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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."
Perhaps not the best spokesperson to get behind.
It is funny that you complain the article is logically flawed when you make an argument from authority and complain about the messenger instead of the message.
... leads to the concentration of wealth and power which naturally leads to dictatorship.
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.
Here let me quote RMS on voluntary pedophilia:
Dutch pedophiles have formed a political party to campaign for legalization.
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's sceptical of the argument against it but he didn't say it should be legal. My understanding is his judgement is reserved and he wants clarification of why it should be illegal.
It's almost as if you are spreading misinformation about him.
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/
He doesn't (didn't?) like Guantanamo either, it's still there. He didn't like retroactive immunity for the telcos for snooping either, it's still law.
You need to look at his actions, not his well spoken words.
If the law is bad in his opinion, it's his duty to veto it. If he signs it he agrees. No ifs, no buts no maybes.
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.
You need to look at his actions, not his well spoken words.
I agree, but let's keep in mind that legislation is written by Congress, not the President. It seems to me that Congress needs to be held responsible for writing and passing the objectionable parts of the NDAA at least as much as the President is responsible for signing it.
If the law is bad in his opinion, it's his duty to veto it.
Agreed again, but note that the bill passed the Senate 86-13 and it passed the House 283-136, both of which are over the 2/3rds threshold for overriding a Presidential veto. Therefore a veto would not have been likely to prevent the bill from becoming law; it would simply have given Republicans a fresh club to beat the President with ("vetoed critical funding for Our Troops", "soft on terrorism", yada yada). Given that, I think Obama decided to cut his losses.
Hardly a profile in courage, I agree, but then again there is a point at which taking a principled stand starts to look an awful lot like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
It's his claim that we shouldn't listen to Stallman because Stallman is a nut-job. It's a sort of reverse argument from authority, where he claims that the other side is so insane, you should listen to him (he's comparatively authoritative). Stallman's general utter lunacy isn't a legitimate test of the validity of any specific argument he makes.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
How about this: The messenger in this case [RMS] has nothing to do with the current state of affairs. There is no correlation. No prognostication.
Is that a satisfactory summary?
To be fair, I don't think there have been any Tea Party protests where the cops have turned up and pepper-sprayed people for having the audacity to sit still - actually, have there been any Tea Party protests at all? I know they've had the odd rally, but I can't think of any actual protests.
Point being, it's not really an apples to apples comparison.
Well if it didn't matter then why didn't he take a stand and stick by his guns? I mean if the outcome is the same either way...
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
It's very very very little more complicated. He issued a statement specifically stating that he didn't like it, but then signed it in anyway. If no one stands up to "the f**ked up federal legislature", then it'll just continue to get worse.
I mean, yay, he says stuff I agree with (for the most part), but if he's not going to act on that, then it doesn't mean shit. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that he's not even trying to hide the fact that he's not doing what he says. He might as well be fully supporting it because that's the end result - he'll be out of there in 1-5 years, and the decisions he's making will stick around long after that.
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
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.
For crying out loud, the guy thinks possession of child pornography should be legal.
And why shouldn't it be legal? It's possession of an image of a criminal act. The criminal is the one engaged in pedophilia. The victim is in the photograph.
Possession of a photograph? There's no victim in the possession of child pornography. There is no crime.
No, it's not about Stallman, the messenger. It's about why the messenger was right. It's about the message, and how that message's prediction has been shown accurate.
Stallman hasn't been "paranoid about everything". He has been scared of the abuse of people by closed software, and his fears now are being proven justified.
His other views, even on child pornography, are irrelevant to that. Because we're not interested in Stallman; we're interested in what he said that was (and is) right. Because he was among the first to say it, was right about it despite widespread ridicule and even condemnation, and what he's right about is important.
--
make install -not war
The reason Gitmo is still there is because the Republicans blocked his efforts to close it. He's not a dictator and he can't simply rule by fiat -- even though his critics like to accuse him of doing so.
The Republican game plan for the past several years has been to use the power of Congress to keep him from doing what he wanted to do, and then accuse him of lying when those things didn't get done. The fact that so many people are stupid enough to fall for it is astounding.
Lies and damn lies:
Richard Stallman also thinks necrophilia // As an Atheist, all he said is "After I'm dead, I don't care what happens to my body, research is my first choice, but necrophilia would be a close second". He also jokes about how he enjoys rhinophytonecrophilia (nasal sex with dead plants, AKA: Smelling flowers).
and "voluntary pedophilia" [stallman.org] should be legal, including possession of child pornography. //He's talking about all the cases when somebody goes to jail for fucking a willing 14-15-16-17 years old girl/boy. I wouldn't sleep with someone that young, but if somebody else wants to, and they both consent to it, then let them fuck in peace. He didn't actually support "pedophilia". When he talked about Child Pornography, he didn't support it, he opposed legislation that used the "think of the children" excuse to control the internet.
He doesn't visit web sites [lwn.net]--instead, he sends email to a daemon that wgets the page and emails it back to him. //Most of the time he's on an airplane or some remote location and has no direct internet connection, also, he's old fashioned. He makes the most of his time, using just about every pause he gets to answer email. He gets his mail in daily batches, and it seemed useful to him to get websites he wants to look at in those same batches. Everything without even leaving emacs. Who cares? How does this relate to his political opinions?
Perhaps most infamously, he eats toe jam in public [youtube.com]. //Who gives a fuck? Why do we care about this stuff regarding public figures? Let them fuck, eat and fart as much as they want, we should care about their performance in their actual field of expertise and nothing more.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
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.
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
The article is flawed because the author listens to conspiracy theory bullshit and fails to do proper research on the NDAA.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s1867pcs/pdf/BILLS-112s1867pcs.pdf
Section 1032 page 362. The bit about it not applying to US citizens.
