncle Sam's hands.."

Valid point, but the danger isn't from the occasional "subpoena" but the constant feedback loop that everyone's subjected to. And let's not get into the almost daily leaks of personal information.

Re:State your private interests

[honkycat]

Why do you feel the need to start your otherwise intelligent response with a sigh? Do you really
have to try to belittle those to whom you respond? This isn't the first time this discussion has come up, and we all know we're not posting ideas that have never been presented before. If you're tired of the conversation then go away, don't be a dick.

Technical sophistication can work in the publics favour, as much as it can the government.

I'm not arguing against technological development, I'm suggesting that we need to be careful about how it's used because it can be used against us. I've worked on a number RFID systems, which are a good example of a technology that has potentially threatening uses, so I'm clearly not trying to thwart the advances that might present risks.

Were [sic] were you all when the Sony Bono act was being passed? Certainly a lot weren't protecting their fair use rights in the first place.

Well, I personally was a sophomore in college. Old enough to be involved, but I was not yet very politically aware. Does that disqualify me from future debates on the issue? I wasn't even born for the 1976 Copyright Act's passage, so I guess I was doomed from the start.

the danger isn't from the occasional "subpoena" but the constant feedback loop that everyone's subjected to

I'm not sure what you mean by the "feedback loop." Can you clarify?

Re:State your private interests

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why do you feel the need to start your otherwise intelligent response with a sigh? Do you really
have to try to belittle those to whom you respond? This isn't the first time this discussion has come up, and we all know we're not posting ideas that have never been presented before. If you're tired of the conversation then go away, don't be a dick."

Apologies, but sometimes slashdot resembles the complaint line at Wal-mart more times than a place you'd expect geeks to hang out. Didn't mean to take it out on you.

"I'm not arguing against technological development, I'm suggesting that we need to be careful about how it's used because it can be used against us. I've worked on a number RFID systems, which are a good example of a technology that has potentially threatening uses, so I'm clearly not trying to thwart the advances that might present risks."

I'm not saying you're a luddite, but that technology can work in either sides favour. The reasons have more to do with will than anything else.

"Well, I personally was a sophomore in college. Old enough to be involved, but I was not yet very politically aware. Does that disqualify me from future debates on the issue? I wasn't even born for the 1976 Copyright Act's passage, so I guess I was doomed from the start."

The point (which got lost) was that rights aren't something you protect after the fact but during and if possible, beforehand. Unfortunately they are being lost for various reasons (reasons I should point out geeks aren't immune to, even if they sometimes believe otherwise).

"I'm not sure what you mean by the "feedback loop." Can you clarify?"

The loop that's marketing. A lot of that collected data comes back to influence the populus that gave it in the first place. Of course we react, and they react, and so on.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[antonlacon]

Yeah, you probably aren't. You. Other people, given free reign, will use pseudoephedrine in a meth lab. 15/day happens to be where they've currently drawn the line. Should they change it to 50/day? 1000/day? Unrestricted?

Because someone will abuse it, everyone needs to be protected!

15/day. Do you really need to buy more than 15 a day?

Buying in bulk from a wholesaler like Costco where they're in 60 pill containers... Damn me for not wanting to make the trip once a week for a twice daily pill.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, yeah they id for lighters! It's happened to me probably 4-5 times living in southern california. Even when I was like 24! I've also been denied sale of a lighter when I was 18 because I didn't have my id with me.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[WidescreenFreak]

Whoa, wait a minute! So, does that mean that anyone with a peach or apple tree in their yard is running a cyanide lab? Does that make you guilty of sale of a lethal item by selling your peaches at the farmer's market?

You probably think I'm being facetious or sarcastic; but if you have a peach orchard and you sell your product at a farmers market, do your customers show ID to buy your produce?

This is getting absolutely out of hand. I thought that the original question was completely ludicrous. But now I'm not so sure.

The wisdom of Cereal Killer

[BitwizeGHC]

"FYI, man, you can do like absolutely nothing... and your name goes through like, 17 computers a day, man. 1984? Yeah, RIGHT, man, that's a typo. Orwell's here now and he's livin' large. We have no names man, no names! We are NAMELESS.... Can I score a fry?"

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[FLEB]

Every purchase with an "awards card" is tracked, and people are totally fine with this type of tracking.

Actually, I have a few of these and I don't really mind it. If, for some odd reason, I feel I need to duck incognito, I can just stop swiping the card (and pay cash). If a company wants to use my completely innocuous and consentually-given purchase info to give me advertisements that better pertain to my actual wants, and they wish to reward me to a degree I consider worthy for the privilege, what's the problem. It's a better deal for me than scattershot tree-wasting ad circulars and no freebies after every 5th swipe.

(Dear god... "the man" knows, in some deep database down in its mind, that I'm a fat-ass soda swiller. Hell, they could tell that by looking at my fat ass standing there with the "Ungainly-Huge Gulp")

If you have the restraint not to buy anything anyone hands you a 50%-off coupon for unless you really need/want it, these deals aren't all that bad.

Uh....it's been a long time.

[deanj]

Look, "1984" has been happening for a long time now, and people are willingly participating in it.

What am I talking about? Politically Correct Speech. Some group of people decided they didn't like what language people were using, and they've somehow gotten to get a lot of people to go along with it. It's to the point where if you don't use politically correct speech for things, some people get really pissed.

The New Generation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the new generation, born with these restrictions, feel the weight of these bonds and recoil from my fears as paranoia?

The "new generation" posts publicly available video clips of their criminal exploits, so I'd say yes.

Sad to think, but...

[athlon02]

this kind of thing has been in the works for quite a long time and in much worse ways than mentioned in the article... The USA tends to make laws to fight *symptoms* of problems and not to cure the problems themselves. This is a prime example:

http://www.troyrecord.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=1170&d ept_id=7021&newsid=16606489&PAG=461&rfi=9

And I know some will scoff at this or think me nuts, that's fine. If you feel you must mod me down, that's fine too. I just want to throw out some food for thought to those who will care...

These kinds of actions (reactionary laws vs. teaching proper morals) along with the recent hurricanes and terrorist attacks all sound to me like God is warning the U.S. to shape up or prepare to face extinction as a nation. This would not be the first time in history He has done so. And I'm not talking about the end of the world or some miraculous event wiping out most of America. No, I'm talking about God's providence working to discipline those who refuse to obey Him.

And for those who are so inclined, read (or re-read) the books of the prophets... Over and over again nations are wiped out (particularly those with the *most* power and arrogance) and replaced by other nations as the dominating force in the world. And for those who are skeptical about the Bible's accounts of these nations, check archaeological history... Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medes & Persians, Greeks, Romans, etc, etc.

Let me be clear... I am not suggesting panic. Nor do I think we need any "John 3:16" signs like at the end of Ghostbusters. Just suggesting some serious reflection and consideration to those on /. who believe in God (and to those who are willing to research God and the Bible with an open mind).

Re:Sad to think, but...

[Bambi Dee]

What I'm not getting, besides faith itself, is how one could possibly worship a God who they believe to wipe out nations, over and over again, including hundreds? Thousands? Millions? of individuals who're hardly to blame for having been born (whether there or anywhere else), nor for failing to obey the commands of an entity that is described as genocidal and that is, along with said commands, fairly easy to mistake for an invention. Every once in a while I'm being told about God's love and about Jesus caring for the sinners, and then something like your post comes along to make me think that even if I could somehow start to believe, I'd be much better off staying an atheist.

I've got it!

[JimXugle]

With the peaches and a standard household gene splicing kit, one could turn the peach DNA into marijuana DNA, there by selling drugs and funding terrorism, child porn, world hunger, and opression in the non-free world.

nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

i tried to purchase GTA: liberty city stories for PS2 at Target the other day. the clerk asked to see my ID, and then began to scan the back of my drivers license, for a game? i dont even get carded for liquor... I'm certainly old enough to purchase anything i'd like without an ID...

RFID tags and our "1984" like future

[Rick17JJ]

Don't forget the RFID tagged world that we are heading into. Companies such as Wall-Mart and several government agencies have been pushing hard to add RFID spychips to everything that we purchase. Soon we will be wearing RFID tagged clothing and shoes. Our wallets will have RFID tags in our charge cards and passports. We will be driving around in cars with RFID tags in the tires and elsewhere.

Each and every RFID tag will have a unique serial number and we will secretly be scanned when entering stores. Upon checking out our RFID tagged items we will show them our shoppers discount card and pay by charge card where our personal information will be updated in various computer databases. Who knows what personal information will then eventually be shared with credit agencies, advertisers and the governemnt.

As we drive around the country hidden scanners in highways will secretly log our movements at key points. And of course all the young people proudly carry their cell phones everywhere. I have heard that cell phones regularly transmit which cell tower they are closest to even when they are turned off. Only removing the battery or perhaps placing it in a Faraday cage would stop that.

If I understand correctly the USDA wants animal ID for all animals in micro-farms for every sheep, chicken, goat or other animal. That would most likely involve using RFID Tags to track your food. Perhaps they are afraid that that someone could actually buy their food from somewhere in cash without big brother having a record. There is an organization called NoNAIS that is opposed to those proposed rules.

Marketing researchers and the police will be able to inventory the contents of our garbage cans with hand held scanners without even opening the lid.

Many of us even have pets which have been RFID tagged in case they get lost. Some (but not all) Christians believe that RFID chips or something similar implanted into the back of the hands or our foreheads will be the "mark of the beast" described in the Bible. Even if it doesn't go that far, RFID sypchips could play a major role in bringing us into a "1984" like world. Add RFID technology to what other people have said and I think we seriously could be heading towards the future that George Orwell warned us about in the book "1984". Perhaps I should take my tin foil hat off now and just relax, this is still America after all.

Re:RFID tags and our "1984" like future

[GiMP]

I'm moving to Europe and it turns out that if I wish to take my cats with me.. they need to be "chipped". We're getting the RFIDs inserted in a couple weeks. I'm *really* against the idea, but... do I bring my cats, or not?

I've found that travel is the easiest place for people to become complacent with these restrictions. For example, RFID tags in passwords and fingerprinting at the border. Nobody complaints, but who would? If you do, you're a potential Terrorist, right? And, we know what happens to those that are merely suspected of terrorism...

Am I the only one who isn't paranoid?

[jinxidoru]

Am I the only one who isn't very alarmed by all of this? Everytime someone claims that 1984 has arrived and Big Brother is here (which seems to be about once a week) I have to ask myself, "Have any of these people read 1984?" Our society is so much better than 1984. I also highly doubt that it will ever get to that point. While our actions are monitored by everyone, we still have civil liberties. I'm sure that if anyone cares to look into the records, they would be able to learn that I hate Bush. Even so, I have yet to receive any knocks on my door from guys in black suits. We still have the right to assemble. No one is going back and changing the past ala the Ministry of Truth. No, 2006 is a long way off from 1984.

Does anyone else believe that life now is better than it has ever been in history. We have less war, less disease, people seem to be friendlier, open source is flourishing, crime is down. It's about time people stop being such pessimists and simply open their eyes to how wonderful the world is now.

Re:Am I the only one who isn't paranoid?

[crlove]

You make a point.

While the world may not be as great in SOME ways as it used to be (but Utopia does not exist), I now appreciate that during school I didn't have to practice hiding under my desk for when the bomb was dropped or make sure my skin was the correct color for the drinking fountain I was about to take a sip from.

Re:Am I the only one who isn't paranoid?

[lawpoop]

OK, keep in mind that 1984 was *fiction*. It was not a prediction, prophecy, fate or destiny. If the society we live in isn't a complete duplicate of 1984, that doesn't mean that we don't have less freedom, or that the government isn't spying on us without proper oversight, or even illegally. We could come into a police state that bears little resemblance of 1984.

What you should be looking at is how actual, real dictators came to power and how real police states were formed. Yes, things are pretty good right now. No, that doesn't mean that it will stay that way, or continue to get better. Yes, we still need to work hard and remain vigilent to make sure that things continue to get better. America is not a magical place where all is good and must be that way. The same evil personality types that became dictators and created hell on earth in other countries exist here, and they are working mercilessly and without conscience to gain ever more power.

Re:Am I the only one who isn't paranoid?

[fusion9290991]

I guess this all depends what country you're living in. I have a feeling there's a number of Chinese, Koreans and Zimbabweans who would disagree with you.

Devil's advocate objects:

[megaditto]

While I see what you are saying, I believe it is dumb to remove the incentives of hard work, dilligence, and sacrifice.

Why should should my sister study 14 hours per day for 20 years, denying herself sleep, sex, and eyesight in the process if she will end up being no better off than a janitor, except that the janitor has been having the time of her life for the last 20 years, has a developed relationship with 7 kids (all on welfare), can sleep well at night in a house she had not earned, and does not need glasses to read the 'funnies'.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[lokiomega]

If that was truly the case, then your sister would be the stupid one.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[miskatonic alumnus]

Why should should my sister study 14 hours per day for 20 years, denying herself sleep, sex, and eyesight in the process if she will end up being no better off than a janitor, except that the janitor has been having the time of her life for the last 20 years, has a developed relationship with 7 kids (all on welfare), can sleep well at night in a house she had not earned, and does not need glasses to read the 'funnies'.

Simple... because that's what she wants to do. I truly and honestly believe that if everyone made the same wage, people would still pursue their calling. Hell, even without wage normalization, people pursue their calling --- even if it means taking a reduction in pay.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[r00t]

Exactly. She would be the stupid one. She might still be, if kids are worth more than money and the things money buys, but at least she gets something to compensate her for the suffering.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[jonniesmokes]

Ahahh. You're right that studying hard/working hard should produce a nice compensation. FYI, janitors work very hard, as do flight attendants, cooks, checkout clerks, delivery folks, and machinists; just about any profession as a matter of fact. What you're describing is the market place of labor. Its always been the case that those in highest demand get paid more. That's why CEO's get $50mega bucks per year. Its not because they work any harder or have studied any harder than the construction worker (ye olde Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard in the first year). But is it fair? Of course not. Life isn't fair. Communism was a pathetic attempt at making life more fair. The minumum wage is a reasonable attempt at making life more fair.

I resent your implication that janitors have kids on welfare. Get that silver spoon and troll out of your lower class hating mouth.

Here is a reason to support making life more fair: If you don't, then poor people who have been taken advantage of will eventually stop listening to southern accent affecting Presidents and their church preachers and will burn your rich ass into a pile of ash in that brand new exurb of yours. Its happened in many many places when the wealth balance gets too whacked. That's why rich folks should support the minimum wage. Its also why they should pay more in taxes, because they benefit the most from a structured society. Its called nobility, and only snobs don't have it.

On the other hand if your going for the revolution - then by all means, get rid of all work place protections and put those 7 year old WICK program/AFDC kids to work in a debtor's prison. I'm just one of those terrible libral's who's studied history and would like our society to go on another 200 years.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Awesome. I should give the poor folks more money because if I don't, they'll rise up and attack me.

That's not called "nobility," dumbass. It's called "extortion." Any poor folks who try that will be introduced to my attorneys, Smith and Wesson.

Let them eat lead.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[hotshot3000]

"Why should should my sister study 14 hours per day for 20 years, denying herself sleep, sex, and eyesight in the process if she will end up being no better off than a janitor, except that the janitor has been having the time of her life for the last 20 years, has a developed relationship with 7 kids (all on welfare), can sleep well at night in a house she had not earned, and does not need glasses to read the 'funnies'."

I'd like to meet the janitor who has had the "time of their life" for 20 years. And your sister should learn to budget her time better if she wants to live a long healthy life. No company is going to want to pay her anything if she can't see. And while the janitor is most likely not having the "time of their life", they may still be having a happier life than your workaholic sister. If janitors were not doing their jobs, many people would have more miserable lives.

People need to check out this link:
http://www.brookings.edu/metro/pubs/20060622_middl eclass.htm

It is not that liberals want a socialist state (though some may), but most think that it is morally corrupt for a society to have millionare CEOs sitting on the boards of each other's corporations voting each other fat pay raises that are way out of line with what their average employees are earning. These CEOs are also more concerned about the bottom line, and their bonuses, than the well being of our country.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[megaditto]

I think where you fail is postulating that mere need and hardship entitle one to get 'free stuff'.

Why do we believe in giving poor children free insurance, food, and education? Because they are entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" AND because they will provide to us a good return on investment: that little snotnose may grow up to be the next Tesla, Einstein, von Braun, Clinton(you liberals love him), Gates, or Torvalds. In any case, they are more likely to become productive members of the society

Why do we not let hobos redress their need and hardship by anally penetrating our wifes and children at will? Because, while they are entitled to get their freak on via "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" clause, such activity will unduely violate OUR rights AND will provide no return on investment.

A bit crude, but illustrates the point I hope.

Actually, I do agree with you that at present, raising the minimum wage a little might be beneficial.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

Hmmmm.... sounds familiar...

"From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need" -Karl Marx

Now if only some group of people could form a society based on this great thinkers philosophy.. oh wait...

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Jeremi]

While I see what you are saying, I believe it is dumb to remove the incentives of hard work, dilligence, and sacrifice.

I don't think anyone advocated doing that. Unless someone suggested enacting a maximum wage law, and I missed it?

Why should should my sister study 14 hours per day for 20 years, denying herself sleep, sex, and eyesight in the process if she will end up being no better off than a janitor

If after 20 years of study, your sister still can't find a job that pays above the minimum wage, then perhaps she's been studying the wrong things.

except that the janitor has been having the time of her life for the last 20 years

Yup, there's simply nothing more fun then 20 years of janitorial work. Whee!! :^)

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[KDR_11k]

He never said that the janitor should earn as much as a highly skilled employee, just that he should earn enough to live a comfortable life instead of having three side jobs just to pay the rent.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Anonymous Coward]

You moron. There's 10 of you rich cocksuckers and 10,000 poor people invading your mansion. Tell me just what the fuck you're gonna do?

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[killjoe]

Who says there is a correlation between working hard and manking money? Some of the richest people in the world haven't worked a day in their lives. I can guarantee you the average janitor works harder then Paris Hilton.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[loraksus]

Well, the poor sort of do have a numbers advantage.
It isn't terribly hard for even the poorest person to buy a saturday night special. Hell, I bought a kel tec p3at for $210 and got half an ammo can of .380 acp. It isn't as much as a saturday night special as a "can concleal it anywhere" [istol that has gone bang each and every time I've pulled the trigger. Hell, you can get a nagant for $60. Those numbers can be pretty important...

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[technos]

Your average cleaning slave may be paid quite well, actually.

Why? Because of theft.

Any decent cleaning company operates on one of two theories. "Turnover and volume" or "Quality & Requests".

The T&V model (any huge faceless, outsourced cleaning company uses this) pays their employees marginally more than going rate for manual labor. (Ten years ago, $6.50/hr starting with bennies was common in Detroit)
As a result, a certain percentage of employees steal, and a certain percentage of contracts are lost.
When you have 300 contracts, losing 25-30 of them would be normal. You just underbid another 30 that month and hike rates at the 6 month mark before they've noticed your employees have been raiding the supply closet, stealing laptop computers to pawn, rummaging the desks for change.

The Q&R model (If you have to worry about not getting the cleaning crew the same cheesy gift two Christmasses in a row, you have one of these) pays their employees as well as your average college grad fresh out on the market. (Say $10-12/hr. Also as of ten years ago, in Detroit.)
Their employees don't steal. They also operate on a much smaller contract base (say 5 or less). Losing a contract means laying off someone.
The downside to a Q&R is they eventually trim corners due to familiarity.
"Oh, the break room looks like crap. I'm going to spray it down with cleanser and mop it dry to get them through tomorrow 'till I have time to do it properly. The only one who will even notice is David and he needs to stop being so anal." is the worst you'll see out of them.
The upside is they'll do any esoteric clean up job, scheduled or not, just by request.

Consider half the commercial space is T&V, the other half Q&R.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Anonymous Coward]

There are rumours though that Paris works hard, sometimes even entire nights. ;)

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[jcr]

While I see what you are saying, I believe it is dumb to remove the incentives of hard work, dilligence, and sacrifice.

What's dumb is expecting a certain standard of living just because you get your ticket punched. I've met plenty of people with master's degrees in fields for which there isn't much demand, and tough shit: nobody owes anyone a job in the job-seeker's chosen field.

Your sister needs to be aware of the market she competes in, and develop the skills that make her employable at the level she desires. Or not. It's nobody else's responsibility to deal with the consequences of her career choices.

-jcr

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Weedlekin]

Nobody has ever formed a true Marxist society because one of the defining attributes of Marxism is a complete absence of states with central governing bodies. Thus, while Marxists were often significant contributors to many 20th century revolutions, they tended to be rapidly gotten rid of by those for whom the definition of a "better world" was one where they were running things instead of somebody else. The end result was usually a form of totalitarian socialism (socialism is a bit like communism, but without the bits about not having states and governments that are so potentially inconvenient to wannabe rulers) that can be summed up as "From each according to his ability; to each according to his position in the government".

NB: I am no apologist for Marx, but the fact of the matter is that Americans in particular seem to believe that China, Cuba, North Korea and the old Soviet Union are or were communists, when in fact they have even less in common with communism than the mediaeval Catholic Church had to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Raising the minimum wage will hurt the people that it is supposed to help. A business will only hire someone who adds more value to the company than it costs to hire them. If this wage goes up, then less people will be hired. There are also very small numbers of people who actually earn the minimum wage, generally kids starting their first job.

We keep hearing that it is not fair that someone can't raise their 6 kids when they only earn the minimum wage. Perhaps they shouldn't have kids that they cannot afford due to the fact that they have made numerous bad choices in their life that put them in that position. If you have been working for several years and you are not capable of earning more than the minimum wage then you are a loser. Why is it societies responsibility to support them? Where in the Constitution is the part that says the federal government has the power to set wages?

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Wildclaw]

Soviet Union was a command economy that use centralized planning to decided how much of each product to produce. This did indeed not work very well.

What needs to be recognized is that there is is to separate supply and demand areas is a society. There is supply and demand on labor, and there is supply and demand on products.

Very few people today would advocate, that using supply and demand on products is a bad thing. It is well proven that it provides a much more efficent society, where you don't have to line up to buy a toothbrush.

What the grand parent discussed was the idea to remove the supply and demand on labor. This would certainly result in a less efficent society, but the real question is how much less efficent it would be, and how much it would increase happiness due to less inequality.

Some adjustments on salary would probably have to be done based on how popular a job is, to get people to do the less popular jobs. As I mentioned in a another post, it would probably also be needed for the state to pay people to study.

I used the word probably a couple of times, because something like this has never been implemented in human history.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Peter La Casse]

Its always been the case that those in highest demand get paid more. That's why CEO's get $50mega bucks per year.

To be fair, a big part of the reason for excessive CEO salaries is that the boards that hire them are dumb. Nobody thinks the person they're about to hire is going to bomb, so they don't mind negotiating golden parachutes that they think will never be used, and they think there is a shortage of competent CEOs who will work for less than $50 million a year, while in fact there are a lot of competent potential CEOs who will work for much less than that.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Monkelectric]

Just wait till your sis makes it big... There's this uncomfortable area where you're making a fairly decent ammount of money but don't really have the resources to cheat the tax system. I have just barely inched into the 6 figure territory, and I'm really not any better off for it. The government takes the better portion of what I make.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

Sure... but I think that's just technicalities... I was basically making the point that forced equality of the masses doesn't work.. and is, in fact, a ridiculous idea..

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[E 99]

That's why CEO's get $50mega bucks per year. Its not because they work any harder or have studied any harder than the construction worker (ye olde Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard in the first year). But is it fair? Of course not.

It is absolutely fair. Hard work and education are means of becoming highly productive. But no fair system gives monetary rewards merely for hard work or education, only for productivity. A CEO is often in a position to have more of a positive influence on productivity than anyone else in the corporation, which is why corporations should spend as much as necessary to get the best one they can. Barring some sort of corruption, kickbacks, or whatnot, this is completely fair.

The minumum wage is a reasonable attempt at making life more fair.

Minimum wage is inherently unfair. It prevents a person from hiring another person at the fair rate determined by supply and demand. That in turn, can, and does, mean that businesses go out of business, and people go out of work. For a person to make enough money for food, clothing, and shelter, he MUST produce the economic equivilent amount of wealth by his work. Nothing else is sustainable, and despite the rhetoric, no minimum wage law can change that reality.

Here is a reason to support making life more fair: If you don't, then poor people who have been taken advantage of will eventually stop listening to southern accent affecting Presidents and their church preachers and will burn your rich ass into a pile of ash in that brand new exurb of yours. Its happened in many many places when the wealth balance gets too whacked. That's why rich folks should support the minimum wage.

First of all, unlike the histories you're undoubtedly thinking of, there aren't nearly enough poor to fight against the middle class. Second, it's not the poor who want a revolution, anyway, it's the liberals, poor and rich, who think the poor are exploited. Thirdly, the liberals, poor and rich, don't generally believe that a man ought to be self-sufficient, and so... they generally don't have any guns. Conservatives, knowing that there's a world full of liberals who want to take all their posessions, and furthermore that they have a responsibility to protect the welfare of their family, generally do own guns. And the armed forces are also overwhelmingly made up of conservatives. And they typically own guns as well. So you can stop worrying about the impending revolution.

Its also why [the rich] should pay more in taxes, because they benefit the most from a structured society. Its called nobility, and only snobs don't have it.

Not true, the lower middle class and the poor benefit the most from a structured society. Those who can fend for themselves in a structured society can also fend for themselves in a unstructured one. The well-off can afford to protect themselves and their interests, and could in many instances do so better without the police. The law is great because it protects those who couldn't otherwise protect themselves. Structured society is what limits the power of the rich, and even siphons off their riches!

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

"I used the word probably a couple of times, because something like this has never been implemented in human history."

because it's a horrible idea... all humans are NOT created equal and forcing equality on them in this manner could never work. Even if I wanted to be a fighter pilot, I don't have the reflexes for it...

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[miskatonic alumnus]

I think where you fail is postulating that mere need and hardship entitle one to get 'free stuff'.

As opposed to the current system where those born with the right last name (Bush, Rockefeller) are who have connections with those people are entitled to free stuff.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[roman_mir]

Here is a reason to support making life more fair: If you don't, then poor people who have been taken advantage of will eventually stop listening to southern accent affecting Presidents and their church preachers and will burn your rich ass into a pile of ash in that brand new exurb of yours. - I believe that lack of education and introduction to the wonderful world of TV takes care of all of the initiatives of this type.

In the worst case scenario, local revolts can be subdued by the police forces. If the police is not enough, I think in our enlightened times there is much stronger force - the army. That is why every powerful state needs a strong army, not to fight wars around the world (well, that too,) but to supply a signifficant force within the country itself.

Don't you worry about the middle class fool, who thinks he can take on the mob with his Smith and Wesson, worry about the army.

(I am personally all for eugenics, low class chemical castration and such, you know, for population control.)

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Weedlekin]

It is no more ridiculous the the enforced inequality of feudal societies, which seems to have worked pretty well for thousands of years.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Xerxes1729]

Those who can fend for themselves in a structured society can also fend for themselves in a unstructured one. The well-off can afford to protect themselves and their interests, and could in many instances do so better without the police.

Bullshit. Which of the following would you prefer:
1) Being taught Swedish and forced to live in the socialist Scandinavian nightmare that is Sweden.
2) Being taught Somali and forced to live in the libertarian utopia that is Somalia.

In Sweden, you would have to live under oppressive taxation, deal with inferior subsidized housing and healthcare, and have your life and property constantly threatened since you wouldn't have the firearms to defend them. In Somalia, there are no taxes, so you keep 100% of your profits. You'll have the total freedom to choose anything you can afford, with no government interference. And best of all, you'll be totally secure because of all the firearms you'll have and the guards you'll be able to hire.

Of course, this is an asinine choice. No one would choose to live in Somalia. The point is that these Libertarian-types say they want to be free of government regulations, but in reality they just want to keep the regulations that are good for them and get rid of those that would help anyone else. For all their posturing, these folks would not last long in a truly "unstructured society".

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[BJH]

Jesus Christ, you're a real-life nutball.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Omestes]

To hop into this conversation...

I think where you fail is postulating that mere need and hardship entitle one to get 'free stuff'.

I disagree. I think that people are suffering, and it is our duty to help.

rant

I'm getting sick of /. looking at efficiency, gaining power, etc etc and completely ignoring the human aspect. We all are people before we are mere wage earners. I don't give a rats ass how well someone makes money, or if their efficiency is good, I think it more important that they have a decent standard of life, some meager happiness, and a warm place to go to the bathroom. Screw the rest, humanity comes before profits, ALL THE TIME. If not, it should be enforced, since obviously those who have the opposite bent are boreder-line sociopaths. /rant

I know you overstated for a point. I did likewise, as a point and argument against your statement.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

inequality isn't forced, it's innate... we're not clones. A hierarchical society is a natural representation of this built in inequality. So yeah... forced equality is more ridiculous than natural inequality in any manifestation.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Weedlekin]

So what you are saying is this: a society which brutally represses 98% of its population is a natural hierarchy if the people at the top of it call themselves kings and barons, but it is an unnatural one when they have titles such as Chairman and Member of the Supreme Soviet.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

that makes a pretty huge assumption... 98% of the population is brutally repressed? I think that's the situation under forced equality.. when what makes you an individual is basically taken from you. When your natural talents are used for someone else's idea of what is best/right.

Your argument seems to ignore the fact that in between the top 10% and bottom 10% is where everyone else lives. Just because there is some suffering doesn't mean the entire system is broken... You can't please all the people all the time.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[inKubus]

Actually janitors are middle class. So is someone who makes $200,000 a year. A janitor in America with a job is probably in the top 98 percent of the world income wise.

One of the curious results of certain class societies (or societies that are generally perceived to be based on class distinctions) is that people belonging to different social classes have different views on the class system as a whole, thus different forms of class consciousness. Typically, in English society, the results would be:

Upper class people, e.g. aristocrats, traditionally refer merely to The Lower Classes, without making any distinction between people who are not aristocrats, i.e. they operate in a two-class model.

Working class people, similarly, traditionally refer merely to 'toffs', i.e. anyone who isn't working class, and also operate in a two-class system, but a different one from Upper Class people.

Middle Class people, in contrast, see themselves as separate from the Upper Class and Working Class, perhaps on the same bases as people who claim to belong to each, but in addition, draw distinctions between the Upper Middle and Lower Middle classes (or even introduce the notion of Middle Middle Class, for anyone they feel doesn't fall into any of the other categories), i.e. they operate from a 4- or 5-class perspective.

(plagarized from wikipedia's article on class consciousness.

See the Social class entry over at Wikipedia.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Weedlekin]

" 98% of the population is brutally repressed? I think that's the situation under forced equality.. when what makes you an individual is basically taken from you."

I suggest you do some reading on feudal societies, and the opportunities for individuality that were open to serfs, who made up the vast bulk of the people who lived in them.

"Your argument seems to ignore the fact that in between the top 10% and bottom 10% is where everyone else lives. Just because there is some suffering doesn't mean the entire system is broken... You can't please all the people all the time."

Your ignorance of the way feudal societies were organised is astonishing. Serfs made up 98% of the population, and were uniformly and equally at the bottom. They owned nothing, had no wages, no freedom of movement, and worked from the moment they could walk until they died in early middle-age to produce quotas for their owners. If there was a surplus, they got to eat, otherwise they starved, and they couldn't supplement their diet by hunting because every living thing (including them) on the land they occupied belonged to its owner, who would deal severely with anybody that killed and ate (i.e. stole) something without express permission. Shelter was a hut they built themselves from whatever was lying around, which was in most cases mud and grass in Northern Europe: they weren't allowed to cut down trees for their own building projects because trees belonged to the land-owner, and firewood had to be gathered from the ground on designated common land -- if there wasn't any, they shivered and hoped for a brisk wind to blow some twigs to the ground the next day.

So if your definition of "being and individual" is living in conditions worse than the livestock one tends (which, unlike the serf, has an intrinsic resale value, and thus the advantage of being fed in circumstances when serfs are left to starve), with no prospect of either you or your descendants ever attaining anything better no matter what your innate abilities may be, then yes, serfs had it pretty good. After all, they did get to live under a system without an "ism" in its name, and the people who treated them like lumps of shit had romantic-sounding titles, and got to live in castles and ride around in armour instead of standing there in a fur hat with a stern expression while rocket launchers and tanks parade past them.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[supasam]

Those who can fend for themselves in a structured society can also fend for themselves in a unstructured one.

Lets take Joe from 'round the corner and and William Blakeworth, CEO of MAXCORP out to the middle nowhere cambodia and see who lasts longer, shall we? Something tells me it it might be old Joe.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

"I suggest you do some reading on feudal societies, and the opportunities for individuality that were open to serfs, who made up the vast bulk of the people who lived in them."

I think we have a misunderstanding... I didn't think we were literally talking about feudalism... I thought you were making an analogy and calling our current society a feudalist type society... so I was still talking about forced equality in terms of pay/jobs, etc..

I'm not going to argue that surfdom was a good thing... it was slavery controlled by a few tyrants and pseudo spirituality... And I think it's an example of forced equality... and represents and extreme example of exactly what I'm arguing against.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Anonymous Coward]

You hire 1000 of the poor people, give them the big guns and have then slaughter the other 9000. Either that or just avoid the whole thing with social control. Distract the poor people with 5 cent morality issues and they'll be too busy fighting each other to go after you. You know, like with abortion and gay marriage.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Weedlekin]

"I think we have a misunderstanding... I didn't think we were literally talking about feudalism... I thought you were making an analogy and calling our current society a feudalist type society..."

OK, fair enough. Note though that anybody who suggested that modern Western democracies are even remotely like feudal societies would be displaying a profound ignorance of one or the other, because feudalism is a system where one's "starting position" in society is a matter of birthright rather than individual merit. Thus, while a person of noble birth could become a more important (and wealthy) noble by performing great deeds, political manoeuvering, and even outright murder, the best a serf could hope for was that one of his children might be big, strong, and notable enough to be selected for training as part of his lord's personal retinue, where he would not only be fed, housed, and clothed far better than his parents, but also have the opportunity to distinguish himself and earn his freedom.

"I was still talking about forced equality in terms of pay/jobs, etc."

Which is precisely why I mentioned forced inequality, and cited feudal societies as examples.

"I'm not going to argue that surfdom was a good thing... it was slavery controlled by a few tyrants and pseudo spirituality"

Spirituality, pseudo or otherwise, is not a prerequisite for a feudal society. Mediaeval Japan for example was in every way feudal, yet it had two major religions (Shinto and Buddhism) and there was no requirement for the peasantry to follow the same one as their lord, or for that matter any religion at all. It also wasn't technically slavery, because serfs were not bought and sold as commodities, but were simply considered to be a part of the land they lived and worked on. This meant that serfdom was actually worse than slavery in some respects because a serf had no individual financial worth to act as a disincentive for severely mistreating or even killing him / her (serfs were not of course allowed to kill each-other, but were expected to treat other serfs with the same respect they showed to the rest of their lord's property such as buildings, livestock, trees, crops, and tools).

" I think it's an example of forced equality... and represents and extreme example of exactly what I'm arguing against."

It is not forced equality because unlike the totalitarian socialist systems that grew up during the 20th century, there was no attempt to pretend that any of the often quite complex strata in a feudal society was in any way equal to those either below or above it -- indeed, the differences in wealth and power between each of them was a notable source of pride that would be openly flaunted whenever an opportunity to do so arose. Profound, deep, and largely irrevocable Inequality was not therefore merely an aspect of feudal societies, but the very foundation on which they and the institutions within them were based, and is one of several key factors that defines them.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

Again, this isn't the discussion I wanted to have.. but...

"It is not forced equality because unlike the totalitarian socialist systems that grew up during the 20th century, there was no attempt to pretend that any of the often quite complex strata in a feudal society was in any way equal to those either below or above it"

If 98% of the population is treated exactly the same... by each-other and the "blessed" 2%... is that not forced equality? assuming in any situation where there is force involved there is someone who is doing the forcing... even in a modern forced equality system the "ruling class" lives better than those they purport to be equal to... saying they are part of the system instead of controlling it is merely lip service to the doctrine used to assert control.

Anyway... I don't think we're really arguing any more... "feudal societies" suck... and so do systems where anything other than your individual abilities and decisions dictate your place in said system.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Wildclaw]

Who said anything about forcing equality on anyone. The thing under discussion is equal compensation for an equal amount of work. Something that is completly missing in todays society.

You would of course not be a fighter pilot, because someone else is better at it than you and would get the job. You should however have the same hourly salary as the fighter pilot. If it is difficult to find people qualified and willing to work in a certain occupation, that occupation could get higher salaries. What I am against however is the arbitary setting of salaries, based on the idea that those higher up in the hierarchy are worth more. It is feudal thinking and is most likely the biggest source of unrest in society.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

"Who said anything about forcing equality on anyone. The thing under discussion is equal compensation for an equal amount of work. Something that is completely missing in todays society."

You're trying to force equality on labor! Who gets to decide how much floor sweeping is worth in engine repairs or safety management at a nuclear power plant? Neither people nor jobs are created equal.

"If it is difficult to find people qualified and willing to work in a certain occupation, that occupation could get higher salaries."

who makes that call in your model? the employer? the gov? It's difficult to find good people for any job... it's high compensation that gets you the best of the best.

"What I am against however is the arbitary setting of salaries, based on the idea that those higher up in the hierarchy are worth more. It is feudal thinking and is most likely the biggest source of unrest in society."

It's not arbitrary... it's the market value... except at the low end where it's set by government decree. And I shouldn't make the same as a fighter pilot... I should make what the market will accept for my skills... I spent 4 years in college and several years of hundred hour work weeks to get where I am today... I should be compensated for that devotion and drive... I'm worth every penny... I'll be damned if I should make the same as some guy who dropped out of school and went into a job that required 2 days of on the job training and then does his 40 hours every week and then goes home to watch NASCAR and According to Jim... (not talking about the pilot necessarily)... but speaking of the pilot... should he be paid the same as some guy flying in air shows who doesn't risk his life (as much) or have to land on a microscopic boat bobbing in the ocean?

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Foolhardy]

The thing is that efficiency and production are not at odds with humanity. A standard of living costs resources that have to come from somewhere. If production is not valued, then there will exist no means to provide humanity. It's nice to say that there are people who are too rich, earning far more than they produce while others languish in poverty and that those resources should be diverted by force. Those people would be equalized-- for a while. Tomorrow when the productive people realize that their personal rewards for productivity can and will be plundered by force if and when they become too successful, they'll become disaffected (to say the least).

This is all part of a larger system, the best one we know about for maximizing production (along with quality of life). Sure, it's got ugly parts and cases where it fails, but until a better system is shown to work, we'll have to live with this one.

If a person is guaranteed a minimum standard of living regardless of output, what's to prevent that person from doing absolutely no work? What if the standard is high enough that a majority of people decide it's good enough, greatly lowering total production (and with it resources available for living)?

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Wildclaw]

"You're trying to force equality on labor! Who gets to decide how much floor sweeping is worth in engine repairs or safety management at a nuclear power plant? Neither people nor jobs are created equal."

One hour of floor sweeping is worth the same as one hour of engine repairs. It is the effort that matters.

"who makes that call in your model? the employer? the gov? It's difficult to find good people for any job... it's high compensation that gets you the best of the best."

This is the most difficult part. This is where the inefficency compared to market economy is visible. Different salaries should be an exception though, and only if there is a real problem getting workers for a certain occupation. Competing for the best of the best should be done by better working environments and problems, instead of salaries. If you are the best of best, you can pick and choose any job in your profession, while someone who isn't as good will have to choose between what is left. And if there is a boring job, that needs the best workers you are out of luck.

"I should make what the market will accept for my skills..."

I disagree. I stand by the idea that each human life is equally worth. By using a market you directly leave that idea behind. I also don't place that much faith in markets where the seller and buyer are so obviously on unequal footing.

"spent 4 years in college and several years of hundred hour work weeks to get where I am today..."

And you should have gotten paid for those 4 years in college and all those hundred hour weeks, at the same hourly rate as someone how began working directly. If you are willing to work 100 hours, you should be paid for 100 hours. You will make 2.5 times the person who only works 40 hours per week.

"should he be paid the same as some guy flying in air shows who doesn't risk his life"

This is actually an interesting question. Since the pilot actually puts in something more than effort (he gambles his life), he should probably be paid a risk bonus. Risk bonuses exists in real life today, and I find it hard to motivate the removal of them.

Finally, before I leave this topic for good I would like to say that you can rest assured that you will never see any of this happening. The ruling classes (politicians and buisness leaders at this time) would never agree to have the same salary as anyone under them. It unfortunally seems to be human nature to peck on those below you in all ways possible.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

"One hour of floor sweeping is worth the same as one hour of engine repairs. It is the effort that matters."

but that's not the same amount of effort... it's about the amount of time... even within a single task people can give differing amounts of effort... they are worth exactly the same?

"This is the most difficult part. This is where the inefficency compared to market economy is visible. Different salaries should be an exception though, and only if there is a real problem getting workers for a certain occupation. Competing for the best of the best should be done by better working environments and problems, instead of salaries. If you are the best of best, you can pick and choose any job in your profession, while someone who isn't as good will have to choose between what is left. And if there is a boring job, that needs the best workers you are out of luck."

who gets to decide who is the best of the best? who gets first pick... the market is self ordering... your model requires someone with nearly perfect information to guide this process.

"I disagree. I stand by the idea that each human life is equally worth. By using a market you directly leave that idea behind."

lives are equal... but output... intelligence... physical prowess... preferences.. shapes... sizes... are all completely unequal... Some lives have more intrinsic value to society.... there's no way to equalize that.

"I also don't place that much faith in markets where the seller and buyer are so obviously on unequal footing."

The employment market? sometimes its a buyers market... sometimes it's a sellers market... it's always a sellers market if you're one of the best at something.

"And you should have gotten paid for those 4 years in college and all those hundred hour weeks, at the same hourly rate as someone how began working directly. If you are willing to work 100 hours, you should be paid for 100 hours. You will make 2.5 times the person who only works 40 hours per week."

I wouldn't have worked them if I was getting paid by the hour.. I was making an investment in my future... I want to stop "working" all together as soon as possible based on my success now.. I don't want to work an hourly wage until I die...

"Finally, before I leave this topic for good I would like to say that you can rest assured that you will never see any of this happening. The ruling classes (politicians and buisness leaders at this time) would never agree to have the same salary as anyone under them. It unfortunally seems to be human nature to peck on those below you in all ways possible."

none of it will happen because it would never work and it's completely against human nature... we exchange our labor and make investments with our time (on our terms, for the most part) to live the lives we want to live.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Weedlekin]

"I don't think we're really arguing any more"

It isn't that there is no argument, but rather that it has become one of perspectives and definitions that will inevitably end up as an increasingly pointless exercise in hair splitting that will benefit neither ourselves or anybody else.

""feudal societies" suck... and so do systems where anything other than your individual abilities and decisions dictate your place in said system."

I think that most societies suck for those at the bottom of the heap, and are rather wonderful for the ones near the top of it. However, feudal systems could not have worked for so long if they didn't have some benefits for everyone, because various peasant revolts in different countries demonstrated quite conclusively that the weapons wielded by a noble weren't that much more effective than the often quite fearsome tools used by serfs, who outnumbered the nobility and their necessarily small standing armies (you can't maintain lots of soldiers in a pre-industrial agrarian society whose agricultural techniques aren't particularly efficient) by at least 50 to 1. And while it is true that the nobility held individual serfs in utter contempt, they were also aware of the fact that serfs collectively were a vital part of the system, so anybody foolish enough to kill too many while putting down a revolt would be faced with a rapidly collapsing economy and a long-term famine so severe that everybody including the king would have a hard time finding enough to eat for many years.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Wildclaw]

"but that's not the same amount of effort... it's about the amount of time... even within a single task people can give differing amounts of effort... they are worth exactly the same?"

Time is the usual unit to measure effort put in. Most salaries are paid on time already.

"who gets to decide who is the best of the best? who gets first pick... the market is self ordering... your model requires someone with nearly perfect information to guide this process."

Not true. The one employing get to choose who he wants to employ. He just can't use salary as a carrot to influence the one he is going emply, because the salary is set.

"Some lives have more intrinsic value to society.... there's no way to equalize that."

And so people get treated as slaves until they rebel, and then it begins over again.

"The employment market? sometimes its a buyers market... sometimes it's a sellers market... it's always a sellers market if you're one of the best at something."

Hah, it will never again be a sellers market, except for a few lucky (best of something) people. If it were, we wouldn't have all these people working at poverty wages in the first place.

"I wouldn't have worked them if I was getting paid by the hour.. I was making an investment in my future... I want to stop "working" all together as soon as possible based on my success now.. I don't want to work an hourly wage until I die..."

But if you worked hundred hour per week you could have saved it and retired much earlier. Nothing different than now, except of course that you wouldn't be able to exploit the minimum wage salary people by getting a disproportionate high compensation for your effort.

"none of it will happen because it would never work and it's completely against human nature..."

Market economy isn't human nature. It is an economic theory, and for goods you wil find few people that disagree with it. For salaries however, an increasing amount of people are growing tired of the explotation of the upper class. With the increasing wage differences in the US, it is a disaster waiting to happen. Human nature is not liking those that get more than you do for the same effort.

