Slashdot Mirror
Consumer Revolt Spurred Via the Internet
sas-dot writes "UK's newspaper Independent outlines the brewing consumer revolt being fomented on the web. 'Consumer militancy' is becoming ever more common, as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business. Businesses from banks to soccer clubs have been the target of these groups, in each case facing the fury of consumers who feel they have been wronged. For example, 'A mass revolt has left the high street banks facing thousands of claims from customers seeking to claw back some of the £4.75bn levied annually on charges for overdrafts and bounced cheques. More than one million forms demanding refunds have been downloaded from a number of consumer websites. The banks are settling out of court, often paying £1,000 a time.' Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
Our businesses are smarter and have forseen the trend. They are rallying against the consumers who believe they have rights.
I'm actually surprised at the apathy shown towards the Bank of America fiasco of exploiting loopholes in the law to allow them to open accounts and credit cards for illegal aliens!!
I figured there would have been a much larger rush of people to move their accounts away from them.
I guess aiding and abetting law breakers just isn't enough to get the typical US citizen's ire up....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's time we stop putting up with their crap, people! It's time to Boycott Organized 'Advocate mobs'!
English: Football
Spanish: fútbol
Protuguse: futebol
Romanian: fotbal
Galician: fútbot
Catalan: futbol
French: le football
Russian: futbol
Turkish: futbol
Serbian: fudbal
German: Fußball
Dutch: voetbal
Norweian: fotball
Swedish: fotboll
Danish: fodbold
American: Soccer
The United States, it seems, is the only country in the world that prefers to use the name football to refer to a game that doesn't actually use the feet.
All we ask is that you please call the biggest sport in the world by its commonly accepted name! :)
Thanks in advance,
Rest of World
PS: Now if only we could get our overpaid under-performing team to win something...
A few months ago, I bought a nice mountain bike from a well-known vendor. Right from the start I had issues with the front crank. So I went online and founds hundreds of people having exactly the same problem on the very same model. It gave me a much stronger case to get the shop to replace the problematic part by another brand: they could not claim that it was my fault. So yeah, online consumer activist is good, but you already knew that, right ?
Nobox: Only simple products.
That's not a loophole, it's by design.
While the Republican Business-Friendly Congress has no problem with making businesses "know your customer" except for known terrorists, drug dealers, and people from terrorist countries, they won't tell banks who they can and cannot lend to.
If Bank Of America wants to do do business with non-Americans, that's their business. Just make sure to get a taxpayer-ID number OR do backup withhold taxes on any interest paid, as required by law.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes, yes they will. See the current bruhaha over Bank of America and their giving credit cards to illegal aliens as well as allowing unapproved documents to be used to open accounts.
Even, gasp!, Michelle Malkin is getting into scrum and accusing the Bush administration of ignoring and condoning the actions of Bank of America.
One need only do searches for things like "lawsuit Match.com" to see that (maybe) consumers will be getting the upper hand. Until businesses bribe, er, lobby, Congress to protect them that is.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
We are the people. Individually we are weak. Together we rule the world.
Those who oppress us cannot do so unless we help them. Those who go against our-selves rampant, shall suffer the only possible consequence.
As humanity learns to speak with one another, breaking down barriers of distance, language, and culture, the existing governmental powers are going to have a very interesting dillema on their hands. One people, one world, one government.
-GiH
The preceding has been your dose of political idealism for the day. Overdosiong on political idealism may lead to conspiracy theories, or dellusions of power. Use only as recomneded.
RE: that British bank scandal, the courts there determined that banks were breaking the law. This was then reported by the news (such as BBC) who published handy tips on reclaiming unfair fees.
Is it thus fair to call a press which publishes information about this issue, along with all the people who makes use of that information, an "advocate mob" out to bully corporations out of their profits? In fact, who is the more organized here? The private companies with enough funds to hire PR agents, attorneys, and lobbyists, or those citizens who assert their rights as legislated by parliament and enforced by the courts?
of consumer activism, it is the now of consumer activism. Actually, the net may make boycotts more effective too. In the past, consumer boycotts worked poorly due to the difficulty in organizing so many far flung people. The net may finally make boycotts easier to organize, track and upkeep. Now that, may be the future. Ditto for the governments. Before only political parties and large scale consumer/activist organizations had the infrastructure to get heard. Now ordinary voters can mass on-line and organize too
Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
Wait until such a "mob" hits Slashdot and demands journalism.
