Slashdot Mirror
Why Richard Stallman Was Right All Along
jrepin sends this excerpt from an opinion piece at OSNews:
"Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities. Initiatives like SOPA promote diligent monitoring of communication channels. Thirty years ago, when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project, and during the three decades that followed, his sometimes extreme views and peculiar antics were ridiculed and disregarded as paranoia — but here we are, 2012, and his once paranoid what-ifs have become reality."
The whole article is a complete non sequitar. Free software wouldn't prevent Obama from signing an indefinite detention bill, nor it would it stop government intrusion on ISPs. There's no relationship between government overstepping the mark and buying a proprietary product from a company you respect because you want to use the product and are willing to sacrifice unrestricted access to its innards.
Richard Stallman also thinks necrophilia and "voluntary pedophilia" should be legal, including possession of child pornography. He doesn't visit web sites--instead, he sends email to a daemon that wgets the page and emails it back to him. Perhaps most infamously, he eats toe jam in public.
Perhaps not the best spokesperson to get behind.
A broken clock can be right some of the time. Claiming Stallman was right all along is like claiming the paranoid street preacher predicting natural disasters as God's judgement was right all along after a hurricane hits. He may have predicted something that ended up occurring, but that doesn't mean his approach to solving the issue nor his philosophy are in the same bucket.
The author of this piece, Thom Holwerda at OSNews, is becoming known over there as a pandering, flamebait author in the vein of Dvorak. His essays come off as if they're specifically designed to get posted on Slashdot. Because of that, I suspect there will be more submissions from him in the future, unfortunately.
... leads to the concentration of wealth and power which naturally leads to dictatorship.
They still haven't outlawed eating toe cheese. :)
I have yet to see a nation or government take the official stance that Occupy are terrorists. Squatters, freedom-of-speech-abusers, illegal encampments, yes, but not terrorists.
While I decry the NDAA and SOPA as much as anyone, I'll not buy into the Occupy claims of victimization and persecution when they squatted for TWO MONTHS before the police were sent in to clear them out. You have a right to protest, to share your ideas, and to educate the public. You do NOT have the right to squat in public spaces until the world does things your way, or we'd still have grey-haired hippies camped out all across the nation demanding that you "free the weed."
I certainly won't buy any paranoid claims that they're going to be locked up as terrorists.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The detention legislation was attached to the military spending bill for the next year and he did release a signing statement specifically stating that he didn't like it.
According to TFA's TFA
"The administration also pushed Congress to change a provision that would have denied U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism the right to trial and could have subjected them to indefinite detention. Lawmakers eventually dropped the military custody requirement for U.S. citizens or lawful U.S. residents"
I haven't checked the text of the legislation, but this seems to indicate that it's still only foreigners Bush IV can lock up forever.
they used the Patriot Act against the Occupy Wall Street protestors :). This folks, is why I'm a left wing socialist. And for those of you keeping score Obama centrist leaning to the right (or a liberal without the stomach for a good fight, but same thing really).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
So it *is* ok to eat your toenails in public?
If he was right, and nobody payed attention, it's his own fault for his failed messaging strategy.
In this, Slashdot's tilting at windmills war against Microsoft was a big part of why FOSS has never been taken seriously. Companies choose Windows for good reasons. As Munich proves, it's impossible for large networks to replace Windows with Linux... and they were throwing tons of money and manpower at trying to get that dog to hunt.
Stallman said:
prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced.
Meanwhile, Tea Party groups have been labeled with every epithet the left and mainstream media could throw at them and are actually more peaceful and law-abiding than the average Occupy *** protest. Welcome to the club. You're not special.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
It's a little more complicated than that. If he signs it it means he thinks
signing the legislation is a better option than not signing the legislation --
not that it's a good law. Sometimes tradeoffs are made, especially
in the f**ked up federal legislature that runs (poorly) the US right now.
Funny, the captcha was "corrupt".
Its amusing that the only time I hear this is from someone on the other side
Yea sure, red candidates can forget one of their three major campaign points, and that is ok, they are just human ... Obama on the other hand misses a button on his coat and its the fucking focus of his incompetency on Fox New Radio for a week
This article is nothing but flamebait. It's misleading and incorrect and designed only to generate mass negative posts. Enough already, I know this is slashdot but this is too much.
Lots of other people also pointed to a loss of more and more freedom. (Libertarians have been doing it for longer than Stallman has, for instance, and they're consistent instead of obsessing about one issue.) To pick out this one issue and claim that it means "Stallman was right" doesn't make any sense. Stallman might not trust government, but then, many other people also don't trust government -- and they don't necessarily agree with Stallman's views. So it's some pretty screwy logic to claim that this proves Stallman was right about anything.
Also, while the fundamental concern is solid, one could point to many other (who sound less insane) people who have been trying to warn us about this.
I guess you're saying that Richard Stallman is the modern day Thomas Paine?
Stuff like this is why I have no idea how you fight this sort of thing. The average person doesn't care. The people I talk about this to in RL look at me and ask what the problem is as it would never be them that gets targeted. Oh no.
All of this has gotten so bad that you look like a tin hat wearer just trying to explain what is going on now.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
Gasp! You mean the Obama-messiah is less than divinely perfect? Whoa... gonna have to sit down... re-evaluate my religious beliefs...
Never fear, there's still the Paul-messiah to believe in! I'm convinced he would never let messy political realities factor into his political decisions...
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Do you mean that the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
What Stallman? the founder of GNU? Jesus Christ! That man is a maniac. Don't tell me that a person who doesn't know what a graphic user interface is and that is communist can think and is normal...
The article started not that bad, but not through the end "This is why you should support Android " Seriously ??? Quoting mr RMS : "Even though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your freedom." http://digitizor.com/2011/09/20/richard-stallman-android-free-software/ I am not here for bashing android, but where are the GNU phones folks ? openmoko ? meego/maemo ? tizen ?
-- http://rzr.online.fr/
... is still right twice a day. I think that applies here.
I don't respond to AC's.
I'll make it short by quoting Andrew Grove - " Only Paranoids Survive "
Don't tell me that a person who doesn't know what a graphic user interface is and that is communist can think and is normal...
you are the fucked up moron here, and your ilk is the one continually voting morons who are passing such dastardly bills into power.
in any other part of the world, after spending this sentence, you wouldnt be even labeled politely with the label of 'stupid'. people would think you were either
a) moron
b) bloodthirsty fascist
but thankfully, in america it is free to be a fascist and then claim to the contrary that everyone else is.
rejoice ! capitalists are going to throw you in infinite detention without cause, LEGALLY, OPENLY, and merrily.
in all kinds of twisted country which bastardized communism with dictatorship, such things were done secretly, behind the doors, without there being anything in the open - they were not particularly compatible with the political ideals.
but, mind-fuckingly, doing such things seems completely compatible with the political ideals of 'freedom' that exists in capitalism ! rejoice !! did i tell that it is going to be openly legal to do so too ?
