Shared the nobel prize with Fleming [for penicilin]
Florey's work on penicilin took place in 1941. Australia's PBS was created in 1948...
Gardasil did, indeed, originate from Australia, but it was researched by a university — not a commercial pharmaceutical corporation. The heavy-lifting, however — like the clinical trials — were undertaken by Merck... On the hope to make a pretty penny selling it...
But even those sucky big-cable monsters, are still better, than what government would've provided — if USPS, Amtrak, and NYC's traffic are any indication...
[...] without regard to the cost of the customers bottom line
The only fair way to help customers' bottom line is to ensure competition.
Everything else — any attempts at governmental price-controls — means confiscating from the designers/producers (unfair in itself) and, consequently, limiting the customers' options (defeating the original goal)...
Hard for Americans to understand, but they are just grown up
Ah, I see, the Dutch are grown-up, whereas Americans aren't... Racist much?
accept democratic allocation of such resources
Somehow I dislike anything remotely like "democratic allocation" of my resources... Maybe, I'm just a child throwing a tantrum — but if I were, how come I was able to earn any such "resources" to begin with?
Given the Dutch life expenctency is 81 I doubt they consider living past 75 immoral
I don't see a connection...
Or it means it's restricted to the people who match what it was designed for. Or it means it's an experiment [...]
The point was, if one option is better than another, than the only way to fairly limit access to the better option is to make it more expensive. It just may be, of course, that there no need to impose such limits — e-mail, for example, is both better and cheaper than First Class mail — and it is great, when this happens. But it is rare...
No, at least in the case of pharmaceuticals single payer is less expensive. You have more negotiating leverage.
If you are the sole buyer, and you use that leverage of yours too much, you'll simply have no sellers/service-providers. Competition works both ways — or is supposed to. If the buyer is unreasonable, the seller shrugs and sells to someone else — if there is anybody else. If there is not, the seller closes down the shop.
In the Dutch system you also do not have CEOs of medical companies having to pay for trophy mistresses, reducing costs even further.
Ok, let's stipulate for a second, the Dutch CEOs — unlike the American ones — are all asexual, and do some computations. Let's say, five big-pharma CEOs, are overseeing development and production of drugs for, say, 1bln people. Even if each one had 20 mistresses to support, an extra dollar per year from the beneficiaries of their work would give each mistress a whopping $10mln per year. You are barking up the wrong tree. Easy though it is to harp at the executive pay, it is largely irrelevant to the cost of the final product...
Is what a nursing home costs in the US. Fortunately after paying down all assets Medicaid kicks in. Unfortunately Congress seems poised to slash medicaid. Good luck to all of you out there who may end up taking care of someone with Alzheimer's or dementia. The best you can do is pray for an early death.
Neah, I'll vote for a politician, who'll use government's power to collect money at gunpoint (taxes) to subsidize the healthcare of my relative instead. Saving-up is for suckers.
In Holland, everyone pays into the state health care system during their working years, with the money then disbursed to pay for later-in-life expenses
So nice to see the abundance of options people in other countries have. Is not it awesome to have a single provider of healthcare? You would never think of disagreeing with how those monies you've been paying all your life are (or aren't) disbursed, would you?
And if someone does get so disgustingly anti-social as to have such a discouraging thought, why, End-of-Life Counseling may be just what the doctor might order for him... Living past 75 is immoral, after all...
and that means living in Hogewey does not cost any more than a traditional nursing home
Well, that means that either it is not a particularly desired option, or that joining requires non-monetary "payments" — such as waiting in line for a few years, or paying a bribe, or knowing somebody in the right place...
The USPS employees are federal employees and the government would be on the hook to pay for them, should USPS go bankrupt in the future.
other than to create teh false impression that the USPS is in financial ruin.
False, eh? It really is simple — if a service is useful, private companies will find profit in providing it... And they'd be better at it too — I'd take FedEx or even UPS over USPS any day of the week.
But even your own argument — that it is the Congress' meddling, rather than its own shortcomings, that keep USPS in the red — supports my opinion. Privatize the USPS (and Amtrak, and bridges, tunnels, roads) and keep the government types (from whatever party) out of their management...
