Re:Perl 6 is the way forward.
on
Perl6 for Mortals
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Why is it that people dislike change (read: progress) so much ?
Why is it that people who want to change things inevitably choose the label 'progressive'?;-)
Perl isn't perfect, nor ever was. But that doesn't mean that any change is a good change. Not to say those developing Perl have made mistakes before... I'm not that bold... but let's just say that indirect object syntax was a rather dubious feature.:-) And prototypes are... well... broken. Pseudo-hashes really could have been done a lot better. Going way back, was making $a and $b special variables for the benefit of sort() really a good idea?
If you don't like a particular feature of the language don't use it.
Some of the changes you can indeed ignore... and most Perl people are pretty tolerant both features they don't use and ambiguity in their conceptual model of the language. You don't have to fully understand Perl to use it effectively... which is good, because very few people understand it fully.
Some of the changes you can ignore at the cost of some effort. The dot-operator nonsense falls into this category. Yes, they're fixing something that ain't broken, and trying to appeal to the sensibilities of people from other languages at the expense of veteran Perl hackers. But Conway has a good point. In Perl 6, you can redefine operators. This means you can have your -> and . operators back to 'normal' without much effort.
Of course, if you thought tie() made things hard to read, this and the Unicode support could wind up producing not only different dialects, but different languages. But that's another story.
After all, the motto of perl is 'there's more than one way to do it'
That motto should properly end, '...except when there isn't.' Perl presently has reliable destructors, but circular references are the responsibility of the programmer, and may produce a memory leak if you're not careful. Soon (if all goes well), circular references will be garbage collected, but we'll lose reliable destructors. Either way, not everyone was going to be happy.
Pardon me for cutting this short, but I have to get back to work. Suffice it to say, there are good reasons to be excited, but many of people's concerns are legitimate too. There is both opportunity and danger in change.
And I bet most of the moaners and whiners never wrote a line of open source code in their lives
Would their arguments be less valid if they hadn't? Would they be more valid if they had? This is argument ad hominem, and makes no interesting point.
When (Free|Open Source) software was fresh upon
people's minds, you frequently heard people
realizing, "The Open Source movement can't
die! You can't put them out of business!".
The conclusion was often that Microsoft and
other Evil Powers were doomed.
Now that it seems clear that, unless it be
by the brute force of government, Microsoft
et. al. aren't going away soon, it has become
more interesting to wonder, "Maybe we're
the ones who are doomed! What if we
lose?"
Will we win or lose? That's the big question.
Perhaps when, after a bit, it becomes evident
that Free Software isn't going away soon either,
it will become more fashionable to consider the
answer, "no".
No, we won't win and no, we won't lose. In
fact, we were probably right in the first place;
we can't lose. That just doesn't imply that we
can win. It's possible (though, to be honest,
not certain) that we're moving towards a balance
of power between mutual, vigorous antagonists.
If this is so, than the 5% gain in MS's
webserver market share at the expense of
Apache is indeed overdue. It's
quite like Linux moving into the OS market...
the first gains are the easiest. Complete
dominance is very hard to maintain. But
that's not necessarily a dark omen for
Apache, or even a sign that Apache's not
doing all it should. In a situation where
there is more than one viable (I certainly
won't say high-quality) alternative, different
people will make different choices.
Even if this is so, of course, it's not a
call for complacency. Has Apache dropped
the ball?
The author complains that Apache is merely a
webserver, and that it doesn't take on the
additional roles that IIS does? To the
extent that the Free Software community
is a Unix community (and this happens to be
a pretty large extent) we must wonder whether
we want apache to take on other roles.
Apache "does one thing, and does it well"...
very well. In fact, it's outstanding. So
good that it makes me, for one, rather nervous
to hear folks talk about fixing it.
Why would we choose to fold web applications
into Apache? Offhand, I can think of two
reasons: simplicity for the user, and speed.
Simplicity shouldn't be discounted... sure,
people running serious websites should aspire
to great skill with their craft, but many
don't, and we know that. But simplicity for
users at the expense of vastly increased
complexity for developers is a dangerous road.
The Unix world has prospered (to an arguable
extent) by avoiding it. Likewise speed.
First and foremost, in order to develop good
software, you have to be able to understand
it. Code which pushes the limits of human
cognition usually turns out to be bad.
The divide between modular tools and
monolithic ones is one of the reasons
we have diversity... some people will
choose one type, others the other.
Maybe the Free Software community should
make both, but it's not likely to happen.
You don't see many people clamoring to
write a GPL'd Window/Mac-type OS, after all.
But back to the article... I must say, I
liked the World War II metaphor on several
levels. The very same strategy is being
used here to promote collectivism and a
monolithic power structure... it's
necessary. Sure, it's rotten, but
if we don't do it, we'll lose.
Well, if we're going to unify everything
into Apache we're going to have to pick
a technology to go with... Prasad thinks
this should be Java. It has "mindshare,
maturity, and corporate respectability",
so even though it's only free, not Free,
we should rally around it.
On the other hand, if we're going to stick
with a more modular approach... well, Java
is just another scripting language, isn't
it? It has its advocates and detractors,
but it doesn't really serve a different
role than Perl or Python or Ruby or numerous
other languages competing in that niche.
Except, of course, that it can be used to
create applets... but that's no longer
what Java's about, we're told.
In short, I don't see it. Maybe we need to
push harder into the web applications arena,
but in my mind that means pushing further
down the path that projects like Zope are
already on... more apps you run with Apache,
and with each other.
As for Stalin... well, he was an evil
son of a bitch whose only real virtue
over Hitler was that he was willing to
fight on the Allied side. We probably
did need his help. We didn't have to
hand over Eastern Europe.
Sun isn't that bad, but neither
should we hand the web over to them.
Making Java Free is today's battle.
Keeping the web Free does not require
a unified front with 100% marketshare.
In fact, freedom pretty well precludes
such; diversity is the inevitable mark
of an open society.
It's tough to find books that are both accessible
to a broad audience and likely to stand the test
of time. Computer science has its seemingly
timeless principles, but they (and the books
which capture them) are mostly abstruse from
the viewpoint of the common user.
Here are some classics which I haven't seen
posted yet:
The Unix Programming Environment
by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike
UNIX Network Programming (Vols. I & II) by W. Richard Stevens
Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment by W. Richard Stevens
The Elements of Programming Style
by Brian W. Kernighan, P. J. Plauger
Design of the Unix Operating System by
Marice J. Bach
To clarify somewhat, least the great majority
of United States laws concerning intellectual
goods are statutory, not common law. The US
pretty well scrapped any common law approach to copyright by granting congress the power to
make such laws in Article I, Section VIII,
Clause 8 of the Federal Constitution. Today
most such laws are federal. States have
some statutes regarding intellectual goods,
too... UCITA, for example. I know of no
common law on the topic; that doesn't mean
there isn't any, but there's not much.
Incidentally, "There is no body
of Federal common law separate and distinct
from the common law existing in the
several states", as Justice Brewer famously
quoth in State of Kansas v. State of
Colorado, 1907. Brandeis, in Erie R.R. Co. v.
Tompkins, 1938, stated that "There is no
federal general common law". Taking these
together, the astute reader will deduce that
there is Federal common law in the United
States, just not much. Never trust a lawyer,
after all.:-)
Federal courts, though, really aren't supposed
to expand upon the common law of the states,
and should only fabricate laws "to protect
uniquely federal interests" in the event that
statutory or state common law does not apply.
Mostly, anyway.
If you're interested, start with a Google
search on the Erie Doctrine. If you're really
interested, read The Common Law, by Oliver
Wendell Holmes.
[Gorimek]:
I don't have time to search my books for
quotes, but as I remember it he never
clearly comes out in favor of any monetary
system. He observes that commodity based
schemes have their problems, but they have
shown to be pretty workable and safe over
the centuries, and that fiat money systems
are responsible for pretty much all monetary
disasters in history.
Well, I don't really think he says that
they're responsible for all the
monetary disasters in history.
He certainly regards political meddling
in the money supply as a very bad thing,
and governments are inflationary creatures.
It might be safer to think he'd say that
bad monetary policy is the common factor
behind monetary disasters, and that fiat
currencies make bad monetary policy easy.
A fixed currency would be something
of a remedy to this. But he regards an
exchange rate, pegged directly to a
commodity, to be unworkable... and there
have certainly been monetary disasters
in partial reserve systems.
Overall I feel safe in saying that he
advocates (for large countries) floating
exchange rates, at the other end of the
spectrum entirely. The common factor
is that the role of government is limited.
