Slashdot Mirror
New Hampshire Begins Open-Data Efforts
Plugh writes "The Free State Project was created to move 20,000 small-government activists to New Hampshire (here's the Slashdot story from 2002). IT people, with our ability to work anywhere, were some of the first to move. Now, with over a dozen Free Staters elected to the NH legislature, these geeks are starting to affect government data-sharing policy."
I remember a quote about them, something like "they confuse freedom for corporations with freedom for people". Corporations aren't people, and so the tax rate for corporations (one of the reasons to pick New Hampshire I think) should be either irrelevant, or, a place with high taxes for corporations should be better (if it translates to lower taxes for real people).
Ahem, back on topic:
I think it is wonderful that at least one government is providing information in open formats (ahem, 'nerd-friendly, "pipe-separated" files'). I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.
Indeed, The Free State website says:
Appended to the end of comments you post. The maximum is 120 characters.
Then anyone can just root the machine and take all the data. Sounds pretty open to me.
Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people, with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure. Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.
Merely? That might have been the intent, but you know the old truism, give somebody an inch, they'll take a mile?
Well, the corporations have done that, continue to do that, and are doing their best to get us to give them a couple of more inches.
See, here's the thing you don't get. Most corporations are not a co-operative, they're actually a very pyramidal structure with control and influence at the top, and nothing but mistreated workers beneath.
I would give some names to describe your Utopian view of the Corporation, but I'll be honest, I don't care to buy into your mythology enough to look them up.
Also those people's movements? They were cults of personality masquerading under another name. Nothing new there, that's for sure. But at least their excesses were obvious, and not masked under the bland face of corporatism.
In New Hampshire they'll still be living under the large federal government. If they really want small government they should really think about emigrating altogether. Although they won't find many first-world countries where the government isn't significantly involved in the regulating society and running public services.
What I found most interesting was the link in the article to opengovernment.org, which I followed on to this project: https://github.com/sunlightlabs/openstates They provide the screen scrapers which feed the data to the main project. I"m sure that even with the gov't providing data freely there will still need to be formatting transformation required, and some screen scraping needed to get the full picture into some database somewhere. I'm sure there are other frameworks around that build up scraping/database/analysis applications. Does anyone have any experience with these?
with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure.
Which is unfair to others.
Corporations are no more evil and dehumanizing than any human organizations, including governments, political parties, ideology activist groups, etc.
Actually because of the law, which treats them specially, they are. In particular, they insulate many people from risk that they should be responsible for and distorts the market. Risk doesn't just simply disappear, it is unfairly transferred to those who deal with the corporation - buyers, sellers and junior employees.
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It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.
Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people, with the express purpose of shielding these people from losing everything they own in event of their business failure. Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.
Corporate shield suffers from the same problem as anonymity on the Net, and for the same reasons - it brings out the jerk, or worse, the sociopath in the person, as they do not suffer consequences for their decisions.
Which makes them free to cause as much destruction as they please. After all, your tax dollars will clean up after them.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Please, stop unilaterally branding other people as "geeks." You may perceive them as members of your self-identified subculture, but many people who work in IT and other technical fields object to this stereotyping. Thanks.
If you RTFA, it doesn't claim anywhere that "Free Staters" are behind this initiative. Nor does it even mention the Free State Project. The assertion on the Slashdot summary that this is a result of the Free State Project might be correct, but it would be nice to see some evidence backing this up.
This "free state" stuff can backfire on ya...
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Just like the meat in the supermarket is made of dead animals. The problem is that a lot of people don't want to know that and wilfully ignore that fact. Also, there are complete systems that help the ignoring, like the stock exchange.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I think you'll find that in other parts of the world, most of us think that government is part of the solution as well as being part of the problem.
You remind me of Al Franken as the chemical company spokesman on an old SNL skit. "Here you are, enjoy this nice, refreshing glass of H2SO4!"
Caveat Utilitor
Some Free-Staters (again, not all) actually have been working hard on the notion of State Sovereignty; see the FSP page on this topic.
Also, a new bill has been introduced this session:
HCR19 - Affirming States' powers based on the Constitution for the United States and the Constitution of New Hampshire.
There are also a few bills in play this session asserting the NH manufacturing shall not be regulated by the federal government. Longshots? Well, with over a dozen Free-Staters elected to the NH House of Representatives, maybe less long-shot than in other states....
Part of the Second American Revolution!
where's the harm in that? it's got H2 and O in it!
‘Separation of State and Dogma...’ was (I believe) the intention of the USA Founding Fathers and Authors of The USA Constitution.
Political, religion, corporate dogma (script-beliefs) must be kept separated from ever becoming governance of The People by the leading plutocrat/oligarch of a special-interest dogma (Tokemata, Falwell, Jim Jones, Pope, Hitler, Stalin, Ms Mao, C*Os, Democrats, Republicans).
‘Organizations of unequal membership are carelessly dogmatic. Professionally trained dogma regurgitive elite superiors make their decisions. This means they reflect the dogmatic interests of their lords and masters, and serve to perpetuate dogmatism.’
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Good luck with your economy when there is no civil or criminal law relating to it. You may think it is easy to draft a civil law that does not involve some kind of regulation, but the experience of the developed world over the last hundred years or so is that you are wrong. Countries with no tradition of Government-made and enforced civil law - China, Iran - are pretty much shit holes for the great majority of the population. But of course as a "libertarian" you're identifying yourself with the 1-5% whom you think worthy of having liberty.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Merely? That might have been the intent, but you know the old truism, give somebody an inch, they'll take a mile?
