Moment to spam here: I just filed a patent application. GrayCary law firm helped greatly and did most of the work for free...
Cool beans. Hope you get it.
While researching what parts of my software I could and could not patent, I was reading a LOT of books about the various avenues of intellectual property protection....
Which explains how it's easy to get confused--and why it's a good idea to check with a lawyer before you assume something odd about the law.
The first thing the first lawyer who ever taught me a "law course" (all undergraduate stuff--I am so much not a lawyer) said about the law was "here are the basic rules, but there are exceptions for everything."
Then he went on to point out that the law didn't get so complex by design; it go this way because morons & businessmen kept finding loopholes and stupid ways to exploit what was said, forcing judges & gov't's to make the law more and more complex...
Well they gotta make a point. If the government can monitor our phone calls, internet emails, conversations, etc. then why can't we spy on the government to? Or does the governemnt thinks that its better than us and that it got more rights than us?
The government is us. When you or I deal with the will of the people, we are not forced to do so by the whim of the crowd, but by the powers elected and appointed to speak for and act in the interests of the people.
The government, as a nebulous nonpersonal entity, is a slave to every one of its citizens, and exists for no other purpose than for the well being of those it serves.
The problem, of course, arises in that "the government" may be an inpersonal slave, but the people who run the government are very personal, flawed, human beings. It is these people who are put in power that are watched--and they're watched by other people in power who got put there different ways and across different levels, until we get back to the elected representatives and the voters en masse.
If you take away the government's unique right to spy & investigate with legal warrant, documentation, and accountability, (see: the FBI getting smacked for lying to judges), then you're left with either an illicit society of secrets ("If no one can see me do it, then I can get away with it") or a distopian society of eternal spying.
I would rather have some suit who's salary is paid for by my taxes spying on me than some random looney off the street.
Oh--and you (assuming that you're an American citizen) CAN spy on the government. You just need to do it with a time delay. Ever hear of FOIL? The fourth branch of government? The @#$ing drudge report? (slashdot?)
This is called "Freedom(pat.pend)". Unfortunately it's too complicated and threatening to be palatable to most Americans, hence we see the domination of the Demicans and the Republicrats.
Parties aren't about freedom. They're about like minds gathering to achieve goals. The idea is that if you pick the group which is the closest to your personal ideals, you'll see more things that you want happeneing and less that don't (assuming that you get them in charge.)
Until we manage to change campaign finance & how votes are counted (instant runoff, anyone?), third parites are little more than issue-raisers for the two big ones--who promptly raise up and take sides on any issues with significant debate on it.
I am free to do whatever the hell I want, and vote for whomever I want--but the only way to get someone I want in political office is to find a bunch of other free individuals and get all of us to agree on who's the best person for the job--so we can get someone we can tolerate in instead of someone we despise.
It used to not work this way--for all of eight years, until George Washington refused to run again.
It actually covers Patents, Copyright, Trademarks, Trade Secrets and Service marks.
I suggest you read the book again, more closely. You seem to be confusing the specific subject matter with the book (Patents) with all forms of IP.
Your link was, btw, less than useless. "Patent it Yourself" is not a ready reference, and thus meaningless in this debate. Either quote the passage you think says that copyright needs to be enforced, or admit that you might be wrong.
Nothing I have ever seen at all, online or in class, hints that copyrights (or patents) can be lost by non-enforcement. Trademarks certainly can, but I have no knowledge that there is *any* way to lose a copyright or patent by simple non-enforcement.
Think about it--if simple non-enforcement could be enough to lose copyright, MS would have lost their copyright on half of their software by now.
"Heard that" in Patent It Yourself (a book..). It's also available at the USPTO's website [uspto.gov].
Those are patents, not copyrights. Different laws.
Copyright lasts *much* longer, and can be foiled by a clean-room implementation. Patents only last a few decades (at most), and apply to the procedure even if the second party had no knowledge whatsoever of your patent.
I'd chalk this up as "yet another reason to see a lawyer if you're going to do more than meanginless speculation."
It gets even more complicated than that - they only have Offensive Rights for protected works. They means THEY have to sue ME, and if they don't do it within 5 years of the infringement, they lose offensive rights to that work in TOTAL.
Where'd you hear that? Last I heard (IANAL, I live in the USA, but copyright is important to my professional ambitions) you don't have to defend copyright all the time. That's why some fanfics can exist.
So, your disagreement amounts to the fact that you are ignorant, and wish to remain that way, therefore, I must be wrong.
No. My disagreement is thus: The totality of the evidence you have given is insufficent to convince me that you're not someone who hates cops because they do their job, and that you do anything more than harp about the media. If you want me to give your beliefs sufficent weight for me to act upon them, you are going to need to provide me with more evidence than I've gotten for urban legends and the success of Amway.
Again: Provide a name or a date (or a link, if you're so inclined), and I'll take it from there.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense-- you're a christian. That's what christianity IS. The worship of the elimination of human rights, perpetrated by ignorant people who willfully ignore reality.
You, my fellow man, obviously don't know what Christianity is. The elimination of the rights of other man is a side effect of zealotry--it's not central to the religion. (Or are you a Lavey Satanist, who thinks that he has a right to lie, murder, cheat, and steal without reproach.)
Why should I expect you to understand-- you wanna kill everyone who doesn't give sanction to your petty god.
And I bet you're even in denial of that basic truth!
I have never felt the desire to kill or meaningfully harm anyone who has not meaningfully harmed me or mine. I have felt the urge to slap people upside the head for being morons, but that's only relevant to my religion because of how & why I believe it--and I want to slap people who disbelieve without thinking or believe without thinking just about equally.
Here's a run down of what I believe:
I believe that there is a God, that He created the world, and that His Son forgives sins (crimes against God) out of love for human beings
I believe that science is not ruled by conspiracy or atheism, and that any discrpencies between what is there and what God has said are there because God wants them to be there.
Just as I have faith in science, I have faith in the instruments of this society. I believe that it is not always wrong to kill, and that it is better to let a hundred guilty men go free than imprison one innocent.
I believe that you truly believe what you have claimed, and I suspect that there is real evidence out there.
If you're willing to work a little, and find me the simple information I ask for, then I will work as much as I can to remedy the problem. If you are not willing to even perform a cursory link to find collaboration of something that "you know" happened, then I cannot give you more validity than I have given anyone else who has made as shaky claims.
But how long can you do this when video keeps coming out of this stuff? How about the cop that shot the guy who was threatening to commit suicide a few years ago? or the Cop Riot in Seattle we had for WTO? Was your TV broken that week? The cops frikking RIOTED.
