If they steal from you by threatening you with harm, the crime is ROBBERY, not burglary. Burglary is stealing without a threat (eg, shoplifting, smash-n-grab, etc)
Hmmm.. let's see how many crimes these goons are committing:
Impersonating a Police Officer
Robbery
Extortion
False Arrest
Racketeering
Conspiricy to commit all of the above
Deriving profit from an ongoing criminal enterprise (RICO)
Sounds like a nice little list of felonies. Hopefully some civic-minded FBI agent will recognize this for what it is and arrest the RIAA leadership under the RICO act and seize all their (personal and business) assets.
but I believe most US Citizens have the right to use lethal force in self-defense only.
In some of the more liberal states, not even then. I've read that in Mass. you can't even use lethal force in self-defense except if it's physically impossible for you to run away. But, as a general rule, subject to local laws and the discresion of the individual cop and/or DA assigned to the cases, you can legally use lethal force only in response to lethal force -- self-defense or the defense of an innocent third party. Regardless of the law, you're taking a risk -- but, as the old saying goes, better to be tried by twelve than carried by six.
Self defense, not property defense.
Totally correct. It's never justifiable for a civilian to use lethal force to protect property. The military is authorized to use lethal force to protect some property -- highly classified documents and equipment, nuclear weapons, and the like. Of course any area where the use of lethal force is authorized has conspicuous signs stating this fact, as well as other subtle clues like 20 foot tall razor wire fences and large humorless chappies with automatic weapons.
Criminals do not have all of the rights
Bzzzt. "Criminals" have all the same rights as everyone else. Innocent until proven guilty, remember? Arguably, they have more rights -- many of the protections afforded by the bill of rights are only applicable to someone who has been accused of a crime. If you haven't been accused of a crime, having the right to a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of your peers is a moot point. If you have been accused of a crime, that right is pretty damn important.
It's like vigilantism. Last time I checked, the RIAA did not have police powers. Even if they hired licencesd private investigators, the most they can legally do is gather evidence to present to a jury. If they're confiscating a vendor's goods (even if they are infringing copyright) without a court order, it is THEFT (the real kind). If they detain someone, it's false arrest. If they hit someone, it's assault & battery.
Except under some VERY limited circumstances, private citizens are not allowed to enforce the law, and even then they are taking a risk of being charged themselves.
I'm sure the general public would love to see what mars really looks like, rather than some lie
I disagree. The general public wants to see pretty pictures that are compatible with their preconceptions. Geeks want to see pictures which look exactly like what they would see if they were standing there.
Why shouldn't NASA color-enhance images used for PUBLIC RELATIONS purposes? This isn't the data that scientists are going to use - it's advertising, designed to get them good PR and consequentally, more funding. Joe Sixpack doesn't care about science, but he does like shiny things. Scientists, and anyone else who really needs or wants it, can get the raw data.
It should be tuition-based, IMO. If you choose not to have kids, you shouldn't have to pay for others' kids' education
I have to disagree with you on that one. We all, as members of a society who reap the benefits of being part of that society, also have obligations to that society. Part of that obligation is seeing to it that the next generation is properly raised. Even if you do not personally have children, you will still reap the rewards of other people's children having been properly educated. The doctor who will care of you in your old age is someone else's child; it's in your best interest to ensure s/he had the best possible education. The taxpayers who support the country's infrastructure which you will enjoy after retirement are other people's children. Education is not just for the individual's benefit it is for society's benefit -- society as a whole is better off when all of it's members are well educated.
The Democrats and Republicans are more or less indistinguishable anymore... the only difference I see is that the Republicans don't bother hiding the fact that they're owned by the plutocratic elite anymore, while the Democrats still try to pretend that they aren't for sale to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, none of the small parties are any better -- The Libertarians would be the best of the lot, except for the fact that they come off as a bunch of tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist loons. The rest are even worse the so-called "Constitution" party wants to create a theocracy; the Greens want a Big Nanny government to cure the world's ills, and the Reform party doesn't know what the hell it wants (besides attention).
