Imperialism isn't a capitalist tool, its an authoritative tool. True free-market capitalists get HURT with authoritative regimes such as ours. No capitalist wants regulations, tariffs, or subsidies. Only the authoritative business leaders desire those.
Don't confuse media's definition of capitalism with the true definition of capitalism...
First of all, legislation after 9/11 has affected everyone here the same way that ALL legislation has affected us: by expanding government. The only way to pay for an expanded government is by raising taxes (at some level, either income taxes, payroll taxes, tariffs, sales taxes, or other government added fees).
This means less of MY money is available to spend on what I want to spend it on. Government steals from me to give to their friends (whether its defense contractors, or just the typical pork barrel recipients).
I read EVERY bill which passes through my Congressional Rep's hands (they're all visible on the web) and I have yet to see any bill yet that really "protects" us.
Now, my tax dollars are going to be used to help out Dubya's oil buddies when we go to war against Iraq, a country which has shown no provocation against me personally, neither through threats nor transgressions.
This is the biggest loss I think we all face. The loss of the right to use our hard earned dollars in ways WE INDIVIDUALLY want to. I could care less what my fellow Americans want to do with their money, but when they steal from me for their assinine programs, that's when I start getting angry.
Maybe soon I'll be saying "Costa Rica, here I come!"
John Stossel has shown on his 20/20 TV segment that cities make things WORSE when they run it. Privatize the city water system, and you get cleaner water cheaper. End the city's monopoly on cable TV providers, and you get competition.
Get the phone company out of city regulation, and you get competition.
The same is true over and over and over again. Some cities in foreign countries have been privatizing the roads (so you only pay for what you use, rather than distribute it to people who don't even use the roads), and have seen wide success in those ventures.
I don't want the city controlling anything, especially my data. This idea is frightening to me, and I'd gladly vote with my feet if something like this happened.
Re:Socialism is all that works for information
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Everything you dictate is consistent with the liberal/socialist front, and all of it is easily rebuked in such famous writings as F.A. Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" and Murray Rothbard "Man, Economy, State."
"True" capitalism CAN work, and it DID work in America's most prosperous era (from the founding until the Civil War, when Lincoln's many fascist treasons corrupted the whole political system).
If people aren't smart enough to save money to educate their children, then they'll need to LEARN responsibility over the generations when they're poor. That's what's great about this country -- the unintelligent "darwinistically" fall by the wayside, and the MOST intelligent from other countries immigrate to our country to make the society stronger.
I know I'm a solo voice, but the hopes for liberty ARE growing, and I can only hope that people eventually see the fallacy that we "NEED" public education, or that we "NEED" minimum wage laws (laws that have removed 500,000+ jobs from the market, and hurt minorities and the young). Pick up one of those two books, settle in for a long week, and learn why Government Doesn't Work.
Re:Americans throw away freedom for SOCIALISM
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
You've got it confused. We are NOT a capitalist system, we're pushing more socialism and mercantile protectionism than capitalism.
In a true capitalist system, government can NEVER subsidize, tariff, or embargo companies. They can't regulate or control. They can't tax.
In America, our government protects its friendly businesses with subsidies, while harming the competitors to its friends with tariffs and regulations.
Its not Capitalism that hurts our country (greed helps EVERYONE, not just the greedy), its excessive government regulations and subsidies that hurt us.
Thankfully, this is no democracy
on
Want Freedom?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Thank the founders that this country is not a democracy, but a Constitional Republic. Of course, the liberals and conservatives of this country like to forget that.
Our Constitution was set forth in order to protect our God given rights from destruction by an insane majority. As you can now see, the insane majority is here.
I will only vote for those who push legislation for smaller government. In Illinois, we will have libertarians on almost every ballot position, and that's how I will make my statement.
Of course, if we do find more infrindgements on our liberties, I will be one of the first to move to Costa Rica, or another country where their freedoms are GROWING, and because those countries aren't fighting "wars on everything," the standard of living is just as high as it is here (for entrepreneurs), but the tax burden and liberty loss is less.
Don't accept this mess. Vote to end government/business orgies and socialist schemes -- VOTE LIBERTARIAN.