[Friedman]:
'a floating exchange rate is one
in which the government does not
intervene in the exchange rate
market but allows the market to
set its own values. [Here you find]
one very interesting historical
phenomenon. No nation that has had
a floating exchange rate has ever
had external currency crisis in
international finance.'
[...]
'And I have always argued that for a large
country, like the U.S., Germany, France,
Britain -- none of them are going to be
willing to give up their independent central
banks, and therefore, the best course for
them to follow is to have a freely floating
exchange rate determined in the market. But
for small countries, they will on the whole do
better if they peg their currency, unify their
currency with a foreign currency, and avoid
having an independent central bank -- provided
that they do it with a country which is one of
their major trading partners so that a lot of
their business is being done in that currency
anyway.'
[...]
'The lesson for Asia is; if you have a central bank, have a floating exchange rate; if you want to have a fixed exchange rate, abolish your central bank and adopt a currency board instead. Either extreme; a fixed exchange rate through a currency board, but no central bank, or a central bank plus truly floating exchange rates; either of those is a tenable arrangement. But a pegged exchange rate with a central bank is a recipe for trouble.'
[Gorimek]:
I'm sorry that I let myself get dragged
down to that level, and I appreciate you
correcting it
For my part, I think I was a little harsh.
But it wasn't clear from your short reply
that you were not a crank yourself, merely
invoking a name. No offense intended.
It's worth noting that many prominent
economists, including Nobel price winner
Milton Friedman, agrees with this "moron".
They have taken economics 101.
Um... no. Some of us actually have
read Milton Friedman. To state Professor
Friedman's conclusion first, for the impatient:
'My conclusion is that an automatic commodity
standard is neither a feasible nor a desireable
solution to the problem of establishing monetary
arrangements for a free society.'
The following passages are excerpted from
Capitalism and Freedom. It's really
an excellent book, if you're into this sort
of thing. Keep in mind, though, this was
written in 1962, so the 'current situation'
isn't very current.
'The fundamenal defect of a commodity standard,
from the point of view of the society as a
whole, is that it requires the use of real
resources to add to the stock of money. People
must work hard to dig gold out of the ground
in South Africa -- in order to rebury it in
Fort Knox or some similar place. The necessity
of using real resources for the operation of a
commodity standard establishes a strong
incentive for people to find ways to achieve
the same results without employing these
resources.'
[...]
'But, as just noted, such an automatic system
has historically never proved feasible.'
[...]
'It should be noted that despite the great
amount of talk by many people in favor of the
gold standard, almost no one today literally
desires an honest-to-goodness, full gold
standard. People who say they want a gold
standard are almost invariably talking about
the present kind of standard, [ed.
1962]
or the kind of standard that was maintained in
the 1930's; a gold standard managed by a
central bank or other governmental bureau,
which holds a small amount of gold as "backing"
-- to use that very misleading term -- for
fiduciary money. Some do go as far as to
favor the kind of standard maintained in the
1920's, in which there was literal circulation
of gold or gold certificates as hand-to-hand
currency -- a gold-coin standard -- but even
they favor the co-existence with gold of
governmental fiduciary currency plus deposits
issued by banks holding fractional reserves
in either gold or fiduciary currency. Even
during the so-called great days of the gold
standard in the nineteenth century, when the
Bank of England was supposedly running the
gold standard skillfully, the monetary system
was far from a fully automatic gold standard.'
The Third (and the Ninth) mean what
they both say.
Which is just what I said. Or can you
point out to me an occasion when the
ennumeration of certain rights in the
Constitution was actually used to deny
or disparage others?
Statutory laws have been used many times
to deny and disparage people's rights. The
ennumerated rights have not. End of story.
To put it in simple terms, privacy's
not there, so privacy's there.
How do you know it's there?
Really. How? Because it fits with your
political theories of the proper role of
government? Other people have different
beliefs, and will extrapolate different
rights. Can you prove that your notion
of rights is the true one? I have to
doubt it.
What we have in common are laws. We have
enough trouble deciding what they
mean, but at least they're tangible.
Your flossing example rings
only-too-true these days, frankly
it makes my point better than it
makes yours
I disagree. I don't think it makes your
case at all. The fact that a law is bad
does not make that law unconstitutional.
The fact that you'd like a particular law
to be unconstitutional does not make that
law unconstitutional either. It does not
even mean they should be unconstitutional,
really.
If a law is bad, that just means that that
law shouldn't have been passed. Same way
that if a constituional provision is bad,
it just means it's a provision which
shouldn't have been passed. Some bad sorts
of laws we have categorically proscribed;
others we haven't.
I've never said that judges should be able to argue laws into existence on the basis of the Ninth
Nor have you said what would prevent them
from doing so if they chose. Sure, they
do that now; you're championing a reading
of the Ninth which would vastly increase
their ability to do so. A broad
interpretation of the Ninth inherently
involves increasing judicial power. It
does not inherently involve your notion
of how that power should be used.
Granted, if the judges used their power
wisely, as you suggest, all would be
well. Is this a good strategy for us
to pursue, then, to protect what liberty
we have? I think it an exceedingly poor
strategy.
Besides which, the Court is under no
obligation to the Constitution that
Congress is not under also. Why not
convince Congressmen to repeal laws
which violate our unwritten rights?
At least we can attempt to do this
without giving them more power than
they already have.
Think of a ratchet that only turns one way
That's obviously what you're thinking of.
Convince me it'll only turn one way. Either
tell me that your reading will not increase
Judicial power, or furnish me with some
guarantee that it's a one-way rachet.
All of our political history has been
spent in search of a one-way rachet.
The "textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct" in the case of a 'fair wage' would be
the contract clause
That's not much of a boundry. Right off the
bat, it wouldn't stop federal courts from
declaring 'fair wage' rights at all. And
even the state courts wouldn't have to
impair the obligation of contracts; they
could forbid people to enter into certain
sorts of contracts. Greasy? Sure. What
will you do, take them to court?
To the extent that we don't have unpopular
'positions' being decreed by an unelected
judiciary, it's a good thing, not a bad one.
The "So what" about the tax-&-spend
drugwar's racist past is that a lot
fewer people know about it (or admit
it) than should
Should why? For educational purposes? Sure.
But I see no way in which this bears on our
political evaluation of the laws themselves.
Just look at the crack vs powder disparity
of the US sentencing commission, which
should upset you much more than it
apparently does, since it usurps judicial
determinations of leniency in many cases.
I do not, in general, approve of the ability
of judges to pick and choose punishments for
crimes. It is my opinion that punishments
should be as objectively determined and
applied as possible; I can think of few
reasons why two people who break the same
law should receive different punishments.
If there's racism about, it's more in the
fact that courts sentence blacks more harshly
for the same crimes. Again, I call for
reigning in the judiciary.
Go visit any US prison, look at the drug
inmates, and remember that this country
is about 11% black. If you see 11% black
inmates, I want to know what prison it is.
Typical rates are more like over 50%.
Murder rates amongst blacks are much higher
than amongst whites, also. Are our murder
laws racist also?
This is simply not a cogent line of reasoning.
Further, to view things in such a way denies
individuals the sort of personal responsibility
which life in a free society requires. People
break the law of their own choice, not because
they are black or white. Nothing in the act
of outlawing a particular drug usurps the
rights of people of one race over those of
another. Whatever the punishment is for crack
or power cocaine, the laws do not curtail
my freedom more or less than another's
whatever his race.
Now it is my opinion that such laws are bad
ones. If I had my way, most of these drugs
would be made legal, and non-violent 'offenders'
promptly released. This would, as you point
out, benefit more black people than white
people; but neither would my choice be a
racist one for favoring blacks. Those
consequences would be incidental.
The problem with seeing the Tenth in
the absence of the Ninth is that Tallahassee
can then take over where Washington DC left
off in the oppression-game.
Indeed, state soverignty is not an
unproblematic policy. It is, however,
an undeniable feature of our Constitution.
The fact that this may have unpalatable
implications does not make it otherwise.
since the Ninth (IMO) covers recreational
drug use (like it or not)
It would be hard to put the paradox of your
postion more succinctly. 'In your opinion',
'like it or not'. What does this mean? I
agree that it is your opinion. I do not
agree with your opinion, but I agree that
it is your opinion, 'like it or not'. You
seem to mean also that it's the Truth,
'like it or not', as if the Truth of the
Ninth Amendment were some Platonic
thing-a-ma-jig, to which you had some strange
congnitive access. If this is the case,
please explain it.