We still have an account there until some final payments come out, but we have been charged outrageous amounts of money for $3 overdrafts and on numerous occasions told that a check would clear "the next day" only to have it clear three days later... again incurring bounce check fees. At $35 a pop, Chase is making a huge profit. On one of my paychecks we ended up only getting 70% of the money into the account after bank fees.
Anyone up for doing this?
No it's not, because, frankly it doesn't affect anyone I know. People don't care. I don't care.
If an illegal alien can go and open a bank account, it's fine by me. Bank of America is not in the law enforcement business, it's in the banking business. This alien is supporting an American business by opening that bank account.
No, let's talk about predatory lending, sneaky credit card terms, deceitful charges, etc.
Let's talk about MBNA (now part of Bank of America) and BofA being some of the heaviest hitters to push through new bankruptcy law that makes everyone a peon to credit card companies, regardless of circumstances! Let's talk about the fact that an amendment to limit credit card interest rates to 30% (yes, that's thirty f'ing percent) was rejected last yaer. Yes, credit card companies did not want their interest rate limited to a cut-throat ceiling of 30%!
Let's talk about my platinum Bank of America card moving from 2 late payments (by even a day!) in 6 months to 2 late payments in 12 months to 1 late payment in 12 months before they bump your rate from a good APR to an insane 20%+ default APR. Let's talk about two-cycle billing (my roommate, who normally pays off his entire balance got bitten by this because he miscalculated and payed off a $1 less than the balance)
Let's talk about CapitalOne (and some other predatory lenders) not reporting your credit limit to the credit reporting agencies, which is ILLEGAL to do, but there is not enough activism or pressure to change that.
So yeah, let's talk about that, and then you can tell me why I should care that Bank of America issues a bank account to an illegal alien, when there are all these other topics out there that affect every damn American.
The short answer: Yes!
The longer answer: Yes, as long as it's more effective than other courts or methods. Banks that did nothing wrong should have little to fear from a better informed consumer.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The problem is that there are fewer and fewer acceptable choices every year as alternatives. BofA isn't the only bank you wouldn't want to do business with.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Big business profits motivate Bush administration's every single action:
* ignoring BofA bruhaha
* encouraging "guest worker status" to permit legal under-minimum-wage labor
* signing the bankruptcy bill
* pushing ethanol fuel (big ethanol lobby)
* against discount drugs from Canada
* crazy cronyism in Iraq (KBR, Halliburton)
I mean, there is very little that's not big business motivated.
That's "football clubs" to the rest of us.
:-)
Disclaimer: I am an American.
Ah, but see, by saying "soccer" it removes all the ambiguity. Most non-Americans know what "soccer" is, they just think it is an incorrect term to describe that sport with 2 goals and a buncha guys kicking a ball around. Had the poster said "football" then the American population would assume the summary was referring to American football while the non-american population wouldn't be confused for they would expect to see "American football" to describe football and "football" to describe soccer; a clever non-American would however assume that since this is an Amermican website that the summarry was actually referring to American footbal by saying "football". So had the summary said "football" to describe soccer, only non-presumptuous non-American's would infer the correct meaning...By saying soccer, everyone infers the correct meaning, and a few people get pissed off and/or roll their eyes.
P.S. I'm not arguing over which is the more correct term, thats a useless debate...Seeing as I am an American and a Slashdotter, I suppose I'm supposed to be double-arrogant and double-argumentative. . so yeah, soccer is THE correct term
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
Most people know that people opening bank accounts is a good thing for the economy, even if they are for people who aren't here legally. Most peopel also know that immigrant workers are good for the US and Mexico, countrary to what the whacko minutemen say on the news.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Hey, I am with you. In Australia they play a real game as well, and call it football. I don't think football should refer to a girls game, do you?
Back to the article, I really don't think these campaigns make much of a difference. I hope that changes, and they start to make more of a difference, and stopping Tesco is a great start, but the fact is consumers have to choose from the lesser evil. When talking about energy companies, or banks, or supermarkets, there isn't any difference between them all. I wish there was.
Maybe this could be leveraged to get the paybacks to consumers instead of to the Class Action lawyers.
What I would expect to see is mobs (thousands or more) storming businesses that are accused of some kind of unfair practices. Then we would start to see some action. A mob standing outside of a bank with pitchforks, axes and staves. Guns, too. Smashing everything in sight, killing anyone that seems to represent the business. This would get some action.