I've been a voicestream user for over a year, working with the ultimately too-buggy and breakable Motorola V.100. The Pocket PC Phone XDA had come out, so I was in between buying a full fledged PDA to replace my 2nd Ipaq (first one screen broke), or going with this device.
I'm glad I went with the XDA. One week now and I've had no problems that the reviewers all had. I've installed all my old ipaq software, downloaded a crapload of MP3's (to a 256MB SD card), even downloaded an mpeg movie which is quite watchable even on the smaller screen.
This pseudo-useful device definitely has its place, but it looked way too similiar to my v.100 in many ways, and I wanted a color screen with a useable resolution. For a few hundred bucks more ($300 or so) I was able to get a fully fledged PDA (albeit running MS OS) and a great phone, all in one.
No unlimited data on my end, though. Voicestream's data packages are ludicrously expensive... 5MB of data for $20 a month, ouch.
Our Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantees us freedom from government trampling on our rights.
Individuals, corporations, etc have the freedom to do what they please to do, and the market and consumers will decide if they can deal with those issues.
The ACLU are a bunch of morons, all they do is advance socialists race-balancing theories, not protect freedom.
I recently did this with a DSL connection to my condo. I have mostly ghetto neighbors, we can only get IDSL here (144K up/down), and I only need it for e-mail and casual newsreading.
It's $120 a month, a bit pricey, so I talked to a few neighbors, and told them as long as they won't leech or kazaa or download massive amounts of porn, they can jump in with me.
I have it as a commercial account, asked if there is a limit to the number of users (no), and let about 10 of my neighbors on.
Built a simple gateway that keeps track of ONLY the number of bytes take by each user (in order to see if anyone is abusing it). 3 months, no problem.
I dunno what exactly I'd do if someone DID start leaching, since I have no real contract, but then again, I have the switch in my condo, so all I need to do is pull the plug.
You'd be surprised how far a low-ping quality IDSL can go for as many people as are on it. Its definitely far and away better than ISDN or dial-up, even with 6 or 7 people browsing the web at once.
Oh, and when I need to download something big, I remote access a client who has a few T1's worth of bandwidth, and download it there, then dribble download it to my PC at home.
No, the dude was trying to accomplish a subtle and difficult maneuvar: to take over the airplane and then crash it into a target. He did so because no one could fend off a knife.
Guns were allowed on airplanes for a long time, and we didn't have crazy people taking them over. Airlines that allowed guns probably wouldn't allow guns with exploding bullets on board. The FAA and many other organizations have tested the idea that a gun could take an airplane down, and that is UNTRUE. Airplanes are designed to fly with partial cabin pressure loss, and a gun would do less damage to a plane than a door falling off -- which the airplanes are designed to overcome and allow safe landing.
I wish I could take guns on a plane. Federal regulations are what helped create 9/11, not bad security.
The libertarian solutions to the airlines, security, etc:
GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF IT, ENTIRELY. Regulate nothing. Let the AIRLINES decide how much security to take. Let the AIRLINES decide if guns are kosher or not on a plane. Let the AIRLINES be responsible if an airplane crashing into a building, terrorism or accident. ( What if an airplane crashed into a building on accident? Who would pay for that? Airline's insurance)
Each airline would have their own security team -- one not burdened by government regulations, or by lazy federal employees. They knew it was in their best interest to get the planes safely to the destination. Security WOULD BE BETTER.
Some airlines would let guns on the plane, some would prevent knives or scissors. Which plane do you think a terrorist would go on? One where he knews armed and responsible adults were on, or one where he knew there was no way to stop him? Think about that.
The libertarian side of things SOUNDS scary, but only because most of you geeks have been overwhelming taken over by all the socialist/green/enviro conspiracies, many of which don't exist, or only exist because of excessive government regulation and redtape.
Don't deny a freedom-lover's opinion, because its the free markets that will save us. Any of you who think America is capitalist is FATALLY wrong. We haven't been a capitalist nation since the Federal Reserve made the dollar government owned, and we added billions of regulations, subsidies, and corporate welfare.
The only people I got spam from was from the e-mail address I used to register domain names with through netsol.
