Put it this way, Obama can't fire Wheeler without just cause.
He does not need to fire him — he just hired him in the first place. FCC is part of the Executive branch and the commissioners are appointed by the President.
Do you not think, full agreement with the President is one of the job-requirements for the Chairman? It better be, or else the President is not doing his job...
I don't know how it works in the US, but the Canadian government cannot refuse a Canadian citizen entry into the country. That's a very good thing.
If the only destination in Canada, that such a citizen is allowed to go to, is prison, I doubt, many would prefer that to the (hypothetical) alternative of flying back.
The practice of Israeli border-guards of demanding access to e-mail of some people wishing to cross into the country is rather disliked by/. and others.
But the worst, that a non-cooperation would result in there would be an interrogation and a flight back to whence you came from. To actually be arrested and prosecuted for a crime over such a refusal is new... Should we begin divesting from Canada's corporations?
Walking and (to a lesser extent) bicycling are inherently less hazardous to other people
So, where is that "clear bright line" you claimed existed?
That said, there are also regulations governing walking and bicycling
Of course! But that's red-herring — I'm not against driving laws. I'm against the licensing requirement — which turned the right of free movement into a privilege.
You seem to think that if there is a right to do something, then that activity cannot be regulated by the government for safety reasons
My whole point is that the right to drive a motorized vehicle on a public road has disappeared while we weren't paying attention. It is not a right any longer. It is a privilege.
This has nothing to do with whether or not it can be regulated.
He must blame himself for voluntarily accepting UAE jurisdiction, yes — much as a raped girl must blame herself for accepting a spiked drink from a stranger.
That UAE incarcerates people for opinions expressed online is still an outrage, however — much as a rape is regardless of the mistakes made by the victim.
Given the "pragmatic" approach to rights even in the country, which explicitly puts them in writing, should we be surprised, other places are even more restrictive?
The pragmatic answer is that some regulation of the roads is necessary in order to avoid bloodshed and chaos.
Which bloodshed and chaos is avoided by making driving a privilege? We still have reckless drivers. All that the licensing gives us is that dealing with them is made a little easier for the Executive government — it is easier to withdraw a privilege than deprive someone of a right.
But that ease is abuse-prone. We deliberately make it harder for the government to fight other "bloodshed and chaos" — consider the 4th and 5th Amendments, the Miranda rights, etc. Generally, we'd rather have a bona-fide criminal go free on occasion, than endanger freedom of the rest of us.
Why don't we apply the same principle to driving? You are, I'm sure, up in arms against NSA eavesdropping — and you would not buy the "it helps prevent bloodshed and chaos" argument in that case. Why the inconsistency?
As you've probably noticed, the real world is driven more by necessity, than by abstract ideological principles
Yes, I have noticed, that the term "pragmatic" is often used where "unprincipled" would've better described the approach.
Actually, there is a clear bright line, and that line is the "public" in "public roads". [...] The public road system, on the other hand, is not your personal plaything.
And that's different from walking and bicycling on the same roads how?
Driving a vehicle falls well within the regulatory bounds of commerce
No, it does not. Not any more than walking does. Commercial driving today requires commercial licenses and that might be acceptable... But pleasure driving — taking kids to see grandma? No way...
Do you have anything that supports your claims?
I do not — nor do I need it. Unless you are going to claim, walking or riding a bicycle may also — some day — become a privilege... Because there is no "clear bright line" between driving, which is a privilege already, and those other activities, which are still rights...
I wasn't able to find "driving a car" in my copy of the bill of rights.
So, it is your opinion, that government may declare anything, that's not explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights to be a privilege?
Walking on a street? Cooking a barbeque? Having children — or an abortion, as the case may be? Oh, wait!..
Of course, you may be onto something — because even something, that is explicitly enumerated as a right, is routinely treated as a mere privilege nation-wide... Point is, of course, it should not be that way...
Why does a free citizen of a free country need government's permission to drive on public roads to begin with?
It is a right, which the Judiciary might take away from the bad — upon successful prosecution by the Executive. Not a privilege to be granted (or not) by the Executive government themselves...
