Since we are talking about strange ThinkPad behavior, does anyone have any information about the USB ports on a T41, which ought to be 2.0, suddenly being only 1.1? I have found some indications in Usenet that it might be a result of Windows XP SP2 but no one knows for certain.
your government believes otherwise too [wikipedia.org].
I would guess you have never taken a full course on U.S. government or the Constitution because we are in territory covered by every high school civics class.
Congress does not have "the authority to do anything it likes". Common sense would say that the US constitution must be interpreted as a whole, taking into account the powers it grants and restraints it imposes.
You are right, Congress does not have the authority to do anything it likes and the Constitution must be interpreted as a whole. That means "general welfare" must mean something other than the utterly open-ended power that you claim. The intended powers of the Federal government were clearly and completely enumerated in the original Constitution.
You are right in that Amendment 10 restricts the powers of Congress. The faulty exegesis I was talking about your exegesis on "general welfare of the United States" where you see three categories in Amendment 10, and apply them to Sec 8, Clause 1. If the authors of the constitution intended to narrowly define the "United States" to mean a system of peons and soldiers, and the term "the welfare of the United States" to mean keeping these peons and soldiers paid --- regardless of context --- well, those authors would have done so, wouldn't they?
It is perfectly standard to consider the Constitution talks about three groups (the Federal government, State governments, and the People) throughout. You are attempting to win here by using loaded language with the word "peon". We do not regard ourselves as "peons", we regard ourselves as free of unnecessary government.
They didn't. And not only that, knowing they were creating an imperfect instrument, they made the constitution amendable. And it is the _amended_ constitution, and the laws it engenders, that you are bound to. Get used to it.
Everyone knows the Constitution is amendable, it was designed that way. I have lived under the Constitution of the U.S. for 47 years and I have been a Libertarian for at least 25 years. By the way, phrases like "get used to it" do not add to the discussion.
Our discussion started off about the power to levy taxes. To cut this short, let me emphasize the last sentence of the paragraph you quoted:
For instance, the social security program is authorized under the general welfare clause.
Let's consider the entire paragraph and not take a single line out of context. In that paragraph it is states that the definition of "general welfare" is a matter of some debate as the Supreme Court has struck down a law in 1936 saying that the general welfare clause covers "matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare". The Wikipedia article goes on to use the word "nonetheless" when it says Congress continues to use the clause expansively implying that Congress likes to interpret it as broadly as possible despite a ruling from the Supreme Court which reduced the scope of their interpretation.
Now you object to all federal social welfare schemes. You'd only permit them to occur at the state level. The US would have a patchwork of welfare schemes, reflecting the wonderful diversity of political opinion across the land. And if that's what a state government decided, some regions won't have _any_ schemes at all. If an old sick man in a rural area is too poor to pay for wiring a telephone line to his rural area? Let him stay cut off - no unconstitutional universal access fees! Desperately sick but can't afford to make it to the hospital? Let him die! Makes it to a GP? Sic it to them fatcat doctors! Needs emergency dialysis? Tough - he's not Bill Gates - an asprin is reasonable. Doctor overwhelmed with too many poor sick people? He must treat them all well, all from his pocket, on pa
It seems to me that interpreting promote the general Welfare the way you do opens the door to giving the Federal government the authority to do anything it likes at all, so long as it can be somehow construed to be for the "general Welfare". If that were the intent, then there is no purpose in enumerating the powers of the Federal government in Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 2 through 18 and there would be no need of Amendment X.
The Constitution circumscribes the authority of the Federal government in those 17 clauses. Anything not within the authority of the Federal government is under the control of the states or the people as Amendment X clearly states. The "exegesis" you mentioned is not my invention, it is the way the Constitution has been taught in every government/civics class I have taken. I've not been able to find an on line citation for that but I also haven't found any on line text books for civics or government either.
As to Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 is concerned: I don't see that the fact the Constution can be amended (and must be to change the original intent) has much to do with what we are talking about. To phrase it dramatically: I can spray paint grafitti on the Mona Lisa and it would not be an improvement on, or an indictment of, the original.
As far as Federal tax dollars and Medicare are concerned: I actually do object. The enactment of Medicare is not one of the enumerated powers of the Federal government. Therefore, it must be the responsibility of either the States or the People per Amendment X. If the constitution of the state I live in allows it, and the people vote for it, I cannot say I would have a problem with a state level "Medicare".