If you think that the Ninth (or the
Third, for that matter) is an inkblot,
then by all means, go argue for repeal!
Why on earth would I do that? I approve of
both of them. I am pleased that soldiers
are not being forcibly quartered in people's
houses in times of peace, and I am glad that
our ennumerated rights are not being construed
to deny or disparage other rights. I just don't
think they're particularly significant
amendments. The most obvious reading seems to
support my view.
1993: Windows NT (3.5) will have 80% of
the desktop market within 2 years of release
1994: Internet will grow to 6 million
users by 2005
1995: Cobol is used in over 65% of
new application development
1996: Windows NT 4.0 will have 80% of
the internet server market by 1998.
1996: Cobol is the world's
'premier language for application deployment'
and 'there should be no worries about the
viability of COBOL for any project on any
platform'
1987: 75 percent of the Internet
services for large enterprises will move to
usage-based pricing by 2001
1998: '[Y2K] failures in less developed countries, smaller companies, and companies with high global dependencies will cause a negative impact to the world economy'
1999: Linux is 'Hype du Jour'. 'The
lack of standards in the Linux community,
coupled with a lack of key productivity
applications and with Unix complexity, will
continue to make Linux a poor choice for the
mainstream business productivity user'. It
soon appears that Microsoft sponsored
the study. Gartner Group denies, but also
quickly pulls the page from their site.
Here's
a biased synopsis
The Ninth can be called an inkblot,
in my opinion, for the same reason
the Third can. Not because it is
unimportant, but because it's never
become an issue. The rights enumerated
in the Constitution never have been
used to disparage other rights.
The powers of the Federal Congress, for
instance, are exhaustive; it is perfectly
correct to argue that, if the authority
is not granted in Article I, Section VII,
the US Congress may not do it.
It is not correct to argue, however, that
because the right of an individual to do
something is not listed in the Bill of
Rights, or elsewhere in the Constitution,
that individual may not do it.
If this sort of argument were possible,
it would easily allow judges to argue laws
into existence, and circumvent the
legislature.
So you're quite right to say that it's
not an exhaustive list. I have the
Constitutionally protected right to
petition for redress of my grievances,
and the Constitutionally unprotected
right to floss my teeth before bedtime.
The difference is that a law might
legitimately be passed to prevent my
flossing, if the dentists' lobby found
it was losing money.:-)
I found this comment to be particularly
interesting:
one of those "others" is privacy,
like it or not
It is? Whether I like it or not? Because,
I suppose, you *do* like it. Well, frankly,
I like it too, but to the contrary, it
ain't there. Should be, IMO, but
is not.
Along the same line, though, which
other rights do we have, whether we like
them or not? The right to health insurance?
The right to a fair wage? The right to
affordable daycare? I've heard these things
and others argued by people in high positions.
There are no textual bounds on the rights
the courts can concoct for me, so any
distinction you make between uses of the
word 'right' are bound to be contentious and
easily usurped. Having abandoned the need to
write down our laws, perhaps they'll give me
the right to a new car; that would be nice, anyway.
Following your expansive interpretation of
the Ninth, it's hard to see any real
distinction between the Legislature and the
Judiciary, except that the judges are more
dangerous and less accountable lawmakers.
It's a cheerful fantasy to think that,
given such unlimited power, the Judiciary
would prove to be wise and benevolent rulers,
protecting our freedom. One might entertain
the same hopes about kings, with as much
historical grounding.
I must say as well that it seems very ironic
that you'd quote Jefferson, that great advocate
of judicial restraint, to support your position.
A few of many quotes which give a better view
of Jefferson's opinion of judicial activism:
...their decisions, seeming to concern
individual suitors only, pass silent and
unheeded by the public at large; that these
decisions nevertheless become law by precedent,
sapping by little and little the foundations
of the Constitution and working its change by
construction before any one has perceived that
that invisible and helpless worm has been
busily employed in consuming its substance.
This member of government was at first
considered as the most harmless of all
its organs. But it has proved that the
power of declaring what law is, ad libitum,
by sapping and mining, slyly, and without
alarm, the foundations of the Constitution,
can do what open force would not dare to
attempt
The concrete nature of law is one of the
greatest things we have in defense of liberty.
Viewing the Ninth as a carte blanche for
(especially unelected Federal) officials to
make up what rights suit their tastes is not
only textually unjustified, but would be
practically disasterous.
A few other points:
The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is... provably-racist roots in the past
So what? The Federal Constitution itself
has self-evidently racist roots. We still
use it.
and provably racist effects today,
Umm... what is a 'racist effect'? People
may be racists; motives may be racist;
effects are just effects. Even looking
past your wording to what I believe you're
saying here, this point is hard to justify
in my view. As it happens, I would like to
see most drugs legalized, and most federal
drug laws struck down on 10th Amendment
grounds, but that's another matter.
Only one organization has a publicly and legally recognized obligation in this arena, and that's a government.
Certainly not. The public expects certain
standards of conduct from businesses, which
is why the businesses are so often worried
about "public relations". A company's image
has a very real effect on their bottom line.
Imperfect as this may be, it is very hard to
see that those who make the decisions in
government embody a higher standard of public
obligation than those who make decisions for
private businesses.
Your latter point is wholly circular. The
government is under fewer legal
obligations than anyone. Obviously. They
make the laws, and, without exception, can
change them.
This is industry unchecked: a machine with no regard for humanity.
*Industry* unchecked is a machine with no
regard for humanity? In case you missed the
news last century, governments turned the
furnaces on more people than a couple of
chimney sweeps. Links available upon request,
if you actually need them.
Well, of course you're going to have a faster
network if everybody's using
Lynx!
Sorry. Had to say it.
But seriously... it's old stuff, but many may
not be familiar with George Gilder's interesting
articles, particularly Into the Fibersphere, on the implications of really, really fast
networks. Like the notion that computers may
become the bottleneck in the network, and that
a packet would be better routed to the other
side of the world and back through pure fiber,
rather than though the computer next door and
back. And how compression becomes passe when
it's slower to decompress something than to
send the thing uncompressed.
Interesting observation: when computing power
was expensive, programmers were paid to conserve
it, writing very tight assembly code. Now that
it's cheap, programmers are expected to "throw
switches at the problem". But bandwidth is
expensive, so they write to conserve it.
On an all-fiber network, they may be expected
to "throw bandwidth at the problem".
Lots of good stuff here, especially considering
it was written in 1995. Hope you like it.
Anonymous speech has a long and illustrious
history, both in writing an in literature.
Writing anonymously can be the only way to
speak out against oppressive laws and
governments without fear of retribution. And
freedom often seems to be an all-or-nothing issue on the Internet.
It is interesting to note the tradition anonymity
has in American Politics. Tracts like Paine's Common Sense were originally published anonymously. And after the revolution, highly influential papers like those in the Anti-Federalist Papers were penned under names like "Centinel" and "Federal Farmer".
Anonymity can serve as a check on the power of government (not to mention the wraith of the masses). There is a compromise, of course. If one can speak anonymously, one is safe to publish lies and slander. And it's rapidly coming to mean that you can publish hard-core kiddy porn and nuclear weapon schematics too.
Oh, well. Nobody said freedom was perfect. The alternative is to place your trust in your government, and hope no utterance you make ever comes to be regarded as seditious.
Me? Well, I guess it's enough to note that my real name isn't "Skald":-)
Come on! The "Whom do we sue?" line of FUD is a
particularly tired one. You must make choices
in life, and none of them are safe.
No, you can't order around people who are under
no obligation to you. Neither can you order around
Microsoft, Oracle, or a lot of other large vendors, unless you're quite the Big Business indeed. So how is this different from saying, "there no fix for the problem yet, but it's expected in the next service pack"?
A lot of Free and/or Open Source software seems
to be less buggy than their commercial counterparts in the first place. And you have
the choice to fix it yourself, or hire someone
(perhaps the authors) to do so in a timely fashion. If neither of these factors satisfies you, or applies in your case, buy the commercial alternative. But don't delude yourself. As MacArthur said, "There is no security on this earth. There is only opportunity."
Okay, obviously you've been listening to the
Olympic folks. They make a big to-do about some
of the projects where they throw their nickels
and dimes. The large picture is quite different.
The IOC has been continuously thinning out the
ranks of the athletes; such aid as they give to
athletes from poorer countries is simply for
PR purposes, to keep those countries from going wholly unrepresented.
