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Gov't Computers Used to Find Info on "Joe the Plumber"
After Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio gained fame as "Joe the Plumber" in the course of the current presidential campaign, it seems that he's drawn more than idle curiosity from people with access to what should probably be confidential information. An anonymous reader writes with a story from The Columbus Dispatch that "government insiders accessed Joe the Plumber's records soon after the McCain-Obama debate. 'Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate. Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.' Welcome to 1984."
This stuff isn't just happening in the UK.
Anybody? I'd think that the personal data of just about any news figure is combed over. This is certainly unfortunate but hardly surprising.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Welcome to 1984, or welcome to a world (just like 2007, 2006, and 2005) where curious people with access to confidential information sometimes abuse it without meaning harm?
I don't think there's any reason to assume malice here, I think stupidity is good enough. This kind of thing happens all the time when famous people check into hospitals and medical residents think it would be clever to pull their file.
This seems more likely to be plain old stupidity than it does evil government influence.
This is what happens when you "speak truth to power" to a Republican. Oh wait, never mind...
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
As interesting (and also not surprising at all) is the quote from the article,
The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch
Why anyone would trust any online system with anything that could cost them a job, impact their credit, prevent them from receiving health insurance, prevent them from being considered from a job, put-your-privacy-concern-here, etc.... is beyond me.
Sure it will be secure, sure it will....
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The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama's tax proposals.
I still don't understand why they keep bringing this guy up. He lied in his question to Obama about being in a position to buy his boss' company. His boss' company also doesn't make the level of income that would trigger a new tax under Obama's plan. Joe himself would get a tax cut under Obama's plan. Joe owes back taxes as it is. He's against Social Security. He's not a licensed plumber. Oh, and did I mention his first name isn't even Joe?
"Joe the Plumber" is kind of a lie on a lie. Joe has a fantasy about himself as Mr. Up-And-Coming-Businessman (he's not) being held down by the Man (he's not) who will get screwed by Obama (he won't). And that self-deception has been magnified by McCain into yet another mass Republican Cognitive Dissonance(TM)-- a national party lie standing on the shoulders of one small man's lie.
Good luck in November, guys.
Did Joe the Plumber make over 250k last year? Will Obama be giving him a tax break, totally invalidating McCain's point about Obama raising JoeThePlumber's taxes?
That wasn't the point of Joe's question. Joe stated he wanted to buy a business and hoped that his hard work would bring in more than 250K. Obama stated that he wanted to take that success and spread it to people that made less than Joe hoped to make with his business acquisition and hard work.
It's one thing to say you want to "tax the rich" to fund the government, it's another when you want to do it to give other people the money, i.e., "Spread the Wealth".
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Either 1984 has become so diffuse that all it means is badness+database, or the summary is badly confused. 1984 was all about a scenario where the state had ubiquitous control(with force of law) over information, which was used against everybody all the time. The state in 1984 was oppressive, and not one I would consider legitimate; but it ran "by the book" as it were. In this case, we have a much more prosaic example of certain individuals illegally accessing a celebrity's records, against policy, on an ad-hoc basis.
Such situations are bad, and I hope the perps will be punished, and they are (yet another) reason to oppose the creation of Giant Exploitable Databases(tm); but they have very little to do with 1984. If you simply must have a dystopian cultural reference, try Brazil.
Your points regarding "Joe's" outright lies and inaccuracies born of his daydreams are to my experience very common among the self employed. They see the most successful among their business acquaintances, and see that as a realistic goal... if only were the local/state/government to stop regulating/taxing them at whatever level they're currently regulated/taxed.
Basically, they're harboring the same sort of dreams that keep hundreds of thousands of young men banging away at amateur sports, even though the odds of making the cut are similar. It's this sort of dream that has the positive result of driving working people to succeed, but also the mixed results from overwhelming supporting the national GOP, whose policy goals use - but do not help - these grassroots supporters.
Luke, help me take this mask off
because Mr. Wurzelbacher has his name misspelled in the Social Security database, it would be assumed that he misspelled his name on his voter registration form. In Ohio, people that misspell their names or addresses, or have lost their homes and failed to update, or list a place that does not qualify as a "legal residence" in legalese like a dormitory, may be sent provisional ballots. These usually are not counted in the general election.
