You know they have fought before and lost right? Even as recently as 20 years ago? It's easy to chastise the people of China when you don't live there, but I personally cannot imagine going through what they do. You even assume the majority of people in China understand the Western idea of personal liberty. It's easy to make arm chair judgments about them, but I wager that if you were in their shoes, and it was your ass on the line, you wouldn't be able to do as much as you seem to think you could.
Let the punishment fit the crime. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage for distributing one song is not Just. It seems like you are saying that if every crime had a punishment of death, that there would be very little crime. And that's true. But, it is an unjust society that would have such laws.
And, with piracy being so prevalent now, how can you say harsh punishments have been working? I could Google for some data, but I am guessing it's not readily available....
That's ridiculous. What technical reason is there for it to work that way? If you have a 1GB/sec line and you sell 100 10 MB/sec connections as an ISP, wouldn't you be able to guarantee that bandwidth? If I'm missing something, I'd like to know, but from where I sit, it looks like all ISPs that do that are idiots (at least when they get upset that people are actually using the bandwidth they sold them in the first place).
All I can say is that there is a difference between homosexuality and religion, especially legally (Constitutionally). I don't see what's wrong with celebrating Christmas, either, except the idea of using public funds for it. What I'm trying to get at is that certain people, namely certain panty-twist types of Liberal Whites (and not in my experience minorities) are the ones who raise a big stink about these kinds of issues most of the time. And then, there are certain types of panty-twist Conservatives who feel victimized by an overblown idea of persecution by "political correctness." I guess we can agree that the truth lies somewhere in the middle:)
P.S. Man, I hate the terms "white trash" and "trailer trash" too. I mean what the Hell? Nobody is trash - it implies their life is worthless, and that it is OK to murder them or something, at least when taken to an extreme meaning (one people don't particularly mean I think, but literally that's what it seems to mean).
Anyway, I guess I got my panties all twisted for nothing:)
See, I am not trying to insult you, but how many Black people do you know? Maybe the places we live are vastly different, but I suspect you don't know any Black people if you think that "Black" is a "bad word." I really don't mean that as insult, I just don't think you know what you're talking about:) Maybe I'm wrong.
Celebrating a holiday is much different from forcing the celebration of a holiday is very different from forcing faith in a particular religion.
I feel like your missing my point, because you're looking for an argument:) The only thing we disagree about is that it is wrong to cheat a corrupt system. I'm a firm believer that two wrongs can make a right. Anyway, I don't pirate music and I pay for independent creative works, so I'm not sure what you are trying to say... that doesn't make the monetary damages they come up with any less asinine, and it doesn't make their attempts to save a failed business model any less asinine.
One can see how in your insular world you might believe that. The only people who use the term "politically correct," or who are concerned about it philosophically are those opposed to "it." It's really a way of putting other people down for being careful with their words. Also for making yourself look persecuted by the imaginary speech police. Have the balls to say what you want and let other people do it too.
Ha! I can see you agree in stronger copyright laws than I do, but only marginally. I have no problem with making a profit off of one's own work and having it protected for a reasonable amount of time. It betters society. What is wrong is not that they are making a profit selling digital media. What is wrong is that their methods for making that profit are asinine, harmful to artists, and harmful to society.
Another thing, for the most part artists are only making money from tours and promotional material if they sign with a major label. In most cases, the artist is paying labels to promote them, because, until recently, that was the only way to promote your music. That has changed, thank God. So I am not only promoting subversion. I am promoting the death of the old mafia labels, and subversion is valuable tool toward that noble goal. Building the infrastructure to support independent artists is well underway and growing at remarkable rate really, but the iron fist of Old Media is still very dangerous and I wouldn't be surprised if they have more tricks up their sleeves, tricks they will use to try to maintain their anti-competitive stranglehold on media and others' creative works.
You can't sing the "Happy Birthyday" song in public for crissakes. Their stranglehold on creative works is unnatural, a product of naivety toward recorded media. It's time we went back to a sane attitude toward creative works, like we have had for thousands of years before our current copyright laws regarding recorded/mass media began to crystallize around the turn of last century.
Which just goes to show that the estimate of the damages is asinine, and that the constituents of the RIAA's methods of distributing and making profit on digital media are asinine.
Right, practically the issue was decided through the war, but as a technical/legal issue it was decided by the Union, in its declaration of war and in the later court rulings.
This ain't Wikipedia, boy! Anyway, take for example Virginia. A state's constitution needed to be ratified in order for the state to join the union. Virginia's state constitution contained a clause spelling out its right to secede. (This was seen much as the Bill of Rights - a right held by the state, but put into words to reinforce what was thought of as a natural right.) Even with the secession clause, Virginia's constitution was approved and they became part of the Union. Later, they took advantage of the clause, which was approved by the Union as part of Virginia's constitution. After they seceded, the Union decided they did not have the right to secede and started the Civil War.
