" I believe you will agree that the NSA collecting this information the way it does makes anonymous telephonic association for legal purposes impossible."
AND... the Supreme Court itself has ruled that you have a Constitutional right to privacy, even though it is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, because without privacy and anonymity the other freedoms are impossible.
They stated in so many words that without the ability to express yourself privately and anonymously, a workable democracy cannot exist. For just one example, it would be impossible to express a political opinion without fear of reprisal.
Combine that with what you have pointed out, and any individual who has been targeted by these programs, ever, has a solid claim to damage.
It saddens me a great deal that our Government has been trying to turn the U.S. into another Soviet Union. It didn't work there... it won't work here.
"1. Raised the extremely poor, utterly huge country out of rural economy and devastating improvershment caused by WW1 and civil war..."
True.
"2. Raised the country utterly devastated by WW2 occupation into an industrial and scientific giant for the second time"
Also true. But all you are showing is correlation. You have not established any cause -> effect.
"Fact is, USSR style totalitarianism certainly did work, and it did work WELL."
Nonsense.
I repeat: one of the reasons that they got as far as they did was access to massive amounts of natural resources. My opinion (and the opinion of many people I know who were actually there at the time) is that they did this in spite of their government, not because of it.
Imagine what they could have done, if they'd had a free (or relatively so) marketplace.
In more recent times, one of the big problems faced by the Soviets, and a contributor to their collapse, was that their "giant" abilities in industry and science were unable to efficiently exploit the resources they did have. That is why, after the collapse, they contracted with others who DID have the technology and industry that was capable of doing it. (Look at how what's-his-name made all that oil money, for example.)
Sure. They launched Sputnik. They did those things you say. But I repeat, and history is very clear on this: they did it by exploiting their people. While others were doing it by making peoples' lives better.
And the fact is, the Soviets lost the arms race because their economy simply could no longer bear it. And their lower-tech-but-more-brute-force technology could no longer keep up. Their collapse was very definitely driven by economics, not politics per se.
"For the manufacturer, it's also a political maneuver. They can say "we made smart guns!" and maybe get some politicians off their back for a little while. "
If they do it as a political maneuver, they are making a big mistake.
Smith & Wesson jumped on this bandwagon in the late 90s, and it resulted in a massive boycott of their products, from which they have still not fully recovered. (Which is precisely why now they are so much in the knife business. Yes, really. Most people stopped buying their guns.)
But in any case, OP is wrong. The technology is NOT here. Yes, they can make guns that stop "unauthorized" people from using them. But they still are not good enough at allowing authorized people to use them, 100% of the time (or nearly 100%).
You've said some good things here, but in fact fascism has everything to do with corporations. Fascism is what we have been seeing (starting slowly but in increasing degree) here in the United States. It's very sad, but true, and it needs to stop. Now.
I will repeat the quote that DEFINED what "fascism" is, for the rest of eternity:
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
Addendum: the fact that I used the word "true" does not AUTOMATICALLY make me guilty of the "one true Scotsman" fallacy. Taking things out of context won't get you very far.
All of what you say is true. But what is missing is WHY.
It is kind of pointless to argue how this compares to something else, without a why.
Lakes are wet. So is my lawn after a rainfall. Maybe one can be compared to the other, but it would take some explaining to describe how. And why.
History shows very clearly that the WHY of the economic collapse of the Soviet Union was that it was never viable in the first place. Failure was inherent in the system; it was broken as designed. Central control never has, and never will, work. Decentralization (distributed power) has worked and does work.
This is the fundamental mistake that our own Federal government has been making in the last few decades. And it is doomed to fail at its centralization efforts, just as others have.
But we KNOW why they had to: their economic system simply didn't work.
Look, man, I'll put it as simply as I can: when backyard gardens are close to 10x as productive per acre as "collective" farms, you know your system isn't working. It doesn't get a hell of a lot more basic than that.
"The horror of the extermination Stalin perpetrated on the Ukrainian people in the name of socialism by Stalin is in no way lessened because they were farmers. This was not war, it was genocide & the result was neither starving nor sickness, it was death."
People who know a bit of history know of the horrors committed against the Ukraine by the Stalin.
I see by the "freak" mark on the page that you have something against me. I will be honest and state that I do not remember why.
But your opinion of me does not change the fact that I agree with you about history. Facts are facts. They are not (should not be) subject to opinion.
Agree with fredprado. I think you mean well and are thinking straight, but in my honest opinion you could use a little more of the history of economics.
I may catch flak for saying this, but I highly recommend this. If you are serious about learning actual HISTORY with plenty of real citations (as opposed to government-approved dogma), then you may find this is the best $99 you ever spent. Note, I say again: verifiable, documented, provable history with citations. Not political propaganda.