The Saudi's are not [..] funding terror with state funds
Nope, they're just funding it with private funds. Of course, when you are talking about a member of the Saud family, the line between "state" and "private" gets pretty damn blurry. Remember that the Bin Ladins are cousins of the Sauds. Have no illusions that the vast majority of the money that paid for the 9/11 hijackers training and expenses originated in Saudi.
Heh. I did that to my wife's computer at home while I was at work. Another fun thing to do is run xsnow (or any other X program) on your box and forward the display to your victim.
Bravo! Nice to see that there's someone who actually understands the concept of Enumerated Powers.
Raising children, including education, is the right of parents.
I'd go a step further: Raising children is the duty of parents. Public schools exist to help parents educate their children, not to raise their children for them.
That being said, the way public schools are funded is disgraceful. Typically, schools are funded on a county-by-county basis, mostly by property taxes. This means that schools in affluent communities with high property values are significantly better funded than those in less affluent communities. The just and proper solution is for all taxes collected by a state for education to be distributed equally per-capita to all schools. If I want *my* children's school to have extra money above and beyond what the state provides, then I can voluntarily contribute time, money, goods, or knowlege directly. I have no problem with the idea of using federal taxes to level out the economic differences between the state and ensure that all children have access to the same resources. But, as you note, there is no Constitutional authority for Congress to do this in Article I section 8 or elsewhere in the Constitution. Of course there's no Constitutional authority for Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, government loan subsidies, or any other entitlement program.
Maybe you haven't been paying attention, but these days they suspend kids from school for using nail clippers or for playing cops and robbers in the schoolyard.
Which is making homeschooling look more and more attractive with each passing day. It will be another 4 years before my firstborn is ready to start Kindergarten. I'll probably start him out in public school, since I do have a reasonably high opinion of our school district. But, if my son was subjected to this kind of asinine overreaction, I would seriously consider pulling him out and homeschooling him.
I call shenannigans. Selective quoting is intellectually dishonest. Try reading the rest of the sentence:
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper
for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
Notice the conspicuous absence of a phrase mentioning powers not vested in Congress by the Constitution and that are not found in Article I section 8. There's not a whole lot of "elastic" there, unless you are referring to it's constrictive properties, rather than it's expandability. Your so-called "elastic clause" re-iterates the same sentiment that is present throughout the Constitution and the Federalist Papers -- that Congress may pass laws to execute only those powers EXPLICITLY ENUMERATED BY THE CONSTITUTION and it's amendments. Furthermore, any elasticity which might have existed in the original text is trumped by the Tenth Amendment -- amendments always supercede the body of the Constitution, and later amendments always supercede earlier ones. No amount of wishful thinking, word games, or revisionist history on your part (or or the part of Congress, the President, or the Supreme Court) can change the simple and indisputable fact that the Founding Fathers intended for the Constitution to be subjected to a strict and narrow intrepretation.
You say "The purpose of the Consitution, undeniably, is to protect the American people". I say, you still don't get it. The purpose of the Constitution is to define what the people have said the various branches of the US Government are allowed to do, what they are required to do, and what they are forbidden to do. The Bill of Rights does not GRANT PROTECTION to the people so much as it DENIES POWER to the government. You, like many other people, are confusing cause and effect. Power flows from the people to the government, not the other way around. Read the Virginia Declaration of Rights if you are still confused as to the concepts on which the US Constitution is based.
The stated purpose of the Constitution is to "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". Madison, Mason, and company rightfully felt that the biggest threat to Liberty was an out-of-control government, and that the best way to be secured against the danger of maladministration was by STRICTLY LIMITING WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS ALLOWED TO DO.
The Fifth Amendment says "No person shall be [...] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" It dosen't say "except if they're just visiting". The Sixth Amendment says "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial". It doesn't say, "unless they're accused of being an 'unlawful combatant' or a 'terrorist'". Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say "the Citizens", or "the Taxpayers", or even "the Residents". It says "the People". As in each and every man, woman, and child, period, end of freaking story. You know, the same people who were all "created equal, [...] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
The Constitution does not grant the President or Congress the power to pick and chose whose rights are protected and whose are not, nor does it give Congress the authority to pass legislation granting itself or the President any additional powers beyond those enumerated within the Constitution. Additional powers may only be granted via a duly ratified Constitutional amendment. The fact that we the people have allowed Congress and the President to usurp power they are not entitled to just shows how ignorant and apathetic most Americans have become. We need to wake up and put our government back into it's rightful place.
