Because the only person who will be elected is the person who is best at getting elected. (Throw in Arrow's Impossibility Theorem and not even that.) And since much of getting elected is convincing those who have power and influence to back you financially, etc. you get Obama. No worse than any before him, really. ( I am a bit tired of all the whining.) The only difference is that enormous power as accrued to the president, so incompetence is more widely felt and the consequences more severe.
Ok. You completely misunderstand the idea of property rights in terms of Libertarian thought. Part of my property right is the ability to enjoy my property, which means if you decide to build a freeway next door to mine, then you have diminished my enjoyment. Hence you have the Coase idea, which actually works quite well in the real world, see Mancur Olson's Power and Propsperity, which states in a world of well defined property rights, you can work out agreements so if you want to build a noxious factory next to my house, you need to negotiate with me.
In a land of government control and influence, I have no choice. To show how power works, see San Francisco where the freeway that was designed to cut through city to the GG Bridge was halted once it began to encroach on more influential neighborhoods, and how it was torn down when those neighborhoods were "rehabilitated." The poor had no choice and no voice.
The fact is, Government favors the rich and strong -- who can hire lawyers, lobbyist and others to protect and even promote their interests -- and not the poor and the weak. Hence, you never hear of major drug busts on college campuses despite the common knowledge that drug use is rampant, etc.,etc. Or, again, simply think about the legal protections which most corporations enjoy. They are LEGAL protections after all.
Actually, more truth than lies.
Given that Cable & Telephone are the 2 most regulated industries in the US... blah blah blah. Of course they fail to provide for consumers, they are state regulated local monopolies.
While it won't get you over the loosely typed nature of the language, it will make things a bit more manageable. You can write nice terse code which accomplishes oodles, as opposed to hand rolling everything.
There is something nice to javascripting. I find it a nice respite. JQuery makes it beautiful.
And if you are not an expert, and have no way to judge whether the global warming skeptics are right or wrong, then how do you know this is not the case?
You have basically said, that you believe your experts over other experts, based upon the fact that, well, you like your experts.
And what has been going on?
Changeable weather. Perhaps you should read more. There has been inexplicable weather since the dawn of mankind.
But even if you are not an expert in the field, then you have to exercise some criteria for whom to trust? The idea that X is an expert in the field, therefore is reliable, is bogus. Also, that somehow a consensus is the same as being correct. Before Darwin (or Wallace) the consensus was wrong. Before almost any major scientific breakthrough ( and even minor ones), the consensus was wrong. Why do you think a consensus now proves the validity of a given theory?
Experts once believed in racial theories, the benign nature of x-ray exposure, cranial measurements as proof of criminal tendencies.
If an expert can be wrong, then the problem comes down to discernment. If experts disagree, how do you choose which expert to follow?
If experts choose a course of action that is destructive to you, are you obligated to follow it? Are others obligated to impose it upon you? Are you obligated to impose it on others?
Does the fact that you renounce your freedom mean that I should also be enslaved?
The fact is that cable companies enjoy monopoly privileges in any municipality they are located in.
That is stringent.
I am saying that any one should be allowed to run a line, dig under the ground -- with property owner's consent (not the city, since oddly enough, if you need to replace your sidewalk, it is the homeowners affair. Hence, he owns the walk.) Then anyone should have the privilege of doing so.
Since almost everyone would gain -- indeed, the digger could pay a fee to each homeowner for the right and the inconvenience, fostering competition, but also allowing the owner to capture some profits.
The fact is regulation -- whether net neutrality or cable regulation generally is constructed to favor those in power.
It is, after all, why you wish governments to mandate open source. You stand to profit, as an open source strategy consultant.
You should be allowed your self interest, but the moment you wish the government to mandate toward your advantage, then the spirit of democracy and equality before the law is completely usurped.
Regulations are never constructed to aid the powerless -- since those governing have nothing to gain and little to fear from the powerless.
It is all about self-interest. If you are not an atheistic mendicant, then you merely prove my point.
No sorry, it is fascism. It is the usurpation of private property rights by the government without edict. Happened in Germany, Italy, Spain and France.