No. I have better things to do than mindlessly watch "breaking news." The only time I've ever seen "breaking news" in my entire life was Sept 11--and I only saw that because a friend called me and told me that it was on TV.
"Houston Papers in the mid 90s" is about as much detail as I can get from alien abduction theorists. A name, a town, or even just a date would do nicely.
(Personally, I don't think the WTO is an open and shut case for either side. And I don't have the power to investigate it. Next time the WTO meets and there's a horrible riot, I promise I'll write a letter to every federal representative I can vote for.)
I wonder one thing, how many friends have you asked for help with linux (the ones that know what to do) before you started to think the way you do. And what version, ususaly that means 5 or 6 redhat. The orld has changed since then.
Not sure what version they're using. My lack of faith has come from watching them try and "impress" me with Linux.
I'm more worried about a good word processor. I looked into the OpenOffice windows client, and it simply doesn't meet my needs.:(
(I have to wonder if you're not confusing me with someone else, but ah, well./. is a big place.)
Help me? With what? Sorry, I didn't asked you for help. Reason I answered was irritation with you arrogance in previous posts.
You expressed dismay and a problem. I attempted to offer help. We are both allready participants in a relatively open forum for discussion.
I am bound by my faith to attempt to help my fellow man. Many apologies if I have offended your sensibilities. (Although I do wonder what country you're in...)
My own experiences with Linux have been less than stellar, and I have encountered near-zero incompatability between any two versions of windows. I am actually quite surprised that a vendor was able to wrangle code so it would work on 2000 and not XP
Well, if *anyone* has been given the binaries, then *eveyone* has the right to the source.
No, just the people who get the binaries have the right to the source code from the author.
The people who have the binaries have the right to redistribute the source as they see fit, but if none of them exercise that right (Let's say they're all Sun employees/contractors/partners who don't want to lose their jobs/contracts) then no one else has a right to that code.
IANAL, but copyleft licenses are a hobby of mine. (look at the homepage, or http://www.thefga.org/ )
One goes way back into startings of my company. All my comapny (sp) papers are inside. Guess what. It doesn't work under XP.
Is that an archive format, a word processor, or an e-mail program?
It sounds like either a custom-built proprietary system, or a long non-upgraded system from a major vender. If the former, what the hell are you using XP for? If it's the later, bite the bullet and upgrade.
Second one is not so old it's a one year old program that I use to connect to the bank (Same program that half of the country uses). Guess what, Doesn't work under XP.
Hmm... do you mean Quicken, Money, your web browswer, or that proprietary "bank" software some banks were peddling? Upgrade if you can, and if not, go to the bank and see what they reccommend.
You might also want to try compatability mode for the apps before you call them dead. Man, if only Unix had a "compatabilty" mode--but that would require a standard, wouldn't it? (j/k)
So, to hell with your progress. Here's why somebody would use a program like that.
Flame away, flame away. Just trying to help a fellow geek.:)
It wouldn't--EULAs are based on the idea that you need their permission to make copies, and you can't use the program without copying it (onto the HDD, into RAM, into the cache, etc.)
IANAL... but MS has got some that would probably argue the above if given sufficient reason.
In a society where incest is the social norm, incest is considered "right".
Name one. Subdivisions of existing cultures don't count--find a society somewhere that considers incest "normal" that isn't just a self-absorbed backlash against traditional society.
The definition of "murder" varies according to who's writing the definition.
But they all include killing someone. The room to argue is if there are times when killing someone isn't murder, not if there are times when it is.
My point was that notions of worth are dependent upon subjective values. It's considered "worthy" to protect other humans because we can readily understand that those humans are similar to ourselves, and because we wish to be protected ourselves. It's less commonly considered "unworthy" to kill animals because that link is less obvious, and because they 'taste good'. But what evidence is there to suggest that either is "more worthy" than any other? There are two options: either there's a higher power who determines "worth", in which case He has clearly been much understood across the centuries, or there is only opinion, dogma and tradition.
I do not base my desire to eat animals on my religion. I have a much more basic drive than that: I am a human being, and humans are designed to get sustinence from meat. Animal fat tastes good to us. Animal meat allows us to act more effectively in an active environment (war or survival living) than almost any other natural foodstuff.
People meat, on the other hand, leads to the elimination of people, which is generally a Bad Thing. I also understand that we taste rather well when prepared properly, which leads to all sorts of things that are (instinctually?) revolting to us. [If not instict, then an obvious social detractment, considering every dominant civlization throughout history has banned or borderlined the act.]
Even if that is true, it is likely that the cow would be doing it thanks to an inability to better consider his actions. Your refusal to apply humanitarian concerns to animals is because you're socially programmed to believe that humans are 'better' than 'other animals' - an rather non-scientific attitude. Actually, I would argue that if we *are* 'better' than animals then it's precisely because we can make the decision *not* to eat meat.
It's not "animals vs. humans." I wouldn't eat my cats, nor my father-in-law's dog, nor a friend's horse. Each of these creatures provides a real benefit to me as a person and as a member of a human social unit. Other people provide *more* of a benefit to me, so they're even lower on the totem pole of "things to eat when it's eat or die time." (I have never been in that situation, so I don't know how I would react.)
As for the animals that I eat--cows, deer, fish, chickens, and pigs--none of them provide any benefit to me, whatsoever, except as a foodstuff / part of an ecosystem. (That's redundant, because, in the wild, all of the food animals get eaten as well.)
Science says nothing about morality. Only in the rather young and nebulous fields of sociology and pscyhology is the concept of people eating people even an item of debate. You can't use "doesn't eat meat" as a way to judge a creature "better." You might as well use "doesn't have sex" or "doesn't eat at all" to rank them--it makes about as much scientific sense.
You can't have it both ways: either we're morally aware creatures who should make moral decisions, or we're just animals and there's no morality.
Sure we can--we do have it that way, in fact. And we will have it that way until science and religion sort out their mutual disagreements. (Which will take either the invention of a working practical time machine, or the direct intervention of God.)
We are moral creatures. But the very concept of "morality" is worthless if you don't use an objective measurement for "good" and "bad" morals. I find "because X says so" or "because it's been done that way" or even "because it's popular" to be worthless judges of what is good and what is bad; hence, I had to devise some way to measure them objectively.
I am a human. I dislike eating my own species for a whole bunch of very practical reasons.
Yeah, the entire system works on corporate greed in wanting to get the most out of the smallest investment by any means whatsoever, but isn't that what capitalism is in the first place -- a system built on greed? So why shouldn't anybody for a capitalist society want it?