Brace yourself before attempting a rebuttal — make sure, whatever you state in support of the need for these licenses, would not also apply to a permission to walk the public sidewalk...
Libertarians are just as delusional as communists are, the difference is that libertarians also lack both empathy and the will for cooperation
No, the difference is that Communism — wherever practiced in earnest — has turned out to be the most murderous school of thought known to humanity. From Stalin, to Kim, to Sendero Luminoso, to Pol Pot... Even Hitler's genocidal brand of Fascism is but a distant second.
Libertarians can be and are — both in real life and Heinlein's books — quite empathic and willing to cooperate with each other. What we resent is when such "empathy" and cooperation are forced upon us by the government.
What is especially funny is thinking that Heinlein was a libertarian. He was a military first and foremost
False dichotomy. A society can be Libertarian, while its military is not. (Not that I made any affirmative statements about Heinlein's own Libertarianism.)
Heinlein not simply hated communists, he was pissing-his-pants scared of them which coloured his perception.
And he was absolutely right to be afraid of them — not that I'd believe any accusations of involuntary urination you may throw at him.
I have read your posts
I see, I'm making an impact here. Good. Would you like to subscribe to my newsletter?
your ridiculous hate for anything slightly left of fascism
Fascism, dear child, is just another side of the same Collectivism coin, that has Communism on the other side. I personally — if you insist on making this about me — hate both with passion, though I do find Fascism to be slightly less bad than Communism. Franco's Spain was an unpleasant place, but it was not quite as miserable as USSR... But, once you allow the Glorious Collective to take precedence over the Individual, mass murder can not be far behind.
Here in Germany mostly the "heil hitler" kind of baldies from the former GDR are like that
Did you really just compare me to (neo-)Nazis? Godwin much?
There were much better SF authors back then, like Robert Sheckley or Stanislaw Lem.
Well, Lem is in the same league with Heinlein (as are Strugatsky brothers) — it is hard to say, who is "better". Sheckley, while funny, is a lighter weight in my opinion — he was happy to troll the society, but there was little to no science to his fiction.
Their books stood the test of time much better than anything Heinlein has ever written
Yeah? Name one movie based on Sheckley's stories. He is virtually unknown here in the US — even in the town where he lived most of his life (and died), which is just a couple of miles from my house. I like him a lot, but he was much better known in Socialist countries — where censors liked his mocking of Capitalism — than at home or the rest of the free world.
The ones who speak loudest about the virtues of the individual are usually the ones who profit from a collective the most
Citation needed.
You boasted once that you can speak Russian. Let this example of virtues of the individual speak for itself.
Could you state the actual point, which you are trying to support with this anonymous quote purporting to be from a Russian woman bragging about suing her Austrian husband?
You cannot make a statement that "all" of something is true, then be proven false, and just amend your statement to "almost all".
Why can I not? I just did. If the amendment does not affect the argument — if the argument remains just a convincing with "almost" as it was without it — it is fine. We are, presumably, trying to improve our understanding of life here, not play a game.
You have given not one single reference that children born out of marriage are considered with suspicion at all
I have, actually — the term "bastard" is a derogatory one, and not just in English (two other languages I know attach the same negative connotations to fatherless children).
10-20 years ago Libertarians were smiled at and politely dismissed with a shrug. These days Statists on/. and elsewhere assault us with their comments, signatures, and mod-points. And Heinlein — whether or not he was a Libertarian himself — did push many people into Libertarianism.
"TANSTAAFL" isn't a popular acronym
It certainly is not popular among the lunch-recipients...
and Heinlein is overrated.
He is right up there with Azimov and Clark with numerous Hugo and other awards to his name (including a Hugo for this novel). But unlike those two, he was "violently" anti-Collectivism (perhaps in atonement for his Socialist youth of the 1930-ies). And he hated the Commies and the USSR with passion — which I, an escapee from the evil empire especially appreciate.
In addition to science fiction, where he extolled virtues of the Individual while dissing the Collective, he also published a number of opinion-pieces mocking the things dear to "progressive" Illiberal minds advocating for strong military (against USSR), mocking schools and colleges, and asking tough questions (along with unpleasant answers) about race-relationships.