I dumped that address (100 spams a day).
What I've done is registered a domain name (say fatgeeks.com) and when I have to use my e-mail address at a website, I'll append the website to the user name, such as:
dada_slashdot@fatgeeks.com
or
dada_msn@fatgeeks.com
When spam appears, I kill off that user name (very easy to do in any POP3 e-mail program) and then go to the website that sold my address and yell.
This helps track websites that "lie" about reselling your e-mail address.
No. A vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a wasted vote. Why?
You know that a Democrat or a Republican will only vote for a few things you want, and a bunch of things that you don't want. They never follow a strict regiment of careful voting.
When you vote for a Libertarian, you are saying "I WANT LESS GOVERNMENT." "I WANT LESS TAXES." "I WANT MORE RIGHTS, MORE PRIVACY, AND MORE RESPONSIBILITY."
Libertarians swing votes in local elections, even at the state level (the governor's race in Illinois is highly contested, and the Libertarian may swing that vote). Our vote counts because it scares the bejesus out of the party who lost, as well as the party who won. The vote says there are people out there who want smaller government. With time, and with more voters, it'll make both parties stand up and realize that big government will help them lose elections.
Last year I met an average of 30 people a week who say "I won't vote Libertarian because its a wasted vote." I started a mailing list of these people. I also asked them to get their friends on the mailing list who said the same thing. In less than 9 months, we're 6000 strong. That's just people who were afraid to vote Libertarian because they were afraid of wasting their vote. Now, we're finding that we're much stronger together than we ever were apart.
I recommend the same for you. Afraid of wasting your vote? Get together at the local libertarian meetings. Bring your friends. You'll see its not a wasted vote.
Voting for the status quo is a wasted vote. Both only make government bigger, more intrusive, and cater to big business. Even the greens do that! Only one party wants to take the axe to government spending and growth.
Just like everyone in Congress and Senate, except for Rep. Ron Paul. We need Congressional Representatives that hold the rachet of big government back. This guy is taking one step forward for ever 5 steps that the other laws he votes for takes.
Stop congratulating yourself. Vote libertarian, and let's return this country to a free and artistically open country, rather than one that caters to big business.
Campaign finance reform will only make big business stronger. The only way to protect our rights and keep business out of it is to elect representatives with a backbone -- ones that know that THE POWER OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS LIMITED.
Health care is fscked up because Government enforces all these regulations on businesses, HMOs, and doctors/hospitals, causing a great amount of red tape. Insurance was cheap, and hospital stays even cheaper before the great HMO acts. Government made health care crazy expensive.
Then they started doling out medical coverage through medicare and medicaid, which has to be subsidized by insurance companies since the government insurance companies don't pay out enough to cover the actual work done.
Stop with your god damn bullshit socialist "facts" because they're not true.
You want to fuck the RIAA in the ass, hard? Deregulate the radio industry completely by ending the FCC's dominance on radio waves. Let independent LOCAL radio stations play what the local people want to hear. Let local advertisers pick the stations they want to support. You'll watch Clear Channel and all those homos fall into the gutter, since there is NO WAY these companies will be able to run radio stations on every frequency in every area.
Getting government out of regulating the transmission of music (via radio, television, cable, etc) is the way to kick these corporations in the ass. The same is true for health care.
The geeks asked for this when they asked Big Nanny Government to go in and regulate Microsoft or enforce local phone companies to carry someone else's DSL line.
Ask for crappy regulation in one instance, and you're going to get 100 other regulations in other areas that may affect you badly.
Stop being so lazy, stop complaining. Get off your asses and vote libertarian and get this terrible fascist/socialist government structure out of our hairs.
Lobbying Congress as a group will do NOTHING. Forcing Congress to limit itself to Constitutional requirements will open up venues for all of us.
The founding fathers would not agree at all. They debated long enough about this issue, and eventually the 7+7 years maximum limitation seemed consistent with both sides.
What would they say to an issue like this? Easy. If someone wants to distribute copyrighted materials all over the country to millions of people, without thinking how they will ENFORCE the ALREADY EXISTING copyright laws, these people are idiots and shouldn't be distributing such materials to such a widespread audience.