(Disclaimer: I don't claim the classroom is free from bias, because that would be impossible to promise honestly, no matter who was teaching the courses. But at least the material is factual, which is the most important thing, ans which you will not find many places these days.)
"Fascism is actually the type of capitalism, specifically focusing state control through wealthy corporations. It's what Italy had under Mussolini. Nazism on the other hand is the ideology of purity of the race, which runs in direct opposition of basic tenets of socialism, that every human has worth and is worth financially supporting when in a bad spot."
I'm not trying to argue with you here TOO much, but actually Fascism is defined, in part, by how much it deviates from capitalism. Modern -- or historical -- "corporatism" is NOT capitalism. Capitalism (read your Adam Smith) is by definition bounded by voluntary trade. Whenever that deviates from the voluntary -- as in corporate lobbying of government -- that is NOT "capitalism" at all.
"Ah, the No True Scotsman fallacy. By definition he wasn't a socialist, because no true socialist would do what he did. Nice! That's a pretty sweet defense you have going there. I see how you confuse fascism and national socialism too, good job.
Reply to This Share"
WOW. Did you ever watch "The Wicker Man"?
Because that is one of the biggest straw-man arguments I have ever seen.
Saying "calling yourself something doesn't make it so" has absolutely nothing to do with the "one true Scotsman" fallacy. Get thee hence to your local community college and take a introductory course in logical argument. Or... hell, lots of high schools have good courses on debate these days.
"Oracle had a business strategy beyond "turn everything we touch into shit"?"
What? NO! This is part of their "turn everything to shit" campaign. Wait... I see. You mean OP is implying there is something beyond our known reality. Let's call it... the Twilight Zone.
"It's the thetans getting ready to take a massive shit in Tom Cruise's mouth and fill him with even more blessings."
Um, no. I don't think that's the way it works. I... scream. Ice cream. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Look, let's be honest. I tend to scream a bit before I explode, too. So do you. Female or male, bad explosion or good explosion, you either scream a bit or you're hopelessly Victorian.
"I say... you have trodden on my foot with your pegleg. Do you mind, terribly?"
By that I mean things like this. Standing in line for hours to get milk for their children.
And this. Again standing in line for hours, this time just for bread.
And take note: these pictures were obviously far, far more recent than "early in the Soviet Union's formation". Actually, they aren't all that far from the Soviet Union's collapse.
"The misuse of the term "Socialism" to imply "Communist Socialism" is something relatively recent and a technique of disinformation our leftist "intellectuals" are very happy in maintaining and enforcing."
According to Marx, Socialism was a necessary evolutionary step on the way to Communism. However, no country on Earth that was pretending to be Communist ever made it past the Socialist stage. And usually a very bad (i.e., not "for the people") Socialism, at that.
"Farms were well looked after long before capitalism turned up. Farms can flourish in a communist state."
Perhaps, but that leads straight to your second question. There has never been an actual Communist state in the history of the world. So how would we know?
Yes, actually the specs look only very slightly better than the current RAZR HD... VERY slightly when you count that the screen size is only 4.4" compared to the HD's 4.7" (but same resolution).
The HD also runs Jelly Bean 4.1.2. So I don't get it either.
"Keep in mind that judges do not like their time wasted by some witch hunt and if that is the case, the prosecution is going to get their asses reamed by the judge."
That's not good enough if the corruption of justice was deliberate. Let them go to prison and get their asses reamed literally.
"It ought to result in immediate disbarment of the lawyers involved since the violation fundamentally destroys justice"
This.
My view is that it should be "an eye for an eye". In other words, people caught deliberately corrupting justice, by testifying falsely, or withholding evidence, etc. are putting others in danger of anywhere from jail to even the death penalty. So... the punishment for doing so should be exactly the same punishment faced by the defendant.
When a policeman on the witness stand could face life in prison unless they tell it straight... watch them start telling it straight.
I think that would be an excellent solution to this problem. Ethical and just. People who deliberately put others in jeopardy should face exactly the same jeopardy.
Sure you can. As long as you back up the files that you are required by law to keep, you can do any damned thing you want with a hard drive.
"BULL SHIT."
As a former IT manager myself, I can tell you that it's probably anything BUT bullshit. Somebody leaves for another job? Back up important stuff, wipe the hard drive, install everything fresh. Sometimes maybe 2-3 machines in one day, depending on the size of the office you are managing.
Slashdot Mirror
" I believe you will agree that the NSA collecting this information the way it does makes anonymous telephonic association for legal purposes impossible."
AND... the Supreme Court itself has ruled that you have a Constitutional right to privacy, even though it is not explicitly stated in the Constitution, because without privacy and anonymity the other freedoms are impossible.