While they've been adding sports, the IOC has cut back events, weight classes, and numbers of participants across the boards, in order to minimize the number of participants in any given sport. When you think about it, it makes sense: the media is only going to cover a little bit
of any given sport, and having depth beyond that
is expensive and wasteful from a commercial standpoint. One of the other strategies they've
used is to require countries to qualify athletes. The problem is, left unchecked these measures would pretty well guarantee that some countries would have no athletes in the games.
So they make allowances for underrepresented countries, and they run some provisional programs to try to bring the athletes from these countries to the point where they don't look like fools in the Games.
Naturally, these programs are nice, too, when they're talking to IBM or UPS and trying to get funding. So they make sure that their media partners, during the Olympic year when the IOC and USOC gets 90% of their sponsorship, paint a picture in which the wealth generated by the Olympics is used primarily for charitable causes. Bunk. They've got better uses for their money. And FYI, there were more athletes from poor countries participating in 1976, when each country had a *right* to send a representative in each sport.
If you force the television networks to compete with the internet
Now that's an interesting turn of phrase. If you have free speech, you're forcing people to compete. Geez, sounds downright nasty. Perhaps you're right; maybe we should protect the television networks from this brutal use of force by strongly encouraging everyone else to keep their traps shut.
Gore: I totally support the war on drugs, but I'm concerned about racial profiling, and discrimination against the poor. I am, therefore, proposing a "blind warrant" policy, to ensure fairer treatment. By regularly issuing search warrants for random addresses, we can continue to protect America's children from the scourge of drugs, while taking the taint of racism and class warfare out of the picture.
Bush:mmm... drugs... Sorry, what was the question?
2) Minority Religions...
Gore: I have always supported minority religions, and will always continue to do so. My track record on this subject speaks for itself.
Thank goodness they didn't ask about majority religions...
Bush:Dang... what was it... "I support Religion, but not Minorities?" No, that's not right. "I support Minorities... " hmm that sounds funny, like something Ted Kennedy'd say. Uhh...
"Yes"
3) Why give a tax cut?
Gore:That's really an insightful question. The fact is that, as Galbraith showed long ago, unregulated economies are subject to bust and boom cycles. When the economy is weak, it's necessary to raise taxes, so that government spending can stimulate the economy. Naturally anybody with extra money will be trying to hide it in his
sock drawer.
On the other hand, if the economy's stronger,
it is necessary to raise taxes in
order to keep the economy from getting
overstimulated. After all, nobody wants to live
in a society with an overstimulated economy.
It's like an overstimulated child; it stops
listening to the folks who know better and want
what's best for it.
So why a tax cut? Because it's so darned hard to talk the voters out of it. The best we can hope
for is to try to minimize the damage, and keep the
door open for the eventual triumph of the
proletariat. Um... middle class.
Bush: Sounds to me like you been listening to a lot of that Washington fuzzy math. I can tell, you're going to pull out numbers next, and there's no sense talking to folks who do math with numbers, 'cuz you just can't trust them. I'm giving the American people a tax cut because it's their money, and they earned it. folks love it when I say that...
4) electoral reform
Gore: I totally support third party activity, and I think it's a shame that there are no alternative candidates running for the presidency.
Bush: I agree, and I applaud my opponent's position. Too bad there are only two parties. Next question.
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
Gore: I am running an open-source campaign, and my White House will be an open-source White House. My web page runs on Linus.
Bush: You see, this is just where you can really see the differences between my views and those of my opponent. My vision applies to all Americans, not just a priviledged few.
Rather than give "targeted tax cuts" to a certain class of people, my tax cuts will apply to everyone. Even though intellectuals are mostly big government liberals, I would protect their property like everyone else's. Everyone benefits under my plan.
6) Encryption....
Gore: I believe my history on this topic speaks for itself. After all, I invented the Clipper Chip.
You did?
Initiative. The Clipper Chip Initiative.
Really?
Supported. I supported the Clipper Chip Initiative. You conservative reporters are putting words in my mouth.
Bush: Ah can wiggle mah ears. *wiggle* See that? *wiggle wiggle*
---------------
I'll cut it short there... really should get back to work.:-P
Roe v. Wade is indeed liable to be reversed. But
whether this is a good or a bad thing, from your
point of view, depends only secondarily on what
you think of abortion. First you must decide
whether you believe the end justifies the means.
I believe the US Constitution should contain a
guarantee of privacy. It doesn't. Neither does
the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee a woman's
right to an abortion, except under the most wilful misinterpretation.
Maybe it should. I'd change the Constitution in a bunch of ways, if I could. Fine as it is, it's far from a perfect document.
Anyway, I personally don't give a hoot about abortion one way or another. But I detest the notion that the Constitution, or any other law, is a "living document", whose evolution is determined solely by a handful of unelected goverment officials. If the law can be bent so easily in a (debatably) "good cause", it can offer little protection when the wind changes.
When the end is used to justify the means, the end all too often turns out much, much worse. The degradation of our constitutionally ennumerated rights is, IMHO, a result of the same judicial activism that decided Roe v. Wade. For this reason, I will use my vote to try to achieve the very court that you warn of.
I would say that you're factually wrong on this point:
if ONE Supreme Court justice is replaced by another yes-man like Clarence Thomas, abortion rights are history.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion rights by Federal Judicial fiat are history. Abortion issues then devolve to state legislatures and constitutions... to the more normal processes of democracy. This is far from saying abortion shall be banned, or that abortion rights are history.
So... I'm thinking the biggest breakthrough here
will be for indoor marijuana growers, who will
no longer have to consume suspiciously large amounts of electricity in order to nourish their kind bud?
I deal with linuxwebhost.com (since that sad day when MassLinux vanished!).
They run Red Hat, have a lot of good tools
installed, and are pretty reasonable to deal with.
If you need something that doesn't quite fit with what they've got, you can generally talk to them about it. There's some
slight inconvenience because they're really
paranoid about security... but that's not all
bad, after all.
Here are their rates... rounded up, because I
hate it when people say "$9.95/month". They
can have the nickel.
Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads
Sure. Big difference between establishing Post Offices and making it illegal for anyone else to carry certain classes of mail. The former is, as you point out, clearly constitutional.
As for a monopoly, what is UPS?
Not a legally mandated monopoly. And there is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about the monopoly UPS has on parcel post. Competition is legal, and UPS is subject to anti-trust legislation designed to prevent abuse of monopoly power. Competition for the first class mail market is illegal, and the USPS is not subject to anti-trust laws.
So, really, you're comparing apples to oranges. I know of nobody who has a problem with the existence of a US Post Office.
Incidentally... why do I care? The US Postal Service has used their power to:
Attempt, repeatedly, to ban or control email
Keep databases on the types of mail people receive. "We know who skis, who fly-fishes, who goes to the movies," - William Henderson, USPS chief operating officer
Force private mailbox providers to collect and
report information on their clients... information which Congress forbade the USPS to collect on renters of ordinary Post Office Boxes
Overcharge first class mail customers (who have no choice) in order to subsidize third class commercial (junk mail) customers.
And do, or attempt to do, a host of other disreputable things, too many to mention here. Plenty of reading on the topic out there, if you care to look.
Look at the US Constitution... it's always a favorite topic on Slashdot. Look at Article I, Section VIII. The powers of the federal legislature are ennumerated there. Where do they allow for the Digital Millenium Copyright Act?
For the Communications Decency Act? For the Clipper Chip Initiative? For a postal monopoly? Hell, for half the problematic federal laws we've got.
They don't. The Constitution, read as written, would prevent all these things. Problem is, it would prevent Dr. Brin's "social engineering", too. If you believe that the US Federal Government is really responsible for the blossoming of the middle class in the 20th century, maybe it'd be best to take his advice, and hope we can influence the legislature to make amends.
For my own part, I can neither see that social engineering is compatible with freedom, or responsible for prosperity. And I sure as hell don't trust Congressfolk, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise.
I don't much trust businessfolk either... at least big businessfolk, like Gates and Ellison. But it seems to me that it's their influence over government that really poses the greatest
threat. Again, limit the sorts of laws Congress can make.
For that matter, I don't really trust the rich. But if Gates and I can both get an X% tax cut, fine by me. Why? Because I don't compare myself to those above me. I don't spend my time worrying about their lordly children, or where they ski, as the author seems to do.
And please... don't tell me that we're "spending money" on anyone by not taking as much of their money. That's really obvious... I like my propaganda mild, with milk and sugar.
First of all, the states were always free to
prohibit alcohol. The Commerce Clause allowed
the Feds to regulate interstate commerce...
and while this was intended as a means to control
interstate trade wars and punitive tariffs, the
text does not specify what sort of regulation.