Well said.
Question: Are you for capitalism, or would you switch to a (truly) better system? [Sure, I've got a better system in mind, but it'd require "phenominal cosmic power" to implement.;) ]
(And no, I'm not suggesting communism or any other hippy crap, nor do I think that ostracizing everyone else and forming polticial cults can work.)
Go back and re-read mine. Yes, mixing code is voluntary, and getting a disease isn't. But once you move past that step, GPL'd code acts like a cancer while other code just acts like a normal disease. Cancer turns other parts of you into cancer; the flu doesn't turn other parts of you into the flu.
The anology is false and stupid.
Yes, it is. Diseases are efficient creatures that have been around for a long time and that inflicts itself on people. Software is buggy and hack-ridden and is nothing without the effort of humans.
BUT--if you're going to use the "software as disease" analogy, GPL'd code is "cancerous," though a rather benign cancer. And EULA'd code is a deadly infection.
What a bunch of bullshit. The FSF are lazy? these people who volunteer their time to fight huge organizations and cartels? People who would in any other circumstance be making hundreds of thousands of dollars working for peanuts for a cause they believe in. That's your definition of lazy? Bullshit. Lazy is posting on slashdot.
Yes, it is a bunch of bullshit. But it's well-aimed bullshit.
I'm sure the staff of the FSF are dedicated, hard-working folks. But I've seen IT people work, and "lazy" is probably one of the best things an IT person can be. (The proper dilbertan word is "proactive"--as in, do things as few times as possible.) Thus, calling them "lazy" is a lot more accurate than, oh, calling them "racist."
And it's also no more inaccurate than calling all Microsoft staff people "evil" or "facist." They're CAPITALISTS for God's sake! If they were Facist, they really would write ther code so phrases like "Microsoft sucks" really couldn't be written--and the writing of such would be bee-lined to MS HQ for analaysis and follow-up.
I will re-state my original post. Although some hatred of MS is irrational most hatred of MS is a perfectly rational response to the hatred and evil MS spreads around.
Responding to hatred and evil in kind is irrational and nonproductive.
Respond to hatred and evil with truth and compassion. Respond to crimes and deceit with hatred.
A good deal of hatred for MS is irrational. A larger deal of hatred for MS is overinflated. An unknowable ammount of hatred for MS is perfectly well deserved.
Only the third kind is worth taking up for anyone but the hate-er.
The cops who shot people, while drunk, on the freeway, were witnessed by dozens of people, if not hundreds. These people were interviewed and thier statements went into the papers, and I'm sure court records somewhere. Same thing with the drownings. And the white cop, who'd been brought up on chrages 4 times in the prior 5 years for excessive use of force against black men, who shot an unarmed black man in the back 5 times as the man crawled away from him--- he was never charged either (and all the previous incidents were dropped).
There was plenty of evidence to prosecute. Yes, the DAs are corrupt. And if you think the FBI actually cares, you're a fool. Who do you think it IS protecting cops? OTHER COPS. What do you think the FBI IS?
Got a date? Or a name? If you supply the facts, I'll start a letter-writing campaign and see what I can do.
You don't like private security agencies (answerable under the law) because you prefer the public one (not answerable under the law)-- you trade liberty for the illusion of security.
So, you'd prefer private COPS to public COPS? The law allready holds them all acountable--what makes you think that a private agency would be any different in that respect.
And, by the way, a cop with a badge is no different than any other person. They have no moral special rights. The law treats them different, but then, the law isn't moral.
Law isn't *always* moral, but in this case it is. A police officer puts his own life in the way of danger to uphold the safety of others; morally, he SHOULD be held to a different standard. Tighter in some ways, looser in others.
The positions and relationships we assume in society give us different moral rights and responsibilities. If I know you as a friend, you have the moral right to call on me; if you don't know me, you don't have that "moral right."
But I remain amazed at sheeps willingness and eagerness to have a corrupt police force. Point out corruption and they don't care. They just don't want to have to "pay" for their police.
I don't trust private security agencies to do the job of cops as well as cops do. Take a look at real world examples, and realize that they will be abused by those in power. When it's possible to simply pay more to get better service, the rich will pay more and abuse the system to get what they want. (IIRC, private secuirity firms went out of favor after being used to break strikes.)
By the way, are you really that poor at math that you think you couldn't afford a private security agency? Who's paying for the police who don't protect you now? YOU ARE. And you're paying more than you would if your providers had incentive to provide a good deal. And you'd get better service because they'd work for you, rather than for the state.
Actually, I'm not. I pay only sales taxes and income taxes because I rent my aparment. My landlord pays the property taxes that pay for the city cops, the businesses I shop at pay the sales taxes for county cops.
A private security agency, with this exact same ammount of funds, would focus on those that pay, and not those that don't. I would get only the protection that my landlord and the businesses I frequent feel is necessary for them to pay for.
OTOH, if you're advocating for-profit nongovernmental police organizations that buy contracts from governments, they'd wind up just the same as the state cops, but less well paid (and thus less loyal / skilled.)
Think about it--do you REALLY want the chance of a Microsoft with police powers? THAT would unarguably be a corrupt "police state".
Well, you want this police state. Eventually it will kill you, one way or another. You asked for it. Personally, I'm working to change things.
If you just change it to privitization, you wind up right back where you started. The place to focus is on accountability and transparancy. Make sure every person killed by a cop goes before a judge, even if just for a cursory hearing. If a cop's off duty, hide the fact that they're cops from the judges and the DAs.
(Ironic that you talked about being irked at people who don't do anything about it, when the status quo is what you advocate... sheesh, irked with yourself?)
Nope. I believe in the system we have, I just want to make it work. Give me some better details than "man killed in texas by drunk cops", and I'll see what I can do to find out what happened; if the urban legend holds up, I'll do what I can to help bring those cops to justice.
You might wish to read Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian", then.
I find the notion of an objective "right or wrong" to be rather quaint, but by your own criteria neither Christianity nor religion in general have proven to be very "good".
Quaint? I find it a hell of a lot more logical and modern than a subjective view of the ideas.
It's right to share scientiifc knowledge. It's right to protect the rights of people. It's wrong to murder.:)
And yes, I know I can't say that the Church (of any religion) has proven to be very good at doing what it's supposed to. But the theory of relativity wasn't discarded just because Einstein failed math...
I apologise if I implied that I think gratuitous self-satisfaction is a particularly worthy way of life (insomuch as any such way of life can be worthy).
Why can't a way of life be worthy? Even if there is no God, no afterlife, and no way off this mudball for our species, at least we can make it a better place in the short term by worthy actions.