The problem is there are lots of crazy people in the world, and we don't have enough time on this planet to refute every bit of nonsense they spew. Fallacies like the argument from authority or the ad hominem make for bad logical proofs, but they're necessary in day to day life.
I can't prove a square has five corners by insulting your mother, but if the wino on the street corner tells me the end is nigh, I'm not going to bother listening to his arguments. You shouldn't believe me if I say 2+2=5 just because I wave around a diploma, but every time you cross a bridge, you're trusting in the authority of those who built and checked it without bothering to check their work.
If Stallman comes across as a nutjob, no one will listen to him. And why should they? There are tons of nutjobs in the media, and you'd die of old age before you could listen to and analyze everything they had to say.
You're completely wrong.
"The FBI, CIA, Federal Marshals, military, and all the other executive apparatus of the nation report to secretaries HE appoints (with fairly rubber-stamp Senate approval),"
That approval has been anything but rubber stamp these days. The GOP has used various procedural tricks to block nearly half of Obama's appointments, forcing several key agencies to be left leaderless for years.
"The Congress can't order Obama to keep Guantanamo open. But he could close it tomorrow if he wished."
Wrong. They added language to the NDAA stating that absolutely no money can be spent moving the detainees from Gitmo to other places. Since the prison can't close while there are people there, the prison can never close, and there's nothing Obama can do about it. Sure, he could try to veto the NDAA, but that would mean that the entire United States military would be forced to shut down. Can you imagine the campaign ads? The Democratic Senators sure can, which is why they would override his veto.
Look mods, I'm going to make if very simple for you, since I don't want to see this lie spreading any further.
Here is a link to roman_mir pointing to the specific text that concerns him.
Here is the text, copied directly from his post, emphasis his:
SEC. 1031. DEFINITION OF INDIVIDUAL DETAINED AT GUANTANAMO.
In this subtitle, the term `individual detained at Guantanamo' means any individual who is located at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on or after March 7, 2011, who--
(1) is not a citizen of the United States or a member of the Armed Forces of the United States; and
(2) is in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense.
He is concerned that this section was seemingly removed. He claims that it was removed at Obama's insistence and that it allows American citizens to be detained indefinitely.
Here is the link to the full text of what was passed.
Here is the text of the definition that he thought was removed. It wasn't removed, only relocated and modified slightly. Originally the term "individual detained at Guantanamo" was defined in its own section. In the final version of the bill, they moved the definition to a subsection of the section talking about the detainees. You can check the text of the bill inside the link if you don't believe me.
SEC. 1028. REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTIFICATIONS RELATING TO THE TRANSFER OF DETAINEES AT UNITED STATES NAVAL STATION, GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA, TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND OTHER FOREIGN ENTITIES.
(e) Definitions- In this section:
(2) The term `individual detained at Guantanamo' means any individual located at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as of October 1, 2009, who--
(A) is not a citizen of the United States or a member of the Armed Forces of the United States; and
(B) is--
(i) in the custody or under the control of the Department of Defense; or
(ii) otherwise under detention at United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
So it is established that roman_mir is incorrect in thinking that this section was removed. It follows that he is also incorrect in thinking that Obama forced Congress to remove the section, since the section hasn't been removed.
Finally, it is worth noting that this is merely a definition of what the term "individual detained at Guantanamo" means, and does not authorize any actual detainment. Such definitions are common in legal writing. So even if roman_mir had been right about the definition being removed, it would not have had the implications he is claiming.
Hopefully this makes it clear to moderators and readers alike that roman_mir is completely off base in his statements. In an ideal world, moderators would check the facts for themselves before handing out informative mods, but since that's not happening here, I'll try to make it all concise enough that even the laziest mod can see the truth of the situation.
You are doubling down on your nonsense, the section 1028 is about transfer of existing detainees, and the section 1031 that was removed was about any new detainees, thus your idiotic argument is completely false and you are propagating the same nonsense BS as the MSM wants you to propagate.
The section 1031 that was removed was not about transfer of existing detainees, here is the PDF that still contained that section
Page 15: Sec. 1031. Definition of individual detained at Guantanamo.
Here is the definition of section 1028 from the final version, which does not have 1031
SEC. 1028. REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTIFICATIONS RELATING TO THE
TRANSFER OF DETAINEES AT UNITED STATES NAVAL STA-
TION, GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA, TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES
AND OTHER FOREIGN ENTITIES.
So those have completely different purpose. One specifies the DEFINITION of a person contained in Gitmo, one specifies the requirements for certifications relating to TRANSFER of detainees.
Good day.
You can't handle the truth.
You raise an important point. There are two perspectives here and unfortunately, both of them are correct. Stallman's perspective is that computers are so critical that it's unacceptable that users should be prevented from managing their hardware and software 100%. As you note, however, few users are capable of managing their *ware 100%. It follows, however, that unless the user is 100% responsible for managing their *ware, there's no assurance that the responsibility they've delegated isn't being abused.
One can make the same argument about a number of things. My area of interest is food security. Unless one farms and cooks all of one's own food, one must delegate some of one's food security to others - either in the form of grocery stores, restaurants, or a personal chef, to name a few. How many people could really take 100% responsibility of their own food security? Very few, if you ask me. This is the nature of an interdependent society. Specialists develop expertise in narrow fields and then trade services. It's a cornerstone principle of industrialization and technological advancement. Perhaps Stallman IS correct but here is the tradeoff that must be considered then: If we must retain greater responsibility of our computers - possibly up to 100% control - what expertise or efficiency should we sacrifice instead so that everybody can have that level of responsibility?
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea