Will they refund the Federal taxpayer for assets they use that Federal taxpayers have provided?
You seem to be expressing the viewpoint that each state has a net balance of benefits with the federal goverment.
Each state pays taxes and receives benefits. If some states "owe the federal taxpayers" money, that means that those states have on balance received more benefits than they have paid for. If so, then some other states have paid for more than they received, and have a credit balance. The Free State project can simply select one of these states as their destination.
If you want to turn a portion of the US into a "federal free zone" then you will become the new federal crimes enterprise zone and also the federal fugitives haven zone as well
Canada is a "federal free zone", yet Canada is hardly a "federal crimes enterprise zone" or "federal fugitives zone". What makes you think a free state would be any different in this regard?
Honestly, just move to the country people. If you mind your own business, most people will leave you alone.
Just like they left Randy Weaver alone? Just like they left Carl Drega alone?
But honestly, if this is about the fact that you want to smoke weed, have an issue with pre-ban magazines on assault rifles, or generally just don't want to pay taxes, then I would suggest moving to Afghanistan.
There are more attractive destinations for those seeking to operate in a more tax-efficient manner. Places such as the Cayman Islands and Anguilla come to mind.
You seemed to be complaining about the government monopoly on the right to use force and to tax. Without any taxes, you can't pay for a government (or, alternatively, AT&T can pay more for a government than you) In that instance, what's to stop AT&T from using tanks?
There are various untried, untested visions of how it could work, mainly involving insurnace companies that also provide protection services. It is in their interest to protect you since they have to pay out when you are harmed, and if they don't protect their clients they lose business.
However, that answer misses the real point of your question which is basically: government may be bad, but the alternative is worse.
The real answer to that is that smaller, decentralized governments are better than large, monolithic governments. I realize that this is rather vague; your thought-provoking question brought me to the edge of my thinking about these issues and I can't make my point more clearly at this time.
My definition of liberty is based on the idea of private property. You have liberty to the extent that you may do whatever you like with your property without being being forcibly interfered with.
freedom in principle occurs if there is $20000/mo insurance, and yet I won't be able to afford it, principle schminciple, I want reality.
I see your concern. How do you expect the government to actually lower the market price of any good (including insurance)? Ultimately, market prices are the indicator of reality, and as Robert Ringer says, "if you ignor reality, it automatically works against you."
At least when the government has an unreasonable power, there is a chance to overthrow it because there are rules of accountability and of democracy.
Which is easier: to stop doing business with a company or to overthrow a government?
California deregulated its electricity market a few years ago ('98, I think), and made private electricity generation the norm. The rolling blackouts of 2000 were one of the end results.
You're right that the blackouts were a result of California's actions, but it's misleading to call those actions 'deregulation'. Maybe 'partial deregulation' would be more accurate, because in the end, while they now bouhgt power on the open market they still had to sell at goverment-regulated prices.
You say they were 'deregulated'. Yet there were (and still are!) state regulations preventing them from offering their energy for sale a price of their own choosing. What gives?
Can't wait to see AT&T tanks rolling into my yard to announce their new mandatory local service rates.
Do you really not see the difference? Companies don't use tanks; goverments do. If you don't want to pay AT&T's rates, you are free to not use their services. See how far you get taking that approach with the federal government.
I sure do hate that government monopoly though. I mean, it would be fine if only we had some ability to change its policies by voting or something...
Can anybody tell me why I shouldn't think of this as extremist or fanatical?
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
Maybe I'm reading this in the wrong mood, but it seems to me like they're only trying to fix what they see wrong, as opposed to re-designing the system to be more useful.
On the contrary, this is a great example of trying to change the system from inside. They're trying to use democracy to achieve their goals.
An approach that is unfortunately doomed.
"We will repeal state taxes and wasteful state government programs." -- Define wasteful.
When less than 50% of the money actually reaches its intended recipients.
There's some that think that healthcare coverage of birth control is 'wasteful'. Others think that unwanted pregnancies cause greater 'wasteful' heatlh expense.
I thought we were talking about wasteful government spending. In the "Free State" there would be no socialized medicine and individuals would be free to their own level of insurance coverage.
I would understand if they were saying "Let's get together all the 'like-minded about certain issues' people into one state", instead they're saying "let's create a land where the gov't can't intrude!".
How exactly are they misrepresenting their intentions by stating their desire to "create a land where the [federal] government can't intrude"?
As Enron, and Colifornia have shown private companies cannot be trusted with basic infrastructure.
And the government can? Let me let you
in on a little secret: the federal government's accounting problems dwarf all the Enrons, Worldcoms, and Imclones put together. See Which is Worse: WorldCom or Congress by Walter Williams.
And, as At&T, the RIAA, and AOLTW have shown eliminating all regulation is the best way to encourage monopolies.
I hate bad government, I also hate bad corporations.
One of those two types of entities has a territorial monopoly on the use of violence and the (perceived) right to tax. Spot the greater danger to your freedom.
Re:Haven't you overlooked something?
on
The Free State Project
·
· Score: 2, Informative
They'll probably expect to write their own laws, yet still have police
Without drug or gun laws, what use do you expect they will have for "federal police", whatever those are?
and military protection from the US.
Are you joking? They are more likely to need
protection from the U.S. military.
They'll also expect the US Government to not let utility companies gouge them in prices,
As libertarians, they are adamantly against government regulation, including price regulations.
and they'll likely expect constant infrastructure improvements, such as highway building/maintenance.
They specifically state that they will turn down federal highway funding. Next time try reading the linked page before inflicting your misinformed speculations upon us.
How are you going to find 20k people who always agree 100% on all of the issues listed on the website, will unanimously agree on all unforseen issues that will come up in the future, and will diligently vote on every single issue, achieving an unheard of 100% voter turnout rate?
You would need an especially motivated group of people to achieve that, wouldn't you?
So won't they also be "free of all local services," too? Who's going to pay to plow/pave/patrol the streets?
Shouldn't that be up to the owner of the street in question?
What they going to do about the kind of programs that help poor old people afford heat during the winter?
No one said they have anything against charity.
Want to see drugs and guns in one place? Visit Columbia or Jamaica.
That's an example of a local government -- backed by the U.S. -- fighting a vicious war against drug producers. Did you not notice that the Free Staters say they will legalize drugs?
Privitization can be great. Just ask California how they like privatized electric utilities
How exactly did California 'privatize electric utilities'?
First of all, your box will need to be kind of switch that is directly connected via an ethernet cable to every client (without any intervening hubs), that listens to every packet on the network yet does not allow the different laptops in the room to communicate with each other. Otherwise there are potential problems with someone stealing Google's ip addres, someone sending bogus DHCP responses, sniffing traffic, etc..
Your box is going to respond to every packet it receives, regardless of the information in the packet header. Your box will ALWAYS act as the default gateway for packets from clients, regardless of what the received packet specifies as the next hop IP address.
* Whenever your box receives a DHCP query, it responds with a
DHCP response giving the address 10.0.0.1, and giving 10.0.0.2 as the
default gateway. The specific numbers don't matter...
* Whenever your box receives any non-DHCP packet, it uses NAT to
route it to the Internet, remembering the switch port on which
the packet came in in order to send the response to the right
place.
Already available almost everywhere for $30/month
on
VoIP for the Masses!
·
· Score: 1
I've been using speakzero.com's $30/month flat-rate unlimited usage VoIP service for a few months now. It doesn't work over broadband - you just dial a local access number first. The sound quality is virtually indistinguishable from a land line.
It takes two days for the movies to reach me, and two days for them
to return. This means that I can rent, theoretically, (with some
serious power movie watching) about 45 movies a month.
This turns out not to be the case. The actual limit under the above
conditions is more like 15 per month. Here's why: assume for the sake
of argument that you can only have one DVD out at a time. Assume further
that the round-trip delay for one DVD is 6 days (2 days postal mail to customer
+ 2 days
post mail to netflix + 1 day for netflix to ship another DVD + 1 day
for customer to watch DVD). Clearly under these conditions you would
receive about 30/6 = 5 DVDs per month.
Now, no matter how many
DVDs you can have out at a time, the basic round-trip delay doesn't
get any shorter. Therefore, even if you can have 3 DVDs out a time,
you would only be able to watch 15 DVDs per month (which is still a great
deal for $20).
Josh
Umm... yeah, I always decide which software
to run based on whether or not I like the
people associated with it. I mean, who the hell cares about the technical merits of the
software itself?
Good grief.
The Cato Institute on preventing terrorism
on
More On Tragedy
·
· Score: 1
According to the Cato Handbook for the 105th Congress (1997), the U.S. government should
avoid entanglement in regional conflicts or civil wars that do not have a
direct and substantial relevance to vital American security interests;
focus the attention and resources of the intelligence agencies on terrorism
and other serious national security threats instead of phony or exaggerated
problems such as economic espionage; and
consider state-sponsored terrorist attacks against American civilians acts
of war, not a law enforcement issue, and respond, in cases where there is
clear and compelling evidence, with a formal declaration of war.
The whole chapter is available here:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/handbook/hb105-45.hml
When people say SMTP is broken, the lack of trust management is what they're referring to. The inherent brokenness of SMTP is that it
delivers just about anything that shows up on port 25.
We need something like D. J. Bernstein's proposed
Internet Mail 2000 system.
Large mail servers would need massive CPU power to do the
necessary public key cryptography.
memento short story, trailer, and chronology
on
Review: Memento
·
· Score: 3
Here's the original short
story that inspired the movie, by Jonathan Nolan. It's very
different from the movie and in some ways it's better. Read it if
you get the chance - it gives away nothing about the movie that you
couldn't deduce from the Memento trailer.
The second time I saw Memento, I brought a pad of paper and took
copious notes. Here are the results: a chronological
list of Memento scenes. Warning: SPOILERS there.
The key is to have your own domain, and set up
forwarding to your current shell account or
to a place like fauxbox.com. Shell account/email forwarding providers will change over time, and this way you can switch when your current one gets bad. You also have the flexibility of running the server yourself, if you choose. But the real key is to have your own domain.
Slashdot Mirror
Will they refund the Federal taxpayer for assets they use that Federal taxpayers have provided?
You seem to be expressing the viewpoint that each state has a net balance of benefits with the federal goverment.
Each state pays taxes and receives benefits. If some states "owe the federal taxpayers" money, that means that those states have on balance received more benefits than they have paid for. If so, then some other states have paid for more than they received, and have a credit balance. The Free State project can simply select one of these states as their destination.
If you want to turn a portion of the US into a "federal free zone" then you will become the new federal crimes enterprise zone and also the federal fugitives haven zone as well
Canada is a "federal free zone", yet Canada is hardly a "federal crimes enterprise zone" or "federal fugitives zone". What makes you think a free state would be any different in this regard?
Honestly, just move to the country people. If you mind your own business, most people will leave you alone. Just like they left Randy Weaver alone? Just like they left Carl Drega alone?
But honestly, if this is about the fact that you want to smoke weed, have an issue with pre-ban magazines on assault rifles, or generally just don't want to pay taxes, then I would suggest moving to Afghanistan.
There are more attractive destinations for those seeking to operate in a more tax-efficient manner. Places such as the Cayman Islands and Anguilla come to mind.
You seemed to be complaining about the government monopoly on the right to use force and to tax. Without any taxes, you can't pay for a government (or, alternatively, AT&T can pay more for a government than you) In that instance, what's to stop AT&T from using tanks?
There are various untried, untested visions of how it could work, mainly involving insurnace companies that also provide protection services. It is in their interest to protect you since they have to pay out when you are harmed, and if they don't protect their clients they lose business.
However, that answer misses the real point of your question which is basically: government may be bad, but the alternative is worse.
The real answer to that is that smaller, decentralized governments are better than large, monolithic governments. I realize that this is rather vague; your thought-provoking question brought me to the edge of my thinking about these issues and I can't make my point more clearly at this time.
liberty is not well defined. define it.
My definition of liberty is based on the idea of private property. You have liberty to the extent that you may do whatever you like with your property without being being forcibly interfered with.
freedom in principle occurs if there is $20000/mo insurance, and yet I won't be able to afford it, principle schminciple, I want reality.
I see your concern. How do you expect the government to actually lower the market price of any good (including insurance)? Ultimately, market prices are the indicator of reality, and as Robert Ringer says, "if you ignor reality, it automatically works against you."
At least when the government has an unreasonable power, there is a chance to overthrow it because there are rules of accountability and of democracy.
Which is easier: to stop doing business with a company or to overthrow a government?
California deregulated its electricity market a few years ago ('98, I think), and made private electricity generation the norm. The rolling blackouts of 2000 were one of the end results.
You're right that the blackouts were a result of California's actions, but it's misleading to call those actions 'deregulation'. Maybe 'partial deregulation' would be more accurate, because in the end, while they now bouhgt power on the open market they still had to sell at goverment-regulated prices.
You say they were 'deregulated'. Yet there were (and still are!) state regulations preventing them from offering their energy for sale a price of their own choosing. What gives?
I can leave the charity thing alone, although it misses my point, but you are wrong about Columbia and Jamaica.
What was your point?
Also, thanks for the corrections regarding Jamaica and Columbia.
Can't wait to see AT&T tanks rolling into my yard to announce their new mandatory local service rates.
Do you really not see the difference? Companies don't use tanks; goverments do. If you don't want to pay AT&T's rates, you are free to not use their services. See how far you get taking that approach with the federal government.
I sure do hate that government monopoly though. I mean, it would be fine if only we had some ability to change its policies by voting or something...
Exactly what the Free Staters are trying to do.
Can anybody tell me why I shouldn't think of this as extremist or fanatical?
"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice."
Maybe I'm reading this in the wrong mood, but it seems to me like they're only trying to fix what they see wrong, as opposed to re-designing the system to be more useful.
On the contrary, this is a great example of trying to change the system from inside. They're trying to use democracy to achieve their goals. An approach that is unfortunately doomed.
"We will repeal state taxes and wasteful state government programs." -- Define wasteful.
When less than 50% of the money actually reaches its intended recipients.
There's some that think that healthcare coverage of birth control is 'wasteful'. Others think that unwanted pregnancies cause greater 'wasteful' heatlh expense.
I thought we were talking about wasteful government spending. In the "Free State" there would be no socialized medicine and individuals would be free to their own level of insurance coverage.
I would understand if they were saying "Let's get together all the 'like-minded about certain issues' people into one state", instead they're saying "let's create a land where the gov't can't intrude!".
How exactly are they misrepresenting their intentions by stating their desire to "create a land where the [federal] government can't intrude"?
Where did they Free Staters claim that the idea was original?
And the government can? Let me let you in on a little secret: the federal government's accounting problems dwarf all the Enrons, Worldcoms, and Imclones put together. See Which is Worse: WorldCom or Congress by Walter Williams.
And, as At&T, the RIAA, and AOLTW have shown eliminating all regulation is the best way to encourage monopolies. I hate bad government, I also hate bad corporations.
One of those two types of entities has a territorial monopoly on the use of violence and the (perceived) right to tax. Spot the greater danger to your freedom.
Without drug or gun laws, what use do you expect they will have for "federal police", whatever those are?
and military protection from the US.
Are you joking? They are more likely to need protection from the U.S. military.
They'll also expect the US Government to not let utility companies gouge them in prices,
As libertarians, they are adamantly against government regulation, including price regulations.
and they'll likely expect constant infrastructure improvements, such as highway building/maintenance.
They specifically state that they will turn down federal highway funding. Next time try reading the linked page before inflicting your misinformed speculations upon us.
You would need an especially motivated group of people to achieve that, wouldn't you?