For my part, I try to deal with other creatures - all other creatures - in the way in which I would hope to be treated myself: since I enjoy life, I don't take life from others. Since I like to be fed, I believe others should be fed. That kind of hippy drivel.
Let's not get into the application of morality to human-animal relationships, shall we? (I prefer a simpsons quote: "If that cow had the chance, he'd eat you too." Which is right; if the cow could digest me, he wouldn't think twice about eating me.)
Heh. That's only if you look for "cop" only. What of all the other ways that you can say the same thing? (or the ways that a journalist is likely to write that.)
Bullshit. First of all GPL is not public domain. Secondly mixing GPL code to yours is 100% voluntary. You don't have to use other peoples code and if you do you have to respect their licence. There is absolutely nothing about this that in any way resembles cancer.
Sure it is. If I mix some non-GPL code in with my program I get sick. ie, become infected, be wounded--there are a lot of diseases like this. But by using any GPL'd code, I've suddenly agreed to follow the GPL for the WHOLE program, just as if I'd clicked "I agree" to an EULA.
Bullshit again. The proponents of GPL act like their code should be free. This is an act of supreme generosity and comparing it to communism is just outrageous.
No, that'd be BSD proponents. The authors and proponetns of the GPL--chiefly, the FSF--have some ideas and claims that they say applies to ALL software, not just what they write. (I'm sure you can find the link yourself.)
I am. I hate them just as much as they hate open source developers and users. I call them evil, liars, unethical bastards, greedy monopolists, and control freaks because that's what they are.
Yep. I can't disagree with you there. But the FSF people are lazy jerks who would rather mess with the system than give it another chance, and are opinionated bastards. Oh, and they're hostile to new users.
(Yes, they're not all like that. But not everyone at MS is what you said they all were, either.)
This thread started with you saying hatred of MS is irrational and ended up with you saying we should compare MS to facists. You can't have it both ways. Yes MS is a facist company and saying so is not irrational hatred.
MS is no more a facist company than the FSF is communist. Comparing either to such political tyrannies does nothing but eliminate the chance for rational discussion about the issues--which means that they, as the dominant market leader, win by default.
There's hating MS, and then they're IRRATIONALLY hating MS. Do the former, not the later, and Free / Open Software will actually stand a chance. Do the later, and they've allready won.
I have always wondered: when you don't have that kind of system how do you know how many people actually live in the US?
Taxes, the census (where we go out and actually count every human being in the country--the reason the first IBM "mechanical computers" were invented) and statistics, where we guess and test our guesses in a guesswork framework. (I'm not a big fan of the third kind of lie.)
There's also birth records, death records, and immigration / emmigration records, along with the requisite SSN.
Hey, that's right--we here in the USA *DO* have a unique number, the social security number. xxx-xx-xxxx, assigned geographically based on where you live when you get it. (I got mine when I was born in Michigan, so mine starts with a 3 like my parent's, unlike my wife's who was born in NY, so hers stars with a 0 like almost everyone else around here.)
Anyway, the SSN is used to track your social security payments to withdrawls--though I don't quite know what the correlation is. I also know that it's not *supposed* to be used for any other purpose but taxes, but it is.:(
We also have DMV numbers, which are unique when referenced within each state (though I don't know what metadata is included therein), and of course credit card numbers.
And on top of all that, when a court refers to a US citizen, they (AFAIK) list his common name and a descriptive geological reference. So I'd be "Doug Meerschaert of Albany, NY", which is pretty damn unique. (Do a search for "Doug Meerschaert" on google, and just about all of the references are me.)
iF yOU wROTE a lETTER tO yOUR aUNT gINNY lIKE tHIS wOULD sHE nOTICE sOMETHING wRONG wITH iT?
Of course she would; you're not displaying the letters correctly.
Who, wHo, WHO, who, and WhO are just about identical in standalone meaning (wHo, WHO, and WhO might be abbreviations), but used in context they're identical.
Let me add this to "reasons I won't use Linux." Maybe I should start a journal...
Yet again, one of my Christian brothers seems to have forgotten a central tenet of our faith.
Nope. I don't think that anyone's perfect, brother--I just think that they should realize that, and stop pretending that they are. "What you whisper in shadows will be shouted from the rooftops."
Everyone has something to hide, whether it's Noah, Moses, David, Peter or Paul. Perhaps you should have learned more about poker to learn when one side has more information about the other, the game isn't even remotely fair.
Exactly. But the battle between government and lawbreakers isn't between two poker players, it's between the house and the players. The House *should* have the odds stacked in their favor--they're the ones handing out rent, free beer, and who employ people who *need* money coming in, not folks who can stop using the money.
See my Addendum if you want the qualifier I didn't feel was necessary for the original post: A system such as this should be used only if it's perfect and impossible to abuse.
Somehow though, you strike me as the type who would never dirty his hands with a deck of cards, and that sig of yours reeks of self-righteousness, the sort that will eventually lead you to say, "Lord, Lord, Did we not..?"
Don't judge a man by his sig. I place my faith in my sig because, right here on/., I've found more bigotry than anywhere else. I speak out and say what I am because a few years ago not one friend of mine knew that I was a Christian. This is not rome, and nowhere did God say it was all right to try and be anonymous and rattle off without saying what you are.
You have forgotten that our faith was originally spread by cheats, brawlers and prostitutes, the very people this system will wield the most power over. Somehow, I think Mary Magdelene would have had something to add.
Our faith dominated the roman empire not because of the people skulking in shadows, but because of those who were brave enough to not repent and die for their belief. The greatest works of our faith were not done by people who worried at all about being "self-righteous", but rather who had unwavering faith and did what they believed God commanded them to.
Where is your compassion? Where is your humility?
I have no compassion for a liar tring to keep his lies hidden. I have compassion for any man who admits his sin, espeically those that suffer for it. I have humility in always knowing that my view is incomplete, that I am imperfect, and that I can and do make mistakes.
I make judgements about people, but I share these judgements with these people and I am always hoping that they can illuminate me as to why my opinion is wrong. I know that I have sinned, but I know my sins and I will not be destroyed if my sins are made public. I endeavor to do nothing that I would not do if everyone were to become aware of it.
Jesus was an Anarchist. Any objective reading of the New Testament (even with how it's been manged through the ages) will show you that. The true followers of the gospel of Jesus resist any attempt for one man to rule another.
Bull. The true Gospel of Jesus, boiled down to one phrase, is "forgive and be forigven." It's not anarchy.