"we exchange our labor and make investments with our time"

And what I described is the same. You invest time and get paid for it. You just don't get paid more for your time than anyone else.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[chowda]

"Time is the usual unit to measure effort put in. Most salaries are paid on time already."

uh... wrong..

effort:
1. The use of physical or mental energy to do something; exertion.
2. A difficult exertion of the strength or will: It was an effort to get up.
3. A usually earnest attempt: Make an effort to arrive promptly.
4. Something done or produced through exertion; an achievement: a play that was his finest effort.
5. Physics. Force applied against inertia.

Your model treats a lazy freeloader exactly the same as an ethical hard worker... and doesn't take into account effort at all... it's all about time... you're treating people like beasts of burden... where one falls in the field you replace it with another because they are exactly the same... interchangeable.. you want surfs...

"And so people get treated as slaves until they rebel, and then it begins over again."

people who act like slaves get treated thusly... although they're not... they always have choices... unless they're in your model... where they are a commodity and worth only as much as the lowest common denominator.

"Not true. The one employing get to choose who he wants to employ. He just can't use salary as a carrot to influence the one he is going emply, because the salary is set."

This brings up an interesting point... if no one can get paid more than anyone else.. what happens to all the profit a business makes? clearly the owner can't have it... so what is the incentive for running/owning/starting a business... to get a business off the ground takes an extreme commitment of time... you can't do it in 40 hours a week... and most owners start out by paying themselves less than they probably would earn working for someone else... why would they even bother in your model... you've taken away the concept of investing time...

"Hah, it will never again be a sellers market, except for a few lucky (best of something) people. If it were, we wouldn't have all these people working at poverty wages in the first place."

we have 25 million illegal immigrants because even for labor it's a sellers market... The minimum wage caused this explosive immigration and the massive market for under-the-table workers. People are losing their lives to come work these jobs...

"But if you worked hundred hour per week you could have saved it and retired much earlier. Nothing different than now, except of course that you wouldn't be able to exploit the minimum wage salary people by getting a disproportionate high compensation for your effort."

I still wouldn't have worked those hours... it's called opportunity cost.. I worked the hours expecting they would pay off 100 fold over the next decade... not earn 3% interest...

Market economy isn't human nature. It is an economic theory, and for goods you wil find few people that disagree with it. For salaries however, an increasing amount of people are growing tired of the explotation of the upper class. With the increasing wage differences in the US, it is a disaster waiting to happen. Human nature is not liking those that get more than you do for the same effort.
This is the basis for your confusion... effort != time... that's all there is to it... an hour of sweeping is almost zero effort... an hour of reviewing court documents is hard mental work and requires not only that hour of effort but years and years of hard effort just to get to the point where that hour even means anything....

"And what I described is the same. You invest time and get paid for it. You just don't get paid more for your time than anyone else."

Then what is my incentive to be the best? Harder problems and better working conditions? Screw that... I'd work off the books and barter my time rather than work in that system.... which is how our system evolved in the first place... your communist model would fail miserably as it always does...

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Omestes]

Sorry for taking so long to reply, weather happens.

I agree, the a comfortable wage, reguardless of effort, is a terrible idea. But I think there should be some attempt to better the wage for people struggling at poverty level, and below. This shouldn't be a free lunch, for just the reasons you state. There is a great disparity between classes (I really don't like that term, it has too many hardline Marxist conotations). I, unlike the typical slashbot, don't think that poverty is the poors fault, completely. Yes, there are lazy people, but a vast majority of the poor have been dealt a bad hand, or just don't know how to live in more mainstream society (think of poor rural areas, or inner city ghettos).

Some of the problems are the fault of corporate America, completely. It gets harder and harder to find a mid level job that offers above 39 hours/week (and thus benefits) or isn't long-term temp, which is coupled with the drug companies, and medical industry's (at least here in America) greed, which means that even a small bout of illness, or injury, can cripple a typical poor or lower middle class family.

We have lost any sense of commitment to society as a whole, we are more worried about ourselves. It seems we have forgotten completely that we are part of society, and benefit from it too.

Sorry for the tangent.

I'm not saying there should be some massive Marxist revolution, or such. We have seen how nonfunctional they are, the only results are a greater inequality, and loss of personal freedom. We need many smaller, and less drastic, fixes. For one (and for this I will be flamed) we need to bring back Unions and other workers rights organizations, and strive to keep them from emulating the Teamsters Union, which gave a bad name to all unions reguardless of their works. We need to find an incentive to make it good for corporations to pay a living wage (and by living wage, I mean in todays economy, and not the mid 80s). And, in the case of alienation, the mentally ill, and the other drivers of base poverty, we need to find some humane form of social service to care, or rehabilitate them, and we need an atmosphere where we feel it our responsibility to do so. Notice the term "free lunch" was never mentioned, though it might be necissary in those cases in which the poor and incapible of work. And hopefully in the middle of this process our society realizes the inherent worth of its artists and poets, and gives them what many would call a free lunch today in our under-to-non-appreciation of cultural pursuits.

So how do we do this? No idea. We just need more dialogue and action.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Foolhardy]

I agree that there are a lot of people that are poor due to momentum: they start poor and don't have the resources to escape. I'd like to see more investment in the people and communities in this situation, and I mean investment in the standard financial sense with research, input, and risk of profit or loss for the investors. I think that profit is necessary to motivate and keep the operation on track: the goal is to make the person or community more productive (raising their standard of living in the process). It would be in the government's interest to encourage it as well, but not direct control since government projects of this type are prone to corruption and inefficiency.

For one (and for this I will be flamed) we need to bring back Unions and other workers rights organizations [...]

With unions there is the risk that they will outlive their usefulness or suffer mission creep, becoming a leach on the company and its workers. Unions need to have a clear description of purpose and a mechanism to be dissolved/weakened if and when it is no longer needed. Really, the need for a union represents a failure of management to see into the long term.

It gets harder and harder to find a mid level job that offers above 39 hours/week (and thus benefits)

Personally, I think that insurance designed to cover regular medical expenses is a bit pointless, since you can't expect to get more money out of the insurance company than you put in (or else it'd go bankrupt). The only use I see for it is for hedging against the possibility of a catastrophic, expensive disease whose cost would outstrip your ability to pay (assuming it's actually covered). Otherwise, I'd rather have the money myself to put into savings for emergency use, avoiding the overhead of the insurance company. Then it's a problem of the job not providing enough hours, and paying a lower effective wage due to the lack of benefits; it becomes an issue of price discrimination.

The drug companies emphasis on marketing and long term cash drugs is certainly a failure of applied capitalism and the current model of corporate America. I'm at a loss to suggest any solution to this. The fact that the consumers of these products react so well to these tactics isn't helping, either.

Notice the term "free lunch" was never mentioned, though it might be necissary in those cases in which the poor and incapible of work.

How do we decide who is capable of what work? There is a risk of people saying that "I can't work (very efficiently) because I'm stupid." That attitude was pervasive when I was at high school, and the system often played into their hands. Since stupid meant less work, it became very popular. Pure capitalism in this case works nicely because it puts the one person who can really tell if someone is able to work in charge of doing the work.

As for the people who really can't and can never work or contribute anything of value, I don't think it's really in society's interests to help those people. Charities exist for that sort of thing, for people to contribute on a voluntary basis.

We have lost any sense of commitment to society as a whole, we are more worried about ourselves. It seems we have forgotten completely that we are part of society, and benefit from it too.

The thing is that the value of society as a whole, and of culture and those other long term things are hard to quantify. It's hard to work with something so indirect, so I think people are concentrating on what the see as more reliable investments. This usually means spending on ones self, since we know ourselves better than we know others.

I, too believe that we should look for more comprehensive solutions to complex problems, not simple quick fix ideologies. Still, modern society is more productive and has a higher standard of living across the board than any other time in history, and it's only getting better. There are still details to attend to, but I'm not worried about the direction as a whole.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Omestes]

I mean investment in the standard financial sense with research, input, and risk of profit or loss for the investors

I worry about this idea, of humanitarianism for the ends of personal gain. It risks exploitation, and the dehumanization of the people any action would be geared to help. What if there comes a point where it is not profitable (or even against the best interests) of the improving party, yet the poor community(s) are still sub-par? It seems it is in the best interests to only increase welfare to the point of production, and never to the point where the poor would be equal in eduction, or potential for earning. On some level I think there needs to be an egalitarian end for all improvement, that we elevate these people to the potential for our levels.

i don't think the time for unions ever end, in theory. Exploitation is a long term feature of capitalism, and unions are needed as a balance. I'm not endorsing socialism, I just realize that capitolism urges pure egotism, and the devaluation of labor to maximize profit. These trends need a foil to keep things fair for the worker. Granted unions can go terribly wrong (teamsters, for example), but they are needed. As to a check on the unions, no clue.

By incapable of work, I mean the disabled, both physically and mentally, and not the lazy or unintelligent. It is rather easy to tell with physical, at least (in most cases).

As for the people who really can't and can never work or contribute anything of value, I don't think it's really in society's interests to help those people. Charities exist for that sort of thing, for people to contribute on a voluntary basis.

I can't even understand this. I don't value the productivity of society above individuals, nor can I. Even the incapible have value as humans, even if they don't translate into money/product. I say this because they can suffer, think, and feel, and thus are of equal value to any other one of us. When we judge people by synthetic merit (production) we open the door for exploitation on a large scale. Are people such as Bill Gates (insert evil rich person of the week instead, if you want) better than anyone else? Human worth should never be judged by monitary worth, I know it is, but this is a problem with the system.

Not that any of my positions are fixed in stone, I'm open for viable solutions, as long as they perserve human dignity, and equality (in a deeper sense than mere monitary worth).

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Foolhardy]

What if there comes a point where it is not profitable (or even against the best interests) of the improving party, yet the poor community(s) are still sub-par? It seems it is in the best interests to only increase welfare to the point of production, and never to the point where the poor would be equal in eduction, or potential for earning.

It's possible that the risk could be too high to justify an investment financially, and in this case the government should probably subsidize the venture since it has more to gain from improvement. My investment suggestion is for people/communities who are so poor that they have little to no hope of ever getting out. Once they are making real money, it becomes possible for them to afford to help themselves, with better funding for local schools, college, and many other resources not previously available. The point is to break the vicious cycle.

Exploitation is a long term feature of capitalism, and unions are needed as a balance.

There exist many companies that have never had or needed unions because management understands that worker happiness and appreciation is necessary for long term success. It's only when management fails to understand this (possibly by being too short sighted) worsened when the labor market is severely oversupplied with people unwilling (or unable) to move to other jobs, workers are treated badly enough to unionize. Unions can't even fix the second problem when it is severe enough, because if there are enough unemployed workers management can always fire all union employees and hire the others. This happened with airline mechanics recently, IIRC.

Each person with basic means has some control over how they're treated at work by only working at places meet with that person's standards. If that person has few job options available, then that is the root problem. Poor treatment at those places is just a manifestation of the real problem; it's past time to find another field to work in, as people aren't owed the jobs they want.

I can't even understand this.

Animals can feel and suffer, but it's totally impractical to subsidize the comfort of all animal life. People who can still think, even with physical disability, would seem to still have value-- especially in this emerging information age.

The measurable productiveness of a person (ideally, but not always the same as income) definately says a lot towards the value of that person in my book. Almost everything in modern society depends (past and present) on productive people. Is there more? I guess it really depends on the individual, but productiveness is usually the easisest thing to measure.
I do think the Bill Gates is overvalued. It's hard to imagine someone being THAT productive... not that it's impossible, just that megafortunes always seem to be the result of many other things.

What I should have said is that it's not in the government's interest to subsidize the totally incapable. If you feel for them, fine: spend your own money in support. Just don't impose your values on me by having my tax money go to something that can never (by definition) benefit me. It's in my interest to improve people and communities, but we're talking about people beyond the real possibility of improvement.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Omestes]

Its nice to see disagreement, or at least misunderstanding disipate in this discussion, I agree (mostly) with your view of assistance, and I see your stance on unions, I think our difference in opinion comes from the fact your more optimisitic about the mechanisms of capitalism and corporate culture than I. Sadly dialogue is rare in politics, so you never even see this much progress.

As for the productivity metric, I don't think I'm capable of agreement. It seems too... Darwinistic. And this has a vast potential of abuse, what if the un-or-underproductive are deemed dead-weight, holding back productive society, would it then be acceptible to remove them? The comparison of people to animals, I find rather distasteful, and I think it has been a common declaration before any great atrocity.

And I think your view might change if you ever had one as a child, or sibling. Granted there are extremes in this, there is a program for the mentally ill (Downs, schizophrenia, etc) in my area, where thanks to government subsidies the owner can afford 30 antique cars, and a very large house in the posh area of town. This mismanagment scares me, obviously the system is flawed.

But, I think, it is the goverment jobs to care for, or at least try to ensure the wellbeing, of all memebers of society, no matter how fit they are in capitalism. I think there are times when the Government must buck individual's wills and do what is best for society as a whole, and for good or ill the un-to-underproductive are members of society. It would be good of private interests cared for them, but we undervaluate the powers of pure greed, especially in todays society where all we can think about is ourselves, and how much money we have.

Re:Devil's advocate objects:

[Foolhardy]

Sadly dialogue is rare in politics, so you never even see this much progress.

I, too, appreciate actually being able to explore a different viewpoint without having it degenerate into a flamefest. If it seems like it takes me a while to respond, it's because you've given me something to think about.

It'd be nice to have more depth in popular politics, but it seems like when politics are actually about an issue the stances are few in number and very simple: the kind of thing that fits nicely into soundbites.

And this has a vast potential of abuse, what if the un-or-underproductive are deemed dead-weight, holding back productive society, would it then be acceptible to remove them?

I wouldn't support the use of force to 'remove' people for the sake of some promise that it will increase productivity. The only reason I can think of for someone to advocate this is to prop up a system that is failing to be productive in the first place; true production doesn't need to steal anything in order to create.

And I think your view might change if you ever had one as a child, or sibling.

It might. Then again, it's possible that it would make me emotionally too close to the problem for rational judgement.

I guess we disagree as to what the responsibilities of government are. I'm all for government acting in the actual best interests of society (not to be confused with what they say are the best interests), but I find it hard to see how supporting permanently unproductive people actually helps society. I'd say it's government's place to provide an environment where people can ensure their own well being and happiness, rather than provide those things directly.

I am optimistic about the ideals of capitalism, when implemented correctly. Unfortunately, reality is not as simple as the bases of capitalism assume; those ideals are not met often. I'm all for looking for solutions to those problems, but I usually like to put things in terms of regaining the ideal. It seems closer to fixing the root of the problem, rather than treating the symptoms. I know that capitalism isn't the end all be all, and am always open to other options; other systems (such as socialism) have much of the same difficulty of implementation and potential for being useful.

Distilled Water requires ID

[Invisible Now]

Checked at the local supermarket. I think it's because it can be used to manufacture meth. I wanted it for the model fuel cell car bought at Fry's. Checkout computer threw up an exception. Had to show my Driver's license for water. Land of the Free! Glad I wasn't shopping in the dynamite aisle.... LOL!

Re:Distilled Water requires ID

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont they give you a free stick on TNT with every bottle of water purchased anymore?

you're whining about nothing

[jafac]

until they come for you

I'm pretty sure it is

[KDR_11k]

"I, for one, welcome our new surveillance overlords!"

Re:I'm pretty sure it is

[Anonymous Coward]

"I, for one, welcome our new surveillance overlords!"

When I have mod points, I search for posts that include

• "I, for one, welcome..."
• "Imgine a beowolf cluster of..."
• "In Soviet Russia"

and mod them down.

Re:I'm pretty sure it is

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you are a humourless fucktard who sucks even at being a troll.

You are also a piss-poor moderator.

Since I try to act in the "try to mod up rather than mod down" spirit of moderation as one is supposed to, I decided to tell you so rather than waste any of my mod points on you.

Welcome to Communist America!

[RickBauls]

The worst part of all this? Most people out there are willing to let it happen.

Re:Welcome to Communist America!

[GenKreton]

The worst part of all this? Most people out there are willing to let it happen.

The worst part is how poorly you seem to understand what communism really is. And no, spying has nothing to do with it.

Re:Welcome to Communist America!

[aersixb9]

People are only willing to let it happen because the media has been censored. Remember that there are very strict laws on what can and cannot be printed, said, distributed via the internet, or shown on television or in the movies. In particular, there are laws on liebel and slander that prohibit the saying or writing of untrue things. Since the truth is not always obvious, it is the liars that have pushed these laws and made the telling and writing of true things illegal.

If no person can say, write, televise, or otherwise distribute any information that is contrary to the information that the government distributes, then everybody will agree with the sole source of information. There is no information to the contrary, at least that is distributed to the masses. It is very easy to win a one sided arguement, especially when the source of all information is under strict, and violent control.

All of these spying tools, although probably in existance, are unnecessary. Each person in society must follow a very strict standard. That standard is waking up before the alarm, soloing, morning routine, school & work, lunch, more school & work, then store shopping and the evening routine, including a group meal and daily discussion (this is the only meal where meat is consumed, milk is consumed in the morning, and possibly at lunch), then the evening television watching begins, adults may have beer at this time, then the evening soloing, sleep, and again at 3am. This pattern repeats, until the weekend patter, upon which people are required to follow an equally rigid routine that varies due to bilologial differences in humans.

Deviation from this routine is trivial to detect, and since humans must have contact with other humans the social networks can easily detect a person becoming different or weird. These people are tortured and eliminated from society in a secretive and efficient way. You probably know people that have disappeared. Small deviations are met with physical pain, usually in the form of piercing and cutting.

When you ask a person if they agree that things should be the way they are now, they know they must agree. Since they have never seen any information outside of what is allowed, and since they have also seen what happens to deviants and people that are not satisfied with the way society is, they say that they are happy with the way things are. To do otherwise is to die. Luckily, we appear to be on the verge of changing the way things are, perhaps, replacing the old routine with a new routine that will cause people to meet all of their needs and wants, and to have extra posessions and true freedom, the ability to do what they want when they want to.

Re:Welcome to Communist America!

[RickBauls]

Hmm, true. Maybe I should have said Collectivist?

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I particularly enjoy how I can't shop for good deals on my doctor-recommended loratidine with decongestant that I take every day for my allergies. Apparently, if I purchase more than 15 pills of 240 mg pseudoephedrine each in one day I am obviously running a meth lab. "

Slashlogic strikes again. Just because you've run up against societies restrictions (of which ALL societies on down history have) doesn't mean anyones making an accusation.* What it DOES mean is that the program does work. And it works for the simple reason that meth is a man-made drug with a key component that's hard to make. A choke-point if you will. And even that was hard to get because of the drug industry until a link was established.

*How do you feel about seat-belt checks? Makes your blood boil that he's accusing you of being an unsafe driver?

Subject

[Legion303]

Along these lines, Wal-Mart wanted my driver's license before I could purchase cold medicine in a bottle, claiming it was a new federal law. The same store had the same brand with the same ingredients in the same quantities in caplet form, no ID required. A large chain grocery store 2 minutes away had both liquid and caplet form for sale, no ID required.

As someone else said, companies will only get away with this shit if we let them.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[zrobotics]

Alright, I posted a similar comment earlier in the discussion, but for Christ's sake, have you ever heard of a FUCKING METH LAB? Drug dealers will go from store to store, buying 10-20 bottles of over the counter medications at each store, along with other fun chemicals such as bleach, etc., take these goodies to their meth lab, and create a highly addictive, highly toxic illict drug. So, instead of using some common sense and a adequate working knowledge of current domestic affairs, you use demeaning stereotypes such as "Nanny-State bleeding hearts" to support your position. You, sir, are a demagogue (see definition posted earlier in the discussion).

Actually, low min wages move us backward

[Freedom451]

It is important that low wage jobs exist, or it would be difficult to get that first job that lets you start climbing the ladder.

People move up the ladder by getting an education, taking a min wage job rather than going to college is a great way to get stuck at the bottom rung.

Not only that, but low minimum wages move us backward as a society, when the smart thing to do would be to build machines to do the jobs that no human wants to do. The choice of keeping a more or less permanent underclass to perform these tasks keeps us from moving forward into a time when no one will actually need to do a job they don't want to do.

It is a really primitive idea to think that it makes sense to have human beings perform mindless tasks for a wages that barely cover subsistance.

Libertarianism is the opiate of the upper classes.

Re:Actually, low min wages move us backward

[ivan256]

People move up the ladder by getting an education, taking a min wage job rather than going to college is a great way to get stuck at the bottom rung.


Most of the experts disagree. That first job is just as important as the education. You need both. Almost everybody starts at minimum wage, and most people don't get stuck on the bottom rung.

Not only that, but low minimum wages move us backward as a society

Care to back that up with more than washington rhetoric? Please, site one non-lobbyist expert.

The choice of keeping a more or less permanent underclass to perform these tasks keeps us from moving forward into a time when no one will actually need to do a job they don't want to do.

Once again, you're missing the point. The minimum wage isn't a class issue. Most of the people earning minimum wage aren't the primary providers for their family.

a wages that barely cover subsistance

Not everybody needs to earn a living wage at the current point in their life. As long as that is true (it will always be true), the only thing you will accomplish by raising it is increasing unemployment, which makes the poor even poorer.

Libertarianism is the opiate of the upper classes.

Hah!

Ever notice how it's the guilty feeling people of the middle class that push for a minimum wage hike? The parent of this thread certainly did. That's how this conversation got started.

Re:Actually, low min wages move us backward

[plasmacutter]

Once again, you're missing the point. The minimum wage isn't a class issue. Most of the people earning minimum wage aren't the primary providers for their family.

this is supposed to be some apologists' excuse? people cant even provide for THEMSELVES at minimum wage. they have to take 2 or 3 jobs, and if theyre lucky theyll get a few hours sleep each night before continuing the cycle of eat, sleep, crap, work..

Re:Actually, low min wages move us backward

[MoneyT]

The point he's trying to get across to you is the vast majority of people who work minimum wage, are not in a position where they need to support themselves or anyone else. Seriously, try an experiment. Go on a job hunt, and count how many jobs actualy pay minimum wage. Then ask yourself how many of the people working those jobs have to support themselves?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Mistshadow2k4]

you'd just be playing leapfrog with inflation that constantly creeps up to drive the real income of a minimum wage worker back down to what their work is actually worth to the market.

You make it sound as if inflation wouldn't drive up the cost of living anyway. It will, but the businesses charging more will simply give another excuse that amounts to "the wind shifted to the west". And then where would the minimum wage worker would be without the raise? In even dipper trouble. I'm 35 years old and I've seen this over and over again. The cost of living is constantly going up without a similar increase in the wages of anyone except the very rich.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[Gideon Fubar]

This is something that has bugged me for a while.. when will they work out that getting pseudoephedrine out of cold & flu tablets is not cost effective? If over the counter medicines were the sole source of materials for making amphetamines, the street price of the stuff would be more than twice what it is now. Not to mention the fact that there are almost always much larger amounts of other compounds in any products that contain any Drugs of Dependancy (e.g paracetamol, which causes hepatotoxicity and death in doses quite close to the theraputic level), and that stripping these out is (i believe) a generally lengthy and difficult process.

No, i don't run a meth lab.. :P i just know some basic maths and maybe some chemistry. The people who actaully make large amounts of pseudoephedrine based drugs probably get their supplies from wholesalers. In raw form.

I don't really see any malicious intent in this.. someone probably just put 2 and 2 together and somehow got 44.

lots of places charge people to work

[r00t]

We call these places "schools".

When you are doing useless work and you require expensive supplies/facilities/management, your value is negative. So you get charged for working.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Arker]

And so what? Why is it any of their business what you choose to put in your body? Whether it's meth or tide with bleach or patté (banned in many places now, ISYN,) it's no ones business but your own. Forgetting that basic principle and accepting the nanny state and the endless 'wars' (the war on (some) poverty, the war on (some) drugs, the war on (some) terrorists) is what's gotten us into this mess.

So far as the original posters question, no, 1984 didn't come late. 1984 was simply 1948, with a bit of embellishment. Today is even worse than you think.

Bulk pack of .22 LR

[NotQuiteReal]

Yes, it was behind the counter, as I recall (about a year ago, but definately post-9/11)

I asked the clerk for a box (550 rounds, I think - the loose kind, not the boxes of 50). The clerk handed the box to me, and I said I had other shopping to do, so off I walked with it, rather than having him ring me up right there.

I live in Southern California. I think they ask you if it is for a rifle or a pistol. If you say "rifle" you have fewer follow-up questions.

I am sure I have purchased lighters before too -- although probably in bulk at Costco, so they do know who I am. I guess if anything catches on fire, I am an official suspect.

Re:Bulk pack of .22 LR

[alshithead]

Ahhh. Must have been .22's. Then I guess that doesn't surprise me too much. I think if it had been .45 or .357 it might have been a different story. Shotgun shells and .22's they don't seem to care as much about. Pistol and larger caliber rifle rounds seem to be more strict, in general. I remember having to let them take driver's license info for 30-06 rounds at a K-mart in Maryland 15 or so years ago. Not just show the license, they wrote particulars down in a log they had.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[livefrog]

My refrigerator ratted on me: I bought too many peaches -- (the pits have poison in them) My car told Homeland Security That I drove through all those decivilianized zones My credit card was found to have Exposed itself to unauthorized stores My cellphone text messaged blasphemies to the Pope My computer -- well, my computer I thought it was my friend But its firewall let the CIA, the NSA, the RIAA It let anyone with consecutive letters Ransack my random memories My cat, even my cat turned out To have implanted chips Can I turn to My germanium geraniums?

The Online Vigilantes.

[Chatmag]

"My ISP is being strong-armed into a two-year archive of each action I take online under the guise of catching pedophiles"

If you are a member of Perverted Justice, you are a vigilante , and have no standing as a law enforcement officer. Your records of posing may mean you are under investigation for a copy cat crime , after using the Dateline special as your guide.

If you get your kicks online by posing as an underage girl in the guise of "catching pedophiles", go right ahead, but don't claim your legal rights are somehow being violated.

Re:The Online Vigilantes.

[GiMP]

I'll assume you're kidding, but if you're really serious.... He meant that the ISP is monitoring under the guise of catching pedophiles, not that they are monitoring him because he was catching pedophiles.

I don't know if you've been following what is happening in the world, but your data is being carefully analyized by the NSA and logged by your ISP.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Arker]

And then where would the minimum wage worker would be without the raise?

Employed?

Seriously, there's a huge institutional imbalance between labour and capital, but papering over it with minimum wage laws and welfare systems does nothing to address the root problem. It just places more and more people in a position where their survival is dependent on politics. Good for the politicians, bad for everyone else.

Mod parent up.

[Animats]

Well, it went to 5, so we're done there.

The poster is right. Each time we find out more about one of these operations, it turns out to be dumb. As more info comes out about Guantanamo prisoners, it comes out that the US is holding bin Laden's driver, a guy who didn't make the cut for 9/11, and a bunch of random people who were turned in by bounty hunters in Afghanistan. The Bush Administration is fighting real trials for those prisoners because they'll lose most of them, and look even stupider.

Meanwhile, bin Laden is still free and active.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[Jeremy Erwin]

I was looking through Pfizer's site, and it looks like 240 mg is the 24 hour version.

Directions
adults and children 12 years of age and over: swallow one whole tablet with fluid every 24 hours
do not exceed one tablet in 24 hours
do not divide, crush, chew or dissolve the tablet
the tablet does not completely dissolve and may be seen in the stool (this is normal)
not for use in children under 12 years of age

But at the same time, I feel for you. I used to have crippling allergy attacks every spring quarter as a College student. I don't follow Ohio news any longer, but I don't see any reason why the government would not have succumbed to meth hysteria.

Remember World War II

[jaypaulw]

I don't. I wasn't born yet. But it seems like things were locked down a lot more than they are now.

I am not happy with the bush administration.

This is classic slashdot that I am addicted to; kind of like biting down on a sore tooth.

But I am not too worried that currently I am going to get arrested for thinking the wrong thing. And like many of you, I live in the Bay Area and I just haven't had anybody disappear around me.

If you want to worry about something worry about why Kevin Smith keeps getting to make movies - there's your conspiracy.

doesn't match the facts

[r00t]

Look at the surge of Computer Science degrees in the late 1990's, and then the collapse soon after.

If "people persue their calling", then... WTF???

Clearly people follow the money.

Re:doesn't match the facts

[miskatonic alumnus]

I didn't mean to imply that ALL people follow their calling. But, many musicians and artists (among others) follow their calling and do without higher wages.

Re:doesn't match the facts

[Cheetahfeathers]

I think the premise should read 'all things being equal, people will pursue their calling'. Not that I agree or disagree, just that I read the statement as. We don't have an equalization of wages, though, so we don't have a basis of comparison on the facts of this.

Re:doesn't match the facts

[chowda]

Being WILLING to work for less to do what you love is completely different than being FORCED or WANTING to be in that situation.

Re:doesn't match the facts

[Lars T.]

So the fact that people went where they thought the money was, and failed is proof that this is the way to go?

Re:doesn't match the facts

[jcr]

So the fact that people went where they thought the money was, and failed is proof that this is the way to go?

Well, yes. Their failure shows that jumping on a bandwagon may not always be a winning strategy.

-jcr

Re:doesn't match the facts

[Omestes]

Looks at philosophy degree...

walks out of room.

Here's a novel concept:

[Minstrel Boy]

They should draw the line where people start making meth. You know, committing a crime.

KeS

Re:Here's a novel concept:

[roman_mir]

I didn't know that making meth was automatically a crime in the US, is it? (I live in Canada, I need to look it up for our own situation.)

Why is it a crime to make meth?

Why is it a crime to sell meth?

Why is it a crime to take meth?

I thought the only crime here is that there are no taxes paid on the transaction.

Force Manhattan project on nano assemblers

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to FORCE the politico's to stop waging wars in the middle east (for example) and we really need a Manhattan style program to develop working nano assemblers so that we all can grow our own cars, computers, homes, computers, and also reverse the damn aging process (you know, fix the 5 or 6 things that Aubrey de Gray says that we need to fix to control/reverse aging).

after all, most people reading this are going into a future of old age decrepitude and poverty because of all the money that we have wasted on Vietnam, the two gulf wars and all the future wars in the next 2 decades. It does not need a rocket scientist to see that investing 10 or 100 billion in nanotech in the next 10 years instead of wasting it on some set of conflicts in the next 10 years makes more sense.

Remember, we are now into the nanotech realm and we will soon be making crude nanotech assemblers in the next 10 years...we could use them for really cool "dust-moat" flying dust motes that could spy on you, or new weapons, or we could do something like reverse aging, give people really cheap DNA cosmetic surgery, reverse aging, boost intelligence etc, or we could do the same old, same old crap show...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[FLEB]

And then where would the minimum wage worker would be without the raise?

Quitting. Unionizing.

Okay, I'll grant that the Wal-Mart steamroller gives a decent counterpoint, but I think that if the gap got too wide (and the gov't didn't spackle over it with public assistance), even that would break.

I'm guessing it's one of two things

[Sycraft-fu]

1) Register error. There are things like alcohol that will flag a stop and check for ID situation, and of course it's controlled from the central inventory software. It's not like the register is concious of what you order, it just checks to see if item #X has an ID flag set. If it is, it stops the sale and asks the clerk to check ID.

2) He's making shit up to try and be dramatic.

I mean peaches certianly aren't globally restricted. We just bought some the other day, no problems, as I imagine millions of people did. You would hear about it if they were sending flags up all over.

As for check ID items, it's up to the store how far they go. Like with alcohol I've had the entire range. Some simply dismiss the warning assuming fomr appearnace I'm over 21. Some check my ID each time. At grocery and convience stores they are usually more carefuly. Some check the ID and enter the birthdate in the register, some have you scan it in a little machine that checks. The most extreme case I saw was at a Frys which is near the university and a couple of high schools, thus lots of underage purchaes. They check your ID, record it, and make you sign the book they recorded it in.

Basically it's the levle of CYA they feel necessary to not get fined/shut down. Fact of the matter is, someone will fool them and buy underage. Well if a fuss is made of it, the liquor board investigates. They then have to prove they took steps to stop that from happening. The liquor board deicded based on that if they were really trying and it was an honest mistake, or if they are being delibratly lax.

thus the response depends on the store, it's not government mandidated, the government just says "You can't sell to minors and you are responsable for taking steps to make sure you don't." Up to you to determine the kind of steps and the proof you keep of them so you can defend yorself if need be.

But ya, I am not seeing any federal peach crackdown here. If that's the case, we'd probably hear about it on CNN.

Re:I'm guessing it's one of two things

[Monkelectric]

I am leaning towards #2, but I think I remember reading that peach / apriocot pits can be used to make air filters for gas masks. I *believe* that the government collected them during WWI or WWII as part of the war effort. Perhaps some war buff could confirm my recollection or tell me im an idiot? :)

No matter what peaches are used for, restrictions on them is rediculous.

Here in California there are severe restrictions on purchasing psuephedrine (sp?) (sudafed) because its a precursor to meth I think? My county used to be the meth capital of the country (I'm not sure if it is anymroe), but at one time we were making 80% of the countries meth. Here you have to *SIGN A REGISTRY* if you buy *any ammount*. Consequence: I just don't buy it anymore. Also I think you have to be over 21 to buy spray paint, the idea is to cut down on grafiti ... The law has had no effect on grafitti, but has stoped lots of kids from painting their bikes. The idea that gang members *OR* drug dealers will be deteured by these restrictions is laughable.

Lastly, my uncle bought (IIRC) a water desalinator for his boat and recieved a visit from the FBI asking about it. So yea, they're watching.

Re:I'm guessing it's one of two things

[crazy_monkey]

At my local convenience store I see the "Over 19?" prompt on the cash register when I get phone cards. When I asked about it, the clerk said it was because phone cards had been but under the Lottery deparment in the computer for some reason. Maybe the same situation for this story, but with a clueless clerk added?

Re:I'm guessing it's one of two things

[Sycraft-fu]

The pseudoephidrine ban is national and yes, it is one of the principal ingrediants in making meth. It's a real pain in the ass and, as I recommended to someone else, just have your doctor help you out. They can write you a perscription for pseudoephidrine which the pharmacy is then required to fill. It can be for more than the 30 pills that come in a normal pack.

I was annoyed to discover that, but more annoyed to discover that I react differently to it now and get really tired when I take it, and thus I can't use it.

Re:I'm guessing it's one of two things

[The Wicked Priest]

So, what's the issue with a desalinator?

Re:I'm guessing it's one of two things

[LunaticTippy]

Depending on the type, it could be used as a still. Moonshine is still made, believe it or not, and it is still a priority to crack down on stills.

A distillation rig might also be used for drug manufacture. Perhaps they check on any above a certain size.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because a legal object may potentially be used for illegal purposes is not a "VERY legitimate reason you must show ID...". What's next? Require customers show ID before buying kitchen knives and baseball bats? What about computer equipment? After all, the computer might be used to "steal" copyrighted material.

In several Central European countries I've visited, crack pipes are sold at the local news stands. In these countries, posession of a crack pipe is not illegal; using it to smoke crack is illegal.

Have a cold, go to jail...

[billybob_jcv]

When I have a cold or sinus infection, my favorite cocktail is Advil+Pseudoephedrine during the day. It helps dry me up, and doesn't make me drowsy. However, at night, I prefer to take a night-time remedy that doesn't have pseudoephedrine so that I can get some help sleeping. So, I tried to buy ONE box of Advil+Pseudoephedrine and ONE box of Advil+Benedryl at Long's. Nope! Couldn't do it. I had to buy one box at Long's, then stop at a grocery store on the way home and buy the other. The grocery store didn't even ask for my ID.

SOMEONE is getting rich from this - and it sure ain't me. I'm guessing it is whoever created & manages the "tracking" for the gov't, the lobbyists who got the law passed, and the lawmakers who got the handouts from the lobbyists.

To the boneheads who think this is "for our own protection": Has there been ANY hard data that the use of meth has declined since this law went into effect? :rolleyes:

All of our phones may already be tapped.

[Musashi Miyamoto]

If you calculate the current cost for hard drive space, (around $80-100 per 300 GB retail cost), you can calculate that it would cost only around $300 million to record EVERY phone conversation that occurs over the United States phone system during the year. (assuming 2300 billion minutes of phone calls recorded at 56kbps) Even though this is still a high amount, it would still not be prohibative for the government to accomplish, and this includes EVERY SINGLE PHONECALL, and doesnt include any cost reduction for buying in bulk, and doesnt consider offloading to tape.

Then, consider that in 2 years time, that cost will likely drop by half, and then by half again in another 2 years... If you figure that the government only records 1/4 of all the phone calls (they can exclude grandma Tillie), and then extrapolate the costs of hard drive space, in 10 years, it will only cost around $1 million (today's money!) to record all those calls. That is chump change.

Then, you might argue, it would take far too many man hours to monitor all these recordings to catch anything. The trick is that you dont HAVE to monitor them. You can just wait for someone or a friend of theirs to become a person of interest, and then you can review backward all of the phone conversations that they had. You can then spider out to all of their friend's conversations and so on.

The scary thing about this is that you can be monitored even before you realize that you are going to do something 'illegal'... Worse yet, things can become 'illegal' or make you a person of interest (suspect) at a later time (like making phone calls to a Muslim charity that later is considered a terrorist group)

Just know, that your (and everyone's) phone could easily be tapped already.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Don Negro]

DXM (short for dextromethorphan) is unscheduled. You can buy it by the pound from Merck.

The reason you have to show ID to buy a lot of cough and cold medicines these days is because it's easy to run a simple acid-base extraction on the pseudoephedrine contained therein, and with a little more chemical voodoo, produce methamphetamine.

Its a hybrid dystopia!

[Mantrid42]

Its not exactly 1984; at least not yet. Its also pretty much equally Brave New World.

From 1984, we have increased surveillance, general fear (of terrorism), an ongoing war with another power that we can barely even SEE (hidden terrorists), control of communications (NSA/AT&T fiasco, Patriot Act tracking what you pull out of libraries, et cetera), and while Big Brother doesn't have a face now, the idea behind him does; a great big concept that any opposition to is unthinkable (a combination of the moral code of the religious right, and the ideals-turned-buzzwords of "freedom", "patriotism", and "security".)

From Brave New World, we have a world obsessed with hedonism, so much that we feel entitle to it. We have a caste system, mainly that Americans are above immigrants, and that god-fearing men and women are above all. We don't have true freedom, because we are "protected" from bad things on all sides. People don't want to think for themselves, or be responsible for others. Look at all the legislation passed in the name of "protecting the children". To make it worse, we barely appreciate the comfort we live in. Many people are dissatisfied with having a roof over their head, clean hot and cold water, electricity, computers, an internect connection, whereas a fair portion of the world is lucky to have food on the table. We have become indoctrinated with the concept of constant entertainment. Look at how many people never go anywhere without an iPod. They are being entertained literally all day. We are surrounded by television, movies, music, games. All this entertainment draws our focus away from the real issues of our time.

The main difference between us and Brave New World, is that there were enclaves for the free thinkers in BNW. Sure, we exist now in our own little tribes, but we have no place to call our own, that is governed by our wishes.

Perhaps we will eventually take The Savage's way out.

You sound like Ted Kaczynski...

[Musashi Miyamoto]

Ted Kaczynski already predicted this... and he did exactly what you are describing... He moved to a remote boondock. (well, all except the part about suffering in relative silence).

If you've ever read the Unabomber's manifesto, you will see that he was talking about exactly this when condeming the downward spiral humanity is moving toward using technology.

I hate to reply to myself

[Jerry Smith]

but I forgot this link: http://www.scienceprog.com/radio-frequency-identif ication-rfid/#article. Sorry. Now, where's my coffee...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[supasam]

Thats right, DMX is gonna come to your house and beat your kids with baseball bats and call them names till they drink all the cough syrup in the house and get totally *wasted* man. Watch out for the DMX man!

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[Jeremy Erwin]

If you call red tape, delays, and bloated bureaucracies "working," sure. Seasonal allergies can be cripplingly severe.

Ghost in the shell style "information engineering"

[plasmacutter]

It's already taking place.

Anyone who takes any interest in 1984 should watch ghost in the shell, stand alone complex.

It is based on a now aging manga by masamune shirow, and I find it rather grim how prophetic the panoply was.

Dissenters need to stop calling Bush a moron

[ben there...]

Bush is not a moron. Bush does not live on a ranch. That is all an image.

Morons don't continuously expand their Presidential powers, while ignoring (breaking) hundreds of laws designed to limit their power. You haven't read this Boston Globe article:
Bush challenges hundreds of laws?

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

[...]

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

[...]

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation's sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ''signing statements" -- official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills -- sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

Bush knows exactly what he's doing. Calling him a moron is simply underestimating his gross disrespect for your freedoms and the Constitution, and is a distraction from his intent to give himself more and more power while taking away your rights.

Re:Dissenters need to stop calling Bush a moron

[dbIII]

Perhaps the earlier poster was talking about Rumsfeld instead?

Re:Dissenters need to stop calling Bush a moron

[jo42]

Heil Bush!

more succinctly

[m874t232]

Historically, your attitude has been expressed more succinctly by royalty as "There's a bread shortage? Let them eat cake".

Re:more succinctly

[friedmud]

I am no where close to royalty... and the social barriers that existed back during that time have been largely thrown down.

I am speaking as one of the working class... who doesn't appreciate my hard earned dollars flowing to those who don't earn it. This is hardly "letting them eat cake"... it's more like "quit taking my bread money!".

But whatever...

Friedmud

Re:more succinctly

[m874t232]

I am speaking as one of the working class...

Do you harvest peaches? Do you weld steel? Do you clean toilets?

If you're working in the software industry, media, anything like that, you're, by definition, not "working class".

This is hardly "letting them eat cake"... it's more like "quit taking my bread money!".

How in the world are the 30 million minimum wage recipients "taking your bread money"?

Re:more succinctly

[friedmud]

"If you're working in the software industry, media, anything like that, you're, by definition, not "working class"."

Definitions can differ... but I concede that most often "working class" is associated with manual labor... and seeing as how I haven't done any in a long time you are probably right in not allowing me to classify myself as "working class". But my point was that I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination... and put in my 40 hours for a salary like everyone else... and for now am living mostly paycheck to paycheck.

They are taking my bread money when they want things they didn't work for... and instead use the government to take my money from me and give it to them (maybe not directly...).

Friedmud

Re:more succinctly

[m874t232]

But my point was that I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination... and put in my 40 hours for a salary like everyone else...

Well, isn't it nice that you manage to make ends meet with just 40 hours/week. Minimum wage earners don't have that luxury, they often have to work two jobs.

The very fact that you're having the time to post to Slashdot or play video games and post to Transgaming shows that you're completely out of touch with social realities.

and for now am living mostly paycheck to paycheck.

Yeah, and chances are high that's your own fault.

They are taking my bread money when they want things they didn't work for... and instead use the government to take my money from me and give it to them (maybe not directly...).

You still haven't explained how minimum wage earners "want things they didn't work for" or how it's your money they're supposedly getting.

People are trying to make ends meet and working hard, and when the government tried to find a solution for helping them without raising taxes, you start whining about it. I think you're a jerk.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[supasam]

You're a moron. Have you ever seen someone try to buy 20 boxes sudafed at the store? Don't you think these guys know where they can just buy wholesale? Think about it for two seconds.

Spelling error pedantry in tagline

[tabrisnet]

Prescient, not precient

From answers.com

prescient

adjective

Characterized by foresight: farsighted, foresighted, visionary. See foresight.

Not your grandfather's 1984.

[WillyPete]

The key difference is the availabiliy of the surveillance technology.

First world populations at least have the capacity to watch them (insert favorite boogeyman) as much as they watch us. Even communication satellites are within the means of private organizations. The panopticon is your friend.

A true atrocity (such as forced labor, police apathy, or killings of civilians by government agencies) are much more difficult to manage when there are cameras and microphones everywere. Lest that sound paranoid, realize that that sort of activity is common in in much of the world.

The government's inability to suppress information exchange is key to keeping them as honest at possible

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[Lord Kano]

Someone should be fired.

Bullets should never be stored in a place where just anyone can pick them up and walk around with them.

LK

Be paranoid? wats the use?

[in2mind]

"What's a guy that doesn't even consider himself paranoid to think of the current state of affairs?"

Whats the use of being Paranoid? Makes sense if you are able to do something about it.Otherwise, its better to actually ignore it all off &live in peace as though nothing happened - yes thats bad,but its better than whining to ourselves the state of affairs about which we are not able to do anything !!

Wrong dystopia

[ThousandStars]

The world is becoming more like Brave New World than 1984. Most people are either on drugs or act like they might as well be; high culture fades into oblivion; and the silent masses mewl in approval at the behest of leaders who they don't understand.

FAKE - Girlfriend is proof

[Anonymous Coward]

This is fabricated, this guy obviously doesn't have a girlfriend. The rest may be true though...

How about a corporate revolution

[Not From Concentrate]

Most of that stuff in the post didn't even have anything to do with state or federal govenrment. It was mostly corporate and people giving their privacy away under their own accord.

Then how about a corporate revolution? If you think about it in a broad sense, the American Revolution happened in part due to monetary-based reasons (think about the whole "No taxation without representation" thing you were so fervently taught in grade school). Though that saying isn't exactly a correct observation of the feelings at the time, it does relate back to money.

But why couldn't something along the lines of a corporate revolution happen? Especially if the national debt continues to climb, interest rates continue to increase, gas prices continue to rise, etc. (People actually pay attention to things that actually affect them.) If another depression were to happen, do you think people could start to realise that there was something wrong with the ways the corporations were acting? If another depression were to happen, especially a large one, I highly doubt companies would go back to the way things are now (at least not directly, much as the American government has changed since the Am. Revolution). But then again, I'm an optomist.