OK, so you want to build a competing bridge? Where do you put it? You are going to have to buy the land, and there is no guarantee that the landowners on both sides will sell.
Rail-roads solved this problem in the 19th century. I'm quite confident, they remain solvable.
Even if you do mange to buy the land, and build the bridge, what is to stop your competitors (assuming all bridges are private) from lowering their toll low enough to drive you bankrupt?
Hey, you just explained, why nobody will ever open a new pizzeria...
Because you aren't going to get competition, you're going to get consolidation and monopoly rates. Standard Oil and railroad barons, Google them too.
Why don't you get your head out of your ass (if you even consist of anything other than asshole, which is unclear from your rhetorical style), and research, what it was, that put an end to Standard Oil's abuses — we clearly do not have a government's monopoly on oil extraction, refining, nor delivery. We have a multitude of oil-companies, that compete with other fiercely. So fiercely, the cost of gasoline at the pump is going down, bringing us back to the topic of TFA...
We've had anti-trust laws for over a century now. While you were sleeping, they were used to break up AT&T and force Microsoft into a number of concessions. Instead of the hypothetical — and highly illegal — conspiracy of the would-be private owners of the bridges and tunnels, you are willing to tolerate the actual monopoly of the "Port Authority" of NY and NJ (and similar outfits elsewhere)?..
Without that exclusivity, no private company would ever recoup its initial and ongoing costs.
Huh? Why not?
And even if there were alternatives, the discussion has only moved from the ills of a monopoly to the almost exact same ills that exist in an oligopoly.
Any "oligopoly" is much better than monopoly — unless, of course, the private parties conspire to not compete. We've had federal laws against such conspiracies for over a century now — if the US saw fit to block Office Depot from merging with Staples, for fear of the resulting entity becoming a monopoly in the market of freaking office supplies, why do we tolerate the Port Authority's monopoly on bridges and tunnels of NY and NJ?
Honestly, it sounds like your problem is with the Constitution, which gives government the power to collect taxes and establish (post) roads.
My problem here is with the big-government asshole, who — suddenly hearing the jingling of some extra coin in the peasant's pocket — is quick to offer an excuse to tax that coin away. Because the king knows better, how to spend it.
And we all know WHY the USPS is broke. Not because it can't deliver letters, but because it's being forced by Congress to prefund its pension/healthcare/workers comp funds to an absurd extent
All the more reasons to privatize it — thus setting it free from Congress' meddling, is not it?
The point, however, was that nobody is suggesting, the stamp price should go up because fewer people use the service (thanks to e-mail)... And that is the argument the Illiberal in TFA is making: raise the gas-tax because people buy less of it (thanks to improvements in fuel-economy).
Bridges have a natural monopoly over their local environment.
"Natural monopoly" is a myth — perpetuated by government types with vested interest in expanding government's power. It is particularly obvious in case of bridges — building another one next to an existing one is not substantially harder, than building the first one: you don't even need to exercise "eminent domain" for most of the distance (above the river)...
With that in mind, why would a private bridge owner have any incentive to lower prices?
For the same reason, your local pizzeria does not charge you $1000 for a pie — for fear, you'll go elsewhere. The attraction of "free" crossing is balanced against the additional time it would take to make use of it — and attracts people willing to wait instead of spending money. The number of such people is determined largely by the additional delay of the free option. For some people $1 of price-difference is enough, for others it would take $5. But the cost-consideration is there. Once bridges are independently-owned and compete, their owners will have a financial incentive to keep the traffic flowing (and expanding). Some competitors might even undertake to build a new crossing — when they figure, such an investment has a good chance of paying off...
Come on, if New York's toll bridges and tunnels were all owned by the same private corporation, you too would be screaming against their monopoly. But if that monopoly is the government's, then it is Ok with you somehow...
And btw it might be decent in some parts of the country but $30/hr is a shitty wage in NYC.