Foreigners dont have rights. Rights are for citizens. Legal resident aliens are given rights as a luxury
Yet another fool who slept through Civics 101. Get it through your skull: the Constitution does not grant rights to people, IT GRANTS (AND DENIES) POWERS TO THE GOVERNMENT. The US government may not legitimately exercise any power not enumerated in the Constitution. The enumerated powers of Congress are:
Levy Taxes
Borrow money on the credit of the United States.
Spend when authorized by an approriations bill
Pay the Federal debt
Constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court
Declare War
Raise armies, a navy, and provide for the common defense
Introduce constitutional amendments and choose the mode of ratification
Call a Constitutional Convention on the application of two-thirds of the States
Regulate interstate and foreign commerce.
Coin Money
Standardize the value of currency
Regulate copyrights and patents
Establish federal courts lower than the Supreme Court.
Limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Federal Courts including the Supreme Court.
Standardize weights and measures.
Establish uniform times for elections.
Control the Postal System
Establish laws governing citizenship
Make its own rules and discipline its own members.
Provide for the punishment of counterfeiting, piracy, treason and other Federal Crimes.
Exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia
Establish Bankruptcy laws
Override presidential vetoes.
Oversee all Federal property and possesions
Fill a vacancy in the presidency in cases of death or inability
Receive and count electoral votes for the Presidency
Keep and publish a journal of its proceedings
Conduct a census every ten years.
Approve treaties, cabinet level appointments, and appointments to the Supreme Court (Senate only).
Impeach (House only) and try (Senate only) federal officers.
Initiate all bills for raising revenue (House only).
If it ain't on this list, Congress can't do it (without violating the Tenth Amendment). The only possible source for this fingerprinting scheme would come from the Commerce Clause. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has allowed Congress to get away with using the Commerce Clause as a get-out-of-jail-free card to justify just about anything which might potentially have some nebulous and indirect connection with interstate commerce.
Is there a new section of the Constitution that I don't know about that declares that "the right of non-citizens to be photographed and fingerprinted shall not be infringed"?
Try actually reading the Constitution (I sure wish Congress would!). The Constitution does not grant RIGHTS to people. It grants POWERS to the government. The oft-forgotten tenth amendment says
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
In other words, Congress, the President, and the Federal Courts can not legitimately exercise any power not explicitly enumerated by the Constitution and it's Amendments.
The fact that Congress and the President continue to usurp authority not granted them is criminal. The fact that we do not call them to account is pathetic.
Except that the US Consitution only applies to those who have entered the country and US citizens under US jurisdiction
WRONG. You fail Civics 101 (as does half of Congress). Sorry, but this is a popular misconception. The Constitution is a list of what POWERS the people give TO the government (and what powers are denied to the government), not what RIGHTS the people receive FROM the government. Any action taken by the government must (in theory) be explicitly authorized under the Constitution, or (in practice) not explicitly denied.
There have been several attempts to pass an Enumerated Powers act, which would require that Congress cite the Constitutional authority under which each new law is authorized. (Actually, this should be an amendment, not just a law, as it is far harder to repeal an amendment than it is to repeal a law). Unsuprisingly, Congress has been unwilling to do anything that would limit it's ability to keep passing laws with no legitimate Constitutional basis.
I got a new passport just a couple of weeks ago. It is quite tough to counterfeit
Yes, these measures make it more difficult to tamper with a legitimate passport. It does nothing to make it more difficult to get a legitimate passport with an assumed identity. In the US, every identification scheme eventually traces back to a birth certificate. Get a forged birth certificate, or a legitimate one belonging to someone else (the classic is someone of about the same age who died in childhood) and then you can build up everything else -- social security number, driver's license, etc.
Of course you can always just bribe someone at the passport office to run one off for you with whatever information you want. Increased oversight just means that you have to move higher up the foodchain, or you just get your operatives into the right positions. All this drives up the price of a fake passport and discourages the small-timers and independent operators, but it doesn't stop a group like al-Queda which has access to tens of millions of dollars and significant popular support.