Re:How about a corporate revolution

[ivan256]

But why couldn't something along the lines of a corporate revolution happen?

Right now, or in the forseeable future? Easy. Because the corporations enable our lifestyles. Nobody wants to give up quality of life, and the corporations are giving far more than they are taking away in that department right now.

If another depression were to happen, do you think people could start to realise that there was something wrong with the ways
the corporations were acting?

That's a *huge* if. We're not even close to that. Even the worst of the doom and gloom talking heads aren't predicting that, and if it were to come it would likely be due to non-corporate events. Also, for the most part there isn't anything wrong with the way most corporations act. It's just that the bad ones give the rest a bad name.

Fuck You, Dickhead

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuff said.

yes

[Anonymous Coward]

it has.

Five crucial issues to focus on...

[taiwanjohn]

Yes, by all means, get politically aware. Something we who live in "free" and "democratic" societies often seem to forget is that freedom comes with responsibility. That responsibility is not just to exercise our freedoms in a "responsible" manner, it also includes active participation in the workings of government. Voting is just the most obvious "responsibility" we have in this regard. Far more important is the habitual awareness and involvement with current events and politics... Not only will your vote be more "informed," you'll also be better equipped to influence the "debate" at the dinner table, the pub, the church, etc..

Here are the five most fundamental and important changes, which I think provide the best leverage to make American democracy work better:

1. End "personhood" for corporations.
http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtm l

2. End the War On Drugs.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/

3. Open the televised debates to 3rd party candidates.
http://debatethis.org/

4. Ensure transparent ballot counting and elections.
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/

5. Require proportional delegation in the Electoral College (ie: no more winner-takes-all)
http://www.fairvote.org/e_college/reform.htm#propo rtional

These issues are not in the news much, but they have a common-sense appeal to most people, regardless of their political orientation. These are "systemic" issues, with the potential to have broad effects throughout the society. There are many other things I'd wish for as well, but these five are a good starting point, for beating back the encroachment of Big-Brother government.

--jrd

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

In Delaware, they've spent a lot of time and money getting products containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine out of the hands of teenagers who might use them to make methamphetamine.
* Most meth doesn't come from these sources.
* These sources are hard to use if they have a lot of other ingredients (like dayquil does)
* It's much easier to make things like methcathinone than methamphetamine, and methcathinone doesn't have a big market.
* Methamphetamine production requires a lot of other reagents and laboratory equipment, and these are already on DEA watchlists...
* Only an idiot would attempt to run a meth lab by grinding up Sudafed. It's way too expensive. It's better to just order a bunch of ephedrine from a chemical supply co.
They're trying to "stop a problem before it starts" or something.
* The last time a "source chemical" was regulated, meth lab chemists found an alternate, cheaper, easier-to-obtain source which produced much stronger product (I believe it was levorotatory versus dextrorotatory, and had much more recreational potential)---the DEA's actions backfired (*coughcoughPROHIBITIONNEVERWORKEDcoughcough*) before, why won't they backfire now? (Actually, it's a collection of state governors that are doing this, not the DEA, afaik.)

We don't have a needle exchange program here, despite having tons of HIV+ needle users and a huge heroin market (and a significant number of people who shoot coke). That *IS* a problem that is right in our faces and nothing seems to be happening. Of course, when it's a bunch of low-income, inner-city folk from run-down areas that are at stake, versus potential problems for "our children, our future", maybe one group gets precedence.

Scared

[Anonymous Coward]

This really scares me, just plain out scares me.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Captain Splendid]

You forgot the part where, after finishing making the meth, they load some up, drive to your house, and then hold you down and force you to take some!

Serious question: How do you make it through an average day?

Perpetual war

[zoeblade]

The government basically has to create a state of perpetual fear, stir up hatred of the enemy, torture people, have an ongoing war, control information, and basically convince you to willingly see things that are false.

In terms of the American government making their whole country's citizens paranoid that even their neighbours could be some kind of enemy against their ideology, wasn't this achieved in the fifties using the buzzword "communist" a long time before it was done using the buzzword "terrorist?"

Re:Perpetual war

[nathanicus]

True, but the Soviet Union
(a) existed
(b) was defeatible

Terrorism
(a) is neither

Re:Perpetual war

[Anonymous Coward]

And, this makes it ok?

Thanks, nothing solves a problem better than snarky answers.

Re:Perpetual war

[coolGuyZak]

wasn't this achieved in the fifties using the buzzword "communist" a long time before it was done using the buzzword "terrorist?"

Yes, but communism was just a red herring. The terrorist herrings--bastards that they are--blend in much better with their flesh-tone pallete.

I suggst a new tag

[Don_dumb]

Cliché?

Seriously, I finally read 1984 about three years ago, and was deeply disturbed about the way so much of the novel reflected, what I was seeing around me.
But it must be pointed out that this could be a very clever understanding of the world, as opposed to an amazing clairvoyance. The bbc series, the power of nightmares http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm (episode 1 synopsis, the others are linked in) outlined that during the cold war, western governments used 'the enemy' as a way of keeping us scared and patriotic.
After the cold war finished, Prime Ministers and Presidents look far more like managers and 9/11 has given them the oportunity to create a new enemy 'all around us' with sleeper cells and bond villian mountain bunkers. They have used this to create another blind patriotism, think "if you are not with us you are against us", so if you critisize the PATRIOT act then you must be a terrorist.
One of the points raised is that hardliners (Neo-Cons for the US) have taken advantage to take power. No one with extreme views would seem appealing if everything was 'alright', AFAIK extremists generally take power when things seem difficult.

I conclude that Orwell may have just understood that the powerful have always tried to do these things, only more recently have they had the ability to do them so effectively. Only the technology has changed since the McCarthy days http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism, the witchhunts are certainly still here.

Hasn't even touched the surface

[A*OnYourA**]

The scary thing is this guy is just a casual observer. If you step outside the mainstream media and dig deeper you will find things that sound like fiction, but the government is actually doing.

1 in 5 scientists at the FDA say that "I have been asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or my conclusions in an FDA scientific document" - UCS

Members of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) have been intimidated. Only recently have we needed an organization to protect whistleblowers, the intimidation against them to not go public is unprecedented.

I forgot if elections in 1984 were similar.

It is going to get a lot worse

[viking2000]

First, the government is going to process the data to get a good profile of you.

Secondly they are going to use it extensively in all interaction with you.

Norway does this today and a lot more. They have a benevolent(?) government, and people live and eat well, so nobody complains much.

Here are some examples of Noway today:
1. The tax office does your full tax return for you since they have all your info anyway. You are sent a copy to confirm that all is correct, and it usually is.
2. Everyone has a personal number assigned at birth. The registry is part of the tax office. To get many benefits like free healthcare, and by law, you must report your address.
3. All public services have full access to your information. This simplifies qualifying for various programs as there is nothing to fill out.
4. Many services are only payable electronically, so a searchable database is easy to build.
5. Tollstations are fully automatic and prolific. Your movements are logged. If you drive through without an electronic tag, a camera snaps, and you are mailed a request for electronic payment. How do the find you?
6. Electronic photoboxes are installed throuout the country to catch speeders.
7. Government controlled free(subsidized) -health care, -education, -childcare makes sure they know everything, as your they are closely involved in all of your familys life.
8. Most norwegians are forced members of a union. The unions political arm, the labour party controls the government as well. The unions often offer benefits such as vacation homes. The government owns the majority of shares in the largest companies. (So i guess the union are on both sides of the table in negotiations) The government also have majority control of other big businesses such as banks.

So your job, your vacation, your representative at the salary negotiation table, your bank, your university, your retirement saving, your doctor, the daycare etc are fully controlled by the government.

Re:It is going to get a lot worse

[tomjen]

So it is pretty much in Denmark too - but dont the goverment know you address in the US too?

And it is not like all the addresses are the correct ones anyway - some may claim to live in another place so they can recieve benefits.

As for the automatic photoboxes - well if they only take a picture when a crime is commited (ie speeding) - well then they are less instrusive than the cameras in, say, London.

As for goverment controlled health care - does it matter if the goverment or you doctor has the files? As long as it is not public, and no one has been punished for beeing ill, what is the problem?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[dynamo]

Part of that could be that pipes are multi-use. I know there are favorite styles per drug, for functional reasons, but technically, you can smoke anything with any pipe. Only once you put crack into it does it become a crack pipe.

On the other hand, that was largely your point.

They know when you're quitting smoking

[fuckface]

I'm trying to quit smoking but the local Long's Drugs won't sell me Nicorette without swiping the mag strip on my license into their computer. I stopped shopping there. I feel awful that I let them do it the first time. I _assumed_ she was just going to look more closely at my license and didn't have time to react when she swiped it.

Re:They know when you're quitting smoking

[Anonymous Coward]

They swiped my ID when I got carded buying beer. I was 38 years old.

  I don't shop at Long's Drugs anymore, either.

Re:They know when you're quitting smoking

[Fantastic Lad]

I hate to give you a more complex puzzle here, but. . .

Interesting Question #1: Can you tell me which government introduced the world's first anti-smoking propaganda campaign?

A: The Nazi Party.

Interesting Question #2. . . With the number of smokers decreasing in the West, why is it that the number of cases of lung cancer is higher than ever before? (That figure includes people who have never smoked.)

Interesting Question #3. . . Which are the only two drugs which actively increase an individual's level of alertness and perception without compromising judgment?

A: Caffeine and Nicotine.

Interesting Question #4. . . Of all the tobacco growers in the world, which country most ardently refuses to use genetically modified tobacco plants, chemical fertilizers, additives, (toxic or otherwise), in their smoking products, --and which also has a life-long trade embargo imposed upon it by the U.S.?

A: Cuba.

Tobacco is used in Indian ceremonies to open aspects of the brain to levels of spiritual awareness which result in access to knowledge and energetic awareness. These are things which are in direct conflict with the "Go Back To Sleep, Citizen" mentality encouraged by the Government.

Interesting Question #4. . . How many, (often truly toxic), additives are the corporate cigarette manufacturers allowed to put into their products which have been shown to make people sick?

A: 464.

Consider: Virtually EVERY message sent to us by the government is a lie or manipulation designed to keep us in shackles. Why on earth would a multi-billion dollar push to stop us from smoking be any different? Indeed, the level of force with which the push has been implemented should be an indicator of the fear the Government holds for the simple power of the Tobacco leaf.

It is considered by some, myself included, that smoke from clean, un-adultered Tobacco leaf is NOT harmful. I know a couple of guys in their 80's who grow their own tobacco for personal use, make their own pipe tobacco and cigars. They are very fit for men in their 80's. There are many stories of such people. The psychology programmed into us through the media which has us associating burning things with cancer is very effective. I consider the result to be a type of nasty-placebo effect. Some smoke isn't good for you; it depends on the content. Marijuana smoke feels raw and makes one cough. It IS toxic. Tobacco smoke is smooth and doesn't make you cough. The body knows.

Human lungs are designed to intake air and everything in the air; this includes tonnes of particles which are not just oxygen and inert gases. Human lungs are well equipped to handle a reasonable amount of smoke.

After thirty-some years of not smoking, based on everything I'd read, I wanted to give it a try and have found the results quite amazing.

I recommend you stop trying to quit. --Your body and soul knows what it needs. Getting cravings weeks after quitting has nothing to do with chemical addiction; it doesn't take that long for the nicotine and resultant chemicals to leave your system. Cravings which occur weeks and months after quitting suggests that your body is trying to re-balance and seek a substance it feels is required for a desired level of functionality. If your system is clean of nicotine and still craves tobacco, perhaps it is a good idea to listen to your body. Tobacco is not crack. Crack doesn't improve memory. Crack users don't get Alzheimer's less frequently than non-crack users. The same cannot be said of tobacco, which actually does seem to prevent Alzheimer's disease and various other degenerative brain illnesses.

I know this is all completely broken-sounding thinking which runs counter to the state message, but instead of seeking nicorette gum, I would recommend you seek clean Cuban leaf or some of Natural American Spirit's organically grown leaf. Or grow your own in clean earth with no chemical fertilizers.

I hope that helps.

-FL

Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, there's something wrong with $5.15/h - it's a minimum wage and, like all state meddling in the market, it cocks up SO much more than the ignorant claim it fixes.

Not that you should have to

[Sycraft-fu]

But just get your doctor to write you a perscription for it. They can perscribe a larger supply and the pharmacy will fill it. Not saying that the pseudoephidrine ban isn't stupid, but just get your doctor to perscribe it and you are done.

Dear, you misspelled "fascist".

[fabu10u$]

'Nuff said.

Revolutions kill a lot of people

[dbIII]

Maybe there will be another American revolution some day to try and put back into place a government whose altruistic ideals can be effected indefinitely.

Revolutions are horrible and have to be done for very good reasons, and even then can have horrible results. Look at Iran - initially it was an almost bloodless revolution to remove a monstorous tyrant that had replaced a democratic government. Then a lot of people started getting arrested. Then a lot of people who were arrested were tried and executed for fairly minor crimes. Then odd punishments abandoned like stoning people to death were implemented. People who made up any sort of opposition to the state ideology were executed, which alienated all former allies. Then the sort of atrocities that had occured in the police cells under the previous regime started happening again. International opinion shifted so much with the revolution that they took the blame for Saddam invading them, for an Iraqi jet attacking US ships, and for the US shooting down one of their airliners - and now Isreal is blaming them for a local war on their northern border a very long way away beacuse the guys actually firing the rockets are not a national force.

Revolutions are very serious things and even if done for the best of reasons can have horrible results. Consider the US attitude to the French over their history - paticularly in the years after the French revolution.

to borrow a meme "Orly?"

[plasmacutter]

many of the examples you gave are about corporations trying to peg exactly who you are to market to you

ok.. i'll give you some more examples

yeah.. corporations are not out to enslave us.. we just don't own anything we buy anymore.. oh wait.. only serfs and slaves dont own property. Guess who is complicit with them... certainly not the general populace from these stories, just a wealthy and influential few.

Then there is the engineering of information and "farming" of public opinion

so really.. its not too far from dystopia as one might think.

*You* are the problem

[0Seeker0]

What scares me far more than all of this gov't intrusion and monitoring of simple, everyday activites is the willingness of people to justify the intrusions. Go back and read all these comments. Even the Slashdot crowd, which is most likely smarter than your average random population sample, will denigrate the poster as a "demagogue", and come up with every justification for the intrusions (keeping cough syrup from kids or cold pills from drug dealers, catching terrorists, etc.) even if his point remains valid. Even they are willing to justify these ever-growing intrusions in the name of security.

What possible chance does personal liberty and privacy stand if the citizenry doesn't give a shit? We don't even need the gov't to force us -- our "patriotic" citizens are all too willing to play along. No one intends to willingly give up all their freedoms. They just remain complacent and ignore it long enough for the intrusions keep escalating until legitimate dissent is no longer possible.

When history looks back, I wonder how we will be judged. Will historians shake their heads and cry at how we so willingly lost the very freedom that once made our country unique? Or will gov't intrusion have gotten so bad that questioning any gov't policies, even past ones, will deem the citizen "unpatriotic" and a "threat to his country"?

What do you think?

//Seeker


"Naturally the common people don't want war...That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Herman Goering
Nazi Reichsmarshall and Chief of the Luftwaffe
Germany, Third Reich
During his trial at Nuremburg, before he was hanged.

I always thought that Fahrenheit 451...

[jtgreg]

...was more prescient than 1984. The "seashell radios" that fit in your ears, the video walls, and bringing the entire town into a manhunt by showing it live on TV via helicopter.

Re:I always thought that Fahrenheit 451...

[arwez]

The original book on this subject was not George Orwell's "1984" (1948) or Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (1932), neither was it Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451"(1953). I can only recommend reading Yevgeni Zamyatin's "We" (1924), which was published decades before the other books.

• Yevgeni Zamyatin: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0952632/bio
• Aldous Huxley: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0404717/
• George Orwell: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000567/
• Ray Bradbury: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001969/

money

[mosb1000]

Why is it that the very same liberals who claim that there's more to life then just money always turn around and claim that you need lots of money to "partake of what life has to offer"? I've got news for you, being a janitor is a low stress job (I know, I've been one) and as a janitor, one has time to experience the finer things in life, like social outings, and camping, and just lazing around. Being a manager (as I am now) is a high stress job. I spend too much time worrying about my figures, and how well business is going to really relax and enjoy life. It has also put more stress on my relationships, I have half as many friends, and it seems like my SO and I are always fighting. On top of that, I have student loans I need to pay off.

So the janitor can not enjoy some of the nice things I will be able to (someday, hopefully), like a new house, or a new car, but he can enjoy some things I can't. It makes me sick to my stomach when people talk about the plight of the "disadvantaged", as if it's really hard to sit around and collect a welfare check. You know what, those people don't do anything for me, and I don't owe them anything.

As far as social programs go, I'm all for feeding and educating every last child, but that's where it ends. I don't want to see any poor people leaching off the system to make a quick buck. Schools should provide 100% of children's health care needs, as well as meals, and a place to stay (if their parents can't provide one), but they shouldn't give a dime to their parents.

News Flash!!!

[Travoltus]

Your sister is ALREADY in danger of becoming no better off than the Janitor.

Because of OFFSHORING.

no.. its not what happened to "liberals"

[plasmacutter]

what happened to "liberals" was they were systematically undermined through misinformation and outright lies spewed by fox news.

read al frankins books for more details.

Re:no.. its not what happened to "liberals"

[FishWithAHammer]

You just shot yourself in the foot. Franken is a joke.

Mod this troll or flamebait if your biases compel it--but do mod the parent as well on similar grounds.

Re:no.. its not what happened to "liberals"

[MoneyT]

In other words, the liberal air fesheners in the bullshit tanks stopped working. Politicians are full of shit, what's happening now is the liberals have fucked the public's ass raw, and the conservatives are promising to use lube with aloe vera

Re:no.. its not what happened to "liberals"

[plasmacutter]

if only he was a joke. Rather than preach fire and brimstone bile fed to them by the rightwing spin machines like oreilley and hannity, he actually cites facts and uses reason. The fact that its funny just shows the right wing nutbags he rips on provide good material.. that being their talking points.. any of them.

As someone actually educated in economics, the supply side BS is particularly hilarious, or it would be if they werent getting away with it and ripping off the poor.

we are the problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The politicians and corporations didnt write the software to do all thoses things - we did

We built the guns, the bombs, the gas chambers, the drugs. We have only our selves to blame. It should be easy for every one here to see how this all works. To bad most of us here dont want to accept it.

We are being used by lesser people, by people that cant see the logical result of their actions, let alone past them.

Why do submit to this slavery. This is our world. We do not submit to the inferior. Why do we limit our selves to their abilities? When did we forget that life is a struggelthat must be fought? When did we require laws and regulations to dictate all aspects of our lives?

I know stealing is wrong, not because the law tells me, but because I can feel it. The problem is the people that lack this. What these people have in place of morality is something we must not deny- they are, for lack of a better word, evil.

They are the enemy and they must not be in control any longer.

We all know whats possible with technology. We all know that it is a tool that lacks the ability to understand good or evil.

We understand it- they dont. That is scary. Thats why we must take back what is rightfully ours while we still have the chance.

Lock them out, shut them down, reboot. reformat. clean install. They wouldnt hesitate to to it to us.

The pace of technology today demands competent leadership. We are coming up on two important elections cycles. A message must be sent.

How many of these people would you tolorate working with (or for) if they were on your project? It is clear that they do not want to solve real problems, it is clear that they dont understand the problems they attempt to solve. They do not deserve to serve us let alone rule us. These people should be working for minimum wage, yet intstead they are allowed to piss away trillions of dollars in tax money year after year.

It has to start somewhere. It has to start sometime. What better place than here. What better time than now.

We know this isnt complicated - build some roads, build some hospitals, build an army to protect us from real dangers, provide a framework that facilitates growth. Thats it.

Any thing else is not the function of government. All our problems come from shortsighted regulators and corporate leaders. If you cant understand why dumping a billion gallons of toxic chemicals into you're water supply is bad, then you are not a leader (the whole lack of vision thing is a key give away here). If you cant understand why creating laws that force the strong to be be weak and make the weak to feel powerfull is bad you have no right to rule me. If you think that we're all equal, you're wrong - we're not supposed to be. Stop ceating laws that force us to be something we wern't desinged to be.

Re:we are the problem

[tomjen]

I mostly agree with you - but who the fuck cares if they waste billions/trillions/pentallions to build a bridge to nowhere - the thing I care about is their abuse of power to do evil things.

As for the stealing is wrong because you morals tell you so and not the law - I salute you for many people (not all of them politicians cannot fantom doing something not because it is easy but because it is the right thing.

how bad?

[Anonymous Coward]

i have said it before .. but at the risk of being redundant .. as are most of us .. to those of the ruling class ..

in my opinion .. if you want to know how bad it can/will get .. you only need to look at two issues ..

first one ..

the willingness of the masses to be obedient to authority figures .. study the work of Stanley Milgram .. the CIA has ..

http://www.stanleymilgram.com/

second one ..

Ecological Footprint ..

though the number varies .. the middle ground being 3 to 6 .. the number of planets required to provide an "average" american life style to the present worlds population ..

which to those of the current ruling class would suggest .. that 3 to 5 out of every 6 people .. eating our food .. drinking our water .. and breathing our air .. will need to be eliminated by some means .. and if a profit can be made doing it .. so much the better .. global warfare is a good start .. and with all the modern technical and biological knowledge the options are almost limitless ..

and if you don't think it a valid issue ..

up until now about 6 percent of the worlds population has managed to consume about 30 percent of the renewable resources and produces nearly 50 percent of the inorganic garbage ..

india and china are just starting to chase the american dream in earnest ..

and the reason it will happen .. simple ..

because it is too depressing and too difficult for a mass population conditioned to trust and let other people make decisions for them .. to be willing or able to do anything about it .. especially when the average person's source of information and knowledge .. is the corporate owned and controlled media .. and state controlled public education ..

throw in generational amnesia .. and it's a done deal ..

and another revolution (rotation) will not change a thing .. as what is require is a paradigm shift .. something the current state of mass consciousness is not likely to be able to embrace .. do to it's programed narrow mindedness .. left vs. right .. liberal vs. conservative ..

If you want Prwellian, investigate N Korea

[toccoa]

The news reports said there is a device in the house that tells people when to get up, when to go to bed and praises the leader. And they will cut power to an apartment complex so police can see what video tapes are trapped in the VCR. I think that is a lot closer to 1994 than these annoyances.

Re:If you want Prwellian, investigate N Korea

[rock_climbing_guy]

Which report? Link, please? Did you mean one of the stories referenced by the summary?

They won - but both got shot in the end

[Anonymous Coward]

Although both Gandhi and King were open and may have "won" it is worth remembering that both ended up getting shot.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[KDR_11k]

Also smoking a bullet makes you look like a real dork.

Information overload

[pandrijeczko]

According to statistics that I recently read, in the UK each and every citizen can expect to be captured on camera up to 300 times a day - probably an over-estimated figure but do I really care? No.

I'm an honest, law-abiding citizen, I've never been in trouble with the police and have no criminal record, exactly the same as 99% of other people captured on those same cameras. I therefore very much doubt that law enforcement is interested in me - until I break the law.

Then just imagine the huge amount of video data those cameras create and then realise just how much human resource would be required to analyse that amount of data - impossible. Sure, it can all be archived for a week or two but then comes the question of storing all that data...

However, I do accept that personal information and keeping one's identity as secret as possible is of the utmost importance because all this information is so valuable to insiduous corporations that want to crowbar more money from each and every one of us. This is where the real issue is because 99% of the sheeple in this world are not prepared to take responsibility for their own lives and their own information and are too weak-minded to make informed decisions, falling instead for endless media and advertising hype. In a capitalist society of intelligent, well-informed citizens, such phrases as "brand loyalty" would not exist.

If anything, Western governments are losing influence over the general populace because of the power of the corporations - in the UK, it's frightening to see the amount and effects of outsourcing work to private corporations that are only there to make a profit. A classic example is hospital cleanliness - twenty years ago, when cleaners were employed by the National Health Service itself, there was no doubt a lot of inefficiency and waste but, today, now that the specialised job of hospital cleaning has been farmed out to private corporations, bugs like MRSA are rife in hospital to the point where possibly hundreds of patients a year are dying because of it.

Yes, today we live in a "nanny state" but that is for two very specific reasons - firstly, the general populace is far too fat, dumb and happy to take responsibility for themselves and would rather pay someone else to do it and, secondly, the corporations are eager to accept that money, do very little for it and put it into the hands of a few very rich individuals.

Think about it... no government truly wants an overweight, smoking, unemployed populace because that means having to raise taxes for additional health service resource and benefits, taxes makes them unpopular which means politicians lose their fat salaries and benefits when they lose elections. But people choose to smoke and eat too much crap, the tobacco and junk food companies are raking in the money as a result and because people choose not to take responsibility for themselves, the government steps in with stupid and restrictive legislation to try and cut down on the huge amount of expenditure it has to make in these areas.

This whole idea that law-abiding citizens are being constantly watched by the government is ludicrous - in reality, government just wants everyone to pay their taxes, have lots of sex (so as to create more tax payers in the future) and just be happy and contented (so that no-one goes out committing any crime). Unfortunately, it's the corporate vultures who sit there watching, just waiting for any opportunity to make more money from us - and them not making that money is down to each one of us not giving it to them so easily...

Re:Information overload

[illuminatedwax]

First of all, there are lots of things I disagree with (brand loyalty would most certainly exist), but most of it is beside the point.

The governments WOULD like to have access to your personal life. Not to find you when you did something wrong, but to be able to pull up information about every facet of your life at the push of a button. Taken to its most extreme, when you are on camera 24/7, this makes law enforcement and government much eaiser:

- If you are suspected of intent to commit a big crime, they can easily find out all about you
- If you commited a crime, they have the evidence right away
- If you are a political enemy, they have easy dirt on you ...and I'm sure people more clever than me can think of other ways the system can be (ab)used.

You see, what makes us free is the freedom to break the law. How many laws have you broken in the last year alone? What if they had a system that could immediately identify the correct person who commited any crime within 24 hours after it was committed and sentence them for it? How much debt and prison time would you have? If such a system were in place, I think that society would become little more than a prison. The price we pay for our freedom is freedom - justice is very much relative, and the system we have now allows people room to live.

Re:Information overload

[drooling-dog]

You still make the error of assuming that "the government" is a monolithic entity that has only your best interests at heart, and that therefore you won't be messed with unless you break the law.

In fact, there are many people inside and outside of government that have access to your collected data. Some of them are the diligent and dedicated people you want to believe they all are, and some aren't. There are people who might like to screw you over for any number of reasons, be they personal, political, or commercial. This isn't merely hypothetical; the Nixon administration routinely made use of intelligence agencies to harrass and sabotage its political enemies.

You may feel you have "nothing to hide", but what if you owned a business and found that one of your competitors or major customers had an "in" with the powers that be, and might be privy to everything there was to know about your company and employees, as well as all of your internal communications? That would be a little more than an average day at the office, don't you think? Clearly, the business community hasn't managed to think this through quite yet.

Terrorism

[Ullteppe]

Pretty incredible what people will put up with because of a "threat to society". How many Americans have been killed by terrorists? How does this compare with other violent causes of death?

The big problem is the government treating this like a "war", instead of just branding terrorists as the criminals they are. Of course, they do this so that they can increase their own power. Still, I think that as a real threat, terrorism was worse in Europe in the seventies. There was no single event as big as 911, but much more small ones. Also, the treat was internal (extreme left wing, secession movements).

Learn the Art of Living!

[Steeltoe]

Visit the link in my .sig. By learning the Art of Living, you can bring more awareness into your own life and into our own world. Ok, we probably got too much awareness now you might say, right? There doesn't go a day we don't hear about something awful about this world.

Right awareness is focusing on what is good, positive. Around you and otherwise in the world. Media is filled with negative awareness, which we should fight actively to turn both in our daily lives and globally. Of coure, for this to happen also, we need something positive _action_ to happen :-)

First you have to strengthen the individual, so this can go as a positive force out in the world. Every human has capacity to love and nurture eachother, but our stress is a layer in our body and consciousness.. Deprive a man of sleep for 3 days, and even the most harmonious and joyful being will become the worst... So we need to find ways to relieve stress and come back to ourselves again.

With breathing excercises, precious knowledge about life and much more, the Art of Living course is just fantastic in my experiences. It is unique in that this volunteer organisation is handling the very issues that we're facing in the world today: erosion of human values, how to rebuild faith in humanity and bring every religion and faction together instead of destroying this beautiful world. We're all in the same boat, let's start acting like it.

First rate. Just do it while you can!

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of Art of Living Foundation and International Association for Human Values, has been nominated for the peace price many times. However, just like with Mahatma Gandhi, there seems to be a strong resistance to letting Indians getting the peace price.

Karma is excellent. If you really care about the world, maybe it's time to shift a bit of perspective?

Re:Learn the Art of Living!

[Anonymous Coward]

Skeptical people might ask how improving mindfulness will solve political problems. The fact is, it won't-- it will just put them in perspective.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Like I need all that extra hassle when I feel like shit from having a bad cold.

Or if you feel like shit from not having any meth in your system :( Totally bogus...

Just happy that I don't live in Amerika

[Anonymous Coward]

Pax Americana has definitely become a totalitarian nightmare.
It has all the same attributes:
Where 'democracy' is totalitarianism
Where there is eternal war
Where 'freedom' is state control and violation of your civil liberties
Where 'humanitarian intervention' is a synonym for US brutalising of a country that is not a puppet to Washington
Where you can't go to the library to borrow a book on chemistry without being labelled a potential bomb maker.
Of course, the goverment is not worried about 'terrorism'. You are more likely to be hit by a falling plane than be killed by terrorists. The government use terrorism to create a climate of fear and control.
The Bush junta also uses the same kind of doublespeak as was common in Orwell's 1984. Terms like 'PATRIOT Act' stand for somethings rather more threatening.
America is also the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism, including vicious fundementalist religious racist/bigot ethnic cleanser regimes like Israel.
The US has put most of this centuries worst dictators in power, and generally US military aid peaks to such people at the height of their attrocities. This was certainly tru for the following (the figures for US military aid to these regimes have been unashamedly published)
- Pinochet
- Pol Pot
- General Suharto
- Saddam Hussein
- Manuel Noriega
- Columbia
- Turkey (at the height of the attrocities against the Kurds) ...
In addition the United States pursues economic terrorism against many other countries that don't serve US imperial interests.
The day of reckoning will come for the United States when their empire collapses in a mountain of debt. Just doesn't ask the rest of the world not to have a good kick when you are down, America.

Games spying on you

[XCondE]

Hmm. Reading the article about the spyware on Blizzard WoW just remembered me that a couple weeks ago I wrote Valve's support questioning them how to run Steam (a piece of software needed to run Half-Life 2).

Turns out you CANNOT run HL2 without admin privileges. After reading the article on Blizzard I have a better idea of the reasons.


Me:
Customer (xxx) 06/11/2006 04:15 AM
I am not willing to play (and let other people play) HL2 using the Admin account on my computer because of the obvious security implications (I don't want my computer infested with malware).

Is there any way to run it without admin privileges? I installed it using admin privileges and went back to my unprivileged account but turns out it needs to write data to the install folder (bad programmer - no donut for you).

Which are the files STEAM tries to write to in the install folder?

If it turns out to be too complicated I'll just download the no-steam version with BitTorrent ;-).

Cheers.

Their reply:
Response (Josh) 06/13/2006 01:34 PM
xxx,
It cannot be run without admin privileges. I know you were probably joking, but I would also encourage you to avoid any product that claims to get around Steam. We take cheating and hacking very seriously.

The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[petrus4]

Whether or not it's going to happen to the entire planet, the idea that for the last couple of years America in particular has been headed for a total repetition of Nazi Germany is a forgone conclusion so utterly obvious that it barely even warrants mention.

Yes, martial law is going to be declared at some point. Yes, hundreds of thousands of you are going to be herded like sheep into concentration camps that are even now being built around the country.

And yes, the unholy triumvirate of George W Bush, Tony Blair, and John Howard is currently the single greatest threat to the proverbial life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness that currently exists on this planet.

And for those of you still oblivious enough to be in the, "it could never happen here," camp, all I can say is, wait 18 months.

Re:The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[jcr]

the idea that for the last couple of years America in particular has been headed for a total repetition of Nazi Germany is a forgone conclusion so utterly obvious that it barely even warrants mention.

If that were the case, then you'd be cooling your heels in a cell somewhere, wouldn't you?

My grandfather did time for protesting a war by handing out leaflets at an induction center in Atlanta. in 1915. If GWB were even as much as an authoritarian as Wilson, let alone FDR, then most of the people denoucing him as a would-be Nazi would be unable to do so. What do you think would have happened to someone who marched down the street in 1944 with a sign that said "FDR = HITLER"?

There are things that this country has done in overreaction to 9/11 which will eventually be reversed, but you're not going to help that process by going off the deep end with rhetoric that makes you easy to dismiss as a fool.

-jcr

Re:The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[Anonymous Coward]

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That 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 way in any country."

--Gustave Gilbert interview of Hermann Goering during the Nuremberg trials

Re:The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[demachina]

"If that were the case, then you'd be cooling your heels in a cell somewhere, wouldn't you?"

You can have a totalitarian state without arresting every dissenter. The very best totalitarian state will just marginalize and ignore dissent unless it reaches a level that it actually poses a threat to the power that be. We haven't seen any serious dissent even remotely threatening the power structure since about 1969. It is a convenient way to lull people into thinking they are free, if you let them rant, especially when their rants aren't actually changing anything. If dissent actually starts threatening the state that is another matter. I should point out there are thousands of people who HAVE been arrested, held without charge or access to a lawyer, and often spirited away to secret prisons to be tortured, a few are even American citizens. Most are Muslim and not American so we don't care though we don't even really know exactly who has been arrested by our new police state.

"There are things that this country has done in overreaction to 9/11 which will eventually be reverse"

You say that with such certainty..... How do you KNOW the excesses will be reversed, that is an unknowable thing. I can say with certainty that they will either be reversed, hold where they are or get worse. For them to get worse with certainly will take one more 9/11 scale event for example. The Nazi's rode the Reichstag fire a LONG way on their road to totalitarianism and no one even got killed there.

A problem with America is its exceptionalism. Americans operate under this inexplicable certainty that their elections will never be stolen, and their government will never tilt in to totalitarianism. This unfortunately makes it much easier to steal elections and to tilt in to totalitarianism.

American government would be a lot healthier if Americans were to constantly and completely distrust it. It really never has been and certainly is not now trustworthy, it is probably the least trustworthy its been since the last time the Republican were really in power and gave us McCarthyism, Nixon also did his fair share to prove it can't be trusted, Reagan too with his Iran-Contra thing. George W. makes them look like amateurs though. His use and abuse of signing statements and state secret privilege rivals the Enabling Act Adolph Hitler used to cement his totalitarian state. There are two reasons George W. has vetoed one bill in 6 years. First his party completely control power so most bills are dictated to the Republicans in Congress by Dick Cheney. But in every instance where bills don't conform to White House mandate, for example if Congress compromises to get sufficient votes to pass it, the White House signs the bill and then right after the signing ceremony quietly issues a signing statement in which the Executive Branch says it may not implement or could outright defy the law, the will of Congress and the will of the people. The Boston Globe wrote one of the first good exposes on this massive abuse of power. An ABA panel, including some serious conservatives recently issued a http://www.abanet.org/op/signingstatements/aba_fin al_signing_statements_recommendation-report_7-24-0 6.pdf
>scathing report on what a massive abuse of power it is.

For all practical purposes we are already living under the rule of a leader who issues dictates. Our Congress, and our courts, have already largely abdicated their Constitutional powers to the executive. We just need another Supreme Court appointment and its time to turn out the lights. This White House has for all practical purposes declared the few laws Congress has passed and are passing are merely suggestions and the Executive branch can ignore them at will. They are frequently using State Secret Privilege to dismantle legal chal

Re:The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[jcr]

See, there you go, off the deep end.

-jcr

Re:The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[demachina]

The deep end is where the action and the reality is today. Our democracy is definitely swimming in some of the deepest water its been in and on the verge of drowning. Congress really has ceased to function, and abdicated its power to a totalitarian executive, and you simply can't deny it. Meanwhile you are splashing around over in the kiddy pool pretending there is no problem, and worse trying to con everyone else in to thinking there is no problem, you portray it as just a little "excess" that will right itself without anyone even worrying about it. You could be so wrong. Some real work will be required to repair our tattered constitution and I don't think the American people have it in them anymore.

America used to be a beacon to the world and the place millions of the world's best and brightest wanted to come. Now our government is one of the most despised and reviled there is in the world. It is simply an embarrassment to see how far our government has fallen in the eyes of the world. When Bush starts lecturing Putin about "Democracy and Freedom" Putin now laughs in his face, because thats not what we have anymore. The current American government would almost be a laughing stock were it not so dangerous.

Tom Friedman had an interesting comment on "Meet the Press", the world used to look to America for naive optimism and hope. Bush, Cheney and Rice have replaced that with darkness and fear. Their road to power is through fear.

Re:The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[wilec]

"What do you think would have happened to someone who marched down the street in 1944 with a sign that said "FDR = HITLER"?"

Let look back half a decade or so from your date above. From 1934 on through most of 1941 there were plenty of protesters and political "leaders" of the time, that publicly denounced FDR as a socialist or even communist, mostly without "cooling their heels". Many "conservatives" from that era still believe such was so. They saw communist Russia as more of a threat than business friendly Germany to their "culture". Many of these same people argued against supporting Britain or France and for negotiating an alliance with Germany. Germany's business and political leadership were well involved in efforts to build working relationships with interests here.

Congress even passed legislation that forbade intervention in the Atlantic or Pacific conflicts including official aid to the British or French. FDR repeatedly skirted and occasionally even broke these laws to assist Britain, Australia, the French underground and others. If Japan AND Germany had not declared war on US it is still doubtful if FDR could have mustered the support to involve the USA in a substantial manner. Considering what history reveals I allow a lot of slack for the executive and even the legislative branch to do what is right, legal or not. Don't however take this to imply that I support all or even most of the actions of current crop of idiots in majority control these days, I do not.

Wabi-Sabi
Matthew

Re:The answer to this question is, "Duh."

[zipn00b]

Actually America has always been the place where millions of the poorest have come as we've always needed cheap labor - until recently when we started shifting most of that stuff overseas. The slogan "Give me your tired, your poor" etc. in many respects was almost a billboard proclaiming "We need cheap labor" But that's what built this country so not really a bad thing as many of those people eventually made decent lives for themselves even if they didn't get filthy rich. You're looking at our history through rose-colored glasses. Our history is actually pretty grimy and our current troubles are not anything we can't prevail over. I also love how so many people like to throw around the word "democracy" as if we truly live in one when we actually have a REPUBLIC. A true democracy is something our government would fear. Although Thomas Jefferson would probably have liked it...... :)

that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[plasmacutter]

Here's a hint: More than half of them aren't even old enough to vote if they wanted to (and if they were, they'd be statistically unlikely to vote anyway). The minimum wage is a heart-string issue. The Democrats tote it out to get emotional votes out of the section of their base that hasn't engaged their brain. It's the Democrats' version of school prayer.

wow.. you just trod all over your own argument.

that leaves 15 million people who are earning below poverty wages who are NOT dependents of others... in other words they NEED a living wage and are not getting it.

I have news for you people who complain about welfare leeches... half the time these people are pushed into that because if they make above a certain level of income.. they will be denied welfare, but their jobs will make them less than welfare!

maybe if you raised the minimum wage, their jobs would make them more than welfare and they would not feel compelled to remain unemployed.

So no.. it's not "the democrat's version of school prayer", it's a valid issue of exploiters paying sub-poverty wages, then lobbying for a "free market" whenever there is a push to raise those wages to a point where people can.. i don't know.. buy food AND a pay rent at the same time?

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[Aladrin]

There are lots of arguments against rising minimum wage, but let me give you mine:

Money isn't free. If wages are raised (and it's not only the minimums that will be raised. Anyone with a half-decent employer or union will also get a raise) then everything has to go up in price so that employers can pay the new wage. It will provide a temporary respite for minimum wage earners, but in the long run, it provides nothing. Everything will balance back out, and in a capitalist economy, it will happen pretty fast. If the raise is announced beforehand, it might even drop before the wage hits so that it is balanced WHEN the raise hits, instead of after.

I fully agree that something needs to be done about the millions who cannot earn a living no matter how hard they work. But maybe the problem is at the top instead of the bottom. Sports and movie stars that earn 10 million dollars per year ... Hmm, maybe that's a problem.

Or maybe tax reform? I keep hearing about this 'flat tax' ... Assuming it's as fair as its proponents claim, maybe that should happen.

Or quite a few other things that actually improve the situation for the people we are trying to help, instead of just looking like it improves the situation.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[plasmacutter]

I can then give you my argument for a minimum wage.. it centers on the 2 basic ideas..

consumption is disposible income - savings, and savings = investment.

You raise the minimum wage, people's disposible income increases, they will either A. spend it.. your profits rise!, or B. save it..

when they save it, it increases the money supply exponentially thanks to the money multiplier effect caused by banks issuing large percentagees of that deposit as loans.

This results in an en masse boost to the money supply, and that means lower interest rates.

lets see.. lower interest rates, high demand from consumers for goods, and tons of previously near broke workers who now have extra disposible income.. can you say BOOM?!

there would be a surge in demand for everything, especially housing.

You get richer even as the boss because of the sudden rise in your house's value, additionally because of the increases in the money supply the loans to expand your business are cheaper.

expansion insues, and everyone is happy, that is if you can let go of the closed minded short term group think of.. if i give up money on one end i get poorer and that's it.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[blanks]

"I have news for you people who complain about welfare leeches... half the time these people are pushed into that because if they make above a certain level of income.. they will be denied welfare, but their jobs will make them less than welfare!"

So instead of making any attempt to increase what they make at their job, getting a second job, or finding a better job they instead go for the free ride that everyone else needs to pay, basicly paying for this person who is capable of working, but is not.

That is exactlly the type of person who even if they DID get a better job would do the minimium required of the job, will not attempt to improve their position at their job, and will most likely waste every bit of money they do make.

That is why we complain about welfare leeches.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[bwalling]

That makes very little sense. Raising the minimum wage just slides the imbalance, it doesn't reduce it. If the low end makes more money, prices will rise, the increase will make its way back up to the higher wage workers, and in the end, the wage paid on the low end is not really any higher when you factor in the inflation.

If you want to really help the poor, then try to reimagine the economy as a whole. Think about the fact that we have created a system by which the rich make their money by exploiting the poor. Think about the fact that when earnings reports are king and share price is all important, then a company is forced to constantly squeeze every penny out of every place, and that means paying lower wages, paying suppliers less, and charging customers more. The goal becomes to screw others so that you can get more money. The economy needs to be about the fact that as a people, we all have needs (food, shelter, etc) and we all have skills or resources. Instead of focusing entirely on profit and greed, we need to focus on having an efficient and effective system.

Of course, that's not the American Dream or the American Way - it's much more desirable to just get really rich, and try not to think too much about the fact that we have a broken system that isn't going to be fixed by welfare or minimum wages.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
-Martin Luther King Jr

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[plasmacutter]

yeah.. those damn poor.. we should just exterminate them via incineration.. *end sarcastic rant*

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[fossa]

don't give someone with an econ degree a lecture on econ Way to argue from authority my friend. Question: the extra wages a business is required to pay its workers come out of its profits. Raise minimum wage, decrease profits, all else being equal. Workers now have more to spend (or save), but any extra earned by a business is just going toward offsetting the aforementioned reduction in profits. The workers have more to spend; demand curve shifts to the right; prices rise; revenues increase. If the workers save any of their extra wages, then the business won't completely recover its loss of profits. Some businesses may now be operating at a loss and go out of business; supply curve shifts to the left; prices rise to a level to sustain the remaining businesses, but new firms won't enter the market. Workers' savings can be loaned out by a bank to new businesses, but since prices have gone up they are saving less. Everything remains the same, only now the worker makes $8 and spends $8 instead of making $7 and spending $7. Please poke holes in the above or explain your theory or point me in the right direction; I'm interested in learning. I know I've simplified, but have I oversimplified? How do producers of goods with price inelastic goods fare versus producers of luxury goods? The businesses that didn't survive must have gone on to other markets which moves the supply curve in those markets? Thanks.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[plasmacutter]

yeah.. that scenario works if youre in intro level courses

If the workers save any of their extra wages, then the business won't completely recover its loss of profits.

yes they will, savings = investment. any money deposited into a bank account gets reinvested in a logarithmic fashion, you deposit 100 bucks, 90 gets lent, 90% of that 90 gets lent, and so on.. this results in greater money supply and lower interest rates.. the company pays less for it's expansion loans, it saves money there.

Giving lower wage workers a wage increase will also result in greater increses in consumption than leaving it in the hands of the wealthy, thus demand would rise faster than cost overall.

at worst you would have no net loss on the company side, but a net gain on the employee's side.