Read radical news here
in a veto-proof manner, after Obama had the language softened, and it doesn't apply to any random American, and it doesn't apply to anyone labeled a 'terrorist', only to people associated with specific terrorist groups.
I don't agree with the slippery slope this legislation started, but please, Enough With the Sensationalism.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Monkeys...
Time...
Complete works of Shakespeare!
RE: "You do NOT have the right to squat in public spaces until the world does things your way, or we'd still have grey-haired hippies camped out all across the nation demanding that you "free the weed." "
Actually everyone has the right to squat in public spaces for as long as they want for any reason. That is, if you support the Constitution.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
I also like Gary Johnson who is now running Libertarian. Although I don't like Ron Paul's foreign policy it could save us trillions and would make a lot of anti war people happy. I'm worried about what might happen as we remove ourselfs from the rest of the world. Them 2 (Paul and Johnson) are the only 2 politicians thus far that I trust speak their minds.
Yea sure, red candidates can forget one of their three major campaign points, and that is ok, they are just human
Heh, by 'ok' you mean his popularity dropped like a rock after that?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities"
Are there examples of this?
I've heard them labeled as (paraphrasing) shiftless, stupid, smelly losers costing taxpayers money.
I know this is probably to late to post this, but hopefully this will enlighten some people.
http://www.lawfareblog.com/2011/12/the-ndaa-the-good-the-bad-and-the-laws-of-war-part-i/
So if I'm a paranoid nut job, I'm supposed to trust a Chinese Lemote notebook not to spy on me?
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us.
stallman said this. and it is happening - private corporations and governments are separately and in conjunction trying to control everything.
so far so good, right ? and you are asking, 'what does this have to do with free software', right ?
are you idiots ? what are we turning to, as this trend gets more serious ? software that is free, and uncontrollable, and circumvents any kinds of bans/gateways/filters ? from tor to proxies, to free oses that thankfully run these ? imagine what would have happened if instead of linux, some jacked up windows nt server was the basis for the web at large today ? all it would take microsoft to twist us in the balls would be to prevent certain software (proxy, vpn) from running on their servers with a 'security update' when local governments requested it and voila !
dont at a moment think that 'they wouldnt do that'. they DO that. we have seen endless cases of repression cooperation, user-busting, shady dealings get to news in slashdot and we discussed under their summaries here, altogether. so, dont at a moment dumb down and think they wouldnt - they ARE doing it.
and what would happen if stallman did not come with those 'radical' ideas, and relentlessly pushed for them ? we would be living in a more closed, private internet, and we would have been already grabbed by our balls long ago. At least now, we are on the cliff's edge - with all this sopa and shit. we maybe have a chance.
so wise up. world history has been exclusively changed for the better by radicals in the last 2 centuries. here's another, and he is talking good stuff. the fact that these stuff may be too futuristic or utopic for you, would just put you in early 1900s moron's shoes if you come up and claim that he is nuts. everyone ranging from wright brothers to nikola tesla were dubbed as nuts at some point. even thomas paine, was shamefully labeled as a lunatic. now noone can dare argue against the principles he had spearheaded, in a scientific environment - they have become de facto basis of freedom of scientific thought from dogma and religion.
if you did not know who even thomas paine was, i am wondering what the fuck you were doing in a thread, labeling someone who was a radical visionary, as a nut.
Read radical news here
His inability to not appear to be a raving madman insured that his message would be lost to the masses.
If no one listens, who cares if you are right or wrong?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This is stupid. I'm not SharkLaser. Email a Slashdot admin if you don't believe me.
- bonch (posting anonymously because the trolls apparently have moderator points today)
Obama is a Marxist, ...
Care to elaborate?
Gasp! You mean the Obama-messiah is less than divinely perfect? Whoa... gonna have to sit down... re-evaluate my religious beliefs...
Never fear, there's still the Paul-messiah to believe in! I'm convinced he would never let messy political realities factor into his political decisions...
If only we had some evidence for the way these individuals had voted BEFORE they were running for President. Maybe then we could predict the outcome. If only.
How do you know a politician is lying?
His/Her lips are moving.
Democracy is failing, I'm too young to remember times being different, so I really feel no loss, just resignation.
The problem here isn't that some software isn't free as in dollar cost, or even that it isn't free as in "I have the source code." Either of those -- or both at the same time -- can be malware.
The actual problem (here in the US) is that our government has vastly exceeded its constitutionally assigned authority. Either we fix that, or the problem remains. The constitution sets the absolute limits of legitimate authority, and the 4th amendment is very clear that the government is not authorized to obtain the warrant required to poke into our papers, our domiciles, our person, or our effects unless they (1) have probable cause, (2) supported by oath or affirmation, (3) describing the place to be searched, and (4) describing the person(s) or thing(s) to be seized.
We, the citizens, are responsible for this mess: We have repeatedly let the government step out of line, violating the constitution, accepting virtually any excuse the government handed out like credulous idiots.
We have a chance to throw a monkey wrench in this and at least promote a national dialog on the subject by voting for Ron Paul this time around. Regardless of if you agree with his specific policies, he offers us one critical thing that is more valuable than anything else any other candidate brings to the table: He respects, honors, and will obey the constitution. That means he'll serve as a roadblock against further unconstitutional legislation (which we are obviously in dire need of), limiting what gets through to those bills that can muster enough cross-aisle support to override a presidential veto.
Free software isn't going to save us. Only by putting in place a properly constituted and obedient government can we be saved. And that's going to be a much more difficult road, perhaps an impossible one, if we don't step up to the plate and do something now.
The pundits are right about one thing: time has truly run out. If you read these most recent bills, they are stunning in their overreach, blatant violations of the oaths sworn to uphold and defend the constitution by the lawmakers and any other public official who has supported these bills. This time it isn't just the felons, the people on the various government lists, foreigners, and people who want to fly who are going to get screwed.
This time, it's you. What are you going to do about it?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Misses a button on his coat? Are you serious? Obama's term looks exactly like a GWB third term would look like. You may not want to believe it, but Obama's policies have been horrid and his record on human rights, heinous.
http://nothingchanged.org/
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Everything he said here was true.
>
Everything he said here was true too.
I guess he cut the deficit in half.
Nobody in his administration accepts gifts from lobbyists, and of course there arent any earmarks any more, and you have 5 days to look at bills before he signs them, and he enumerates which corporations gets tax breaks before he signs those bills as well.
Its amusing that you get modded up for lying about Obama not lying. Even Bill Clinton noted during Obama's election campaign that Obama's constant lying about the Iraq war was "the biggest fairy tale I have ever seen."
Its not like we can go on and on providing seemingly endless links to videos of him lying or anything.
"His name was James Damore."