So even at that time, the Feds could ban
interstate transport of alcohol.
But the key difference between the '20s and today
is the status of the Commerce Clause. Up until
the early 1930s, the Supreme Court followed what
is now known as the "qualitative interpretation",
narrowly construing it to mean something like,
"if it's commerce, and it's interstate, the Feds
may regulate it". The 10th amendment would have
prevented a federal statute banning drugs.
Along comes FDR, an amazingly powerful president.
To cut a long story short, he made the
"quantitative interpretation" the accepted one.
This might be paraphrased as, "if it affects
interstate commerce in any way, the Feds may
regulate it". It would be impossible to overstate
the impact of this change... it's the foundation
of the US government we know today.
In the 1919, the Supreme Court would have struck
down a statutory Prohibition. By the 1940s, they
wouldn't have. And while I think you'll still
find that today the Feds leave a lot of drug
stuff to the states (likely for financial
reasons), they might change this policy if
Alaska or New Mexico legalizes marijuana.
This is a much-abridged version of a very
interesting story, by the way. If you'd like a
nice introduction from the "new federalist"
perspective (or bias, as you choose), check this
Cato
article. Note especially the somewhat
shocking (to me:-) ) case, Wickard v. Filburn.
With four justices poised to retire, and two
more solidly in the minority camp, this is
the issue of this presidential
election. Judicial activism, or judicial
restraint. The principals know it, but
most folks don't understand it, so the dialogue
remains focused on details of this or that
program.
On one side, advocates of free speech, on the
other, folks who cry, "Free Education". Microsoft
wants their freedom to innovate... you know,
about the only folks who seem to dislike the
word are the politicians here in America.
Certainly didn't get mentioned much in the
recent debates... oh, except when talking about
other parts of the world, where they lack it (more than we do). Even then, they prefer to talk
about "democracy".
Well, it's nice someone's promoting free
education by keeping people from reading about
what's said in college classrooms. Now if we
could only round up those darned books...
I kinda think the Supreme Court can do whatever the hell they want in matters of law, cause there ain't nobody higher than them to appeal to.
Congress has the potential to get involved, if we do assume that the Supreme Court does something incredibly unethical. Article III of the Constitution places much of the disposition of the Judicial system under the control of Congress. It's hard to say what direct action they could legitimately take, since the thing's pretty vague. The courts have, by tradition, been the interpreters of the constitution, and would doubtless say that whatever Congress tried to do was illegitimate. The Judicial system's constitutional custodianship is, however, self-appointed, so who knows.
But practically, Congress could probably bully them into doing what they wanted. FDR, who could bully Congress, got the Court to do a 180 on the Commerce Clause by threatening to pack the courts with extra justices (even though the plan flopped).
The Senate could impeach any or all of the justices as well.
And, of course, Microsoft has recourse to the president, who can pardon them. Now that would be interesting... Bush gets elected, and pardons Clinton's quarry. It'd probably get him impeached... but then Ford got away with pardoning Nixon, so again, who knows.
Oh... you meant what recourse they'd realistically have? None.:-) Nobody wants a constitutional crisis, and Microsoft'd just be screwed.
I've tried so hard, hard to be patient,
Hoping you'd stop this investigation -
But each time the prosecution takes the stand I'm
So afraid I'll have to learn the command line...
Slashdot Mirror
Why is it that people who want to change things inevitably choose the label 'progressive'?
Perl isn't perfect, nor ever was. But that doesn't mean that any change is a good change. Not to say those developing Perl have made mistakes before... I'm not that bold... but let's just say that indirect object syntax was a rather dubious feature.
If you don't like a particular feature of the language don't use it.
Some of the changes you can indeed ignore... and most Perl people are pretty tolerant both features they don't use and ambiguity in their conceptual model of the language. You don't have to fully understand Perl to use it effectively... which is good, because very few people understand it fully.
Some of the changes you can ignore at the cost of some effort. The dot-operator nonsense falls into this category. Yes, they're fixing something that ain't broken, and trying to appeal to the sensibilities of people from other languages at the expense of veteran Perl hackers. But Conway has a good point. In Perl 6, you can redefine operators. This means you can have your -> and . operators back to 'normal' without much effort.
Of course, if you thought tie() made things hard to read, this and the Unicode support could wind up producing not only different dialects, but different languages. But that's another story.
After all, the motto of perl is 'there's more than one way to do it'
That motto should properly end, '...except when there isn't.' Perl presently has reliable destructors, but circular references are the responsibility of the programmer, and may produce a memory leak if you're not careful. Soon (if all goes well), circular references will be garbage collected, but we'll lose reliable destructors. Either way, not everyone was going to be happy.
Pardon me for cutting this short, but I have to get back to work. Suffice it to say, there are good reasons to be excited, but many of people's concerns are legitimate too. There is both opportunity and danger in change.
And I bet most of the moaners and whiners never wrote a line of open source code in their lives
Would their arguments be less valid if they hadn't? Would they be more valid if they had? This is argument ad hominem, and makes no interesting point.
Now that it seems clear that, unless it be by the brute force of government, Microsoft et. al. aren't going away soon, it has become more interesting to wonder, "Maybe we're the ones who are doomed! What if we lose?"
Will we win or lose? That's the big question. Perhaps when, after a bit, it becomes evident that Free Software isn't going away soon either, it will become more fashionable to consider the answer, "no".
No, we won't win and no, we won't lose. In fact, we were probably right in the first place; we can't lose. That just doesn't imply that we can win. It's possible (though, to be honest, not certain) that we're moving towards a balance of power between mutual, vigorous antagonists.
If this is so, than the 5% gain in MS's webserver market share at the expense of Apache is indeed overdue. It's quite like Linux moving into the OS market... the first gains are the easiest. Complete dominance is very hard to maintain. But that's not necessarily a dark omen for Apache, or even a sign that Apache's not doing all it should. In a situation where there is more than one viable (I certainly won't say high-quality) alternative, different people will make different choices.
Even if this is so, of course, it's not a call for complacency. Has Apache dropped the ball?
The author complains that Apache is merely a webserver, and that it doesn't take on the additional roles that IIS does? To the extent that the Free Software community is a Unix community (and this happens to be a pretty large extent) we must wonder whether we want apache to take on other roles. Apache "does one thing, and does it well"... very well. In fact, it's outstanding. So good that it makes me, for one, rather nervous to hear folks talk about fixing it.
Why would we choose to fold web applications into Apache? Offhand, I can think of two reasons: simplicity for the user, and speed. Simplicity shouldn't be discounted... sure, people running serious websites should aspire to great skill with their craft, but many don't, and we know that. But simplicity for users at the expense of vastly increased complexity for developers is a dangerous road. The Unix world has prospered (to an arguable extent) by avoiding it. Likewise speed. First and foremost, in order to develop good software, you have to be able to understand it. Code which pushes the limits of human cognition usually turns out to be bad.
The divide between modular tools and monolithic ones is one of the reasons we have diversity... some people will choose one type, others the other. Maybe the Free Software community should make both, but it's not likely to happen. You don't see many people clamoring to write a GPL'd Window/Mac-type OS, after all.
But back to the article... I must say, I liked the World War II metaphor on several levels. The very same strategy is being used here to promote collectivism and a monolithic power structure... it's necessary. Sure, it's rotten, but if we don't do it, we'll lose.
Well, if we're going to unify everything into Apache we're going to have to pick a technology to go with... Prasad thinks this should be Java. It has "mindshare, maturity, and corporate respectability", so even though it's only free, not Free, we should rally around it.
On the other hand, if we're going to stick with a more modular approach... well, Java is just another scripting language, isn't it? It has its advocates and detractors, but it doesn't really serve a different role than Perl or Python or Ruby or numerous other languages competing in that niche. Except, of course, that it can be used to create applets... but that's no longer what Java's about, we're told.
In short, I don't see it. Maybe we need to push harder into the web applications arena, but in my mind that means pushing further down the path that projects like Zope are already on... more apps you run with Apache, and with each other.
As for Stalin... well, he was an evil son of a bitch whose only real virtue over Hitler was that he was willing to fight on the Allied side. We probably did need his help. We didn't have to hand over Eastern Europe.
Sun isn't that bad, but neither should we hand the web over to them. Making Java Free is today's battle. Keeping the web Free does not require a unified front with 100% marketshare. In fact, freedom pretty well precludes such; diversity is the inevitable mark of an open society.