By the way, at the Wikipedia has something to say on the general topic at hand:
Congress may lay and collect taxes for the "common defense" or "general welfare" of the United States. Originally, direct taxes had to be apportioned among the states, but that requirement was removed by the Sixteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court has not often defined "general welfare," leaving the political question to Congress. In United States v. Butler (1936), the Supreme Court for the first time construed the clause. The dispute centered on a tax collected from processors of agricultural products such as meat; the funds raised by the tax were not paid into the general funds of the treasury, but were rather specially earmarked for farmers. The Supreme Court struck down the tax, ruling that
the general welfare clause related only to "matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare." Nonetheless, Congress continues to make expansive use of the general welfare clause. For instance, the social security program is authorized under the general welfare clause.
(Emphasis mine.)
I think that shows what we are discussing is still a matter of open debate for everyone. Some people take your point of view (especially in Congress when it expands their power) and others take my point of view (especially when it's their rights that are being trampled). I believe social programs are a local matter, you (I would guess) believe otherwise.
On the side I sell VoIP, DSL, traditional local + long distance, and cell phone services for Champion Communications.
My current "big project" is - I have a new type of soap (patent pending) which I plan to sell to a niche market. I am also in the very early days of creating a direct-to-DVD movie.
I also do light computer consulting for neighbors and small businesses. My "day job" is CTO for a healthcare software company.
The issue lies in the definition of "general Welfare of the United States". You have to understand there are three groups talked about in the Constition as enumerated in Amendment X:
The powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.
If they had meant "general Welfare of the people" in Section 8 Clause 1, they would have said that. What that clause has to do with is the general welfare of the Federal government during the course of carrying out its enumerated powers. I.e., operational expenses.
If your neighbour is ill, but too poor to afford the hospital bill, would you let your taxes foot his bill or leave him to die?
What you have presented is a false dichotomy by pretending I only have two choices. I work in the field of medical software and, among other things, we process claims.
It is already the situation that a person can be too ill to pay their bill and tax money won't. Guess what? No one is being thrown out on the streets and it is actually illegal to throw someone out!
The provider (MD, hospital, and staff) takes a loss on that case and takes it out of the general profits. Ultimately, that means the rest of us pay a little more on our bill to make it up but market pressures keeps a lid on that (unlike taxes where there are no market pressures). There are also "angels" who donate large amounts of money to cover these patients.
This is an important point that many people don't know so I will repeat it here: no one in the United States is refused treatment because they cannnot pay. They may not get every ounce of treatment Bill Gates gets because he can afford to ask for extra treatment. However, it is unethical and a potential cause for loss of license if a physician violates his Hippocratic Oath by not providing good care for a patient, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.
The extreme right is as looney (and cruel) as the extreme left - repeating it's philosophy doesn't make it right.. or even true!
I agree and that's why I am a libertarian. I reject being confined to the Right and the Left. To quote The Political Compass:
There's abundant evidence for the need of it [a political compass]. The old one-dimensional categories of 'right' and 'left' , established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today's complex political landscape. For example, who are the 'conservatives' in today's Russia? Are they the unreconstructed Stalinists, or the reformers who have adopted the right-wing views of conservatives like Margaret Thatcher?
On the standard left-right scale, how do you distinguish leftists like Stalin and Gandhi? It's not sufficient to say that Stalin was simply more left than Gandhi. There are fundamental political differences between them that the old categories on their own can't explain. Similarly, we generally describe social reactionaries as 'right-wingers', yet that leaves left-wing reactionaries like Robert Mugabe and Pol Pot off the hook.
When I was programming at USC we had some Chinese grad students come to the U.S. right after Tianenmen square. After some months I asked them what they thought of the U.S. supporting the government of China with things like most favored nation trading status.
They replied that it is absolutely a good thing. The corrupt leaders would otherwise continue to get whatever Western products they want while the average citizen would get no goods, no exposure to the West, and the Chinese economy would not do as well which would be a hardship on the working man.
In the view of these students, the U.S. has to "hold its nose while dealing with these stinky situations" because that's the only way things will improve in the world.