RMS is a technohippie, an archetypical one. The hippies were right about everything:
Sex
Drugs
Rock & roll
Vietnam, and war in general
Nixon, and politicians in general
Capitalism (as practiced, not as they lie to us in school about it)
Religion, and dogma in general
Computers
Freedom
--
make install -not war
Well, so was countless other paranoid individuals that were saying the same thing. But didn't have a podium.
Even i have been predicting this stuff ( and more which is in the works for coming to pass ) for the last 20 years or so, but that doesn't make me special. It just makes me right.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
in fact, that same magazine also suggested that child porn be legalized so the real pervs can get their fix and stay in the shadows without victimizing real children
Unless they think that 12 year old children are actually capable of giving informed consent to engage in sexual activities while having those activities recorded.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Pro-SOPA study on DNS filtering cites censorship research A recent paper written by Daniel Castro of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and promoted by the MPAA on Capitol Hill argues in favor of DNS filtering to block access to copyright-infringing sites. In an effort to argue the effectiveness of DNS filtering, Castro cites research from Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society that suggests that "no more than 3 percent of Internet users in countries that engage in substantial filtering use circumvention tools." What is worth noting here is that the countries cited in the Berkman Center paper--China, Iran, the UAE, Armenia, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Burma, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam--are all countries that engage in pervasive censorship of the Internet. Therefore, Castro is basically saying that since DNS filtering works for repressive regimes, it can work in the United States too! It is also worth noting that the US Department of State has put significant resources into more than a dozen circumvention tools over the past few years. In other words, those same tools that Castro hopes American citizens won't use to access pirated content are in fact funded by the US government.
see. there are these whoresons (with all due and proper great respect for each and every whore on the planet) who are trying to grab all of you by the balls as hard as they can and screw you up.
and yet you are calling stallman 'nutjob'. then what are you going to call these people ? sociopaths ? what are you going to do ? 'dismiss' them ? do you think it will work ?
maybe it is time that you reconsidered your opinions and the possibility that you would be better off getting behind that nutjob you were calling a nutjob just a few weeks ago with all power you have left.
Read radical news here
from the legislation-starts-as-gibberish dept.
Fixed it for you. :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
if you gather tens of thousands of people in an area, such things dont happen. yeah. and if they do happen, they totally eliminate movements. like how black panthers and their ilk have invalidated civil rights movement. oh wait - they didnt ... so what the fuck you were saying again ?
Read radical news here
Trespassing is not violent, and rape is not protest.
Like the old saying "even a broken clock is right twice a day", sometimes even loons are right. That doesn't make RMS any less of a nasty douche.
FC Closer
I enjoyed the ride so far, the problem is how long can it last.
Je me souviens.
Yes, because Bush would have ended DADT, passed health care reform, banking reform and worked to close GITMO.
You do realize that it takes more than the President to decide that somethings going to happen for it to happen, right? Unless of course you're seriously suggesting that it's OK for him to just order the doors of GITMO thrown wide open and just allow the inmates to just go wherever they like without being tried.
Meanwhile, Tea Party groups ... are actually more peaceful and law-abiding than the average Occupy *** protest
Proof? I didn't think so. Keep lying to yourself and eventually any bullshit sounds like truth.
Yeah, but you're forgetting that anti-war people are usually liberals and liberals aren't likely to vote for somebody with the kind of bigotry problem that Ron Paul has. On top of that they're probably not going to be much enthused by his fascist leanings that he tries to disguise as libertarianism.
At the end of the day he's less likely to get votes from liberals than Mitt or even Newt.
The only people who have ever referred to him as "the messiah" are those on the far right. It says more about their simplistic view of the world than it does of their opponents.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
When Gov and Corporations lock down the country they will see America decline into poverty and violence. Watch.... or just look around. We are already well on our way.
If we are smart about it, it can last billions of years. The question is: are we smart?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
That the americans of today are not the americans of over 200 years ago. The ones today really aren't prepared to fight for what is important. They've become fat and complacent, and have no problem bending over and taking it from their government again and again. Despite the fact that they are armed to the teeth, most of them would tire before reaching the end of their driveway and when faced against a modern military using modern tactics, they'd be decimated.
At some point Canada is going to have to man-up, invade, and bring democracy back to the USA.
From the article; "Late last year, president Obama signed a law that makes it possible to indefinitely detain terrorist suspects without any form of trial or due process. Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities."
It seems to imply that the law signed by Obama would allow indefinite detention of Occupy movement protesters. This is a gross misrepresentation of fact. Here is the text of the Bill
1. Section 1021a states that detention ends with end of the conflict so the term is not indefinite.
2. Section 1021b defines a covered person as someone involved with the 911 attacks, al-Qaeda, Taliban or their supporters. I do net see how anyone could put Occupy protesters into any of those groups.
3. Here is 1021e
"(e) Authorities- Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States." Again US Citizens, lawful resident aliens, and any other persons who are captured or arrested in the Unites states still have rights as defined in the Bill of Rights. One of which is the right to a speedy trial.
There is a bit of am ambiguity in 1021e. It could have two meanings. Does it mean that the arrest of capture have to occur in the US for the existing laws or authorities to be in effect or does in mean that anybody, including non-citizens and illegal aliens, are still covered by existing laws if they are captured or arrested in the US and US citizens and lawful resident aliens are covered if they are captured ir arrested anywhere. I believe it means the latter.
In summary, the law signed by Obama has no effect on the Occupy protesters.
what I want to know if what does "Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities" mean. Did anyone get procecuted as a terrorist? No? Ho, you mean someone on TV said something that sounded like that. That's moronic. You cannot expect to never hear anyone say something stupid. That doesn't make it an oppressive movement by the authorities. These guys would have never even had time to set down their tent if they were in china. *that's* an oppressive authority.
If an attractive lady(teacher, babysitter, whatever) approached me when I was 12 and asked me to have sex with her, and videotape it, I would have said, "fuck yeah" - especially if she plied me with a little booze.
Had it been legal, and not required me to undergo degrading medical and psychological examinations, not forcing me to testify in a stressful and humiliating trial, and not forever attaching a stigma of victimhood to me, it would to this day have been one of the fondest days of my life. Where were all those naughty teachers when I was in high school?!
I spent my entire 12th year alive trying to acquire HUSTLER magazines(before the internet was feasible for kids like me), and would have given my left nut for the opportunity to be "victimized" by an older woman.
I don't know about the shill accounts, but the post was on-topic and reasonable. So... in this case, don't care one way or the other.
You mean like the Swedish Demoex party?
lol nope. bonch is pro-Apple and most probably a real fanatic, SharkLaser and others are pro-MS and most probably a shill sock-puppet.