Here are some classics which I haven't seen posted yet:
Incidentally, "There is no body of Federal common law separate and distinct from the common law existing in the several states", as Justice Brewer famously quoth in State of Kansas v. State of Colorado, 1907. Brandeis, in Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 1938, stated that "There is no federal general common law". Taking these together, the astute reader will deduce that there is Federal common law in the United States, just not much. Never trust a lawyer, after all. :-)
Federal courts, though, really aren't supposed to expand upon the common law of the states, and should only fabricate laws "to protect uniquely federal interests" in the event that statutory or state common law does not apply.
Mostly, anyway.
If you're interested, start with a Google search on the Erie Doctrine. If you're really interested, read The Common Law, by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Well, I don't really think he says that they're responsible for all the monetary disasters in history. He certainly regards political meddling in the money supply as a very bad thing, and governments are inflationary creatures. It might be safer to think he'd say that bad monetary policy is the common factor behind monetary disasters, and that fiat currencies make bad monetary policy easy.
A fixed currency would be something of a remedy to this. But he regards an exchange rate, pegged directly to a commodity, to be unworkable... and there have certainly been monetary disasters in partial reserve systems.
Overall I feel safe in saying that he advocates (for large countries) floating exchange rates, at the other end of the spectrum entirely. The common factor is that the role of government is limited.
There's a nice summary in a 1998 interview:
[Friedman]: 'a floating exchange rate is one in which the government does not intervene in the exchange rate market but allows the market to set its own values. [Here you find] one very interesting historical phenomenon. No nation that has had a floating exchange rate has ever had external currency crisis in international finance.'
[...]
'And I have always argued that for a large country, like the U.S., Germany, France, Britain -- none of them are going to be willing to give up their independent central banks, and therefore, the best course for them to follow is to have a freely floating exchange rate determined in the market. But for small countries, they will on the whole do better if they peg their currency, unify their currency with a foreign currency, and avoid having an independent central bank -- provided that they do it with a country which is one of their major trading partners so that a lot of their business is being done in that currency anyway.'
[...]
'The lesson for Asia is; if you have a central bank, have a floating exchange rate; if you want to have a fixed exchange rate, abolish your central bank and adopt a currency board instead. Either extreme; a fixed exchange rate through a currency board, but no central bank, or a central bank plus truly floating exchange rates; either of those is a tenable arrangement. But a pegged exchange rate with a central bank is a recipe for trouble.'
[Gorimek]: I'm sorry that I let myself get dragged down to that level, and I appreciate you correcting it
For my part, I think I was a little harsh. But it wasn't clear from your short reply that you were not a crank yourself, merely invoking a name. No offense intended.
They have taken economics 101.
Um... no. Some of us actually have read Milton Friedman. To state Professor Friedman's conclusion first, for the impatient:
'My conclusion is that an automatic commodity standard is neither a feasible nor a desireable solution to the problem of establishing monetary arrangements for a free society.'
The following passages are excerpted from Capitalism and Freedom. It's really an excellent book, if you're into this sort of thing. Keep in mind, though, this was written in 1962, so the 'current situation' isn't very current.
'The fundamenal defect of a commodity standard, from the point of view of the society as a whole, is that it requires the use of real resources to add to the stock of money. People must work hard to dig gold out of the ground in South Africa -- in order to rebury it in Fort Knox or some similar place. The necessity of using real resources for the operation of a commodity standard establishes a strong incentive for people to find ways to achieve the same results without employing these resources.'
[...]
'But, as just noted, such an automatic system has historically never proved feasible.'
[...]
'It should be noted that despite the great amount of talk by many people in favor of the gold standard, almost no one today literally desires an honest-to-goodness, full gold standard. People who say they want a gold standard are almost invariably talking about the present kind of standard, [ed. 1962] or the kind of standard that was maintained in the 1930's; a gold standard managed by a central bank or other governmental bureau, which holds a small amount of gold as "backing" -- to use that very misleading term -- for fiduciary money. Some do go as far as to favor the kind of standard maintained in the 1920's, in which there was literal circulation of gold or gold certificates as hand-to-hand currency -- a gold-coin standard -- but even they favor the co-existence with gold of governmental fiduciary currency plus deposits issued by banks holding fractional reserves in either gold or fiduciary currency. Even during the so-called great days of the gold standard in the nineteenth century, when the Bank of England was supposedly running the gold standard skillfully, the monetary system was far from a fully automatic gold standard.'
-- Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom
Which is just what I said. Or can you point out to me an occasion when the ennumeration of certain rights in the Constitution was actually used to deny or disparage others?
Statutory laws have been used many times to deny and disparage people's rights. The ennumerated rights have not. End of story.
To put it in simple terms, privacy's not there, so privacy's there.
How do you know it's there?
Really. How? Because it fits with your political theories of the proper role of government? Other people have different beliefs, and will extrapolate different rights. Can you prove that your notion of rights is the true one? I have to doubt it.
What we have in common are laws. We have enough trouble deciding what they mean, but at least they're tangible.
Your flossing example rings only-too-true these days, frankly it makes my point better than it makes yours
I disagree. I don't think it makes your case at all. The fact that a law is bad does not make that law unconstitutional. The fact that you'd like a particular law to be unconstitutional does not make that law unconstitutional either. It does not even mean they should be unconstitutional, really.
If a law is bad, that just means that that law shouldn't have been passed. Same way that if a constituional provision is bad, it just means it's a provision which shouldn't have been passed. Some bad sorts of laws we have categorically proscribed; others we haven't.
I've never said that judges should be able to argue laws into existence on the basis of the Ninth
Nor have you said what would prevent them from doing so if they chose. Sure, they do that now; you're championing a reading of the Ninth which would vastly increase their ability to do so. A broad interpretation of the Ninth inherently involves increasing judicial power. It does not inherently involve your notion of how that power should be used.
Granted, if the judges used their power wisely, as you suggest, all would be well. Is this a good strategy for us to pursue, then, to protect what liberty we have? I think it an exceedingly poor strategy.
Besides which, the Court is under no obligation to the Constitution that Congress is not under also. Why not convince Congressmen to repeal laws which violate our unwritten rights? At least we can attempt to do this without giving them more power than they already have.
Think of a ratchet that only turns one way
That's obviously what you're thinking of. Convince me it'll only turn one way. Either tell me that your reading will not increase Judicial power, or furnish me with some guarantee that it's a one-way rachet.
All of our political history has been spent in search of a one-way rachet.
The "textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct" in the case of a 'fair wage' would be the contract clause
That's not much of a boundry. Right off the bat, it wouldn't stop federal courts from declaring 'fair wage' rights at all. And even the state courts wouldn't have to impair the obligation of contracts; they could forbid people to enter into certain sorts of contracts. Greasy? Sure. What will you do, take them to court?
To the extent that we don't have unpopular 'positions' being decreed by an unelected judiciary, it's a good thing, not a bad one.
The "So what" about the tax-&-spend drugwar's racist past is that a lot fewer people know about it (or admit it) than should
Should why? For educational purposes? Sure. But I see no way in which this bears on our political evaluation of the laws themselves.
Just look at the crack vs powder disparity of the US sentencing commission, which should upset you much more than it apparently does, since it usurps judicial determinations of leniency in many cases.
I do not, in general, approve of the ability of judges to pick and choose punishments for crimes. It is my opinion that punishments should be as objectively determined and applied as possible; I can think of few reasons why two people who break the same law should receive different punishments. If there's racism about, it's more in the fact that courts sentence blacks more harshly for the same crimes. Again, I call for reigning in the judiciary.
Go visit any US prison, look at the drug inmates, and remember that this country is about 11% black. If you see 11% black inmates, I want to know what prison it is. Typical rates are more like over 50%.
Murder rates amongst blacks are much higher than amongst whites, also. Are our murder laws racist also?
This is simply not a cogent line of reasoning. Further, to view things in such a way denies individuals the sort of personal responsibility which life in a free society requires. People break the law of their own choice, not because they are black or white. Nothing in the act of outlawing a particular drug usurps the rights of people of one race over those of another. Whatever the punishment is for crack or power cocaine, the laws do not curtail my freedom more or less than another's whatever his race.
Now it is my opinion that such laws are bad ones. If I had my way, most of these drugs would be made legal, and non-violent 'offenders' promptly released. This would, as you point out, benefit more black people than white people; but neither would my choice be a racist one for favoring blacks. Those consequences would be incidental.
The problem with seeing the Tenth in the absence of the Ninth is that Tallahassee can then take over where Washington DC left off in the oppression-game.