Yeah, that's nominal wage — add bonuses and "overtime", etc. and it becomes a very-well paying job, which is impossible to get without "connections" (note, how this "help wanted" listing does not even advertise full-time toll-collection opportunities).
Regardless, whether the booth-workers are under- or over-paid, the building and maintenance of bridges and tunnels can be made by competing corporations and thus must not be done by the government...
Every dollar taken away from a citizen to be spent by the lawmakers and bureaucrats, robs the citizen of his freedom to spend that money the way he would have chosen.
Illiberals, of course, love that. Statists, as somebody put it, gonna state. Their sheep are bleating, that they "love" paying taxes because with them, you see, they are "buying civilization" — the irony of using the term referring to a volitional act to describe a mandatory wealth-transfer escaping them...
Why do the rest of us even listen to these types — instead of running them out tarred and feathered?
The current 18.4 cent per gallon gas tax has not been raised since 1993, making it about 11 cents per gallon today, in constant dollars. Plus, as fuel efficiency has gotten better and Americans have started driving less, the tax has naturally raised less revenue anyway. And that's a problem because the tax fills the Highway Trust Fund, which is, not to put too fine a point on it, broke
Yeah, and so is the Postal Service — despite raising its prices several-fold — and so is, pretty much, everything the government runs. What tax-increase would Pat Garofalo propose, to compensate the USPS for people sending fewer things by mail?
To enter (or leave) New York by car, one has many options — most of them involving a toll of $10+ (in addition to the fuel-taxes). Why can't those bridges and tunnels be privately owned and compete with each other? Maybe then they'll start treating drivers as a profit opportunity, rather than a nuisance... And fight back the toll-collectors' union thugs — those aren't exactly demanding jobs, but they pay over $30/hour, because the money does not currently come from the pockets of the people approving pay-increases.
Have you tried configuring your server to relay all outgoing mail through Comcast's own server(s)? You can declare it as "smarthost" (in sendmail-speak), or have custom rules (through "mailertable" — sendmail-speak again) for using Comcast's box only for those destinations, which would not talk to you directly... Either way, it may solve your problem and even make life a little easier for your box...
I've never used Comcast myself — they may have some idiots operating their mail-server (RCN and Verizon FiOS both do, why should Comcast be better?). But it may work...
It should be taken as inspirational, not normative
Distinction without a difference — in this case.
Everything is legal — unless it deprives somebody else of their liberty somehow. As, for example, a robbery would.
As an example, all states in the US deprive certain people of liberty, and some deprive certain people of life.
Of course! But only upon the Judiciary's decision — that's my whole point. Because life and liberty are rights, the Executive can not deprive you of it — not without Judiciary's approval. But, having made driving a mere privilege, the Executive is now able to take it away on a whim...
You specifically do not have to pursue happiness in an automobile.
I don't have to, but if I choose to anyway, you can not stop me — unless I am infringing on somebody else's pursuit of happiness. And I am not.
I do — just because I am a human being. Most likely, you do too:
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness
The concept is too vague and would if applied make all laws impossible to enforce as you can argue any action is taken in the pursuit of happiness, and therefore protected.
Wrong. It is very easy to understand — my right to such a pursuit is limited by other people's pursuit of same.
But you are partially right: some laws — those prohibiting various victimless crimes — such as prostitution or, indeed, driving without a license, would be abolished under my doctrine. And that'll be a very good thing indeed.
this article is about Canada not the US.
The right is inherent in human beings — it predates and transcends nations. Do Canadians have right to life and liberty?
That is something I have never understood, how do citizens lose basic human/citizen rights?
There are rights-depriving punishments for a variety of crimes. The most obvious is being imprisoned — which is what you'll face for many offenses. Point was, you need to be judged by the Judiciary before you lose those rights. But, if it is a mere privilege, then the Executive can withdraw (or not renew) it without having to prove anything first.
What does it matter if someone has jaywalked, should they lose their right to free speech?
No, you usually retain all rights despite jaywalking. More serious law-breaking may put you in prison, where your rights will be severely restricted — while you are there... And some crimes — those of sexual nature, for example — may reduce your rights even after you get out (perhaps, unconstitutionally).