And idea is something that can be tested, abstracted, projected, compared and conditionally analyzed. regardless of whether an institutionalized 13 year old with down syndrome said it, or a 31 year old prodigal savant with tenure wrote a thesis around it. As far as the basis of a philosophy, that's what philosophy is! You start with a scalable logically constructed concept on which to construct an overall basic logic, and then expound upon into all relatable fields. Stallman believes that anyone capable of making an informed an intelligent decision that does nothing to harm or limit the rights of others should be allowed to do so. This philosophy is the core of the point in the /. introduction of the article.
Wallstreet, for example, has been able to expand its investment opportunities based solely on the short-term expansion of opportunities for others while obfuscating the information for an informed decision, all of which has been made legal due to the commercial nature of the US election process. Much of Occupy Wallstreet is about removing the obfuscation and overall ability to hide or control information, and getting rid of the ability to use the profits from those practices to maintain the legitimacy of that process.
The reason ideas are important, ignoring the love of empiricity that found the Enlightenment that found the United States, is because Ideas Stand Alone. They can be objectively and critically reviewed. If you do that with a human being, having all information available, human beings almost always can be made to look like ignorant and twisted individuals. Everyone has a level of undesirable traits at some point in their lives, and if condensed together, almost anyone could be made to look less than the ideal human being.
However, an idea can be shared by anyone, even entirely abstract computer models, and be tested for validity in someway, or otherwise scaled or planned for when the ability comes about. Take the Other Worlds Hypothesis popular in the Enlightenment, we now possess the Drake equation to allow us to theorize the probability of contact long before we might actually visit one.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Actually, his record in this regard is excellent. Perhaps you should take a look before slandering the man.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I GNU/Like licking GNU/Penis
I'm not sure when this civil liberties that the US supposed used to be actually existed. Indefinite detentions, targeted killings, invasions of privacy, and infringements of civil rights are nothing new. And statements like "Peaceful protesters in Occupy movements all over the world have been labelled as terrorists by the authorities" are just meaningless FUD created by people with a political agenda to advance.
Politicians and political ideologies thrive on creating fear, because it lets them advance their own radical ideas as the only solution to the supposed ills of the country. Don't fall for it. Focus on clear and specific issues: SOPA, PATRIOT, Guantanamo, minimum wage, disarmament, alternative energy, CO2 emissions, whatever you think is important, try to make an argument and convince people. That's the way we make progress.
The more of the world I see happening around me, the more I think this notion of "informed consent" is concocted nonsense. How many grown adults of the legal age are informed enough to make good decisions regarding sex, money, or much of anything else?
Paul-messiah? You mean the Kwisatz Haderach?
I never claimed anything about lying
before you get on your high horse maybe you should figure out what the difference between lying and being wrong actually is
you got the point of my post wrong, using your logic you must be a fucking lair
It also conveniently neglects the fact that most of the internet infrastructure affected by SOPA is run on open source implementations, so the freedom of the software has done NOTHING to prevent governments from trying to abuse it.
Since when did Cisco open-source Cisco IOS? Or Juniper fully release the source for Junos? (it's "partly FreeBSD-based.") Force5 isn't open-source either, nor is Foundry. None of the routers use ASICs and FPGAs for which the code is open source.
I'd be willing to bet that there isn't a single piece of network gear between you and slashdot, or me and slashdot, that is fully under any open-source license (I'll even be generous and exclude proprietary drivers.)
Please help metamoderate.
We claim to have mastered Capitalism. Based on that assumption how can we expect
positive outcome when there isnt any competition ? Two party system doesnt provide
competition at all. We all know its 8 years of Repub and 8 years of Demo.
Only option people have is to break the cycle. At least one generation need to
sacrifice and force politicians to bring more parties. Are we that generation ?
Actually, every candidate HOPES the masses never realize this. Otherwise everyone and their brother would see the candidate for what they are. Nothing more than a lie spewing piece of garbage.
Why else would every single candidate in history promise to " fix " everything that's wrong at the time ? Their BS campaign promises all REQUIRE ignorance on the part of the voters.
The day the masses realize the candidate CAN'T do anything unless Congress is on their side, will be the day we actually get a Government that works. Not the BS we have now.
The President loved Animal Crackers.
Frankly, who cares about him ? At all. Or what he thinks. It's a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
For fucks sake - this is getting ridiculous. Just how many sock puppet accounts do you have?
Anyway, to drag my comment back on topic, you (plural) are misrepresenting Stallman's POV, perhaps out of ignorance, but more likely to troll. As a prime example:
Stallman absolutely is paranoid about everything. He doesn't use web browsers, for crying out loud,
You make it sound like Stallman doesn't use browsers out of paranoia, but Stallman himself says:
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
And suppose two weeks later you found out you had a fatal sexually transmitted disease? Or if you were female, that you were pregnant? We protect the young from adults who would manipulate them for sexual gratification because they don't fully understand enough to protect themselves. If Stallman thinks it's ok to manipulate a child into willingly giving sexual pleasure to an adult, he should have a bullet though his skull.
And if you got paid to do it... It would beat mowing lawns for $10/hour in the summer heat...
Even two teens that are 'in love' and are sexually active already should be fine if society celebrated love and sex and people that are able to find it. Instead they are made to feel embarrassed if pictures or sex tapes get leaked.
If this society could ever have a rational discussion to separate bad sex from good sex.
And suppose two weeks later you found out you had a fatal sexually transmitted disease?
...The same scare tactic the establishment uses to prevent sex until marriage. Fuck you. Somebody here hasn't actually lived life.
Hey, sheepdog, can you go back to worrying about yourself and not everybody else? Everybody else shouldn't have to be subject to overbearing parenting just because you were. You can move to Afghanistan or Iran if you want to use religious beliefs to put bullets through peoples' skulls.
If an attractive lady(teacher, babysitter, whatever) approached me when I was 12 and asked me to have sex with her, and videotape it, I would have said, "fuck yeah" - especially if she plied me with a little booze.
...it would to this day have been one of the fondest days of my life.
Perhaps.
Or maybe you are just indulging yourself in an older man's fantasy of rape and seduction, with no real understanding of what the experience would have been like for a twelve year old boy.
I saw Richard Stallman speak at Yorktown High School years ago, here is my account of his presentation.
Maybe free software wouldn't have helped, but a free software CULTURE would have significant influence had it spread more widely.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Entirely possible. But pedophilia leaves no room for determination of actual harm under the law. Regardless of the circumstances and the outcome, it's a life long punishment.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Ron Paul is a fucking lunatic who wants to take us back to 1860.
Or perhaps somebody was never a 12 year-old boy? You know, when the hormones kick in?
Hint: The smarter ones had lives even back then and were able to live happy and guilt-free not being Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, my example was idealized - my fantasies were of women and not male priests. But it's like any sex, really - unlike your foray with Father O' Malley in the rectory basement, people have to want it from the get-go to some degree to really enjoy it.
You jest, but maybe that is his problem. While I think he is quite a loon, he has two important things going for him: 1) His opinions are pretty much always the same, while most politicians dynamically adjust their opinion to their audience (sometimes several times, going back and forth). 2) He actually tends to act according to what he says. That rules out the candidates who do not suffer as much from problem #1.