Indeed, state soverignty is not an unproblematic policy. It is, however, an undeniable feature of our Constitution. The fact that this may have unpalatable implications does not make it otherwise.
since the Ninth (IMO) covers recreational drug use (like it or not)
It would be hard to put the paradox of your postion more succinctly. 'In your opinion', 'like it or not'. What does this mean? I agree that it is your opinion. I do not agree with your opinion, but I agree that it is your opinion, 'like it or not'. You seem to mean also that it's the Truth, 'like it or not', as if the Truth of the Ninth Amendment were some Platonic thing-a-ma-jig, to which you had some strange congnitive access. If this is the case, please explain it.
If you think that the Ninth (or the Third, for that matter) is an inkblot, then by all means, go argue for repeal!
Why on earth would I do that? I approve of both of them. I am pleased that soldiers are not being forcibly quartered in people's houses in times of peace, and I am glad that our ennumerated rights are not being construed to deny or disparage other rights. I just don't think they're particularly significant amendments. The most obvious reading seems to support my view.
The powers of the Federal Congress, for instance, are exhaustive; it is perfectly correct to argue that, if the authority is not granted in Article I, Section VII, the US Congress may not do it. It is not correct to argue, however, that because the right of an individual to do something is not listed in the Bill of Rights, or elsewhere in the Constitution, that individual may not do it. If this sort of argument were possible, it would easily allow judges to argue laws into existence, and circumvent the legislature.
So you're quite right to say that it's not an exhaustive list. I have the Constitutionally protected right to petition for redress of my grievances, and the Constitutionally unprotected right to floss my teeth before bedtime. The difference is that a law might legitimately be passed to prevent my flossing, if the dentists' lobby found it was losing money. :-)
I found this comment to be particularly interesting:
one of those "others" is privacy, like it or not
It is? Whether I like it or not? Because, I suppose, you *do* like it. Well, frankly, I like it too, but to the contrary, it ain't there. Should be, IMO, but is not.
Along the same line, though, which other rights do we have, whether we like them or not? The right to health insurance? The right to a fair wage? The right to affordable daycare? I've heard these things and others argued by people in high positions. There are no textual bounds on the rights the courts can concoct for me, so any distinction you make between uses of the word 'right' are bound to be contentious and easily usurped. Having abandoned the need to write down our laws, perhaps they'll give me the right to a new car; that would be nice, anyway.
Following your expansive interpretation of the Ninth, it's hard to see any real distinction between the Legislature and the Judiciary, except that the judges are more dangerous and less accountable lawmakers. It's a cheerful fantasy to think that, given such unlimited power, the Judiciary would prove to be wise and benevolent rulers, protecting our freedom. One might entertain the same hopes about kings, with as much historical grounding.
I must say as well that it seems very ironic that you'd quote Jefferson, that great advocate of judicial restraint, to support your position. A few of many quotes which give a better view of Jefferson's opinion of judicial activism:
This member of government was at first considered as the most harmless of all its organs. But it has proved that the power of declaring what law is, ad libitum, by sapping and mining, slyly, and without alarm, the foundations of the Constitution, can do what open force would not dare to attempt
The concrete nature of law is one of the greatest things we have in defense of liberty. Viewing the Ninth as a carte blanche for (especially unelected Federal) officials to make up what rights suit their tastes is not only textually unjustified, but would be practically disasterous.
A few other points:
The tax-&-spend war on (some) drugs is ... provably-racist roots in the past
So what? The Federal Constitution itself has self-evidently racist roots. We still use it.
and provably racist effects today,
Umm... what is a 'racist effect'? People may be racists; motives may be racist; effects are just effects. Even looking past your wording to what I believe you're saying here, this point is hard to justify in my view. As it happens, I would like to see most drugs legalized, and most federal drug laws struck down on 10th Amendment grounds, but that's another matter.
Certainly not. The public expects certain standards of conduct from businesses, which is why the businesses are so often worried about "public relations". A company's image has a very real effect on their bottom line. Imperfect as this may be, it is very hard to see that those who make the decisions in government embody a higher standard of public obligation than those who make decisions for private businesses.
Your latter point is wholly circular. The government is under fewer legal obligations than anyone. Obviously. They make the laws, and, without exception, can change them.
This is industry unchecked: a machine with no regard for humanity.
*Industry* unchecked is a machine with no regard for humanity? In case you missed the news last century, governments turned the furnaces on more people than a couple of chimney sweeps. Links available upon request, if you actually need them.
Sorry. Had to say it.
But seriously... it's old stuff, but many may not be familiar with George Gilder's interesting articles, particularly Into the Fibersphere, on the implications of really, really fast networks. Like the notion that computers may become the bottleneck in the network, and that a packet would be better routed to the other side of the world and back through pure fiber, rather than though the computer next door and back. And how compression becomes passe when it's slower to decompress something than to send the thing uncompressed.
Interesting observation: when computing power was expensive, programmers were paid to conserve it, writing very tight assembly code. Now that it's cheap, programmers are expected to "throw switches at the problem". But bandwidth is expensive, so they write to conserve it. On an all-fiber network, they may be expected to "throw bandwidth at the problem".
Lots of good stuff here, especially considering it was written in 1995. Hope you like it.
This cannot stand; Genset holds a prior patent... on thumbnails.
It is interesting to note the tradition anonymity has in American Politics. Tracts like Paine's Common Sense were originally published anonymously. And after the revolution, highly influential papers like those in the Anti-Federalist Papers were penned under names like "Centinel" and "Federal Farmer".
Anonymity can serve as a check on the power of government (not to mention the wraith of the masses). There is a compromise, of course. If one can speak anonymously, one is safe to publish lies and slander. And it's rapidly coming to mean that you can publish hard-core kiddy porn and nuclear weapon schematics too.
Oh, well. Nobody said freedom was perfect. The alternative is to place your trust in your government, and hope no utterance you make ever comes to be regarded as seditious.
Me? Well, I guess it's enough to note that my real name isn't "Skald" :-)
No, you can't order around people who are under no obligation to you. Neither can you order around Microsoft, Oracle, or a lot of other large vendors, unless you're quite the Big Business indeed. So how is this different from saying, "there no fix for the problem yet, but it's expected in the next service pack"?
A lot of Free and/or Open Source software seems to be less buggy than their commercial counterparts in the first place. And you have the choice to fix it yourself, or hire someone (perhaps the authors) to do so in a timely fashion. If neither of these factors satisfies you, or applies in your case, buy the commercial alternative. But don't delude yourself. As MacArthur said, "There is no security on this earth. There is only opportunity."
Hehehe... he said,
help fund athletes from poorer countries
Okay, obviously you've been listening to the Olympic folks. They make a big to-do about some of the projects where they throw their nickels and dimes. The large picture is quite different. The IOC has been continuously thinning out the ranks of the athletes; such aid as they give to athletes from poorer countries is simply for PR purposes, to keep those countries from going wholly unrepresented.
While they've been adding sports, the IOC has cut back events, weight classes, and numbers of participants across the boards, in order to minimize the number of participants in any given sport. When you think about it, it makes sense: the media is only going to cover a little bit of any given sport, and having depth beyond that is expensive and wasteful from a commercial standpoint. One of the other strategies they've used is to require countries to qualify athletes. The problem is, left unchecked these measures would pretty well guarantee that some countries would have no athletes in the games.
So they make allowances for underrepresented countries, and they run some provisional programs to try to bring the athletes from these countries to the point where they don't look like fools in the Games.
Naturally, these programs are nice, too, when they're talking to IBM or UPS and trying to get funding. So they make sure that their media partners, during the Olympic year when the IOC and USOC gets 90% of their sponsorship, paint a picture in which the wealth generated by the Olympics is used primarily for charitable causes. Bunk. They've got better uses for their money. And FYI, there were more athletes from poor countries participating in 1976, when each country had a *right* to send a representative in each sport.
If you force the television networks to compete with the internet
Now that's an interesting turn of phrase. If you have free speech, you're forcing people to compete. Geez, sounds downright nasty. Perhaps you're right; maybe we should protect the television networks from this brutal use of force by strongly encouraging everyone else to keep their traps shut.
Gore: I totally support the war on drugs, but I'm concerned about racial profiling, and discrimination against the poor. I am, therefore, proposing a "blind warrant" policy, to ensure fairer treatment. By regularly issuing search warrants for random addresses, we can continue to protect America's children from the scourge of drugs, while taking the taint of racism and class warfare out of the picture.
Bush: mmm... drugs... Sorry, what was the question?
2) Minority Religions...