What the record labels should do is pay for their own internal policing force to go and find copyright law breakers. They can then go to the police, and say "arrest John Peterson because he copied one of our CDs."
Or, they can lobby their LOCAL police forces (not the FBI, not the state troopers) to go and find copyright infrindgers.
The government should NEVER pass laws "requiring" certain hardware, that's for the free market to decide on. The government should merely reinforce the original constitutional limitations, and then let the record labels work at finding those who are infringing on those laws.
I think this is a fine idea by the record labels, if they want to do it, go ahead.
I would REALLY love the ability to moderate people though. I've downloaded my share of BAD quality stuff, and sometimes from the same user, so it would be nice to moderate someone out to nothing-ness status, as well as say "Only download from high moderation point users first" etc.
The Post Office is HEAVILY subsidized by tax dollars, even though they say they are self sufficient.
There is a law that says that NO ONE can compete with the Post Office offering 1st class mail. There used to be a law that said no one can offer next day service, and when that law was overturned, look at how many companies popped up, and are employing people off the government dole.
I've been writing to broadcasters for years, asking them to offer the option of no-commercial television. With cable, it can be done. With digital TV it can be done. Broadcast a 30 minute TV show (giving me 8 minutes more on average of actual TV show material). If I pay for my portion of the show, they know I am watching, and they are getting paid directly. For those who don't pay, digitally squeeze the 30 minutes into 22 minutes (speeding up the show a bit, but most people wouldn't notice) and insert said commercials.
I watch HBO TV shows for the simple fact that I pay for them, and there are no commercials. I would say screw public television in general, if not for my Tivo.
The few shows on broadcast TV that I do watch, I would GLADLY pay for. I'd pay $1 a month to watch King of the Hill, even $2 a month if it meant keeping it alive. I'd pay $1 a month for the Simpsons, maybe even $3.
Would everyone pay? Probably not. But you're paying for TV already in higher costs of goods sold. And if you don't watch TV, you're still paying.
Well, first of all, the market would definitely help out in this fashion -- if someone is hijacking your TV show that you're watching, notably, an advertiser, would you go out and purchase that Whopper or that Nissan or those Nikes, knowing full well they are paying for some spammer to overrun the show you're watching? I think not.
Without SOMEONE paying for the transmission costs, the blurbs won't last. And whoever pays for them will definitely see a huge backlash, even if just a few percentage of the viewers object to the frequent interruptions.
As a libertarian, I have fought for many years to try to convince people that if the airwaves are indeed public, and I believe all communications is speech (including computer code), Congress shall pass no law infringing on my right to speak.
If I am in a room with 10 morons spewing corporate advertisements out of their boomboxes, and I want to blast my boombox 3 times louder, none of us will get anything accomplished -- the same is true of the airwaves. Why doesn't the FCC control the vocal frequency band of transmission, it is no different than someone broadcasting a low-powered radio transmission, and it is done over airwaves.
Finally, after years of screaming that we have too much bandwidth, and people telling me I'm nuts, scientists who aren't bribed by the broadcast industry are coming out and showing that I've been right all along.
Now if only real scientists would start coming out and blasting the socialist fraud we call the "decaying environment." Oh, they already have. They're called the founders of Greenpeace, and they know the truth about the current socialists running that organization.
I may be wrong, but I think you can still access it at 312-545-8086 (kudos to Intel there).
I remember the board well, although I started going to it when it had already progressed. I was probably 9 at the time, and I believe i had a full-slot 1200 baud Hayes modem. In the appendix of the bound instruction manual was a list of BBSes all over the country.
My first 6 months of long distance phone bills were over $1600 total. Whoops.
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Imperialism isn't a capitalist tool, its an authoritative tool. True free-market capitalists get HURT with authoritative regimes such as ours. No capitalist wants regulations, tariffs, or subsidies. Only the authoritative business leaders desire those.
Don't confuse media's definition of capitalism with the true definition of capitalism...
*clap clap*
Now vote libertarian and lets see a lot of your list disappear...