Some patheticly weak "boycott" where people decide they aren't going to buy their slave-labor products from one store and instead buy them at an inflated price down the street is a joke. People sending email to the CEO (actually his secretary) to complain about something is a joke. None of these things will inspire action.
People in the streets destroying property gets results. Look at the Watts riot or the nationwide unrest after Martin Luther King was shot. Of course, not much happened there because these focused on people destroying their own property and own community rather than the property of those they saw as oppressing them. What was the result? Their lives were worse than before because they destroyed what little they had. Misdirected anger, it was.
The principle problem is that today you have "activists" that are perfectly willing to sit behind a keyboard and type. Where are the people that claim the president is a war criminal and should be tried and executed? Behind keyboards, not out in the street where they might actually do something. They aren't going to do anything. Neither is anyone else. Oh sure, they will complain and in some cases someone will take pity on them and toss them a bone. But real change? No. Change is the domain of the strong and the courageous. There is no courage left in the US nor Western Europe. Courage is the now held by the people that know the way to win is to strike terror in the heart of their opponent. You behead a few schoolgirls. You blow up some restaurant where your opponent is comfortable, thinking they have nothing to fear. This is activism. This is courage.
Come out from behind your keyboard and do something if you feel that strongly about it. Stop whining.
My solution has been to refer to soccer as "unamerican football." Things are a bit different with handball, though. American-style handball is either "handball" or "racquetless racquetball," while team handball is now either "handsoccer" or "dry water polo."
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
The banks have it coming, they really do. Unfortunately, when this happened to me, HTTP was brand new and only geeks used it, and I was still a student.
I had to pay a deposit to my landlord for a new place I was going to rent. Unfortunately, due to a foul up which was entirely my fault, this put me something like £1 overdrawn (a trivial amount in anyone's book). So the bank sent me a letter that they were going to charge me (IIRC) £25 for unarranged borrowing and a further £3 per day for each day overdrawn! Then they took the £25 out just before my first pay day, making me overdrawn AGAIN, causing them to charge me £25 again for unarranged borrowing as a direct consequence of them charging me for the previous problem! You'd think before they charged you they would check that the charge wouldn't cause you to go overdrawn again and be charged again.
Of course they refused to refund it. Natwest - bastards. They used to like also withdrawing the funds on a cheque written the day it hit the payee's bank, but not add the funds on a cheque you were paying in for 3 to 5 days.
If my current bank tries that trick, I will move my account elsewhere - including my mortgage. I'll make sure it ends up costing them more than it does me.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
A funny letter snarking a bank for bouncing a check against a pensioner now insisting banks deal with her own new defensive bureaucracy circulates the Net in an email claiming to be from an old pensioner. It reportedly was written by an Australian columnist as humor. But practically everyone can relate. And now, with our PCs, I hope to see everyone actually apply the policies and procedures the letter mentions.
--
make install -not war
1. A bunch of players maneuvering a ball around a field measured with the metric system? Meterball.
c cer.htm
2. A bunch of players maneuvering a ball around a field measured with the 'english' system? Football
Since neither of the sports uses just one foot, shouldn't it be feetball?
FYI: the NFL takes steroids very seriously and tests with great rigor. Not to be confused with there testing of recreation drugs, which they treat as a medical problem. The policy makes sense when you consider it's about maintaing a balance of competitive edges.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/6744864
I would be surprised if any professional soccer league in world was a strigent about "'roids" as the NFL is.
People are people. If there are people that play football that would take "'roids" then there are people whio play soccer who would take it. The question then becomes "What does the league do to curb it's use?"
on the funny side, while looking up some information, I cvame accross this tidbit:
http://www.athleticscholarships.net/history-of-so
"that took place in the united States was watched by an estimated 33 billion people around the world for almost 27 days. "
33 billion? heh.
Also, at one point it was outlawed in England.
It's a silly debate because Rugby, Football(soccer) and football(football) all go back to the same sport.
If you want to get pendantic, then soccer should be called 'Mob Ball' as it was in Britain at one time. Especially since soccer is a direct descendant of 'Mob Ball'
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?
One can only hope...
I'm having the same problem with my bank. A few bounced direct debits and they have a field day.
Found this site www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk which gave me everything i need to get my money back.
Next i'm going after my previous bank who raped me of my cash during hard times.