Gore: I have always supported minority religions, and will always continue to do so. My track record on this subject speaks for itself.
Thank goodness they didn't ask about majority religions...
Bush: Dang... what was it... "I support Religion, but not Minorities?" No, that's not right. "I support Minorities... " hmm that sounds funny, like something Ted Kennedy'd say. Uhh...
"Yes"
3) Why give a tax cut?
Gore:That's really an insightful question. The fact is that, as Galbraith showed long ago, unregulated economies are subject to bust and boom cycles. When the economy is weak, it's necessary to raise taxes, so that government spending can stimulate the economy. Naturally anybody with extra money will be trying to hide it in his sock drawer.
On the other hand, if the economy's stronger, it is necessary to raise taxes in order to keep the economy from getting overstimulated. After all, nobody wants to live in a society with an overstimulated economy. It's like an overstimulated child; it stops listening to the folks who know better and want what's best for it.
So why a tax cut? Because it's so darned hard to talk the voters out of it. The best we can hope for is to try to minimize the damage, and keep the door open for the eventual triumph of the proletariat. Um... middle class.
Bush: Sounds to me like you been listening to a lot of that Washington fuzzy math. I can tell, you're going to pull out numbers next, and there's no sense talking to folks who do math with numbers, 'cuz you just can't trust them. I'm giving the American people a tax cut because it's their money, and they earned it. folks love it when I say that...
4) electoral reform
Gore: I totally support third party activity, and I think it's a shame that there are no alternative candidates running for the presidency.
Bush: I agree, and I applaud my opponent's position. Too bad there are only two parties. Next question.
5)How Do You Feel About Intellectual Property?
Gore: I am running an open-source campaign, and my White House will be an open-source White House. My web page runs on Linus.
Bush: You see, this is just where you can really see the differences between my views and those of my opponent. My vision applies to all Americans, not just a priviledged few.
Rather than give "targeted tax cuts" to a certain class of people, my tax cuts will apply to everyone. Even though intellectuals are mostly big government liberals, I would protect their property like everyone else's. Everyone benefits under my plan.
6) Encryption....
Gore: I believe my history on this topic speaks for itself. After all, I invented the Clipper Chip.
You did?
Initiative. The Clipper Chip Initiative.
Really?
Supported. I supported the Clipper Chip Initiative. You conservative reporters are putting words in my mouth.
Bush: Ah can wiggle mah ears. *wiggle* See that? *wiggle wiggle*
---------------
I'll cut it short there... really should get back to work. :-P
Roe v. Wade is indeed liable to be reversed. But whether this is a good or a bad thing, from your point of view, depends only secondarily on what you think of abortion. First you must decide whether you believe the end justifies the means.
I believe the US Constitution should contain a guarantee of privacy. It doesn't. Neither does the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee a woman's right to an abortion, except under the most wilful misinterpretation.
Maybe it should. I'd change the Constitution in a bunch of ways, if I could. Fine as it is, it's far from a perfect document.
Anyway, I personally don't give a hoot about abortion one way or another. But I detest the notion that the Constitution, or any other law, is a "living document", whose evolution is determined solely by a handful of unelected goverment officials. If the law can be bent so easily in a (debatably) "good cause", it can offer little protection when the wind changes.
When the end is used to justify the means, the end all too often turns out much, much worse. The degradation of our constitutionally ennumerated rights is, IMHO, a result of the same judicial activism that decided Roe v. Wade. For this reason, I will use my vote to try to achieve the very court that you warn of.
I would say that you're factually wrong on this point:
if ONE Supreme Court justice is replaced by another yes-man like Clarence Thomas, abortion rights are history.
If Roe v. Wade is overturned, abortion rights by Federal Judicial fiat are history. Abortion issues then devolve to state legislatures and constitutions... to the more normal processes of democracy. This is far from saying abortion shall be banned, or that abortion rights are history.
Written with respect for your opinion.
So... I'm thinking the biggest breakthrough here will be for indoor marijuana growers, who will no longer have to consume suspiciously large amounts of electricity in order to nourish their kind bud?
Here are their rates... rounded up, because I hate it when people say "$9.95/month". They can have the nickel.
Sure. Big difference between establishing Post Offices and making it illegal for anyone else to carry certain classes of mail. The former is, as you point out, clearly constitutional.
As for a monopoly, what is UPS?
Not a legally mandated monopoly. And there is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about the monopoly UPS has on parcel post. Competition is legal, and UPS is subject to anti-trust legislation designed to prevent abuse of monopoly power. Competition for the first class mail market is illegal, and the USPS is not subject to anti-trust laws.
So, really, you're comparing apples to oranges. I know of nobody who has a problem with the existence of a US Post Office.
Incidentally... why do I care? The US Postal Service has used their power to:
And do, or attempt to do, a host of other disreputable things, too many to mention here. Plenty of reading on the topic out there, if you care to look.
They don't. The Constitution, read as written, would prevent all these things. Problem is, it would prevent Dr. Brin's "social engineering", too. If you believe that the US Federal Government is really responsible for the blossoming of the middle class in the 20th century, maybe it'd be best to take his advice, and hope we can influence the legislature to make amends.
For my own part, I can neither see that social engineering is compatible with freedom, or responsible for prosperity. And I sure as hell don't trust Congressfolk, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise.
I don't much trust businessfolk either... at least big businessfolk, like Gates and Ellison. But it seems to me that it's their influence over government that really poses the greatest threat. Again, limit the sorts of laws Congress can make.
For that matter, I don't really trust the rich. But if Gates and I can both get an X% tax cut, fine by me. Why? Because I don't compare myself to those above me. I don't spend my time worrying about their lordly children, or where they ski, as the author seems to do.
And please... don't tell me that we're "spending money" on anyone by not taking as much of their money. That's really obvious... I like my propaganda mild, with milk and sugar.
Geez, I've gone over my two minutes...
First of all, the states were always free to prohibit alcohol. The Commerce Clause allowed the Feds to regulate interstate commerce... and while this was intended as a means to control interstate trade wars and punitive tariffs, the text does not specify what sort of regulation. So even at that time, the Feds could ban interstate transport of alcohol.
But the key difference between the '20s and today is the status of the Commerce Clause. Up until the early 1930s, the Supreme Court followed what is now known as the "qualitative interpretation", narrowly construing it to mean something like, "if it's commerce, and it's interstate, the Feds may regulate it". The 10th amendment would have prevented a federal statute banning drugs.
Along comes FDR, an amazingly powerful president. To cut a long story short, he made the "quantitative interpretation" the accepted one. This might be paraphrased as, "if it affects interstate commerce in any way, the Feds may regulate it". It would be impossible to overstate the impact of this change... it's the foundation of the US government we know today.
In the 1919, the Supreme Court would have struck down a statutory Prohibition. By the 1940s, they wouldn't have. And while I think you'll still find that today the Feds leave a lot of drug stuff to the states (likely for financial reasons), they might change this policy if Alaska or New Mexico legalizes marijuana.
This is a much-abridged version of a very interesting story, by the way. If you'd like a nice introduction from the "new federalist" perspective (or bias, as you choose), check this Cato article. Note especially the somewhat shocking (to me :-) ) case, Wickard v. Filburn.
With four justices poised to retire, and two more solidly in the minority camp, this is the issue of this presidential election. Judicial activism, or judicial restraint. The principals know it, but most folks don't understand it, so the dialogue remains focused on details of this or that program.
Well, it's nice someone's promoting free education by keeping people from reading about what's said in college classrooms. Now if we could only round up those darned books...
Congress has the potential to get involved, if we do assume that the Supreme Court does something incredibly unethical. Article III of the Constitution places much of the disposition of the Judicial system under the control of Congress. It's hard to say what direct action they could legitimately take, since the thing's pretty vague. The courts have, by tradition, been the interpreters of the constitution, and would doubtless say that whatever Congress tried to do was illegitimate. The Judicial system's constitutional custodianship is, however, self-appointed, so who knows.
But practically, Congress could probably bully them into doing what they wanted. FDR, who could bully Congress, got the Court to do a 180 on the Commerce Clause by threatening to pack the courts with extra justices (even though the plan flopped).
The Senate could impeach any or all of the justices as well.
And, of course, Microsoft has recourse to the president, who can pardon them. Now that would be interesting... Bush gets elected, and pardons Clinton's quarry. It'd probably get him impeached... but then Ford got away with pardoning Nixon, so again, who knows.
Oh... you meant what recourse they'd realistically have? None. :-) Nobody wants a constitutional crisis, and Microsoft'd just be screwed.