Could this be coloring your perspective, AC? Just a little?
Whenever statistics is used to talk about discrimination (sexual, racial, religious), two conflicting sets of axioms are employed by the people arguing. Allow me to enumerate:
All groups of people (genders, races, religions) are, on average, the same and any statistically-observed differences in their behavior or treatment can only be due to bigotry.
All groups of people (genders, races, religions) are, on average, treated the same and any statistically-observed differences in their behavior or treatment can only be due their own differences from others.
Obviously, the first axiom — and conclusions — is the politically-correct official stance championed by the government. And I'd like to share it too. But it contradicts some of the well-known facts:
Maybe, it is all about single-parenthood — all human cultures were highly suspicious of bastard children (the very term is a derogatory one). And not because the mother "sinned" — if that were the case, her subsequent marriage would not have absolved the child — but because it is much harder for a single parent to raise a child into a decent human being. So, the "preconditioned" response this study exposed may not be so much about race per se, as about the likelihood of the person to be not right in the head — they are about 2.5-3 times more likely to have grown up without a father.
It'd be interesting, if the study used Whites, who've grown up in those parts of the world, where Blacks' incidence of single-parenthood is not so awfully lopsided. And compared them with the American Whites.
I'm not aware of any American sanctions or military moves
The NYTimes article I cited talks about the sanctions. The military moves you mentioned yourself — the move of the navy into Black Sea — the invasion stopped short of taking Tbilisi. Or, maybe, it was diplomacy — the Russians stopped, when Condoleeza Rice arrived to Tbilisi. It was not enough to make Russians return the land they captured, but it was enough to make them stop short of taking the capital.
The "not enough" part was bad. But the "awful" was avoided...
It makes me think you're a partisan shill instead of a thinking human.
I am a thinking human, and therefor I "shill" for Republicans. They are bad, but they aren't (quite as) awful.
This will not dissuade Ms. Clinton's adorers, who'll dismiss it all as yet another manifestation of the infamous vast right-wing conspiracy. They love her for being a Collectivist (as in "It takes a village"), a Democrat, and the first female President.
Nor will it affect her opponents ("haters") much, because to them this only confirms, what they knew or suspected for years.
Slashdot Mirror
He does not need to fire him — he just hired him in the first place. FCC is part of the Executive branch and the commissioners are appointed by the President.
Do you not think, full agreement with the President is one of the job-requirements for the Chairman? It better be, or else the President is not doing his job...
Ah, but you do! The well-moderated comment I quoted states, that the Federal Government is the most trust-worthy institution in America...
It must take some special kind of schizophrenia to trust FCC and not trust NSA or the Marshas Service at the same time...
why don't we trust the Marshals Service to be fair as well? Are they being controlled by a different President or something?
Yes, we have so many of them here on /., it is frightening.
Fortunately, it is not poor at all. Own mistakes, that lead one into trouble, are rarely an excuse for those, who cause the actual trouble itself.
It does not matter, whether the "trouble" is rape or unjust incarceration.
I don't know how it works in the US, but the Canadian government cannot refuse a Canadian citizen entry into the country. That's a very good thing.
If the only destination in Canada, that such a citizen is allowed to go to, is prison, I doubt, many would prefer that to the (hypothetical) alternative of flying back.
Thanks, that's informative.
Why can he not? I'd certainly rather return to Dominican Republic, then go to Canadian prison (in winter!).
Has there been an Israeli citizen arrested over such a refusal to open up his e-mail when returning to his country?
The practice of Israeli border-guards of demanding access to e-mail of some people wishing to cross into the country is rather disliked by /. and others.
But the worst, that a non-cooperation would result in there would be an interrogation and a flight back to whence you came from. To actually be arrested and prosecuted for a crime over such a refusal is new... Should we begin divesting from Canada's corporations?
So, where is that "clear bright line" you claimed existed?
Of course! But that's red-herring — I'm not against driving laws. I'm against the licensing requirement — which turned the right of free movement into a privilege.