I'm happy i can actually do something about it. To be honest, the banks deserve it!
"Are these kinds of organized 'advocate mobs' going to be the future of internet activism?"
I simply hope so. And not just for consumer issues, but for environmental, ethical and human rights issues as well. The public needs to vote with more than their dollars and care about more than convenience.
I'm hopeful that this is a sign of the pendulum swinging the other way at last!
yes, we should also put in some stronger laws that make it impossible to share music.
Also, we should put governors in all cars so they can't go over 65MPH.
Oh, and all computers should report to government agencies to help prevent crime.
Here's on for you:
In new Mexico there are farms the pay over 10 bucks an hour, and have benefits, and they can't find anyone to do the work. Picking is a very hard, and supprisingly skilled labor. Most peopel would rather take there 5 dollar an hour fast food job rather then pick.
It used to be, migrant workers came to the US, picked, got paid, took the money back home with them and the end of the season.
While here they would, of course, spend money.
remember, this is to do a job NO LOCAL CITIZEN WILL DO.
Of course, you could pay 100 dollars an hour, but all that will do is make it so everyone needs to get a 75% pay raise which would make 100 bucks not very valuable.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
you can't market a drink called "champagne" if it's not made in the champagne area - at least within europe, anyway. in much the same way, you can't sell port or parma ham unless it came from a specific region of spain or italy...
I'm not sure, probably, but one of the best I have seen so far is saynoto0870 which lists the equivalent geographical telephone numbers for the 0870 (national rate non-geographical) numbers that companies give out for support and such. ( Okay so it should have been called saynoto0870.co.uk but that's a little OT )
Considering how long some of them keep you on hold, dialling non-geographical numbers (which are often excluded from discount pricing plans) can cost you a fortune.
Predatory banking is bad, but, it only works on ignorant people.
This is a false impression. The problem with predatory lending is that people who should not be lent money are given that money. This is irresponsible because the bank well knows that the borrower is in a high risk area.
So what happens is that when payments are missed, the APR shoots up from 15-some % to 25, 30%. Now, it's that much more difficult to get out of this debt (that should not have been provided in the first place). Add on top the overcharge fees, late fees and others, and you're looking at easily over 40% effective APR. It becomes a downward spiral. If the borrower eventually defaults on that loan, the credit card company gets a big tax write-off, so they don't lose all that money. If the credit card company is lucky, the borrower signs up to a debt repayment program (often credit card company backed), and diligently repays the balance with all the fees and interest charges. $$$ profit all around.
Now, this is orthogonal to the reason why people get subprime credit cards. Half of bankruptcy is due to medical bills--so many of these cards are run up for that reason.
Here is another tidbit to consider:
"A bunch of 'roid monkeys in full body armour" Funny irony here. Since Rugby Union went Professional (and since I can remember Rugby League) it seems to me that more and more body armour is appearing on a rugby field and the players seem to be more and more 'roid-full. Are we seeing the evolution of Rugby Union to Rugby League to Amercian Football. Perhaps the ssad thing is that Amercian Football is just the pinicle of this evolution of paying people to play a contact sport? Perhaps we should look at the correlation between salary, physical contact and body armour?
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
I hear ya there.
(Disclaimer: I don't know if the U.K.'s any better than the U.S. in this regard):
In the U.S., if consumer revolt ever becomes enough of a problem, the companies will just buy some laws making it illegal for consumers to collude against them, and/or crush complainers under the weight of the civil court system.
"Who will watch the watchers?"
Everybody!
Americans don't have any respect for the law, because the law doesn't have any respect for us.
There's just no way someone can look at the American revolution and its causes -- the very principles that the country was founded upon -- and then look at today's America and not see hipocrisy. The Drug War?! DMCA!? All the creepy shit that's been happening since September 2001? Even little day-to-day stuff, like speed traps that are set up to generate revenue instead of improve safety.
It's a joke. Today's America is an "us versus them" situation where "them" is the government itself -- which is supposed to be us. The only law that Americans respect is this law: don't get caught. Why would you expect anyone to get their ire up over breaking immigration law? Most Americans don't know jack shit about what the immigration laws are -- all we know is that the laws are probably unfair, and almost certainly arbitrary and not tuned to maximize any particular political ideal -- neither racist protectionism nor freedom and the power of diversity. There are no ethical principles upon which any of our laws are based; they're all made from compromises between competing special interests. Why should anyone expect immigration law to be any different?