By that theory, you should be able to hop into a plane without any training and just fly wherever you want, too.
As a matter of fact, yes, that is true. If you have a plane, you can fly it. Wright brothers didn't have a pilot license...
You have the right to travel: on foot.
So, not even on a bicycle, huh? BTW, did you know, walking on a highway is illegal today — as is hitchhiking? And, of course, you are simply wrong...
"The use of the highway for the purpose of travel and transportation is not a mere privilege, but a common fundamental right of which the public and individuals cannot rightfully be deprived." Chicago Motor Coach v. Chicago, 169 NE 221.
"The right to travel is a part of the liberty of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment." Kent v. Dulles, 357 US 116, 125.
There are more citations, where the above came from...
So what?.. Guns are quite dangerous too — and yet, keeping and bearing arms is likewise a right, according to the Constitution (even if frequently violated by Illiberals nation-wide).
perfectly reasonable harm reduction strategy
That may very well be true. But that's irrelevant. Allowing police to search without a warrant may also be a "perfectly reasonable harm-reduction strategy", for example. Mandatory carrying of identification is also "harm-reducing".
Car drivers are responsible for too many deaths as it is
Irrelevant.
remove any ability of society to put a lower bound on the competence of drivers
People are murdered by pedestrians quite often too — will you require license from pedestrians? How about the government's permission for leaving home?
What would you not allow the government to limit — under the convenient pretext of "harm-reduction"?
Driver's Licenses are an outrage of its own. Somehow somewhere an opinion crept up, that driving is not a right to be taken away from the bad by the Judiciary, but a mere privilege to be granted to the good by the Executive — who, consequently, can also withdraw it without bothering with the pesky judges for any reason (such as not paying child support)... You should be able to drive anonymously — until you break a driving law — just as you can walk anonymously on a publicly-maintained sidewalk and look at a publicly-powered traffic-light without a license.
or marriage licenses to get married
Marriage gives couples certain additional privileges — above the unmarried couples having sex. The exact perks vary by locale, but they are there. Perhaps, all such perks should be abolished altogether — I'd be in favor of striking away all laws with the word "spouse" in it, although the society may still reward couples raising children together — but until they are abolished, asking for names of people applying for those privileges is Ok...
Now, licensing Internet-usage would also turn it from a right into a privilege — and that can not be allowed, however much the Statists would like to see that happen.
Why is it immoral to force Peter to pay for Paul's food and housing? It's immoral to let Paul starve.
What?! Why? Where? Which school of thought or religions has ever said anything of the kind?
Or are you conflating the volitional charitable help to fellow human beings with the mandatory? Jesus helped the poor — and encouraged followers to do so as well — but he never called for Caesar to raise taxes and give free food to anyone...
I'm sure Paul will agree that he'd pay for Peter's food and housing if their situations were reversed, and Peter would accept rather than starve.
Once again, if you are so "sure", why do you need the tax authorities to force Pauls into paying for Peters? Not encourage, mind you, but force? Why can't Paul voluntarily give Peter the extra monies for whatever service Peter goes to work to do? Perhaps, you aren't quite as sure as you claim to be...
But it not only moreally wrong to force people to pay for things, they don't want to pay for. It is also destructive to economy. If Peter's work does not pay enough for him to eat well and afford his own transport, then either he should be doing something else, or he should raise his prices. By forcing Paul to keep paying Peter anyway, you perpetuate the misery of both sides — and the economic inefficiency of making something, that not enough people want to make it worthwhile on its own.
If your friend or relative are starving, perhaps you should help them (note, I don't say "must"). But you aren't responsible for total strangers you've never seen, who — living in the same perfectly decent country as yourself — aren't, for some reason, able to afford basic necessities. Not in my school of morality. And if your beliefs are different, you are welcome to act on them by donating to a charity of your choice — but that's not enough for you, is it? You aren't satisfied, until you've forced everybody else to act as if they were their beliefs too — and that's immoral.