So won't they also be "free of all local services," too? Who's going to pay to plow/pave/patrol the streets?
Shouldn't that be up to the owner of the street in question?
What they going to do about the kind of programs that help poor old people afford heat during the winter?
No one said they have anything against charity.
Want to see drugs and guns in one place? Visit Columbia or Jamaica.
That's an example of a local government -- backed by the U.S. -- fighting a vicious war against drug producers. Did you not notice that the Free Staters say they will legalize drugs?
Privitization can be great. Just ask California how they like privatized electric utilities
How exactly did California 'privatize electric utilities'?
First of all, your box will need to be kind of switch that is
directly connected via an ethernet cable to every client (without
any intervening hubs), that listens to every packet on the network
yet does not allow the different laptops in the room to communicate
with each other. Otherwise there are potential problems with someone
stealing Google's ip addres, someone sending bogus DHCP responses,
sniffing traffic, etc..
Your box is going to respond to every packet it receives, regardless
of the information in the packet header. Your box will ALWAYS act
as the default gateway for packets from clients, regardless of what
the received packet specifies as the next hop IP address.
* Whenever your box receives a DHCP query, it responds with a
DHCP response giving the address 10.0.0.1, and giving 10.0.0.2 as the
default gateway. The specific numbers don't matter...
* Whenever your box receives any non-DHCP packet, it uses NAT to
route it to the Internet, remembering the switch port on which
the packet came in in order to send the response to the right
place.
I've been using speakzero.com's $30/month flat-rate unlimited usage VoIP service for a few months now. It doesn't work over broadband - you just dial a local access number first. The sound quality is virtually indistinguishable from a land line.
A cached copy of the research paper is available in in several formats from citeseer.
It takes two days for the movies to reach me, and two days for them to return. This means that I can rent, theoretically, (with some serious power movie watching) about 45 movies a month.
This turns out not to be the case. The actual limit under the above conditions is more like 15 per month. Here's why: assume for the sake of argument that you can only have one DVD out at a time. Assume further that the round-trip delay for one DVD is 6 days (2 days postal mail to customer + 2 days post mail to netflix + 1 day for netflix to ship another DVD + 1 day for customer to watch DVD). Clearly under these conditions you would receive about 30/6 = 5 DVDs per month.
Now, no matter how many DVDs you can have out at a time, the basic round-trip delay doesn't get any shorter. Therefore, even if you can have 3 DVDs out a time, you would only be able to watch 15 DVDs per month (which is still a great deal for $20). Josh
Umm... yeah, I always decide which software to run based on whether or not I like the people associated with it. I mean, who the hell cares about the technical merits of the software itself? Good grief.
When people say SMTP is broken, the lack of trust management is what they're referring to. The inherent brokenness of SMTP is that it delivers just about anything that shows up on port 25.
We need something like D. J. Bernstein's proposed Internet Mail 2000 system.
Large mail servers would need massive CPU power to do the necessary public key cryptography.
This turns out not to be the case. Bernstein's hash127 package checksums a 64-byte string in 500 clock cycles on a lowly Pentium 166 This is over 300000 checksums/second. Read more in his paper Floating-point arithmetic and message authentication.
Darse Billings and others at the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group have done quite a bit of research on computer poker. Their program, Poki (source here) plays a reasonably good game of Texas Hold-Em. This is the primary game at the famous World Series of Poker.
Here's the original short story that inspired the movie, by Jonathan Nolan. It's very different from the movie and in some ways it's better. Read it if you get the chance - it gives away nothing about the movie that you couldn't deduce from the Memento trailer.
The second time I saw Memento, I brought a pad of paper and took copious notes. Here are the results: a chronological list of Memento scenes. Warning: SPOILERS there.
-Josh
The key is to have your own domain, and set up forwarding to your current shell account or to a place like fauxbox.com. Shell account/email forwarding providers will change over time, and this way you can switch when your current one gets bad. You also have the flexibility of running the server yourself, if you choose. But the real key is to have your own domain.
cspan has many of Harry Browne's speeches and debates in realvideo.