It is sad that he is clearly the only candidate who even comes close to meeting conditions #1 and #2 and perhaps that's part of the reason everyone consider him a lunatic. Politicians are supposed to say what you want to hear (rather than their opinion) and then do what they wanted to do (rather than what they promised to).
Admit it, you learned how to debate from daytime television.
This.
If I had mod points I would bump this up. My partner and I were involved in an alternative community in the past. It was all about sex and power. Everyone TALKED about informed consent, but the sad, sad fact is that a lot of the time it was just people manipulating others subtly (consciously or not). But that's life, and determining what level of manipulation is ok is the tough part, and not something that can really be legislated away.
So, my experience is that there really isn't any "informed consent" out there. You just take your chances and should be very careful of the ones who shout the loudest about "consent", "safety", et al
And suppose two weeks later you found out you had a fatal sexually transmitted disease?
Then he'd get to experience the visceral joy of showing a whore what her viscera look like as they spill out of her diseased belly while her lifeblood drains out and she falls into the abyss.
Nope, the GGP claimed that the Obama presidency looks exactly like the Bush presidency, if anything I went overboard going beyond just one example. One example is all I needed to debunk the GGP's assertion that Obama was doing everything exactly the way that Bush did.
have you had a bullet through your skull already? someone who is being manipulated into doing something is by definition not doing that thing volunary. Stallmans argument could easily be constructed to mean that he is fine with severe prosecution of offenders if it's proven that someone is being harmed - which to my knowledge is quite easy to with molested children. Either way in *context* it doesn't seem like he's talking about your non-average catholic priest but rather sex between two consenting individuals with a, by the society considered, improper age gap.
Not knowing the *exact* context it is also important to remember that these ages which varies from culture to culture. Is it as harmful for a 18 year old in Oregon (USA) as for a 13 year old (yes I know that varies by perfecture, but it's 13 in the penal code) in japan to have sex?
Crap, forget that. After scanning through it a few more times, I found the provision. It's in section 1022. Please disregard above.
"We protect the young from adults who would manipulate..."
Well, why don't we also protect the adults from other adults?
Your reason implies that 'the young' are incapable of protecting themselves, while 'adults' are magically capable of holding this sacred knowledge of self protection.
The solution to the problem is simple: Educate 'the young' so that they are as capable of protecting themselves as 'the adults'. There is no reason why 'the young' can not learn to use condoms and why, it's not like it's some kind of sacred knowledge ,after all.
You're right that neither were ever socialist. But neither were ever communist either. They were fascist dictatorships that happen to use Karl Marx's books for rhetoric.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What prevents you from getting a fatal STD when you're older? :P
Never fear, there's still the Paul-messiah to believe in!
Sorry, Wrong Paul.
You seem to forget that Obama spent ages in court arguing for DADT. And health care reform? The no insurer left behind act? Gitmo isn't even close to closed and Obama resumed military commissions there.
Things you don't mention are that he's incited 5x as many drone attacks in 3 years than Bush did in 8. He's using the same tactic of secret legal memos to say he has the power of due process free execution, that Bush used to validate due process free detention. He's used the State Secrets Doctrine to prevent people from suing for being wrongly tortured or spied on.
He tried to undermine the Cluster Bomb Treaty ban -- even though the US is not a signatory. The list just goes on and on and on. If all you got is a belated DADT reversal, health care "reform" that isn't, and GITMO -- which is open and operating just the same as always -- what do you have?
Oh -- financial reform -- you mean the castrated bill that experts indicate wouldn't have prevented the financial crisis even if it had been around at the time? That's no achievement -- that's just another example of the cozy relationship Obama has with Goldman Sachs and their lobbyists.
But that's fine, just keep on thinking Obama is a liberal. Self delusion can be very satisfying.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
Richard Stallman also thinks necrophilia [stallman.org] and "voluntary pedophilia" [stallman.org] should be legal
From the linked webpage, the real quote is:
I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based on cases which aren't voluntary, which are then stretched by parents who are horrified by the idea that their little baby is maturing.
He simply states he is skeptical, I see no statement regarding the legality of it, or even his own personal opinion of it.
Nice try at the whole witch hunt thing though
Or maybe you are just indulging yourself in an older man's fantasy of rape and seduction, with no real understanding of what the experience would have been like for a twelve year old boy.
And what would it be like, pray tell? Without the psychobabble bullshit and the real trauma of the circus following it.
A twelve year olds is probably old enough to jerk it, and if he has a hot teacher, she's probably figuring in there somewhere.
no, this is not the same, for I am not saying it to a child. i am telling an adult why children need to be protected, by way of a thought experiment. We are not talking of "overbearing parenting" but of society protecting children from paedophiles. This is very much everyone's business, it is my business. Are you saying as adult you should have the freedom to have sex, as long as it is voluntary, with a child aged 12 or less? I say a person who commits such a heinous act should be put to death.
How where they trespassing? The owners of the land traded the right to deny entry onto their property for the right to a variance to city building ordinance.
in a veto-proof manner, after Obama had the language softened, and it doesn't apply to any random American, and it doesn't apply to anyone labeled a 'terrorist', only to people associated with specific terrorist groups.
And who identifies these terrorist groups? And how does one prove they are not a member of these groups?
I'm thinking there's a shit load of annoying activist type people who have the most tenuous link to that shadowy Anonymous terror organization that can now be made to 'disappear' for a short time, if required.
And how does one get to the necessary judicial assistance to prove that you *are* an American once your in the part of the system that says 'no trials, indefinite secret detention'?
Enough With the Sensationalism.
No, more with the sensationalism. It is now the only way people will listen to anything through the rest of the artificial sensationalism.
And if you think that any legislation that brings your country closer to the workings of the soviet empire of old then hand in your citizen papers and continue assuming they wont come for you.
No, as society we say that is not true when speaking of children, that even if voluntary it is evil for adult sexually molest or have intercourse with children. It is irrelevant whether the child feels harmed or not, irrelevant whether consent given or not.
you can consent to things when you are older, including things that might give you disease or kill you. so what? we as society say there are things for which children are not allowed to give consent, to protect them
The comments are all:
1. Stallman is a nutjob so we shouldn't listen to him.
2. The article has numerous errors, so should be ignored
3. Let's have arguments about arguments. (typical slashdot argument nazis)
The article is making the point that governments around the world are becoming more restrictive in how people use computers. Stallman predicted this, and tried to oppose it by creating the GNU foundation. By putting the source code into everyone's hands and allowing people to use it in however way they want, it helps stop the inevitable slide towards the government control that nobody except those controlling the government want.