I consider selfishness as unacceptable.
There you go — this one phrase is the tell-tale. You find selfishness unacceptable, and therefor it is Ok — in your opinion — to crush the "selfish" into obedience by force of arms... That's moral?
You can buy large cars in Europe.
You can. And you can have a white Mercedes 6xx in Thailand. But few people can afford them and therefor there aren't many...
And how big does a shower need to be!?
Big enough to be comfortable. Until you've had a chance to compare 5 or more German showers to that many American ones, you wouldn't understand. And I have — perhaps, on this one you can just take my word...
Do you think that North Carolina could repel a Russian invasion without the military contribution of the rest of the US
The entire Europe (population over 700 mln) would not be able to resist a Russian (population under 150 mln) invasion... Because you don't spend enough money on equipment and training. And not just that, unfortunately...
The reason we're not spending a lot on the military though, is because we find that cooperation and social reforms have reduced the need.
Yeah? Russia's leaders — from Stalin to Putin — loved that line of reasoning among their would-be victims. There is a good reason they hate America most and foremost, without us you would've been as fluent in Russian as Czechs and Poles are...
I don't really have one — I was offered a definition and saw a number of problems with it. The best I hear back is that "science" defines a number of things — such as breathing, excretion and even movement — differently from the rest of the world.
To me, for example, moving one's leaves or fingers is not "movement" — changing one's location is. Moss can't do it — not on its own volition, anyway — so it is not "alive"...
And if a definition requires so many clarifications (if not outright redefinitions of other terms), then it is a bad definition, that's all.
Slashdot Mirror
Florey's work on penicilin took place in 1941. Australia's PBS was created in 1948... Gardasil did, indeed, originate from Australia, but it was researched by a university — not a commercial pharmaceutical corporation. The heavy-lifting, however — like the clinical trials — were undertaken by Merck... On the hope to make a pretty penny selling it...
There are still more than one of those usually. And the reason we have so few is the earlier government regulation which established the monopoly, and the remaining local regulations, which continue to favor the incumbents even after the federal laws have been amended/abolished.
But even those sucky big-cable monsters, are still better, than what government would've provided — if USPS, Amtrak, and NYC's traffic are any indication...
The only fair way to help customers' bottom line is to ensure competition.
Everything else — any attempts at governmental price-controls — means confiscating from the designers/producers (unfair in itself) and, consequently, limiting the customers' options (defeating the original goal)...
Can't recall any break-through drug to come from Australia. Can you?..
Ah, I see, the Dutch are grown-up, whereas Americans aren't... Racist much?
Somehow I dislike anything remotely like "democratic allocation" of my resources... Maybe, I'm just a child throwing a tantrum — but if I were, how come I was able to earn any such "resources" to begin with?
I don't see a connection...
The point was, if one option is better than another, than the only way to fairly limit access to the better option is to make it more expensive. It just may be, of course, that there no need to impose such limits — e-mail, for example, is both better and cheaper than First Class mail — and it is great, when this happens. But it is rare...
Thank you very much for the insightful ("informative", rather) rebuttal. Will definitely bookmark and read again.
If you are the sole buyer, and you use that leverage of yours too much, you'll simply have no sellers/service-providers. Competition works both ways — or is supposed to. If the buyer is unreasonable, the seller shrugs and sells to someone else — if there is anybody else. If there is not, the seller closes down the shop.
Ok, let's stipulate for a second, the Dutch CEOs — unlike the American ones — are all asexual, and do some computations. Let's say, five big-pharma CEOs, are overseeing development and production of drugs for, say, 1bln people. Even if each one had 20 mistresses to support, an extra dollar per year from the beneficiaries of their work would give each mistress a whopping $10mln per year. You are barking up the wrong tree. Easy though it is to harp at the executive pay, it is largely irrelevant to the cost of the final product...
Neah, I'll vote for a politician, who'll use government's power to collect money at gunpoint (taxes) to subsidize the healthcare of my relative instead. Saving-up is for suckers.