Remember, this is the guy who said "Give unto Ceaser what is Ceaser's," and who went into a temple and said "Don't do that!" Hardly the actions of an anarchist.
Nice troll, though. It was clever and witty, even though it was wildly inaccurate.
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Moment to spam here: I just filed a patent application. GrayCary law firm helped greatly and did most of the work for free...
Cool beans. Hope you get it.
While researching what parts of my software I could and could not patent, I was reading a LOT of books about the various avenues of intellectual property protection....
Which explains how it's easy to get confused--and why it's a good idea to check with a lawyer before you assume something odd about the law.
The first thing the first lawyer who ever taught me a "law course" (all undergraduate stuff--I am so much not a lawyer) said about the law was "here are the basic rules, but there are exceptions for everything."
Then he went on to point out that the law didn't get so complex by design; it go this way because morons & businessmen kept finding loopholes and stupid ways to exploit what was said, forcing judges & gov't's to make the law more and more complex...
Well they gotta make a point. If the government can monitor our phone calls, internet emails, conversations, etc. then why can't we spy on the government to? Or does the governemnt thinks that its better than us and that it got more rights than us?
The government is us. When you or I deal with the will of the people, we are not forced to do so by the whim of the crowd, but by the powers elected and appointed to speak for and act in the interests of the people.
The government, as a nebulous nonpersonal entity, is a slave to every one of its citizens, and exists for no other purpose than for the well being of those it serves.
The problem, of course, arises in that "the government" may be an inpersonal slave, but the people who run the government are very personal, flawed, human beings. It is these people who are put in power that are watched--and they're watched by other people in power who got put there different ways and across different levels, until we get back to the elected representatives and the voters en masse.
If you take away the government's unique right to spy & investigate with legal warrant, documentation, and accountability, (see: the FBI getting smacked for lying to judges), then you're left with either an illicit society of secrets ("If no one can see me do it, then I can get away with it") or a distopian society of eternal spying.
I would rather have some suit who's salary is paid for by my taxes spying on me than some random looney off the street.
Oh--and you (assuming that you're an American citizen) CAN spy on the government. You just need to do it with a time delay. Ever hear of FOIL? The fourth branch of government? The @#$ing drudge report? (slashdot?)
This is called "Freedom(pat.pend)". Unfortunately it's too complicated and threatening to be palatable to most Americans, hence we see the domination of the Demicans and the Republicrats.
Parties aren't about freedom. They're about like minds gathering to achieve goals. The idea is that if you pick the group which is the closest to your personal ideals, you'll see more things that you want happeneing and less that don't (assuming that you get them in charge.)
Until we manage to change campaign finance & how votes are counted (instant runoff, anyone?), third parites are little more than issue-raisers for the two big ones--who promptly raise up and take sides on any issues with significant debate on it.
I am free to do whatever the hell I want, and vote for whomever I want--but the only way to get someone I want in political office is to find a bunch of other free individuals and get all of us to agree on who's the best person for the job--so we can get someone we can tolerate in instead of someone we despise.
It used to not work this way--for all of eight years, until George Washington refused to run again.
It actually covers Patents, Copyright, Trademarks, Trade Secrets and Service marks.
I suggest you read the book again, more closely. You seem to be confusing the specific subject matter with the book (Patents) with all forms of IP.
Your link was, btw, less than useless. "Patent it Yourself" is not a ready reference, and thus meaningless in this debate. Either quote the passage you think says that copyright needs to be enforced, or admit that you might be wrong.
Nothing I have ever seen at all, online or in class, hints that copyrights (or patents) can be lost by non-enforcement. Trademarks certainly can, but I have no knowledge that there is *any* way to lose a copyright or patent by simple non-enforcement.
Think about it--if simple non-enforcement could be enough to lose copyright, MS would have lost their copyright on half of their software by now.
"Heard that" in Patent It Yourself (a book..). It's also available at the USPTO's website [uspto.gov].
Those are patents, not copyrights. Different laws.
Copyright lasts *much* longer, and can be foiled by a clean-room implementation. Patents only last a few decades (at most), and apply to the procedure even if the second party had no knowledge whatsoever of your patent.
I'd chalk this up as "yet another reason to see a lawyer if you're going to do more than meanginless speculation."
It gets even more complicated than that - they only have Offensive Rights for protected works. They means THEY have to sue ME, and if they don't do it within 5 years of the infringement, they lose offensive rights to that work in TOTAL.
Where'd you hear that? Last I heard (IANAL, I live in the USA, but copyright is important to my professional ambitions) you don't have to defend copyright all the time. That's why some fanfics can exist.
No. My disagreement is thus: The totality of the evidence you have given is insufficent to convince me that you're not someone who hates cops because they do their job, and that you do anything more than harp about the media. If you want me to give your beliefs sufficent weight for me to act upon them, you are going to need to provide me with more evidence than I've gotten for urban legends and the success of Amway.
Again: Provide a name or a date (or a link, if you're so inclined), and I'll take it from there.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense-- you're a christian. That's what christianity IS. The worship of the elimination of human rights, perpetrated by ignorant people who willfully ignore reality.
You, my fellow man, obviously don't know what Christianity is. The elimination of the rights of other man is a side effect of zealotry--it's not central to the religion. (Or are you a Lavey Satanist, who thinks that he has a right to lie, murder, cheat, and steal without reproach.)
Why should I expect you to understand-- you wanna kill everyone who doesn't give sanction to your petty god.
And I bet you're even in denial of that basic truth!
I have never felt the desire to kill or meaningfully harm anyone who has not meaningfully harmed me or mine. I have felt the urge to slap people upside the head for being morons, but that's only relevant to my religion because of how & why I believe it--and I want to slap people who disbelieve without thinking or believe without thinking just about equally.
Here's a run down of what I believe:
If you're willing to work a little, and find me the simple information I ask for, then I will work as much as I can to remedy the problem. If you are not willing to even perform a cursory link to find collaboration of something that "you know" happened, then I cannot give you more validity than I have given anyone else who has made as shaky claims.
But how long can you do this when video keeps coming out of this stuff? How about the cop that shot the guy who was threatening to commit suicide a few years ago? or the Cop Riot in Seattle we had for WTO? Was your TV broken that week? The cops frikking RIOTED.
No. I have better things to do than mindlessly watch "breaking news." The only time I've ever seen "breaking news" in my entire life was Sept 11--and I only saw that because a friend called me and told me that it was on TV.
"Houston Papers in the mid 90s" is about as much detail as I can get from alien abduction theorists. A name, a town, or even just a date would do nicely.