Stallman saw the direction that software was heading and saw where it would lead. That is if you don't have control over the code your computer is running then who does? If you don't see the same thing, why not?
we're speaking of children here, not teens. A three year old or a six year old or a twelve year old are not capable of protecting themselves, nor understanding sexual matters, nor should be engaging in sex with adults under any circumstances. This is enforced by law, and I would have it enforced by death penalty since I know victims who have their mental health and lives destroyed.
You'll note other asian countries have older ages of consent. I will go against the politically correct mindset people think we must have and say japan is wrong, that age is too young and they are harming 13 year olds with their culture's bad mindset.
And you think that way because boys are brought up to consider any sex to be what changes you from nothing into being accepted by everyone in society.
Just because your current view looking back says it would have been awesome doesn't mean you still weren't coerced by someone in a position of authority over you, which, when you are twelve, is basically anyone.
Most children can't see why they can't just eat junk food and not be fine, how the hell can they make an informed decision about sex?
Condoms.
I'm convinced he would never let messy political realities factor into his political decisions...
Or any other realities, really... He's aimed in the right direction, but going way too far in some cases. It'd be nice to see him as VP.
If you do, it's your own damn fault.
If a youngin' does, it's somehow not his/her own damn fault.
The problem is that there is no test to determine whether you can evaluate the consequences of an otherwise great idea, so the law draws a line at X year (I think it's 12 or 13 in the US) and says that if you're that old, you should be able to, therefore it's your own damn fault.
Your regime/politicians prefers you to be poor/subservient/defenseless.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominant_minority
Casteism
You only have to listen to Senator Levin and Barack Obama's own statements to understand that 1032 does NOT exempt US Citizens. So please do your research as I can tell that YANAL.
Read the Signing Statement. Here he affirms he has the power but promises not to use it.
Watch the movie. Again, he's talking about 1031 which is the detention subsection and NOT 1032 which is the requirement for the military custody.
I'm not sure why you're missing the obvious link there, as it's pretty simple:
- All of the things you listed are facilitated by the authorities having control over people's computer devices.
- Control over people's computer devices is facilitated by running closed source software on those devices.
Therefore Stallman's message about software freedoms relates directly to these extremely despotic new measures of government. Such fine grained control over people's lives would be impossible without the help of trackable devices, identifiable communication end points, and wiretapping of conversations on cellphones that are outside of user control.
It's precisely such dangers of closed-source software that Stallman has been warning about for decades. They lead quite inevitably in the direction of police states and dictatorship.
From the link re necrophillia
Dubya has nominated another caveman for a federal appeals court. Refreshingly, the Democratic Party is organizing opposition.
The nominee is quoted as saying that if the choice of a sexual partner were protected by the Constitution, "prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia" also would be. He is probably mistaken, legally--but that is unfortunate. All of these acts should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness.
Some rules might be called for when these acts directly affect other people's interests. For incest, contraception could be mandatory to avoid risk of inbreeding. For prostitution, a license should be required to ensure prostitutes get regular medical check-ups, and they should have training and support in insisting on use of condoms. This will be an advance in public health, compared with the situation today.
For necrophilia, it might be necessary to ask the next of kin for permission if the decedent's will did not authorize it. Necrophilia would be my second choice for what should be done with my corpse, the first being scientific or medical use. Once my dead body is no longer of any use to me, it may as well be of some use to someone. Besides, I often enjoy rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants).
Emphasis mine... This seems to be a pretty standard libertatrian viewpoint really. As far as child porn is concerned, as long as people under the age of 18 (or whatever majority is where you are) can't legally give consent, nothing here has changed.
And suppose two weeks later you found out you had a fatal sexually transmitted disease? Or if you were female, that you were pregnant? We protect the young from adults who would manipulate them for sexual gratification because they don't fully understand enough to protect themselves.
You could teach a five year old the "no glove, no love" rule. It's not to protect them from STDs, it's not to protect them from pregnancy, it's to protect them from sex as such. There's a lot of good arguments for that, but that we couldn't teach them how to use a condom isn't one of them.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I hope this isnt too off topic. But I think the biggest risk to the Internet is the fact that we r forced to go through commercial ISPs just to get network access. I dont understand why there isnt already free and open networking within urban areas. I see more then 10 routers everywhere in my city all the time. I cant understand why there isnt a secondary protocol running to allow message passing across the city via these routers when they r not busy handling local requests by their owners. Such a network would allow text, voice and file sharing across the city at no additional cost to consumers and absolutely outside the control of commercial entities. Further, it could provide anyone with a route to their home and subsequent access to the Internet through their home connection. This network could be propagated like a virus from router to router... so it could not be prevented by authority or corporate interests. It would be an ideal setup in cases of disaster or government suppression. It is not paranoid to desire free and non commercial solutions. The last time I read the MS windows EULA, it was clearly that microsoft does retain the right to switch off any and all Internet services at any time. You have agreed to this, so if you dont like providing authority (corporate or government) with a "kill switch" then u should also install Ubuntu or a linux variant onto spare space on your hard drive... in case of emergency. I assure u this is not as difficult as u imagine. Anyhow... my main point is that there is a huge amount of free network bandwidth available right now through all the routers in ur city... y is it that we are not exploiting this huge uncontrolled open network? And y dont I see more people talking about doing this? The only losers would be those who sell bandwidth (ISPs) and those who wish to control and monitor it (gov, police, authority).
After the travesty that was keeping them detained without prosecuting them in court for so long, absolutely. The officials in charge of Gitmo have long since given up any semblance of the moral high ground -- they're nothing more than the more successful thugs in a parody of a gang fight.
Right! Put 'em to the wall!
I know for a fact that "the government" was not even listening to the country when it invented the UAS PATRIOT ACT.
I wrote my congresspeople and explicitly and simply asked them _NOT_ to pass ANY laws or regulations in response to 9/11.
I got back a form letter that said that "in response to my concerns" and the concerns of "likeminded americans" congress was working as fast as it could to assemble and pass legislation to (whatever and so-on).
In short, I got the form letter treatment "assuring me" that they were busy doing _exactly_ what I begged them not to do.
So when politicians invoke the public will as revealed by their correspondence, I tend to disbelieve. They don't read the mail, they sort it by category and subject matter, then _weigh_ it apparently. Then they decide that everybody is demanding whatever the letter on top says, ignoring any letter on top that doesn't match the political bias that the politician has already decided makes him look most re-electable.
It's all crap and it is out of control. Everybody is talking. Nobody is listening. and the game is, bought anyway.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
It's been my experience that most people don't have any opinions of their own; they just latch onto belief systems that are attractive to them and parrot arguments.
Yep, the parrot argument always pops up when we discuss Stallman here.
Every end has half a stick.
The only real requirement of rational law is that of _informed_ consent.
If all parties involved are capable of informed consent, and give informed consent without duress or coercion, then the act should be legal.