It's not worth getting upset over. (Except when you're in the crosshairs.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Along those lines, a few years back I got a letter in the mail saying that I was elegable to join in a class action lawsuit against whichever bank I'd been using a year or two earlier. Turns out they'd been ordering the checks they had from largest to smallest and paying them off in that order. This would generate more overdraft fees if the large checkes happened to overdraw the accounts. Also turns out that a lot of people write checks sequentually starting with the small bills and working their way up, I guess to avoid that same situation. I seem to recall that the bank lost that case and ended up having to pay the lawyers a lot of money.
The predatory practise of credit card companies are well known and well documented. Somehow despite Congress always getting around to protecting them from us they never seem to do much to protect us from them. That might be worth getting outraged about. I'll think about it. Maybe I'll get outraged later. Best thing to do with them is be ready to switch if one of them is screwing you and never run a balance it's absolutely necessary (Emergency surgery is a good excuse, a PS3 is not.)
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
... credit unions! (in the U.S. at least)
Credit unions are nonprofit, so there's no incentive for them to nickel-and-dime you to death with fees. (Account owners are the only shareholders anyway). I have free, interest-bearing checking through mine, as well as a credit card with actual reasonable terms and conditions (and fixed rate), a mortgage and a car loan, both at decent rates.
It's not hard to affiliate a group (e.g. an employer, church, etc.) with a credit union, and the only disadvantage over banks that I've ever noticed is that they don't have a branch on every corner. I don't understand why more people who are being screwed over by banks don't go this way.
> Mind you I don't fault the immigrants, illegal or otherwise for wanting to come here to better their life, but I firmly believe that starting off by entering the country illegally is the wrong way to do it.
It would be nice if there was a reasonable way to do so legally, but people are against that, too, for some reason.
> A large percentage of specific crimes in high immigrant areas (drug and robbery issues in LA for example) are committed by illegal (and often gang members) immigrants.
A large percentage of specific crimes in high white areas are committed by whites. A high percentage of gang related violence involves gang members. A high percentage of the sky is blue. A high percentage of illegal aliens are here illegally.
Shocking, I know.
> While I realize that these people may be the minority of their total population, the easiest way to deal with it is deportation of all illegals.
Good idea, let's send all our criminals to another country. Maybe... Australia?
> make work visa's easier to get for Mexicans, I DON'T CARE, just stem the tide of people who are outside the system.
Here, I can agree.
I'm actually surprised at the apathy shown towards the Bank of America fiasco of exploiting loopholes in the law to allow them to open accounts and credit cards for illegal aliens!! I figured there would have been a much larger rush of people to move their accounts away from them. I guess aiding and abetting law breakers just isn't enough to get the typical US citizen's fired up.... http://www.bankofamericasux.com/ didn't really get flooded with Complaints from customers.
We should also consider the evolution of the sport since its birth. Back in the day, leather helmets were worn, with minimal padding. This was in the days long before super agents and scouts were hand picking the biggest, meanest ogres they could find. Long before the days where a bone shattering hit was expected on every tackle. Give me the best runningback from the early days of football, and I'll laugh my ass off as he gets trampled to death 10 out of 10 times by the most mediocre backfielder in the NFL.
The modern American football pad set evolved from intense competition, where everyone was looking for a better edge. However, it is my opinion that the inception of hard plactic components that spurred our current suit of armor look. Would you rather get speared in the gut by a guy wearing a thick, soft leather helmet, or a guy wearing a bulletproof shell on his head? Thus it became necessary to wear hard plastic shoulders as well as elbow, knee and girdle pads.
As far as the purists accross the pond mocking American football, I say, if you hadn't spent the majority of the 20th century without 2 nickels to rub together, your rugby would have evolved similarly. If rugby was a billion dollar industry like American football, you would be importing only the most ferocious animals alive to play the game. Competition would spur the need for stronger, lighter protection, and eventually, the only difference between American football and rugby would be that nifty little gay pride celebration you chaps call a scrum.
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
BoA seems to make most of their money from horrendous charges levied against less well off customers. So in theory if you can introduce a new class at the bottom of the pyramid then they can afford to treat their citizen customers a little better.
/dropped them after they wouldn't budge on a payment that was a day late because we had to leave town in a rush for a funeral. /citi & amex both extended my due date with a 2 second call.