They stated in so many words that without the ability to express yourself privately and anonymously, a workable democracy cannot exist. For just one example, it would be impossible to express a political opinion without fear of reprisal.
Combine that with what you have pointed out, and any individual who has been targeted by these programs, ever, has a solid claim to damage.
It saddens me a great deal that our Government has been trying to turn the U.S. into another Soviet Union. It didn't work there... it won't work here.
"1. Raised the extremely poor, utterly huge country out of rural economy and devastating improvershment caused by WW1 and civil war..."
True.
"2. Raised the country utterly devastated by WW2 occupation into an industrial and scientific giant for the second time"
Also true. But all you are showing is correlation. You have not established any cause -> effect.
"Fact is, USSR style totalitarianism certainly did work, and it did work WELL."
Nonsense.
I repeat: one of the reasons that they got as far as they did was access to massive amounts of natural resources. My opinion (and the opinion of many people I know who were actually there at the time) is that they did this in spite of their government, not because of it.
Imagine what they could have done, if they'd had a free (or relatively so) marketplace.
In more recent times, one of the big problems faced by the Soviets, and a contributor to their collapse, was that their "giant" abilities in industry and science were unable to efficiently exploit the resources they did have. That is why, after the collapse, they contracted with others who DID have the technology and industry that was capable of doing it. (Look at how what's-his-name made all that oil money, for example.)
Sure. They launched Sputnik. They did those things you say. But I repeat, and history is very clear on this: they did it by exploiting their people. While others were doing it by making peoples' lives better.
And the fact is, the Soviets lost the arms race because their economy simply could no longer bear it. And their lower-tech-but-more-brute-force technology could no longer keep up. Their collapse was very definitely driven by economics, not politics per se.
"For the manufacturer, it's also a political maneuver. They can say "we made smart guns!" and maybe get some politicians off their back for a little while. "
If they do it as a political maneuver, they are making a big mistake.
Smith & Wesson jumped on this bandwagon in the late 90s, and it resulted in a massive boycott of their products, from which they have still not fully recovered. (Which is precisely why now they are so much in the knife business. Yes, really. Most people stopped buying their guns.)
But in any case, OP is wrong. The technology is NOT here. Yes, they can make guns that stop "unauthorized" people from using them. But they still are not good enough at allowing authorized people to use them, 100% of the time (or nearly 100%).
Oooh. Cool. That means we get to delete 90% of Government data?
I'm in. Tell me where to start.
You've said some good things here, but in fact fascism has everything to do with corporations. Fascism is what we have been seeing (starting slowly but in increasing degree) here in the United States. It's very sad, but true, and it needs to stop. Now.
I will repeat the quote that DEFINED what "fascism" is, for the rest of eternity:
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
Addendum: the fact that I used the word "true" does not AUTOMATICALLY make me guilty of the "one true Scotsman" fallacy. Taking things out of context won't get you very far.
All of what you say is true. But what is missing is WHY.
It is kind of pointless to argue how this compares to something else, without a why.
Lakes are wet. So is my lawn after a rainfall. Maybe one can be compared to the other, but it would take some explaining to describe how. And why.
History shows very clearly that the WHY of the economic collapse of the Soviet Union was that it was never viable in the first place. Failure was inherent in the system; it was broken as designed. Central control never has, and never will, work. Decentralization (distributed power) has worked and does work.
This is the fundamental mistake that our own Federal government has been making in the last few decades. And it is doomed to fail at its centralization efforts, just as others have.
But we KNOW why they had to: their economic system simply didn't work.
Look, man, I'll put it as simply as I can: when backyard gardens are close to 10x as productive per acre as "collective" farms, you know your system isn't working. It doesn't get a hell of a lot more basic than that.
s/the Stalin/Stalin
Just a typographical error.
"The horror of the extermination Stalin perpetrated on the Ukrainian people in the name of socialism by Stalin is in no way lessened because they were farmers. This was not war, it was genocide & the result was neither starving nor sickness, it was death."
People who know a bit of history know of the horrors committed against the Ukraine by the Stalin.
I see by the "freak" mark on the page that you have something against me. I will be honest and state that I do not remember why.
But your opinion of me does not change the fact that I agree with you about history. Facts are facts. They are not (should not be) subject to opinion.
Agree with fredprado. I think you mean well and are thinking straight, but in my honest opinion you could use a little more of the history of economics.
I may catch flak for saying this, but I highly recommend this. If you are serious about learning actual HISTORY with plenty of real citations (as opposed to government-approved dogma), then you may find this is the best $99 you ever spent. Note, I say again: verifiable, documented, provable history with citations. Not political propaganda.
(Disclaimer: I don't claim the classroom is free from bias, because that would be impossible to promise honestly, no matter who was teaching the courses. But at least the material is factual, which is the most important thing, ans which you will not find many places these days.)