What you are saying is I, the private individual have a right to speak, but if the Arbiter (the government) decides what I say is "Unfair" then I (the individual) must give over my property or its use to a third party (or the government itself) to correct an imbalance.
The purpose of speech is to hold in check governance. If the government can claim that any independent operator must provide a government favorable viewpoint, then you have destroyed free speech. It now becomes government talk.
It is very interesting to hear people who suppose they have a radical viewpoint, staunchly support what can only be termed Fascist economics and a sort of 1984 doublespeak. Although, fascism is a very radical ideology. So I guess no conflict there.
And you are quite right, allowing individuals their freedoms is not a good way to govern. It is merely a preferable way -- for those who are governed -- to live.
I find it hard so see how railing against stringently regulated industries, such as broadcast TV (either Cable or Network) proves that lassez-faire capitalism is not the answer.
Please tell me one, just one, media empire that does not benefit from government legislation and government regulation.
Or you can tell me how you wish the government would regulate in your favor and for your benefit.
Either way, it is the same answer. Pigs at the trough. You are just looking over the railing at the other pigs, and thinking how disgusting they are. Or perhaps, someone snuck in a mirror and you just haven't figured it out yet.
Why is government an involvement in a problem created by government always the answer.
At&t, Comcast and all other single source providers are legislated Monopolies.
Suck it up, socialist. This is what a well regulated society looks like.
Don't worry, the Invisible Hand(TM) will reach down from Heaven and drop off a brand new ISP that doesn't interfere with your connection. Any minute now.
Government spends because you demand the services they provide. If you are unhappy with those services please list those services that you personally will be happy to do without. And while you are contemplating which government agencies you can live without please consider the downside to life without said agency. For example, no FDA and drug companies can do whatever they want with the drugs your aging parents take. Consider the company behind the Extenze ads. Now think of them as the industry model.
Because I demand it. Wow. Do you think in the absence of an FDA that people would start taking drugs that would kill them. (I don't know Jebediah, mah' ma keeled near completely over when she downed that bottle of AZT the chiropracter prescribed for her corns.). or that there wouldn't be private agencies that would step up and do drug analysis, and since they had an economic incentive to maximize the cost/benefit of drugs, that this would not be done better, and in a much more cost effective way.
Let's do a little mind experiment. Perhaps we can have a government agency that approves code -- after all, bad code can endanger lives, and almost any line of code anywhere can be a source of danger -- and we can all submit our code to the government before it is production ready.
Do you think such a system would improve the quality of code?
"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful." --
Well if we aren't clever enough to handle it, we will perish. So what. Another extinct life form.
Since Lovelock will be dead in 10 years or so, he has nothing to fear.
And you forgot how racist the Unions were. That the AFL was only integrated in 1935, by federal decree -- as a sop by Roosevelt, to help win over the previously Republican Blacks (remember Lincoln was a Republican and the south was staunchly Democrat). and all the "official" Railroad unions were closed to blacks -- except the porter's union which was all black.
And no, I don't remember how badly most workers were treated by their employers, since my grandfather was kept out of the Shoemaker's union, and had to start his own shoemaking business. Perhaps you can enlighten me with some concrete story of employer evil.
Yeah. Private industry would be happy to poison us. That way we would all be dead and they would have no more customers!.
Since most computer programmers refer to our "customers" as users, does that make us equivalent to drug dealers.
Your error is assuming that when the government legislation equals protection, as opposed to harm.
If you regulate what goes into foods, and force restaurants to work within dietary regulations, then you actual produce more McDonald's, who are able to work within a regulatory environment. All you have accomplished is to highen the cost of opening a hamburger joint, to compete with McDonald's.
Regulation serves as a barrier to entry for worthwhile competitors, and the process whereby regulators create regulations that serve vested interests, is called Regulatory Capture. Yeah, they have terms for it, it is a quite widely understood process.
As for you. Idiot would do or Government Worker. Sorry, I am repeating myself here.
Now if we can just see Europe and the Middle East Before civilization crept in. Or perhaps India, and China. Probably a lot of trees there thousands of years ago.