First of all, legislation after 9/11 has affected everyone here the same way that ALL legislation has affected us: by expanding government. The only way to pay for an expanded government is by raising taxes (at some level, either income taxes, payroll taxes, tariffs, sales taxes, or other government added fees).
This means less of MY money is available to spend on what I want to spend it on. Government steals from me to give to their friends (whether its defense contractors, or just the typical pork barrel recipients).
I read EVERY bill which passes through my Congressional Rep's hands (they're all visible on the web) and I have yet to see any bill yet that really "protects" us.
Now, my tax dollars are going to be used to help out Dubya's oil buddies when we go to war against Iraq, a country which has shown no provocation against me personally, neither through threats nor transgressions.
This is the biggest loss I think we all face. The loss of the right to use our hard earned dollars in ways WE INDIVIDUALLY want to. I could care less what my fellow Americans want to do with their money, but when they steal from me for their assinine programs, that's when I start getting angry.
Maybe soon I'll be saying "Costa Rica, here I come!"
Why in the heck would you want to do that?
John Stossel has shown on his 20/20 TV segment that cities make things WORSE when they run it. Privatize the city water system, and you get cleaner water cheaper. End the city's monopoly on cable TV providers, and you get competition.
Get the phone company out of city regulation, and you get competition.
The same is true over and over and over again. Some cities in foreign countries have been privatizing the roads (so you only pay for what you use, rather than distribute it to people who don't even use the roads), and have seen wide success in those ventures.
I don't want the city controlling anything, especially my data. This idea is frightening to me, and I'd gladly vote with my feet if something like this happened.
Everything you dictate is consistent with the liberal/socialist front, and all of it is easily rebuked in such famous writings as F.A. Hayek's "Road to Serfdom" and Murray Rothbard "Man, Economy, State."
"True" capitalism CAN work, and it DID work in America's most prosperous era (from the founding until the Civil War, when Lincoln's many fascist treasons corrupted the whole political system).
If people aren't smart enough to save money to educate their children, then they'll need to LEARN responsibility over the generations when they're poor. That's what's great about this country -- the unintelligent "darwinistically" fall by the wayside, and the MOST intelligent from other countries immigrate to our country to make the society stronger.
I know I'm a solo voice, but the hopes for liberty ARE growing, and I can only hope that people eventually see the fallacy that we "NEED" public education, or that we "NEED" minimum wage laws (laws that have removed 500,000+ jobs from the market, and hurt minorities and the young). Pick up one of those two books, settle in for a long week, and learn why Government Doesn't Work.
You've got it confused. We are NOT a capitalist system, we're pushing more socialism and mercantile protectionism than capitalism.
In a true capitalist system, government can NEVER subsidize, tariff, or embargo companies. They can't regulate or control. They can't tax.
In America, our government protects its friendly businesses with subsidies, while harming the competitors to its friends with tariffs and regulations.
Its not Capitalism that hurts our country (greed helps EVERYONE, not just the greedy), its excessive government regulations and subsidies that hurt us.
Thank the founders that this country is not a democracy, but a Constitional Republic. Of course, the liberals and conservatives of this country like to forget that.
Our Constitution was set forth in order to protect our God given rights from destruction by an insane majority. As you can now see, the insane majority is here.
I will only vote for those who push legislation for smaller government. In Illinois, we will have libertarians on almost every ballot position, and that's how I will make my statement.
Of course, if we do find more infrindgements on our liberties, I will be one of the first to move to Costa Rica, or another country where their freedoms are GROWING, and because those countries aren't fighting "wars on everything," the standard of living is just as high as it is here (for entrepreneurs), but the tax burden and liberty loss is less.
Don't accept this mess. Vote to end government/business orgies and socialist schemes -- VOTE LIBERTARIAN.
You said: Campaign finance reform, Corporate reform, Patriot act and similar legislation, our involvement in Israel/Palestine conflict...
Gosh, these are all areas where government stuck its nose in it too often, and now the blowback comes to bite us.
Pretty much why I'm a libertarian...
I've been a voicestream user for over a year, working with the ultimately too-buggy and breakable Motorola V.100. The Pocket PC Phone XDA had come out, so I was in between buying a full fledged PDA to replace my 2nd Ipaq (first one screen broke), or going with this device.