The Supreme Court had ruled against Ohio GOP measures, but on technical grounds or something, and now the Attorney General of the Department of Justice is probing whether or not they should be sent those provisional ballots. It's sad that Mr. Wurzelbacher had his privacy invaded, but in reference to the Republican argument, he did have something to hide.
It is against freedom to be taxed. It is against freedom to be part of a society which has rules governing your actions. It is against freedom to not be allowed to shoot people who disagree with you. It is against freedom for other people to be allowed to own property that you could use.
Very few people actually want total freedom, unless no one else has it. The cost of total freedom is not being part of a society. Most reasonable people are willing to give up the same freedoms that they would want other people to give up. They give up the freedom to kill their neighbours and, in exchange, their neighbours give up the freedom to kill them. They give up some portion of the products of their industry to benefit society.
People in the USA talk a lot about rights, but rarely mention the responsibilities that come with them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
You live in a country that has a government that provides services. Roads, schools, hospitals etc. etc.
No, it runs far deeper than that. "Spread the wealth" would seem to point to taking the money that I earn, and 'spreading' it to others who haven't earned it. Rightly or wrongly, thats what it sounds like.
This goes along with Hillary's line during the campaign of (speaking of the oil company's profits) "we want to take those profits and put them..."
Whether it be a 3 man plumbing operation, or Big Oil...'taking profits' leaves a bad taste in many peoples mouths.
Taking my money to provide necessary infrastructure is no problem. Taking it and giving that money to people who have not earned it is a problem.
Rightly or wrongly, "spread the wealth" sounds exactly like that.
I earn money, it's mine, not yours.
Beyond infrastructure and basic assistance, it is exactly that. Why can't I choose whom to spread it to? New employees, charities, whomever.
Today, the line is $250k. Tomorrow, $200k. Next year, $150k. You know as well as I do...govt's always want more.
It's reasonable to assume the purpose of these unauthorized accesses were to try and dig up dirt on Joe. Since Joe's comments have noticeably harmed Obama and/or helped McCain, it's reasonable to assume those doing so were Obama supporters or surrogates hoping to find evidence with which to smear Joe. Joe supports McCain, thus I don't expect any public outcry at all over this at all.
Now if the tables were turned and it was an Obama supporter who was having his/her info illegally accessed...well, I don't have to describe the media orgy that would occur, do I?
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
I have no problem with a higher tax rate kicking in above $250K/yr of my income, as long as the money is spent properly (i.e. NOT on bailouts, wars, etc).
Furthermore, it is a marginal tax increase. That means it doesn't apply to any of the $250K that you took as income in order to get to the $250K point. At roughly 3% it really is quite minor in absolute dollars for anything under $300K or so - roughly $1,500 extra taxes on $300K than now.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I've always been a believer in opt-in economy. Just mark huge swaths of land as "government-free" counties. No government means: no roads, bridges, water treatment, fire stations, EMTs, hospitals, or regulated utilities. You buy the land, you move there, you're on your own.
Then, all of the libertarians declaring that government is intrinsically evil can negotiate with utility companies to run power lines, open restaurants without any health inspections, and do their work without OSHA or fire regulations. After a few decades you would find that they had done something remarkable, and that is formed their own government with exactly the same rules.
A kid dies from salmonella poisoning from the burger joint - now health inspections are mandatory. Four men die in a fire in a building that had no fire suppression system, and now that's a requirement. The company firehouse is done away with because they bungled their badging system, and let someone's business burn to the ground who was actually a member. A local court system developed after blood feuds threatened to throw the whole county into chaos, and it's now illegal to conceal firearms after a judge was assassinated. Voting regulations have been established after the banker buys four consecutive elections, which resulted in all road construction projects benefitting his new housing development... I could elaborate, but you probably get the point.