Everything remains the same, only now the worker makes $8 and spends $8 instead of making $7 and spending $7

no, not if you peg it to inflation.. oh wait I said that earlier... i said all this earlier.. but people mod it overrated because they never took any in depth financial markets courses T.T

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[chazwurth]

Some people have kids to feed. Their responsibility to make sure their kids can eat and have a roof over their heads is more important than taking a 'pay-cut' to leave welfare and eventually make more money, especially if they're not skilled workers. How long do you think it takes someone to 'move up' if they don't know how to do anything but flip burgers, and aren't particularly talented or intelligent? Who's going to support their kids in the meantime?

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[ivan256]

No, I didn't trod all over my own argument... Did you stop reading when you got to that part?

You need to do something that targets the people in need, not something that targets everybody, or you do more harm than good.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[smoker2]

If you fuck with the font, your post doesn't get read.

Don't make me work harder just to read your point.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[roman_mir]

Think about the fact that we have created a system by which the rich make their money by exploiting the poor. - I don't believe that anyone actually 'made' that system. It is a very natural system, those who can come up with a business plan only need to find initial investment and put their own life into the idea, so that those, who can't come up with a business plan will become employees (those are the poor, right?)

It's not about being 'the poor' in terms of money, it's about being 'the poor' in terms of initiative.

The goal becomes to screw others so that you can get more money. - excuse me, isn't that what everyone is doing? Hunting for bargains, searching where they can get 'more for less'? It's stupid to accuse the corporations and to forget that everyone else is busy with the same thing exactly.

The economy needs to be about the fact that as a people, we all have needs (food, shelter, etc) and we all have skills or resources. Instead of focusing entirely on profit and greed, we need to focus on having an efficient and effective system. - I was born in the former USSR and have heard that one before. It doesn't work. In that kind of a regime it's still the same kind of people. Those who can, will try and make it much better than those who cannot, and won't bother fixing the system. They will play and massage the system to get the most out of it for themselves.

Nothing will change if you change the system without changing the people. And in the 1917 revolution in Russia they were talking about 'the new person', and the sent the 'old' kind of person to their death, because the 'old' kind of person wanted to work for their money and did not want to slack off hoping that the system will work itself out and make everyone rich.

This will never work as long as people need to eat, need a place to sleep, want to educate themselves better, want their kids to get better life then they had (whatever that means,) and want to be better in life than the rest and desire to show that they are better with status symbols.

And you can't change the humans, who evolved in this world, always fighting for their survival. Evolution is a very very powerful force, that whips you, makes you want to be more successful than the rest, otherwise you die and your offspring disappears.

I bet if you build a simulation of this world with creatures that do not strive to live better than their counterparts, and your simulation will stagnate and will move nowhere.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[Sloppy]

in other words they NEED a living wage and are not getting it.

No, they NEED to fire their employer, and they're not doing it.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[Darmox]

An employee adds value to a company/org/etc. If the employee did not add value, they would presumably not be hired.

The amount of value that the employee adds will vary based on skills, etc. If the employee added less value than their wage, there is no reason to employ them; they are costing the business money.

The simple thing that comes from a minimum wage (this is a rate that a person cannot legally agree to work for less than) is that anyone who's productivity for the company adds less value than the minimum wage (and this needs to include payroll taxes, costs of employment, etc.), is now not just unemployed, but unemployable.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[bidule]

Everything remains the same, only now the worker makes $8 and spends $8 instead of making $7 and spending $7. Please poke holes in the above or explain your theory or point me in the right direction; I'm interested in learning.

Yeah, but the rich guy with $7 millions in the bank doesn't have $8 millions now. And the poor minimum-wage guy with a $7,000 debt doesn't owe $8,000 now. Oversimplified too. High salary increases are way above inflation. That should demonstrate that raising minimum wages and top salaries are that linked.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[bwalling]

excuse me, isn't that what everyone is doing? Hunting for bargains, searching where they can get 'more for less'? It's stupid to accuse the corporations and to forget that everyone else is busy with the same thing exactly.

I'm not accusing corporations, I'm accusing people. Corporations are run by people.

I was born in the former USSR and have heard that one before. It doesn't work.

I absolutely do not want a government mandated system - I want a changed people.

Nothing will change if you change the system without changing the people.

And change starts with each individual - firstmost me.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[SQL Error]

Think about the fact that we have created a system by which the rich make their money by exploiting the poor.

We haven't.

Think about the fact that when earnings reports are king and share price is all important, then a company is forced to constantly squeeze every penny out of every place, and that means paying lower wages, paying suppliers less, and charging customers more.

Instead they should pay higher wages, pay suppliers more, charge customers less - and go broke? Which means that all their employees, instead of having crappy minimum-wage jobs, now have NO jobs.

The economy needs to be about the fact that as a people, we all have needs (food, shelter, etc) and we all have skills or resources.

That's exactly what it is about. You trade your labour for the products of other people's labour. If your personal skills and resources are not in demand, you don't get much for them.

Instead of focusing entirely on profit and greed, we need to focus on having an efficient and effective system.

It IS efficient and effective. Extremely so. Capitalism creates wealth. Socialism redistributes wealth, and in the process, destroys it.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[roman_mir]

I want a changed people. - how can you say that with a serious face? I am laughing just thinking about someone, who believes that it is possible to change the people to their higher standard :) It is really funny, it's been tried in this world many times and every time it fails and it will fail every single time.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[Anonymous Coward]

Raising the minimum wage actually increases the imbalance....
If i'm making $10/hr and the minium wage goes up a $1.50, am I getting a raise? Nope. Especially if they now have to pay a bunch of other people more... So prices all go up, and my $10/hr buys that much less...

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[plasmacutter]

I do admit.. the problem of effectively preventing corruption is similar to the problem of effectively implementing DRM.

it's somewhat frightening to realize that if one is possible, it probably means the other is too.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[roman_mir]

oh, no, implementing global DRM is a piece of cake when compared to changing the nature of the man.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[plasmacutter]

but effectively implementing drm is tantamount to catching pieces of the rainbow with a net made of unicorn hair

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[Anonymous Coward]

...and then Martin Luther King Junior masturbated. Amen.

Re:that leaves 15 million people there pal..

[bwalling]

how can you say that with a serious face?

Because it's better than the alternative.

Dear US citizen

[Anonymous Coward]

Your government has clearly become a cancer out of control since long time, but your constitution 2nd amendment allowed you to carry firearms for this exact reason, not for shooting the neighbour or being taken at school by insane kids. Why the heck don't you start to use them?

(I love the smell of my IP reported to the CIA in the morning:+)

A two way street

[robbiedo]

I am growing increasingly circumspect in what I do online; which includes what I communicate through public forums. I increasingly find that I self censor myself in my internet communications. Do you ever think about how your google searches might be interpreted? I wonder how big a picture some interested party can create from the the various pools, seas, and oceans of information out there in which information about me continues to accumulate. And it really spooks me that data mining is probably a bigger business than mining for minerals, and how often my name comes up from the depths. What worries me most is not becoming a victim of a government conspiracy, but to be the target of some private party or corporate entity. Maybe someone has an axe to grind, or someone wants ot go on a fishing expedition to pull a hatchett job on you. Someone with money, access to resources, or clout. These are the people i truly worry about. Not quite the Orwellian 1984. A notable change from the Orwellian story though the watched can more easily turn the watcher's tools against them. We can look back. Smile and say, "YouTube!"

No it didnt come 22 years late.

[nurb432]

You are just noticing it now. Welcome to reality.

license numbers

[nurb432]

If i was required to enter that information just to pay in cash at the self-chekout, i would have been leaving the item on the scanner and be going to another store.

I realize what they have when you pay with CC, but in a case like that, they would have lost the sale, with me at least.

Want freedom? Move to Russia!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want freedom then you need to learn Russian and emigrate to Russia. After the cold war ended, the USA began to become more and more like the old Soviet Union. At the same time, Russia became more and more a land of liberty and freedom.

I have been to Russia 3 times and to Ukraine 5 times and it is just amazing how free people's daily lives are compared to either the USA or Canada.

Re:Want freedom? Move to Russia!

[Max_W]

I live in Ukraine. I've been in the USA. An I can confirm that you are right. Probably our societies learned from one another.

In Ukraine the government got the "bloody noze" in 90s from people for poking it into private lives of population.

Now we have got another exteme - the government is afraid to control any aspects of the society life, so we slide into some sort of anarchy. And I can tell that there is some truth in the saying that "anarchy is the mother of order".

But recently the government powers begin to rise again. The problem is that bueraucrats look out for number one, and by doing it make problems for everybody else.

Thank god I live outside fascist states of amrika.

[liftphreaker]

Wow! Coming to think of it, I'm glad I don't live in the fascist states of america.

Has Privacy Any Future?

[NickFortune]

There's an SF novel - I think it's David Brin's Earth - which has an interesting take on privacy. It's set in a near future where people have given up on ever having any sort of privacy and have gone to the opposite extreme - that of demaning that all information be open to everyone, without restriction

At times like this I wonder if Brin saw the shape of things to come with that one.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in favour of individual privacy. I just wonder if the concept is going to feasible, Part of me wonders if trying to safeguard privacy isn't like trying censor the internet, where some other channel always seems to pop up for the information flow. Similarly it seems that for every snoop or spy measure we stop, three more open up where no one is looking. It makes me wonder if the same principle is at work. Information may not "want to be free", but it certainly seems to seek wider dissemination in much the same way as water seems to seek sea level.

So, for those reasons, I think there is a chance that the battle for invidual privacy is unwinnable over the long term. And if that turns out to be the case, then we need to start thinking about how we can structure society to function in a world without privacy.

I think Brin's solution may turn out to be the way forward. Perhaps the harm lies not in other people and organisations knowing all your of business, but rather in that the information flow is one way only. Perhaps politicians and corporations and the like would be less likely to abuse such information if we could scrutinise their activities with the same clarity with which they seek to scrutinise our own.

Just a weird thought for the weekend.

Re:Has Privacy Any Future?

[MKalus]

There's an SF novel - I think it's David Brin's Earth - which has an interesting take on privacy. It's set in a near future where people have given up on ever having any sort of privacy and have gone to the opposite extreme - that of demaning that all information be open to everyone, without restriction

Although I think personal privacy is a good thing, I'd rather have that scenario than the one we're going to have. It is not that everybody will know everything about everybody (that would give an even playing field) but rather that a selected few will know everything about the rest.

Knowledge isn't the problem, the problem is who has the knowledge (and what they can do with it).

Bin Laden on next attack

[badpazzword]

Why bother? Bush is already doing great terror

I am so glad

[tetrode]

that Europeans are not so advanced this time.

Being beeped when you want to buy fruit or a lighter?

Sheesh

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are wondering why the restrictions are in place, watch this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/
The gist is
a) it *is* cost effective
b) restricting key ingredients has worked in the past - see qualudes
c) there are 9 factories in the world making ephedrine and pseudoephedrine on an industrial scale http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/faqs/ #18. None of these are in the US. Cold & flu tablets are conveniently available at your local pharmacy.

Every $ is a vote

[yusing]

How much worse can it get? How much longer do you take it before you stop using the products and services that YOU HAVE CHOSEN, and YOU PAY FOR, which are doing this to you?

Fundemental Difference

[sc0p3]

The fundemental difference between the novel 1984 and todays society is that we are not locked away for openly disagreeing with government policy. Sure our behaviour is recorded, which I despise, but we still have free speech.

Re:Fundemental Difference

[Upsilon Andromedea]

You mean like those free speach cages that they put people in at presidential campaign appearances, 100's of yards away and out of site of attendees, or the Republicans only Campaing events?

Try writing a screen play or directing or producing a movie about The U.S. starting a nuclear war today and see what happens.

I bet I can find you a link like this most days of the week:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2006/07/20/AR2006072001816.html?nav=rss_email/c omponents?nav=slate

Most changes in a society happen one small increment at a time.

If I remember my constitutional law from 8th grade correctly, prior to the constitution we had freedom of speech according to the British goverment.

But the constitution protected one from any retroactive action by the governement on the grounds that the publication was damaging to sommeone or, by coincidence, the government. Maybe half the population at the time found that perfectly acceptable, what right does someone have to say something without being held legally responsible any repercussions?

Of courese the patriots (rebels) said that the contemplation future arrest did remove the freedom to speak by making it risky. Therefore it was censorship.

What is scary is that such a cornerstone of our society is still debated 230 year later.

Is the poster a fucking moron?

[Money for Nothin']

What can I, a person with no political interests--a person that would really rather think that the people in office are there because they're looking out for us, our rights, and our freedoms and not because their short-sightedness is creating a police state--do to stem the tide?"

You would rather think that X is true -- even if you know that X is not true?

As Dilbert once said to a girl while on a date after she said she believed in something that most of us know to be crazy, "since when did belief become a substitute for fact?"

Why should elected officials give a damn about you? Look at Congress: they have a 92% re-election rate. If you had an "A"-grade chance of re-election, would you be particularly-concerned with what a few of your paranoid, nuttier constituents think? Of course not. If you care at all about your constituency, you follow what the majority wants and give it to them: pork-barrel projects and security from whatever boogeyman-of-the-week may be.

Elected officals have very little incentive to look out for you or your freedoms. The history of the U.S., to say nothing of the history of virtually every other nation in the world, ought to be evidence of that. And the history of un-elected officials is even worse.

Go start a religion if you cannot handle reality. You can't handle the truth. But to answer the question: there's nothing you can do. See below.

Am I just accustomed to old ways? Does the new generation, born with these restrictions, feel the weight of these bonds and recoil from my fears as paranoia?

I am between the ages of 18-25. Do I qualify as a member of the "new generation"?

If I do, then I can say that the sort of post-9/11 pro-security, anti-privacy, anti-freedom paranoia is rampant among my generation. We saw 9/11 and said "where's Big Brother to save us? We've got to do whatever it takes to stop all terrorism!!" (yes, I actually had one person my age say this to me) -- as if that is somehow an achievable goal. I make my usual libertarian arguments, and I occasionally find people who are sympathetic, but by and large, people my age don't give a rat's ass about privacy, and will routinely make fun of privacy-minded people (like me, natch).

Terrorism is the new communism, and it's easier to be blinded by emotion than to run life through the filter of rational, critical, unemotional thought, and so the fear of terrorists overtakes the fear of information abuse that results from invasion of privacy.

Of course, over time -- and by that, I mean over the course of 3-4 years or more -- I find more and more of them very-slowly coming to the conclusions about privacy I came to a decade ago; only, I came to them deductively and predictively, not reactively; I haven't yet been severely-burned by a lack of privacy, whereas some of them have. ("The best revenge is living well", I suppose.)

But none have approached my level of distrust for authority (whether government or business), and I'm not nearly as paranoid as many people on Slashdot: I don't wear tinfoil hats, I don't route my Internet traffic through Tor, I don't reject the advancement of RFID chips in ID cards (although I vehemently oppose national ID systems, such as the U.S.'s REAL ID Act, and the national IDs of most other nations around the world). I no longer GPG-sign my email, and no longer run a node for encrypted, application-layer-routed P2P network. I use encryption whenever possible, but I don't demand that friends and family use PGP/GPG, nor that they use encrypted IM clients. They will never adhere to such demands, and requiring them would leave me friendless.

All my most privacy-conscious friends/family are computer geeks; all my least privacy-conscious friends/family are (largely) computer-illiterate. I do not believe this to be a coincidence.

The truth of the world is that you cannot trust anybody until they prove themselves

Re:Is the poster a fucking moron?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is how I see it..

you want a transparent society? you want to see into my home and bedroom?

then legalize marijuana, gay marriage and sex in public.

Re:Is the poster a fucking moron?

[Money for Nothin']

If it were up to me, I would gladly legalize all of those things.

In fact, I wouldn't just legalize marijuana, I'd legalize other drugs as well...

Don't expect such radical moves in the U.S. anytime soon though. We're too Puritanical for any of those things (particularly the latter).

One more quote for you...

[Archtech]

"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire: a dangerous servant and a terrible master".

- George Washington

Far too many people today have completely lost sight of what Washington was telling us. They see government as a huge nipple, dispensing delicious nourishment for them. Where the nourishment comes from - who pays in the end - is a matter of sublime unconcern. Like the boiling frog, we are so used to paying large fractions of our income (and possessions) in tax that we take it for granted. Just watch the commotion whenever anyone suggests reducing tax the slightest bit.

Seems to me that we are just about at the point where our governments stop being dangerous servants and become terrible masters.

Veto history

[ben there...]

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill

Flat-out false. Given that, how much of the rest of the article can I trust?

http://clerk.house.gov/histHigh/Congressional_Hist ory/vetoes.html

The last President who never vetoed was James A. Garfield, elected in 1880. I'd call that non-modern history. So the article was accurate at the time of publication.

In my fact checking, I see that Bush now has 1 veto, rejecting additional funding for stem cell research, just over a week ago. The Globe article was written in April.

So the article was correct.

Paranoia is a way of life

[Cannelloni]

See the old movie The Tenant by Roman Polanski, or Brazil by Terry Gilliam, and you'll see what I mean...

The things you pointed out are the most benign

[eyebee3]

President bush has done the equivilent of crossing his fingers behind his back while signing 800 bills into law. He has absolved himself from having to follow these laws, and then goes in front of the public (as does the republican congress) applauding this or that new law knowing full well he has no intention of following it. One of these laws he has not agreed to follow, is a law stating that congress must be told about the people he is wiretapping, and they must be told about the people he arrests. He has absolved himself from following the geneva accords as well. Does anyone remember the Gulf War when 1000's of soldiers surrendered to American troops without putting up a fight. The reason they did this, is because we had the reputation as a country of treating our prisoners well. Ask yourself how many 18 year old American kids are going to die in the future because we no longer have that hard won over 200 years reputation. For sure that number will be many more than the number of people who died in 911. Of course it doesn't at all matter to president bush and his ilk. Wealthy people's children don't go to war. And just a question for all you Christians who support bush because you feel he is a god fearing man. Exactly how many people would Jesus torture. Exactly how many people would Jesus kill using torture. We have killed God knows how many people (bush won't say) and we have arrested and tortured God knows how many more in secret prisons around the world where bush can torture them with more ease, because our soldiers who ARE REALLY GOD FEARING and have some conscience, aren't in charge. bush gets up on his podium and crows about how many people he has released, but he fails to note that those he released were absolutely INNOCENT for Gods sake. Final note to all that read this. Once the president is allowed to ignore any law he decides is in his way, we are not anymore a Democracy, we are a kingdom. Scary, HUH?

Re:The things you pointed out are the most benign

[/dev/trash]

Yeah but I hear Clinton crossed his fingers 802 times!

Next US

[Derosian]

Mars Libre:

Where the United World will colonize and try and control you. Then they try to tax, but you refuse the steep taxed. Then you rebel, and become a single world nation all our own. Really, people are selfish, and in a capitalistic society that will come out.

You could tell the powers that be to get stuffed

[Anonymous Coward]

You could tell them to get stuffed and fuck off.
The only danger comes when to governments were to go fascist (like Germany did before WW2, or the bush administration), then you had better be very careful what you do.

Unfortunately, the right-wing (GOP) governments in the US seem to be getting more fascist each cycle they get in...it has been theorized and noted by historians, that democratic cultures can very gradually slide into a fascist dictatorship gradually, usually needing some sort of terrorist occurrence (like Hitler fabricated) to gain even more power by promising more security and getting rid of the criminal element in society. go figure

Stop blaming everything on "the man"

[Anonymous Coward]

None of this stuff happens to me. You're probably just a fag or something.

Now Wash your Hands

[giafly]

A lot of decorative plants are somewhat poisonous, which is why it's a good idea to wash your hands after watering or pruning them. If you experience eye irritation or swelling of the eyelids, then poisonous sap is a likely cause.

Poisonous and Allergenic Plants - University of Maryland
Canadian Poisionus Plants Information System - Reference

I was most surprised to learn how poisonous Wisteria seeds are. I hope gardeners don't all get treated as terrorist suspects though.

So do apple seeds!!

[cheekyboy]

So dont buy them, refuse to buy them. Then at the same time, spit on them. Their rules say, you break it, you must buy it.

Dead lock!!

If its a forced buy then can you really be forced to show ID? Just tell them then those were spoilt, you saw some kid whipe his snotty hands on it.

Re:So do apple seeds!!

[dfghjk]

they don't have to force you to buy it, they can just call the police

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[JunkmanUK]

Y'see this is true. I'm in the UK so maybe the 'spying' isn't so bad over here yet... certainly I've never been prevented from buying anything or had to provide ID... I think if it really started to get in the way of me doing simple things then I could understand your frustration but it hasn't, yet, but...

my activities are probably tracked.. my credit card purchases, shopping habits, internet activity, money expenditure... and you know what? I don't really care.

I get called by my credit card company if they see unusual purchases on my account, in the interests of fraud protection. I don't mind, it's a brief call to just confirm the purchase and it's not like they block the payment - just make sure that I know it was made.

Shopping habits? As said above.. if they want to send me targeted advertising then a) good luck to them and b) it's probably fairly relevant (if I always by fruit shoot for my kids there's no harm in having them tell me that there's 50% off next week).

Internet activity. I don't look at illegal material, or groom small children - so if they want to browse through my visits to /. or even www.babeswiththeirknockersout.com then I hope they enjoy it.

Money expenditure. Ok, so I have a gripe about banks but that's more to do with the money grabbing attitude than 'spying'...

So here's the rub - I'm not doing anything that anyone would really care about... if people want to 'spy' on what I'm doing then as far as I'm concerned it's the same as having your nosey neighbour peeking through the curtains. It really doesn't matter to me.

I always get warning lights flash up whenever I hear people talking about their activities being traced... are they paranoid or are they doing things that they want to hide? I'm sure if you discovered that some mental asshole was grooming your eight year old girl you'd expect him to be traced and if you're the one doing the grooming then believe me you should expect to be traced. That's life - deal with it. Oh - and I have two young children so this is especially pertinant to me.

Also, on the original point - equating this tracking habit with 1984... have you even read the book? Come on - I think we're a long way from being unable to talk freely in the street and I don't recall having a dedicated TV screen & camera in my house to continously film me. A bit of perspective on this maybe?

from a british perspective

[blackest_k]

it's not much different here either, except perhaps the ASBO or antisocial behaviour order. These didn't seem to bad as they were applied to individuals, well some were farcical asbo to stop someone with tourets swearing. asbo to stop someone going in thier garden in a bikini. perfect for every niggling little nieghbor dispute...

however there is another side to the asbo, the asbo that gets applied to an area
I bring you skegness's asbo
http://skegnesstoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?Secti onID=809&ArticleID=1652470

now whats the big deal, well for one it gives police the powers to arrest anyone within that area for anything - you do not need to break any law. If they think you might break a law at a later point its enough, more than enough to satisfy the conditions of the asbo order. To be honest there is no restriction on the police at all because legal illegal it doesn't matter, since enter the asbo controlled area and you could be fined £5000 or go to prison for 6 months. It all depends on the individual police officer.

saving britain for decent folk thats the excuse

now how more 1984 do you get than that, when there are no criminals you make them. what is even more alarming is that this is just not being reported. The skegness standard is not widely read even in skegness. This is a complete change in the rule of law and no one appears to give a damn everybody assumes it will not apply to them but they don't see that before the difference was they broke the law and you didnt. now that distinction doesn't apply.

Re:from a british perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, how can you stand that place?!

Maybe time to set up a new America (or Britain as it were).

"Where freedom reigns".

BTW, what's the deal with representatives nowdays? If everyone has an ID card then everyone can spend 15 minutes at the end of the day and vote on the issues if they want. The representatives will just have the job of formatting the resolutions and of making sure their electorate know the issues.

The technology is here. And if you don't have a computer then go by the library to vote!

Re:from a british perspective

[twkrimm]

Here is a non fiction book written about 50 years ago.
It describes the experiences/views of the "average" citizen.
I find some of the similarities to today's world, to be a little scary.

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.h tml [thirdreich.net]

"They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer

                                                                                                But Then It Was Too Late

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security." ...

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

Re:from a british perspective

[twkrimm]

http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.h tml
Another excerpt from
They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
Milton Mayer ...

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not?--Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, 'everyone' is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.' ...

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked--if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D. ...

Re:from a british perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self deception has grown too heavy...

You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing).

--Milton Mayer

The future is made today.

[jozmala]

Does the new generation, born with these restrictions, feel the weight of these bonds and recoil from my fears as paranoia?

Yes. Whatever status quo will be by the time those new born citizens is when they are age of 6 ot 7 is what they accept as normal and standard. Changing little by little, the system can change considerably over long period of time, and most of the people don't even realize what has been changed, or are already accepting the status quo. All it takes a small change per year and over long period the change is huge.
All it takes is generation or two and the standard of whats normal personal freedom could be changed completely from what it is now to something totally different. Computer is your friend. And what kind of invasion of privacy and personal rights we consider now unacceptable will be perfectly normal in 2100 and majority have accepted it as a normal practice, and consider our fears about that kind of future just Paranoia.

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[syukton]

I smell BS. An ID for a lighter? Bah.

I was in Montana when I was 17 (7 years ago), and I wanted to buy a lighter from the 7-11. No dice. They wouldn't let me buy a lighter at 17. I had to have my buddy who was with me (and was 18) go in and buy it for me. 100% no joke.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Kierthos]

I'm sorry, but the peaches part of this can't possibly be realistic.

I live in South Carolina, where the state fruit is the peach. Georgia, right next door, is known as the peach state. You can't go 15 miles on rural roads in either state without seeing people selling fruit by the side of the road, and nearly all of the time, it includes peaches. Furthermore, the amount of cyanide in peach pits is minute. You'd probably have to eat a couple dozen pits before you stood even a slim chance of suffering from cyanide poisoning. And if you're going to go through that much trouble to kill yourself, there are easier ways...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Weedlekin]

"Even criminals have to buy food"

Do they? The fact that shoplifting is a significant loss for most supermarkets would seem to indicate that paying for food is something that many criminals seem to avoid rather successfully.

No.. you are absolutely wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Without reading offspring posts.. I can still say that you are without a doubt abso-freaking-lutely wrong.

Ashpalt laying is NOT easy. It's straightforward. You can teach a half-blind, half-retarded person to lay asphalt. But.. that doesn't mean it's easy.

There is actually a well-known female author (couldn't tell you her name) that recently published a book about menial minumum wage jobs. She found that you really can't live on one of them. Furthurmore, she found that the jobs required far more physical and mental exertion than could be reasonably expected. I'm sure that most of the slashdot community is quite used to an educated white collar job, but having worked many, many, menial jobs in my life, I can tell you that they are absolutely *not* "easy".

Bottom line... kiss my ass, and every ass of every man that's ever built a house.

Re:No.. you are absolutely wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

Saw that book. She is hilarious. It's like she committed to being stupid as well as poor. Here's the deal people: you can live on minimum wage. You can raise a family of 4 on one minimum wage job. You will not have DirecTV. You will not have *TV*. You will not eat out. You will eat beans, rice, and a few fresh fruits and vegetables. You will grow things in a garden, even if that garden consists of a few square feet in front of each window of your shelter. Your kids will be wage-earners, even if they have to travel miles on foot each day to find small jobs. Your older kids will care for their younger siblings, even if "older" means "age six". You will not get to choose your location. If economics in your area preclude you from buying shelter at your wage, you will move, wherever you have to. To do this you will need savings - yes, you will have to refrain from spending some of that minimum wage you earn. The less money you have, the more essential it is to save, not less. You will accept charity wherever you find it, because charity is not demeaning and misplaced pride is an expense you cannot afford. You also cannot afford any vices such as alcohol, drugs, cigs or gambling. You cannot afford the health problems brought about by them, anyway. Or by obesity, or by not brushing and flossing. You can't afford to screw your body up and then have it repaired.

Here's the kicker: you have as much chance to be happy and fulfilled as the CEO of Exxon.

What are you smoking?

[MarkusQ]

So let me get this straight: A lawyer specializing in constitutional law writes a hundred pages or so about an unconstitutional power grab which threatens the most powerful nation on earth, in which the executive branch is usurping the powers vested in the legislative and executive branches and creating a virtual monarchy, and your responses is...

He's a sock puppet because he has the same first name as another author?

And you feel the need to provide two links support to this astonishing point, both of which say basically "I've never seen him in person, and I know of another guy named Glenn...he must be a sock puppet"?

My mind boggles.

--MarkusQ

Consider the Raspberry..

[Anonymous Coward]

As the Colonel points out Fruits can be Very Dangerous indeed http://www.jumpstation.ca/recroom/comedy/python/ba nana.html

the only answer

[Ginger Unicorn]

abandon capitalism and adopt a system that isnt so anachronistic and inappropriate to the modern world.

but...

[CaptainNerdCave]

perhaps you haven't read plato's "republic" or hobbes' "leviathan?"
in the republic, we learn that one of the definitions of justice is the will of the stronger - hence the reason that what the supreme court decides IS justice whether we agree with it or not.
in the leviathan, we learn that all of us give up our sovereign rights to the governmental entity (which retains all of it's rights) in exchange for protection and security.
the rights of life, libery and the pursuit of happiness are only granted to us by the sovereign as the sovereign sees fit, and can be revoked as the sovereign sees fit.
arguing with the leviathan is as meaningless, futile and potentially dangerous as peeing against the wind or going naked and unarmed into the den of a bear/lion/big-scary-animal-with-big-teeth-and-claw s to demand back that shiny trinket it took from you while you weren't looking.

it's all well and good to say that we're losing privacies and rights, it's another altogether to act on those silly ideas. as plato, hobbes and various other great minds have taught us throughout history, the goverment is the all-powerful sovereign leviathan that we brought to life to help us, even if it demands that we bow before it.

are you going to be the first to openly go against the leviathan, provoke it and be crushed?

Re:but...

[monoqlith]

Maybe you only read books one and two of the Republic. That definition of justice is brought up by one of the interlocutors and is eventually rejected by Socrates/Plato. It is replaced by this one: "Justice in the city/individual is the having and doing of one's own." Following this, each person in the government has a job that is defined by intrinsic qualities, according to a tri-partide definition of the human being, the rational, the spirited, and the base: the philosopher king, the guardians, etc.... Now the ideal city of Plato's may resemble a facist one, but it's a 2000 year old philosophical system and it's built on a flawed premise: that there are these abstract, objective "forms" of concepts like justice, heroism, the good, that float around in an objective, non-physical space which is available to humans but only through extensive rational thought. It's a pretty idea, but it doesn't really make any empirical sense. Frankly, it's silly. And do we ever trust a philosopher who thinks the best thing we can do is to make a philosopher all-powerful? Don't get me wrong, I love the Republic. But, seriously?

The Leviathan. Wow, seems you have a lot of respect for it. You would be right if our founding document was the Leviathan. It's not. It's the constitution, and that's what's being pissed on. I'd like to think that our government is built more upon the thoughts of Locke who said the social contract is produced according to the consent of the governed, and that the govenrment is always accountable to the people. This is much more appealing to me, for one, and it seems that this idea of the social contract is the one our framers used to shape the constitution.

Re:but...

[BorgCopyeditor]

Justice in the city/individual is the having and doing of one's own.

Never trust a translator. There's no "having" in it, only "doing" (prattein).

A very good list!

[MarkusQ]

That's a great list. I'd add two others:

6. Work to get some form of instant runoff system going at the local level. If enough people learn how it works when voting for mayor, we'll have a much better chance of getting it implemented at higher levels.

7. Reject proprietary / DRM formats / tiered internet, etc. in favor of open / neutral standards wherever possible, and in general strive to keep information fungible. Probably the greatest hope we have at present is that we can communicate with others in widespread, distributed networks passing detailed information with relative ease. But that ability is under constant assault and could give way to the TV model (sit down, shut up and watch...but don't record...today's version of "truth") if we don't defend it.

--MarkusQ

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[cluckshot]

Just to clarify the point a bit of the parent post: Imagine a neighborhood of nest eggs like the brokerage add that is common these days or the Freddy Mac add. Then imagine a big rich guy's nest egg sent to roll that neighborhood flat. Seeing a trail of destruction of entire towns or communities crushed as his nest egg moves around you get the point.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[0111 1110]

According to economic theory, when a minimum wage is above the 'market' wage it causes unemployment. When it is below the market wage it is completely ineffectual. You would need more than just a 'minimum' wage. You would also need some kind of worker quota or 'freeze', such that a company would always have to have at least that many workers. Some kind of complicated system like that would be necessary.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

And so what? Why is it any of their business what you choose to put in your body?

Aww Jeez, not this shit again. Listen baby, with a lot of these substances, the first time you put them into your body may indeed be your choice. The second and subsequent times generally are not. This is the nature of narcotic, addictive substances. My first cigarette was handed to me by my older sister. Anyone spouting "ah kin put wut ah like in muh body" crap has never been addicted to anything, and never had to have friends, family and loved ones suffer with the side effects of that addiction. So yes, there are good and excellent reasons to make substance abuse illegal, however it has been mishandled by US authorities.

Oh, one of THOSE guys

[SpacePunk]

Why do you hate America?

Re:The only time I was flagged at "self-checkout".

[farker haiku]

well duh. you were buying bullets. They don't want to fuck with you.

Not a liberal?

[Jerk City Troll]

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you are. To uphold liberty and other liberal values does make you a liberal. (Not liking Clinton does not make you less of a liberal either. Clinton is just a man—not a liberal idea—who happened to do many unliberal things.) And of course, you should hardly be ashamed of that since all those people you just quoted were liberals themselves. “Liberal” is not a bad word ands its demonization is the work of the same people who stand opposed to every ideal you enumerated in your post.

Re:Not a liberal?

[isotope23]

Jerk City,

Yes I know I would be classified as a Classical Liberal. I would not be classified as a liberal by today's standards
however. I.E. I do not believe that it is moral to use the power of the state to equalize income, nor to mold the actions of
citizens.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[miasmic]

In Canada you can buy crack pipes from the grocery stores, in Vancouver anyway

Re: Self Perpetuating Control

[TaoPhoenix]

The bad news is, "Control is exciting". (Insert your harsher synonyms here.) Anyone involved with reviewing this information is not losing sleep at the "horrid terrorists", but they are fidgeting in glee. 'Look at all the lovely patterns.'

The problem with control, *religous included*, since our President seems bent upon including that subject, is that once you have sufficiently crushed people's ability to defend themselves, you can insert provisions that line your pockets. I only caught up with Slashdot again recently last month, and something like 15 "Your Rights" stories, taken together, have me horrified.

1984 is one book, and Fahrenheit 451 is the other, addressing the knowledge side. I for one am glad to see an "official" recognition of a topic I have quietly followed. This trend of SuperControl is here to stay unless by some incredible chance a profound reason opposite to 9-11 emerges to counteract the tide. I've seen comments elsewhere like "why don't you fight it". My reply: not yet. America *RE*-elected Bush in 2004, so this was apparently the mood of the country in 2003. But I do see signs that the downsides are impressing people; I remark that the correct time to fight is *ahead*.

I am amazed I don't know the candidates for the upcoming election... I'll have to check timelines for elections prior to see if this is unusual. At least one of the candidates in the next 5 years will be against these abuses, and that is the time to add support to a more favorable presidency, not the lame duck period of a hopeless Administration desperate to add its last legacies.

Unfortunately, I haven't yet forecasted an event strong enough to ideologically stand up to 9:11. (No longer break time at work, now a Symbol.)

--TaoPhoenix

the good -or- evil of it...

[emagery]

I probably am a little paranoid about all this, but I try to counter that with reason. What I feel is important to say here is that, most of this really is rather inert when you remove the human element... the concept of Big Brother CAN be both a positive and a negative force, depending at how it is run and by whom. RFID chips have the power to help commerce, post-criminal enforcement, finding your keys ... beautiful things... and it has the power to allow a government and/or agency to watch your every move. Nanomachines can clean your artiries, kill cancer when it is just a cell big, and allow you to perceive the internet with all five of your senses, without implants, etc... and they can also be used to invade and spy on you, cause severe harm, kill... and (most unlikely of all) go grey-goo as people like to be idioticly paranoid about. There was a time when people were worried about how reading would dull the brain, that radio would destroy society, and that rock and roll was the work of the devil. But all have been positive forces in our history. Some kid's life was recently saved because of a alligator-deterring technique he saw on the discovery channel! And for all this talk of lack of freedom, here we all are, using the internet, to talk about it! The point I'm trying to make is... surveillances, RFID, call tapping, new technologies, government itself (big or small) are all completely neutral when unused... what we really don't know is... who is at he helm? Can we trust them? How realistic is it that they want to go so completely totalitarian on us? Until they take away our right to bear arms, I still have to withhold my inner paranoia. I've heard from at least 3 different sources (most of which are via fark or /. of course, but SEEM unrelated) about secret internment camps being built in the country... That's scary, but all I have is someone elses word for it. All I know is that, almost routinely, I go to bed each night having read some frightening new news... global warming, fascist america, complete lack of accountability with repub-voted biotech firms, all the lies bush has been caught in, the fact that MY country has turned into the bad guy... we're supposed to be the good guys, dammit. Where's all our military spending going, exactly, when we can't even send our guys into harms way (bs'd as that whole situatio is) without humvee armor, huh? Von Braun once said, near the end of his life, that there there would be four great lies told to the public to secure vast quantities of money for military production and research... first would be russians (the impending issue in his time), next would be a 'faceless' and borderless threat (can anyone say 'terrorism'? (frankly, the real terrorism is done in the name of fighting terrorism, as far as I am concerned))... so we've got two prophecies left to fulfill... asteroids (legitimate as the concept is) and then aliens. All I want is to lead a complete life, relatively free of fear, write some books, make some games, live in a relatively natural setting, etc... there's really no excuse for many of the great ills in the world today, but are some of these fears imagined, or are they real? Is it in the least bit possible that some of these 'edgy' services or technologies are being used more for their good rather than their evil (nuclear power is mostly a success after all, and we haven't destroyed civilization YET!). I dunno... I want to know... and that our government is no longer transparent, that our own 'leader's (for lack of a better word) have no credibility left... it doesn't help.

Re:the good -or- evil of it...

[emagery]

dang, sorry.. didn't realize it wouldn't automatically handle line breaks =(

Americans, speak up!

[Lord Duran]

I'm not an American, but I know that software is used worldwide and any trend of surveillance can and will reach worldwide - some of it already does. But I as a person with no rights in America beyond a tourist's, if I happen to go there, can do nothing. So I ask you now, cry at the top of my lungs, fight! Fight for yourselves, fight for your children, and fight for me. Your tourist, your customer, your fellow soldier, your friend. The best way I can think of is raising this to public awareness. Make it an issue. There's an election in how long? A year? Make sure the party who puts freedom foremost in their list will get the votes. Isn't that the American Way? Stop letting the government and the industry control you. It's you who should, and must, control them. Found organizations. Write to your senator. Spread the word. Get to presidential candidates, their parties, their sponsors. Hopefully, it is not too late now. Fight, because tomorrow it most certainly will be too late. It is up to you to save the free world, and I wish I were exaggerating.

22 years later?

[jals]

22 years later? People have been noticing this stuff for years. I know many of you won't be a fan of bands such as Rage Against the Machine, but they were singing about "knowing your enemy" back in 1992.

The whole point of 1984 is that you don't notice it happening. It's great that people are starting to realise that the world is a mess, but it's not a new thing.

And this isn't a high and mighty sort of post; I see myself being a sheep many times, it's so hard not to be, and that's where "Big Brother" is so clever.

Re:22 years later?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know many of you won't be a fan of bands such as Rage Against the Machine, but they were singing about "knowing your enemy" back in 1992.

Most of us could see that because they sold CDs published by a major label in big-name retail stores and got huge amounts of airplay on radio stations owned by huge media conglomerates, RAtM were as much a tool of The Man as Fox News, the MPAA, Microsoft, and Wal-Mart. They've never been dangerous anti-government rebels, they're just gangsta rap repackaged for white suburban kids with disposable income.

The enemy...

[Anonymous Coward]

The enemy is Osama Bin Laden... it has always been Osama Bin Laden...

(two weeks later)

The enemy is Suddam Hussein, it has always been Saddam Hussein...

Of course we are living in 1984, only big brother is a "patriot act".

What took you all so long to realize?

History repeats itself.

[master_p]

Right now we are on the verge of our society (internationally, not US only) collapsing, historically speaking: there are many conflicts around the world, and the potential for a global war breakout is big.

But this has happened again. In history of Greece, Athens was the mighty superpower that dominated the rest of Greek cities; but the Greek civilisation died a slow and painful death with the Peloponnisian war that lasted 30 years and destroyed everything (and it was a war filled with hate; no rules obeyed).

But then a new world emerged. After a few centuries, it was the Roman empire that fell: divided in two, conquered by Islam and the tribes from the North. Kings reigned Europe and the rest of the western world, for a long period of time; people were opressed by religion and the various kings that had a right of life and death over their people. But this world collapsed too: the French revolution, the American revolution and others brought down the old world.

And then another new world emerged. The world of capitalism...the world of enterprises. The world of profit, where profit is God and machinery is King. Democracy and human rights were given a stronger presence in this new world...it is the world we are today.

But it is not gonna last long. It will fall down, just as the previous worlds. Greed and hunger for power will destroy this world too. People want to control other people, and technology helps them to to do.

The future holds great revolutions, by the people who have nothing to lose; by all those living in the gutter, in the streets, under bridges. Right now these people are a minority..but when they are a majority, the dawn of a new world will be close.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Casualposter]

At the local Walmart, I had to show ID to buy school glue. No kidding, Elmer's School Glue, and whipped cream--the kind in the spray can. Some stupid law trying to prevent kids from buying things they might bet high with. Geez. The kids don't buy them, theswipe them from their parents house. Morons

My take on the state of affairs

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote the Declaration of Independence:

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

This was not Bin Laden. It was Thomas Jefferson. The United States was NOT founded for capitalism, communism, war or peace - it was founded for INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS. Our entire nation was built on this principal, and our nation was and still is unique in its recognition that government derives its powers from its citizenry, that government has no inherent right to exist except as granted by the citizenry, and that if the government repeatedly usurps the power of its citizens, abuses its powers, and generally pursues an agenda that is designed to centralize its power, the it is YOUR DUTY as a CITIZEN to FORCE THE REMOVAL OF YOUR GOVERNMENT.

To the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, Homeland Security, and all the other institutions of government that will invariably read this post:

          GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH.

I am one among millions.

Get real

[polyex]

When 1984 was released something very close to or having the potential to be very close to what is described in the novel had just been defeated, namely Nazi Germany. Its nice to think of our very plump little lives being the target of some mass conspiracy, but the reality is most of us are not worth the fuel for the imaginary black helicopters that are following us. For some, I suspect this is even more terrifying than Big Brother.

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[SpacePunk]

If prinicples were any factor then the cops would bust meth labs and drug dealers year round, not right before the end of the fiscal year so they can justify a large anti-drug budget.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[DudeTheMath]

Okay, I've got to respond to this. When I was in high school, the minimum wage was $3.35, and all of us gas-money burger-flippers bitched about how little that was. I couldn't imagine trying to manage monthly expenses for even a single person, much less a small family, on less than $550 a month gross, which would be no more than $510 after SS/Med tax withholding (rent alone on a one-bedroom apartment would have eaten up more than half that).

Assuming a very conservative 2.5% annual inflation (and believe me, it was much more than that in the first decade) over the last 23 years, that $3.35 would have to be about $5.90 just to keep up. With a (probably more accurate) 3.5% average, it would have to be $7.40. And now Congress is debating a raise to $5.75? I'm not entirely a bleeding-heart liberal (although I do consider myself relatively progressive), but that's just pathetic.

You can argue that minimum wage isn't supposed to be a living wage, it's just a starting point, blah blah blah, but the point is, there are a lot of people who don't see the point of even trying for a minimum wage job because they can't afford the child care or transportation or whatever that it would cost them to hold the job in the first place.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[GiMP]

> * Only an idiot would attempt to run a meth lab by grinding up Sudafed.

Who said, "buy". I saw reports that pseudoephedrine/ephedrine containing products were being stolen off shelves. Of course, putting them behind the counter helps against this.

> It's way too expensive. It's better to just order a bunch of ephedrine from a chemical supply co.

Because that wouldn't raise any red flags!?

As far as the mentality of a law for logging purchases of such drugs... if the law said, "such drugs must be kept behind the counter", there would be many breaches of this rule, or it would be poorly implemented by the stores. If the law, instead, required strict inventory control with risk of fines... the stores would lock up the medicine themselves and take extra care in regards to its sale and prevention of theft.

Not license number.

[serial_crusher]

Saying they're entering your driver's license number is a little drastic. When I worked at kroger 2 years ago we just had to put in date of birth. Granted, laws in your state might be different, but it was probably your DOB going into the computer.

Re: Studying Hard vs. Working Hard

[TaoPhoenix]

I think a few of you are missing the split.

When we "study 14 hours a day" we expect later to be rewarded with some kind of field where we can work *less*, because of a higher rate per hour.

Those who simply have a lower capacity to study, are forced to take simpler jobs. Then they *work* 14 hours a day *forever*.

The new phrase is "From each, according to their ability to Study; To each, according to the leverage Corporations from making enough desperate people fight against each other".

--TaoPhoenix

Have you been wronged?

[Anonymous Coward]

By any of this? Is your privacy violated if you don't really know it? Someone may have listened to your phone calls or looked at the list of porn your ISP provided but have you been hurt?

This is the new wedge issue. Gay marriage may not materialize. The mexican border thing is a way of life for this country rather than a security risk, that's not the new wedge. Abortion has been decided and is in decline (thank God!) Both parties need a wedge issue, a single issue they can shove in single issue voters' faces. Terrorism vs. Freedom is the new wedge. Nothing more than that.