My whole point is that the right to drive a motorized vehicle on a public road has disappeared while we weren't paying attention. It is not a right any longer. It is a privilege.
This has nothing to do with whether or not it can be regulated.
He must blame himself for voluntarily accepting UAE jurisdiction, yes — much as a raped girl must blame herself for accepting a spiked drink from a stranger.
That UAE incarcerates people for opinions expressed online is still an outrage, however — much as a rape is regardless of the mistakes made by the victim.
Well, as we are often reminded by various Illiberals here at home:
Given the "pragmatic" approach to rights even in the country, which explicitly puts them in writing, should we be surprised, other places are even more restrictive?
Which bloodshed and chaos is avoided by making driving a privilege? We still have reckless drivers. All that the licensing gives us is that dealing with them is made a little easier for the Executive government — it is easier to withdraw a privilege than deprive someone of a right.
But that ease is abuse-prone. We deliberately make it harder for the government to fight other "bloodshed and chaos" — consider the 4th and 5th Amendments, the Miranda rights, etc. Generally, we'd rather have a bona-fide criminal go free on occasion, than endanger freedom of the rest of us.
Why don't we apply the same principle to driving? You are, I'm sure, up in arms against NSA eavesdropping — and you would not buy the "it helps prevent bloodshed and chaos" argument in that case. Why the inconsistency?
Yes, I have noticed, that the term "pragmatic" is often used where "unprincipled" would've better described the approach.
And that's different from walking and bicycling on the same roads how?
Or are those activities not rights either?
No, it does not. Not any more than walking does. Commercial driving today requires commercial licenses and that might be acceptable... But pleasure driving — taking kids to see grandma? No way...
I do not — nor do I need it. Unless you are going to claim, walking or riding a bicycle may also — some day — become a privilege... Because there is no "clear bright line" between driving, which is a privilege already, and those other activities, which are still rights...
So, it is your opinion, that government may declare anything, that's not explicitly enumerated in the Bill of Rights to be a privilege?
Walking on a street? Cooking a barbeque? Having children — or an abortion, as the case may be? Oh, wait!..
Of course, you may be onto something — because even something, that is explicitly enumerated as a right, is routinely treated as a mere privilege nation-wide... Point is, of course, it should not be that way...
Why does a free citizen of a free country need government's permission to drive on public roads to begin with?
It is a right, which the Judiciary might take away from the bad — upon successful prosecution by the Executive. Not a privilege to be granted (or not) by the Executive government themselves...
Brace yourself before attempting a rebuttal — make sure, whatever you state in support of the need for these licenses, would not also apply to a permission to walk the public sidewalk...
No, the difference is that Communism — wherever practiced in earnest — has turned out to be the most murderous school of thought known to humanity. From Stalin, to Kim, to Sendero Luminoso, to Pol Pot... Even Hitler's genocidal brand of Fascism is but a distant second.
Libertarians can be and are — both in real life and Heinlein's books — quite empathic and willing to cooperate with each other. What we resent is when such "empathy" and cooperation are forced upon us by the government.
False dichotomy. A society can be Libertarian, while its military is not. (Not that I made any affirmative statements about Heinlein's own Libertarianism.)
And he was absolutely right to be afraid of them — not that I'd believe any accusations of involuntary urination you may throw at him.
I see, I'm making an impact here. Good. Would you like to subscribe to my newsletter?
Fascism, dear child, is just another side of the same Collectivism coin, that has Communism on the other side. I personally — if you insist on making this about me — hate both with passion, though I do find Fascism to be slightly less bad than Communism. Franco's Spain was an unpleasant place, but it was not quite as miserable as USSR... But, once you allow the Glorious Collective to take precedence over the Individual, mass murder can not be far behind.
Did you really just compare me to (neo-)Nazis? Godwin much?
Well, Lem is in the same league with Heinlein (as are Strugatsky brothers) — it is hard to say, who is "better". Sheckley, while funny, is a lighter weight in my opinion — he was happy to troll the society, but there was little to no science to his fiction.