I'm glad I went with the XDA. One week now and I've had no problems that the reviewers all had. I've installed all my old ipaq software, downloaded a crapload of MP3's (to a 256MB SD card), even downloaded an mpeg movie which is quite watchable even on the smaller screen.
This pseudo-useful device definitely has its place, but it looked way too similiar to my v.100 in many ways, and I wanted a color screen with a useable resolution. For a few hundred bucks more ($300 or so) I was able to get a fully fledged PDA (albeit running MS OS) and a great phone, all in one.
No unlimited data on my end, though. Voicestream's data packages are ludicrously expensive... 5MB of data for $20 a month, ouch.
Our Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantees us freedom from government trampling on our rights.
Individuals, corporations, etc have the freedom to do what they please to do, and the market and consumers will decide if they can deal with those issues.
The ACLU are a bunch of morons, all they do is advance socialists race-balancing theories, not protect freedom.
The only organization that actually DEFENDS freedom is the Institute for Justice.
Argh.
I recently did this with a DSL connection to my condo. I have mostly ghetto neighbors, we can only get IDSL here (144K up/down), and I only need it for e-mail and casual newsreading.
It's $120 a month, a bit pricey, so I talked to a few neighbors, and told them as long as they won't leech or kazaa or download massive amounts of porn, they can jump in with me.
I have it as a commercial account, asked if there is a limit to the number of users (no), and let about 10 of my neighbors on.
Built a simple gateway that keeps track of ONLY the number of bytes take by each user (in order to see if anyone is abusing it). 3 months, no problem.
I dunno what exactly I'd do if someone DID start leaching, since I have no real contract, but then again, I have the switch in my condo, so all I need to do is pull the plug.
You'd be surprised how far a low-ping quality IDSL can go for as many people as are on it. Its definitely far and away better than ISDN or dial-up, even with 6 or 7 people browsing the web at once.
Oh, and when I need to download something big, I remote access a client who has a few T1's worth of bandwidth, and download it there, then dribble download it to my PC at home.
No, the dude was trying to accomplish a subtle and difficult maneuvar: to take over the airplane and then crash it into a target. He did so because no one could fend off a knife.
Guns were allowed on airplanes for a long time, and we didn't have crazy people taking them over. Airlines that allowed guns probably wouldn't allow guns with exploding bullets on board. The FAA and many other organizations have tested the idea that a gun could take an airplane down, and that is UNTRUE. Airplanes are designed to fly with partial cabin pressure loss, and a gun would do less damage to a plane than a door falling off -- which the airplanes are designed to overcome and allow safe landing.
Keep the socialist-free responses coming.
I wish I could take guns on a plane. Federal regulations are what helped create 9/11, not bad security.
The libertarian solutions to the airlines, security, etc:
GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF IT, ENTIRELY. Regulate nothing. Let the AIRLINES decide how much security to take. Let the AIRLINES decide if guns are kosher or not on a plane. Let the AIRLINES be responsible if an airplane crashing into a building, terrorism or accident. (
What if an airplane crashed into a building on accident? Who would pay for that? Airline's insurance)
Each airline would have their own security team -- one not burdened by government regulations, or by lazy federal employees. They knew it was in their best interest to get the planes safely to the destination. Security WOULD BE BETTER.
Some airlines would let guns on the plane, some would prevent knives or scissors. Which plane do you think a terrorist would go on? One where he knews armed and responsible adults were on, or one where he knew there was no way to stop him? Think about that.
The libertarian side of things SOUNDS scary, but only because most of you geeks have been overwhelming taken over by all the socialist/green/enviro conspiracies, many of which don't exist, or only exist because of excessive government regulation and redtape.
Don't deny a freedom-lover's opinion, because its the free markets that will save us. Any of you who think America is capitalist is FATALLY wrong. We haven't been a capitalist nation since the Federal Reserve made the dollar government owned, and we added billions of regulations, subsidies, and corporate welfare.
The only people I got spam from was from the e-mail address I used to register domain names with through netsol.
I dumped that address (100 spams a day).