Thank you for the links! There is additional information at Wikipedia here and here which leads to the discussion of the Prisoner's Dilemma which is discussed in more depth here. The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (which I think society is rather like) is then discussed here.
I don't recommend not going to the doctor, what I am saying is that today people go to the doctor for things like simple colds which a few decades ago they would have treated themselves (stay in bed, drink plenty of fluids, etc.) because all they think they are paying is the co-pay.
By the way, using the plan I described (which is in common use among the self-employed, including insurance agents) you can easily go to the doctor five times at $100/visit and still come out ahead.
First, over the course of a year the high deductible policy will save you far more than $500 in premiums. Second, you paid that $500 with pre-tax dollars from the HSA which means that $500 was significantly cheaper than the ~$640 you had to earn to pay $500 of low deductible health insurance policy premium.
The page I linked to says several in several places that you cannot make such simple correlations between gun control and violence. One such place is when they say:
Due to the many confounding factors that arise when attempting international comparisons, this approach would appear to hold little promise for determining the influence of gun levels (or handgun availability) on violence rates.
You can't just look at the numbers, you have to read the article.
There's not a lot of influence from Nash's work on my comment since my field is not game theory and I can't honestly say I know the details of his work.
However, I would say that society is like an iterated prisoner's dilemma (see: Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation). As a result, altruism can be practiced by those who understand what is going on with the hope the others will eventually catch on. I would like to see elementary schools teach the "Tit for Tat with Forgiveness" strategy early on.
There is an interesting page on that strategy here.
Almost certainly your friend is on COBRA which is a continuation of the benefits he had been receiving through his employer. It is very expensive and not the way to go at all.
He should get a policy with a high deductible ($5000 or more) which will be quite affordable. He should then also start a Health Savings Account where he can save for routine medical expenses with pre-tax dollars while earning interest. I used to sell health insurance and now that I pay for my own straight from my pocket, I have the same set-up.
There are several problems with the healthcare industry as far as costs are concerned. What they boil down to is the checks and balances of cost v. benefit have gone away. Because people don't perceive an expense in going to the doctor (except for the co-pay), they go far more often. As a result, rates go up in response to increased demand (supply was fixed). Once a direct connection is re-established between using services and paying for those same services, rates will become more reasonable.
Another thing that has to be done is the payers (insurance companies, etc.) need to stop jerking around the providers (doctors and their staff). The payers are continuously trying to short change the providers. The payers have a variety of techniques they use including: not paying the contracted amount for a service and rejecting claims for irrelevant clerical errors. The fix for this, again, is to put the consumer into the loop.
Finally, the AMA has to stop artificially restricting the number of doctors produced. However, fixing this should be done last because it's the smallest problem.
Yes, I do work in the industry and I am involved in the full process from the clinical to claims processing so I have some idea what I am talking about.
First, VoIP over satellite will largely eliminate the need to subsidize rural service unless the entrenched fat cats (traditional phone companies) sabotages it by successfully lobbying for government enforced fees and regulations.
Second, perhaps it's not a good idea to subsidize people who want to live where they otherwise cannot afford to? In that direction lies suburban sprawl and people who commute 50 miles one way so the can live in the country.
Not necessarily true. Logically, all rational people operate out of selfishness (self-interest). You cannot claim to be rationally working against your self-interest. Even when you are choosing between the lesser of two evils, you choose the one that most closely serves your self-interest.
Therefore, it is quite reasonable for me to donate money to my local parks, libraries, schools, or whatever because it makes my world a better place. What does not serve my self-interest is to tolerate a system where my assets can be seized by force and wasted on government pork barrel projects.
VoIP via satellite Internet service is doing quite well in rural areas. Expect to see it become the standard unless the government regulates it into a marginal position. I sell VoIP and I track these things.
The very definition of a country means that some people end up "footing the bill" for others less fortunate than them.
I missed that part of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Would you please point out where it says anything about subsidizing my neighbor? Seriously, your making up that definition doesn't make it so, regardless of what country you live in.
Most people do. In the U.S. taxes are currently (2003) 35.7% of GDP which is a much better estimate than anything Paul Krugman might come up with. His agenda is extremely biased (he claims "In the United States, all taxes -- federal, state and local -- reached a peak of 29.6 percent of G.D.P. in 2000") while Wikipedia is subject to a public peer review. If you view the discussion on this issue at Wikipedia, the historical levels asserted have not been contested.