It works like this. If you're a repbulican and you have no ideas, you go to "your base" and bring up the wedge, they are killing unborn babies or the brown skinned terrorists are coming for you. If you're a democrat and you have no ideas, you go to "your base" and bring up the wedge, they want to take away your right to choose what to do with your body or (hopefully it will materialize, the democrats are so fucked right now that they might be too stupid to pull it off) the republicans are taking away your privacy and civil liberties.

It's a fucking wedge issue, nobody here has been wronged in anyway yet and this shit has been going on for years and years, it's not really that new. It's hard to be completely off the grid.

Protest by moving

[frambris]

Move to a country that doesn't do that kind of surveillance.

Slow news day?

[EddyPearson]

No. In no way shape or form does todays world in any way resemble Orwell's nightmare. To say it does suggests two things:
A) You've never read the book
B) Its a slow news day.
 
now I'm anybody wants to reach me, i'll be at the Ministry of Love being purified.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[ischorr]

Yes, it's very clear now. Thanks ;)

Walmart DOES aggregate purchases

[Anonymous Coward]

Walmart currently DOES aggregate purchases. Three years ago a company I worked for was selling the digital video surveillance apps. Walmart put in place a test program that not only tracked the purchases, but tied it to video feeds.

This means that if they want to see all Snicker bars bought on May 12th in Boise, 5 clicks later they are presented with register shots of everyone in a nice neat list. If you use a credit card or check, they could then pull up all of your orders across all of their stores.

They have scary amounts of data on you, and I can only imagine what type of progress has been made in the past 3 years...

Re: Disparaging Mininum wage workers

[TaoPhoenix]

Parent post is rather fierce. These cyclical effects swing in and out. Consider especially that lots of these minimum wage positions are *part time*. That means the opportunity cost of being locked out of anything more useful, being just tired enough from 30 hours at mininum wage to run out of energy to add an extra 25 from a second job PLUS inter-job commute&preparation.

Depending on the "desperation level" of the area, many intelligent candidate workers see these offerings as the traps they are. Depending again on that desperation level, some managers become sharks who grind their staff into the floor.

One chilling comment that stuck with me was the supervisor of an arcade telling me years ago "I work 60 hours a week and clear $250". Are you seeing laziness, or numbing fatigue?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Retric]

Your comments would make more sense if cigarette's where illegal vs regulated. Cigarette's are dangerous for your long term health and the degrade your short term health but they are "safe" to use on the short term because of regulation. Similar numbers of people smoke pot and cigarette's. They pose similar long term risks however because pot is illegal we increase the users risk significantly.

Yes, quiting cigarette's is a pain, but plenty of people do so. However, if cigarette's where illegal the risk of short term use would go way up so many people might never get a chance to quit. Not to mention the legal and social ramification of illegal drug use vs Cigarettes.

EX: LSD is vary risky to use but much of that risk stems from contamination and unknown dosage levels instead of long term continuous LSD usage. The term "bad batch" means someone/group was used as a lab rat and found out that the LSD is mixed with some other random harmful substance. Regulated substances don't have these problems.

PS: When somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of young people have tried POT it's hard to think making it illegal is doing much good.

"According to an October 2002 Time/CNN poll, nearly half of Americans (47 percent) have smoked pot at least once. Gallup polls indicate that a greater share of people have sampled the drug over the last 30 years or so, but not to the level reflected in the Time/CNN survey. According to Gallup data gathered in 1999, 34 percent of Americans admitted trying marijuana, up from 11 percent in 1972 and 4 percent in 1969. (Perhaps to elicit honest responses, those polled were reminded that all of their answers were confidential.) Furthermore, phrasing the question in the following way, "Have you, yourself, ever happened to try marijuana?" seemed to imply that usage could have been inadvertent or that the smoker was somehow not responsible for his or her action." http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is _5_25/ai_102102598

Now those statistics might be higher if pot where legal, but it was legal for well over 100 years and apparently few people where having problems.

How much freedom will we lose?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't recall who said it, but "We will lose as much freedom as we will tollerate."

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[1u3hr]

Have You ever heard of CYANIDE?,

And having the customer identify herself protects her against that how? If it was actually a safety issue, it'd have a big warning sticker on it, like the idiotic warnings on hand tools "DO NOT CUT HAND OFF", "PAINT: DO NOT DRINK", etc; and none of those items require an ID to buy (so far).

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

We have (officially) had this open ended war on drugs for something like 25 years and drugs have been criminalized for much longer. And what do we have to show for it besides countless movies and TV shows glorifying the fight against drugs? Nothing. People still use drugs, people still die from drugs, drugs still come into the country, etc. etc. etc.

Cigarettes are legal (mostly), but usage has been declining for a long time...so much so that cigarette users are such a minority that non-smokers can dictate terms to the smokers (restaurant/bar/beach non-smoking laws in Florida and California, et al), but that's a different issue. And why is this? Education. Anti-smoking campaigns do not have nearly the resources that the government has been throwing at the drug "problem," yet they have been able to wage effective education campaigns. Showing a kid a picture of "smoker's lungs" has quite an effect. Knowing what chemicals are used to cut tobacco has quite an effect. Some people still choose to smoke, but there is still a net loss.

So, instead of spending billions each year to fight the "drug problem," why not just make them all legal, subject them to the same FDA regulations as all other drugs, and let companies make clean versions that contain what users expect them to contain...because no one likes to be surprised by marijuana cut with PCP.

Once you do that, the crime aspect is gone. Speaking as an engineer that deals with the FDA, the military is much easier for cartels do deal with than the FDA.

Now start the drug education campaign. Show kids what meth will do to you. Show kids what PCP will do to you. Make kids watch Trainspotting. Make kids watch Requiem for a Dream. And then let them decide. Most will probably just stick with majiuana.

kickin it oldschool

[Danzigism]

*Jimmy "Superfly" Snucka dives Big Brother from the top rope* \m/ O_o \m/

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Very worrying

[Anonymous Coward]

This has been worrying me for quite a long time now. The sad thing is, I never was a paranoid, though it may be getting hard to tell at this point. The threats I see are very real. Windows collects information about what programs I run and what hardware I run then sends it off to MS and tries to install behind my back a software that allows MS to ensure they have an open back door to your system later when they want it (or anyone else who wishes to hijack the "Genuine Advantage" software.) The government freely passes laws left and right that allow them, in the name of protecting us, to bug our phones and internet connections and continue to push things that are far too anti-capitalist to normally make it through, yet somehow do. The tired old argument is that if you don't like it, then just change it, but, somehow people keep overlooking the fact that an individual without a LOT of free time and money can't actually change very much. The representatives don't listen to an individual -- they actually likely won't even get the letter as it gets screened and automatically responded to by a lower down representative of the representative -- all they listen to are huge numbers, and even then often all they'll listen to are the votes. Unfortunately, votes just say "I don't like this guy's policies as much as the other guy's." That's not saying much. When picking the lesser of two evils, you are still picking an evil. Not to mention that from their point of view it sounds like you are saying "I like this guy's policies" when, in fact, you may hate 99% of them but just hate 100% of the other guy's. So what are you going to do about it? Unless you have the free time and money to run a lot of ads, organize demonstrations, etc, chances are the answer is essentially nothing. They have us essentially locked in so that we just have to do whatever they want now.

Who needs to be paranoid when you can just look at what already exists to see these threats to freedom.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Doc Ruby]

You did not get addicted to cigarettes the first time you smoked them. Your parents, though, were negligent in not educating you and your sister that her cigarette habit was addictive. Your insurance company makes sure you pay for most of the damage you'll likely do to yourself by smoking. The government's forced labeling and taxes to compensate for the extra health/enforcement costs take care of most of the rest.

Cigarettes are not illegal, though providing them to minors who can't take full responsibility for their actions is.

Your friends, families, loved ones pain in your addiction are the harvest of seeds sown by your parents and other friends, families, loved ones. The government's work in educating and indemnifying the population are sufficient, even in our most popular deadly, costly addiction.

Everything you said is evidence for keeping government out of the business of prohibiting adults from consuming any substance we want. No matter how damaging, so long as we pay the costs of our own bad choices.

mmmmmmm goats

[Deitheres]

But lori's so hot!

Orwell vs Mosley

[infiniter]

Orwell's "1984" is the reflexive thought that comes to mind when one thinks of Big Brother-ish tracking of our everyday activities. However, I'd say that the truth is something closer to Walter Mosley's vision of a future where corporations keep tabs on every citizen. The point is that most of this "information-gathering" is profit-motivated.

And the scary part is that a profit-motivated organization is a lot less likely to exercise restraint in the violations of privacy that it is willing to make in order to increase the amount of information it has on each and every customer, employee, and stakeholder.

wrong !

[__aahlyu4518]

"The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get?"

No the big question is... how to fight this development without being locked up for being concidered a terrorist ...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[b0s0z0ku]

You did not get addicted to cigarettes the first time you smoked them.

As an 'occasional smoker' - maybe 5 a week on a 'bad' week - I'd have to agree. I can go for weeks without smoking, or smoke two in a night when I go out. It's the dose that makes the poison!

Your insurance company makes sure you pay for most of the damage you'll likely do to yourself by smoking.

If they know? Nicotine metabolites tend to leave your system in less than a week, so there's no good way to test for them without making people take urine tests on a weekly basis...

-b.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[NixLuver]

"Seriously, there's a huge institutional imbalance between labour and capital, but papering over it with minimum wage laws and welfare systems does nothing to address the root problem."

What is it you percieve as the root problem?

"It just places more and more people in a position where their survival is dependent on politics. Good for the politicians, bad for everyone else."

And what kind of non-political solutions are there? Honestly, I'd love to hear of them.

And whether any of us like it or not, the politicians - from the local level on up - are our only buffer against the corporate greed; as long as we can keep politicians and corporations (or enough of 'em) at odds, we stand some chance of freedom and wellbeing. As soon as they unite, we are their slaves.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[ikkonoishi]

And then we could have economic growth as high as France!

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[CastrTroy]

Well, I can't say i've ever seen them in the grocery stores, but there are quite a few stores that sell pipes and other paraphenelia. The stores make attempt to cover up that the pipes are for drugs, as the stores often have names like "high times" or something like that. There's no laws about owning things that can be used for drugs, or things with pictures of drugs. I even recall a story about them selling marijuana seeds in stores in Vancouver. Which they couldn't really arrest anyone for because the seeds don't contain any drugs. Granted BC seems to have a pretty lax attitude on the whole pot thing. It's not that dangerous of a drug, and they have other things to worry about.

Make it add to their cost of doing business.

[Tristfardd]

Big Brother lives by the same rules as the rest of the world. The most important of these is that manpower is expensive. This means that if people, on an individual basis, take extra time (only a minute or two) to fufill requests for information or call and ask some questions of a live person, then modern management will go nuts. Companies and organizations concentrate hard on reducing headcount and making things work more efficiently. Managers up and down the line are evaluated by these measurements. Bottom line employees are too. If you are in a grocery store and the checkout person wants some personal identification for some peaches or anything else, take an extra minute or two to give them the information. It's not hard, just ask a couple of questions about why they want it and make sure the explanation is clear.

This type of behavior causes lines to grow a little bit and things to run a little slower. Computers will notice this sort of thing and flag it. Does it mean the store has a lackadaisical manager who isn't hiring good people or is letting them slack off? The same applies to government organizations.

Much data is collected automatically. There is not much that can be done about that. However, the government has a different, but similar weakness. If you find the government is collecting some piece of information and you wish they would stop, call your representative or senator. Don't complain, just ask for an explanation about why it is needed. Insist on a good explanation. Elected officials have staffs and they cost money. As in most things some staffers are better than others. If voters start chewing up more staffer time the elected one will become unhappy. Hiring more staffers reduces quality which tends to give callers more bad experiences which leads to bad publicity.

Big Brother's weakness is that of every other organization, the bottom line, whether it be money or influence or elected position. Every organization stares at its bottom line for lack of a navel. It takes very little change to catch their notice.

Tristfardd

Re:Make it add to their cost of doing business.

[grimwell]

the checkout person wants some personal identification for some peaches or anything else, take an extra minute or two to give them the information.

You can waste more of the company's time by simply refusing to provide ID and asking to speak to a supervisor/manager. If they still want ID, refuse and walk away. Now they have to put away all those groceries you were going to purchase & void out the stuff they already rang up, both things will waste a lot more company time.

Re:Make it add to their cost of doing business.

[falconwolf]

If you are in a grocery store and the checkout person wants some personal identification for some peaches or anything else, take an extra minute or two to give them the information. It's not hard, just ask a couple of questions about why they want it and make sure the explanation is clear.

BS, they have no need for any id, all they need to know is if you can pay for it. I have refused to "join" Blockbusters and other video stores because they demand your ssn and such when they don't need it, and I don't need anyone to steal my id.

Falcon

Re:Make it add to their cost of doing business.

[Anonymous Coward]

And you have no groceries. You both lose. Some things are worth fighting for, some things you just want to be done with so you can stop the hassle.

I should hope that the poster at least gets their produce elsewhere from now on.

Re:Make it add to their cost of doing business.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already been stolen, buddy.

Re:Make it add to their cost of doing business.

[lightning_queen]

Ok, that makes sense for peaches, but what if your credit card gets stolen and is used to buy thousands of dollars worth of items, or a gun that gets used in a murder, or something illegal and the person didn't get caught for some length of time because no one ever checks ID? Granted, if you report it stolen, those transactions will be cleared...eventually, but there's a chance that that won't happen until after everything's said and done on the part of the criminal.

As for identity theft, I'm assuming here that you're actually older than 18 and have a credit card of some sort (even if it is a store card), or at least over 16 and have had, or even applied for, a job at one point in time. If someone wants to steal your ID, it'll be in a database along with the other 17 million people the criminal stole said database from. Think about it, any application you fill out and turn in to the company has enough information on it to not only steal your ID, but pretty much erase you completely in the public's eye. They've got, or have access to, every place you've lived, every job you've had, any other name you've legally gone by, any credit card you've ever had, any loans you have had or do have, every living member of your family, your entire medical history, your criminal history, your fingerprints, bloodtype, even your DNA. Granted, some of these would take more work than others to dig up, but everyone keeps records. Hate to say it, but all anyone really needs to steal another's ID is your full name and date of birth. From there, with enough digging and a little social engineering, any other information can be found.

Like I said, criminals go for major companies with thousands, if not millions, of people and their information in stored somewhere. Why get one person's information and get a couple thousand dollars when you can go for hundreds or thousands or millions of people and get millions of dollars?

There's a reason why hackers/exhackers don't worry about identity theft...

a kinder, gentler totalitarian howto

[pandaba]

This discussion makes me think of a discussion waaay back in my college days in the early 90's, at the beginning of the Clinton Administration. Things like the clipper chip and Waco were making some of us a bit paranoid (little did we know things would get much much worse..) and we were discussing how the US might actually become a totalitarian state. Most of my friends had variations on the whole 1984 scenario but I kept telling them how the perfect, modern dictatorship would implement freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc.

And apparently I was right. The powers-that-be today know that a centralized Stalinist gov't would be terribly inefficient and undoubtably unsuccessful at whatever it wanted to do. Much better to have a decentralized economy and system which gives the appearance of freedom while control is still maintained at the top. When you think about it, allowing people to bitch as much as they want about the government is really harmless in most cases. You let the citizens blow off a little steam and, in the end, they'll do little to nothing about wanting to dismantle the state or rid themselves of the current government. In fact, by blowing off steam by writing various mean things in their blog, they'll be convinced they're part of the "system" and able to effect change when, in reality, they're about as powerful as any comrade in the old Soviet system.

But there are small steps which can be taken which will be mostly invisible to the public. Allow people to say what they want but cut them out of the government or corporate job system by denying access if what they wrote on their blogs is too incindiary. For the true troublemakers, silence them with actions seemingly unconnected to their actions. For example, in the near future, the regime could "discover" child porn in a hidden directory on Kos's servers, allowing them to shut everything down in a way which would cause probably roughly 50 percent of Kos's supporters to disavow the man and his efforts.

And they could do things such as create a financial "no-fly" list which would give them the power to arbitrarily freeze the finances of anyone they wish, thus completely locking an individual out of any above-ground commerce. Such lists could also be further extended to all forms of transportation, not just aircraft, meaning an id check for all bus, train, subway tickets and a background check before you're allowed to purchase or license a car, thus severely limiting mobility for any target. This would essentially create an internal passport system in a way that almost no one would really notice.

While we're creating registries, should probably also create one for guns. Of course, such a system won't keep guns out of the hands of criminals but thats not the point. Crime rarely is threatening to the government. Instead, you would want to keep legal, easily-purchased guns out of the hands of anyone who has the potential to be a part of any armed resistance.

Secret detentions could be ramped up a bit. But the key to using all of these new powers is to use them relatively sparingly so that the citizenry never really notices and therefore never really wakes up. The bad things only happen to people who are "terrorist sympathizers", "unpatriotic", "drug dealers", "child pornographers", "tax cheats" and therefore will never happen to me because I'm a good citizen who doesn't complain much and always pays taxes on time. Enemies of the state will never be labeled as such but rather with a label that will easily make the uninformed disavow them.

The jackbooted future will look a lot like the present. Most people, as long as they have the necessities of life and at least a few luxuries, will never protest, never wake up, and will ultimately not stand in the way of whatever the government wants to do. They'll be convinced they're free because they'll face no penalty for looking at that insulting web cartoon of the President. They won't initially like the constant surveillance but eventually they'll get used to it because not on

Re:a kinder, gentler totalitarian howto

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfect description. Congratulations.

Your score (1) shows however, that Slashdot score police does not get it.
Too bad.

Here's a clue

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Dont use automated check outs
2. Dont use shit operating systems
3. Research your software/gaming purchases and avoid those that give out information you'd rather keep private
4. Use VOIP and encrypt it, or better yet leave that country and goto a more population friendly location. In fact this goes for a lot of the problems. Other countries just plain arent as distrustful of their population. Go there to one of these other countries and never look back

It actually can be their bussiness

[technoextreme]

Because it's none of their goddamned business?

Yes. It can be their business because you never actually said about who rejected you. For all we know you could have been pissed because a debt counciling service decided not to hire you.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Doc Ruby]

How do you know you're not addicted - to 1 cigarette a week? Have you ever gone a couple of years without the compelling desire to smoke?

Insurance companies know you smoke to their satisfaction. If they needed to cover their costs by requiring twice-weekly pisstests for a month, they certainly would.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

>> And so what? Why is it any of their business what you choose to put in your body?

> Aww Jeez, not this shit again.
> Anyone spouting "ah kin put wut ah like in muh body" crap has never been addicted to anything, and never had to have friends,
> family and loved ones suffer with the side effects of that addiction.

What about the late Peter McWilliams, he went through several addictions and STILL came out for legalization:
http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/toc.htm

The thing is, he understood that our freedoms as Americans are more precious than safety from drugs. Drug abuse is a social and medical problem, not a criminal one. And as he shows, there aren't really ANY valid reasons for making the substance abuser a criminal.

And the final irony is that McWilliams died not from the drugs, but because the courts took the drugs away from him!

Not really Orwell -- it's even more effective

[smchris]

"Somebody" (sorry) has an article this week that I reached through the Buzzflash.com portal that notes a crucial difference between Orwell and the U.S. We have freedom of speech. Really we do. It just doesn't matter. As long as mass media completes the trifecta with business and government to maintain the Big Lies, it doesn't matter what 15% of the people who use alternative media believe.

The big news this week was the rise in mind share of WMDs. From a low in the 30s, belief that Saddam had WMDs is back in the 50th percentile. There are no facts, no lessons to be learned. The masses only have "opinions of the week" to be molded. And that fabricated social solidarity can coexist very well with a small intelligentsia who see everything differently.

Free speech _and_ totalitarianism -- and totalitarianism all the stronger for the facade of democracy.

Re:Not really Orwell -- it's even more effective

[MKalus]

The end result between Orwell and today's world isn't different. In 1984 the news were just as much controlled as they are today, the difference is in Orwell it was the Government outright, here it is done by Proxy. People get the news they are supposed to get, as determined by the Government or Government friendly conglomerates.

Obviously this is a symbiotic relationships, the Business Man who owns the news does what helps HIS politician and in return he gets what he wants.

This isn't really all that new either, but in the past there were so many different news outlets that it was hard to have them all agree with each other. Competition was good, because if you had two competing newspapers chances were good that the same person in power was owned / owed favours to both of them.

These days news is utterly concentrated by a few large conglomerates who control not only newspapers, but Radio, TV, Internet etc.

The Internet right now has the ability to bypass some of this for those who want, but things like the net neutrality already shows there are attempts to get control over this, or what do you think will happen if your ISP that belongs to a conglomerate that has a lot of news feeds can start controlling what comes through your pipe? I bet you won't get to Indymedia that easily anymore.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[NixLuver]

I think you're a very thoughtful person, but somewhat impersonal in your perceptions. If I may, let me rephrase your statements, and you can correct me if I mischaracterize them.

"Okay, I'll grant that the Wal-Mart policies ( union-busting, paying grindingly low wages, making people work beyond their paid hours, advising them to seek public assistance for food stamps and health benefits, and the like) make quitting and unionizing unrealistic goals for many of their victims, but I think that if enough people end up suffering this kind of grinding poverty and dehumanizing suffering, and the government doesn't help them out, someone will finally notice."

That may seem a little inflammatory, but lets not forget that those numbers - minimum wage workers, Wal-Mart employees - are *people*. Real people, with dreams, hopes, plans. People that, I must say - but for the grace of Providence - could be me. I've done a stint living in my car, when I was a kid; it fills me with the heebie-jeebies to think about putting my daughter and wife in that situation through the insanity of corporate greed and the monetary mismanagement of our government.

People need to realize that the laws that allow companies to make money were put in place to benefit society, NOT the other way 'round. Companies are supplicants at the public trough; they all depend on one public resource for existence - our labor. I'm no communist, although as I've gotten older, I've found a surprising bit of socialism in my heart that I suspect is reactionary to the impecunities of the moneyed elite. Regardless, these discussions are important, but we *really* must remember that "the poor" are not abstract, at all. "They" are real people, really suffering.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[RubberBaron]

Could be a good thing then: "...productivity in France - G.D.P. per hour worked - is actually a bit higher than in the United States." See http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/29/opinion/29krugma n.html?ex=1280289600&en=3c228241f02da3b6&ei=5088&p artner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Cigarettes were only an exampli gratia. When people get it through their heads that drugs don't make the pain go away, only getting off your ass and doing something makes the pain go away, (except in the case of medical painkillers, for the hard of comprehension) then we can talk about legalising drugs. Until then, people really do need to be protected from their own stupidity, or from the stupidity of their peers. Because trying anything once can be a terminal philosophy.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[charlesbakerharris]

Because I'm sick of my health care costs skyrocketing because of dumbasses who choose to put stupid things into their own bodies. It is my business.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Mr. Slippery]

Whether it's meth or tide with bleach or patté (banned in many places now, ISYN,)

One of these things is not like the others...the issue with paté is not that it's "bad for you", it's that it is produced via amazing cruelty to animals.

Fry's?

[Rob the Bold]

As for check ID items, it's up to the store how far they go. . . . The most extreme case I saw was at a Frys which is near the university and a couple of high schools, thus lots of underage purchaes. They check your ID, record it, and make you sign the book they recorded it in.

This is a serious question. I've never been in a Fry's, don't live anywhre near one. But my understanding is they sell electronics and computer stuff, right? So what the heck is age-restricted that one might purchase there?

Re:Fry's?

[Omestes]

Fry's Food and Drug, not Fry's Electronics.

Fry's is Krogers out west. Imagine the confusion living in a place with both
So I'm going to go buy some IDE cable and 15 feet of CAT-5 at Fry's",
"Could you pick me up some eggs, while your there?"
"Eggs?!"

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Babillon]

New Brunswick is the same way. I think it's pretty similar across Canada.

Those "lots of arguments".. no bias there eh?

[plasmacutter]

It's only comming from a committee formed by a republican ruled house.. no bias there right?

just the titles alone give me clues as to the fallacies they use to justify their defence of their wealthy backers.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called 'social Darwinism'. The theory is, all these poor people having problems are not fit to survive in our society, so they are dying of all sorts of things that don't affect the rich. Helping these people would be like devolving the human race.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[cyber-vandal]

Because the US has never had a recession of course.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

We have (officially) had this open ended war on drugs for something like 25 years and drugs have been criminalized for much longer.

Yeah thats why I mentioned the mishandling.

Now start the drug education campaign. Show kids what meth will do to you. Show kids what PCP will do to you. Make kids watch Trainspotting. Make kids watch Requiem for a Dream. And then let them decide. Most will probably just stick with majiuana.

I agree completely with all of your points. Meantime however making them illegal makes perfect sense. The enforcement of these laws needs to be seriously changed, but the underlying fact is drugs don't make the pain go away, drugs make the pain worse in the long term. And I refer to alcohol (watch this comment get modded into hades), cigarettes, LSD, hash, crack, you name it. The world would be a far better place if people actually did something about what is making them miserable, rather than hiding inside a bottle, squandering their lives.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[musterion]

OK, you can put anything you want into your body, but don't ask me to pay for the consequences though. If you choose to smoke, you better start saving up for all of those lung cancer treatments you are probably going to need. You decide to ingest LSD and go fckng bonkers like that recent late Syd Barrett; I hope you have some rich friends that will pay to keep you warm while you drool into your shoes. If you take the responsibility to "self-medicate", I do not have the responsibility to take care of you.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Mr. Slippery]

According to economic theory, when a minimum wage is above the 'market' wage it causes unemployment.

Yes, and according to the geocentric theory the sun moves around the earth.

However, neither currently mainstream economic theory nor the geocentric theory have much to do with the actual world in which we live, and fail when pushed beyond the most simple predictions. Minimum wage laws have not caused unemployment to rise.

How much wors can it get?

[drolli]

Well. Imagine that not only your clicks are recorded, but also how long you watch on which part of a web page and where your moise pointer rests longer. Imagine that this data is cross-correlated among websites and that you are classified to be a pedophile because you tend to watch websites with children in swimming suites to long. Imagine that your computer tries to recognize faces in front of your web cam and that it recongnizes that you sometimes leave a friend of yours on the computer. Imagine that your computer tries to analyze what you write and passes a warning to other people about it.....

Re:Look! I'm running a meth lab!

[b0s0z0ku]

Yeah, you probably aren't. You. Other people, given free reign, will use pseudoephedrine in a meth lab. 15/day happens to be where they've currently drawn the line. Should they change it to 50/day? 1000/day? Unrestricted?

Let the meth makers make their meth and the users burn out their bodies and kill themselves rather quickly. Hell, even legalize the stuff so that it doesn't have to be made in clandestine labs. Darwin's Law: those who are actually stupid enough to try methamphetemine will suffer the consequences. Don't make law-abiding people pay.

15/day. Do you really need to buy more than 15 a day?

Let's say that the dosage is two per day and you're going on a two-week backcountry hiking trip. I'd say yes. Besides, the whole economy-of-scale thing comes into play here - a package of twice the quantity probably costs only half again the cost of the smaller package.

-b.

Precautions

[StithJim]

Oh well...Just to be on the safe side, I think it's best we start learning Newspeak.

Re: Self Perpetuating Control

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with control, *religous included*, since our President seems bent upon including that subject, is that once you have sufficiently crushed people's ability to defend themselves, you can insert provisions that line your pockets.

Disclaimer: This is Slashdot. The previous comment should not be interpreted as an argument against gun control.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[b0s0z0ku]

How do you know you're not addicted - to 1 cigarette a week? Have you ever gone a couple of years without the compelling desire to smoke?

Well - a couple of months anyway. I guess that maybe I'm addicted to one cigg per week, but I probably get 10x more crap into my lungs from working in NYC, so I don't imagine that it makes a huge difference :)

-b.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't even have freedom of speech anymore. I don't dare try to get on an airplane or even drive to Canada since I am a strong supporter of Irish Nationalism and the Feds know it. I will probably get a knock on the door for posting this but I am really frustrated with the current situation. The fed wiretapping stuff is really stupid too. If I wanted to send a message to my "IRA buddies" (I don't know any!), I would simply use a one-time cypher and any terrorist with half a brain knows that this is unbreakable. Think of how many messages could be sent with a DVD for a one-time cypher.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

You did not get addicted to cigarettes the first time you smoked them

Er, how do you know that? Smoking that first cigarette is quite a rush, thats why they are so popular.

Your parents, though, were negligent in not educating you and your sister that her cigarette habit was addictive.

Or possibly she was half cut on beer herself and thought it would be funny. Blaming parents for everything is as much of a fallacy as trying to make society do all the parenting. There are a lot of influences on young people, some stronger than others at different stages of their lives. So tell me, do you think gargantuan well researched media marketing campaigns (MTV) have any chance against the love of a good parent? :D

Everything you said is evidence for keeping government out of the business of prohibiting adults from consuming any substance we want. No matter how damaging, so long as we pay the costs of our own bad choices.

Nah you got nothin here. First of all you are assuming it is directly the fault of parents and siblings, which I have already shown is incorrect. Every movie, the hero sits down with a shot of something in his hand, they make songs about tequila, awesomely powerful marketing is everywhere. And when you are drunk, your judgement is impaired. Now don't make too much of the cigarettes or alcohol, those are only two examples. The fact is you don't see thirty year old non smokers taking up smoking, or non drinkers taking up drinking. Why is that? Because the marketing is targeted towards the younger, less experienced members of society (which is not a zero sum game) and thats just evil.

Maybe it might be alright if drugs were legal for people over the age of 30 who don't partake in any drugs habitually. What, you mean drugs are legal for people who would never take them anyway? Thats right. The world would be a better place if people realised that booze, smack, whatever, don't take the pain away, its the advertising that makes them think so. Or douchebag friends. But mostly its people that stand to make a buck on your chemical impulses. Only standing up and doing something about your life takes the pain away.

No drugs of any sort, thanks.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Doc Ruby]

We're both addicted to NYC. I don't think it's the air, unless maybe the vibrations in it. Maybe the water, though the pizza can be duplicated elsewhere, if only they flip it right.

But that's our problem. Try as it might, I can't allow the government to separate me from NYC "for my own protection".

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[AndersOSU]

completely OT i know
Last I heard the highest concentration of consumer warning labels was underneath the hood of your car. I mean I know that there may be subtle ways to hurt yourself screwing around with your engine, but do we really need to be told that battery acid is not a desert topping? (besides ethylene glycol is much more delicious)

I know this has been said before but I think the number of warning labels is an excellent measuring stick for how idiotically litigious we have become.

One more anecdote I bought a ~3' long, 2' wide, 1' deep sotage container the other day and there was a warning label (picture only) that depicted a baby tipping over into the contianer. I can only assume it was some sort of drowning warning, but the only thing I could think of was "Do not store baby in container..."

Ok now I'm off to tie the drawstring of the blinds around my neck (for safety) and see if the nylon screen can stop me from falling out the window at a run.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[NixLuver]

LOL... OTC, unscheduled. Kids have been drinking cough medicine forever, and the DMX had little to do with it. It was the alcohol and the sugar, bud. 80 proof, that stuff was when I was a kid. They'll drink mouthwash, too, if it tastes good enough and doesn't hurt their stomach. We had a 'toiletries machine' in my jr. high - it was always sold out of the no-name mouthwash that was basically alcohol and mint flavoring.

Hitler and Stalin would have loved it

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler and Stalin would have loved to have all this information available about their citizens.
Resistence against nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR was difficult enough.
With today's sophistication it would be virtually impossible.

That's what people should consider, when they support more and more big brother actions in the name of "fighting the enemy" and "saving democracy".

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

The thing is, he understood that our freedoms as Americans are more precious than safety from drugs.

Freedom implies choice. The first thing narcotics do is take away your choices, generally to line someones pocket. So yes, authorities are justified in helping you retain your freedom to choose. The manner in which it has been pursued in the states is badly wrong, but the underlying idea is good.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Doc Ruby]

I know that you didn't get addicted to that first cigarette in two ways: tobacco studies showed the industry people need more exposures to get addicted; I smoked a cigarette without getting addicted, as have many people I know who never smoked again. It is possible that you were one of the miniscule fraction of people who can get addicted to a single cigarette, but I'll take my chances.

Your drunk sister's offer of a cigarette is another failure of your parents - she was drunk (sounds like underage), was trained (or not, apparently) by your parents. But I'm talking about your acceptance of her drunken offer. You weren't trained by your parents to refuse a drunken offer, or an offered cigarettes.

I certainly do think media campaigns fare poorly against the good training from a loving parent. Just because your (apparently) relatively bad parents failed doesn't mean that others have to.

You are making excuses left and right, and throwing in a strawman. There is lots and lots of marketing of addictive substances. There are relatively few addicts. There are plenty of unqualified parents.

There are also 30 year olds who start smoking and/or drinking. Even though that is a meaningless factor when talking about parental responsibility for training kids not to start using addictive substances.

What's obvious from everything you say is that your family didn't instill enough willpower in you or your sister. So you want the government to take over and say no for you. And for everyone else. Even though the rest of us have willpower, and don't need the crutch that you do. Your arguments all boil down to your own need for external discipline that you lack internally, including your anecdotes that get the habits of the population wrong. We're not all as needy as you are. Find something that will keep you in line without putting straitjackets on the rest of us who are more sane.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Secret Agent X23]

I myself am very angry at the absurdity of age/license checks for purchasing cough medicine. As if the big drug dealers will be buying 6 oz bottles of cough syrup to make the hundreds of gallons of narcotic. "But a few high school students made small amounts of drugs with this!", cry the Nanny-State bleeding hearts!

Right. And, of course, these "bleeding hearts" are simply taking the easy way out. The problem that actually needs to be addressed is not that kids (or other members of the general public) are misusing that stuff. The problem that needs to be addressed is that they want to misuse it. Ah, but that problem doesn't lend itself so easily to a simple, one-size-fits-all solution.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[mkw87]

Ha, I just read yesterday (sorry no link, but this is true) that kids are bagging mothballs and huffing them to get high, some even go to the point of consuming them? WTF, mothballs? Wow....

EVERY credit card transaction is tracked?

[neBelcnU]

blanks (108019) wrote: "Every purchase with your CC is tracked."

Perhaps I'm naive, but it was my belief that the big retailers do not touch the CC info, they use a 3rd party to approve the transaction. So the only info they get are transaction and approval codes, and the last 4 dgits of your CC.

That means that the big retailer doesn't know anymore about you than they did before. (Unless you use a legit loyalty card, then all bets are off.)

Now at a tiny retailer, esp. if the form is manually filled out, you're vulnerable to a scam. (I doubt Ed's Pizza is tracking your purchases through it's world-wide chain of 2 stores.)

So the only place that knows everything about the transaction (ID, amount, place and time) would be the approval and credit card companies. And I think perhaps we're just a bit too worried here, because they hate each other and unfunded mandates from the government. I think greed and stupidity will prevent inertia-less data sharing for quite a while.

Come on, we're all smart people here, we can each of us figure out how this COULD work. The question is, are we smart enough to realize how it DOESN'T work?

Re:EVERY credit card transaction is tracked?

[zxnos]

i had some major cutomer service issues at a best buy recently. to make up for it the manager printed out a list of everything i had purchased at any best buy in the past 2 years or so. he then refunded the me the purchase price of one of my larger purchases to compensate me for the damage to my laptop - a couple hundred bucks. so best buy tracks what i buy.

also, i have returned things using only my credit card at target. the clerk swipes my card, scans the item and says: oh, you bought that on such and such date.

i have no loyalty or store credit cards at either store.

Re:EVERY credit card transaction is tracked?

[2phar]

I'd be interested to know if that is really true..

I notice that when I pay for purchases with CC at the grocery store, the coupons that then print out relate to a general trend of recent purchases I have made, and may have no relevance to the items purchased in that case. I'm far more inclined to believe the store is tracking you by CC number.

It's not like the CC company isn't falling over itself to try and sell every possible data about you to all comers anyway.

Re:EVERY credit card transaction is tracked?

[neBelcnU]

2phar (137027) It's not like the CC company isn't falling over itself to try and sell every possible data about you to all comers anyway.

2phar's found the hole in my logic: The profit of selling our privacy, which we happily singed away like lemmings. I think in reverse of my previous post, I'd say now that exchange of data is far worse than inertialess, it is in fact profitmaking.

Thanks, I am now going to live in a cave.

(There's a nice one in Cheyenne Mountain they're not really using anymore...)

MOD PARENT UP - Here's my story!

[Were-Rabbit]

Absolutely correct! I used to buy my loratidine + decongstant at BJ'S Wholesale Club - don't start with the "bj" jokes, guys - in packs of 45 for about $28 for the lot. That comes down to about - what - 70 cents for each dose, roughly, and I didn't have to buy against for 6 weeks. Suddenly, I went down to get more and they don't sell it. Why? BECAUSE IT'S MORE THAN 15 PER DAY!

So now I'm stuck with having to pay at least 95 cents per dose because I can't take advantage of economies of scale, and I have to make three separate purchases in order to get the same quantity!

God damned government!

A: A Lot Worse .. And It Will.

[CranberryKing]

As bad as it has gotten, we are going to see it get MUCH worse in the next 5 - 10 years. I am constantly reseaching this exact topic and there seems to be a consistent observable pattern. They play on the masses desire for convenience. Restrictive measures happen as well, but usually take more effort and often waving the t3rr03ist flag to gain support, thus they creep in a bit more slowly. Convenience is the big seller. Any time you hear about ANY great new [electronic] convenience making your life that much easier (and that's easier to reach the goal that they have chosen for you which you want terribly of course, ie: consumption, accumulation of wealth, hot women/men, your own top 40 music video, &c.) you can almost be completely certain that there getting closer to making you live in a pod ("I didn't say it would be easy, I just said it would be the truth")("I know this steak isn't real".."put me back in the pod").

Aaron Russo's new film opened yesterday:

http://www.freedomtofascism.com/

And don't forget INFOWARS

http://www.infowars.com/

Believe it.

Re:A: A Lot Worse .. And It Will.

[mshurpik]

Freedom to Facism looks like a good movie. As for Infowars, I *don't* believe the stuff about the U.N. These stories have been around for years, and Alex Jones offers no evidence except heated talk and quick pans over blurry documents.

If you want to take some stuff from Infowars about 9/11, that's something you can actually look into.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[avi33]

You have no idea what you're talking about:

Only an idiot would attempt to run a meth lab by grinding up Sudafed. It's way too expensive. It's better to just order a bunch of ephedrine from a chemical supply co.

Maybe you haven't made meth recently, but you can't do this anymore, unless you want an unmarked van suddenly following you around.

...teenagers who might use them to make methamphetamine...

Teenagers don't make meth, organized criminals make meth.

Most meth doesn't come from these sources

The source components used to be easily bought via chemical supply companies until the government wisely closed that loop. In response, many millions of cases of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine-containing pharmaceuticals were suddenly stolen off trucks, shoplifted, and bought...across the entire country. You think teenagers were behind that? Wrong. Organized crime. The US drug czar recommended that these drugs be put behind the counter, but the pharmaceutical industry lobbied otherwise. They finally lost that battle, but in the meantime, they were making tens of millions of dollars and they knew goddamned well that the population of Podunk Kansas wasn't legitimately using 100 cases of Sudafed every week.

In the late 90s a journalist from Seattle was investigating the rise of meth-related crimes in the region and discovered in charting them, that the rest of the US was mirroring the rise and fall over the course of a few years...upon investigating further with the FBI, he found that this pattern matched the availability of meth, based on wholesale supply, organized disbursement, etc. In other words: lots of cheap quality speed = lots of crime from the desperate junkies.

The reason this is different from crack, heroin, etc, is that a junkie can smoke $10 of crack in 1 minute, but $10 of speed can get you high for a day or so. It's easier to establish a habit at cheaper prices. I've never heard of methcathinone junkies, so something tells me that even though it's easier to make, it doesn't hold the same allure to speedheads.

They're trying to "stop a problem before it starts" or something.

The problem started 15 years ago. Perhaps you prefer pumping millions of dollars into the pharmaceutical industry so MORE junkies can come steal your TV and sell it for $10.

coughcoughPROHIBITIONNEVERWORKEDcoughcough

In this case, it has, as it's harder to mass produce meth and fewer people are turning into meth junkies. Are you suggesting the all drugs be legalized?

Red Herring

[Freedom451]

Most of the people earning minimum wage aren't the primary providers for their family.

All of the people who are the primary providers who are earning min wage can't provide for their family (unless everyone else in the family who can work, does work). So you have fathers and mothers who slave away at mindless jobs, their kids grow up parentless, form gangs to find some kind of human contact, and end up costing society far more than providing a decent living wage would have cost.

An intelligent species would recognize that many jobs are a waste of time for intelligent beings, and develop technological solutions.

Instead we import an underclass even more desperate than our own underclass, and turn a blind eye to the long term costs to our advancement as a people.

Our present 'Washington leadership' is focused on keeping their position at the top of the heap, they don't want things to get better for the poor, they want to keep the poor right where they are. The rich like their bullet proof cars, their increasingly walled cities, their stark separation from everyone else, as it re-enforces their position as the elite.

So instead of leading the way to a better America for all Americans, they import the best and brightest from Mexico to mow our lawns, preventing change in Mexico, and keeping our poor 'in their place'. Which is right where the 'washington elite' wants them to stay.

NO NO NO NO NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sick of this week minded shit... "How much worse can it get?" Take a mother-fucking stand! The question is not how much worse can it get, but what can we do here and now to take it back. What series of actions will bring government back in line as a protector and servant of the people? I'm sick of hearing what's-his-nuts at sun saying: "Privacy is dead, deal with it."

Words.

Just Words.

This is not immutable; people say shit that serves their interest, true or not. McNeeley says that shit so he can sell more computers for running more databases and still sleep at night. Just because this is the current state of things does not mean that this is the way it has to be. Find a way. FIGHT. Take YOUR world back.

Re:NO NO NO NO NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

The question is not how much worse can it get, but what can we do here and now to take it back. What series of actions will bring government back in line as a protector and servant of the people?

know that you don't like their policy since any letters will be screened and filtered long before they get to them) then we would at least like to know what is coming and how long we have left to enjoy what little freedom is left.

Re:NO NO NO NO NO!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, improperly closed tag there. Here's the original post:

The answer to your question is nothing. That is why the question is "how much worse can it get." If there is nothing you can do to stop it (here in real life where a representative won't even know that you don't like their policy since any letters will be screened and filtered long before they get to them) then we would at least like to know what is coming and how long we have left to enjoy what little freedom is left.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

>> The thing is, he understood that our freedoms as Americans are more precious than safety from drugs.

> Freedom implies choice. The first thing narcotics do is take away your choices, generally to line someones pocket.

Sorry, you can't evade responsibility that easily. "It's not my fault! I was addicted to (drug of choice)!"

The so-called "Twinkie defense" shows what a line of bull that is - it's the logical extreme of your position. There are any number of actions you have to take to get your "hit" and none of them are actually forced on you by the addiction. Yes, you may suffer withdrawal symptoms, even to the point of endangering your life. But there are very few cases where a person is actually forced to take drugs.

That said, I think "just say no" is also a line of bull... but the truth is if you have a drug problem, there is free help available. Narcotics don't take away choices, they just make some choices more unpleasant than others.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Gryle]

I work at an HEB in texas and peaches are not a restricted item. I can take a guess as to what happened. Each type of produce is identified by a four-digit UPC which the cashier (at least at my store) has to enter into the computer. I've entered incorrect before and once ended up selling an auto-detailing kit instead of tomatoes. I'd guess that the cashier in the story made a similar mistake and rung up some kind of restricted item accidentally.

Yes it has

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking at a calendar, it seems 1984 has been and gone. I'm living in the UK, and we are all pretty constantly monitored and measured. It seems that this is how it is. Any deviance from a life of being a model citizen and the world becomes a very painful place.

Monitored at work, monitored in town, monitored when shopping, monitored when travelling. At what point did government stop being a mechanism for providing essential civic services and start being a ruling class?

However, there seems to be no organised coherent opposition to this happening. How can this be?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[nerdonamotorcycle]

I lived in Delaware from 1984-99 and still keep up with the news from there. (I now live in the Boston area.)

Governor Minner just signed a needle-exchange bill. Story here. What scares me is all the cameras all over downtown Wilmington. Yeah, theoretically you're out in public and subject to observation, but actually observing you used to require a lot more effort than it does now. Like, a cop actually had to tail you or something. Or someone who knew you had to be in the same place and recognize you. Now you can observe a whole lot of people in an automated fashion from a central location. Add in facial recognition software and the situation is open to all kinds of abuse.

And then there are all the stories I'm reading about people ODing on heroin in Delaware. WTF?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you 100%. As long as I'm willing to bear the costs of my actions, I should be allowed to ingest whatever drugs I want. Let's not stop there though. Do you drive a car? Why should I have to pay if you get in an accident? Do you ride a bike? Same thing. Do you breath air? I'm not paying for any ailments you may get from pollutants. What kind of food do you eat? Are you at risk for a heart attack?

I really do agree with you. But your argument isn't an argument against the legalization of drugs.

Mr Money, you lack clue 1.

[twitter]

I told you already that privacy only exists when you take active measures to ensure it exists.