What I've done is registered a domain name (say fatgeeks.com) and when I have to use my e-mail address at a website, I'll append the website to the user name, such as:
dada_slashdot@fatgeeks.com
or
dada_msn@fatgeeks.com
When spam appears, I kill off that user name (very easy to do in any POP3 e-mail program) and then go to the website that sold my address and yell.
This helps track websites that "lie" about reselling your e-mail address.
No spam. No collateral damage.
No. A vote for a Democrat or a Republican is a wasted vote. Why?
You know that a Democrat or a Republican will only vote for a few things you want, and a bunch of things that you don't want. They never follow a strict regiment of careful voting.
When you vote for a Libertarian, you are saying "I WANT LESS GOVERNMENT." "I WANT LESS TAXES." "I WANT MORE RIGHTS, MORE PRIVACY, AND MORE RESPONSIBILITY."
Libertarians swing votes in local elections, even at the state level (the governor's race in Illinois is highly contested, and the Libertarian may swing that vote). Our vote counts because it scares the bejesus out of the party who lost, as well as the party who won. The vote says there are people out there who want smaller government. With time, and with more voters, it'll make both parties stand up and realize that big government will help them lose elections.
Last year I met an average of 30 people a week who say "I won't vote Libertarian because its a wasted vote." I started a mailing list of these people. I also asked them to get their friends on the mailing list who said the same thing. In less than 9 months, we're 6000 strong. That's just people who were afraid to vote Libertarian because they were afraid of wasting their vote. Now, we're finding that we're much stronger together than we ever were apart.
I recommend the same for you. Afraid of wasting your vote? Get together at the local libertarian meetings. Bring your friends. You'll see its not a wasted vote.
Voting for the status quo is a wasted vote. Both only make government bigger, more intrusive, and cater to big business. Even the greens do that! Only one party wants to take the axe to government spending and growth.
Just like everyone in Congress and Senate, except for Rep. Ron Paul. We need Congressional Representatives that hold the rachet of big government back. This guy is taking one step forward for ever 5 steps that the other laws he votes for takes.
Stop congratulating yourself. Vote libertarian, and let's return this country to a free and artistically open country, rather than one that caters to big business.
Campaign finance reform will only make big business stronger. The only way to protect our rights and keep business out of it is to elect representatives with a backbone -- ones that know that THE POWER OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS LIMITED.
Don't compare this to health care.
Health care is fscked up because Government enforces all these regulations on businesses, HMOs, and doctors/hospitals, causing a great amount of red tape. Insurance was cheap, and hospital stays even cheaper before the great HMO acts. Government made health care crazy expensive.
Then they started doling out medical coverage through medicare and medicaid, which has to be subsidized by insurance companies since the government insurance companies don't pay out enough to cover the actual work done.
Stop with your god damn bullshit socialist "facts" because they're not true.
You want to fuck the RIAA in the ass, hard? Deregulate the radio industry completely by ending the FCC's dominance on radio waves. Let independent LOCAL radio stations play what the local people want to hear. Let local advertisers pick the stations they want to support. You'll watch Clear Channel and all those homos fall into the gutter, since there is NO WAY these companies will be able to run radio stations on every frequency in every area.
Getting government out of regulating the transmission of music (via radio, television, cable, etc) is the way to kick these corporations in the ass. The same is true for health care.
Vote Libertarian 2002: The only vote that counts.
The geeks asked for this when they asked Big Nanny Government to go in and regulate Microsoft or enforce local phone companies to carry someone else's DSL line.
Ask for crappy regulation in one instance, and you're going to get 100 other regulations in other areas that may affect you badly.
Stop being so lazy, stop complaining. Get off your asses and vote libertarian and get this terrible fascist/socialist government structure out of our hairs.
Lobbying Congress as a group will do NOTHING. Forcing Congress to limit itself to Constitutional requirements will open up venues for all of us.
The founding fathers would not agree at all. They debated long enough about this issue, and eventually the 7+7 years maximum limitation seemed consistent with both sides.
What would they say to an issue like this? Easy. If someone wants to distribute copyrighted materials all over the country to millions of people, without thinking how they will ENFORCE the ALREADY EXISTING copyright laws, these people are idiots and shouldn't be distributing such materials to such a widespread audience.