Actually, unless you are breaking the law, by the time you add up all the different ways the government collects money from you (it doesn't matter if it's called an income tax, excize tax, license fee, or whatever, it's still the government taking your money) in the U.S. about 40% of your income goes in "taxes".
Indirect evidence is at Wikipedia where it is noted that taxes are 37.5% of GDP in the U.S. The solution is here.
Pay as you go services like TracFone are cheaper than regular service ($10/month v. $23/month in SC) so long as you only use it when you really need it. Also, those services don't require the deposit a landline requires.
More and more I am objecting to phrases like "progressive geeks who believe government should do more than provide military defense". Some of us believe more government than the minimum is oppressive and that greatly reducing the size of the government would be progressive (i.e., "progress").
Don't expect people to do what they volunteered to do or have been asked/told to do. If you don't keep checking on them they will begin to screw off.
The biggest mistake I made when starting out was to assume everyone was as interested in the success of the project as I was. Many times you will be the only person interested in the success of the project. Not even your boss or customers will be really interested. I have found this to be true on dozens of projects.
It's a fine line between keeping people moving forward and being overbearing but you have to find it.
There is an issue as to how quickly developing nations can be Westernized and whether those nations will be destroyed in the process. Westernization is often perceived as U.S. imperialism which is violently resisted.
Also, the decline in reproductive rate to Western levels takes several generations after Westernization takes place. It will take much longer than that to Westernize those nations. As a result, their birth rates will not begin to decline for at least 80 years.
In the meantime, while the Westernization process happens, but before population reduction occurs, there is a spike in consumption. If that spike exceeds a certain threshhold the catastrophic failure of the system will occur.
I agree the vegetarianism would reduce the load and is a measure that should be encouraged. However, most of the people I know who have tried vegetarianism (myself included) have left it as not very satisfying. People like what they are used to and are very picky about changing. As a matter of fact, some people will starve to death in the presence of nutritious food that is too strange.
The promotion of vegetarianism also needs to be carefully distanced from groups like PETA. It would be best if vegetarianism were promoted as a set of recipes, which happen to be vegetarian, that become popular rather than promoting the entire lifestyle.
I am curious to know if there have been any famous explorers, conquerors, or inventors who were vegetarian? My hypothesis is that vegetarians are not sufficiently aggressive personality types (focussing instead on nurturing and the elimination of suffering) to push back frontiers which often requires a person with a somewhat brutal "I don't care whose toes I step on" point of view.
Many species engage in courtship behavior and copulation only occurs when the female indicates her willingness. Of course, rape occurs in many species as well. The point is, civilization is not involved and courtship is not something that developed recently.
A better approach is to reduce the number of people in the world. The improvement is directly proportional in all areas (assuming constant lifestyles): half as many people eat half as much food, consume half the energy, and pollute half as much.
Switching everyone to vegetarianism simply forestalls the inevitable. At some point the population of the Earth will exceed the Earth's capacity to produce food and to dissapate/process pollution.
The population has more than doubled (~110% increase) since I was born and it is projected to double again in approximately the same period to 8.9 billion in 2050. Given the increasing demands on fixed resources (especially energy), life between now and then is going to be marked by more frequent, violent, and ubiquitous wars.
An immediate global and equitable program to reduce the Earth's population to some much smaller number (probably well below 1 billion?) is the sustainable solution. Given the absence of international will to accomplish this, nature will take its course. War, famine, and disease (is AIDS a precursor?) will trim the population; perhaps apocalyptically.
I actually have a 1957 Encyclopedia Brittanica for that exact reason. I am also looking for history, sociology, and other textbooks written before the mid-1960s. The reason is that biases change with time and I would like to have some reference books with pre-PC articles for purposes of comparison.
Slashdot Mirror
Since we are talking about strange ThinkPad behavior, does anyone have any information about the USB ports on a T41, which ought to be 2.0, suddenly being only 1.1? I have found some indications in Usenet that it might be a result of Windows XP SP2 but no one knows for certain.
I noticed you said:
I would guess you have never taken a full course on U.S. government or the Constitution because we are in territory covered by every high school civics class.
