Which is irrelevant at this point. No one's going to go back and run the election again. We can punish the people behind it, and if that chain leads up to Rove or Bush or Cheney, then punish them for their part in it.
The important thing now is to make sure it doesn't happen again. Either go strictly with paper ballots, or go with a completely Open Source system with no Internet access (and only limited networking among the machines), and only allow election workers to insert and remove the data cards that tally the votes.
In reviewing recent edits to prominent Slashdot posts, it has been pointed out that your most recent edit left off an important preposition, rendering the edited sentence grammatically confusing. As such, your editing services will no longer be required.
We wish you luck in your continued efforts, whatever they may be.
Does it really have to be said, for the billionith time, that Slashdot is not an international Website, but one built and geared towards Americans? It's been in the FAQ for 12 years now, when will people get over it?
And is it even possible to transfer actual information via Power Point? I've heard rumors that it can be done, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually do it.
I saw a great Power Point presentation on that subject once, it was very convincing.
Right now I have a "An Update is available for your iPhone" dialog on my screen, I am actually reading a bit to make sure an update was released before I click download and install.
Because if someone hacked Apple's update servers, there's no way they could've hacked Apple's web servers, right?
a species that is genetically weakened and hence increasingly dependent upon the availability of expensive medical caregivers.
Your argument is as specious as the one made by australopitheci elders when they warned against using those new fangled "tools": that doing so would result in weaker apes who wouldn't be able to run fast enough to get away from leopards.
Evolution has resulted in our species having large, intelligent, brains. We're not going to weaken our species by using those brains to save people who wouldn't otherwise be saved.
If you have a bad credit rating, you aren't good at handling your personal finances, so why would you be any better handling your duties at work?
I had an acquaintance several years ago who worked as a mortgage broker. He told me that most of the sub-prime lenders he worked with were doctors who owned their own practice. Apparently, they all made gobs of money (presumably because they were good doctors), but were horrible about keeping on top of bills.
Having a crappy credit rating just means you're not good with money, it's absurd to think it means anything else.
To play devil's advocate, why should those of us with good health have to pay extra for your problems?
Because insurance operates under the concept of pooled risk. The more people in the pool, the less individual risk there is to everyone. Amazingly enough, this even works with people who have poor health or chronic health problems, since someone without those problems now may develop even worse ones in the future.
The insurance companies who are doing this are being incredibly short sighted. There are some things that are private and are no one's business except those directly involved. By pushing for this information, they're opening themselves to even more government intervention.
No, I'll tell you what's unnerving: that plaintiff's counsel couldn't read and cite USC Title 28 Â 1346(b)(1):
Subject to the provisions of chapter 171 of this title, the district courts, together with the United States District Court for the District of the Canal Zone and the District Court of the Virgin Islands, shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages, accruing on and after January 1, 1945, for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.
In short, you can sue the government if an agent of the government commits a tortuous act that, if performed by a private citizen, would ordinarily be actionable in court. Maybe they sued for more than $10k and disqualified themselves from using this law, I don't know. But if a non-lawyer can find this information after about two minutes of searching, why didn't Blueport's attorneys find it?
Not that it matters, they had tenuous claims to the copyright, anyway. They're lucky they didn't get hit with an injunction to stop selling it. But now every other content producer out there (*cough*Microsoft*cough*) is stuck with this precedent.
Expect to see some amicus curiae filed by large software companies in the near future to get the Supreme Court to issue a writ of certiorari to rehear this case.
Every single one of the Chinese interviewed for that article needs to take a ride on the Waaaahmbulance. "Oh no, other countries are criticizing us, they don't like us, who's going to take us the prom now?" An entire country filled with teenage girls, just wonderful.
No one forced them to host the Olympics, no one forced them to open their borders to our media (and our disdain). The only good thing I can say about the Chinese at this point is, at least they're not Muslims, because then they'd be burning down embassies and strapping bombs to their chests.
The REAL cause of the high prices is NOT the traders, it is the problems with supply. Supply cannot keep up with the DEMAND.
You're partially right. There has been a bubble in oil this summer, caused by a lot of people dumping money that had been chasing the housing market into the oil market. When people talk about excessive speculation in oil futures, that's what they're talking about.
But you're right, it's unsustainable, which is why the smart money is shorting oil right now.