(Personally, I don't think the WTO is an open and shut case for either side. And I don't have the power to investigate it. Next time the WTO meets and there's a horrible riot, I promise I'll write a letter to every federal representative I can vote for.)
I wonder one thing, how many friends have you asked for help with linux (the ones that know what to do) before you started to think the way you do. And what version, ususaly that means 5 or 6 redhat. The orld has changed since then.
:(
/. is a big place.)
Not sure what version they're using. My lack of faith has come from watching them try and "impress" me with Linux.
I'm more worried about a good word processor. I looked into the OpenOffice windows client, and it simply doesn't meet my needs.
(I have to wonder if you're not confusing me with someone else, but ah, well.
Help me? With what? Sorry, I didn't asked you for help. Reason I answered was irritation with you arrogance in previous posts.
You expressed dismay and a problem. I attempted to offer help. We are both allready participants in a relatively open forum for discussion.
I am bound by my faith to attempt to help my fellow man. Many apologies if I have offended your sensibilities. (Although I do wonder what country you're in...)
My own experiences with Linux have been less than stellar, and I have encountered near-zero incompatability between any two versions of windows. I am actually quite surprised that a vendor was able to wrangle code so it would work on 2000 and not XP
Well, if *anyone* has been given the binaries, then *eveyone* has the right to the source.
No, just the people who get the binaries have the right to the source code from the author.
The people who have the binaries have the right to redistribute the source as they see fit, but if none of them exercise that right (Let's say they're all Sun employees/contractors/partners who don't want to lose their jobs/contracts) then no one else has a right to that code.
IANAL, but copyleft licenses are a hobby of mine. (look at the homepage, or http://www.thefga.org/ )
One goes way back into startings of my company. All my comapny (sp) papers are
:)
inside. Guess what. It doesn't work under XP.
Is that an archive format, a word processor, or an e-mail program?
It sounds like either a custom-built proprietary system, or a long non-upgraded system from a major vender. If the former, what the hell are you using XP for? If it's the later, bite the bullet and upgrade.
Second one is not so old it's a one year old program that I use to connect
to the bank (Same program that half of the country uses). Guess what, Doesn't
work under XP.
Hmm... do you mean Quicken, Money, your web browswer, or that proprietary "bank" software some banks were peddling? Upgrade if you can, and if not, go to the bank and see what they reccommend.
You might also want to try compatability mode for the apps before you call them dead. Man, if only Unix had a "compatabilty" mode--but that would require a standard, wouldn't it? (j/k)
So, to hell with your progress. Here's why somebody would use a program like
that.
Flame away, flame away. Just trying to help a fellow geek.
It wouldn't--EULAs are based on the idea that you need their permission to make copies, and you can't use the program without copying it (onto the HDD, into RAM, into the cache, etc.)
IANAL... but MS has got some that would probably argue the above if given sufficient reason.
In a society where incest is the social norm, incest is considered "right".
Name one. Subdivisions of existing cultures don't count--find a society somewhere that considers incest "normal" that isn't just a self-absorbed backlash against traditional society.
The definition of "murder" varies according to who's writing the definition.
But they all include killing someone. The room to argue is if there are times when killing someone isn't murder, not if there are times when it is.
My point was that notions of worth are dependent upon subjective values. It's considered "worthy" to protect other humans because we can readily understand that those humans are similar to ourselves, and because we wish to be protected ourselves. It's less commonly considered "unworthy" to kill animals because that link is less obvious, and because they 'taste good'. But what evidence is there to suggest that either is "more worthy" than any other? There are two options: either there's a higher power who determines "worth", in which case He has clearly been much understood across the centuries, or there is only opinion, dogma and tradition.
I do not base my desire to eat animals on my religion. I have a much more basic drive than that: I am a human being, and humans are designed to get sustinence from meat. Animal fat tastes good to us. Animal meat allows us to act more effectively in an active environment (war or survival living) than almost any other natural foodstuff.
People meat, on the other hand, leads to the elimination of people, which is generally a Bad Thing. I also understand that we taste rather well when prepared properly, which leads to all sorts of things that are (instinctually?) revolting to us. [If not instict, then an obvious social detractment, considering every dominant civlization throughout history has banned or borderlined the act.]
Even if that is true, it is likely that the cow would be doing it thanks to an inability to better consider his actions. Your refusal to apply humanitarian concerns to animals is because you're socially programmed to believe that humans are 'better' than 'other animals' - an rather non-scientific attitude. Actually, I would argue that if we *are* 'better' than animals then it's precisely because we can make the decision *not* to eat meat.
It's not "animals vs. humans." I wouldn't eat my cats, nor my father-in-law's dog, nor a friend's horse. Each of these creatures provides a real benefit to me as a person and as a member of a human social unit. Other people provide *more* of a benefit to me, so they're even lower on the totem pole of "things to eat when it's eat or die time." (I have never been in that situation, so I don't know how I would react.)
As for the animals that I eat--cows, deer, fish, chickens, and pigs--none of them provide any benefit to me, whatsoever, except as a foodstuff / part of an ecosystem. (That's redundant, because, in the wild, all of the food animals get eaten as well.)
Science says nothing about morality. Only in the rather young and nebulous fields of sociology and pscyhology is the concept of people eating people even an item of debate. You can't use "doesn't eat meat" as a way to judge a creature "better." You might as well use "doesn't have sex" or "doesn't eat at all" to rank them--it makes about as much scientific sense.
You can't have it both ways: either we're morally aware creatures who should make moral decisions, or we're just animals and there's no morality.
Sure we can--we do have it that way, in fact. And we will have it that way until science and religion sort out their mutual disagreements. (Which will take either the invention of a working practical time machine, or the direct intervention of God.)
We are moral creatures. But the very concept of "morality" is worthless if you don't use an objective measurement for "good" and "bad" morals. I find "because X says so" or "because it's been done that way" or even "because it's popular" to be worthless judges of what is good and what is bad; hence, I had to devise some way to measure them objectively.
I am a human. I dislike eating my own species for a whole bunch of very practical reasons.
And you dare to call GPL a disease.
No, MICROSOFT called the GPL a disease. I merely explained how it was less innacurate than calling the FSF a republican front.
Yeah, the entire system works on corporate greed in wanting to get the most out of the smallest investment by any means whatsoever, but isn't that what capitalism is in the first place -- a system built on greed? So why shouldn't anybody for a capitalist society want it?
;) ]
Well said.
Question: Are you for capitalism, or would you switch to a (truly) better system? [Sure, I've got a better system in mind, but it'd require "phenominal cosmic power" to implement.