You are right, Congress does not have the authority to do anything it likes and the Constitution must be interpreted as a whole. That means "general welfare" must mean something other than the utterly open-ended power that you claim. The intended powers of the Federal government were clearly and completely enumerated in the original Constitution.
It is perfectly standard to consider the Constitution talks about three groups (the Federal government, State governments, and the People) throughout. You are attempting to win here by using loaded language with the word "peon". We do not regard ourselves as "peons", we regard ourselves as free of unnecessary government.
Everyone knows the Constitution is amendable, it was designed that way. I have lived under the Constitution of the U.S. for 47 years and I have been a Libertarian for at least 25 years. By the way, phrases like "get used to it" do not add to the discussion.
Let's consider the entire paragraph and not take a single line out of context. In that paragraph it is states that the definition of "general welfare" is a matter of some debate as the Supreme Court has struck down a law in 1936 saying that the general welfare clause covers "matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare". The Wikipedia article goes on to use the word "nonetheless" when it says Congress continues to use the clause expansively implying that Congress likes to interpret it as broadly as possible despite a ruling from the Supreme Court which reduced the scope of their interpretation.
It seems to me that interpreting promote the general Welfare the way you do opens the door to giving the Federal government the authority to do anything it likes at all, so long as it can be somehow construed to be for the "general Welfare". If that were the intent, then there is no purpose in enumerating the powers of the Federal government in Article 1, Section 8, Clauses 2 through 18 and there would be no need of Amendment X.
The Constitution circumscribes the authority of the Federal government in those 17 clauses. Anything not within the authority of the Federal government is under the control of the states or the people as Amendment X clearly states. The "exegesis" you mentioned is not my invention, it is the way the Constitution has been taught in every government/civics class I have taken. I've not been able to find an on line citation for that but I also haven't found any on line text books for civics or government either.
As to Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 is concerned: I don't see that the fact the Constution can be amended (and must be to change the original intent) has much to do with what we are talking about. To phrase it dramatically: I can spray paint grafitti on the Mona Lisa and it would not be an improvement on, or an indictment of, the original.
As far as Federal tax dollars and Medicare are concerned: I actually do object. The enactment of Medicare is not one of the enumerated powers of the Federal government. Therefore, it must be the responsibility of either the States or the People per Amendment X. If the constitution of the state I live in allows it, and the people vote for it, I cannot say I would have a problem with a state level "Medicare".
By the way, at the Wikipedia has something to say on the general topic at hand:
I think that shows what we are discussing is still a matter of open debate for everyone. Some people take your point of view (especially in Congress when it expands their power) and others take my point of view (especially when it's their rights that are being trampled). I believe social programs are a local matter, you (I would guess) believe otherwise.
On the side I sell VoIP, DSL, traditional local + long distance, and cell phone services for Champion Communications .
My current "big project" is - I have a new type of soap (patent pending) which I plan to sell to a niche market. I am also in the very early days of creating a direct-to-DVD movie.
I also do light computer consulting for neighbors and small businesses. My "day job" is CTO for a healthcare software company.
The issue lies in the definition of "general Welfare of the United States". You have to understand there are three groups talked about in the Constition as enumerated in Amendment X:
If they had meant "general Welfare of the people" in Section 8 Clause 1, they would have said that. What that clause has to do with is the general welfare of the Federal government during the course of carrying out its enumerated powers. I.e., operational expenses.
What you have presented is a false dichotomy by pretending I only have two choices. I work in the field of medical software and, among other things, we process claims.
It is already the situation that a person can be too ill to pay their bill and tax money won't. Guess what? No one is being thrown out on the streets and it is actually illegal to throw someone out!
The provider (MD, hospital, and staff) takes a loss on that case and takes it out of the general profits. Ultimately, that means the rest of us pay a little more on our bill to make it up but market pressures keeps a lid on that (unlike taxes where there are no market pressures). There are also "angels" who donate large amounts of money to cover these patients.
This is an important point that many people don't know so I will repeat it here: no one in the United States is refused treatment because they cannnot pay. They may not get every ounce of treatment Bill Gates gets because he can afford to ask for extra treatment. However, it is unethical and a potential cause for loss of license if a physician violates his Hippocratic Oath by not providing good care for a patient, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.