Yeah? Name one movie based on Sheckley's stories. He is virtually unknown here in the US — even in the town where he lived most of his life (and died), which is just a couple of miles from my house. I like him a lot, but he was much better known in Socialist countries — where censors liked his mocking of Capitalism — than at home or the rest of the free world.
Citation needed.
Could you state the actual point, which you are trying to support with this anonymous quote purporting to be from a Russian woman bragging about suing her Austrian husband?
Why can I not? I just did. If the amendment does not affect the argument — if the argument remains just a convincing with "almost" as it was without it — it is fine. We are, presumably, trying to improve our understanding of life here, not play a game.
I have, actually — the term "bastard" is a derogatory one, and not just in English (two other languages I know attach the same negative connotations to fatherless children).
Are you sincerely questioning the premise, however, or just grasping for straws? Are you really not convinced, growing up in a single-parent household is a handicap?
Ah! Sorry, so there is an obscure culture of a whopping 40K people (or about 0.000625% of humanity), who are an exception.
Does it make a difference? Does my argument change in the slightest, if you replace the words "all human cultures" with "almost all human cultures"?
Please, don't hate.
10-20 years ago Libertarians were smiled at and politely dismissed with a shrug. These days Statists on /. and elsewhere assault us with their comments, signatures, and mod-points. And Heinlein — whether or not he was a Libertarian himself — did push many people into Libertarianism.
It certainly is not popular among the lunch-recipients...
He is right up there with Azimov and Clark with numerous Hugo and other awards to his name (including a Hugo for this novel). But unlike those two, he was "violently" anti-Collectivism (perhaps in atonement for his Socialist youth of the 1930-ies). And he hated the Commies and the USSR with passion — which I, an escapee from the evil empire especially appreciate.
In addition to science fiction, where he extolled virtues of the Individual while dissing the Collective, he also published a number of opinion-pieces mocking the things dear to "progressive" Illiberal minds advocating for strong military (against USSR), mocking schools and colleges, and asking tough questions (along with unpleasant answers) about race-relationships.
Could this be coloring your perspective, AC? Just a little?
Try being one of the small races. People go out of their way to antagonize you.
Not if you are an elven girl naked except for high-heel boots and miniature (but armored) underwear with eyes the size of your (substantial) breasts.
Whenever statistics is used to talk about discrimination (sexual, racial, religious), two conflicting sets of axioms are employed by the people arguing. Allow me to enumerate:
Obviously, the first axiom — and conclusions — is the politically-correct official stance championed by the government. And I'd like to share it too. But it contradicts some of the well-known facts:
So, the first axiom is shot by reality...
Maybe, it is all about single-parenthood — all human cultures were highly suspicious of bastard children (the very term is a derogatory one). And not because the mother "sinned" — if that were the case, her subsequent marriage would not have absolved the child — but because it is much harder for a single parent to raise a child into a decent human being. So, the "preconditioned" response this study exposed may not be so much about race per se, as about the likelihood of the person to be not right in the head — they are about 2.5-3 times more likely to have grown up without a father.
It'd be interesting, if the study used Whites, who've grown up in those parts of the world, where Blacks' incidence of single-parenthood is not so awfully lopsided. And compared them with the American Whites.
Not all — but only the losers among us...
The NYTimes article I cited talks about the sanctions. The military moves you mentioned yourself — the move of the navy into Black Sea — the invasion stopped short of taking Tbilisi. Or, maybe, it was diplomacy — the Russians stopped, when Condoleeza Rice arrived to Tbilisi. It was not enough to make Russians return the land they captured, but it was enough to make them stop short of taking the capital.
The "not enough" part was bad. But the "awful" was avoided...
I am a thinking human, and therefor I "shill" for Republicans. They are bad, but they aren't (quite as) awful.
This will not dissuade Ms. Clinton's adorers, who'll dismiss it all as yet another manifestation of the infamous vast right-wing conspiracy. They love her for being a Collectivist (as in "It takes a village"), a Democrat, and the first female President.
Nor will it affect her opponents ("haters") much, because to them this only confirms, what they knew or suspected for years.
Nothing new here, move along...