Government is a necessary evil, but not all governments are evil. The only thing that turns a state into a negative entity is when concentrated power, economic chaos, or external military invasion takes the power away from the population, which does occur much of the time. The solution is not to take the resources of the nation place it outside the grasp of it's population, but exactly the opposite. In my experience, I've had much better relationships with local (albeit small) government utilities than I have with AT&T or any other large corporation, mainly because the top of the chain ends within a few miles of my business - I can go talk to (or berate) the person in charge. The top of the chain of any large corporation is simply unreachable, and the AT&T rep doesn't really care if my phone service is reliable or not - where else am I going to go? And if we have four phone companies running lines, how long before three are swallowed by the one with the most money? And if you regulate the monopolies, what's the difference between local governmental control (notice I didn't say federal) besides greasing the pockets of useless executive boards?
People like Joe the Plumber don't understand that part of the infrastructure of the united states is the working population. If those workers have a safe neighborhood, reasonable pay, and voluntarily pay extra taxes to socialize industries that perform poorly under free markets, the whole economy is better for it. Not only because the basics of the western world will be less expensive, but because entrepreneurs will be incentivized to tackle new ideas, instead of swindling money out of decades old problems that have already been solved. If corporations weren't busy creating inefficient markets for the sake of making more money, we'd still have many things that europe has kept - functioning mass transit systems, lots of investment in education, low poverty rates, more equal distribution of wealth -- that is a measure of the health of an economy, by the way -- and the right to organize in unions.
Or, you can be concerned by paying an extra 4% of tax, only on money earned over 250,000 per year.
By the way, where is Fred the Accountant, asking McCain why he supported Roe v. Wade in 2000? Or why he wants the Federal Government to legislate what marriage is? Or why Falwell was no longer an agent of intolerance? Or why he said in 04 that taxing the wealthy a bit more was okay? The truth is, Joe the Plumber wouldn't be able to get close enough to ask McCain or Palin a question. Anyone perceived as someone other than a die hard supporter is turned away, or threatened with arrest for carrying signs that say: "McCain = Bush."
There are some things you left out, which are tactics of not just the Left, but also the Right:
- the never-ending war to constantly justify intrusion upon private citizen's lives
- the changing of enemies (from Nazis to Communists to Saddam Hussein to Kosovo to Terrorists) to justify maintenance of a Corporate-Industrial Military
- and also to always keep citizens afraid & dependent upon "daddy government" to protect them.
Another tactic which Orwell did not think of is the "protect the children" argument which apparently justifies everything, even the taking-away of freedom of speech on the internet (kill Usenet discussion forums, censor nudist websites, censor Japanese anime/comics, block so-called racist books like Huckleberry Finn).
The government is not your daddy. Its purpose is not to raid middle-class neighbors' wallets and give it to you.
Actually, 1984 can be seen as more of a broader commentary on totalitarianism, rather than any specific critique on socialism or communism.
As for your parallels, it feels like you're missing some important points.
Ministry of Truth - this was a wide-spread attempt by the government to control the publics knowledge. Thus it has nothing to do with individuals in the media screwing up (unless you're claiming all media is controlled by a single source)
Newspeak and political correctness are not the same thing - one is the government controlling language and thought of the populace. The other is social norms changing to not offend people, particulalry when those changes don't actually change anything (except perhaps promote tolerance) at least for the most part.
DoubleThink -is about individuals holding mutually exclusive ideas, not society. There's few people that believe homosexuality is both something you are born with and that it's a choice. Rasicm is always wrong vs affirmative action also then depends on whether or not you consider affirmative action reverse racism (and I think reasonable arguments could be made both ways).
ThoughtCrime was about punishing thoughts contrary to the government. Punishing planning (as in you can show that it was serious planning) to commit a crime like violence or serious theft, is something else.
There's certainly parallels that can be made, but you have to be reasonable - people claiming Western societies are like 1984 come off like chicken little.
BWAHAHAHAHAH! Right On. When the boot is firmly up your ass to the ankle you don't stop and think, "Hey is that the left foot or the right foot?".
"Both sides seem to prefer shutting their eyes and screaming that all the world's problems are the opposition's fault, without daring to question their own policies for fear of being ostracised by their peers"
Exactly. With two sides yelling at each other nothing seems to get done at all with both sides blaming the other for their problems. However, it just seems that way sadly. Rights are disappearing faster and faster regardless of which political party holds the majority in any country. The US, Australia, and the UK seem to be in a frantic race to who can create a nightmarish totalitarian fascist regime first.