I agree and that's why I am a libertarian. I reject being confined to the Right and the Left. To quote The Political Compass:
When I was programming at USC we had some Chinese grad students come to the U.S. right after Tianenmen square. After some months I asked them what they thought of the U.S. supporting the government of China with things like most favored nation trading status.
They replied that it is absolutely a good thing. The corrupt leaders would otherwise continue to get whatever Western products they want while the average citizen would get no goods, no exposure to the West, and the Chinese economy would not do as well which would be a hardship on the working man.
In the view of these students, the U.S. has to "hold its nose while dealing with these stinky situations" because that's the only way things will improve in the world.
Thank you for the links! There is additional information at Wikipedia here and here which leads to the discussion of the Prisoner's Dilemma which is discussed in more depth here. The Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma (which I think society is rather like) is then discussed here.
I don't recommend not going to the doctor, what I am saying is that today people go to the doctor for things like simple colds which a few decades ago they would have treated themselves (stay in bed, drink plenty of fluids, etc.) because all they think they are paying is the co-pay.
By the way, using the plan I described (which is in common use among the self-employed, including insurance agents) you can easily go to the doctor five times at $100/visit and still come out ahead.
First, over the course of a year the high deductible policy will save you far more than $500 in premiums. Second, you paid that $500 with pre-tax dollars from the HSA which means that $500 was significantly cheaper than the ~$640 you had to earn to pay $500 of low deductible health insurance policy premium.
The page I linked to says several in several places that you cannot make such simple correlations between gun control and violence. One such place is when they say:
You can't just look at the numbers, you have to read the article.
There's not a lot of influence from Nash's work on my comment since my field is not game theory and I can't honestly say I know the details of his work.
However, I would say that society is like an iterated prisoner's dilemma (see: Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation). As a result, altruism can be practiced by those who understand what is going on with the hope the others will eventually catch on. I would like to see elementary schools teach the "Tit for Tat with Forgiveness" strategy early on.
There is an interesting page on that strategy here.
Not true.
Almost certainly your friend is on COBRA which is a continuation of the benefits he had been receiving through his employer. It is very expensive and not the way to go at all.
He should get a policy with a high deductible ($5000 or more) which will be quite affordable. He should then also start a Health Savings Account where he can save for routine medical expenses with pre-tax dollars while earning interest. I used to sell health insurance and now that I pay for my own straight from my pocket, I have the same set-up.
There are several problems with the healthcare industry as far as costs are concerned. What they boil down to is the checks and balances of cost v. benefit have gone away. Because people don't perceive an expense in going to the doctor (except for the co-pay), they go far more often. As a result, rates go up in response to increased demand (supply was fixed). Once a direct connection is re-established between using services and paying for those same services, rates will become more reasonable.
Another thing that has to be done is the payers (insurance companies, etc.) need to stop jerking around the providers (doctors and their staff). The payers are continuously trying to short change the providers. The payers have a variety of techniques they use including: not paying the contracted amount for a service and rejecting claims for irrelevant clerical errors. The fix for this, again, is to put the consumer into the loop.
Finally, the AMA has to stop artificially restricting the number of doctors produced. However, fixing this should be done last because it's the smallest problem.
Yes, I do work in the industry and I am involved in the full process from the clinical to claims processing so I have some idea what I am talking about.
First, VoIP over satellite will largely eliminate the need to subsidize rural service unless the entrenched fat cats (traditional phone companies) sabotages it by successfully lobbying for government enforced fees and regulations.
Second, perhaps it's not a good idea to subsidize people who want to live where they otherwise cannot afford to? In that direction lies suburban sprawl and people who commute 50 miles one way so the can live in the country.
Not necessarily true. Logically, all rational people operate out of selfishness (self-interest). You cannot claim to be rationally working against your self-interest. Even when you are choosing between the lesser of two evils, you choose the one that most closely serves your self-interest.
Therefore, it is quite reasonable for me to donate money to my local parks, libraries, schools, or whatever because it makes my world a better place. What does not serve my self-interest is to tolerate a system where my assets can be seized by force and wasted on government pork barrel projects.
VoIP via satellite Internet service is doing quite well in rural areas. Expect to see it become the standard unless the government regulates it into a marginal position. I sell VoIP and I track these things.