So nice to see the abundance of options people in other countries have. Is not it awesome to have a single provider of healthcare? You would never think of disagreeing with how those monies you've been paying all your life are (or aren't) disbursed, would you?
And if someone does get so disgustingly anti-social as to have such a discouraging thought, why, End-of-Life Counseling may be just what the doctor might order for him... Living past 75 is immoral, after all...
Well, that means that either it is not a particularly desired option, or that joining requires non-monetary "payments" — such as waiting in line for a few years, or paying a bribe, or knowing somebody in the right place...
I like your style...
Consistent with your already-mentioned style, you don't offer any citations but I gather, you are referring to the 2006 legislation. What you would not read at DailyKos and MotherJones, however, is that the services has been losing money since e-mail took more and more business away from the First Class Mail...
The USPS employees are federal employees and the government would be on the hook to pay for them, should USPS go bankrupt in the future.
False, eh? It really is simple — if a service is useful, private companies will find profit in providing it... And they'd be better at it too — I'd take FedEx or even UPS over USPS any day of the week.
But even your own argument — that it is the Congress' meddling, rather than its own shortcomings, that keep USPS in the red — supports my opinion. Privatize the USPS (and Amtrak, and bridges, tunnels, roads) and keep the government types (from whatever party) out of their management...
Rail-roads solved this problem in the 19th century. I'm quite confident, they remain solvable.
Hey, you just explained, why nobody will ever open a new pizzeria...
Why don't you get your head out of your ass (if you even consist of anything other than asshole, which is unclear from your rhetorical style), and research, what it was, that put an end to Standard Oil's abuses — we clearly do not have a government's monopoly on oil extraction, refining, nor delivery. We have a multitude of oil-companies, that compete with other fiercely. So fiercely, the cost of gasoline at the pump is going down, bringing us back to the topic of TFA...
We've had anti-trust laws for over a century now. While you were sleeping, they were used to break up AT&T and force Microsoft into a number of concessions. Instead of the hypothetical — and highly illegal — conspiracy of the would-be private owners of the bridges and tunnels, you are willing to tolerate the actual monopoly of the "Port Authority" of NY and NJ (and similar outfits elsewhere)?..
There is no such thing.
Huh? Why not?
Any "oligopoly" is much better than monopoly — unless, of course, the private parties conspire to not compete. We've had federal laws against such conspiracies for over a century now — if the US saw fit to block Office Depot from merging with Staples, for fear of the resulting entity becoming a monopoly in the market of freaking office supplies, why do we tolerate the Port Authority's monopoly on bridges and tunnels of NY and NJ?
My problem here is with the big-government asshole, who — suddenly hearing the jingling of some extra coin in the peasant's pocket — is quick to offer an excuse to tax that coin away. Because the king knows better, how to spend it.
All the more reasons to privatize it — thus setting it free from Congress' meddling, is not it?
The point, however, was that nobody is suggesting, the stamp price should go up because fewer people use the service (thanks to e-mail)... And that is the argument the Illiberal in TFA is making: raise the gas-tax because people buy less of it (thanks to improvements in fuel-economy).
"Natural monopoly" is a myth — perpetuated by government types with vested interest in expanding government's power. It is particularly obvious in case of bridges — building another one next to an existing one is not substantially harder, than building the first one: you don't even need to exercise "eminent domain" for most of the distance (above the river)...
For the same reason, your local pizzeria does not charge you $1000 for a pie — for fear, you'll go elsewhere. The attraction of "free" crossing is balanced against the additional time it would take to make use of it — and attracts people willing to wait instead of spending money. The number of such people is determined largely by the additional delay of the free option. For some people $1 of price-difference is enough, for others it would take $5. But the cost-consideration is there. Once bridges are independently-owned and compete, their owners will have a financial incentive to keep the traffic flowing (and expanding). Some competitors might even undertake to build a new crossing — when they figure, such an investment has a good chance of paying off...
Come on, if New York's toll bridges and tunnels were all owned by the same private corporation, you too would be screaming against their monopoly. But if that monopoly is the government's, then it is Ok with you somehow...