However if they way they treat their good customers isn't enough to make you vow never to do business with them again, then I can't imagine how this would deter you.
Apparently, in the cases mentioned in the article, businesses were doing things that prompted their customers to leave when they found out that what they were faced with was "policy" instead of just "bad luck".
Market transparency is great ... it forces businesses to be honest and to actually compete on value instead of relying on (modest) barriers (including ignorance) to keep their customers. If a business uses practices that hurt it when the public finds out about it (as was the case here), can those practices be either good or reasonable? What's not to like?
And look at the flip side of the coin ... if people are happy with the way a business works they will write about that too.
As a purist from across the pond your plasticy standing about game might produce a load of hugely muscled ogres but for strength, stamina, endurance and speed you'd be better off with rugby players. I just read that your teams are actually 2 seperate teams because your players just can't hack playing the full match ! Incredible, especially since they stop for breaks every 5 seconds and those girlish gossipy chats they always seem to be having.
My experience has been that you get 10$ hour cash for a hard labor job, illegal or not.
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
Since neither of the sports uses just one foot, shouldn't it be feetball? Official NFL rules: THE FIELD
The field measures 100 yards long and 53 yards wide.
And how many fucking times have you seen someone apply both feet to the ball?
I've seen that... NEVER. You kick a ball with your foot, never with both your feet! Sheesh!
You can't take the sky from me...
The United States, it seems, is the only country in the world that prefers to use the name football to refer to a game that doesn't actually use the feet.
:)
:)
All we ask is that you please call the biggest sport in the world by its commonly accepted name!
Thanks in advance,
Rest of World
Until now, I thought the lamest, most pathetic expression of inferiority complex I had ever seen was facing the bass speakers in your car outward. But I think this tops it
But: Australian Rules Football > other Footballs;//granted
You can't take the sky from me...
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
From a business perspective, legal immigrants are a good thing. If a person is willing to do the same quality work for lower pay, the business becomes not only more profitable, but more competitive in the market.
From a US Citizen perspective, it stinks because it's that much harder to break out of the poverty class range. If the job market gets flooded (short term) with low-income workers, not only will the poverty class have tooth and nail competition for jobs, but more and more middle class families will slip into the poverty bracket as a result.
From a government perspective, as long as there is a net job increase and a relatively static unemployment rate, it's happy. The government gets more tax money as a result, U.S. businesses become more competitive, and the economy overall gets a boost due to the increased amount of consumers.
My immigration solution would be to hand out a set amount of "citizen visas" each year. Each country would have a different amount alloted to it. (For example: 500,000 to Mexico, 50,000 to Russia, etc.) The U.S. government can reject anyone for any reason (stealing, etc.) during this visa period. Each person must hold a job from an accredited business (babysitting type stuff doesn't count) for a set period of time. (Let's say during a three year period you are allowed to be unemployed for a total of four months.) If you meet these requirements, you've proved you will be beneficial to the country and are put on the fast track to citizenship. (If not, well, at least you were given a shot at becoming one.)
Illegal immigrants are a problem because they only contribute to the U.S. in trivial amounts. Give them a viable way to contribute to the U.S. and the problem will become less of an issue. Right now our current solution is either too limited or too inadequate, so we see all these issues.
AC is indeed insightful, because to be insightful you must be observant of situations, people, processes ... and then be able to (via epiphany or logic) derive a reasonable or accurate description of facts and/or causes of the situations, people, processes ... conditions.
... is beyond insightful ... it is prescient. I regret that I have no moderator points today to provide to AC.
... I am sure is appreciated by AC.
...) are created by "Civil Law" mandated by "Human Citizens" any institution can be dissolved, terminated, destroyed ... by "Civil Law" when mandated by "Human Citizens" for whatever reason. However, when a "Human Citizens" is destroyed, terminated, dissolved ... by an institution then a crime against humanity has occurred, this is true for capital-punishment, war, famine, genocide ... :"FOR ME" only self-defense to protect the life of family, friends, others and self is justifiable, but might be punishable by an institutions following the letters of the law, legal yes, but never would it be justice. Institutions cannot think, feel, and/or act in anyway, institutions are inanimate objects created and controlled by "Human Citizens". My observations, make me believe, that USA prison populations should be 50/50, one half murders, pedophiles, drug-dealers ... the other half should be politicians, CEOs/CFOs, market-traders, pseudo-prophet/televangelists ....
....