There are no measures you can take against the treachery of those you trust. You started this tread with a little talk about the friendly grocer of years gone by who knew all about you. Today the grocer not only keeps a database of those things, he's selling you out. His information, combined with that from everyone else who's selling you out can be retrieved effortlessly by complete strangers with power and used against you. The only remedy to such invasion is to massively inconvenience yourself by going cash only, but with RFID chips your cash will tell on you the same way your credit card does. Good luck getting your employer to give you a large portion of your paycheck in cash to get around your bank's big sell out. Because you can not spend anonymously, everything you do and everywhere you go is known. Getting around it is nearly impossible. Because you have a non free sore of value, you are a slave.

That being said, you can do as recommended to try to keep some privacy in your private papers. Encryption of email, community anonymizers and other good practices should be encouraged. The problem is that the vast majority of computer users are in the hands of the sellouts of the computer world, M$ and Apple, which do not provide the tools you need and have proved less than trustworthy if they did.

Re:Mr Money, you lack clue 1.

[MoneyT]

Then you should not trust them if you know they are threacherous. Expecting privacy from people you can't trust is like expecting honesty from a con man. Privacy, like anything else worth having, has a cost. It's not going to be easy to keep everything perfectly private, but that is the price you pay if you want to be cut off from the system.

ps, is it ironic that the bot filter word for this post is "hostage"?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Unnngh!]

Why is it any of their business what you choose to put in your body

By they, I'm assuming you mean the FDA or the DEA or PETA, although it is not exactly clear. I think that drug enforcement does way more harm than good. We still have some social responsibility, however, to our fellow men, women, and children, and taking the polarized stance of "it's no one's business" is equally as bad as what our government does in the name of protection now. Some people are not really capable of looking after themselves, and while it is one's privilege to self-destruct, no one truly wants this and the effects of self-destructive actions generally have a broader scope than those committing them like to admit.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

exactly the problem...

[Deitheres]

For every 1 person that gives a shit, there are 10 more that are too stupid or self-involved to care.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Haha, looks like someone got up on the wrong side of bed this morning. Alright, we can do it like that too...

tobacco studies showed the industry people need more exposures to get addicted

Link please? And wow, correct me if I am wrong here, but doesn't the tobacco industry have a vested interest in maintaining that their products are not instantly addictive?

I smoked a cigarette without getting addicted, as have many people I know who never smoked again.

Well done, I hope you take great pride in your good parents. This would be what I would call a personal anecdote, and has as much value in a reasonable debate as flapping arse cheeks breaking wind. And speaking of which...

she was drunk (sounds like underage), was trained (or not, apparently) by your parents.

Not that its any business of yours, but she was not underage. Here we see the debater making assumptions about the person he is debating, in an effort to undermine or cast doubt upon the character of said person. This is called an ad hominem, and is an effort to divert the discussion from what is being discussed (criminalisation of narcotics) to a different discussion, while strengthening ones own position to one of moral rectitude. It is tedious in the extreme.

I certainly do think media campaigns fare poorly against the good training from a loving parent

I take it you aren't familiar with modern marketing techniques then. They are aware that they need to overcome several difficulties, and among these there is the parental wisdom bond. These techniques are tailored specifically towards that end, and they are very good at it. I should know, I have been involved with marketing for quite some time (among other things). Methods are borrowed from sources as diverse as nazi propaganda and cult recruitment, as well as major religions and very well respected sociological studies. How many parents do you think have prepared their children to resist those influences? And don't waste your time talking about cigarettes, that is incidental, although you seem to have fastened upon it with all the lusty verve of a redneck on a pig. Tell me about alcohol.

You are making excuses left and right, and throwing in a strawman.

Straw man: To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. You want to discuss my childhood and upbringing. I want to discuss criminalisation of narcotics. Who is throwing in straw men now?

What's obvious from everything you say is that your family didn't instill enough willpower in you or your sister.

Oh yes, those willpower classes I skipped. Willpower 101, the class everyone should take. WTF.

So you want the government to take over and say no for you. And for everyone else.

And here we come to the crux of the issue. This is the reason you are so upset, and this is the reason you are flailing about. Guess what, idiot? Your government is YOU. There aren't a bunch of alien monsters coming to rule your life, they aren't royalty, they are elected representatives that for the most part are trying to keep people safe from parasites that would fill their own coffers on the backs of the young and inexperienced, destroying many lives in the meantime. That the "war on drugs" has been hijacked for someones own agenda doesn't mean the underlying idea is bad. Fix your own fucking government.

Even though the rest of us have willpower, and don't need the crutch that you do. Your arguments all boil down to your own need for external discipline that you lack internally, including your anecdotes that get the habits of the population wrong. We're not all as needy as you are. Find something that will keep you in line without putting straitjackets on the rest of us who are more sane.

More idiocy. Listen jackass (and thats not an ad hominem, thats an op

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Riverman2]

I disagree. I think you guys are getting way, way ahead of yourselves. In order for the police state to exist, there has to be a "New World Order". The United States is in competition for the best, brightest individuals. They come here for economic freedom and what not. If the trade-off was that you had to have a probe stuck up your butt when you crossed inter-state boundaries, I for one would move to Australia. I don't see the New World Order thing happening. Too expensive for the USA to conquer the world.

I also think the Orwellian nightmare is fundamentally flawed. Imagine if someone invents a nuclear reactor type device that sits on your kitchen counter, like the food-maker on star trek, and you can jimmy-rig the thing to manufacture plutonium. Do you want to live in a world where people are given all the freedom they need to commit mass murder? Imagine if instead of cars, we ride around in aircraft at mach 0.95. Do you police DUI the same way, considering a drunk driver is capable of destroying 5 city blocks? Do you even allow people to drive without computer restrictions? Do you allow people to buy caustic chemicals in the grocery store? (it used to be commonplace) These sorts of questions are completely new and you can't apply the same reasoning to them based on your ideology. The governments whole purpose is to enforce order in society. If you want to build bombs you can: move out to the middle of nowhere, start digging until you find useful metals and stuff, build a chemical factory............. you can't have any help from society because society doesn't want to help you with that sort of thing.

The world gets better and better. If you think the world was a better place when kings ruled and you could ride around on a horse chopping peoples heads off for sport, you are sorely mistaken. The smarter and more advanced we all get as a whole, the harder it is to implement oppressive institutions.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Oh I see, you think that if someone isn't shackled in leg irons and being remote controlled through a brain chip, they still have equal choices. Your argument reminds me of the religious people that talk about abstention as being the perfect cure for all STDs. They are about as right and realistic as you are.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

* Only an idiot would attempt to run a meth lab by grinding up Sudafed. It's way too expensive. It's better to just order a bunch of ephedrine from a chemical supply co.
They're trying to "stop a problem before it starts" or something.

Buying large batches of ephedrine shipped to your home (trailer park?) multiple times flags you as a possible meth lab. Stealing a bunch of Sudafed from a local drug store only puts you on a list if you get caught. The moral here is that these are idiots making the meth.

Everyone misses what Orwell was warning against

[MuNansen]

Everyone focuses on the "Big Brother" stuff like cameras in the TV, data mining, etc. That's not what Orwell was most scared of. What Orwell WAS most scared of is what's already been here for a very long time: the military industrial complex.

Ambiguous enemies that change allegiances, or sit on both sides, never-ending wars, patriotic diatribes with no real meaning other than to placate the masses and feed their bloodlust in order to continue the wars. That's the part of 1984 that was most telling. Yet Fox News would make one think that type of world is The American Way.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Retric]

I don't think most drug users are trying to "make the pain go away."

Doing drugs can be fun. Plenty of "users" are not trying to "make the pain go away" they are simply having fun. Doing heroin is much safer than underwater cave diving (per use for a regular user). Pot is safer than sky diving(per use for a regular user). Now I don't do drugs. Granted, I think I may have gotten a little extra something by eating a brownie at a party once (think spiked brownie not intentional use), but that's about it. So, my only drug use (to get "high") is cigarettes (under 100 over lifetime) and alcohol average ~1 bear a week over last 10 years. So I can only talk about people I know.

How about an engineer with 30 ish patents, 4 kids, several 100k in savings, who owns his own home. Now do you think such a person would be a recreational drug user for 30 years? Some people can not drive safely drive a car, others can not safely use drugs.

I don't think trying anything once is a good idea. I also think speeding is a bad idea. Sending someone to jail for 5 years because they where doing 70 in a 55 seems over kill. Sending someone to jail for five years from doing pot also seems over kill. I think charging someone 1000$ each and every time they are found with an illegal drug would be about as effective as prison and much cheaper. However, I think killing anyone found with 1lb of heroin, unless they give up their supplier at which point they get 20 years and the manufacture has a nice public torture session followed by an execution might work.

IMO the war on drugs is not working. We need a sensible drug policy that realities that drugs are dangerous but also realities that prison is expensive and ineffective.

PS: I think it's exempli gratia.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[DavidTC]

Well, let's see.

Does the meth addict cost society more than ten dollars a day? Let's assume it costs a few thousand to bust a meth lab, that each mugging costs, in addition to whatever was stolen, at least five hundred dollars in police time, and that each burglary costs maybe two thousand.

It's very hard to see how that could possibly average to less than ten dollars a day per addict.

So, to rephrase in another way: The illegality of drugs is costing much much more than it would be if we just bought meth addicts all the drugs they wanted. At street prices, and I'm sure the manufacturing price is much lower.

Damn yes I want to legalize drugs. There is no way to logically reduce the supply of meth to zero, and thus all 'stopping' it will do is reduce the supply and thus raise the price, thus resulting in more addicts who can't afford to pay for it. Um, duh. We've already see what happens with crack, let's keep meth affordable, shall we?

And, incidentally, around here (the mountains of Georgia), teenagers and semi-random adults do make meth. Meth labs have replaced illegal stills. They just get their supplies from organized crime, or from other people who get it from organized crime, or at least mild-organized crime. You're right in that this idea of people buying large amounts of Sudafed and making it into meth is a bit silly...if people are buying large amount of Sudafed, they're just kids drinking it to get high. Meth is made from much 'purer' drugs that are usually either really stolen or 'stolen' with the help of doctors.

oops, offtopic

[Anonymous Coward]

M$ and Apple

Please mod parent down, thx.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Doc Ruby]

Your blather boils down to something brief enough that I'm willing to waste just a little more time schooling you (where your parents apparently failed to):

Me: " What's obvious from everything you say is that your family didn't instill enough willpower in you or your sister. "
You: "Oh yes, those willpower classes I skipped. Willpower 101, the class everyone should take. WTF."

I'll just note that you brought up your sister, not me, who served as more evidence against you. And that you turned my point that your family failed to train you properly into a strawman about "willpower classes". The kind of government replacement for parenting you've demanded in every post in this thread.

Any other responses to your specific points would just be repetitions of that basic format. Which means that your sloppy thinking and bad habits, your dire lack of being raised right, have made you too worthless to even bother arguing with. You're far from alone in your subverted development, but all you broken children would do better with better parents and less government nannies. You're on your own now - make the best of it, and stay out of the way of functioning adults who know better.

Wrong question

[grimwell]

Cliff writes The sad state of affairs is that Big Brother probably became a quiet part of our lives a lot earlier. The big question now is: how much worse can it get?

That is completely the wrong question. The question is NOT how much worst can it get, the question is when are we going to doing something about it! When are we going to stop accepting and starting refusing?

Asked for identification when buying peaches?!?!? Fucking blow me, Bitch! Raise a fucking stink, in a very loud voice tell the clerk you won't provide ID so you can buy peaches. Make the clerk get the supervisor/manager and explain what an asinine policy they have. Show up every day with a shopping cart full of stuff plus eight peaches, then when asked for ID say no and just walk out.

Fucking Christ on a crutch! Get a god-damn backbone, America!

Re:Wrong question

[Anonymous Coward]

The Fury of Nature will utterly and completely destroy the English and American war machine. Nature will smash it like a child smashes an ant, it will smother it like the ocean smothers a sinking ship, it will shake it like a mother shakes a child, and it will pounce on it like a hawk pounces on sparrows. Such is the wrath, such is the bloodlust, and such is the complete and utter eradication inherent to the English system, a thousand times more will be Nature's revenge.

Re:Wrong question

[MoneyT]

And when you do that, I will tresspass you from my property. And when you come back I will have you arrested. Here's the trick to things. They're my peaches, my store, my ass on the line etc. If you don't want to shop here fine. But if you make a big public display about it not only will you hurt your cause, but you will be kicked out of my store because I have a business to run and entertaining your diatrabes about the injustice of showing a piece of plastic to me (especialy because I KNOW you're paying with a credit card which has more information about you than you could ever imagine attached to it) is not part of my business. Sure I'll lose your business but you know what? You don't matter.

Re:Wrong question

[grimwell]

Your reply is either a Troll or you've never had a job interacting with the public. I say that because your chosen course of action wouldn't defuse the situation only inflate it. And I can't understand why as a business owner you would want to inflate the situation; especially because you claim to have no interest in entertaining my diatribes or helping my cause.

And when you do that, I will tresspass you from my property. And when you come back I will have you arrested.

America was built on civil disobedience. The forefathers designed the jury system as protection against unjust laws and unjust application of law. Put down the xbox and open a book.

But if you make a big public display about it not only will you hurt your cause, but you will be kicked out of my store

How does making a big public display hurt my cause? Wouldn't that actually work in my favor?

Hey, Everybody look at me I'm being arrested because I refuse to show ID when buying peaches. I think that might actually get a few people to question the current situation. Do you think I would stop after being arrested? I'm thinking picketing your business and drawing more attention to the situation would be the logical next step. Hell, I could be back at your store the same fucking day with a sign in hand.

your diatrabes about the injustice of showing a piece of plastic to me

So being required to show ID to buy food is ok with you? Could you enlighten me as to why I should be required to show ID to buy peaches?

especialy because I KNOW you're paying with a credit card which has more information about you than you could ever imagine attached to it

Pfft. strawman argument. A credit card is not ID and the store will accept either cash or a credit card. Paying with a credit card is NOT the same as being REQUIRED to show ID.

You don't matter

And you're a fool for believing one man can't make a difference.

Re:Wrong question

[grimwell]

my ass on the line

"We must all hang together, or most assuredly we will all hang separately." -- Ben Franklin 1776

Re:Wrong question

[MoneyT]

Actualy, I have and do work with the public on a regular basis, and I've found that setting a firm line as to where you will allow customers to go is the best way to deal with them. I've had more than my share of customers rant a rave, and when it gets to the point where the ranting and raving is a disruption to the store, every single one of them has been kicked out of the store. And instead of the reaction of other customers being disgust at me, it's disgust at the customer who was acting like a child and unable to discuss a disagreeable situation like a reasonable adult.

America was built on civil disobedience. The forefathers designed the jury system as protection against unjust laws and unjust application of law. Put down the xbox and open a book.


There is nothing unjust about me as a business owner telling you to leave my property, nor is there anything unjust about arresting you if you return after I have told you that you are not welcome back in my store. The key point that you missed is that I will tresspass you first, meaning I will tell you to leave my store, and that you are no longer allowed to be on my property. This gives you the perfectly legal opportunity to collect your belongings and leave the premise. Shoudl you refuse or return you are then in violation of tresspass laws and you can and will legaly be arrested.

How does making a big public display hurt my cause? Wouldn't that actually work in my favor?


Clearly you've never been in a store where a customer is making a public display.

Hey, Everybody look at me I'm being arrested because I refuse to show ID when buying peaches. I think that might actually get a few people to question the current situation. Do you think I would stop after being arrested? I'm thinking picketing your business and drawing more attention to the situation would be the logical next step. Hell, I could be back at your store the same fucking day with a sign in hand.

Except you aren't being arrested for refusing to show ID. In this case you are lying which also does not help your cause. You have every right not to show ID, you just can't buy my peaches. If you are being arrested it's because A) you have already made a public scene, B) you've already been told by me that you are no longer welcome in my store and C) you have refused to leave or you have returned despite being told you are not allowed in my store.

So being required to show ID to buy food is ok with you? Could you enlighten me as to why I should be required to show ID to buy peaches?

Because they're my peaches, not yours. If I want you to show ID for every purchase I can. If you don't want to, you can leave. Simple.

Pfft. strawman argument. A credit card is not ID and the store will accept either cash or a credit card. Paying with a credit card is NOT the same as being REQUIRED to show ID.


You missed the point, I can pull all the identifying information I need about you from your credit card if I wanted to. So you are not saving any privacy violations here, leaving your last argument the simple principle of not wanting to show ID for a food purchase, which is f course your right. But it's my right to ask for ID and refuse a sale when you won't provide it.

And you're a fool for believing one man can't make a difference.

One man can make a difference, but one man can not make a difference on his own. It requires getting others together to make a concentrated effort to make a difference. That is, you will leave and not buy peaches and picket and do what ever but you don't matter. Now if you generate enough good will to your cause such that I see either a noticeable decline in business or a noticeable upswing in bad press you may cause me to change my policies, not because you matter, I don't care about you, but because my customer base as a whole matters.

Re:Wrong question

[grimwell]

There is nothing unjust about me as a business owner telling you to leave my property, nor is there anything unjust about arresting you if you return after I have told you that you are not welcome back in my store. The key point that you missed is that I will tresspass you first

The injustice I was speaking against was the requirement of having to show ID to buy food. You are so wrapped up in yourself and your business, you're blind to or just care don't about unjust policies and/or the whittling away of civil liberties.

Shoudl you refuse or return you are then in violation of tresspass laws and you can and will legaly be arrested.

Perhaps you're unfamiliar with the term "civil disobendience".

Besides I will only be arrested if I'm there when the police arrive. I'm sure they'll be in a hurry to come arrest a trespasser at a grocery store.

Clearly you've never been in a store where a customer is making a public display.

I have and I have been known make a display myself. They can be quite effective when done properly. I agree that coming off as an irrational spoil-brat isn't going to win any points.

The store owner requiring me to show ID to buy peaches is going to come off as the irrational one in that public display.

Except you aren't being arrested for refusing to show ID. In this case you are lying which also does not help your cause.

The root cause of my arrest is my refusal to show ID when buying peaches. I am not lying. If a patron asks you if what I'm saying is true, are you going to tell the complete truth? Nah, you're just going to say no he was arrested for trepassing and then not explain why or how I could be arrested for trepassing in a public store? I suppose you'll simply say I was a disruptive customer without offering to explain why I was disruptive. I'm sure that will work in your flavor.

Because they're my peaches, not yours. If I want you to show ID for every purchase I can. If you don't want to, you can leave. Simple.

Are you as a customer, ok with being required to show ID to buy peaches?

Maybe you missed the part in my original post where I suggested extactly that course of action. Show up every day with a shopping cart full of stuff plus eight peaches, then when asked for ID say no and just walk out.

Why as a owner of a slim-profit margin business would you want to introduce a measure(showing ID) that introduces inefficienty and extra hassle & time into the check-out process? Isn't the idea to get the customer checked out as quick as possible you can increase the volume of sales per hour? The business logic of your decision eludes me.

What security benefits are gained from having everyone show ID to purchase food? What about fake IDs?

You missed the point, I can pull all the identifying information I need about you from your credit card if I wanted to.

It was irrevalant, it is a strawman

The original point is fighting against the requirement of having to show ID to buy peaches. Being forced to show ID is completely different than voluntarily choosing a payment method that allows the purchases to be tracked a to purchaser.

the simple principle of not wanting to show ID for a food purchase, which is of course your right.

Ok, so I have the right to not show ID when purchasing food. Why are you arguing with me? Why do hate our freedoms? Do you have an actual point or reason why I should be required to show ID to buy peaches? "Its your store and I'll do what you say"?

But it's my right to ask for ID and refuse a sale when you won't provide it.

Maybe. What if I don't have any ID? Are you still going to refuse to sell to me? Or a minor buying some peaches? Are you now refusing to s

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[DavidTC]

The thing you have to do before raising the minimum wage, and will actually end up 'raising' it by itself, is to stop anyone, anywhere, from working below that wage.

Now, this can either be done by getting rid of illegal immigrants, or by making companies pay them the correct amount. Either way.

But, once you've bumped them up, you've leveled the wages of a good deal of jobs. If you did that by legalizing people, you've also brought in a lot of workers to compete, but people competing with them shouldn't worry that much, because, to be frank, they can speak better English.

By pushing the actual floor up to min wage, everything has to get adjusted from that point. The 'more skilled' positions are going to have to pay more attract workers who'd rather just take one of those jobs that they don't do anything, and the 'less attractive' posititions are going to have to do the same.

Anyway, your analyze is completely flawed. While it's true that upping the min wage will change inflatation to adjust the wage back down, that doesn't mean that inflation doesn't happen regardless. 5.15 an hour has been seriously reduced by inflation since it was passed, and it can be adjusted back to where it was without causing inflation much inflation.

Right now we have inflation without wages going up, because companies are charging more for goods while wages remain stagnant, because they're siphoning more and more out the top. Which, I think we can all agree, is a lot worse than inflation with wages going up.

Of course, doing something about that would actually do alot more for wages than screwing around with the minimum one.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I'm trying to decide, small penis, or hangover, small penis or hangover... Lets go with small penis AND a hangover! Congratulations, you win an entire internet!

And that you turned my point that your family failed to train you properly into a strawman about "willpower classes". The kind of government replacement for parenting you've demanded in every post in this thread.

Actually I had a bet with a co worker here that if I mentioned classes with your willpower shit, you'd say I was crying for more nanny government. Cheers, you just bought my lunch.

As to the rest of it, thanks for the education. I have gotten a great deal of insight into the lives of lonely survivalists squatting in their basements, more, indeed, than I ever really wanted to know. If you ever manage to wipe the foam off your chin and focus an original thought in that low sloping forehead, try to make it one about santa claus. HAPPY NEW YEAR!1!

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[EvilSporkMan]

DXM abusers don't want medicine with pseudoephedrine in it anyway - you need/want more than the standard cough syrup dose for a hallucinogenic effect, and increasing the dose of pseudoephedrine is Bad For You - heart races and so forth.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[winkydink]

I agree.

If your store asks you for id for a purchase. Shop at another store. Duh!
Don't like your ISP's policies? Find another ISP.
Your bank's been compromised? Fid another bank.
Don't like a video game's privacy policy? Don't buy it.

Nobody's holding a gun to your head. Quit fvcking whining.

Don't like your government's policies? VOTE! Don't give me all the crap about one vote not mattering.

You do vote and you don't like your government's policies? Move.

facial recognition

[falconwolf]

Add in facial recognition software and the situation is open to all kinds of abuse.

That's why I think it might be a good idea to learn to use theatre makeup. Though I used to work in theatre I didn't learn to use makeup. Thinking about it, I realize the college where I was involved in theatre didn't have a class on it, maybe it was part of different classes curricula, say acting but I never took acting so I don't know.

Falcon

Re:facial recognition

[nerdonamotorcycle]

I think facial recognition software keys off face shape, so makeup won't help. Get yourself a nice Guy Fawkes mask instead.

Re:facial recognition

[falconwolf]

I think facial recognition software keys off face shape, so makeup won't help. Get yourself a nice Guy Fawkes mask instead.

Oh but makeup can help, applied properly makeup can change the shape of your face. Putty can change your nose, there are inserts that change the nostrils as well as the jaw. Using different techniques the shape of your whole face can be changed, even your ears.

Falcon

From the Dick files...

[Slur]

Freck: "I got a lot of problems no one else has."

Barris: "More than you think, and more every day. This is a world becoming progressively worse, can we not agree on that?

"What's on the dessert menu?"

[[ Welcome to Rome 2K. Welcome to the Brave New World. Welcome to the Animal Farm. Welcome to 1984. Blind, unrestrained capitalization naturally tends to squeeze every drop of humanity out of its core machinery to achieve its primary profit objective. Humans who seek to co-exist peacefully, cognizant of their environment, in order to achieve their ethical social aims in the course of their personal and professional lives, are free to expend energy and affect material gains and losses with impunity.

Defense spending makes no one wealthy except reptilian industrialists whose profits from war and disaster are used to effectively prop up a puppet government: Now they can effectively appoint the rulers, compose the rules, shape the debate with poison pills and straw men, and to write the official history. They have placed themselves in control of Government, and in getting away with so many overtly illegal actions have at last proved that their formula works.

And once in control, what's their vision for Humanity? Well, they haven't got one. Every ounce of energy goes into developing strategies, getting money, currying favor, and making deals in order to remain in power, ad nauseum. They have no plan for the general improvement of the body politic. These are cattlement and ranchers, intermingling with reptilian wealth.

Whereas a Human despot might take over the country and start instituting a mandatory educational program -- as Saddam Hussein was wont to do -- American despots would prefer a generation of mindless sycophants, kneeling to salute the American God Machine, drugged, diabetic, deceived, and dimly fleeing (in blessed petrol-powered vehicles) to state-mandated churches and recruiting stations.

Our lives go on, largely unmonitored as long as we comply. Every year over 45 thousand Americans die in automobile accidents. We die in vast numbers, ground up by a capitalist machine that doesn't even pay into the system that maintains the roads. And yet, instead of rationally fearing the drive home, they would have us fearing terrorists, dirty bombs, and Saddam Hussein.

If we want to end the cycle of power, surveillance, despotism, totalitarianism, the way is clear. Remove the influence of the corporate wing. Just as the constitution bans the marriage of Church and State due to its irrational tendencies, it must ban the marriage of Corporate and State to insulate government from usurpation by a machine of rampant, heartless exploitation. In other words, to insulate we the people, the body politic, from Fascism.

Do we already have Fascism in America? I think it is clear that we do. Right now in the United States hate-mongers who demonize intellectuals, spread lies and propaganda daily, parrot one another ceaselessly, and bury all meaningful discourse have become well-known -- even popular -- media figures. This Executive branch has been unprecedented in giving an air of validity to these figures, appearing on their programs (where they won't be challenged or questioned) while pretending that they are in a rational, impartial, and objective forum.

Meanwhile, everybody knows what's going on. We know the game they're playing. We know everything they say is on a propaganda track, and not a track of rational inquiry. We know they are going around the world, sending the people's military to foreign lands to act as human targets, to guard the bases and pipelines they're building for themselves. Everybody in the solar system knows George Bush has no real opinions, interests, or power, that he's just a good lackey who can do what he's told, that the real policy-makers are unknown and unaccountable.

Substance D. Deception.

When we finally care enough to do something about getting screwed-over by the powerful, what will we -- you and I, Joe Citizen -- be al

Re:From the Dick files...

[sgt_doom]

I'd definitely mod this to 10 Plus.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[BlueCodeWarrior]

Same thing for spray paint...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

I really despise the whole "If you having nothing to hide than why do you get so upset about surveillance? You must be doing something wrong!!" attitude. Just because you do not value your privacy doesn't mean that others don't. I am not a criminal but I value my privacy.

it's the same as having your nosey neighbour peeking through the curtains
 
If my neighbor was peaking at me through the curtains it would bother me and I would confront them about their behaviour.

You just noticed?

[whitroth]

Bill Clinton was accused of being a "serial liar". Bush lies to Congress, lies to the world, and lies to you, personally, on tv and in the paper, and any disagreement, no matter how mild, is "partisan spin". We have the official Miistry of Truth, Faux News, as "the most trusted news source".

Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator of Italy for more than 20 years, and Hitler's ally, and, as the *first* fascist ruler, spoke with some authority when he liked to say, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." Meanwhile, Dick Cheney's golden parachute just ended this year, I believe, from Halliburton, recipient of multi-billion mo-bid US federal contracts from Iraq to New Orleans... and does anyone have the nerve to tell me that such does not fit the definition of fascism? (If so, I suggest you have a seance, or get a oieja board, and argue with Mussolini's ghost.)

This is, literally, what Orwell warned about. Meanwhile, the American Christian Fascist party, aka the Republican Party, seemed to have thought it was a game plan.

If you voted for them, you, personally, are a Good German. If you didn't vote, under the heading of "I don't like anyone", then you did NOTHING to fight it, and it's *your* fault. "The only thing necessary for evil to win is for good [persons] to do nothing."

And you'll note that this business-oriented government has allowed our manufacturing capacity to be destroyed, literally, in the name of "globalisation". We can't even make all our own steel....

      mark, and yes, I *am* frustrated by folks who bite their nose to
                      spite their face

Yeah, right.

[dswensen]

I've been reading Slashdot a long time. We've been hearing "it's 1984!" since 1997.

Sig quote

[SQLGuru]

You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!

I love this sig. I agree completely. Do I speed? Maybe on occassion...by being inattentive to my odometer...but unless you are going to travel for over 30 minutes, speeding is insignificant. I can't tell you how many times I've been passed by someone who is going 15 to 20 MPH more than me only to be sitting next to them at the light at the bottom of the Interstate off-ramp that's 5 miles down the road. Net effect of speeding vs not? Zilch.

I've used much this same quote on my daughter who will be of driving age in about 10 months....hopefully it sinks in.

Layne

Re:Sig quote

[shmlco]

"...only to be sitting next to them at the light at the bottom of the Interstate off-ramp that's 5 miles down the road."

50% of the time I make the light.

Re:Sig quote

[DudeTheMath]

The two exit ramps at the end of the eight-mile drive I'm thinking of both have approximately ninety-second reds with about a thirty-second green. The only way I can be sure to get the previous light cycle is to save ninety seconds, which requires going so much faster as to be practically impossible if there's any kind of traffic. To make the previous cycle with my one minute savings, I would have to have arrived at the light in the first sixty seconds of the red given my 65 mph speed; then 75 mph would have gotten me to that previous green. So that's just about fifty percent. So my expected improvement in time is not sixty seconds, but closer to forty-five seconds (half the time I get through on the same green, half the time I get the previous green; there's some mucking about with hitting the beginning or end of the green, but I'm eliding that).

Unfortunately, maintaining that 75 mph speed over the whole eight miles brings up that practical impossibility problem: too many other drivers on the road!

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[falconwolf]

When people get it through their heads that drugs don't make the pain go away, only getting off your ass and doing something makes the pain go away, (except in the case of medical painkillers, for the hard of comprehension) then we can talk about legalising drugs. Until then, people really do need to be protected from their own stupidity, or from the stupidity of their peers. Because trying anything once can be a terminal philosophy.

I grew up with people, friends, who used all sorts of drugs recreationally but I didn't know one of them who was addicted to the illegal drugs they used but I knew quite few who were addicted to the legal drug alcohol. Most of those I knew who did use drugs used them to relax though there were some who liked to experiment and others who liked to expand their minds. The ones who wanted to escape reality were the same ones addicted to alcohol. If you want to make laws to protect people from their own stupitity then why not have laws making junk food illegal, alcohol, or driving? Maybe we can also make bathtubs and pools illegal. In California, drowning is the number one cause of accidental death for children 1-4 years of age. In the city of West Covina, there are more swimming pools per capita than any other city in Los Angeles County. Approximately one in every six West Covina households has a backyard swimming pool - with a total of 5,500 pools. Fire Department emergency response records indicate that five to fifteen children drown or near drown within the West Covina city limits every year.

SUBMERSION HOSPITALIZATIONS OF CHILDREN IN HAWAI`I

Ten (10)% of all submersions occurred in the bathtub or toilet; the average child was one (1) year old.

Water-Related Injuries: Fact Sheet
# In 2003, there were 3,306 unintentional fatal drownings in the United States, averaging nine people per day. This figure does not include drownings in boating-related incidents (CDC 2005).
# For every child 14 years and younger who dies from drowning, five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries. More than half of these children require hospitalization (CDC 2005). Nonfatal drownings can cause brain damage that result in long-term disabilities ranging from memory problems and learning disabilities to the permanent loss of basic functioning (i.e., permanent vegetative state).

Falcon

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Users actively make the choice to use, and they actively make the choice to not "get help" if they are addicted.

That's choice, no matter how addictive a substance is, there is always a choice of continue or get help. See, the funny thing is, we have the resources to get help, even in many of the hick filled rural areas there are always options for recovery.

Your argument that since they rob choice they rob freedom and hence should be illegal lacks logic. Try again.

Strength in Numbers

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

Here's the difference. In 1984, Ingsoc had the resources and the devotees to go after every single Winston Smith. In real life, if your girlfriend buys 4 peaches and they take down her social security and mother's maiden name, what can the government do with that? The RIAA is an example of a group that has tried to do something with this mass surveillance data - and we've all seen how inaccurate their results have been. If the government wants to make the people fear it by attacking people at random, they won't spend the effort on collecting inaccurate data.

Re:Strength in Numbers

[MKalus]

Here's the difference. In 1984, Ingsoc had the resources and the devotees to go after every single Winston Smith. In real life, if your girlfriend buys 4 peaches and they take down her social security and mother's maiden name, what can the government do with that?

They don't have to do anything with it (yet). They just need to collect this information for now.

Right now the problem is that they have to operate within the constrains of the law, but they can change the law over time. Once they get it to a point where they have free reign in dealing with "terrorists" any way they see fit they don't need any due process, they print out a list and the man in black come by and that's the last time you've been seen.

Can't happen in the US? How did the US get into the current Iraq War? Ah yes, Congress gave Bush Carte Blanche he could do anything he wanted with Iraq, even nuke it if he felt that this would have been the right thing even though the law does actually NOT allow for this (he has to put a vote up before congress before he can go to war, at least that's how it was in the past).

The process is rather simple then:

1. Collect Data on "trouble makers".
2. Change law to permit you to deal with terrorists any way you see fit.
3. Declare above mentioned trouble makers to terrorists.
4. Profit.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Er, why are you trying to equate addictive narcotics that are produced, supplied, and distributed with the express intent of being addictive narcotics, with swimming pools? Are swimming pools designed to drown children? I mean, talk about comparing apples with oranges, you are comparing filing cabinets with a three ring circus.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[DeanCubed]

If you want a good comparison number, the average minimum wage between all the provinces of Canada is about $6.95/hr CDN. With today's exchange rate, this equals to a national average minimum wage of $6.15 US. You guys are getting jipped.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Blah. Marketing. Look it up. Even you admit that they need help. What does that tell you?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[timjdot]

Vote with your feet. Our corporate bigbrothers already have.

Imagine if 10,000 skilled professionals relocated to a country in central America within a six month timeframe. Reminds me of that book about how to Get Rich, Start your own city.

And I'm not joking either. Setup a new America where freedom actually does reign. Not aristrocracy and beurocracy.

I'd also love to hear how many of us have implemented these big brother projects. I worked on one such project for a few months myself. Two if you realize HIPAA is largely about the government being able to track your health status.

Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[mrraven]

Yeah some CEOs true value for sitting on his can and talking on the phone all day and most likely stripping the assets of the company and running it into the ground is 30 million a year plus a golden parachute, pleeeeeaaaasseee make me barf a lot.

The only difference between the CEO and janitor is that daddy paid for the CEO to go to business school so he (or she) could recite an endless string of meaningless buzz terms like "action items," "team empowerment," "rightsizing" and other such meaningless drivel that often leads to cruel outcomes such as outsourcing that hurt BOTH American and third world workers.

When people wake up to the fact that wages and salaries AREN'T set by the market but by what owners (and their parasitic apologists economists) are willing to pay (themselves a lot and those that actually make and design things very little) then we will all be much better off.

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[shmlco]

The number of people who have the job title CEO are, what, a tenth of one percent of all of the people in "business"? So, name one field of endeavor in which the top 1% of its practioner's are NOT the most highly compensated?

And I'm sure it violates one of your many conspiracy theories, but your salary IS a direct function of your skill set, education, and knowledge. When 100,000,000 people can do your job with ease, your earnings reflect that fact. If, however, you're one of the top five people in the world on XYZ, you can probably set your own price.

The sad fact is that here, in the US, more teenagers believe they're going to be a major league football player or famous singer or actor, and/or win American Idol, than are willing to do the work to gain marketable skills, education, and knowledge. With predictable results.

"Hi! Would you like fries with that?"

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[BalanceOfJudgement]

The sad fact is that here, in the US, more teenagers believe they're going to be a major league football player or famous singer or actor, and/or win American Idol, than are willing to do the work to gain marketable skills, education, and knowledge. With predictable results.

Well, they wouldn't believe such things if we didn't so foolishly instill those beliefs in them.

"You can be anything you want to be honey!"

Instead of the harsher, yet more practical:

"Feh. You're not going to get anywhere with THAT attitude, sonny. Now get to work."

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[mrraven]

You left out one little fact that the OWNERS CHOOSE to pay the more common job that much less. Don't pretend like it's a law of physics take some damn responsibility for the greed and avarice of corporate owners and managers. You conservatives like responsibility unless it's your ox getting gored then you whine and beg for corporate welfare like defense contracts, and you try to avoid responsibility for the DESCIONS of the amount you CHOOSE to pay. ASSHOLES!!!!!!!

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[Anonymous Coward]

you are so sadly misguided...maybe someday you'll learn.

How about working hard, being smart about your choices, and taking self responsibility for yourself throughout life instead of blaming the "system" for once? Qualified individuals who try hard can and do make more money than the lazy and timid, simple fact. Would you have it otherwise? You probably would, and it only leads down the slippery slope of socialism and eventually in your twisted world to the perfection of communism. Yeah, way better than capitalism huh? where janitors and doctors make the same wage and fairies fly out of the sky to reward the prolitariate with tasty snacks made by happy people singing songs. Grwo up!

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[mrraven]

No asshole who runs an oil company deserves a 400 million dollar retirement package:

"Where are the excess profits going? One flow is into the huge executive salaries and retirement packages. ExxonMobil's retired CEO, Lee Raymond, got his rubber-stamp board to give him one man a $400 million going away package."

http://counterpunch.org/nader07292006.html

There is NOTHING they have done to deserve that compensation period, end of story. Not only did they not work harder than the person cleaning the toilet they worked FAR less hard. Don't be surprised that this sort of rip off results in anger when people find out about it. By engaging in way excessive greed in the long run you will kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Georgie boys popularity is in the 30s, people are starting to figure out what you strip the assets and run corporate con artists are all about.

For example Charles Hurowitz made hundreds of millions of dollars stripping assets from Pacific Lumber and logging the Redwood forests of Humboldt county at an unsustainable rate. Not only did that cause landslides that killed people, floods, and irreparable environmental damage, but it ruined the town of Scotia, and destroyed a family owned lumber company. See this article for details

http://www.northcoastjournal.com/072006/cover0720. html

So don't even give me that bullshit about how the market fairly compensates people for hard work, more often than not the market produces barren eco-systems, ripped off workers, and corporate crooks who fly the coop with hundreds of millions of dollars leaving wrecked communities and bankrupt corporations in their wake.

And no I don't believe in the government either, your best bet is to ALWAYS scrutinize large unaccountable organizations that have control over your life or resources. Screw both the U.S. government and the corporations for the terrible suffering and destruction both have caused in the world.

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[shmlco]

"You left out one little fact that the OWNERS CHOOSE to pay the more common job that much less."

So you're saying you're a good little consumer, who never tries to get the best car, house, food, clothes, computer, phone service, gasoline, or whatever they can for the least amount of money possible? You like overpaying for things? You never want the most value for your hard-earned dollar?

What makes you think employers are any differnent?

Regardless, the fact is that some employers DO pay more... and some don't. Money, however, doesn't grow on trees no matter what some people think, and those that do pay more have to pass those costs on to the people who purchase their products. Some markets will accept this... and some will not. If it's one that's highly competitive those costs can NOT be passed on and you're faced with two choices: don't pay them, or go out of business.

As to CEOs, Steve Jobs almost certainly turned Apple around, made billions for Apple's stockholders (do you have a pension fund?), generated thousands of jobs, and in the process revitalized several industries. Can just anyone do that job? Obviously not, or the prior batch of CEOs would have done so.

And yes, some CEOs are bastards and not worth the money... and again, as shown, some are not. Of course, there's also a fair share of actors, singers, managers, sports figures, co-workers, presidents, factory workers, and Slashdot members who are also complete and utter bastards...

Part of the human condition I guess. As in all such things, most are in-between.

Personally, I think you need to buy a video card with a higher bit depth... one with more than simply black and white. And study some business and economics while you're waiting for it to arrive.

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[mrraven]

Would that be the same business economics that would say Windows is the best operating system because it made Bill Gates makes the most money? Oops. As far as I'm concerned economics is an advanced snow job to try to convince people that it's in their best interest to receive a small amount of pay and to use up the planets resources at an exponentially growing rate such that our generation may be the last one to live any kind of decent life whatsoever so the current generation of Americans can buy mounds of cheap crap at Wal-Mart. Yes economics involves a lot of advanced calculus using derivatives and integrals and some fancy statistical techniques as well. Yet if the fundamental assumptions are wrong or biased then all those fancy 3-d charts and graphs are meaningless. For example does a greater GNP equal a happier life? Not if the things we are producing kill us with stress and pollution, and only 1% of the population really benefits from the increased wealth. I'm old school and back in the day there was a saying about bad code, garbage in garbage out, or GIGO. From what I can see most economics that assume the economies can grow forever and mainly benefit a small elite while stripping the planet of resources is GIGO. There are limits both to our resources and to how long people in the third world will put up with being driven off their land when we dump GMOd agricultural produce on their markets, and then how long they'll put up with working in factories after being made landless and homeless for less than a buck an hour while their drinking water and other fundamental needs have been "privatized" by the IMF. Bechtel was driven out of Bolivia by angry mobs after the IMF contracted them to privatize Bolivia's water supply.

http://www.democracyctr.org/bechtel/

Who's going to be the next multinational corporation to be driven out of a country by an angry mob? Hint WTO meetings need to be held on isolated islands because the G8 leaders and business interests are loathed so much by people for the terrible suffering they have caused.

So again I don't want to hear any crap about economics. Corporate globalization causes many people to suffer so a VERY few can live in obscene luxury despite what direction a graph may point in your economics textbook. There are graphs that are abstract and deceptive, and then there are empirical FACTS on the ground I suggest you do some reading about the facts on the ground. Start here:

http://globalexchange.org/

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[shmlco]

"Would that be the same business economics that would say Windows is the best operating system because it made Bill Gates makes the most money?"

Please. You're smarter than that, and economics says no such thing. It may be the most used, but it's far from being the best. And it's the most used due to a large number of economic forces, which translates mainly into choices made by lots and lots of people, businesses and consumers, who looked at the choices available and decided, based on their own self-interests.

But if you're done setting up straw men and knocking them down, perhaps you can answer the question about how you don't ever want the best value for your dollar? And why business owners should feel any different?

All I hear are rants and raves and cries about how things are unfair and how all corporations are evil. Fine. But what's your SOLUTION? I want to hear one. And one that works, not some utopian pie-in-the-sky theory that ignores reality and the human condition and harkens back to the "good old days" when everyone was down on the farm growing corn... and dying at 40.

So what is it? No finger pointing at "them". No "should's" or "it would nice if's". For once, if possible, put aside your rightous indignation and in plain language tell me your solution.

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[mrraven]

The best value for your dollar would be Linux for 90+% of people. Too bad Microsoft's billions they spend spreading FUD scare people from actually finding that out. Being a rational actor as economic theory demands is NOT possible if information is unequally distributed and not transparant and truthful in its nature. It looks like economic theory made another false assumption that is not met under actual emperical conditions you see in real markets, oops.

And guess what I'm typing this from the Firefox browser under Ubuntu, total cost free, and developed using cooperative principles. No socialism or coercion involved either to arrive at that open, democratic, free (in all senses of the word) development model.

How do you you like them apples? Or should I say lack of Apples?

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[shmlco]

"The best value for your dollar would be Linux for 90+% of people."

With just over 1% of the existing desktop market, I doubt it. And even that number is deceiving, with hundred's of distro's fragmenting even that percentage. In many cases "free" is worth exactly what you paid for it.

Re:Hang the lawyer with the guts of the bankers

[mrraven]

You missed my point entirely. My point is that a distro like Ubuntu is just as easy to install as Windows XP and just as usable for e-mail, web surfing, and basic photo editing which is what 90% of mainstream people use computers for. Yet people don't even know this because poorly distributed information, vendor lock in, and FUD. Your "business economic theory" you were encouraging me to read up on ASSUMES "rational actors" yet rational actors are a-priori impossible when there is not transparent information and phenomena like vendor lock in. The problems with economic theory and how they lead to poor choices in actual markets was the point of my post.

Further I suspect many people would be appalled at what Microsoft pays programmers in India. Note I say I suspect because i don't know because that information because it is VERY hard to find, but if it follows so called market values, i.e. what owners are willing to pay it is no doubt appallingly low pay for EXACTLY the same work that would net you a hundred grand a year in the U.S.
That not only exploits workers in India but puts downward pressure on coders wages here.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[halcyon1234]

(c'mon... peaches??)

If he's really concerned about his privacy, he should move far, far away from the city.

Heck, he could move into the country. Then he could eat him alot of peaches.

Millions of peaches... peaches for free!

improving life instead of being miserable

[falconwolf]

The world would be a far better place if people actually did something about what is making them miserable, rather than hiding inside a bottle, squandering their lives.

Easier said than done. Two months shy of ten years ago I was hit while riding my bike, I rode more than 100 miles a week, after my classes in college when I was hit by a moving van driven by someone who had a record of causing accidents. While I was in a coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. I would strongly argue that with those docs now, my sister told me that after I came out of the coma I was screaming everyone to let me die, and I wish I had died. I am now a survivor of a TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury. Though I don't use drugs and only drink occasionally, because of my injury I'm not supposed to drink at all, I frequenly wish I could get and remain drunk and/or stoned. The only think stopping me from doing so is that I never did like to get drunk or stoned. And you want to say just be "happy"?

Falcon

Re:improving life instead of being miserable

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

I mentioned medical situations were of course the exception in an earlier post.