This is a discussion, so if you need citations... GO GOOGLE THEM YOURSELF:)
The US Constitution as drafted at ratification nowhere limits the right of a state to secede. That right was also put into words in several states' constitutions at the time they were ratified and approved by the federal Congress as part of the process for allowing a state to join the Union. The states came voluntarily into the Union, without limits placed on their right to secede. The fact that it has been decided after the fact (by the "Unionist" government) that states do not have a right to secede is the difference between the practical and technical ideas of secession.
Ha! I would love to see Califronia try to secede from the Union. Technically, the states have the right to secede at any point, but practically the result of the Civil War says otherwise...
What's the big deal with large TV's anyway. 12" CRT TV owner, and proud of it. And... seriously? TV's are using enough power to warrant government intervention? I doubt that highly. Another great idea from The Land of Fruits and Nuts;)
We Americans don't act as though the constitution was handed down to us by Jehovah.
Some of us do. Some of us do so very loudly. Not all of us, but... I can see how other countries might get that impression.
The funny thing to me is that, while I do believe in the Bill of Rights almost religiously, I wonder if the founding fathers really had the rights of the People at heart when they wrote it... e.g. slavery, must be land-owner to vote, etc. Or maybe it was just their confederalist ideals that led them to ignore these issues in the written document. I'm always torn, though, between local rights (i.e. states' rights) and the power of Federalism to kick states' asses that suck at governing, e.g. with reconstruction, segregation, racism, etc.
Sure stereotypes can be bad. The issue here, though, is whether the propogation of such stereotypes is more important than the protection of a person's civil right to free speech and expression in other media. Certainly if the citizens of Colombia wish their government to protect their image, that is not a bad thing, but one must weigh the consequences of any step toward that goal, just as with anything else. I doubt you would think it would be acceptable to kill people who tarnish the image of Colombia through words, or to imprison them... what I am saying is that while protecting a nation's and its peoples' image is a worthy goal, there are many more important considerations that it must take back-burner to (in this case the civil rights of the nations citizens).
Slashdot Mirror
Even the definition of "poor" has changed. The "poor" chinese of today would have been considered well-off less than a hundred years ago.
I don't necessarily disagree with you on the other points, but it seems that this is largely true of the developed world...
You know they have fought before and lost right? Even as recently as 20 years ago? It's easy to chastise the people of China when you don't live there, but I personally cannot imagine going through what they do. You even assume the majority of people in China understand the Western idea of personal liberty. It's easy to make arm chair judgments about them, but I wager that if you were in their shoes, and it was your ass on the line, you wouldn't be able to do as much as you seem to think you could.
Whatever it takes to get there, I'm all for it.
Even... even murder??! Or genocide??!
So now the "scientists" are even saying that the galaxies come from from monkeys?! Blasphemers!
No, no, no be sure to do it 256 times. That's the most secure (assuming 8-bit char are used).
You're both right.
Let the punishment fit the crime. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage for distributing one song is not Just. It seems like you are saying that if every crime had a punishment of death, that there would be very little crime. And that's true. But, it is an unjust society that would have such laws.
And, with piracy being so prevalent now, how can you say harsh punishments have been working? I could Google for some data, but I am guessing it's not readily available....
That's ridiculous. What technical reason is there for it to work that way? If you have a 1GB/sec line and you sell 100 10 MB/sec connections as an ISP, wouldn't you be able to guarantee that bandwidth? If I'm missing something, I'd like to know, but from where I sit, it looks like all ISPs that do that are idiots (at least when they get upset that people are actually using the bandwidth they sold them in the first place).
All I can say is that there is a difference between homosexuality and religion, especially legally (Constitutionally). I don't see what's wrong with celebrating Christmas, either, except the idea of using public funds for it. What I'm trying to get at is that certain people, namely certain panty-twist types of Liberal Whites (and not in my experience minorities) are the ones who raise a big stink about these kinds of issues most of the time. And then, there are certain types of panty-twist Conservatives who feel victimized by an overblown idea of persecution by "political correctness." I guess we can agree that the truth lies somewhere in the middle :)
:)
P.S. Man, I hate the terms "white trash" and "trailer trash" too. I mean what the Hell? Nobody is trash - it implies their life is worthless, and that it is OK to murder them or something, at least when taken to an extreme meaning (one people don't particularly mean I think, but literally that's what it seems to mean).
Anyway, I guess I got my panties all twisted for nothing
See, I am not trying to insult you, but how many Black people do you know? Maybe the places we live are vastly different, but I suspect you don't know any Black people if you think that "Black" is a "bad word." I really don't mean that as insult, I just don't think you know what you're talking about :) Maybe I'm wrong.
Celebrating a holiday is much different from forcing the celebration of a holiday is very different from forcing faith in a particular religion.