(And no, I'm not suggesting communism or any other hippy crap, nor do I think that ostracizing everyone else and forming polticial cults can work.)
Go back and re-read my post...
Go back and re-read mine. Yes, mixing code is voluntary, and getting a disease isn't. But once you move past that step, GPL'd code acts like a cancer while other code just acts like a normal disease. Cancer turns other parts of you into cancer; the flu doesn't turn other parts of you into the flu.
The anology is false and stupid.
Yes, it is. Diseases are efficient creatures that have been around for a long time and that inflicts itself on people. Software is buggy and hack-ridden and is nothing without the effort of humans.
BUT--if you're going to use the "software as disease" analogy, GPL'd code is "cancerous," though a rather benign cancer. And EULA'd code is a deadly infection.
What a bunch of bullshit. The FSF are lazy? these people who volunteer their time to fight huge organizations and cartels? People who would in any other circumstance be making hundreds of thousands of dollars working for peanuts for a cause they believe in. That's your definition of lazy? Bullshit. Lazy is posting on slashdot.
Yes, it is a bunch of bullshit. But it's well-aimed bullshit.
I'm sure the staff of the FSF are dedicated, hard-working folks. But I've seen IT people work, and "lazy" is probably one of the best things an IT person can be. (The proper dilbertan word is "proactive"--as in, do things as few times as possible.) Thus, calling them "lazy" is a lot more accurate than, oh, calling them "racist."
And it's also no more inaccurate than calling all Microsoft staff people "evil" or "facist." They're CAPITALISTS for God's sake! If they were Facist, they really would write ther code so phrases like "Microsoft sucks" really couldn't be written--and the writing of such would be bee-lined to MS HQ for analaysis and follow-up.
I will re-state my original post. Although some hatred of MS is irrational most hatred of MS is a perfectly rational response to the hatred and evil MS spreads around.
Responding to hatred and evil in kind is irrational and nonproductive.
Respond to hatred and evil with truth and compassion. Respond to crimes and deceit with hatred.
A good deal of hatred for MS is irrational. A larger deal of hatred for MS is overinflated. An unknowable ammount of hatred for MS is perfectly well deserved.
Only the third kind is worth taking up for anyone but the hate-er.
The cops who shot people, while drunk, on the freeway, were witnessed by dozens of people, if not hundreds. These people were interviewed and thier statements went into the papers, and I'm sure court records somewhere. Same thing with the drownings. And the white cop, who'd been brought up on chrages 4 times in the prior 5 years for excessive use of force against black men, who shot an unarmed black man in the back 5 times as the man crawled away from him--- he was never charged either (and all the previous incidents were dropped).
There was plenty of evidence to prosecute. Yes, the DAs are corrupt. And if you think the FBI actually cares, you're a fool. Who do you think it IS protecting cops? OTHER COPS. What do you think the FBI IS?
Got a date? Or a name? If you supply the facts, I'll start a letter-writing campaign and see what I can do.
You don't like private security agencies (answerable under the law) because you prefer the public one (not answerable under the law)-- you trade liberty for the illusion of security.
So, you'd prefer private COPS to public COPS? The law allready holds them all acountable--what makes you think that a private agency would be any different in that respect.
And, by the way, a cop with a badge is no different than any other person. They have no moral special rights. The law treats them different, but then, the law isn't moral.
Law isn't *always* moral, but in this case it is. A police officer puts his own life in the way of danger to uphold the safety of others; morally, he SHOULD be held to a different standard. Tighter in some ways, looser in others.
The positions and relationships we assume in society give us different moral rights and responsibilities. If I know you as a friend, you have the moral right to call on me; if you don't know me, you don't have that "moral right."
But I remain amazed at sheeps willingness and eagerness to have a corrupt police force. Point out corruption and they don't care. They just don't want to have to "pay" for their police.
I don't trust private security agencies to do the job of cops as well as cops do. Take a look at real world examples, and realize that they will be abused by those in power. When it's possible to simply pay more to get better service, the rich will pay more and abuse the system to get what they want. (IIRC, private secuirity firms went out of favor after being used to break strikes.)
By the way, are you really that poor at math that you think you couldn't afford a private security agency? Who's paying for the police who don't protect you now? YOU ARE. And you're paying more than you would if your providers had incentive to provide a good deal. And you'd get better service because they'd work for you, rather than for the state.
Actually, I'm not. I pay only sales taxes and income taxes because I rent my aparment. My landlord pays the property taxes that pay for the city cops, the businesses I shop at pay the sales taxes for county cops.
A private security agency, with this exact same ammount of funds, would focus on those that pay, and not those that don't. I would get only the protection that my landlord and the businesses I frequent feel is necessary for them to pay for.
OTOH, if you're advocating for-profit nongovernmental police organizations that buy contracts from governments, they'd wind up just the same as the state cops, but less well paid (and thus less loyal / skilled.)
Think about it--do you REALLY want the chance of a Microsoft with police powers? THAT would unarguably be a corrupt "police state".
Well, you want this police state. Eventually it will kill you, one way or another. You asked for it. Personally, I'm working to change things.
If you just change it to privitization, you wind up right back where you started. The place to focus is on accountability and transparancy. Make sure every person killed by a cop goes before a judge, even if just for a cursory hearing. If a cop's off duty, hide the fact that they're cops from the judges and the DAs.
(Ironic that you talked about being irked at people who don't do anything about it, when the status quo is what you advocate... sheesh, irked with yourself?)
Nope. I believe in the system we have, I just want to make it work. Give me some better details than "man killed in texas by drunk cops", and I'll see what I can do to find out what happened; if the urban legend holds up, I'll do what I can to help bring those cops to justice.
You might wish to read Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian", then.
:)
I find the notion of an objective "right or wrong" to be rather quaint, but by your own criteria neither Christianity nor religion in general have proven to be very "good".
Quaint? I find it a hell of a lot more logical and modern than a subjective view of the ideas.
It's right to share scientiifc knowledge. It's right to protect the rights of people. It's wrong to murder.
And yes, I know I can't say that the Church (of any religion) has proven to be very good at doing what it's supposed to. But the theory of relativity wasn't discarded just because Einstein failed math...
I apologise if I implied that I think gratuitous self-satisfaction is a particularly worthy way of life (insomuch as any such way of life can be worthy).
Why can't a way of life be worthy? Even if there is no God, no afterlife, and no way off this mudball for our species, at least we can make it a better place in the short term by worthy actions.
For my part, I try to deal with other creatures - all other creatures - in the way in which I would hope to be treated myself: since I enjoy life, I don't take life from others. Since I like to be fed, I believe others should be fed. That kind of hippy drivel.