If a private citizen were being extorted for 2.5 mil, the feds would be willing to get involved
Yeah, but the average citizen doesn't have 2.5M just lying around. Someone who DOES have several million in liquid assets is almost definately plugged in to the good-old-boy network. I think what the grandparent poster was saying is if it were a small business that was being extorted then the feds wouldn't get involved.
It does not take a whole lot of CPU power to dish up static web content. It doesn't matter how fast your server can dish out web pages if you don't have the bandwidth to handle it. A P-100 can easily saturate a 10MBPS connection if it's just pushing static content. Dynamic content is a whole other story, but even there in most cases you are I/O bound and not CPU bound. Bandwidth is far more expensive than the hardware.
If you want to really improve your web server performance, more RAM and a fast hardware SCSI RAID array would a much better investment than more CPU power. Paying careful attention to page size makes the most out of the bandwith you have.
Except after you take that picture of my car you can get into the picture and drive off in the car...
So what's the problem? You still have your car. The fact that I effortlessly created a replica of it does nothing to your ability to use your car. If I make a hundred replicas and give them away to random strangers, YOU STILL HAVE YOUR CAR.
My house is about the same size as yours. My wife's computer is in the basement. Mine is on the second floor. We use IMs or windows messaging [net send ] frequently. Why? Several reasons. Why run two flights of stairs to say "Honey, please bring the dirty laundry downstairs" or "Remember to feed the cats before you come up" or "What's the link to that web site you were telling me about?" Shouting up the stairs is not an option when the baby is taking a nap. IM makes a handy quick & dirty intercom.
Will WinXP run on my ancient P-75 with 64M of RAM? Win98 will. An old machine running an old OS still does everything it did the day it was purchased, and probably a good bit more. If my current system does everything I need it to do, why should I upgrade? Why should I spend $100 for something that gives me zero benefit?
I have a client who runs exactly two applications: WordPerfect 5.1 and a custom billing application -- both DOS apps. When her old 286 finally died, I set her up with a new Athlon box with all the bells & whistles. After dicking around with NT and 2000 (and wasting dozens of hours fixing stupid windowsims for her), we finally decided to set up a DOS partition so she can run the two applications that she actually cares about without major headaches. Guess what? She's happier and more productive now that she doesn't have to deal with Windows.
Yeah. I SHOULDN'T come over and take your car, but hey, I'm not hurting anyone, am I?
I call bullshit. You are comparing apples to oranges. Breaking into the projection booth and stealing the prints would be comperable to stealing your car. This law is the equivilent of making it a crime for me to take a picture of your car.
When you steal something, the person who originally owned that thing no longer has it. Making a copy of something can NEVER be theft because THE OWNER STILL HAS THE ORIGINAL. What's so hard to understand about that?
The argument that making an unauthorized copy is "stealing", on the grounds that it's depriving the owner of a potential sale, is specious. If depriving someone of a potential sale is theft, then I should start a buggy whip business and sue GM for damages, because every car they sell is depriving me the opportunity to sell a buggy whip. But, a car is not the same thing as a buggy whip, you say? Well, watching a crappy bootleg copy of a movie on a TV isn't the same as seeing the movie on 30 foot screen with full THX audio either.
The business of selling buggy whips was made obsolete by advancing technology. Tough shit -- that's progress. The same thing is now happening to the entertainment business. Why is it that the entertainment business needs government intervention to prop up it's obsolete business model? Why are the poor starving studio executives more deserving of government protection than the poor starving buggy whip makers?
[In the US] an employer can easily fire you for being the suspect in a case
Basically correct -- in almost all cases, employment in the US is "at will" -- meaning that the employer can fire you at any time for almost any (non-descriminitory) reason, with or without cause, and that an employee can quit at any time without penalty. Naturally there are a raft of laws which allow you to sue for wrongful termination, if you can afford a lawyer; but labor cases are notorously hard to win.