I missed that part of the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution. Would you please point out where it says anything about subsidizing my neighbor? Seriously, your making up that definition doesn't make it so, regardless of what country you live in.
Most people do. In the U.S. taxes are currently (2003) 35.7% of GDP which is a much better estimate than anything Paul Krugman might come up with. His agenda is extremely biased (he claims "In the United States, all taxes -- federal, state and local -- reached a peak of 29.6 percent of G.D.P. in 2000") while Wikipedia is subject to a public peer review. If you view the discussion on this issue at Wikipedia, the historical levels asserted have not been contested.
Actually, unless you are breaking the law, by the time you add up all the different ways the government collects money from you (it doesn't matter if it's called an income tax, excize tax, license fee, or whatever, it's still the government taking your money) in the U.S. about 40% of your income goes in "taxes".
Indirect evidence is at Wikipedia where it is noted that taxes are 37.5% of GDP in the U.S. The solution is here.
Pay as you go services like TracFone are cheaper than regular service ($10/month v. $23/month in SC) so long as you only use it when you really need it. Also, those services don't require the deposit a landline requires.
More and more I am objecting to phrases like "progressive geeks who believe government should do more than provide military defense". Some of us believe more government than the minimum is oppressive and that greatly reducing the size of the government would be progressive (i.e., "progress").
Don't expect people to do what they volunteered to do or have been asked/told to do. If you don't keep checking on them they will begin to screw off.
The biggest mistake I made when starting out was to assume everyone was as interested in the success of the project as I was. Many times you will be the only person interested in the success of the project. Not even your boss or customers will be really interested. I have found this to be true on dozens of projects.
It's a fine line between keeping people moving forward and being overbearing but you have to find it.
There is an issue as to how quickly developing nations can be Westernized and whether those nations will be destroyed in the process. Westernization is often perceived as U.S. imperialism which is violently resisted.
Also, the decline in reproductive rate to Western levels takes several generations after Westernization takes place. It will take much longer than that to Westernize those nations. As a result, their birth rates will not begin to decline for at least 80 years.
In the meantime, while the Westernization process happens, but before population reduction occurs, there is a spike in consumption. If that spike exceeds a certain threshhold the catastrophic failure of the system will occur.
I agree the vegetarianism would reduce the load and is a measure that should be encouraged. However, most of the people I know who have tried vegetarianism (myself included) have left it as not very satisfying. People like what they are used to and are very picky about changing. As a matter of fact, some people will starve to death in the presence of nutritious food that is too strange.
The promotion of vegetarianism also needs to be carefully distanced from groups like PETA. It would be best if vegetarianism were promoted as a set of recipes, which happen to be vegetarian, that become popular rather than promoting the entire lifestyle.
I am curious to know if there have been any famous explorers, conquerors, or inventors who were vegetarian? My hypothesis is that vegetarians are not sufficiently aggressive personality types (focussing instead on nurturing and the elimination of suffering) to push back frontiers which often requires a person with a somewhat brutal "I don't care whose toes I step on" point of view.
Many species engage in courtship behavior and copulation only occurs when the female indicates her willingness. Of course, rape occurs in many species as well. The point is, civilization is not involved and courtship is not something that developed recently.
A better approach is to reduce the number of people in the world. The improvement is directly proportional in all areas (assuming constant lifestyles): half as many people eat half as much food, consume half the energy, and pollute half as much.
Switching everyone to vegetarianism simply forestalls the inevitable. At some point the population of the Earth will exceed the Earth's capacity to produce food and to dissapate/process pollution.
The population has more than doubled (~110% increase) since I was born and it is projected to double again in approximately the same period to 8.9 billion in 2050. Given the increasing demands on fixed resources (especially energy), life between now and then is going to be marked by more frequent, violent, and ubiquitous wars.
An immediate global and equitable program to reduce the Earth's population to some much smaller number (probably well below 1 billion?) is the sustainable solution. Given the absence of international will to accomplish this, nature will take its course. War, famine, and disease (is AIDS a precursor?) will trim the population; perhaps apocalyptically.
I actually have a 1957 Encyclopedia Brittanica for that exact reason. I am also looking for history, sociology, and other textbooks written before the mid-1960s. The reason is that biases change with time and I would like to have some reference books with pre-PC articles for purposes of comparison.