The dangers in 1984 come from all directions in government, not just a single political party. The argument itself is designed to polarize and distract us from reality. Illusionists and Politicians have a lot in common when you think about it.
We really shouldn't be surprised by the EU and The Left's fascination with this kind of behaviour. Orwell saw and predicted it nearly 50 years ago.
And The Right is any better? Right wing TV and radio manipulates with the best of them, NewSpeak is enormously popular on The Right, conservative Christianity is a prime example of DoubleThink, The Right has been trying to enact ThoughtCrime legislation, and The Right's support of Israel is, shall we say, rather self-serving.
"Joe" was a plant. I have little sympathy for him. He was brought up by McCain to try to be the example he couldn't actually find for some 'small guy' being screwed over by Obama's plan.
He was not a plant. Obama showed up at his house for crissakes. How dare Joe walk outside to see what all the fuss is about, and ask questions about Obama's tax plans, that the media should, but isn't asking. Like, how can you give a tax cut to 95% of Americans when nowhere near 95% of Americans actually pay net taxes?
Don't you think it's just a tiny bit strange that the one person McCain uses as an example in the last presidential campaign, someone he brings up over and over, lied about everything about his situation?
I think it's strange that the media has done more digging on a plumber (oh my, he doesn't have a permit to be a plumber - oh noes!) than on the presidential candidate the plumber asked a question of. Every fucking story reporting this - other than Fox News, of course - was attacking Joe for not having a permit/license (a revenue-raising device by greedy cities), for owing taxes, rather than actually addressing the merits of the question Joe had the temerity to ask. Real journalism there, don't ask Obama, "yeah, what about your tax plan hurting small businesses?" Instead, the media defends Obama and shoots the messenger!
Obama has been running for president for two years, and some plumber asks a more digging question than any mainstream media reporter has asked the whole time. No wonder you got suspicious. After all, this is supposed to be a coronation, not an actual election.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
You don't mind giving up a larger portion of YOUR property if you had over X amount. Thanks for speaking for everyone else by approving of tax to redistribute wealth.
Here's an idea, if you like higher taxes but don't want to fund things you don't believe in: support a charity or philanthropic organization you DO support. That's your right, since it's your property.
My property is mine. I've been endowed with certain inalienable rights...namely life, liberty and property. Don't sign me up for YOUR redistribution plan.
You know...the world is organized pretty well already. If you like communism (the government deciding what IS yours), there are communist countries. If you like free enterprise, there are free market countries where you can live. Why must Obama and all the leftists insist on spreading socialism worldwide? Because "a communist is someone who has nothing and is eager to share it with you." (Churchill).
Ps. I'm a guy that makes about 11 bucks an hour. I'll succeed and fail on my own hard work, initiative, and ambition. I don't want your entitlements now, and I don't want to compulsorily pay for someone else's entitlements later.
THL phish sticks
Hate to break it to you, but that's not redistributing wealth. That's basically known as paying one's fair share, The wealthy pay more in taxes yes, but they also get more benefit as well. They stand to lose far more than I do were civil disorder to break out and all possessions be smashed.
Silly argument. Yes, this is the reason government was formed - to protect one's shit. But obviously the role of government has evolved into much different role - an opposite role, to be exact - actually taking your shit away and giving it to someone else. This would be called stealing, but not when the government does it. This is now the government's chief function, considering that of its $3T budget, 60% of its expenditures are on entitlements. So the US government's chief role is now redistribution of wealth. Obama just wants to make it worse.
So while hypothetically government "protects" the wealthy, I'd imagine they'd lose a lot less money by taking their chances with no government stealing from them and building a moat. Meanwhile, the "working poor" take $8 in services for every dollar paid (Heritage Foundation - you want a source, you Google it). So no, the wealthy do not get more for their tax dollar. They get a lot less.
"Fair share" is everyone paying the same flat rate (the poor and middle class would still pay less, but the same proportion). But when the bottom 50% of wage earners only pay 3.6% of the taxes, there is something very unfair about that. At some point, people in the bottom third not only pay no taxes, but get net checks from the government. Is this still fair by your world view? At what point does it get unfair?