Yeah, that's nominal wage — add bonuses and "overtime", etc. and it becomes a very-well paying job, which is impossible to get without "connections" (note, how this "help wanted" listing does not even advertise full-time toll-collection opportunities).
Regardless, whether the booth-workers are under- or over-paid, the building and maintenance of bridges and tunnels can be made by competing corporations and thus must not be done by the government...
Every dollar taken away from a citizen to be spent by the lawmakers and bureaucrats, robs the citizen of his freedom to spend that money the way he would have chosen.
Illiberals, of course, love that. Statists, as somebody put it, gonna state. Their sheep are bleating, that they "love" paying taxes because with them, you see, they are "buying civilization" — the irony of using the term referring to a volitional act to describe a mandatory wealth-transfer escaping them...
Why do the rest of us even listen to these types — instead of running them out tarred and feathered?
Yeah, and so is the Postal Service — despite raising its prices several-fold — and so is, pretty much, everything the government runs. What tax-increase would Pat Garofalo propose, to compensate the USPS for people sending fewer things by mail?
To enter (or leave) New York by car, one has many options — most of them involving a toll of $10+ (in addition to the fuel-taxes). Why can't those bridges and tunnels be privately owned and compete with each other? Maybe then they'll start treating drivers as a profit opportunity, rather than a nuisance... And fight back the toll-collectors' union thugs — those aren't exactly demanding jobs, but they pay over $30/hour, because the money does not currently come from the pockets of the people approving pay-increases.
Have you tried configuring your server to relay all outgoing mail through Comcast's own server(s)? You can declare it as "smarthost" (in sendmail-speak), or have custom rules (through "mailertable" — sendmail-speak again) for using Comcast's box only for those destinations, which would not talk to you directly... Either way, it may solve your problem and even make life a little easier for your box...
I've never used Comcast myself — they may have some idiots operating their mail-server (RCN and Verizon FiOS both do, why should Comcast be better?). But it may work...
The only valid legislation on this matter would be to abolish the Second Amendment.
Until you've accomplished that, any and all attempts to illegalize the keeping and/or bearing of arms would remain unconstitutional.
Whether you think this state of affairs is fortunate or otherwise, you can not argue with this fact.
Distinction without a difference — in this case.
Everything is legal — unless it deprives somebody else of their liberty somehow. As, for example, a robbery would.
Of course! But only upon the Judiciary's decision — that's my whole point. Because life and liberty are rights, the Executive can not deprive you of it — not without Judiciary's approval. But, having made driving a mere privilege, the Executive is now able to take it away on a whim...
I don't have to, but if I choose to anyway, you can not stop me — unless I am infringing on somebody else's pursuit of happiness. And I am not.
I do — just because I am a human being. Most likely, you do too:
Wrong. It is very easy to understand — my right to such a pursuit is limited by other people's pursuit of same.
But you are partially right: some laws — those prohibiting various victimless crimes — such as prostitution or, indeed, driving without a license, would be abolished under my doctrine. And that'll be a very good thing indeed.
The right is inherent in human beings — it predates and transcends nations. Do Canadians have right to life and liberty?
There are rights-depriving punishments for a variety of crimes. The most obvious is being imprisoned — which is what you'll face for many offenses. Point was, you need to be judged by the Judiciary before you lose those rights. But, if it is a mere privilege, then the Executive can withdraw (or not renew) it without having to prove anything first.
No, you usually retain all rights despite jaywalking. More serious law-breaking may put you in prison, where your rights will be severely restricted — while you are there... And some crimes — those of sexual nature, for example — may reduce your rights even after you get out (perhaps, unconstitutionally).
As a matter of fact, yes, that is true. If you have a plane, you can fly it. Wright brothers didn't have a pilot license...
So, not even on a bicycle, huh? BTW, did you know, walking on a highway is illegal today — as is hitchhiking? And, of course, you are simply wrong...
There are more citations, where the above came from...
Yes, it is. Also known as pursuit of happiness.
So what?.. Guns are quite dangerous too — and yet, keeping and bearing arms is likewise a right, according to the Constitution (even if frequently violated by Illiberals nation-wide).