Children cannot give informed consent, so child porn, and peadophilia are out. Dead things is tricky since the dead are _things_ and things are not expected to give consent. Prostitution and adultery are no-brainer legal. Beastiality is tricky since the beast cannot give informed consent but some people think animals are things, but since animals can suffer, accumulate experience, and "hold a grudge" then we must assume they deserve to be protected by consent.
Now the thing where we have made haivng "simulated child porn", involving no actual children, illegal is beyond stupid IMHO.
Incest (non-reproductive anyway) is only problematic in that family dynamics often constitute lifelong duress because the obligations and conditioning never go away.
Necrophilia is actually a property crime, oddly enough, though the law outlaws it outright because it is "ichy", which is a whole other kettle of law.
But these problems are, indeed, problems in our looming future. If we gene-tweak animals until they are intellegent enoug to give consent is it beastiality any more? How about if we make machines sentient, then are they still "things" that don't need to give consent? We have varying standards for the age of majority for different things in different places; consider voting, vs sex, vs drinking.
When it comes to morals and ethos, the fundimental problem is that outside a firmly agreed upon center, the only people who _should_ be alowed to do most things are the people who wouldn't actually do them.
Thing is, the people who want to stop other people from doing most things are typically the last people who should be allowed to judge.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Where in the constitution does it say that one group should have the right to deprive everyone else of a public resource?
Parks are there for everyone, not just for protesters.
with the kind of bigotry problem that Ron Paul has.
Please enlighten those of us who don't know wtf you're talking about?
Just another day in Paradise
summarizes current situation very well.
Read radical news here
Funny thing is that probably lots of those "Occuppy Wall Street" guys and gals were part of those enthusiastic mobs thinking Obama was the begninning of socialism for Americans or something like that. Obama is just another president, I am not saying he is bad, but it is clear that "the change" will not happen, at least not now.
You convinced me that no US citizen can be detained indefinitely in Guantanamo.
I'd be very happy to be convinced that US citizens can't be detained indefinitely elsewhere either.
I'm genuinely confused about if it only applies to people whom a Proper Court has Judged to be associated with specific Terrorist Groups, or if it applies to people of whom somebody says they're associated with specific terrorist groups, or something in between.
But if the justice is not involved in deciding whom this applies to, then there's no justice in applying it.
Now I want to rent the movie "Brazil". Does everyone have their form 27B-6 ready?
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
By your objection, are you implying that if someone declares protester status they gain free reign over whatever property and people they wish?
“Get outta my park, man! I'm gonna protest, and you're gonna get my message whether you want it or not!”
Nice.
What far to many are doing is to easily giving up on some very important documents.
The Declaration of Independence provides us with instructions and real life examples of what to do when government deteriorates.
The founders of the United States foresaw this probability as indicated in the Declaration of Independence, and why they gave us instructions as to what to do about it.
As many programmers know, all systems require a validation feedback loop in order to stay on course. The Founders of the United States knew this too, when they spelled out the "Of the People, By the People, For the People" feedback loop.
For this feedback loop to work as intended, The People need to know what the government is doing. Bradley Manning made an effort to provide such important information, Wikileaks published similar information and the People responded with feed back for the government via Occupy Wall Street with its top two statements of feedback being "End the Federal Reserve" and "Corporate out of Government". Clearly the People pay far more in taxes than corporate sponsored sales pitches leading to an election winner getting to lie to the public for years, instead of the public rightfully telling Government what to spend the tax money on. Not to forget the insider trading unfairness government (for the People???) employees partake in wrongly.
We have seen how this deteriorated government has responded to this feedback loop the founders of the United States intended. It is our right and duty to fire Government and replace its with governance that will work in accord to the founders intended system.
The Declaration of Independence is a very powerful Document (as are the other two founder documents of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights). It has been around a lot longer than recent and current government. There is nothing that gives current government any right or power to disrespect the founders. They only have brute force ...... supplied by..... those of us.....Who are not genuine Americans.....
... leads to the concentration of wealth and power which naturally leads to dictatorship. Fixed that for you. Capitalism let me start my own business last year. Socialism concentrates the wealth I used to do that into the hands of a small minority who then control it's distribution.
After bitterly complaining about changes to Explorer in Win 7 (like many others) and being told over and over to "get with the program and quit bitching", I came to the conclusion that there is a conspiracy to Dumb Down computers, force migration to much more limited devices ("Smart" phones and Tablets) all in order to limit the power of the Personal Computer. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have much less access and file system power as a "basic" PC consumer than I had way back in DOS days. Is there a "conspiracy" to get those pesky power users out of the PC platform and onto a more controllable type of device? Based on the utterly unusable Win7 file system, I think so. And before I get totally trashed for not migrating to Linux, bugger off. Why should I learn a whole new OS when I was perfectly comfortable and capable with my old XP machine. That is exactly the same argument that MS (and it's Tech "Experts") uses to justify the migration to 7. I just want my old Explorer back, and I want to kill Aero without nasty consequences. Sidebar: Just got an i7 2600 w/16gb Ram, Raid 0 array and relatively decent vid card, should be good right? But now that I have disabled Aero, have all kinds of video/desktop performance issues. Counter-intuitive, but true. Why am I forced to look at eye candy when I really don't want it. Jeesh. And I can't even install my "old" copy of XP Pro, drivers for my hardware not available... Not a happy camper
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
OK, we've had a few posts here offering unsubstantiated implications that RMS is guilty of anti-semitism. I just did a bit of googling, and all I found was a few articles regarding his position regarding Palestine. Conflating an opinion on judaism with one on the nation of Israel doesn't work. Most of the world recognises that Israel is behaving badly towards Palestine, and for RMS to say so doesn't mean he's anti-semitic.
Capitalism means control of capital by a small, state-backed class of absentee owners -- banksters, landlords, stockholders, etc.
Socialism means control of capital by workers. When workers exercise that control via the state, it's possible for the state to detach from the workers -- exactly what happened in the USSR and China. This "state socialism" ends up just as bad, if not worse, than capitalism.
But state socialism is not the only form of socialism. The state can be removed from socialism, but not from capitalism. Consult your local anarchist for more information.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Capitalism can be a lot of things.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Types_of_capitalism
Socialism as well of course, but you still end up with a 'central planning' no matter what you do, and socialism tends more towards over reliance on that in the long run. Of the two I think capitalism is less likely to result in an extreme like the ones you mentioned.
Overall I'd argue that any extreme is a bad thing, and both systems have faults.
Stallman was ,knowingly or otherwise, promoting Austrian Economics. It is amazing how "Austrian" most slashdoters tend to be. With a passionate and rational defense of the rights of producers (open source coders and remix artists) to be free to practice their trade and a healthy opposition to the unholy alliance between governments and corporations that try to restrict that freedom. The text below is from an article from the Von Mises Institute and very pertinent to the topic at hand.
http://mises.org/daily/5844/Set-Culture-Free
Recently Salon featured an interview with author Robert Levine, entitled "Does culture really want to be free?" Levine has written a new book, Free Ride, on the subject of intellectual property (IP). His subtitle is How Digital Parasites Are Destroying the Culture Business and How the Culture Business Can Fight Back, the thesis of which is predicated on a misunderstanding of property rights and a poor grasp of economics.
