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Lessig On Corruption and Reform
Brian Stretch sends us to the National Review for an interview with Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig. Lessig talks about money, politics, money in politics, and his decision not to run for an open seat in Congress. From the interview: "Lessig hates corruption. He hates it so much, in fact, that last year he announced he'd be shifting away from his work on copyright and trademark law... to focus on it... 'One of the biggest targets of reform that we should be thinking about is how to blow up the FCC.'"
It's just you. You're a crazy conspiracy nutcase.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
Just out of curiosity, what are Obama's "radical" ideas on fixing the US?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Many a nerd who happens to read your blog got their ham license through the FCC and talked with the world *before* there was an internet. Or even computers. Many of us built computers from schematics that showed up in the early magazines and interfaced them to radios. We were making phone calls with radios *before* there was cell phones. Countless hams worked in the electronics industry, and worked in companies that brought forth many of the innovations we use today. A ham radio license, which was hard-eanred (most of us automatically decode all that mosrse code when it shows up on TV :D), is and continues to be a cherished part of many peoples lives. And was the beginning of many careers in technology and science.
While the FCC has many flaws, be careful to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. While I mention ham licenses, they do have a place in technical matters as well.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
And yet, those Nordic countries were the state has great control over the economy are also marked by some of the lowest government corruption in the world.
Your assumption seems to be that it is possible to reduce the size of government. I disagree with this notion. If you reduce the size of democratic government a non-democratic government will arise to replace it. Your example of communist russia is an excellent one. After the collapse of the communist government private enterprise filled up the power vacuum that was left, and focused more on profit than on people. The end result was that people actually overall had it noticeably worse under the weak government model that came after than under the all-encompassing communist model of old.
I might also mention that no country in the EU has abandoned sovereignty because countries can leave the EU at any time without approval from the other EU member states. The EU is a treaty, not a country. This makes the EU very fragile. If it became a harm to its member countries instead of a benefit, it would dissolve rapidly.
And by the way, the EU has been very good for my country. Without the EU we would have more pollution, unhealthier food, higher unemployment, severe trade and budget deficits, a devalued coin, higher unemployment, and software patents.
More government control of the economy = more corruption.
Sorry, I have to disagree on that one. Some of the least corrupt governments in the world happen to be the scandinavian countries, which also happen to be very much on the socialist side. You can also find plenty of the opposite case, i.e. banana republics where the government doesn't control the economy and is very corrupt. I wouldn't go as far as saying that more govt control means less corruption, but I definitely disagree on your simple "more control = more corruption" statement.
This is why the scandals in the previous French government and the UN oil-for-food scandal dwarf anything that's ever gone on in America.
I disagree on that one to. All the oil-for-food scandals around the world (not just French, there was AU and probably others) are just dwarfed by the US corruption involved in the Iraq invasion. Starting from Halliburton's ex-CEO supporting the was a vice-president, making up false "evidence" (and screwing up the career of the wife of the guy who exposed that in the process), turning a blind eye on over-billing (Halliburton and others), and all the stuff we haven't heard of yet.
As Lord Acton noted, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
True, but there are ways to reduce the power of *individuals* while making sure the govt has control on the economy. Just because the US screwed up at that, doesn't mean you have to deregulate everything. What needs to be done is that the power must be distributed. That's the idea behind the US "checks and balance" principles. The only problem is that there's currently an individual who managed to mostly seize most of the powers. That's where the problem is.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
This only means that your congress and other government agencies are also bad, it doesn't make FCC practice okay and sure as hell doesn't constitute a reason to stop improving things.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
As an example, let me run down some of the items on Barack Obama's issue pages (since I just happened to be reading them) and tell you the Libertarian answer to each point, off the top of my head:
- Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Libertarians are for tax cuts; they reduce the size of government.
- Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Reducing the complexity of the tax code is good, as it would tend to reduce the size of government, though Libertarians would prefer to eliminate the income tax and thus the need for individual tax filings.
- Fight for Fair Trade: Free trade is good, but Obama proposes using trade deals to enforce our rules on other countries and protect our jobs from foreign competition. Libertarians are against this and for completely free trade.
- Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement: Obama wants to "fix" NAFTA, and I don't know what that means but it sounds like protectionism, which Libertarians are against.
- Improve Transition Assistance: Obama wants the government to pay to retrain workers. This increases the size of government so Libertarians are against it.
- Support Job Creation: Obama wants to double spending on research and education. This increases the size of government so Libertarians are against it, believing that it will produce corruption and waste; a free market can do a better job of allocating those resources than fickle politicians can, without the corruption and waste.
- Invest in U.S. Manufacturing: More spending; bigger government; Libertarians say no.
- Create New Job Training Programs for Clean Technologies: Again, Spending. Bigger government. No.
- Boost the Renewable Energy Sector and Create New Jobs: Spending. Bigger government. No.
- Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Spending. Bigger government. No.
- Protect the Openness of the Internet: Libertarians believe that the Internet should not be regulated.
- Invest in Rural Areas: Spending. Bigger government. No.
I could go on, but as you can see, the Libertarian viewpoint is very well-defined, and not at all vague. As for whether it's "unworkable" or whether people can "get behind" it, well, that's debatable. But vague is the one thing it's certainly not.main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
Have no economy?
What does that mean?
My Norwegian 100 kroner bill, which is in my pocket right now, have for the past few years increased 50% in value compared to the USD. The reason for this is the lack of Norwegian economy?