I just tried that, and the first link on Cuil (upper left) is Wikipedia's article on Slashdot. The one next to it is Wikipedia's article the Slashdot effect. So the results seem decent, for the most part.
But what's up with the images? The image for the Slashdot article is some kind of graph of shades of blue. The one for the Slashdot effect article has a man and young girl holding a flower. WTF?
Now this is a very different issue than the President firing attorneys. And yes, if it comes out that anything remotely related to what you described happened, then Bush needs to be impeached ASAP. We can't allow Presidents to use the Justice Department (or any other agency) to go after political rivals.
You obviously didn't understand my argument, if the timber industry went bankrupt it would prove my point wrong. The fact that they clear cut and move on proves me right. The workers and the environment get screwed.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearcutting: "Clearcutting facilitates regeneration of early succession stage species, which are reliant on disturbance for regeneration. Many trees species (e.g. aspen, pines, birch) are shade-intolerant. In nature these trees typically establish themselves only after some disturbance, like a blow down, fire or disease outbreak. Aspen, for example, will actually sucker (re-sprout from the roots) after a harvest. Clear cutting provides conditions optimal for species like aspen, many of which are very important to the timber market."
The timber industry doesn't clearcut and move on, they clearcut when it benefits their crop. They're farmers, and tend to the soil and crops like any other farmer.
Your view of human nature is wrong. Modern economic experiments prove that people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest, and only act selfishly because they see everyone else doing so. Google 'fairness reciprocity economic research' for some good papers on the subject, or look up 'ultimatum game' on wikipedia for a description of one of the experiments.
I briefly read the Wiki article on "ultimatum game". It's interesting, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone else. That said, don't assume that because I vote for Libertarian candidates that I'm a devoted follower of Ayn Rand. I think she missed some important parts of human nature. The philosophers I tend to follow are Enlightenment era humanists; the philosophy of natural rights leaves more room for dealing ethically with people than Objectivism.
And you seem to want to make it very hard for people to protect themselves from economic aggression proactively.
I'm not sure what you mean by "economic aggression". Can you clarify your statement?
In short, libertarianism provides simple solutions, that don't work in the real world, to complex problems that have been better solved through other means.
Funny, I often say the same thing about socialism. Lucky for us, we live in a pluralistic society that requires people to find common ground in their philosophies; history demonstrates that pursuing "pureness of thought", of any stripe, is likely to lead to calamity.
Sorry if this sounds trollish, I swear I'm being as respectful as I can.
You've presented a lot of good information, and I'm inclined to agree that something fishy was going on and that Goodling, and most likely her bosses on up the chain, should be investigated. But this quote:
The issue with the U.S. attorneys wasn't that they were fired, but why they were fired. They serve at the pleasure of the President but there is evidence the attorneys that were fired were fired for improper reasons
makes it hard for me to take anything else you said seriously. If the US attorneys served at the pleasure of the President, there is no such thing as an "improper" firing. Because you choose to phrase it that way, I assume you're a partisan hack, and like I said it makes it difficult for me to take anything else you said seriously.
Now, if you drop the US attorneys issue and focus on the real problem, then maybe I'd be willing to listen. But as long as you're crying wolf on the one thing, I'll continue to assume you're crying wolf about everything else.
You could even keep focusing on the US attorneys firings, but only by saying "There's nothing wrong with it, but it shows a pattern of behavior." Unfortunately, the Democrats chose to make a stink out of something that was perfectly fine, and now when they complain about something that might not be so fine, well, you see the problem, don't you?
This is why you should never let yourself become blinded by hatred. The Republicans let it happen to them with Clinton, so by the time he actually did something illegal (lying under oath), no one cared because they had gone after such piddly shit for years.
As for the commons, the parable only applies to unmanaged land. It does not apply to land that is managed collectively, that still counts as owned land. If you are confused by this concept, I recommend rereading The Tragedy of the Commons, it is pretty specific about that.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned state owned land; that would fall under what you're calling collectively managed land.
Real world examples abound, just look at the timber industry.
Heard of any timber companies going bankrupt recently? No? Maybe that's because they manage their crop just as well as any other farmer.
No system is perfect, and it's a fool's errand to find one. What capitalism provides is the most equitable system available, given the limitations imposed by human nature. To paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst economic system in the world; except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.