Re:improving life instead of being miserable

[falconwolf]

I mentioned medical situations were of course the exception in an earlier post.

Ok, I didn't recall it. That's one of the big issues with my injury as my memory, short term memory, is severly damaged. It's harder and takes longer for me to recall some things.

Falcon

Set it straight

[ultramrw21]

Alright, lets set the record straight. If you live in the USA, Every single right you think you have can be taken from you in an instant. Pretty much anyone anywhere can gather or purchase ALL of your private information in a matter of minutes. But being in the state that america is in currently, the government can justify these violations of our freedoms by citing terrorism and 9/11.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[wondafucka]

Anyone spouting "ah kin put wut ah like in muh body" crap has never been addicted to anything, and never had to have friends, family and loved ones suffer with the side effects of that addiction.

So, if I've been addicted to multiple substances and had family members and friends who have died or worse (live a long and frustrating life), does that mean that your argument is null and void? I happen to still feal that I can put whatever I want in my body. Just because someone can mess up their life and yours in the process doesn't mean we should remove their ability to do it.

Re: Studying Hard vs. Working Hard

[BJH]

Hahahahahahahaha.
Name any job below the level of board member where you're expected to work less.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Most meth manufacturers are adults.

ROFL

[Anonymous Coward]

the sellouts of the computer world, M$ and Apple

Bwahahahahah!!! C'mon now, why don't you try growing up instead?

Re: Studying Hard vs. Working Hard

[Omestes]

Wow, that does explain the large amount of Art, Music, and english majors I know. It is pretty much known that an art degree is about as good as no degree, but this poor morons persist in persuing thier dreams at the expense of money. All the time and money I invested in my liberal arts degree (philosophy) was a waste of time, and I must have been stupid not to look at how much money I could be making in something souless, like business.

I'm glad there is an equal amount of disdain coming from the other direction, where people in the more liberal feilds laugh at the "pratical" ones as a bunch of greedy, heartless, capitalist sheep. Congratulations, your ambition will lead you to money, alienated kids, and eventually a heart condition.

Salut!

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Just because someone can mess up their life and yours in the process doesn't mean we should remove their ability to do it.

I stand corrected. You have convinced me sir, of the error of my ways, and I shall go forth from this day forward espousing the right of my fellow man to mess up my life.

Would you fuck off.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[sgt_doom]

HOLY CRAP! Once more the neocons rush in with the lowbrow, mindless propaganda, "Oh, how important are all these sleazy crooked CEOs, who claim expertise when all they have is insider knowledge (and that's all they ever had), whose only response to everything is the impotent, "It's the cost of labor, let's offshore everything."

Of course, if the minimum wage was still tied to production, as it was until around 1990 (oh...that would be the first Bushie administration), then it should be at least $20.00 per hour. But such math exceeds the intelligence of that office in the Pentagon which spews forth such drivel - and they pay drones high bucks to do such nonsense. 1984?? Try 2006!

"If you learn economics, you can't be fooled by economists." Harry Truman

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

> Oh I see, you think that if someone isn't shackled in leg irons and being remote controlled through a brain chip, they still have equal choices.

They're not equal - as I said, it makes some choices more unpleasant than others. But no, I don't think narcotics turn you into a soulless robot with no free will.

Seriously, though, read the McWilliams book - he addresses issues of addiction and personal liberty in detail. The point is, the government is neither obliged nor authorized to be your guardian in this respect - it is there to keep people from harming others, not themselves. It's why alcohol is legal and DUI is not.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Still don't see how making them illegal helps. It has not helped in the least. Our jails are full of people in on minor drug offenses. We spend untold amounts of money on jailing these people for basically no good reason, and it does nothing because no one in this country really believes in rehabilitation/education unless the addict is rich...in which case the addiction is not his/her fault (e.g. Rush Limbaugh).

Making drugs illegal just wastes vast sums of tax-payer money that could be going toward general education, drug education, social services, jailing real criminals, national health care, whatever.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[aslate]

Yes, everybody knows that. But when was the last time you triggered an alert over an apricot in a store? Come on, dude, don't be a fool. I agree w/GP, the guy is a demogogue.

Self service checkouts aren't the thing here, but i'm assuming that they're restricted because they're sold by weight. If you're on a self-service checkout there's no way for them to monitor what weight of peaches you're putting in your bag. If it was a bloke at a checkout, i bet they'd have no problem.

You want an automated service that'll sell you stuff without contacting a person, fine. But don't bitch when it wants your driving licence or anything else which is on a database to prove your age. How else is it meant to check you're old enough? Guess by your weight.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Arker]

What is it you percieve as the root problem?

We allow political power to define the playing field. This means the larger actors can afford to buy legislatures and get the economic rules rewritten in their favour. And so of course they do. It's much less work and more money than actually competing.

And what kind of non-political solutions are there? Honestly, I'd love to hear of them.

The smaller and more powerless the political machine can be made, the less the market can be distorted towards the favoured players, the better chance the rest of us have to compete. This is both political (in a sense) and not (in a sense) because it does focus on politics as a prerequisite to real change, but it's radically apolitical - the goal is not to take over the machinery of state and use it to impose new, different distortions in favour of the formerly oppressed class, but simply to weaken that machine to the point where it no longer matters who controls it.

And whether any of us like it or not, the politicians - from the local level on up - are our only buffer against the corporate greed;

I think that sentence represents quite clearly an extremely common, but fundamentally mistaken, view of the relationship.

The politicians are never a buffer against corporate greed. They're its creators, sustainers, and enablers.

Consider, just for a moment, that the corporation itself owes its existence to the political realm. Corporations are not natural entities. They originated in letters patent issued by the Monarch. Today the legislature plays his role. Without political power distorting the marketplace there would be no corporations.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[eyeye]

The reason this is different from crack, heroin, etc, is that a junkie can smoke $10 of crack in 1 minute, but $10 of speed can get you high for a day or so.

That makes no sense. Needing to get $10 to buy drugs is hardly going to cause a crime spree or we would have lots of people mugging people to buy cigarettes.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Most common cough medicines don't contain pseudoephedrine, and meth normally isn't produced from drugs bought from the store anyways, it would be to expensive. Instead they just buy the chemicals direct, easier and faster.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Kids have been drinking cough medicine forever, and the DMX had little to do with it.

Thats entirely untrue. You don't get a full disassociated (compareable to ketamine) from just alcohol and sugar.

no debate?

[falconwolf]

Er, why are you trying to equate addictive narcotics that are produced, supplied, and distributed with the express intent of being addictive narcotics, with swimming pools? Are swimming pools designed to drown children? I mean, talk about comparing apples with oranges, you are comparing filing cabinets with a three ring circus.

One, not all illegal drugs are "produced, supplied, and distributed with the express intent of being addictive narcotics", ever hear of medical marijuana? Do you know where a painter's "canvas" originated? Hemp or canabis aka marijuana. Boy, Thomas Jefferson must of been a big dupe dealer because of all that hemp he grew on his farm. And maybe we should just rollup and smoke his most famous writing, the Declaration of Independence. And the cloths made from hemp was bad as well. Fact is is hemp was perfectly legal until some wealthy and powerful industrialists pushed to have hemp made illegal with the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. The US government still encouraged farmers to grow hemp during WWII in part by making and show farmers the movie "Hemp For Victory".

So, no I'm not comparing apples to oranges, I'm comparing some things that are dangerous to other things that are dangerous as well.

Falcon

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't get a line about the mothballs but that would be a great one...

Going to Guantanamo

An American Ballad

Went to Fry's to buy some peaches,
Got busted at checkout by some skeeches.
FBI hits Uncle Bob up, might give him fifty,
His water desalinator is not so nifty.
Send that American to Guantanamo!
Homeland secured don't ya know?

Giving me a headache bigger than my head,
But gotta sign in blood for sudafed,
When are they gonna cut me some slack,
What's that peach for? Smack, whack, whack!
Gas mask? Cyanide? Whatcha trying to hide?

Money talks. And politicians listen.
Commies, Henry's in his grave digging!
$5.15 hour you gonna get paid,
'nother 500 years you'll have it made!
Man got me down - better not turn around.

Hard work never hurt so they say,
Rags but riches never came my way,
"I have no special talents." Einstein said,
"passionately curious." and have a big head!
Computer got my name, I'm destined for fame.

Credit card company sold my name,
Telephone company did the same,
And sent my call to the FBI,
Sitting on the wall just like a fly,
Gov's got me scared,
the tyrants are prepared.

Just don't buy peaches and you'll be OK,
But a butane lighter'll put you away!
Big oil fat cat got $60 Bill,
From Bankrupt Sam on Capital Hill,
My $5 won't buy my meal, bowl of rice is my fill.
'nother $20 won't buy my gas, guess'll be walking my phat ass.

Cash no good to catch the bus,
Gotta have a token or miss the rush,
No cash allowed in the FastTrak,
Get in line, in the back!
No 5-0 when a robber comes, but 5-0 waiting with speed guns!

1/2 million dollars to buy a house,
My rathole can will barely hold a mouse!
Fiat money which doesn't exist,
If you complain, here's the fist!
I sold my freedom when I payed my tax,
Government freeloaders riding on our backs.

Hidden terroists are everywhere,
Caught one at Wal-Mart with fake hair!
Bought hairspray, baking powder and clorox,
Bomb-making terro-ish spraying chitlen pox.
Better watch out it might be you, freedom's scary, you terrorist spook!

Source:
http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/06/07/29/02232 53.shtml

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[sgt_doom]

Interesting how you cite that which is now officially known as a Corporate Conspiracy (I know, there's no such thing as conspiracies, only "coincidences" -- and science doesn't REALLY exist..) -- indeed, if the multicorps have their way, everyone will consume highly questionable, untested genetically modified food - which the fundamentalist loonies have deemed safe because those strange voices told them so (How can one be institutionalized today???).

The point is not to criminalize everything so as to support the prison/industrial complex, such as Corrections Corporation of America and other such sleazoids. Once upon a time in America, there weren't mentally ill people on every street corner yelling to the moon.....

Book recommendation of the day: Nomi Prins' Jacked: How the Bush Republicans Are Picking Your Pocket

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[sgt_doom]

I suggest you study Henry George for some possibilities. Don't be so accepting of the frauds of our day: Milton Friedman, who thinks "at will" employees are the best thing going, while only living his life as a tenured academic (definitely not walking the talk, that one!). Also, I would ignore everything Thurow at MIT pontificates upon...that guy has not been making any sense since he started in his self-contradictory cycle back in the '90s --- everthing the Mitre Corporation tells him to say, he parrots...

And sorry, but you haven't been paying attention, they have united quite awhile back, and marching toward the day of One World Corporation....

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[OakDragon]

I don't know about Delaware, but where I live in Kentucky there is a real danger of your neighbor's house catching on fire or blowing up because they're cooking up a batch. The restrictions on pseudoephedrine and ephedrine do seem to work, and they are a minor inconvenience at best.

I do admit that meth is the "flavor of the month" in drug war, but that doesn't make it any less nasty.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[falconwolf]

The first thing narcotics do is take away your choices, generally to line someones pocket.

The only reason drugs, at least some drugs, line other people's pockets is because those drugs were made illegal. I don't know about opium or poppy but hemp aka marijuana is easy to grow and if it were legal then there's be no organized crime profitting from it as anyone would be able to grow it themself.

Falcon

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Arker]

has never been addicted to anything, and never had to have friends, family and loved ones suffer with the side effects of that addiction.

Actually I started smoking tobacco when I was 13, and nearly two decades later, addicted to the tune of three packs a day, finally realised I had to quit or it would kill me. Several of my childhood friends got themselves dead, involved with other addictive substances, and many others close to me got pretty screwed up, though fortunately not dead, for the same reasons. That's a pretty good benchmark of just how wrong you are.

I've read your other posts through this thread, and it's all the same crap. You want someone to save you from having to take responsibility for your own actions, and you don't give a damn that means enslaving everyone of us as well. You know, if you want to have someone else tell you what to do and think for you and generally take care of you, fine. But don't expect the rest of us to pay for your lack of responsibility, either with our money or our liberty.

Better yet, why not try acting like a free man and taking responsibility for your own actions? Spend your time improving yourself instead of whining about how nothing's your fault and someone should have stopped you? You never know, if you tried it you might find you like it.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[bev_tech_rob]

Arkansas has the same type of law...it may be stupid to grind up large quantities of tables, but before the law here came into effect, that is what they were finding at meth labs.....large quantities of Sudafed and other ephedrine based OTC medicines waiting to be ground up.....

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Paracelcus]

The first error in this is your assuption that this sort of thing is new, and second is that you have rights and live in a "free" democracy!

Ask the Cherokee about "freedom", hell, ask anybody, anywhere about how "free" they are! Self delusion and denial often masquerade as patriotism.

passing the cost along

[r00t]

OK, you're "willing to pay".

Poor people have to pay too. Everybody does. Prices for everything go up.

We have a name for this: inflation

You might as well suggest that we just print more money to fix all our problems.

insurance costs

[falconwolf]

Because I'm sick of my health care costs skyrocketing because of dumbasses who choose to put stupid things into their own bodies. It is my business.

That's relatively easy to solve, and is already happening. Let insurance companies charge more for risky behavior. Actually I've been denied health insurance because of an injury, from an accident the only way it could be said I caused is by being in the wrong place at the wrong tyme. For auto insurance every ticket causes insurance to go up, the same can be done with health insurance, because I smoke I pay more for the insurance I finally got, the state has health insurance for those who have been denied insurance.

Falcon

Re:insurance costs

[charlesbakerharris]

No go. The same idiots who rave about their ability to stuff poisons into their bodies are the ones who fund the ACLU and insist that they have a right to be treated the same as health junkies thanks to a right to privacy.

Re:insurance costs

[falconwolf]

No go. The same idiots who rave about their ability to stuff poisons into their bodies are the ones who fund the ACLU and insist that they have a right to be treated the same as health junkies thanks to a right to privacy.

I see two different issues here. First a private insurance company should be able to determine if the life style choices someone who applies for insurance presents a risk. That is a choice. Where I feel strongly about privacy of medical data or records is for things like genetic testing or other instances where choice wasn't an issue and insurance wanting the results of said testing to determine how much they will charge for coverage, or to determine if they will even offer coverage. Like I said earlier, because of an accident and resulting injury I sustained from it I have been denied insurance. The accident wasn't a choice I decided to make. More like it was a choice the driver who hit made, he decided to drive when he shouldn't of drove. I was riding my bike when I left the college I was attending after a class, when a moving van hit me. Turns out the driver was a diabetic and they say he passed out while driving. He didn't know what happened and some witnesses had to chase him down and force him to stop. He also had a record of the same thing happening two tymes before hitting me.

Falcon

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Listen baby, with a lot of these substances, the first time you put them into your body may indeed be your choice. The second and subsequent times generally are not.

How the hell does this explain carding for peaches?!

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[sgt_doom]

The funny thing is that people are totally happy with letting companies and goverment track them.

I know no one who is happy with this and I get tired of hearing this drivel.....

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[1lus10n]

Speeding is only a contributing factor to the damage caused at an accident. It is very rarily the cause of an accident, that is usually driver error. Of course speed enhances that possibility by allowing less time to recover/react but there are many high speed roads that have low accident rates because they are properly enforced (ie pulling people over for 'cruising' in the passing lane, not signaling, excesive braking and so on).

Of course if we took every thing that anyone considered dangerous and made it highly illegal we would all either be in prison or be sitting on the couch staring at a white flat windowless wall.

And yet, Ironically...

[clambake]

And, ironically, I can carry super-spicy hot sauce in a real biohazard container (purloined from a hospital by my friend) in my carryon lugage and not get asked ONCE about it assuming there is something like a nail clipper nearby.

Nice!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ayn Rand is on your wishlist. So very special...

My wish list?
Die! You hypocritical, backward, self-righteous, half-cocked, daddy's brat. ...here's hoping all our precious wishes come true next holiday season ;)

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

All stores ask for ID
All ISPs have this policy.
All banks have been comprimised.

The point is, while technicially the choice is still ours. The choice SHOULD NOT be, live like a hermet or be spied on. The really frustrating part is that it seems like there is nothing that can be done about it.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[falconwolf]

The smarter and more advanced we all get as a whole, the harder it is to implement oppressive institutions

DO you really think so? Try Iran, or Iraq before the invasion. How about North Korea. Or take Germany in the 1930s, scientifically and technically Germany was one of the more advanced nations but it became very oppressive.

Falcon

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[rubycodez]

you've missed the point and swallowed the mountain of BS. Hardly anyone is abusing bottles of medicine that way, and its annoying to bother most people because of that. Those that want meth can get it anyway, and any kid who wants to play with any nonprescription medicine is going to do so anyway. If you want to live in a nanny-state, please get the fuck out my country and set one up somewhere else.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[lullabud]

Your lack of punctuation and your random capitalization stands out clearly as a code. You're working for them... I'm currently breaking your code though, I'll find out what you're up to and I'll tell the whole world.

M:I--()MHSTIMEMPM--,IBCIA,NSA,RIAAIRM,TCIM?

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[rubycodez]

sure I've heard of meth labs, had a couple shut down within a few miles of my home. run by people old enough to pass the age ID check, silly! And they're not using 20 times 8 oz bottles equals approx 4 liters times 2 grams DMX per litre equals EIGHT GRAMS of DMX! Learn some basic chemistry and arithmetic pal! You are the one ignorant of domestic affairs and for that matter meth production, freely available on the web. you really thing jr. high and high school students are running the big drug supply chains to our major U.S. cities, and buying their TENS OF GALLONS of raw material one 6 oz or 8 oz bottle at a time?????

Re:Not license number. Wrong

[callingalloldhippies]

NV/USA: requires name, address, picture id, DOB, and THUMB PRINT,

They also must keep pretty good tract because they only allow one box @ customer @ week.

I refuse to give up my finger print unless I have been arrested for committing some crime.

It is Insane to punish sick people for the possible crime someone else might commit.

minimum wage

[falconwolf]

Until some better structural solution (and don't give me any fulla'-holes 'isms) comes along, the only real solution is to keep the minimum wage at the realistic value of minimum wage work. At the moment, folks seem to think "$5.15".

I think I've got a solution though I'm not sure how well it is. Take some multiple say 100 or 1000 and every percentage the ceo and other execs make over that for the lowest paid fulltime employee raise their taxes. And don't allow the the corporation to write it off. If an exec wants more pay then they have to pay their employees more.

Of course I'd be against raising a person's income tax as I think income taxes on people should be eliminated. Not corporations just individual income. Instead institute sales taxes and user fees. But the corporation could see their tax rise.

Falcon

Re:minimum wage

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Take some multiple say 100 or 1000 and every percentage the ceo and other execs make over that for the lowest paid fulltime employee raise their taxes. And don't allow the the corporation to write it off. If an exec wants more pay then they have to pay their employees more.

That sounds like a workable idea. Especially because the only people that will scream and shout about it is the people who need the least help, i.e. the people with 47 cars, 8 beach houses and a private jet.

More reasonably, I like the idea because it restores the CEO income/average worker income ratio that existed 20+ years ago. I forget the research now so it's hard to look up, but it was once the case that CEO's earned on average, 4-10x that of the average worker.

That number now is around 400-500x, while real wages for the average worker have barely risen at all.

And anyone who thinks that is fair or acceptable for any reason needs to be shot. Society doesn't exist as a teat for the wealthy, it exists to benefit everyone (not in the socialist or communist sense, but in the sense that we'd all be born without the need for a mother if that weren't true).

the Land of the Fear and the Home of the Slave

[Baldur_of_Asgard]

I like my wording better.

BTW, I have a friend who is going to be forced to register for life because of a "crime" he committed 15 years ago - a "crime" which did not have any victims (except my friend, a victim of the government). This is because recently the federal government passed an ex post facto law which increases the penalty for past crimes - and no one in America is making noise about it (except to applaud it).

Seriously - anyone who cares about their lives or their freedom, get out of the USA as soon as you can. Germany, 1936 . . . America, 2006. The similarities are striking. I don't think there's any saving America, other than an eventual invasion by Chinese or Indian troops in the endgame of the next world war.

Baldur

Re:the Land of the Fear and the Home of the Slave

[Bing Tsher E]

I thought it was 'Germany, 1936, America 1986.'

or was it 'Germany, 1936, America 1996'....

I predict there will be college sophmores saying:

"Germany 1936, America 20x6" for decades to come.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[shmlco]

Why do people not look at the consequences of the actions they advocate? Many small businesses (and medium and large ones, for that matter) already ride the razor's edge when it comes to profitability. All a quota system would do would be to put them OUT of business, either by increasing costs beyond revenues or by decreasing their ability to compete against others not so encumbered.

The end result of mandating more jobs would be, in many cases, to eliminate them.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Caine667]

"Teenagers don't make meth, organized criminals make meth." You are quite mistaken there my friend.Most teenagers don't make meth, true. However, it really isn't all that difficult, and the returns can be enormous amongst 15-18 year olds with nothing better to do.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Foobar of Borg]

Unfortunately, this is a common rhetorical tactic that one should be wary of. Either drone on and on about one little possible mistake until everyone forgets what the actual main point was, or pick at some irrellevant detail like an insulting or vulgar word, or a misspelt word (in the case of the written formats).

One way I combat this when the debate is face-to-face is to confuse the opponent. For example, if you are sitting barefoot in the same room, as the wing-nut drones on and on, simply lift up your feet and give your toes an audible sniff. It is garaunteed to stop them dead in their tracks. If I'm not mistaken, I believe Gaius Julius Caesar used this tactic in response to Cicero's arguments in support of Lucius Cornelius Sulla.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[shmlco]

...there are a lot of people who don't see the point of even trying for a minimum wage job because they can't afford the child care or transportation or whatever that it would cost them to hold the job in the first place.

Which gives rise to other questions. Like, would we be better off NOT raising the minimum wage, but instead taking that money and providing child care credits or vouchers? More subsidized preschools? Reduced cost public transportation? While the basic effect on one side would be a wash, as in welfare payments becoming child care vouchers, at least those people would be working and paying taxes and even, perhaps, gaining health insurance benefits.

Personally, I'm in the "education is the silver bullet" camp. Take the same amount of money a mimimum wage increase would generate and provide GED's and advanced education such that people can go for jobs that pay MORE than the minimum wage. Reduce the pool of people whose only recourse is a minimum wage job, and the "minimum wage" will go up by itself as a function of demand.

tracking

[falconwolf]

The funny thing is that people are totally happy with letting companies and goverment track them. Every purchase with your CC is tracked. Every purchase with an "awards card" is tracked, and people are totally fine with this type of tracking.

Some may be but not all. When I can I pay cash not CC or DC. I'll even go to the atm and withdraw money instead of handing over a card. The one place I don't do this is at Barnes and Noble as I've joined their membership program. It has saved me quite a bit of money. Like one book for a class in college, the college bookstore had it for around $83 but B&N had it a dollar cheaper then there was the 10% off saving me almost $10. Even there though I'll pay with cash most of the tyme.

Falcon

There are, in fact, two Frys

[Sycraft-fu]

There's Frys Electronics, which is who you are thinking of. They do sell food items, but primarly just snacks. I don't think the sell things that need ID, or peaches for that matter. I am talking about Frys Food and Drug, a large chain of grocers that happens to have a store near my house. They are as any other grocer meaning in the states which allow it, they carry a full range of alcoholic products.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[EdipisReks]

One of these things is not like the others...the issue with paté is not that it's "bad for you", it's that it is produced via amazing cruelty to animals.

how is it cruelty when the geese by and large like it? they voluntarily line up to have feed shoved into their gullets. they look forward to it. don't believe me? go to a farm where geese are raised for fois gras. properly done "forced feedings" (which is really a misnomer, as the animal isn't "forced to feed") don't injure the animals, and the greatly increased liver size that results doesn't hurt the animal: all it does is take advantage of a process introduced into geese and other birds by natural selection. i didn't realize that the humane society had become a bunch of melodramatic assholes like peta. i did, however, realize that a certain subset of the slashdot community was comprised of uninformed assholes who gobble up propaganda like the geese in question gobble up corn.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[cronofrek]

Are you comparing that to the federal minimum wage in the US, or the national average minimum wage in the US? Keep in mind that many states have a minimum wage significantly higher than the federal minimum wage.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Squalish]

It may be you getting older, it may be things getting worse.

The majority of society havn't seen a real wage increase in 35 years, as the economy continues growing, productivity grows, and the top quintile sees its share rise and rise.

We have a class war going on, and the middle class + poor are losing - and my political philosophy is taking note that our society has less and less actual capitalism, just semblences created by rich people buying legislation. Permanent artificial monopolies are everywhere - originally only encompassing a decade or so after invention + creation in the form of trademark + copyright, now extended to virtually every sector of the economy, regulated through and through, bending to (and bending) the rule of law.

I think in the major recession brewing for sometime in the next five years as a result of current account, budget, and trade deficits (the one where the rest of the world decides that the US and its credit-whore economy isn't a good choice for an anchor currency), European-style socialism, and anti-corporate sentiment in general, is gonna take a big step forward in the US.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[mdfst13]

"there are a lot of people who don't see the point of even trying for a minimum wage job because they can't afford the child care or transportation or whatever that it would cost them to hold the job in the first place."

How does increasing the minimum wage fix this? Note that child care is usually a minimum wage job and is labor intensive. Increase the child care costs and you increase the wage needed to pay for child care...

Increasing the minimum wage has three effects:

1. It puts pressure on employers to cut costs, possibly by cutting workers.

2. It puts pressure on employers to increase prices.

3. It pulls employees from alternative locations. For example, someone who is currently going to school might find it worth it to take an $8/hour job where $5.15 was not worth it. Someone who has a higher pressure $9/hour job might take a pay cut to have a low pressure, $8/hour job.

If employers aren't paying enough for people to pay their bills, is that really the employer's fault? Or is society's fault for making bills so expensive that they can't be paid? Rather than unfunded mandates as to how much an employer should pay an employee, wouldn't it make more sense for the government to take responsibility for the problems that it has caused? Consider child labor laws for example.

Traditionally, child care was not a separate expense that required a special professional to address. Instead, child care was provided by the members of the families involved. In particular, they'd take kids around with them in their work. Kids had chores and responsibilities. Modernly, the government does not allow this.

Now, I'm not arguing against child labor laws. My point is that regulation is the wrong tool to use to finance other unfunded regulations. If societally we feel that parents should not be able to take their kids to work with them, then society should also step up and help fund solutions to the resulting problems. For example, if you have six single mothers without child care, who are stuck on welfare as a result, why not pay one of the single mothers to provide child care for the other five? Or rotate the child care such that each mother cares for the other five's kids one day a week?

Note that part of the problem is more unfunded regulation. Child care providers are often required to be licensed and zoning regulations make it difficult for individuals to provide care out of their houses. Yet, it's perfectly all right to have unlicensed parents with even more kids...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[cplusplus]

Actually, crushed pills have become one of the main ingredients in meth. You should watch this episode of Frontline. Here's the link to the full eposide online. It's an eye opener. The sources are not hard to use at all. It's really easy to remove the cornstarch filler from most pills on the market and be left with the main ingredient of interest- pseudoephedrine.

Also, severe control of a main ingredient in a drug has worked in the recent past. Anyone remember quaaludes? Didn't think so.

I don't want control and intrusion as much as the next reasonably educated and politically aware person, but to say harsh controls over substances don't ever work is incorrect.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Riverman2]

No you misunderstood me. I'm comparing now to then. Iran is at the same level as Germany, trying to develop nuclear weapons and what not. The advanced education system is critical to preventing oppression. One of the primary reasons Hitler could do what he did is because of the authoritative educational systems they inherited from the Prussians, a lot like current muslim-state education.

Although I disagree with you if you are trying to say that the US is susceptible to that sort of thing. Like I said, we're too advanced, people wouldn't accept oppressive rule. You can make laws but it doesn't mean everyone will follow them.

Ensuring freedom

[XJHardware]

[i]We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soapbox, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. Apply in that order. - Author unknown [/i] Has it gotten that bad yet? You decide. We've managed to bungle using the first two. Nobody has been brought to trial to use the third and I pray to G*d we never have to use the fourth.

Watch the watchers

[strangedays]

Government and Companies are callously using information technology as a weapon against us, the people. The same people that buy their products and elect them to govern us. They spy on us, bypass our liberties, deny us access to information, hide their own actions behind veils of secrecy and privilege (private laws).

What they forget, and we must never forget, is that they, work for us. We must always control them, it is a reasonable requirement and responsibility of citizenship.

Corrupt and openly evil methods are being employed to change our societies and lives, for the worse. Our law makers are failing us, they seek to bypass our courts and forums for fair trial and debate.

They pour billions into the media to promote cynical and false rationales for war. They lie outrageously and are unapolagetic when caught. Their have no real justification for taking our liberties. Our opinions and votes are being bought and sold, we are manipluated during elections by sophisticated simulations and media campaigns.

I respectfully submit that all people must always remember, such methods and "weapons", can and must point both ways. The founding fathers protected the freedom of the press, now the press is the people, that freedom must be strengthened, extended and adapted to this brave new world.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes (who will watch the watchers) was an age old philosophical conundrum, that never has had a good answer. Or does it?

Imagine if we, "the people", use the (new technologies) to protect our freedoms from political erosion and abuse. Isnt that our right?, isn't that what what "freedom of the press" was about?, we simply need to bear newer, better arms, to protect freedom.

Right now media and technology is being used for the ethical equivalent of Arming Bears (not a typo).

Imagine for a moment:
All police stations, interview rooms, phones, police vehicles, all public administration offices and meeting rooms, any public space, any public employee, any publicly elected official was monitored (watched) 24/7/365 with the information feed stored and/or published to the internet and accessible to any interested citizen. They wanted a public job didn't they? Lets make it really public.

Imagine that we, watch the watchers.

We do have the right, we employ them, its been well established that all employers have a right to monitor all employees. Set up Mandatory video feeds, email traps, phone taps and random cameras active 100% of the time in all agencies, and offices.

Invasive? certainly. Infringing of their liberties and privacies, nah, they are just employees. And even if it is, why is that worse than the invasions commonly committed against yourself and myself.

Why shouldn't a public offical be continuously recorded and the data publicly "reviewed for quality and performance"?

Imagine how useful it would be for a court to "play back" a police officers interview with a complaining suspect. It should normally work in the officers favor... As they say, if they really have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear.

I am serious, no kidding folks. We, the people, must always watch the watchers.

So lets do it! Lets use the public and the net, to monitor the agencies and officials, starting now!

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Arker]

The US forced school system was modeled on the Prussian one.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Teenagers don't make meth, organized criminals make meth.

But if two teenagers get together to make some meth, doesn't that make it organized crime? If they are making meth it is a crime, and if there is more than one person involved someone has to be organizing things.

I've been to meth labs. A friend lived (unknowingly) next to one for a few months. Most are run by gangs. But some are home-based, just like with pot. None I've seen or heard-of are run by the mafia, which is what 99% of readers are going to infer when you say "organized crime".

The reason this is different from crack, heroin, etc, is that a junkie can smoke $10 of crack in 1 minute, but $10 of speed can get you high for a day or so.

What a load of horseshit. Ten dollars of speed can't even get me high for 5 minutes, let alone for a day. In rural Texas, speed is currently sold in $50 and $100 bags (that's $100 for a gram). For big spenders (which are few and far between), I know where to get an ounce for $1100 that could be resold for $1300 or split up and sold for in smaller units for more than double that.

Sure, with speed the high lasts a lot longer, but the rush is no where near as high as with crack. And speed junkies commit a lot less crime than crackheads. Most of the crime is because of the drug laws. Get rid of that and unleash the free market and you'd see a lot less crime.

Sorry to say, I'm an expert. I was up all night smoking crack and my girl is supposed to be coming back in a bit with some speed. (Though we prefer to eat the speed.) I used to have a multi-thousand dollar a month cocaine habit that quickly turned me into a crack addict. After rehab it is a lot more controllable, but it is still incredibly difficult not to fall off the horse again into heavy-use. (And I gave up a 2-pack-a-day cigarette habit in less than a week.)

And don't believe all the anti-drug bullshit you read/hear from people who don't know what they are talking about. I'm still working on building/maintaining websites that most slashdot readers have seen. Sure, it has messed up my life in numerous ways and I really wish I'd never started. But the majority of the people I've dealt with are not thieves and murderers. They just like to get high. Sure, there are bad guys out there--hell, I was at the scene of a drive-by shooting and that scared me shitless. But in a couple of years of heavy drug-use, that and one fight are all the violence I've seen.

Are you suggesting the all drugs be legalized?

Damn straight. And that's from someone who is an addict and wishes he never became one. From someone who heavily researched this in high school/college long before I ever snorted a line or smoked a rock. From someone who has lived in Washington and met the drug czar. From someone who has snorted thousands of dollars of blow and smoked thousands of dollars of crack.

The harder the authorities crack down, the more money there is to be made. And someone will make it. You are never going to get rid of drugs unless you stop the demand. End the allure of doing something illegal (the #1 reason most suburban kids get involved). Stop the distribution-related violence by selling it like alcohol. Stop most of the addict-inspired theft by reducing the cost so addicts can get high for a week on what it currently takes to get high for an hour. Spend the billions currently going to law-enforcement on rehab/recovery for those who want to get off. Stop the blatant bullshit about drugs (smoking a joint funds terrorists, smoke crack once and you'll spend your life sucking dick on the street, etc.) so people (especially kids) will believe you when you are telling the truth.

*no subject*

[CaptainNerdCave]

i've read nearly all of the republic and i grasp what you mean, very insightful. i agree that the system outlined is made up of pretty ideas, but after much discussion in one of my poli sci classes and with a few friends, we came to the conclusion that all of the forms of justice have legitimate claims to what justice means. i am a pretty strong advocate for the "might makes right" definition... to many ends. practically speaking, the winners of wars write the history books, spread the culture and fill the gene pool.

...i'm not sure i remember gleaning that particular idea about justice from the republic... that gives less of a fascist image and more of a (the word suddenly escapes me) freedom-to-do-as-one-will-so-long-as-it-doesn't- interfere-with-the-interests-and-rights-of-another image.

as for the leviathan... what is it that keeps most people from driving as fast as they wish? why don't more people leave grocery stores with carts full of food without paying? why aren't there more occurrences of deadly "road rage?" fear of punishment. fear of who punishing? the leviathan - the law of the land; the maker of the law; the only one who can punish with impunity.

personally, i have a sick feeling that this country is sliding more and more out of a democracy into an oligarchy; just something else that supports hobbes' ideas that man is inherently selfish and bad.

honestly, i have not delved into locke's treatise on government, i've only read parts of his treatise on human understanding; any comments i make on locke would only serve to magnify my ignorance. although, i see a distinct perpendicularity between hobbes and locke in the consent to be governed, which seems to be the only thing they agree on. so it appears that the major difference between the two ideas of governmental function stem from two theories about how people would act in a "state of nature."

Re:*no subject*

[digitrev]

I know I'm coming in a bit late, but I just have one quick point to make.

There are only three real sorts of power, and one of them is more real than the others.

The first is physical strength. All other sorts of power come from this. Security, police, etc... all come from the physical strength of one invidual over another. That's why you have to lock people up when they go to jail, because of physical power. But this is only a restrictive power. You keep people from doing things they want to. You cannot physically force someone to do something they don't want to. The second, and less real, is psychological power. And even that holds some of its roots in physical power. This is an active power. You can convince someone, or threaten someone into doing something they don't want to. The third, and least real, is social power. The ability to turn people against each other is one of the strongest powers, but holds absolutely no grounds without other people. It is set entirely in the mind of the inidividuals.

LSD is not "dangerous"

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you have a pre-existing mental condition or something disturbing happens while you are under the influence, in which case it is likely you won't be able to handle it and will have a "bad trip" and possibly need some psychological treatment afterwards. If you had ever actually seen a "hit of acid" or knew how tiny an active dose was you would know better than to spout about "contamination". A normal dose of LSD is about 150 micrograms, most street LSD these days is even weaker than that. It's typically applied to a tiny little piece of paper or is encased in gelatin (again, very tiny). Even assuming 100% of the paper or gelatin was "contamination" of some sort it would be insignificant unless someone was intentionally trying to poison you, the total size of the "dose" is so tiny that the vast majority of chemicals/drugs would have no effect on the human body. Another point about dosage levels, after they first discovered the drug they spent a lot of time trying to find out at what level it became toxic (i.e. at what dose an overdose occurs) - they never found it. Once you hit about 500 micrograms the effects don't get any stronger or last any longer, you will have a very powerful trip at 500 micrograms but even going up to 10 grams there was no change in any test subject. They gave up at that point. LSD is, physiologically, one of the most potent and least toxic substances known to man. Psychologically it's something else entirely. As someone who has done it on more than one occasion I can say I would recommend it to anyone I thought had the strength of mind to stay in control during the experience and not flip out, it's an interesting experience and I learned a lot about how my mind is put together while under the influence. What's unfortunate is that LSD is very hard to come by these days, it's not a profitable drug and is fairly difficult to produce. Most LSD you find these days
(if you can find any) is extremlely weak and tends to be overpriced, the curse of the non-addictive recreational drug!

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Qacker]

Explain how bleach is used in any route to produce meth - oh wait it's not - perhaps you should learn some chemistry before spouting off on how you think meth is made.

Smoking is fun

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of smokers who aren't addicted. My wife usually smokes one cigarette a day, sometimes she goes days without smoking. She just doesn't fiend for them like a junkie. I've seen her go weeks without smoking and not be bothered. I personally smoke several cigarettes a day, I would say I'm mildly addicted to them in that I do start fiending for a cigarette (it's nowhere near as bad as my coffee addiction fortunately!). However I've never had any problem quitting for whatever reason (unlike coffee!). I needed to save money so I went several months without smoking, after the first two days it wasn't a big deal - I started back up because I remembered how much I enjoyed it and missed hanging out with other smokers (smoking is a great way to meet people). My mother is very senstive to smoke so when she stays with us I don't smoke, it's really not a big deal. My wife and I continue to smoke because we enjoy it. Neither of us smokes more than a pack a day even when we are smoking at our most heavy and if you look up the actual science on smoking we're really not at a hugely increased risk for cancer. I've talked to a lot of other smokers about this and many of them are the same way as us, I've met a few who fit the stereotype about smoking being really hard to quit but many of the smokers (and ex-smokers) I know barely smoke and/or have never had a hard time quitting. Based on the smokers I have known I would say something like 1 in 50 smokers is actually like a junkie when it comes to cigarettes - they smoke more than one pack a day, they start wigging out if they want a cigarette and can't have one, they can't quit even if they desperately want to, etc. I know smoking is bad for you but a lot of things in life are bad for you. With the amount I smoke the risk of it killing me are significantly lower than they are of me dying in a car accident, and with the amazing pace of technological progress chances are doctors will be able to grow me a new pair of lungs within the next couple of decades if I ever need them.

Chicago Surveillence Cameras

[chicago_scott]

The City of Chicago installed surveillence cameras in my neighborhood last week. One happens to be directly outside the front door of my condo building. There has been no public discussion and there has no discussion with the condo association in particular. We all went to work one day and when we came home it was installed... along with three others within a four-square-block radius. This is not a dangerous neighborhood, nor has it ever been during my 10-year residence.

Yes. 1984 is here.

Now that the surface has been scratched. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

Look at the Denver Airport. --It was built and set up to be turned into a prisoner transfer and holding base. It shows the government's hand. There is a LOT of very weird stuff built into that project, including whole buildings buried which have nothing to do with airports, vast underground tunnel networks designed for truck access, huge areas of barbed wire holding areas. --And weird Masonic cryptological artwork spread throughout. Among other things.

When it comes time to start thinning the populace, it won't be done by rail car.

The idea here is that all the Semites are on the chopping block; both Jew and Muslim. This is why the religions were set up the way they have been; specifically to divide and conquer. Semitic DNA lends that human form greater power and awareness after the energetic 'shift' we are getting close to. Our overlords don't want that. This is why the Jews have been persecuted and set up throughout history. This is why they are being set up right now for annihilation. (The world is already getting heavily pissed off with them. It's just a matter of time before they get wiped off the map. If you have friends in Israel, advise them to get out now while they still can.)

The white races are next. The Chinese are the ones earmarked to contain the next race. They are by design more suited to 'obeying' in systems of selfishness. Here's a neat story: The Chinese and Taiwanese were caught up in a difficult political mess. The American diplomatic corps was called upon to comment. They wanted to take a neutral stance on the situation, and they wanted their statement to reflect this. Their translators informed them that this was impossible. "It is not possible to make a statement about a political decision which does not carry a tone which either agrees with or disagrees with the action." This caused the American delegation some consternation. "We want to be NEUTRAL. We do not want our statement to carry any emotional opinion or judgment."

Impossible.

This suggests that the Asian culture is designed in such a way that conflict and hierarchical thinking is built into its basic structure. When language will not allow you to emotionally dissociate yourself from a problem, how will this cause one to grow as an individual? Systems of open networking and sharing are that much more difficult to achieve, and this fits well into the game of the overlords who feed on pain and chaos.

Then there are the Crop Circles and UFO's. Whether people like it or not, these phenomenon not only exist, but are a significant linchpin in the whole picture of human culture as it stands today. To ignore them is shortsighted. The truth of the matter is that we are food for higher beings for whom time and space are not obstacles. --Where it is easy to set up religions and groom the human experience so that we are herded in certain directions. Look at how exquisitely human religion has been set up to create a focal point of fear and chaos. --The whole war in the Middle East is directly a result of religious differences. For aliens, fear and pain are food. When people die in torture, the outflow of negative energy which sustains an energetic being is enormous. Imagine a whole planet's worth of people dying in fear and pain? (But then we have, of course, been taught that such energetic spheres of existence do not exist. That Chi is a falsehood. That TeeVee's James Randi is a man of wisdom.)

It is estimated by some that 97% of the human population will be consumed. As such, it is wise to keep in mind that you are here to grow as souls which are indestructible and which will live again and again. --So focus on that; focus on helping your neighbors. We are here to learn the lessons of love and knowledge. There is nothing to fear except ignorance and the inward desire to act in selfish ways.

Here's a very good book available for download which you might find interesting. . . (it's about 450 kb. Right click to save.) It doesn't mention anything about the above points I noted, but it does offer a way through.

Good luck.

-FL

Re:Now that the surface has been scratched. . .

[coralsaw]

What on earth are you talking about?

You present "truth-of-the-matter", non-attributable, non-provable assertions. You superficially touch on many different and -perhaps- important issues that belittles them by default. You validate your arguments by generic statements.

I'm just thinking you should go out in the open air and breath in a bit. Fuck TeeVee and Fuck conspiracy theories. Breath in man, you deserve it!

Re:Now that the surface has been scratched. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

You present "truth-of-the-matter", non-attributable, non-provable assertions. You superficially touch on many different and -perhaps- important issues that belittles them by default. You validate your arguments by generic statements.

Yes, well, welcome to the forum of the public opinion soap box. The subjects I touch upon are huge and complex; think of my above post as an abstract. If you are truly interested, I invite you to ask specific questions to which I'll provide what I am able.

-FL

oh the pain!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what sorts of drug users you know but I have only met a few who did drugs to "make the pain go away". They were all alcoholics though, manic-depressive artistes! I've known people who have used heroin for more than a decade. They live in a fucking mansion and drive a brand new Jag. They do it for fun and relaxation, maybe they are addicted but they seem to know what they are doing, neither of them has ever OD'd. They sure as hell don't need to rob or kill to buy their smack and god knows they've got nothing to feel pain about, they're happy and well-adjusted people who have been amazingly succesful in life. I've known hundreds upon hundreds of pot heads, most of the are suburbanites who drive their kids to soccer in SUVs. Taking drugs to deal with "pain" is largely a myth. Most people do drugs because they want to have a good time. Most people who do drugs aren't drug addicts anymore than I'm an alcoholic because I drank a beer last night.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

pnac cyberwar #2

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey lookie, it's another fucking PNAC cyberwar

USA National ID Card: Real ID Act - H.R. 418

[tuxtattoo]

Without this National ID, you won't...

• Drive your car
• Board a plane, train, or bus
• Enter any federal building
• Open a bank account
• Hold a job

This bill was passed into law on May 11, 2005 by President Bush. It's to be fully implemented by May 11, 2008 at the very latest.

Don't believe me? Have a look at the official congressional documentation on the Real ID Act - H.R. 418. Are you wondering how they got this past everyone? They attached it to the Emergency Supplmental Appropriations Act - H.R. 1268 bill, a bill for funding our troops in Iraq. It was passed into law as US Public Law 109-13. I mean who would want to have voting against support of our troops on their voting record, right?

Interested in more information? Want to join in the fight? Take the No National ID pledge. Regardless of your "religious" affiliations, this is certainly a worthwhile cause to contribute to, so they can continue to fight this law.

The National ID card will grant the ability for the Government to apply economic sanctions on an individual level. I hope you find this as disturbing as I do.

Re:USA National ID Card: Real ID Act - H.R. 418

[AriaStar]

This is old news around here. But do you know if there's any truth to the rumor that this card will be microchipped and we will be required to carry it at all times, even if just out for a walk or a friend drives you to the grocery store? What I've heard several times is that the chips will be trackable as well. So if you go to a protest and have your card on you, police can scan who's there and enter people into a database to track their activities. I'd like to know how accurate this is. It's hardly a step down from implanted microchips is true.