Maybe we should just depopulate Europe. Make into into a great big foresty theme park.
Or better yet, lets just depopulate the world and then we can all enjoy beautiful trees.
You go first. I will make sure that everyone else drinks their kool-aid. I promise, I will drink mine too.
Slashdot Mirror
Because the only person who will be elected is the person who is best at getting elected. (Throw in Arrow's Impossibility Theorem and not even that.) And since much of getting elected is convincing those who have power and influence to back you financially, etc. you get Obama. No worse than any before him, really. ( I am a bit tired of all the whining.) The only difference is that enormous power as accrued to the president, so incompetence is more widely felt and the consequences more severe.
Ok. You completely misunderstand the idea of property rights in terms of Libertarian thought. Part of my property right is the ability to enjoy my property, which means if you decide to build a freeway next door to mine, then you have diminished my enjoyment. Hence you have the Coase idea, which actually works quite well in the real world, see Mancur Olson's Power and Propsperity, which states in a world of well defined property rights, you can work out agreements so if you want to build a noxious factory next to my house, you need to negotiate with me. In a land of government control and influence, I have no choice. To show how power works, see San Francisco where the freeway that was designed to cut through city to the GG Bridge was halted once it began to encroach on more influential neighborhoods, and how it was torn down when those neighborhoods were "rehabilitated." The poor had no choice and no voice. The fact is, Government favors the rich and strong -- who can hire lawyers, lobbyist and others to protect and even promote their interests -- and not the poor and the weak. Hence, you never hear of major drug busts on college campuses despite the common knowledge that drug use is rampant, etc.,etc. Or, again, simply think about the legal protections which most corporations enjoy. They are LEGAL protections after all.
Actually, more truth than lies. Given that Cable & Telephone are the 2 most regulated industries in the US... blah blah blah. Of course they fail to provide for consumers, they are state regulated local monopolies.
'nuff said, unless you happen to be irony impaired. (In which instance, it probably doesn't matter what I say.)
While it won't get you over the loosely typed nature of the language, it will make things a bit more manageable. You can write nice terse code which accomplishes oodles, as opposed to hand rolling everything. There is something nice to javascripting. I find it a nice respite. JQuery makes it beautiful.
Places where the inscription: "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" does not appear above the entrance.
You have basically said, that you believe your experts over other experts, based upon the fact that, well, you like your experts.
And what has been going on?
Changeable weather. Perhaps you should read more. There has been inexplicable weather since the dawn of mankind.
Experts once believed in racial theories, the benign nature of x-ray exposure, cranial measurements as proof of criminal tendencies.
If an expert can be wrong, then the problem comes down to discernment. If experts disagree, how do you choose which expert to follow?
If experts choose a course of action that is destructive to you, are you obligated to follow it? Are others obligated to impose it upon you? Are you obligated to impose it on others?
Does the fact that you renounce your freedom mean that I should also be enslaved?
The fact is that cable companies enjoy monopoly privileges in any municipality they are located in.
That is stringent.
I am saying that any one should be allowed to run a line, dig under the ground -- with property owner's consent (not the city, since oddly enough, if you need to replace your sidewalk, it is the homeowners affair. Hence, he owns the walk.) Then anyone should have the privilege of doing so.
Since almost everyone would gain -- indeed, the digger could pay a fee to each homeowner for the right and the inconvenience, fostering competition, but also allowing the owner to capture some profits.
The fact is regulation -- whether net neutrality or cable regulation generally is constructed to favor those in power.
It is, after all, why you wish governments to mandate open source. You stand to profit, as an open source strategy consultant.
You should be allowed your self interest, but the moment you wish the government to mandate toward your advantage, then the spirit of democracy and equality before the law is completely usurped.
Regulations are never constructed to aid the powerless -- since those governing have nothing to gain and little to fear from the powerless.
It is all about self-interest. If you are not an atheistic mendicant, then you merely prove my point.
No sorry, it is fascism. It is the usurpation of private property rights by the government without edict. Happened in Germany, Italy, Spain and France.