I feel like your missing my point, because you're looking for an argument :) The only thing we disagree about is that it is wrong to cheat a corrupt system. I'm a firm believer that two wrongs can make a right. Anyway, I don't pirate music and I pay for independent creative works, so I'm not sure what you are trying to say... that doesn't make the monetary damages they come up with any less asinine, and it doesn't make their attempts to save a failed business model any less asinine.
One can see how in your insular world you might believe that. The only people who use the term "politically correct," or who are concerned about it philosophically are those opposed to "it." It's really a way of putting other people down for being careful with their words. Also for making yourself look persecuted by the imaginary speech police. Have the balls to say what you want and let other people do it too.
How about not selling people bandwidth that you don't have?
Ha! I can see you agree in stronger copyright laws than I do, but only marginally. I have no problem with making a profit off of one's own work and having it protected for a reasonable amount of time. It betters society. What is wrong is not that they are making a profit selling digital media. What is wrong is that their methods for making that profit are asinine, harmful to artists, and harmful to society.
Another thing, for the most part artists are only making money from tours and promotional material if they sign with a major label. In most cases, the artist is paying labels to promote them, because, until recently, that was the only way to promote your music. That has changed, thank God. So I am not only promoting subversion. I am promoting the death of the old mafia labels, and subversion is valuable tool toward that noble goal. Building the infrastructure to support independent artists is well underway and growing at remarkable rate really, but the iron fist of Old Media is still very dangerous and I wouldn't be surprised if they have more tricks up their sleeves, tricks they will use to try to maintain their anti-competitive stranglehold on media and others' creative works.
You can't sing the "Happy Birthyday" song in public for crissakes. Their stranglehold on creative works is unnatural, a product of naivety toward recorded media. It's time we went back to a sane attitude toward creative works, like we have had for thousands of years before our current copyright laws regarding recorded/mass media began to crystallize around the turn of last century.
Which just goes to show that the estimate of the damages is asinine, and that the constituents of the RIAA's methods of distributing and making profit on digital media are asinine.
Right, practically the issue was decided through the war, but as a technical/legal issue it was decided by the Union, in its declaration of war and in the later court rulings.
This ain't Wikipedia, boy! Anyway, take for example Virginia. A state's constitution needed to be ratified in order for the state to join the union. Virginia's state constitution contained a clause spelling out its right to secede. (This was seen much as the Bill of Rights - a right held by the state, but put into words to reinforce what was thought of as a natural right.) Even with the secession clause, Virginia's constitution was approved and they became part of the Union. Later, they took advantage of the clause, which was approved by the Union as part of Virginia's constitution. After they seceded, the Union decided they did not have the right to secede and started the Civil War.
:)
This is a discussion, so if you need citations... GO GOOGLE THEM YOURSELF
The US Constitution as drafted at ratification nowhere limits the right of a state to secede. That right was also put into words in several states' constitutions at the time they were ratified and approved by the federal Congress as part of the process for allowing a state to join the Union. The states came voluntarily into the Union, without limits placed on their right to secede. The fact that it has been decided after the fact (by the "Unionist" government) that states do not have a right to secede is the difference between the practical and technical ideas of secession.
Not a bad idea!
Ha! I would love to see Califronia try to secede from the Union. Technically, the states have the right to secede at any point, but practically the result of the Civil War says otherwise...
What's the big deal with large TV's anyway. 12" CRT TV owner, and proud of it. And... seriously? TV's are using enough power to warrant government intervention? I doubt that highly. Another great idea from The Land of Fruits and Nuts ;)
/me slaps Macthorpe around a bit with a large trout!
Don't order wine at Applebee's!!
We Americans don't act as though the constitution was handed down to us by Jehovah.
Some of us do. Some of us do so very loudly. Not all of us, but... I can see how other countries might get that impression.
The funny thing to me is that, while I do believe in the Bill of Rights almost religiously, I wonder if the founding fathers really had the rights of the People at heart when they wrote it... e.g. slavery, must be land-owner to vote, etc. Or maybe it was just their confederalist ideals that led them to ignore these issues in the written document. I'm always torn, though, between local rights (i.e. states' rights) and the power of Federalism to kick states' asses that suck at governing, e.g. with reconstruction, segregation, racism, etc.
Sure stereotypes can be bad. The issue here, though, is whether the propogation of such stereotypes is more important than the protection of a person's civil right to free speech and expression in other media. Certainly if the citizens of Colombia wish their government to protect their image, that is not a bad thing, but one must weigh the consequences of any step toward that goal, just as with anything else. I doubt you would think it would be acceptable to kill people who tarnish the image of Colombia through words, or to imprison them... what I am saying is that while protecting a nation's and its peoples' image is a worthy goal, there are many more important considerations that it must take back-burner to (in this case the civil rights of the nations citizens).