I do not know who AC is, but if I did I would click-friend the person AC. AC's ability to observe and derive personal conclusions that indeed do reflect reality in the USA, EU, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico
Ditto: "I know you're telling the truth but do you mind sharing *why* you feel this way? This comment doesn't deserve an "Insightful" rating unless he can back it up." This is a statement in conflict (I feel) with logical use of words. You know AC is truthful implies that you may be in possession of facts that would support AC's insightful observations, but then you ask AC for feelings, rather than more facts to support those you appear to already have obtained by some real data collection. It was just odd to me the way you worded your comment, which I understand when folks use ESL. The support you provided to AC
JonWan: "Well customers do have rights, but so do businesses." is incorrect, because rights as in "Civil/Human Rights" cannot be reserved or legislated to cover any institutions with "RIGHTS". Institutions (society, businesses, governments, religions, clubs, marriage
Having said the above, please notice I do not include SBA/AFF [Small Business Americans or American Family Farmers in the Western Hemisphere]. I know the SBA/AFF are as fucked as the rest of US, EU
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
I'd like to add to this as one of those who once tried farm labor as a high-school summer job in 1984 or 5. In my area of Washington state, there are lots of berry farms, strawberries in particular. Back then, it was common for high school kids to work the fields in the summer for spending money. We even got transported to the fields in school buses -- it was pretty well organized. I was probably 14, not fat, decent shape and all that. I worked two days and quit. My entire body ached so much, it wasn't even remotely worth it to me. Currently, most of the berry picking is being done by migrant labor because it's so much easier for local kids to get a much less demanding job that pays more money (our min wage is over $7/hr).
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
I'd really like to know how that would work.
You can't take the sky from me...
"That's a stupid thing to say, and you're stupid for saying it."
Why is that? If you have ever seen a real game played of (American football, Rugby, or Aussie rules), you can not seriously compare it to soccer. I am not saying that there isn't a great level of skill displayed by soccer players, but it is a girls game. You can't tackle, you can't trip, you get in trouble for even touching another player half the time. The reason it has gained any sort of traction in the US, is because of mums not wanting their kids to get hurt (hence the term, soccer moms)!
The existence of a law has no correlation with the prescence of morality. Many immoral things have been and are still legal. Many things that could very well be considered not only moral, but righteous, are illegal.
You're right that attempting to change a situation through the democratic process is important, and that to some extent law is a social contract we all deal with to get along a bit better... but that does not mean that all laws should be obeyed, and it MOST CERTAINLY does not mean that any particular law is MORAL.
Sometimes, you do need to break laws.
Why is that? Because "football" says nothing about boys or girls, it only mentions a foot and a ball. No matter how much of a sissy sport soccer is, that has nothing to with which one should be called "football". Not a thing.
You can't take the sky from me...
Please stop calling every Digital Media Player on the planet an iPod.
Thanks in advance,
Those of us that aren't dumb asses.
This is absolutely true.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
I imagine that if the tide of illegals was stemmed, that wage for berry-picking would go up and more strong-backed students would be willing to work. Of course, this is what people who don't understand that the laws of supply and demand apply to both services and products think is a "problem".
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
I'm not about to stand up for the rights of aliens to violate our laws.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Well, that's fine. But don't pretend that law is the ultimate arbitration of morality, that's all. Law and morality are not even passingly related. And incidentally, I think you'd find that if your family is living in abject poverty, you'd do whatever you could to help or protect them, so on purely moral grounds I'd have a hard time faulting an "alien" for trying to get work here. Their action may be Illegal, sure, but not immoral. They are still human beings doing the best they know how to. If, for some reason, we feel the need to protect ourselves from them, then so be it. But that doesn't make them immoral people, nor necessarily us immoral, unless you're advocating for extreme violations of basic human rights like torturing them to make an example or something perhaps.
Basically, if someone wants to treat them like criminals then they should feel free, but they should at least man up and admit that the "illegals" or "aliens" are people who aren't necessarily some slavering horde of theives and rapists. It's not ok to justify the actions behind some guise of "morality". if it's justified then it may be a pragmatic reality, but it's not a moral question, and pretending something is a moral question when it is not, ironically, often allows quite immoral behaviour to be justified, so I'm a little distrustful of people using it lightly. People tend to more extreme reactions if they paint their target as an immoral being.
Not saying you were; you were just asking a question. Just explaining my reaction and its cause.