[...]
See, here's the thing you don't get. Most corporations are not a co-operative, they're actually a very pyramidal structure with control and influence at the top, and nothing but mistreated workers beneath.
Are you really trying to convince us that if we eliminated or neutered corporations that the "pyramid structure" of control would stop being the dominant form of business structure? Are you really that stupid?
Also those people's movements? They were cults of personality masquerading under another name. Nothing new there, that's for sure. But at least their excesses were obvious, and not masked under the bland face of corporatism.
You seem to ignore the point of business. It is to make stuff that people want, not to create "cults of personality". If that "cult of personality" delivers value to its customers legally, then that should be good enough for you.
Glad to see Slashdot pick this up...
The actual bills:
Open Data: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0310.html
Open Source: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2011/HB0418.html
I'd love to see this legislation copied in every state... patches are welcomed, btw. I can't grant commit access, but bug reports are always welcomed.
I'd also be glad to answer questions, if anyone has any.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
In other words, they are formed in order to get a special favor (freedom from having to pay for consequences of their actions through the corporate proxy) from the government which individuals do not receive. Quid pro nothin'.
You're right, that's not evil. But giving it to them at our expense in exchange for nothing is stupid (and government being stupid on purpose is evil). And any claims on their part that they deserve it for nothing as though it were a right, are dishonest.
I'm not saying get rid of corporations; I'm saying make them earn their special perks. If you have limited liability, then yes, pay extra tax or otherwise do something that makes people other than the stockholders (the ones who most benefit the most from the privilege of limited liability) profit. And if the stockholders don't want to do that, that's fine; I don't think I'm entitled to benefit from their business. All they have to do is reject limited liability and run their business as a non-corporation.
A person that sings the praises of limited liability is singing the praises of handouts. If you're a right-wing corporate apologist, you might want to think really hard about just what it is you really believe in.
OTOH, if you're a lefty, it makes sense; you're thinking in terms of some people (the ultimate "victims" whenever a corporation defaults on its liabilities) subsidizing the needy (the risk-averse) for the common good. Good for you, comrade.
Ahh yes, the Libertardian utopia of no taxes and yet somehow maintaining a working society. Texas beat you to it, and its working out wonderfully.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
Suppose one of the slight risks of a widget is that they just might explode, and there are two companies that sell widgets.
The Widget Company is not a corporation, and they can sell widget for $10. If their widget explodes and the company doesn't have the funds to buy the customer a coffin and burial service, the owner has to sell his car or house to pay for it. Sucks that the customer died, but at least things got taken care of about as well as is possible.
On the other hand, Widgets Inc pays corporate income tax. Alas, this causes their widget's pricetag to be $13. If their widget explodes and the company doesn't have the funds to buy the customer a coffin and burial service, then the owner says, "that's a shame," puts a closed sign on the front door and starts form a new widget company. The taxpayers end up buying a coffin, though the surviving family manages to pay for the funeral, though the hardship then causes them to go on foodstamps, again at taxpayer expense. Fortunately, the taxpayers got that extra $3 to help pay these costs, but was $3 the right amount? Now you've got to have taxpayer-funded lab guys assess widget explosion risks in order to set explosion probability so that tax*probability is about equal to the cost, politicians spending time to pass a bunch of new regulations in order to manipulate explosion probability, and so on.
One scenario has people paying things directly and one has a lot of indirection and middlemen and big government. Ain't hard to guess which is most efficient, and who has the incentive to do the best job on widget quality control.
Corporate tax, by making customers pay it, encourages them to do business with non-corporations. How can that not be a good thing?
That's horrible, because now the customers who didn't even buy a widget, are having to pay for the coffins and burial and foodstamps when they pay their taxes. You're proposing that Widget Inc's non customers subsidize their customers. *sigh* You Widget People, with your handout entitlements! Dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but widgets are lame and outdated; some of us have moved onto Gadgets. Get your hand out of my wallet, commie-luddite.
Corporations are neither created nor run by robots or space aliens or zombies. They are created and run by people
So are governments, but that doesn't stop people from complaining about the absolute evil that is government.
A reminder that New Hampshire is also considering approval voting. Is this a result of the same geek culture?
Corporations are merely a legal device for lowering risk of entrepreneurial activities by people.
And regulations are merely a legal device for lowing the risk to the rest of us from the agency issues created by corporate officers being shielded from the free market by the nanny state.
I have no beef with corporations--I own one myself. But I have a big problem with people who claim that corporations ought to be unregulated, when in a free market no corporations would exist.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
How many times have we seen these kinds of efforts fail? I can think of a few spectacular failures; one was my home state of MA and the other is Switzerland. MSFT always applies more grease to the rails and *poof* goes the FOSS.
live_free() or die();
You'd think the pro-tax and pro-prohibition groups would have supported this before. Up to now if you wanted to know about pending bills etc. you had to go to the nhliberty.org website and suffer through all our anti-tax pro-capitalist propaganda ;) ...anyway, more transparency is always better. When people know what their governments are actually doing, they may be able to put a stop to it...
Great idea. I'm sure the Federal Government would be happy to pass this bill as well! =)
One of the Free State project members (at least, I think he's an FSPer) just posted an RSS feed from the State's data, and pulled it into this Facebook.
Part of the Second American Revolution!
You've got that wrong, reading comprehension on your part -100%.
Just to try to educate you and improve your comprehension, all businesses pass on the cost of taxes, but by giving corporations limited liability you're giving them an unfair advantage against other forms of business ownership.
Maybe now you understand, but I doubt it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?