I like the way you discount capitalist countries that were at war when their famines happened
My point is that, outside of war, only socialist systems produce famine. War is a special case, and it's not fair to compare it to other circumstances since it involves purposeful destruction of crops and food.
I'm not advocating that society own your clothes, your house, or your things. And I'm not advocating that control over land you are actively working be taken away from you. The things you work for are your own and no one else's, and the land you work directly is legitimately yours to control. But you can't own land and natural resources without infringing on other people's natural rights.
I think you misunderstand how property rights work. First off, since I have the right to own the land under my house, it means you also have the right to own the land under your house. So that's a fair trade.
Second, most states recognize a concept from common law of an easement: basically, as long as you don't steal anything or enter a dwelling, you're free to cross open private land. The owner can ask you to leave, but that's it. Hunters cross ranches all the time. So your right to move freely is not, in fact, being violated.
Third, you don't seem to understand the concept of "the commons". When everyone owns a natural resource, no one owns it. By allowing a given entity to own it (whether that's a person, a corporation or other collective of people, or the state), you introduce a profit motive to husband the resource.
We'll use the example of a grazing field next to a village. Let's say it can support grazing 1000 sheep per year and be able to renew itself. If everyone had full rights to the field, with no real ownership of it, there would be no way to stop someone from grazing 1000 sheep there. If anyone else grazes their sheep, the land won't renew, and all the sheep starve. But, if someone owns the land, they can prevent that misuse of it, and in the long run everyone is better off.
You are ignoring all the famines in the purely capitalist countries of Africa. Oh, those aren't capitalist, their totalitarian? Yeah, then don't go confusing socialism with totalitarianism, either.
You're confusing economic systems with political ones. Totalitarianism is a political system, like democracy, constitutional monarchy, oligarchy, and theocracy. Socialism is an economic system, and one that has consistently failed. The places where it's worked somewhat (like Sweden) use a modified form of it, mixing in capitalism as needed (same thing with Nazi Germany and modern China).
Also, none of the capitalist countries in Africa suffered famines. The famines listed on Wikipedia for Africa in the 20th century include Ethiopia (socialist policies and war), Ruawandi-Burundi (war), Sudan (socialist policies and war), and Zimbabwe (socialist policies). If you have another source, please share it.
Socialism doesn't lead to deaths, authoritarianism does. Now, we can argue over which system gives authoritarians more leeway, socialism or the free market, but looking at history, and the present day, it's pretty obvious that capitalism is an unregulated playground for sociopaths.
Has capitalism directly led to the deaths of tens of millions of people? If so, cite your sources. Because there are countless reports on the effects of socialism killing indiscriminately (or in your words, giving authoritarians more power/leeway).
Besides which, trying to separate socialism from authoritarianism is a moot point. While not all socialist governments are authoritarian, all authoritarian governments use socialist policies to control the populace. There's no such thing as "capitalist authoritarian", the two concepts are completely antithetical to one another.
Start with McCarthyism, he was a Republican you know.
He was also probably insane (paranoid). I don't think it's accurate to say he "hated" anymore, more that he feared them (and yes, there is a difference). Oh, and he was just as willing to go after fellow Republicans as he was Democrats. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#McCarthy_and_Eisenhower:
'By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catch-phrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-one years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office.[52]'
Move to Nixon and his dirty tricks.
"shenanigans" != "hate". If they did, then you'd have to go back a few steps to when Kennedy stole the election by cheating in Illinois. Similarly, trying to win an election isn't being "partisan" in the pejorative sense of the word, otherwise everyone who ever ran for office would be guilty of it.
Jump ahead to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly
Rush isn't a politician, he's an entertainer. And O'Reilly is hardly a Republican, he's a populist (and also an entertainer).
Then look at the Republican stunt trying to impeach Bill Clinton when they knew it wasn't justified
How do you know what they knew? You disagree that is was justified, fine. I think it was. Does that mean I hate you? Of course not. Does it mean I hated Clinton? Of course not.
Clinton's judgment was bad, but people do that when sex is involved.
They tend to do it when lawsuits are involved, too. Which was the point, not the sex (though you wouldn't know it from some of the idiot Republican politicians who individually should've STFU).
What the Republicans did was incomparably worse and damaged the country irreparably.
How was the country damaged "irreparably"? You're suggesting we tear up the Constitution and let states go their own ways, end over 200 years of history as a nation, because Clinton was impeached? That's absurd and you know it.