Re:USA National ID Card: Real ID Act - H.R. 418

[tuxtattoo]

The way I understand it the National ID cards will probably have RFID chips of some sort. Since in some states (possibly all, but I don't know for sure) you can get fined for not having your license or ID card with you even if you aren't driving, I don't see why they wouldn't do the same with the National ID card. It would make perfect sense especially if the Government was wanting to track a "suspected" terrorist (ie - whoever they want).

So, if they indeed do use RFID you will be able to be tracked and not even know it. Since pretty much every item produced will end up having an RFID tag before too long, this opens up entirely new avenues for you and I to be tracked. Walmart and even the Postal Service (and many more) are starting to demand RFID from all of their vendors. I mean the New Jersey Blue Cross Blue Shield is doing a two year pilot program for implanting RFID chips in chronically ill patients. So if they wander off or pass out they can know who they are and what their condition is, etc. Same thing would and could apply to a demonstration while carrying the National ID card.

Once most items contain RFID tags, they could not only track you, but know what you are wearing, what color the items are, where you got them, and even how much money you have in your pocket (since at least the US $20 bill has RFID in them already). For fun you could explode some cash if you wanted. Even if most of this sounds way too "conspiracy theory" for you (or whoever reading), just think as far as retailers go. They would never use this wealth of information available to them by you passing through their scanners for any evil marketing plans. (;

I think you are right though. The implanted chip is probably the next "logical" step for a more secure form of ID. I mean if a card can be stolen or possibly counterfited, a chip in the hand is certainly more secure, especially if we link them to our bank accounts. The helpful and ever so watchful Target employees will probably think something is amiss when someone starts waving around someone elses hacked off hand to pay for that new Xbox 360 game. (=

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[falconwolf]

Although I disagree with you if you are trying to say that the US is susceptible to that sort of thing. Like I said, we're too advanced, people wouldn't accept oppressive rule. You can make laws but it doesn't mean everyone will follow them.

Oh but we have a good example right now, the Bush admin. They feel as though they can spy on anyone and everyone, and they hold people in indefinite custidy without charging them with anything. While some speak out not many do, some even call those who do speak out traiters. It's Bush and those who support him dispite what the Constitution says that are the traitors. When Bush signs a bill he also issues a signing statement in which he says he'll disreard the law if it suits him. He has issued more signing statements than all of his predecessors combined. Some say well he doesn't think they are constitutional. If he doesn't then he can veto them instead of saying he won't follow them. As the NAZI propaganda minister Herman Goering said:

"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

This is exactly what Bush and the neocons in his admin has done. I'm still waiting to see all of those WMDs Saddam had. That was the reason for the invasion but when it turned out to be false, they changed the reason, maybe hoping nobody woud notice. Now it's to spread democracy. Where was he when the Venezuelan military threw a coup against democratically elected Chavez? He was congradulating the military and ever since he was return to power Bush has fought to have Chavez removed from office. Shortly after entering office Bush also gave the Taliban millions of dollars of taxerpayer money to the Talibans, bet not many people know about that.

Falcon

one of the better discussions on slasdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the 70s, when minimum wage was more fair (about $7-8 an hour, adjusted) and our world was not falling apart. It was only starting a hopeless decline, which was not caused be the preceding decades of better wages.

The signs of doom were about 50 years ago but wasn't apparent until strong momentium built up 2 decades later. We then entered into mass denile in the 80s while it was only made worse. Some would say the point of no return started around the time of Nixon, some say JFK. Despotism has been slowly growing with only the rate of decline slowing during certain periods. In other words, for 50 years its been 1 step forward, >1 steps back.

History will be on the side of those who saw the trend without 20/20 hindsight.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Riverman2]

Oh but we have a good example right now, the Bush admin. They feel as though they can spy on anyone and everyone, and they hold people in indefinite custidy without charging them with anything. While some speak out not many do, some even call those who do speak out traiters.

Yes it is a perfect example, because people generally agree that we should be tracking these phone calls and taking extra security measures. Thus, these initiatives are accepted. You act like he is not accountable to anybody, but he is. You don't put a president in office and let him do whatever he wants. Congress tried to impeach Clinton over a damn BJ.

This is exactly what Bush and the neocons in his admin has done. I'm still waiting to see all of those WMDs Saddam had.

That silly quote has nothing to do with what we're talking about, an all volunteer army. Everyone I know who was in the military before the war started joined because they wanted to see something like this. Everyone I know who joined after did it because they solemnly supported the cause. You can't argue on behalf of the veterans, since you aren't one. I've heard reports of more than 500 chemical munitions. Isn't that enough? Terrorists in Iraq have been using them, not quite as effective as the big explosions. Saddam is gone and now Iraq is turning into a democracy. You're so quick to jump on the liar bandwagon, but so hesitant to believe for a second that anything we're doing is actually working.

mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahahaha...i found that hilarious but only because it's sadly true.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Tell me, when you were busy fucking up grammar and spleling (I italicised that part so you would know its on purpose, tit, and also because I haven't the time to call you a moran in a return post, and yes, the moran was on purpose too, moran, google it) in school, did you happen to pick up any good grooming tips? Because a shit flinging monkey like you could really use a couple...

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Several of my childhood friends got themselves dead, involved with other addictive substances, and many others close to me got pretty screwed up, though fortunately not dead, for the same reasons. That's a pretty good benchmark of just how wrong you are.

I realise this may be a novel idea, but heres a thought: try listening to yourself. I mean, christ, you made my whole argument right there! You didn't even get to sentence three!

I've read your other posts through this thread, and it's all the same crap

Oh do tell, most profound sage.

You want someone to save you from having to take responsibility for your own actions, and you don't give a damn that means enslaving everyone of us as well.

Right. And if you wanna drink while shitfaced, you can do that too, cuz dats ur fredumzz. Dumz. Dumz. Here, I'll take your slavery and raise you an orphaned child, you haul a godwin out of your copious arse pocket, and I'll drop the pedo card, and we can call it evens, how does that sound.

You know, if you want to have someone else tell you what to do and think for you and generally take care of you, fine. But don't expect the rest of us to pay for your lack of responsibility, either with our money or our liberty.

Newsflash texas, you already do!

why not try acting like a free man and taking responsibility for your own actions? Spend your time improving yourself instead of whining about how nothing's your fault and someone should have stopped you? You never know, if you tried it you might find you like it.

Jesus, I have to stop arguing with rednecks and junkies. I mean I could be loving up my teenage cheerleader fiancee right now. Sigh. DIAF already, you ignoramus.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

PS: I think it's exempli gratia.

Mea cupla.

:D

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[NixLuver]

"The smaller and more powerless the political machine can be made, the less the market can be distorted towards the favoured players, the better chance the rest of us have to compete."

I think that our own history gives this statement a significant contrast. The railroads, the various land concerns (ranchers, loggers, etc) made their employees into indentured servants in a way that modern companies can only dream of. In our history, the times of weak political power have bracketed the most egregious abuse of the workers.

I'm no pie-eyed dreamer; I know and understand the venal nature of the body politic. But despite the assertion that they've unified, the opposition is easily generated by various selections of legislators and other politicians being purchased by opposing business interests. Coporations have opposing interests, and in spite of the corporate sponsorships, you and I still have to vote them into office (unless, of course, you're George Bush). So the politicians accept campaign donations from many disparate sources, and generally 'serve two masters' (or more) ineffectively, all the while trying to maintain appearances for the plebes. This chaos is the only thing that reins in corporate power at all.

Your idealistic Randite anarchist assertions certainly sound good on the lips - simple solutions to complex problems - but they have never born out at any point in history. When the Merchants and the Rulers are not in opposition - whether it be real opposition or purchased opposition - the Merchants lay claim to whatever power there is. When there is no government to stop them - to contest their power over us - they've employed armies. Destroy the political (ie, legal power over business) and you grant them license to abuse anyone they choose.

"I think that sentence represents quite clearly an extremely common, but fundamentally mistaken, view of the relationship.

The politicians are never a buffer against corporate greed. They're its creators, sustainers, and enablers.

Consider, just for a moment, that the corporation itself owes its existence to the political realm. Corporations are not natural entities. They originated in letters patent issued by the Monarch. Today the legislature plays his role. Without political power distorting the marketplace there would be no corporations."

Obviously, I disagree with your conclusion without opposing your statements of 'fact'. Certainly the law is what brings corporations into existence. The law is what creates a market in which they can thrive. That much is uncontestable. But to suggest that only politics can give rise to greed is somewhat simplistic and naive. First, "corporations" are not greedy. People are greedy. Without the law there would be no 'corporations', per se, but there would be collectives called something else whereby a strong man (a rich man) began enforcing his will on the populace. It's always been that way, and barring some genetic universal enlightenment, it always will - there are always those who are willing to sell out ther fellows - or kick in their doors and take their shit - at the behest and pay of a greedy person.

The curve is not ever upward

[Infonaut]

You seem to be implying a linear progression of state repression of individual rights, which seems off to me. It waxed in the 1950s during McCarthyism, then waned until the end of the 1960s when COINTELPRO et al reared their ugly heads. Then it waned again in the aftermath of Executive, FBI and CIA overreach. The 1970s and 1980s did not see an increase in government intrusion. The war on drugs in the 1990s slowly moved it up, but it wasn't until the reaction to 9/11 that we saw such eggregious violations of basic freedoms.

I think there's a strong tendency when we look at American history to assume that the government has been increasingly encroaching on our freedoms with each succeeding decade, and that this is somehow a force outside our control. But the violations always pop up during wars.

The post-9/11 era was quickly characterized as a "war" than the more appropriate "hunt for pirates" I would prefer to use. It's not too late for Americans to understand that thinking of this as a "war" is a simpleminded and counterproductive way to deal with a complex situation. I would suggest that already American popular opinion is shifting, and the Bush Administration may have already reached the zenith of its Big Brother powers. What the legislature gives, it can take away.

My main point in this discussion is that fatalism doesn't help us make government respect our freedoms. Political action does. It is possible to influence government, but it takes time and effort, and it can't be accomplished with a silver bullet. I think we've grown so used to instant, technological solutions that we're impatient with human political processes, which are inherently difficult and time-consuming.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[falconwolf]

Yes it is a perfect example, because people generally agree that we should be tracking these phone calls and taking extra security measures. Thus, these initiatives are accepted. You act like he is not accountable to anybody, but he is. You don't put a president in office and let him do whatever he wants. Congress tried to impeach Clinton over a damn BJ.

Neither I nor many other people believe Bush has the authority to spy of the citizens without a court order. The Constitution as stated in the Bill of Rights demands a court order unless lawenforcement has a reasonable suspicion a specific person is guilty of something. All these things the NSA is doing is a fishing expedition. If they had reasonable suspicion then they wouldn't need to collect all of those phone records they were given by the phone companies. The only other reason the record may be used for is to silence descenders. And this is something the Founding Fathers of the USA feared a lot.

Everyone I know who joined after did it because they solemnly supported the cause. You can't argue on behalf of the veterans, since you aren't one.

DO you know me? I think not, you know next to nothing about me. As a matter of fact I was in the army with an MOS of 11B, small arms specialist or infantry. I went through basic training and AIT at Ft Benning, GA in 1981. Afterwards I was first stationed there with the 197th Brigade, $1.97 as we called it, on Sandlake Hill. And back then, the unit I was in was a leg unit, we didn't have apcs or any other armored carriers, so we marched most places though we sometimes took deuc'in (sic) halfs, 2 1/2 ton trucks. I went in in part because I thought we were going to war but also to save money so I could go to college when I got out.

And it was while I was in that first Reagan then Bush Sr was supporting Saddam. It didn't matter what he did, even when he was using chemical weapons against both Iran and Kurds, Shias, and the March Arabs they continued supporting him. It was only after he invaded Kuwait, which is a Sheikhdom not a democracy, when their support of him ended. Fact is is that just as Scott Ritter stated the sanctions put in place after the first Gulf War were working, even that link you provided said the shells were from the 1980's and not new ones. Yes I believe the Bush admin lied, see I listened to what Collen Powell said when he stood in front of the Security Council, used all those photos and maps and stated all those things he stated, including Saddam had mobile chemical weapons factories and I haven't seen any real ones. I used to respect Powell, at the tyme I thought that was the best nomination Bush made, but not any more.

Falcon

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[laffer1]

1. Not everyone has a child.
2. Minimum wage must keep up with inflation. The price of food and gas go up over time regardless of minimum wage increases. Its been 10 years since we had an increase and food/gas does cost more than in did in the mid 90s.
3. Your 3 points are true, but other factors can cause those too. Minimum wage increases offset those problems. In the long term it will drive up prices, but in the short term a poor person can put gas in their car and eat.

We could have gone a bit longer without raising it had we not entered Iraq. The gas price increases are the real problem. They caused food, shipping and various other things to go up in price. Another thing to consider is that poor people spend all their money while rich people save. When you increase the amount of money a poor person has, it goes right back into the economy for products and services. It also gets taxed. That money pays for our iraq situation. Any money cirulating might make it possible for our armed forces to pay their electric bills.

In addition to a minimum wage increase, i think we should raise the salery of our troops. That way their families can eat too.

Neither Ghandi or King ...

[SimonShine]

Neither Ghandi or King masterbated in public.

Neither Gandhi nor King supposedly masturbated.

Re:Neither Ghandi or King ...

[TapeCutter]

Even more proof that /. doesn't need a spell checker on the reply page. :)

Re:Neither Ghandi or King ...

[jr0dy]

Gandhi in fact never had any seminal discharge whatsoever after leaving his wife and kids to go on his moral crusade, save for once, in his sleep, which he was deeply disturbed about.

I have no real respect for the guy, he essentially birthed the professional political class.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Riverman2]

DO you know me? I think not, you know next to nothing about me.

It may have been a bit brazen of me. I apologize.

I think we made some mistakes in the past. Proxy wars are destructive and have proven to be unsuccessful in almost every case. I think the U.S. military needs to play a more active role these days, do our own dirty work, so to speak. Which is the case in Iraq. We created a monster. I don't think the middle east could have turned out much worse. I think Russia needs to clean up a lot of it's messes also. Who will be the last people on earth to be free? North Korea?

Also keep in mind that the constitution expresses the freedoms of American citizens from its government. All the NSA tapping was foreign communications, AFAIK. The call records have always been there for sifting, and if you're associating with known terrorists or their associates, hell yes you should be tapped. The people he is held accountable to have spoken, they want this.

The Peaches Are No Glitch

[Deathanatos]

I was at a Krogers, and me and my mom decided to do the Self-Scan, as we had only a few items. I'm happily scanning along, when I get to the beer. Me, I keep scanning, but the computer - too smart for it's own good. Beer. Must show ID. Or be terminated. So my mom digs out her ID and shows it to the lady. She shakes her head no.

Allegedly, a minor can not scan beer. How the holy hell I'm going to get drunk scanning beer (looook at the pritty liiight...) is beyond me, but long story short, Mom had to take the beer, do exactly the same thing I was doing and put it in the cart. I'm a minor, so kill me. Send me to court for scanning a beer...
And I didn't get any of it... :-/. 21... 21... 21...

If it weren't for that darned thing about being polite, there's something to be said for the phrase, "Don't get your panties in a wad..." (I'm just scanning the beer. No drinking. Just scanning. Won't kill you. (Or me.))

Come to think of it. I wasn't scanning beer. I was scanning a cardboard box. Welcome to the land of the "free". (You may all sleep peacefully, knowing that minors shall not be abusing the powers of a barcode reader!) </rant>

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Arker]

I think that our own history gives this statement a significant contrast. The railroads, the various land concerns (ranchers, loggers, etc) made their employees into indentured servants in a way that modern companies can only dream of.

To the contrary, although these events are conventionally painted that way, the truth of the matter is quite the opposite. Take the railroads, for instance. What was their power based on? State sanction and favour, simple as that. These were the original corporate welfare-whores. They bought all the right lobbyists, gave all the right congressmen donations, and got exclusive contracts, huge grants of land, and all sorts of legal carve-outs in return. That's what enabled them to become abusive violators of human rights.

id, cc, credit

[falconwolf]

Ok, that makes sense for peaches, but what if your credit card gets stolen and is used to buy thousands of dollars worth of items, or a gun that gets used in a murder, or something illegal and the person didn't get caught for some length of time because no one ever checks ID? Granted, if you report it stolen, those transactions will be cleared...eventually, but there's a chance that that won't happen until after everything's said and done on the part of the criminal.

Ok yes, if you pay with check or credit card then your id better be checked. This is something that really agravates me where I live, almost no one checks id. And I recently heard something about how VISA isn't requiring id checks for purchase of up to a certain amount, $15.00 I think. That's BS, legally a cc holder is required to pay up to something like $50 even if their card is stolen. Even if not true though I don't want anymore risk of my id being stolen. Having your id stolen can ruin your life.

Think about it, any application you fill out and turn in to the company has enough information on it to not only steal your ID, but pretty much erase you completely in the public's eye.

That's a big reason I wouldn't share any personal data if I don't believe it's needed. I don't and haven't filled out any application requesting financial info or personal data in several years. Well I provided some personal data about a year ago when I had to see a psychologist, I had to see her for an evaluation for my SSI, I'm on disability.

all anyone really needs to steal another's ID is your full name and date of birth. From there, with enough digging and a little social engineering, any other information can be found.

Date of birth and full name aren't even needed really, social engineering can get that info for you. But why make it any easier? Kevin Metnick has shown, and testified to congress on how easy it is to get this info.

Falcon

p.s.

[mrraven]

The limited liability corporation that is now considered a person, and that is under legal obligation to return maximum profit to investors creates incentives to lie. The reason is simple if you can produce a product for the least cost by polluting the environment, and screwing the workers, and consumers don't know the conditions the product is made in you will make the most profit and the greatest return on investment. Thus it's in your self interest to lie to your customers about the way your product is produced. This lying in turn destroys the transparent information consumers need for the market to operate correctly under "rational actor theory" which is a fundamental premise of economics. Corporations thus actually destroy markets and tend towards monopoly, lying, and corruption. It is this sort of blatant contradiction that is at the heart of economic theory and which plays out in the real world in the disgusting exploitation seen in economic globalization that makes me loath economists as apologists for evil that causes suffering. Nike ring a bell? Microsoft? Union Carbide in Bhopal? Do I really need to keep giving examples of how this plays out or do you get the point already?

And yes there is an alternative it's co-ops that share profits fairly, small businesses, open source software development, and other such business models that allow for multiple actors in a market thus allowing for competition, yet without the blatant exploitation and degraded environment the corporate capitalist model inevitably produces. Visit your local food co-op, community garden, and fire up Ubuntu Linux some time. You might learn something far more valuable than you will learn from an economics text book.

Don't assume all us "hippy" alternative people are stupid and haven't thought this out.

Re:p.s.

[shmlco]

While many corporations do, as you point out, have flaws, you're again attempting to tar all of them with the same brush. And though small businesses are wonderful things, they simply can't generate the economies of scale needed for infrastructure, research, manufacturing, shipping, mining, medicine, agriculture, power production, and more I don't have the time to name.

Promote Fuller's "Small is Beautiful" mindset all you want, but realize that there are many situations where that model simply doesn't apply.

We've bypassed the ability to carry our population with communes and "community" gardens and I don't know about you, but I spent many summers growing up on a farm, and I have no fantasies about going back to "nature". Living off the land is boring, never-ending, back-breaking work, and I'm more than happy to leave that job in the hands of those who want to do it.

Sorry, but I still have to believe that you, "hippy" or not, still haven't thought things out, and that I, in fact, won the mental bet I placed when I asked for your "solution" to the problem: You don't have one.

Re:p.s.

[mrraven]

Yep they sure nuff did code Linux down on the farm, ye hah!

Re:p.s.

[mrraven]

On a slightly more serious note the way we live is going to be over in roughly 50-60 years anyway.
We are currently in a race between global warming, peak oil, and war in the middle east to see which will end the viability of fossil fuels as a source of energy. While the pessimists may be exaggerating to say we are in the crisis now, certainly in 15 years it will be a full on depression inducing economic crisis. What are the energy alternatives? Coal, and nuclear basically to provide the kind of power that is equivalent to todays energy output. Both of these sources of energy have severe problems. For nuclear all my research indicates that we have roughly 40 years of easily obtainable Uranium left and that's at current rates of consumption, far less if we ramp up to say France's level of using nukes. Then there is the obvious problem of the nuclear fuel cycle in the age of terrorism. If EVERY city has at least one nuke plant the whole society will have to go into lock down mode as obviously we can't let terrorists get even radioactive waste or it can be used for a dirty bomb. As far as I'm concerned we already live in something close to a police state (hence the original topic 1984) ubiquitous nuclear power would make it that much worse and for roughly 40 years more power, no thanks.

As for coal to assume we can keep exponentially expanding our energy usage with a fossil fuel just seems laughable, it's just asking for runaway CO2 induced global warming, Venus ring a bell?

Biofuels, nyat, it's a crime to grow food crops to fuel cars when people are already starving in the world. To turn over half our agricultural lands to biofuel production so Americans can continue to commute to their mini mansions in SUVs is un-possible.

That leaves niche energy sources like wind, solar, and hydro. Places like the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. for example may be fairly well off in terms of electricity as they already get a lot of their electricity from hydro, most places won't be so lucky. I'd be very surprised if we could reach even 20% of our current energy output in the U.S. with alternative energy and that's current output with NO growth that our current economic system is predicated on for survival. Constant growth BTW is another fundamental flaw in economics. No finite closed system like the earth can support compound growth forever.

So there you have it, your globe spanning corporations are doomed anyway within the life of currently living people, might as well get used to the idea and figure out to make the transition as graceful as possible. Our current model of exploiting people and planet for a quick buck is not sustainable in the long run. And yes I hope we retain say a basic communications infrastructure and say medicine at the level Cuba has (they use 1/8th the U.S.'s energy and have comparable life spans to the U.S.) but the model of global corporate plunder is going to get snuffed by mother nature you can count on it.

p.p.s. Externalities and corporate socialism

[mrraven]

In some ways corporations are more socialist than co-ops ironically. Again the profit motive encourages large corporations to externalize their costs by say dumping pollution into the environment
where the costs of the sickness the pollution causes are born by society at large. Co-ops not operating under the constraints of the profit system have much less pressure to externalize their costs and thus ironically despite being collectives operate overall in a far less socialist fashion than large corporations. Look up externalities in that "dismal science" "business economics" text book of yours. Or do they skip talking abpout externalites now days? Hmmmmmm...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[bk2204]

For the record, I work in methamphetamine prevention and have in the past volunteered in HIV prevention.

* Most meth doesn't come from these sources.

This is currently true. It currently comes from Mexico (at least here in Texas). But only because it costs too much to make it in the US, due in part to this measure.

* These sources are hard to use if they have a lot of other ingredients (like dayquil does)
* It's much easier to make things like methcathinone than methamphetamine, and methcathinone doesn't have a big market.

I am not a chemist, although my boss is (she did mostly petroleum and derivatives, though), so to give you an honest answer about whether these are correct, I would have to ask her. Let me point out, though, that this is how they make meth. Nobody would make it if it didn't sell.

* Methamphetamine production requires a lot of other reagents and laboratory equipment, and these are already on DEA watchlists...

You assume that the US government is competent at what it is supposed to do. You are wrong. The government is excellent at doing things it should not be doing, and totally ignoring the things it should. The DEA might have a watchlist a mile long, but in all likelihood they don't actually watch it, except to find innocent people to harass.

* Only an idiot would attempt to run a meth lab by grinding up Sudafed. It's way too expensive. It's better to just order a bunch of ephedrine from a chemical supply co.

Yes, it would be too expensive to buy Sudafed for meth. The thing is that the meth cookers don't buy it. They steal it. It is much more likely that the same deterrent effect would occur if stores would simply put it behind the counter far enough to avoid grab-and-runs.

My major beef with this type of prevention is that there is an almost-equally effective method (just putting it behind the counter) which is less restrictive. If I actually used Sudafed (it makes me sleepy during the day and keeps me up at night), I would definitely stop doing so. The government can't show a legitimate interest in having that information, since as I said, nobody buys Sudafed for making meth.

A T-Shirt I Once Saw in the Late 80s

[edward.virtually@pob]

"1984" on the front, "Just a little behind schedule" on the back. Quite prophetic.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, dude. You need to go back to rehab, and so does your girlfriend. It sounds like you have been quite successful - don't piss it all away.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir obviously need to start seeing life from outside of your white picket fences. Because I can tell you first hand your entire arguement is based on opinion. Im posting AC because I was a meth junkie/dealer for about 2 years, until I was arrested and charged with trafficing. I dispute every single thing that you have said.

Maybe you haven't made meth recently, but you can't do this anymore, unless you want an unmarked van suddenly following you around

It took the cops a year and a half to finally have something on me. My house was set in a middle school parking lot, and they noticed nothing until i got stupid and starting screwing up at school (I was a straight A student until I started abusing meth, now I cant even go to college). You obviously overestimate the DEAs intelligence.

Teenagers don't make meth, organized criminals make meth.

Actually I know of more than 1 teenager that does infact make meth. I could give you three in my area alone. Organized criminals might be the supplier but they are usually the middle men, most meth these days is made by junkies operating out of hotel rooms or their own homes. Not mobsters or hell's angels or what have you.

The reason this is different from crack, heroin, etc, is that a junkie can smoke $10 of crack in 1 minute, but $10 of speed can get you high for a day or so. It's easier to establish a habit at cheaper prices. I've never heard of methcathinone junkies, so something tells me that even though it's easier to make, it doesn't hold the same allure to speedheads.

This whole paragraph is totally and completely wrong. A junkie can do any amount of their drug within 2 minutes, this is the biggest reason for overdoses. Junkies think they can handle anything that is on the table in front of them. $10 of speed was enough to get me though a few (read: 2 or 3) hours maybe. Even when first starting I was going though easily over $150 a week. By the time I was arrested I was going though roughly $150-$300 a day. That sounds anything but cheap to me. As for the methcanthinone thing it may be be what the junkies use but it works great for dealers to cut meth with.

The problem started 15 years ago. Perhaps you prefer pumping millions of dollars into the pharmaceutical industry so MORE junkies can come steal your TV and sell it for $10.

This problem has been around a lot longer than that. Hitler was a well documented meth freak. It was a different name in that era of time but the chemical makeup was basically the same. Whats wrong with trying to stop a problem before it becomes an epidemic?

In this case, it has, as it's harder to mass produce meth and fewer people are turning into meth junkies. Are you suggesting the all drugs be legalized?

This is just complete and total bullshit. Its actually just as easy to produce meth. Certain chemicals might be harder to obtain but they can always find something else to use or find a different way to have it supplied. As for fewer people turning into junkies I just want to know where you got this information from. Because everything that I have seen from on the streets to in the media shows that meth is quickly turning into crack of the 80's or pot from the 60's/70's.
And all drugs should be legalized and taxed, much the same as alcohol and cigarettes. That aughta knock that national debt out pretty quickly. Its worth a try and the worst that could happen is the government discovers that this billion dollar war on drugs could turn into a billion dollar income from them.

For the record I did serve time in jail and have only within the past 3 months regained some of my "freedoms", I only wish that I could have voted against bush in the last election....
Thank you.

Right system or right mind?

[Steeltoe]

Skeptical people might ask how improving mindfulness will solve political problems. The fact is, it won't-- it will just put them in perspective.

Can the Right System solve our political problems for us? It can certainly help us on the way, but any working system will have the right mindset to back it up. While with any crooked mindset, you can pervert anything.

Just sitting in a cave somewhere feeling great while doing breathing excercises and meditating will do very little practical. Also sitting in front of the PC at home complaining on an online forum does much the same.

It has everything with our mindfullness and actions, not just mindfullness alone. True spirituality doesn't just go into the mind only, but also out in the body and earth. That is why it is nowadays such incredibly rare to find someone who really live that, and if you do, you are very lucky. Even that is taken as a concept by many, and get stuck in the head, justifying doing anything just because "I know". Best is to realize "I don't really know, but I would like to know.."

Nov. 2005 Total Outer Space Freedom 7/30/2006Riley

[Anonymous Coward]

Last November 2005 I placed an engine online, for free, No Charge.. I could not patent it because if I had the government would have seized it and eaten it whole. None of you would have heard of it or me again. Which of course would possibly be considered a blessing I'm sure by a whole lot of doctors who feel that same way RIGHT NOW. I placed my Internet branding iron against the CDC and the AMA for allowing ongoing atrocities being worked against me {and the rest of Roanoke VA patients}. I don't just WRITE about what George Orwell's World is doing to us {processing us all through a meat grinder} because I know I am not the only one going through various kinds of AMA-approved doctor hell.

The United States Government talks a good line to us about how GREAT OUTER SPACE EXPLORATION & DISCOVERY IS GOING TO BE but here in George Orwell's REAL WORLD, Fact is they want Outer Space ruled by their {{our?}} Military. In all truthfulness, th

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[winkydink]

All stores ask for ID? Maybe where you live. I've never been asked for ID, other than when purchasing alcohol.
There are anonymizing services you can use if you are so paranoid about what your ISP is saving.
All banks have been compromised? Every one of them? You've personally checked? Didn't think so.

So again, quit whining and start solving your own problems.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[mdfst13]

"in the short term a poor person can put gas in their car and eat."

Only if they don't get laid off because they are now too expensive too employ.

The same kind of arguments discussed for child care apply equally well to transportation:

Car pool instead of solo
Bus (transit) instead of car
Live within walking distance of work

"We could have gone a bit longer without raising it had we not entered Iraq. The gas price increases are the real problem."

So the government makes a bad decision and punishes business for it? Wouldn't it make more sense for the government to pay for it? E.g. by upping the Earned Income Tax Credit and personal deductions? Note that if the US increased the gas tax, the increase would only partly be passed on to consumers. A $2 per gallon increase might increase gas prices by $1. Why not do that and then rebate the money back in tax credits. That would put the pressure on oil companies, who are benefiting from the war, rather than businesses which are already being hit by higher transportation costs.

500 gallons per person usage (googled and rounded). $2 tax per gallon; $1 per gallon price increase. Sounds like a $500 tax credit (payable; i.e. so someone who doesn't pay taxes could still get the tax credit, preferably as a chang in withholding that increases their regular paychecks) would roughly balance the effect. Increase to $600 and we have improved things. Plus, we still have another $300 or so per person to fund programs that encourage car pooling, transit, or moving close to work.

Admittedly, that's very rough estimates. Others have done real studies on the impacts of such taxes and credits and could give better estimates.

"When you increase the amount of money a poor person has, it goes right back into the economy for products and services."

And that's better? If we shift money from savings to consumption, it causes inflation. Inflation causes the Fed to cut back on the money supply. As a result, we have less savings and higher prices. Again, this is a remnant of a gold based currency. With gold, money was a limited commodity and one had to work within what it offered. With paper money, this becomes irrelevant. Not enough consumption? Print more money and redistribute it via tax breaks and welfare payments. That addresses the problem *directly* rather than try to push it off onto business.

It's worth noting that higher gas prices are already creating inflationary pressure. Increasing the inflationary pressure seems more likely to lead to recession than benefit.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[DudeTheMath]

I'm not sure what you mean by the "amount of money a minimum wage increase would generate." Do you mean in income tax? None, actually, and could perhaps cost the governement in earned income tax credits. Payroll tax? That goes straight to Social Security and Medicare. The actual salary increase? Well, that money's not the government's in the first place; it's the business owner's. Do you intend to, rather than raise the minimum wage, charge business owners a fee (tax) based on the number of minimum wage workers they employ?

I'm not trying to bust your chops here; I agree that better and cheaper (for the user) public transportation, child care vouchers, et al., to help people get and keep a job are a much better solution than welfare. I just don't see what monies you intend to use when you talk about these as an alternative to raising the minimum wage.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[DudeTheMath]

To respond specifically to your points 1 and 2 (pressure on employers), my primary case was explicitly that the minimum wage (whether any minimum wage is a good idea is moot; it's not going away) has not kept up with inflation over the last twenty-three years. All other business expenses essentially keep up with inflation, as well as revenues (hey, aren't price increases the definition of inflation?). If a minimum wage increase is a trailing indicator of inflation (i.e., the business owner doesn't have to pay this cost until a year after the price increases), then of itself, it cannot be an inflationary pressure; it is a predictable cost based on previous revenue increases (although maybe not for any given business owner, but somebody's getting that money). The pressures to cut costs and possibly workers tend to come from ownership looking for increased profit quarter-by-quarter.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[laffer1]

Poor people never save. That was my point. The idea of a tax credit also would not work. Poor people can't wait for tax time to get the rebate. If they can't get to work, how would they earn anything?

The idea of making gas companies pay is a great idea though. It would probably work better than a minimum wage increase. For starters, how about making them pay back subsidies from the last two years. ExonMobile has record profits. I don't think they need that money. Perhaps we should tax oil companies at higher rates based on the amount the average price of gasoline is. In this system, congress (or someone) would have to revisit the tables every few years.

every time a Apache goes down

[wilec]

I have had the unsettling thought that every time a Apache goes down, there is a fat cat somewhere slobbering about the money he will make on the replacement. There is serious money to be made in designing, building and maintaining the machinery of death. President Eisenhower warned of the dangers involved in the unrestrained feeding of this beast.

Wabi-Sabi
Matthe

You miss the point. Are'nt worth even $5.15

[HornWumpus]

Imagine you did'nt pay any attention at school. You can't read or write, work a cash register even a ruler (true example of a moron I know who can't find 1 and 1/4 inches on a ruler).

You are just plain not worth $5.15 much less $9. Minimum wage laws mean you will never find work.

BTW you Mr Armchair economist are an idiot. Anything and everything is at lower demand at a higher cost. Corelation is not causation. Adding a WAG as justification is plain stupid. Bet they (the states with higher minimums) created more jobs in total but fewer shit jobs (minimum wage).

You and the next poster miss his point.

[HornWumpus]

The janitor had the time or his/her life while (s)he was supposed to be leaning life skills that would have gotten them a better job (from age 5 to 25).

Working a shit job for a pittance the rest of the janitors life is the cost of that party.

If that cost is not high than more people will take that path (e.g. every welfare state ever in history).

Do they have numbers?

[HornWumpus]

Compared to the mega rich sure.

But compared to normal gun-toting middle class people?

The truely poor are vastly outnumbered.

Also based on my experiance at the range. Poor folks cut corners actually leaning how to shoot the cheap assed guns they buy. Anybody stupid enough to buy a cheap 380 is also going to be cheap enough to think they don't need to squeeze off a few hundard rounds just to get the feel of the thing. To say nothing of the cheap guns that fall apart after about that much use (You'll find out about that).

The last time I was at the rifle range a couple of urban types had the most gandy SKS I've ever seen (looked like they modded the stock with a hacksaw in an idiots effort to save weight, not cut down, hollowed out) they were flat missing the target at 50 feet. They left after expending maybe 50 rounds. This is the top of the truely poor folk gun-fu skill base.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[FLEB]

The problem is that by taking things too personally, you can lose sight of empirical cause and effect, and end up overlooking slower, grander overall solutions by knocking yourself out trying to solve individual cases.

In this case, I still stand behind what I said. Right now, the WalMart system works because the people are getting just enough to get by, by virtue of public assistance taking up the slack. Life sucks, but it's still sustaining the workers enough that they aren't leaving. If Wal-Mart workers could not, by any means whatsoever (meaning no welfare taking up the slack), afford to support themselves on a Wal-Mart salary, in a market with any sort of job competition at all, it would be unsustainable for the employees, and therefore Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, the assistance means that these folks can get by and have just enough to stay on the treadmill, while Wal-Mart is reaping the benefits of being able to cheat people all around the line.

If assistance were not available, I don't think it would be as much a hardship for the workers, as a lack of opportunity for Wal-Mart to cheapskate. In order to keep workers they would have to cut into their margins and make up that slack. Although I do think that gov't help is a necessary part of an enlightened society, in that particular case, the government help is enabling the exploitation by, in effect, paying WM by proxy, allowing Wal-Mart to lower prices more to gain more marketshare, and perpetuate it's "just enough to get by" practices.

It wasn't so much that someone would notice, but that without public assistance, the system of exploitation would be that much less possible.

(I'm interested in this discussion if you'd like to keep it up, but I am going to be out of DSL for the next couple days, if you wonder why there's no reply.)

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[andrewman327]

Before you know it I am going to start getting approached by high schoolers asking if I could buy them some glue.

mod parent up

[rincebrain]

Parent is horrible at spelling and grammar, but otherwise correct.

mod parent up

[rincebrain]

Where are my mod points? Every time I see something insightful, I never have bloody mod points.

It's prescient, not precient

[ProfDD]

It's prescient, not precient. Same root as science. It refers to having foreknowledge. If only they would invent a technology that would look over our shoulder as we write and correct out mis-spellings.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[andrewman327]

What does it cost to clean up after a meth lab explodes and destroys a city block? More importantly, what is the value of a human life? Addiction destroys the lives of its users and those close to them. I know a guy serving many years in prison for what happened when a drug deal went bad. Now his life and the life of the deceased party are both gone because of drugs. I was never close to him but I know that he had great potential.

You all seem to be forgetting the fact that ephedra was practically banned a few years back, so getting it is much harder than it used to be.

1984 came early

[cbacba]

Congrats on figuring a few things out, 30 years late is better than not at all. '1984' was ahead of schedule, not 22 yrs behind. Although orwell got some things right, by no means were they correct.

Also, it was the preparation of the people that had to occur first. Hence most missed it entirely. In firefighting and disaster management, sometimes doing nothing is the best of all possible alternatives. That concept itself no longer exists in the general populace when it comes to government involvement. People often understand how poor the job is done by government in regard to Indian Affairs medicine on reservations and even the US Post Office disaster, but there is a total disconnect when it comes to understanding that of all organizations that exist in a society, government is the most wasteful and incompentent of them all and is guaranteed to be the worst choice for involvement.

1984 (a date based on 1948 with the swapping of two numbers) has come and gone. The shreds of liberty are still around but are being slowly removed one by one. The bloated gov. we have now is already far beyond the size that it could exist with anywhere else due to the massive prosperity our former lack of gov. permitted.

Perhaps an amusing observation is that even the term 'liberal' as classically defined no longer refers to the system of thought but rather to the opposite extreme - that of raising gov. to the level of a religion that must be worshipped.

Pleasant dreams.

Have you even read 1984?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your conception of our world as an equivalent to the world portrayed in 1984 belies your complete lack of proportion. The hellish vision was more akin to 1930's Soviet Union than America.

If, in your mind, you seem to think America is close to that then the fissures in your frontal lobes aren't very deep, which accounts for your simplistic interpretation of the ideas presented in the book.

The same goes for all you moronic toadies who talk about Bu$HitlerMcHaliburton's Amerikkka. Life is a chessboard not a checkboard you dopes.

It's all accelerating

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider joining the http://freestateproject.org/

Read all about Your Rights being destroyed every day at http://hammeroftruth.com/

Join the http://freestateproject.org/

Browse news blogs for the mere chance of posting about the FSP, the LP, or HoT.

Consider joining http://freestateproject.org/first1000

Search and watch everything related to America: From Freedom to Fascism on google

Consider buying lots of gold ETFs

Feel very scared, not smug, that you realize you are in a police state enacted because of an eminant economic crisis.

Post on /. about all the above hoping readers will point out which datums merely require a tin-foil hat to remedy, which to point and laugh at, and which to really worry about.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[rodgster]

It can be extracted (and concentrated).

Sort of like the meth heads extract sulfur from wooden matches found in the food store.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[rodgster]

my bad. phosphorus not sulfur.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[DavidTC]

What does it cost to clean up after a meth lab explodes and destroys a city block?

I dunno, what's it cost when a gas station blows up and destroys a city block? Oh, wait, that doesn't happen, because there are safety codes for legal businesses. Not to mention meth labs are dangerous because of the materials they are starting with and how they are trying to make it. Real labs making methamphetamine never, under any circumstances, blow up, anymore than aspirin labs do. A meth lab that can legally get the correct ingredients, instead of having to distill them from other stuff, is perfectly safe.

More importantly, what is the value of a human life? Addiction destroys the lives of its users and those close to them. I know a guy serving many years in prison for what happened when a drug deal went bad. Now his life and the life of the deceased party are both gone because of drugs. I was never close to him but I know that he had great potential.

So...let me see if I get this story straight:
Someone was in an illegal drug deal, it went bad as illegal transactions often do, they ended up killing someone and spending years in jail, thus ruining two lives.

Let's, for the hell of it, replace 'drug' in that with 'rutabaga':
Someone was in an illegal rutabaga deal, it went bad as illegal transactions often do, they ended up killing someone and spending years in jail, thus ruining two lives.

You know, there doesn't appear to be anything in that story that actually depends on the illegal product being drugs. Instead, it appears your friend's life was ruined because he was attempting to buy or sell certain goods that someone wanted to own, but, unlike rutabaga, are illegal.

I fail to see how continuing to make drugs illegal will stop this. After all, they were illegal when it happened. Making them harder to get will just up the price, which, logically, would introduce more money into the equation and make it more likely that 'deals would go bad'. That solution is a non-solution.

My solution, on the other hand, would change the transation from 'completely dangerous' to 'liquor store dangerous'. Almost no one gets killed when purchasing or selling alcohol, at least, not when compared to the illegal markets.

You all seem to be forgetting the fact that ephedra was practically banned a few years back, so getting it is much harder than it used to be.

If by 'it', you mean ephedra, it is harder only by a tiny amount. If by 'it' you mean meth, no, it's not. Most meth isn't from tiny labs, it's from large drug trafficers making it out of country and smuggling it in. The whole 'homemade meth lab' crackdown is a political move, it's almost completely pointless, you could track down ever single one of those and you'd get maybe 1/10th the meth production. It's akin to cracking down on people with five marijuana plants in the greenhouse. People who make meth at home are meth addicts who don't want to or can't buy it, and the labs are idiotic risks for the return value.

And tiny labs just switched to pseudoepherine anyway.

Goverment vs. corperate

[SuperKendall]

1994 was all about the far end of government power over citizens.

The vast difference between 1984 and what you are describing is that all of the ID madness you describe is from corperations - and is the tradeoff you make for dealing with large corperations and banking conglomerates.

Any time you like you can get off that ride. Just buy stuff mostly with cash, and from smaller markets.

I worry more about things like a national ID system (even though SSN is pretty mcuh there already) but we have a long ways to go before anything is really like 1984 from the government side, as much as people like to think we are ruled by facists today. They need to read a little history I'd say.

First serious use of In Soviet Russia joke here

[kusanagi374]

Criticizing the govt can be a dangerous thing, especially when it knows everything about you. Privacy is necessary for the safety and security of the citizens. (Think of, I don't know, Soviet Russia, Iran...)

In Soviet Russia, the government needs privacy from YOU. For that, they observe everyone else to make sure they have their own privacy and are safe to do whatever they can and be aware of menaces to their freedom. The exact inverse of our way of thinking.
 
When you have a government doing exactly that to protects its own freedom, what difference does it do if it's benevolent or not? It will neutralize anything it doesn't like and make the rest believe they act in their best interest. Anything is benevolent as long as you believe in it. And if you do believe in it, who's to say it isn't?

Re:First serious use of In Soviet Russia joke here

[Meccanica]

Ok, so in that example, what is the purpose of the government? A gov't is supposedly in place for the sake of the people- to benefit the people. How can that be accomplished at the expense of the same people? So, is its goal simply to maintain its own existance? If so, why should it exist in the first place? Why should the people put up with something the only function of which is to protect itself (which it does by hurting the people)?

Re:First serious use of In Soviet Russia joke here

[kusanagi374]

And that is the point of Orwell's novel. As you said, it's supposedly in place for the sake of the people... and that's all it needs to say so it is accepted. The same happens with Oceania - it wants people to believe they are there to defend them, and yet they use the same people to keep itself alive since nothing/nobody wants to die and fade away, and the government (especially those who benefit from its power) is no exception.
 
IMO, it shouldn't exist, but people are naive and know no better.

Re:Big "OH Brother"

[kumanopuusan]

Why is it their business what you put in your body?

Because if you turn into a junkie, and if you're using speed or cocaine you will, you're not just going to ruin your own life. Your subsequent lifestyle of leeching, stealing and vagrancy would affect the community to the extent that it needs the right to protect itself. Is it no one else's business if you choose to inject yourself with smallpox?

If you want to legalize drugs, make a better argument. Claiming that you have the right to do whatever you want with your own body isn't insightful at all.

The odd thing is...

[MarkusQ]

The odd thing is, I think we mostly agree.

Our only real difference is that you look at "the system" and you see something that only accepts inputs called "votes," which is mostly ignores. You then (justifiably, given your assumptions) conclude that it's hopeless to try to change things.

I, on the other hand, see a fragile structure that is mostly smoke and mirrors, which derives all it's power from a few simple tricks ("Look over there!", "What's your price?", and "Nice life you got there. It'd be a pity if anything happened to it.") most of which it consistently fails to follow through on. The only reason "the system" seems so stable is that people think it's stable, and nobody dares to try to change it.

You'd probably call me a blind optimist, and I'd say you are unjustifiably pessimistic--but we'd both claim to be realists.

As for the list above, if you stay with your restricted view of things (that the courts aren't a legitimate part of the political process, and that having a criminal convicted of a crime isn't a good way to take them out of circulation) then you are correct. And including Marion Barry in the list didn't really help my case. I just stuck him in when I realized my first Google had turned up almost exclusively Republicans, and I'm tired of being be accused of being partisan when I'm really just fed up with politicians in general.

--MarkusQ