Slashdot Mirror
If they steal from you by threatening you with harm, the crime is ROBBERY, not burglary. Burglary is stealing without a threat (eg, shoplifting, smash-n-grab, etc)
- Impersonating a Police Officer
- Robbery
- Extortion
- False Arrest
- Racketeering
- Conspiricy to commit all of the above
- Deriving profit from an ongoing criminal enterprise (RICO)
Sounds like a nice little list of felonies. Hopefully some civic-minded FBI agent will recognize this for what it is and arrest the RIAA leadership under the RICO act and seize all their (personal and business) assets.Except under some VERY limited circumstances, private citizens are not allowed to enforce the law, and even then they are taking a risk of being charged themselves.
Maybe he was chanelling William Shatner when he wrote that.
Why shouldn't NASA color-enhance images used for PUBLIC RELATIONS purposes? This isn't the data that scientists are going to use - it's advertising, designed to get them good PR and consequentally, more funding. Joe Sixpack doesn't care about science, but he does like shiny things. Scientists, and anyone else who really needs or wants it, can get the raw data.
The Democrats and Republicans are more or less indistinguishable anymore... the only difference I see is that the Republicans don't bother hiding the fact that they're owned by the plutocratic elite anymore, while the Democrats still try to pretend that they aren't for sale to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, none of the small parties are any better -- The Libertarians would be the best of the lot, except for the fact that they come off as a bunch of tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy theorist loons. The rest are even worse the so-called "Constitution" party wants to create a theocracy; the Greens want a Big Nanny government to cure the world's ills, and the Reform party doesn't know what the hell it wants (besides attention).
Heh. I did that to my wife's computer at home while I was at work. Another fun thing to do is run xsnow (or any other X program) on your box and forward the display to your victim.
That being said, the way public schools are funded is disgraceful. Typically, schools are funded on a county-by-county basis, mostly by property taxes. This means that schools in affluent communities with high property values are significantly better funded than those in less affluent communities. The just and proper solution is for all taxes collected by a state for education to be distributed equally per-capita to all schools. If I want *my* children's school to have extra money above and beyond what the state provides, then I can voluntarily contribute time, money, goods, or knowlege directly. I have no problem with the idea of using federal taxes to level out the economic differences between the state and ensure that all children have access to the same resources. But, as you note, there is no Constitutional authority for Congress to do this in Article I section 8 or elsewhere in the Constitution. Of course there's no Constitutional authority for Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, government loan subsidies, or any other entitlement program.
You say "The purpose of the Consitution, undeniably, is to protect the American people". I say, you still don't get it. The purpose of the Constitution is to define what the people have said the various branches of the US Government are allowed to do, what they are required to do, and what they are forbidden to do. The Bill of Rights does not GRANT PROTECTION to the people so much as it DENIES POWER to the government. You, like many other people, are confusing cause and effect. Power flows from the people to the government, not the other way around. Read the Virginia Declaration of Rights if you are still confused as to the concepts on which the US Constitution is based.
The stated purpose of the Constitution is to "form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity". Madison, Mason, and company rightfully felt that the biggest threat to Liberty was an out-of-control government, and that the best way to be secured against the danger of maladministration was by STRICTLY LIMITING WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS ALLOWED TO DO.
The Fifth Amendment says "No person shall be [...] deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" It dosen't say "except if they're just visiting". The Sixth Amendment says "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial". It doesn't say, "unless they're accused of being an 'unlawful combatant' or a 'terrorist'". Nowhere in the Bill of Rights does it say "the Citizens", or "the Taxpayers", or even "the Residents". It says "the People". As in each and every man, woman, and child, period, end of freaking story. You know, the same people who were all "created equal, [...] endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."
The Constitution does not grant the President or Congress the power to pick and chose whose rights are protected and whose are not, nor does it give Congress the authority to pass legislation granting itself or the President any additional powers beyond those enumerated within the Constitution. Additional powers may only be granted via a duly ratified Constitutional amendment. The fact that we the people have allowed Congress and the President to usurp power they are not entitled to just shows how ignorant and apathetic most Americans have become. We need to wake up and put our government back into it's rightful place.
- Levy Taxes
- Borrow money on the credit of the United States.
- Spend when authorized by an approriations bill
- Pay the Federal debt
- Constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court
- Declare War
- Raise armies, a navy, and provide for the common defense
- Introduce constitutional amendments and choose the mode of ratification
- Call a Constitutional Convention on the application of two-thirds of the States
- Regulate interstate and foreign commerce.