In this essay I'll begin with a brief outline of property rights, explain how IP fails to meet the requirements of tangible property, and refute some of Levine's other fallacies.
Over time, property rights emerged as a way of mitigating conflict over scarce goods. If there is a finite amount of something, say hammers, it's possible that at some point conflict over the use of a tool may arise. Establishing property rights, and institutions to enforce those rights and arbitrate disputes, tends to reduce this conflict.
Hans Hermann-Hoppe explains this concept by using the Garden of Eden as an example, where everything is in abundance. However,
outside the Garden of Eden, in the realm of scarcity, there must be rules that regulate not only the use of [property] but also of everything scarce so that all possible conflicts can be ruled out (emphasis in original).
If there are an infinite number of hammers, or a device exists to infinitely reproduce them, then the problem of scarcity disappears, along with the need for property rights. Intellectual property is not a scarce commodity. Whether it is the design plans to a rocket engine, the arrangement of musical notes, or the pixels of a digital image is immaterial. None of these meet the scarcity requirement to necessitate property rights. Each can be infinitely reproduced, without denying their use by the original owner.
Levine and other advocates of IP rights view reproduction as theft. But theft is not a synonym for duplicate. A key element of theft is depriving the original owner of his or her property, which does not occur when an item is reproduced. Therefore, IP should not have the protection that scarce property enjoys.
In the course of the interview Levine quotes Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor regarding copyright and free speech. "The framers intended copyright itself to be the engine of free expression," she said. An interesting argument indeed, considering the actual wording from article 1, section 8 reads, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." There is nothing in that clause regarding free speech. The history of copyright laws is rooted not only in protection for guilds but also in censorship. So to suggest that copyrights are intended to secure rights to free expression could only be described as Orwellian.
Levine asserts that "copyright laws create some kind of market for intellectual property." And he's right to one extent; they do create some kind of market. The question however is, is it the kind of market a free society would have? Certainly not; there is a market now, but rather than one based on spontaneous order and voluntary trade, it's one of central planning, which is predicated on coercion.
The market for intellectual property would, and does, exist independent of IP laws. There are no laws that seek to regulate the hat industry in the way that IP laws do music, and yet there re
Stallman is hugely popular in South America.
The only reason I can identify for the OSNews author having thought RMS was being paranoid or nutty is that he was previously highly naïve. The good news is that most people, once they're paying attention, will hopefully be able to follow RMS's logic. The bad news is that many people would rather stay ignorant (temporarily blissful?).
No, congress (later responsible to the people for its prior actions) has absolute authority to construe and to effectuate the appropriations requirement:
See Reeside v. Walker, 52 U.S. (11 How.) 272, 290-91 (1850); Hart's Case, 16 Ct. Cl. 459, .... ").
484 (1881) ("[A]bsolute control of money of the United States is in Congress, and Congress is respon- sible for its exercise of this great power only to the people."), affd, 118 U.S. 62 (1886); cf. Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962) ("textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department
Also, re the constitution, the president is required to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed", but nowhere in the constitution is he given authority to "direct the treasury", as you put it. That power lies exclusively with congress.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I hear a lot of complaints about how American freedom is lost, indefinite detention for leaning against a building or withdrawing money, etc., but all these scenarios won't be acceptable until the person complaining can actually name the US citizen who has been detained/murdered/etc. for whatever reason stems from the NDAA or whatever. The big problem is that the US citizens that have been military or intelligence targets to date have been fairly obviously guilty of really ugly things that make them legitimate enemies of the country. Until members of your family start disappearing because of things that they did which are not even crimes, there won't be anyone to listen to the outrageous doom scenarios that get spouted. It doesn't help when a lot of propaganda gets spread about laws, by people who haven't actually _read_ the laws, by people who read bits and pieces of laws but don't understand what they have read, or people who just plain spread misinformation and speculation about what might happen if laws are interpreted a certain way. I know, Martin Niemöller and all that. But I'm not seeing the effects of the horrible things I'm being warned about.
I still disagree with this. It seems to me that you cannot have socialism without a central authority to enforce sharing, etc. The society will fall apart as soon as people are born into it, etc who don't necessarily think like their parents. With capitalist anarchism, there is nothing stopping people from forming whatever kind of social hierarchies they want.
Actually, his record in this regard is excellent.
What do you consider "excellent" in this regard? If you mean that Paul does in fact always stick rigidly to his rhetoric and never lets the facts play a role in his decision making, I'd say that's a terrible quality in a leader. An effective leader needs to be able to realize when his ideology is not going to cut the mustard in the real world, and adapt. (For an example of what happens when leaders can't or won't adapt their ideology to work in the real world, see North Korea)
If, on the other hand, you mean that Paul in fact does make political compromises when necessary... then good for him, but of course that's what every other (sane) politician does also.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I'm pretty sure most people don't expect ron paul to actually get much of anything accomplished. It would be a step in the right direction though.
Or perhaps somebody was never a 12 year-old boy? You know, when the hormones kick in?
Hint: The smarter ones had lives even back then and were able to live happy and guilt-free not being Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, my example was idealized - my fantasies were of women and not male priests. But it's like any sex, really - unlike your foray with Father O' Malley in the rectory basement, people have to want it from the get-go to some degree to really enjoy it.
No doubt, your condescending tone comes from your meteoric understanding and insight into what "cool" really is. Or you're a fing drama queen.
While Richard Stallman is not paid directly by the Free Software Foundation, they do support his work in numerous ways. You can read some of the ways in which the FSF supports RMS in this recent fundraising appeal published by the FSF.
Oh, he is a bigot because he helped black people back in the seventies that nobody else wanted to help, and he also took care of the charges for them. Total bigot.
You can't handle the truth.
Ron Paul ... what a racist.
You can't handle the truth.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, that's a bit of a problem with Paul.
He would demand X, Y, and Z from congress and would of course be denied. They'd ride that point of contention right to, and probably through, the deadlines where the federal government shuts down. Since this is more or less equivalent to Paul's platform, he'd call it a net win.
I've no doubt of Ron Paul's integrity. He probably would stick to his guns. It's just that he'd drag us down kicking and screaming into the hellpit of anarchy that would arise if everyone was a hard-liner that refused to compromise. Remember that this is a society and we all have to work together.
Wait, so people who like Apple are fanatics but people who like Microsoft are paid shills? Way to be fucking objective. Stay classy, slashdot.
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
Why not look at what he's actually said before shooting a straw man? "Coercion" is as obvious as any other word in his statement; if there's manipulation going on, there's coercion.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38589290