Honestly, this kind of networking is what has happened before as have mass runs on stores and banks of the type described. The only difference is in how the groups are organizing and the speed with which it is happening. And Amen I say. The public does not exist to serve the state or business. Those fat bastards exist to serve us!
Didn't you already try that?
On another note, it's callous attitudes like that that make this world what it is today. You hear about illegal immigrants and all you think is "our jobs" and "our money" and "our economy". Do you really think that a man who is watching his children starve cares about abstract things like "secular adherence to the Rule of Law" or "democratic process"? Do you think he cares about taking one job out of the wealthiest nation on Earth? Do you think he can vote for a Feed My Kids political party? No, he just wants food for his family, and if you can't understand that then I would suggest you are lacking part of what makes humans human.
I hate printers.
First of all, by most accounts, these illegals are well paid - well above minimum wage, and not the slave labor rates that so many like to claim they are making. The benefit to the employer is not having to pay payroll taxes, which is a huge hit to any company
Err, what? I don't know how many businesses you've run, but dodging taxes on payroll has one major downside... you can't claim your payroll as a business expense. So either you're paying peanuts (and small peanuts at that), or you'd be a lot better off just to pay the taxes. Its set up like that. Anyway taxes aren't paid on top of wages, they are taken out of wages. Businesses pay them slave labour rates because they can, and because there is literally no financial gain otherwise.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Yes... But since in a truly secular society the king has no divine right, you are free to ignore it whenever you can get away with it. Doing away with divinity also does away with absolute moral values (including "hypocrisy is bad"), since there's no one left with authority to dictate one set of morals better than another; consequently, there's no moral imperative to comply with laws, so there's nothing immoral in breaking them. In fact in a truly secular society the terms "moral" and "immoral" have no meaning, since anyone is free to define "moral" as they please and change the definition anytime.
Basically, in a truly secular society you comply with the laws when you think doing so will benefit you, and break them when you think that doing so will benefit you. I believe this is one of the reasons why the majority of history's significant societiess have been religious: truly secular societies need to spend far more resources in law enforcement, and run far greater risk of corruption of said enforcement. Natural selection favors religious societies - I wonder what Dawkins thinks about that ?-)
So the answer to your question is: Based on the morality of the GP. In a truly secular society that's as good as any other morality. Therefore in a truly secular society the question of morality is meaningless and your question therefore invalid.
Now let's see how many flames I'll get for this...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
One word: SLAPP.
This was more an argument on why soccer sucks, IMHO, rather than why it should be called soccer. Most of the English speaking countries of the world call it soccer, even in the UK they will refer to it as association football. This was my argument on why it should be called soccer.
You wont ever see rugby taking on the full body armour of American football. You may see them put on some shoulder padding and taping their ears down, you may even see the odd leather padded helmet BUT and I stress BUT the pathetic covering of the entire body from helmet to thigh padding has totaly made that version of Rugby you play a complete boring farce. (if thats evolution its a bad thing).
As America is the only country to play American football while the rest of us enjoy Rugby in a few flavours you must agree that the world cannot be wrong and only American right. If it was such a good game the world would flock to play it YET they play Rugby instead. Answers it all for me and throws you speculations of sporting evolution right out of the window. (especialy when it took a presidential decree to introduce the forward pass which completey changed the game to what you now play).
And the gay pride celebration you think of a scrum just shows how silly and jelous you realy are of the original form of the game you now call football.
Rugby is more fluid more continuos and better to watch. (unless you have bladder problems, and need all the time outs for a piss stop).
Linux user #349545 (GNU/Linux)iD8DBQBAzWjX+MZAIjBWXGURAmflAKCntuBbuK
I'm curious, how is anything other than a secular society supposed to have "absolute moral values", unless all members of that society follow the same dogmatic paradigm?
Even in, say, a religious society, not all members ascribe to the dominant religion. So their moral choices are not dictated by "divine right" either, you're still free to disregard whatever you think you can get away with, and I see no difference, except the nature of the authority creating the laws.
And morality is not dictated by authority in the first place. Punishment and legality are dictated by authority, but morality can never be. Your morality is obviously influenced by your society, even heavily so, but it is not dictated by society. Even if you believe in the same higher power that DID bestow morality, the differences in personal interpetations of what that morality really means various from member to member in the society.
Now I"m confused, but I'm interested in hearing more about this stance you have.