At some point, a huge portion of the country doesn't pay taxes, and becomes a "gimme" class instead of a "do something for your country class." Too many in the wagon, not enough pulling. I think all citizens, unless *temporarily* out of work, need to be invested enough in the country that they are outside if the wagon, pulling, and being contributing citizens to the state. Otherwise, they are not fully participating in being citizens.
If you've got more wealth, property etc., you're getting more for your tax dollars and as such should be paying more.
You're getting more because you earned it, not because the government took it from someone else and gave it to you. That's like saying rapists get more sex than married guys. Yeah, technically true, but...
And it would be nice if you didn't go mischaracterizing mr. Buffett's comment. He's well known to oppose the sort of careless tax policies you're advocating. He has definitively stated that he doesn't believe he should be paying a lower tax rate than his employees do.
Buffett might be a good investor, but he is being foolish for his clients and being dishonest about his income. First off, doubling the capital gains rate, as Obama wants to do, would dramatically hurt his clients (both by stifling economic growth, and thus hurting BH's share price, and personally for his clients on tax day). If I owned Berkshire Hathaway at $30K+ per share, I'd be furious Buffett said this.
Secondly, Buffett is rich because he holds stock in his own investment fund. In other words, he doesn't even pay himself a salary. So while it is unlikely, it is possible he could pay less income taxes than his secretary - even while he likely paid tens or hundreds of millions in capital gains taxes. And his income tax rate is higher than his secretary. He just doesn't earn income - he earns capital gains. Nice subterfuge though.
The reality is that businesses are flocking to Ireland, which has a corporate tax rate one half that as the US. Now that's a careless tax policy.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
* NewSpeak, the changing of language to make certain thoughts impossible (ala the politically correct language redefinition we experienced in the 70s/80s e.g. "differently abled" for "handicapped", in Sweden "husmor" replaced by "hemmafru" or their English cognates "housewife" with "stay-at-home-mom")
1984 was against government control over culture, not just cultural change in general. Changes in the way people express themselves is just part of life - "nigger" became "Negro", which became "colored", and then "black". Until the word "handicapped" is banned in some way, through the legal system, it has nothing to do with 1984.
* The Ministry of Truth, the media manipulation of news and history (ala the recent Reugter's Photoshopping of pictures from the Israel/Lebanon war; Dan Rather's falsification of documents)
Again, if it wasn't part of a government plan to control the population, then it isn't 1984 - "No Ministry, no Orwell" if you will. On the other hand, Bush's staged landing on an aircraft carrier is at least a lot closer to government controlling the news.
* DoubleThink, the simultaneous holding of two or more mutually exclusive ideas (e.g. "homosexuality is something you are born with" and "homosexuality is a personal and private decision"; or "racism is always wrong" and "affirmative action is the right thing to do")
As for the first part I doubt that any one person holds both views, but people with either view can come to the conclusion that it isn't the government business who they hook up with/date/marry. In this way they my become political allies, but there's no doublethink needed.
As for the second part, many people dislike killing, but accept that it's sometimes necessary to protect innocent lives. In the same vein, there's no inherent contradiction in saying that racism is bad, but limited racism to counter racism that already exists is acceptable. (I should point out that I'm against affirmative action - I just don't see blatant cognitive dissonance on the other side.)
* also the breakdown of the family and sexual relationships (which has less obvious parallels but "PolPot & the child turns their parents in" (like Winston's neighbor) would be an example)
Again, where is the government enforcement of this?
* ThoughtCrime, making the mere ability of thinking something a crime. You see this all the time in Hate Crime legislation (what murder wasn't already a crime ... with a life penalty?) and University speech codes (University "Free Speech Zones" are a wonderful example of NewSpeak, DoubleThink, and ThoughtCrime wrapped into one)
You got me there. I can no more defend speech codes than I can defend the movement to put creationism in science classes. On the other hand, finding one parallel in a single context (just speech, just at universities) isn't enough to make a meaningful connection.
* furthermore the mild anti-semitism, the hatred of Goldsteinism, today you see this all the time however this is mostly thinly veiled as an attack on "Zionism"
I have no idea what you're referring to here.
Uh...guys? It's not who's freer, US or UK that varies, it's that both are going down the toilet quickly freedom wise.
Terrorism? I'm far more scared of the government.
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