What the record labels should do is pay for their own internal policing force to go and find copyright law breakers. They can then go to the police, and say "arrest John Peterson because he copied one of our CDs."
Or, they can lobby their LOCAL police forces (not the FBI, not the state troopers) to go and find copyright infrindgers.
The government should NEVER pass laws "requiring" certain hardware, that's for the free market to decide on. The government should merely reinforce the original constitutional limitations, and then let the record labels work at finding those who are infringing on those laws.
Or, even better, how about deregulating the industry ENTIRELY, giving no subsidies or special benefits to anyone?
That way, anyone who wants to invest in the infrastructure of running lines, and building CO's all over, can get into the business.
Communications is NOT a right, my socialist friend.
It's merely a convenience.
I think this is a fine idea by the record labels, if they want to do it, go ahead.
I would REALLY love the ability to moderate people though. I've downloaded my share of BAD quality stuff, and sometimes from the same user, so it would be nice to moderate someone out to nothing-ness status, as well as say "Only download from high moderation point users first" etc.
The Post Office is HEAVILY subsidized by tax dollars, even though they say they are self sufficient.
There is a law that says that NO ONE can compete with the Post Office offering 1st class mail. There used to be a law that said no one can offer next day service, and when that law was overturned, look at how many companies popped up, and are employing people off the government dole.
Socialists bug me.
I've been writing to broadcasters for years, asking them to offer the option of no-commercial television. With cable, it can be done. With digital TV it can be done. Broadcast a 30 minute TV show (giving me 8 minutes more on average of actual TV show material). If I pay for my portion of the show, they know I am watching, and they are getting paid directly. For those who don't pay, digitally squeeze the 30 minutes into 22 minutes (speeding up the show a bit, but most people wouldn't notice) and insert said commercials.
I watch HBO TV shows for the simple fact that I pay for them, and there are no commercials. I would say screw public television in general, if not for my Tivo.
The few shows on broadcast TV that I do watch, I would GLADLY pay for. I'd pay $1 a month to watch King of the Hill, even $2 a month if it meant keeping it alive. I'd pay $1 a month for the Simpsons, maybe even $3.
Would everyone pay? Probably not. But you're paying for TV already in higher costs of goods sold. And if you don't watch TV, you're still paying.
What good is that?
Well, first of all, the market would definitely help out in this fashion -- if someone is hijacking your TV show that you're watching, notably, an advertiser, would you go out and purchase that Whopper or that Nissan or those Nikes, knowing full well they are paying for some spammer to overrun the show you're watching? I think not.
Without SOMEONE paying for the transmission costs, the blurbs won't last. And whoever pays for them will definitely see a huge backlash, even if just a few percentage of the viewers object to the frequent interruptions.
As a libertarian, I have fought for many years to try to convince people that if the airwaves are indeed public, and I believe all communications is speech (including computer code), Congress shall pass no law infringing on my right to speak.
If I am in a room with 10 morons spewing corporate advertisements out of their boomboxes, and I want to blast my boombox 3 times louder, none of us will get anything accomplished -- the same is true of the airwaves. Why doesn't the FCC control the vocal frequency band of transmission, it is no different than someone broadcasting a low-powered radio transmission, and it is done over airwaves.
Finally, after years of screaming that we have too much bandwidth, and people telling me I'm nuts, scientists who aren't bribed by the broadcast industry are coming out and showing that I've been right all along.
Now if only real scientists would start coming out and blasting the socialist fraud we call the "decaying environment." Oh, they already have. They're called the founders of Greenpeace, and they know the truth about the current socialists running that organization.
Freedom = Responsibility.
Government = Corporate Abuse
I may be wrong, but I think you can still access it at 312-545-8086 (kudos to Intel there).
I remember the board well, although I started going to it when it had already progressed. I was probably 9 at the time, and I believe i had a full-slot 1200 baud Hayes modem. In the appendix of the bound instruction manual was a list of BBSes all over the country.
My first 6 months of long distance phone bills were over $1600 total. Whoops.