"Fascism is actually the type of capitalism, specifically focusing state control through wealthy corporations. It's what Italy had under Mussolini. Nazism on the other hand is the ideology of purity of the race, which runs in direct opposition of basic tenets of socialism, that every human has worth and is worth financially supporting when in a bad spot."
I'm not trying to argue with you here TOO much, but actually Fascism is defined, in part, by how much it deviates from capitalism. Modern -- or historical -- "corporatism" is NOT capitalism. Capitalism (read your Adam Smith) is by definition bounded by voluntary trade. Whenever that deviates from the voluntary -- as in corporate lobbying of government -- that is NOT "capitalism" at all.
"Ah, the No True Scotsman fallacy. By definition he wasn't a socialist, because no true socialist would do what he did. Nice! That's a pretty sweet defense you have going there. I see how you confuse fascism and national socialism too, good job. Reply to This Share"
WOW. Did you ever watch "The Wicker Man"?
Because that is one of the biggest straw-man arguments I have ever seen.
Saying "calling yourself something doesn't make it so" has absolutely nothing to do with the "one true Scotsman" fallacy. Get thee hence to your local community college and take a introductory course in logical argument. Or... hell, lots of high schools have good courses on debate these days.
"Oracle had a business strategy beyond "turn everything we touch into shit"?"
What? NO! This is part of their "turn everything to shit" campaign. Wait... I see. You mean OP is implying there is something beyond our known reality. Let's call it... the Twilight Zone.
"It's the thetans getting ready to take a massive shit in Tom Cruise's mouth and fill him with even more blessings."
Um, no. I don't think that's the way it works. I... scream. Ice cream. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Look, let's be honest. I tend to scream a bit before I explode, too. So do you. Female or male, bad explosion or good explosion, you either scream a bit or you're hopelessly Victorian.
"I say... you have trodden on my foot with your pegleg. Do you mind, terribly?"
(censored)
Calling yourself Socialist and being Socialist are not the same things. Any more than calling yourself Communist makes you a true Communist.
---
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
By that I mean things like this. Standing in line for hours to get milk for their children.
And this. Again standing in line for hours, this time just for bread.
And take note: these pictures were obviously far, far more recent than "early in the Soviet Union's formation". Actually, they aren't all that far from the Soviet Union's collapse.
"The misuse of the term "Socialism" to imply "Communist Socialism" is something relatively recent and a technique of disinformation our leftist "intellectuals" are very happy in maintaining and enforcing."
According to Marx, Socialism was a necessary evolutionary step on the way to Communism. However, no country on Earth that was pretending to be Communist ever made it past the Socialist stage. And usually a very bad (i.e., not "for the people") Socialism, at that.
"Farms were well looked after long before capitalism turned up. Farms can flourish in a communist state."
Perhaps, but that leads straight to your second question. There has never been an actual Communist state in the history of the world. So how would we know?
You are comparing the natural resources available to the United States, to those available to the former Soviet Union???
Hahahaha!
Holy shit, man. You don't even need to look it up. Just spend 10 seconds with a globe.
Yes, actually the specs look only very slightly better than the current RAZR HD... VERY slightly when you count that the screen size is only 4.4" compared to the HD's 4.7" (but same resolution).
The HD also runs Jelly Bean 4.1.2. So I don't get it either.
"There are a lot of children, elderly and just plain incapable people included in your sums."
Yep. So divide it by half (you have to be pretty young or pretty crippled to not be able to shoot a gun).
That still leaves the soldiers outnumbered 1,000 to 1.
"Keep in mind that judges do not like their time wasted by some witch hunt and if that is the case, the prosecution is going to get their asses reamed by the judge."
That's not good enough if the corruption of justice was deliberate. Let them go to prison and get their asses reamed literally.
"It ought to result in immediate disbarment of the lawyers involved since the violation fundamentally destroys justice"
This.
My view is that it should be "an eye for an eye". In other words, people caught deliberately corrupting justice, by testifying falsely, or withholding evidence, etc. are putting others in danger of anywhere from jail to even the death penalty. So... the punishment for doing so should be exactly the same punishment faced by the defendant.
When a policeman on the witness stand could face life in prison unless they tell it straight... watch them start telling it straight.
I think that would be an excellent solution to this problem. Ethical and just. People who deliberately put others in jeopardy should face exactly the same jeopardy.
"You can't do that."
Sure you can. As long as you back up the files that you are required by law to keep, you can do any damned thing you want with a hard drive.
"BULL SHIT."
As a former IT manager myself, I can tell you that it's probably anything BUT bullshit. Somebody leaves for another job? Back up important stuff, wipe the hard drive, install everything fresh. Sometimes maybe 2-3 machines in one day, depending on the size of the office you are managing.