- Coin Money
- Standardize the value of currency
- Regulate copyrights and patents
- Establish federal courts lower than the Supreme Court.
- Limit the appellate jurisdiction of the Federal Courts including the Supreme Court.
- Standardize weights and measures.
- Establish uniform times for elections.
- Control the Postal System
- Establish laws governing citizenship
- Make its own rules and discipline its own members.
- Provide for the punishment of counterfeiting, piracy, treason and other Federal Crimes.
- Exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the District of Columbia
- Establish Bankruptcy laws
- Override presidential vetoes.
- Oversee all Federal property and possesions
- Fill a vacancy in the presidency in cases of death or inability
- Receive and count electoral votes for the Presidency
- Keep and publish a journal of its proceedings
- Conduct a census every ten years.
- Approve treaties, cabinet level appointments, and appointments to the Supreme Court (Senate only).
- Impeach (House only) and try (Senate only) federal officers.
- Initiate all bills for raising revenue (House only).
If it ain't on this list, Congress can't do it (without violating the Tenth Amendment). The only possible source for this fingerprinting scheme would come from the Commerce Clause. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has allowed Congress to get away with using the Commerce Clause as a get-out-of-jail-free card to justify just about anything which might potentially have some nebulous and indirect connection with interstate commerce.The fact that Congress and the President continue to usurp authority not granted them is criminal. The fact that we do not call them to account is pathetic.
There have been several attempts to pass an Enumerated Powers act, which would require that Congress cite the Constitutional authority under which each new law is authorized. (Actually, this should be an amendment, not just a law, as it is far harder to repeal an amendment than it is to repeal a law). Unsuprisingly, Congress has been unwilling to do anything that would limit it's ability to keep passing laws with no legitimate Constitutional basis.
Of course you can always just bribe someone at the passport office to run one off for you with whatever information you want. Increased oversight just means that you have to move higher up the foodchain, or you just get your operatives into the right positions. All this drives up the price of a fake passport and discourages the small-timers and independent operators, but it doesn't stop a group like al-Queda which has access to tens of millions of dollars and significant popular support.
If you want to really improve your web server performance, more RAM and a fast hardware SCSI RAID array would a much better investment than more CPU power. Paying careful attention to page size makes the most out of the bandwith you have.
My house is about the same size as yours. My wife's computer is in the basement. Mine is on the second floor. We use IMs or windows messaging [net send ] frequently. Why? Several reasons. Why run two flights of stairs to say "Honey, please bring the dirty laundry downstairs" or "Remember to feed the cats before you come up" or "What's the link to that web site you were telling me about?" Shouting up the stairs is not an option when the baby is taking a nap. IM makes a handy quick & dirty intercom.
I have a client who runs exactly two applications: WordPerfect 5.1 and a custom billing application -- both DOS apps. When her old 286 finally died, I set her up with a new Athlon box with all the bells & whistles. After dicking around with NT and 2000 (and wasting dozens of hours fixing stupid windowsims for her), we finally decided to set up a DOS partition so she can run the two applications that she actually cares about without major headaches. Guess what? She's happier and more productive now that she doesn't have to deal with Windows.
When you steal something, the person who originally owned that thing no longer has it. Making a copy of something can NEVER be theft because THE OWNER STILL HAS THE ORIGINAL. What's so hard to understand about that?
The argument that making an unauthorized copy is "stealing", on the grounds that it's depriving the owner of a potential sale, is specious. If depriving someone of a potential sale is theft, then I should start a buggy whip business and sue GM for damages, because every car they sell is depriving me the opportunity to sell a buggy whip. But, a car is not the same thing as a buggy whip, you say? Well, watching a crappy bootleg copy of a movie on a TV isn't the same as seeing the movie on 30 foot screen with full THX audio either.
The business of selling buggy whips was made obsolete by advancing technology. Tough shit -- that's progress. The same thing is now happening to the entertainment business. Why is it that the entertainment business needs government intervention to prop up it's obsolete business model? Why are the poor starving studio executives more deserving of government protection than the poor starving buggy whip makers?