Let's not get into the application of morality to human-animal relationships, shall we? (I prefer a simpsons quote: "If that cow had the chance, he'd eat you too." Which is right; if the cow could digest me, he wouldn't think twice about eating me.)
Heh. That's only if you look for "cop" only. What of all the other ways that you can say the same thing? (or the ways that a journalist is likely to write that.)
Bullshit. First of all GPL is not public domain. Secondly mixing GPL code to yours is 100% voluntary. You don't have to use other peoples code and if you do you have to respect their licence. There is absolutely nothing about this that in any way resembles cancer.
Sure it is. If I mix some non-GPL code in with my program I get sick. ie, become infected, be wounded--there are a lot of diseases like this. But by using any GPL'd code, I've suddenly agreed to follow the GPL for the WHOLE program, just as if I'd clicked "I agree" to an EULA.
Bullshit again. The proponents of GPL act like their code should be free. This is an act of supreme generosity and comparing it to communism is just outrageous.
No, that'd be BSD proponents. The authors and proponetns of the GPL--chiefly, the FSF--have some ideas and claims that they say applies to ALL software, not just what they write. (I'm sure you can find the link yourself.)
I am. I hate them just as much as they hate open source developers and users. I call them evil, liars, unethical bastards, greedy monopolists, and control freaks because that's what they are.
Yep. I can't disagree with you there. But the FSF people are lazy jerks who would rather mess with the system than give it another chance, and are opinionated bastards. Oh, and they're hostile to new users.
(Yes, they're not all like that. But not everyone at MS is what you said they all were, either.)
This thread started with you saying hatred of MS is irrational and ended up with you saying we should compare MS to facists. You can't have it both ways. Yes MS is a facist company and saying so is not irrational hatred.
MS is no more a facist company than the FSF is communist. Comparing either to such political tyrannies does nothing but eliminate the chance for rational discussion about the issues--which means that they, as the dominant market leader, win by default.
There's hating MS, and then they're IRRATIONALLY hating MS. Do the former, not the later, and Free / Open Software will actually stand a chance. Do the later, and they've allready won.
I have always wondered: when you don't have that kind of system how do you know how many people actually live in the US?
:(
Taxes, the census (where we go out and actually count every human being in the country--the reason the first IBM "mechanical computers" were invented) and statistics, where we guess and test our guesses in a guesswork framework. (I'm not a big fan of the third kind of lie.)
There's also birth records, death records, and immigration / emmigration records, along with the requisite SSN.
Hey, that's right--we here in the USA *DO* have a unique number, the social security number. xxx-xx-xxxx, assigned geographically based on where you live when you get it. (I got mine when I was born in Michigan, so mine starts with a 3 like my parent's, unlike my wife's who was born in NY, so hers stars with a 0 like almost everyone else around here.)
Anyway, the SSN is used to track your social security payments to withdrawls--though I don't quite know what the correlation is. I also know that it's not *supposed* to be used for any other purpose but taxes, but it is.
We also have DMV numbers, which are unique when referenced within each state (though I don't know what metadata is included therein), and of course credit card numbers.
And on top of all that, when a court refers to a US citizen, they (AFAIK) list his common name and a descriptive geological reference. So I'd be "Doug Meerschaert of Albany, NY", which is pretty damn unique. (Do a search for "Doug Meerschaert" on google, and just about all of the references are me.)
iF yOU wROTE a lETTER tO yOUR aUNT gINNY lIKE tHIS wOULD sHE nOTICE sOMETHING wRONG wITH iT?
Of course she would; you're not displaying the letters correctly.
Who, wHo, WHO, who, and WhO are just about identical in standalone meaning (wHo, WHO, and WhO might be abbreviations), but used in context they're identical.
Let me add this to "reasons I won't use Linux." Maybe I should start a journal...
Yet again, one of my Christian brothers seems to have forgotten a central tenet of our faith.
/., I've found more bigotry than anywhere else. I speak out and say what I am because a few years ago not one friend of mine knew that I was a Christian. This is not rome, and nowhere did God say it was all right to try and be anonymous and rattle off without saying what you are.
Nope. I don't think that anyone's perfect, brother--I just think that they should realize that, and stop pretending that they are. "What you whisper in shadows will be shouted from the rooftops."
Everyone has something to hide, whether it's Noah, Moses, David, Peter or Paul. Perhaps you should have learned more about poker to learn when one side has more information about the other, the game isn't even remotely fair.
Exactly. But the battle between government and lawbreakers isn't between two poker players, it's between the house and the players. The House *should* have the odds stacked in their favor--they're the ones handing out rent, free beer, and who employ people who *need* money coming in, not folks who can stop using the money.
See my Addendum if you want the qualifier I didn't feel was necessary for the original post: A system such as this should be used only if it's perfect and impossible to abuse.
Somehow though, you strike me as the type who would never dirty his hands with a deck of cards, and that sig of yours reeks of self-righteousness, the sort that will eventually lead you to say, "Lord, Lord, Did we not..?"
Don't judge a man by his sig. I place my faith in my sig because, right here on
You have forgotten that our faith was originally spread by cheats, brawlers and prostitutes, the very people this system will wield the most power over. Somehow, I think Mary Magdelene would have had something to add.
Our faith dominated the roman empire not because of the people skulking in shadows, but because of those who were brave enough to not repent and die for their belief. The greatest works of our faith were not done by people who worried at all about being "self-righteous", but rather who had unwavering faith and did what they believed God commanded them to.
Where is your compassion? Where is your humility?
I have no compassion for a liar tring to keep his lies hidden. I have compassion for any man who admits his sin, espeically those that suffer for it. I have humility in always knowing that my view is incomplete, that I am imperfect, and that I can and do make mistakes.
I make judgements about people, but I share these judgements with these people and I am always hoping that they can illuminate me as to why my opinion is wrong. I know that I have sinned, but I know my sins and I will not be destroyed if my sins are made public. I endeavor to do nothing that I would not do if everyone were to become aware of it.
Jesus was an Anarchist. Any objective reading of the New Testament (even with how it's been manged through the ages) will show you that. The true followers of the gospel of Jesus resist any attempt for one man to rule another.
Bull. The true Gospel of Jesus, boiled down to one phrase, is "forgive and be forigven." It's not anarchy.
Remember, this is the guy who said "Give unto Ceaser what is Ceaser's," and who went into a temple and said "Don't do that!" Hardly the actions of an anarchist.
Nice troll, though. It was clever and witty, even though it was wildly inaccurate.