That may very well be true. But that's irrelevant. Allowing police to search without a warrant may also be a "perfectly reasonable harm-reduction strategy", for example. Mandatory carrying of identification is also "harm-reducing".
Irrelevant.
People are murdered by pedestrians quite often too — will you require license from pedestrians? How about the government's permission for leaving home?
What would you not allow the government to limit — under the convenient pretext of "harm-reduction"?
Ah, an ad-hominem! How refreshing...
Driver's Licenses are an outrage of its own. Somehow somewhere an opinion crept up, that driving is not a right to be taken away from the bad by the Judiciary, but a mere privilege to be granted to the good by the Executive — who, consequently, can also withdraw it without bothering with the pesky judges for any reason (such as not paying child support)... You should be able to drive anonymously — until you break a driving law — just as you can walk anonymously on a publicly-maintained sidewalk and look at a publicly-powered traffic-light without a license.
Marriage gives couples certain additional privileges — above the unmarried couples having sex. The exact perks vary by locale, but they are there. Perhaps, all such perks should be abolished altogether — I'd be in favor of striking away all laws with the word "spouse" in it, although the society may still reward couples raising children together — but until they are abolished, asking for names of people applying for those privileges is Ok...
Now, licensing Internet-usage would also turn it from a right into a privilege — and that can not be allowed, however much the Statists would like to see that happen.
What?! Why? Where? Which school of thought or religions has ever said anything of the kind?
Or are you conflating the volitional charitable help to fellow human beings with the mandatory? Jesus helped the poor — and encouraged followers to do so as well — but he never called for Caesar to raise taxes and give free food to anyone...
Once again, if you are so "sure", why do you need the tax authorities to force Pauls into paying for Peters? Not encourage, mind you, but force? Why can't Paul voluntarily give Peter the extra monies for whatever service Peter goes to work to do? Perhaps, you aren't quite as sure as you claim to be...
But it not only moreally wrong to force people to pay for things, they don't want to pay for. It is also destructive to economy. If Peter's work does not pay enough for him to eat well and afford his own transport, then either he should be doing something else, or he should raise his prices. By forcing Paul to keep paying Peter anyway, you perpetuate the misery of both sides — and the economic inefficiency of making something, that not enough people want to make it worthwhile on its own.
If your friend or relative are starving, perhaps you should help them (note, I don't say "must"). But you aren't responsible for total strangers you've never seen, who — living in the same perfectly decent country as yourself — aren't, for some reason, able to afford basic necessities. Not in my school of morality. And if your beliefs are different, you are welcome to act on them by donating to a charity of your choice — but that's not enough for you, is it? You aren't satisfied, until you've forced everybody else to act as if they were their beliefs too — and that's immoral.
There you go — this one phrase is the tell-tale. You find selfishness unacceptable, and therefor it is Ok — in your opinion — to crush the "selfish" into obedience by force of arms... That's moral?
You can. And you can have a white Mercedes 6xx in Thailand. But few people can afford them and therefor there aren't many...
Big enough to be comfortable. Until you've had a chance to compare 5 or more German showers to that many American ones, you wouldn't understand. And I have — perhaps, on this one you can just take my word...
The entire Europe (population over 700 mln) would not be able to resist a Russian (population under 150 mln) invasion... Because you don't spend enough money on equipment and training. And not just that, unfortunately...
Yeah? Russia's leaders — from Stalin to Putin — loved that line of reasoning among their would-be victims. There is a good reason they hate America most and foremost, without us you would've been as fluent in Russian as Czechs and Poles are...
I don't really have one — I was offered a definition and saw a number of problems with it. The best I hear back is that "science" defines a number of things — such as breathing, excretion and even movement — differently from the rest of the world.
To me, for example, moving one's leaves or fingers is not "movement" — changing one's location is. Moss can't do it — not on its own volition, anyway — so it is not "alive"...
And if a definition requires so many clarifications (if not outright redefinitions of other terms), then it is a bad definition, that's all.