And Canada has socialized medicine, but those with conditions that the Canadian healthcare system won't pay for come to the US for healthcare. (Living in a border town with a decent hospital and surgical center, I have seen this countless times). Best care in the world is not what the average Canadian citizen gets. Those that can afford come to the US to get the best care in the world. I can't speak for Europe but socialized medicine does nothing to encourage doctors to help cases that require expensive treatment and does nothing to encourage good doctors to take stay in Canada if they want to make good money.
I would agree that there are few genuine real conspiracies by companies and by the media but that does not mean that the whole tone of the coverage of certain stories may not be very lopsided. How many times have we heard people bashing Microsoft? Why? because it is the popular thing to do. Microsoft may deserve it, but they aren't the only one or perhaps even the worst computer company out there. (Apple seems even more proprietary and monopolistic than Microsoft) Since Microsoft bashing is popular the whole tone of the coverage of their trial was not whether they were guilty but rather how were they going to be punished. No conspiracy but certainly not independent thinking and reporting either.
US citizens have a constitutional right to own firearms. So restrictions on on owning unlicenced guns have no place here and I would rather have a slightly higher risk of a criminal having a gun than not having the right to own one myself. But the problem with US gun crime is that a conviction of assault with a firearm does not result in an automatic life sentence. I would suggest that most likely that penalty and the enforcement of that penalty would greatly reduce gun crime in the US. Unfortunately most people just want to remove guns from criminals and not to remove the criminals from the streets. Says a lot for our priorities doesn't it?
Probably even more important now is finding out what ISP's have this installed now. So how about hearing from different ISPs who have been asked to install it? Is it just ISP in the US? Or is it ISP that are worldwide, (AOL and the likes). Is the FBI even allowed to place monitoring software that will possibly monitor email from those outside the US or is this outside their jurisdiction? Many more questions to be answered and this Freedom of Information request is just the first step
Lets take your a few of your suggestions and see where they lead -
Extremely progressive taxes on corporations will force them to cut back on employees, charitable donations, and costly environtal improvements that aren't required, in order to maintain profits for stockholders. (Who just happen to be you and me and everybody with their pension in a mutual fund).
Helping small and independent media would seem to be incredibly biasing to those media. Imagine the PETA funding a small media outlet, and then that media outlet covering a violent attack ALF (animal liberation front) - Not gonna happen if they want to keep their funding, is it?
Why in the world would I want my hard-earned money being taxed at a likely higher rate to pay for parties with whom I disagree? Matching funds seem to be doing this enough already. Being taxed to completely pay for parties that oppose my views seems dangerously close to socialism or communism (the distinction would be that communism wouldn't bother calling it a tax).
Considering how terribly government manages our money now, do you feel they could do a better job then currently corporations do at research? I don't mind the government sponsoring independent scienctific research but the odds of them doing it cost-effectively are astronomical!
Since when was the internet ever supposed to be free? The US government developed it, many corporations put and continue to put enormous amounts of money into building the backbone ot it, and in the process provided a lot of jobs for us and lot of money for geeks like us. Why shouldn't they be allowed to make a profit on providing it to the general public? Of course the internet should be uncensored but that does not mean it should be unregulated. I would hope that you do not mean to say that criminal activities like copyright theft and piracy should be allowed to continue freely.
Capitalism has been quite good to us as Americans at least. If you want to see countries that have truly poor environmental records just check any of the former Soviet states and see what happens when the government handles environmental management.
If you want loaded words try these: "... to corporations which then rape and pillage the environment to make a fortune for their shareholders." I might have some respect for the environmental movement if every other word in their argument was not designed to provoke an emotional rather than logical reaction.
Slashdot Mirror
And Canada has socialized medicine, but those with conditions that the Canadian healthcare system won't pay for come to the US for healthcare. (Living in a border town with a decent hospital and surgical center, I have seen this countless times). Best care in the world is not what the average Canadian citizen gets. Those that can afford come to the US to get the best care in the world. I can't speak for Europe but socialized medicine does nothing to encourage doctors to help cases that require expensive treatment and does nothing to encourage good doctors to take stay in Canada if they want to make good money.
I don't suppose any has a mirror up? The site seems to be a bit slashdotted at the moment.
I would agree that there are few genuine real conspiracies by companies and by the media but that does not mean that the whole tone of the coverage of certain stories may not be very lopsided. How many times have we heard people bashing Microsoft? Why? because it is the popular thing to do. Microsoft may deserve it, but they aren't the only one or perhaps even the worst computer company out there. (Apple seems even more proprietary and monopolistic than Microsoft) Since Microsoft bashing is popular the whole tone of the coverage of their trial was not whether they were guilty but rather how were they going to be punished. No conspiracy but certainly not independent thinking and reporting either.
US citizens have a constitutional right to own firearms. So restrictions on on owning unlicenced guns have no place here and I would rather have a slightly higher risk of a criminal having a gun than not having the right to own one myself. But the problem with US gun crime is that a conviction of assault with a firearm does not result in an automatic life sentence. I would suggest that most likely that penalty and the enforcement of that penalty would greatly reduce gun crime in the US. Unfortunately most people just want to remove guns from criminals and not to remove the criminals from the streets. Says a lot for our priorities doesn't it?
Probably even more important now is finding out what ISP's have this installed now. So how about hearing from different ISPs who have been asked to install it? Is it just ISP in the US? Or is it ISP that are worldwide, (AOL and the likes). Is the FBI even allowed to place monitoring software that will possibly monitor email from those outside the US or is this outside their jurisdiction? Many more questions to be answered and this Freedom of Information request is just the first step
- Extremely progressive taxes on corporations will force them to cut back on employees, charitable donations, and costly environtal improvements that aren't required, in order to maintain profits for stockholders. (Who just happen to be you and me and everybody with their pension in a mutual fund).
- Helping small and independent media would seem to be incredibly biasing to those media. Imagine the PETA funding a small media outlet, and then that media outlet covering a violent attack ALF (animal liberation front) - Not gonna happen if they want to keep their funding, is it?
- Why in the world would I want my hard-earned money being taxed at a likely higher rate to pay for parties with whom I disagree? Matching funds seem to be doing this enough already. Being taxed to completely pay for parties that oppose my views seems dangerously close to socialism or communism (the distinction would be that communism wouldn't bother calling it a tax).
- Considering how terribly government manages our money now, do you feel they could do a better job then currently corporations do at research? I don't mind the government sponsoring independent scienctific research but the odds of them doing it cost-effectively are astronomical!
- Since when was the internet ever supposed to be free? The US government developed it, many corporations put and continue to put enormous amounts of money into building the backbone ot it, and in the process provided a lot of jobs for us and lot of money for geeks like us. Why shouldn't they be allowed to make a profit on providing it to the general public? Of course the internet should be uncensored but that does not mean it should be unregulated. I would hope that you do not mean to say that criminal activities like copyright theft and piracy should be allowed to continue freely.
Capitalism has been quite good to us as Americans at least. If you want to see countries that have truly poor environmental records just check any of the former Soviet states and see what happens when the government handles environmental management.Robogop
If you want loaded words try these: "... to corporations which then rape and pillage the environment to make a fortune for their shareholders." I might have some respect for the environmental movement if every other word in their argument was not designed to provoke an emotional rather than logical reaction.