This is in spite of the fact Bush actually deserves it for violating the Constitution and the law.
As someone else pointed out, Bush would only be impeached if he were defying some other branch of government. He isn't, so he won't be. You can disagree with his policies all day long, but as Congress keeps voting with him, they will never impeach him. They'd just be impeaching themselves, if they did.
Wait, I'm seriously confused and maybe I missed something. I thought the controversy was over the fact that Bush fired US Attorneys, or only wanted to hire ones that agreed with him politically; but Clinton fired almost all of the US Attorneys when he took office. Now you're saying that US Attorneys can't be fired, and yet I'm pretty sure that Clinton did just that.
Can you clarify for me which civil servants can/cannot be hired and fired accordingly to political groupings? And if the US Attorneys are included in the protected group, why was it OK when Clinton fired so many at once? How is that substantially different from what Bush did? Maybe it is, I'm probably just missing something, like I said.
It's perfectly okay to use coercion to enforce your unilateral ideas about property and take away MY rights to go wherever my legs will take me.
If your legs wanted to go to Pyongyang and walk into Kim's kitchen to get a sandwich, do you think you'd encounter any problems along the way? Guess socialism doesn't fix that problem, either, then.
That's okay, but using 'coercion' to ensure that everyone has enough to eat before allowing anyone to profit outrageously from the hard work of other people is communism.
You're missing the point: yes, it's wrong to steal from someone. But more importantly, when you remove the profit motive from food production, people starve to death because no one grows any food (and certainly not any excess food). Almost all of the famines in the last 100 years that have happened outside of war zones have all been in socialist countries: the Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Khmer Rouge. The list goes on.
Classical liberalism has led to some deaths, mostly in revolutions. Socialism has led to tens of millions of deaths. And yet you still want to keep trying it. How many more people have to die thanks to your failed philosophy before you finally realize how completely broken it is?
Slashdot Mirror
Which is irrelevant at this point. No one's going to go back and run the election again. We can punish the people behind it, and if that chain leads up to Rove or Bush or Cheney, then punish them for their part in it.
The important thing now is to make sure it doesn't happen again. Either go strictly with paper ballots, or go with a completely Open Source system with no Internet access (and only limited networking among the machines), and only allow election workers to insert and remove the data cards that tally the votes.
Dear elh_inny,
In reviewing recent edits to prominent Slashdot posts, it has been pointed out that your most recent edit left off an important preposition, rendering the edited sentence grammatically confusing. As such, your editing services will no longer be required.
We wish you luck in your continued efforts, whatever they may be.
Sincerely,
corbettw
It said you'd get a ride on the bus, not which McCain you'd be riding.
Does it really have to be said, for the billionith time, that Slashdot is not an international Website, but one built and geared towards Americans? It's been in the FAQ for 12 years now, when will people get over it?
That makes me feel much better. Although, how did a micro-blackhole on Earth end up with the mass of Earth...?
<panic mode on>
And is it even possible to transfer actual information via Power Point? I've heard rumors that it can be done, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually do it.
I saw a great Power Point presentation on that subject once, it was very convincing.
Right now I have a "An Update is available for your iPhone" dialog on my screen, I am actually reading a bit to make sure an update was released before I click download and install.
Because if someone hacked Apple's update servers, there's no way they could've hacked Apple's web servers, right?
a species that is genetically weakened and hence increasingly dependent upon the availability of expensive medical caregivers.
Your argument is as specious as the one made by australopitheci elders when they warned against using those new fangled "tools": that doing so would result in weaker apes who wouldn't be able to run fast enough to get away from leopards.
Evolution has resulted in our species having large, intelligent, brains. We're not going to weaken our species by using those brains to save people who wouldn't otherwise be saved.
If you have a bad credit rating, you aren't good at handling your personal finances, so why would you be any better handling your duties at work?
I had an acquaintance several years ago who worked as a mortgage broker. He told me that most of the sub-prime lenders he worked with were doctors who owned their own practice. Apparently, they all made gobs of money (presumably because they were good doctors), but were horrible about keeping on top of bills.
Having a crappy credit rating just means you're not good with money, it's absurd to think it means anything else.
To play devil's advocate, why should those of us with good health have to pay extra for your problems?
Because insurance operates under the concept of pooled risk. The more people in the pool, the less individual risk there is to everyone. Amazingly enough, this even works with people who have poor health or chronic health problems, since someone without those problems now may develop even worse ones in the future.