What you are saying is I, the private individual have a right to speak, but if the Arbiter (the government) decides what I say is "Unfair" then I (the individual) must give over my property or its use to a third party (or the government itself) to correct an imbalance.
Speech isn't governance.
The purpose of speech is to hold in check governance. If the government can claim that any independent operator must provide a government favorable viewpoint, then you have destroyed free speech. It now becomes government talk.
It is very interesting to hear people who suppose they have a radical viewpoint, staunchly support what can only be termed Fascist economics and a sort of 1984 doublespeak. Although, fascism is a very radical ideology. So I guess no conflict there.
And you are quite right, allowing individuals their freedoms is not a good way to govern. It is merely a preferable way -- for those who are governed -- to live.
I find it hard so see how railing against stringently regulated industries, such as broadcast TV (either Cable or Network) proves that lassez-faire capitalism is not the answer.
Please tell me one, just one, media empire that does not benefit from government legislation and government regulation.
Or you can tell me how you wish the government would regulate in your favor and for your benefit.
Either way, it is the same answer. Pigs at the trough. You are just looking over the railing at the other pigs, and thinking how disgusting they are. Or perhaps, someone snuck in a mirror and you just haven't figured it out yet.
Don't worry, the Invisible Hand(TM) will reach down from Heaven and drop off a brand new ISP that doesn't interfere with your connection. Any minute now.
Government spends because you demand the services they provide. If you are unhappy with those services please list those services that you personally will be happy to do without. And while you are contemplating which government agencies you can live without please consider the downside to life without said agency. For example, no FDA and drug companies can do whatever they want with the drugs your aging parents take. Consider the company behind the Extenze ads. Now think of them as the industry model.
Because I demand it. Wow. Do you think in the absence of an FDA that people would start taking drugs that would kill them. (I don't know Jebediah, mah' ma keeled near completely over when she downed that bottle of AZT the chiropracter prescribed for her corns.). or that there wouldn't be private agencies that would step up and do drug analysis, and since they had an economic incentive to maximize the cost/benefit of drugs, that this would not be done better, and in a much more cost effective way.
Let's do a little mind experiment. Perhaps we can have a government agency that approves code -- after all, bad code can endanger lives, and almost any line of code anywhere can be a source of danger -- and we can all submit our code to the government before it is production ready.
Do you think such a system would improve the quality of code?
"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful." -- Well if we aren't clever enough to handle it, we will perish. So what. Another extinct life form. Since Lovelock will be dead in 10 years or so, he has nothing to fear.
And you forgot how racist the Unions were. That the AFL was only integrated in 1935, by federal decree -- as a sop by Roosevelt, to help win over the previously Republican Blacks (remember Lincoln was a Republican and the south was staunchly Democrat). and all the "official" Railroad unions were closed to blacks -- except the porter's union which was all black. And no, I don't remember how badly most workers were treated by their employers, since my grandfather was kept out of the Shoemaker's union, and had to start his own shoemaking business. Perhaps you can enlighten me with some concrete story of employer evil.
Yeah. Private industry would be happy to poison us. That way we would all be dead and they would have no more customers!. Since most computer programmers refer to our "customers" as users, does that make us equivalent to drug dealers. Your error is assuming that when the government legislation equals protection, as opposed to harm. If you regulate what goes into foods, and force restaurants to work within dietary regulations, then you actual produce more McDonald's, who are able to work within a regulatory environment. All you have accomplished is to highen the cost of opening a hamburger joint, to compete with McDonald's. Regulation serves as a barrier to entry for worthwhile competitors, and the process whereby regulators create regulations that serve vested interests, is called Regulatory Capture. Yeah, they have terms for it, it is a quite widely understood process. As for you. Idiot would do or Government Worker. Sorry, I am repeating myself here.
Now if we can just see Europe and the Middle East Before civilization crept in. Or perhaps India, and China. Probably a lot of trees there thousands of years ago. Maybe we should just depopulate Europe. Make into into a great big foresty theme park. Or better yet, lets just depopulate the world and then we can all enjoy beautiful trees. You go first. I will make sure that everyone else drinks their kool-aid. I promise, I will drink mine too.