The insurance companies who are doing this are being incredibly short sighted. There are some things that are private and are no one's business except those directly involved. By pushing for this information, they're opening themselves to even more government intervention.
Hard to say, K'Breel has been quiet for some time. Too quiet.
No, I'll tell you what's unnerving: that plaintiff's counsel couldn't read and cite USC Title 28 Â 1346(b)(1):
Subject to the provisions of chapter 171 of this title, the district courts, together with the United States District Court for the District of the Canal Zone and the District Court of the Virgin Islands, shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages, accruing on and after January 1, 1945, for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.
In short, you can sue the government if an agent of the government commits a tortuous act that, if performed by a private citizen, would ordinarily be actionable in court. Maybe they sued for more than $10k and disqualified themselves from using this law, I don't know. But if a non-lawyer can find this information after about two minutes of searching, why didn't Blueport's attorneys find it?
Not that it matters, they had tenuous claims to the copyright, anyway. They're lucky they didn't get hit with an injunction to stop selling it. But now every other content producer out there (*cough*Microsoft*cough*) is stuck with this precedent.
Expect to see some amicus curiae filed by large software companies in the near future to get the Supreme Court to issue a writ of certiorari to rehear this case.
Whenever I think of female librarians, there's nothing "mild" about them. Rwa-oh!
Every single one of the Chinese interviewed for that article needs to take a ride on the Waaaahmbulance. "Oh no, other countries are criticizing us, they don't like us, who's going to take us the prom now?" An entire country filled with teenage girls, just wonderful.
No one forced them to host the Olympics, no one forced them to open their borders to our media (and our disdain). The only good thing I can say about the Chinese at this point is, at least they're not Muslims, because then they'd be burning down embassies and strapping bombs to their chests.
You mean people actually doing something had more effect than other people talking about doing something? Color me shocked.
The REAL cause of the high prices is NOT the traders, it is the problems with supply. Supply cannot keep up with the DEMAND.
You're partially right. There has been a bubble in oil this summer, caused by a lot of people dumping money that had been chasing the housing market into the oil market. When people talk about excessive speculation in oil futures, that's what they're talking about.
But you're right, it's unsustainable, which is why the smart money is shorting oil right now.
I just tried that, and the first link on Cuil (upper left) is Wikipedia's article on Slashdot. The one next to it is Wikipedia's article the Slashdot effect. So the results seem decent, for the most part.
But what's up with the images? The image for the Slashdot article is some kind of graph of shades of blue. The one for the Slashdot effect article has a man and young girl holding a flower. WTF?
Now this is a very different issue than the President firing attorneys. And yes, if it comes out that anything remotely related to what you described happened, then Bush needs to be impeached ASAP. We can't allow Presidents to use the Justice Department (or any other agency) to go after political rivals.
You obviously didn't understand my argument, if the timber industry went bankrupt it would prove my point wrong. The fact that they clear cut and move on proves me right. The workers and the environment get screwed.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearcutting:
"Clearcutting facilitates regeneration of early succession stage species, which are reliant on disturbance for regeneration. Many trees species (e.g. aspen, pines, birch) are shade-intolerant. In nature these trees typically establish themselves only after some disturbance, like a blow down, fire or disease outbreak. Aspen, for example, will actually sucker (re-sprout from the roots) after a harvest. Clear cutting provides conditions optimal for species like aspen, many of which are very important to the timber market."
The timber industry doesn't clearcut and move on, they clearcut when it benefits their crop. They're farmers, and tend to the soil and crops like any other farmer.
Your view of human nature is wrong. Modern economic experiments prove that people value fairness and reciprocity over self interest, and only act selfishly because they see everyone else doing so. Google 'fairness reciprocity economic research' for some good papers on the subject, or look up 'ultimatum game' on wikipedia for a description of one of the experiments.
I briefly read the Wiki article on "ultimatum game". It's interesting, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone else. That said, don't assume that because I vote for Libertarian candidates that I'm a devoted follower of Ayn Rand. I think she missed some important parts of human nature. The philosophers I tend to follow are Enlightenment era humanists; the philosophy of natural rights leaves more room for dealing ethically with people than Objectivism.
And you seem to want to make it very hard for people to protect themselves from economic aggression proactively.
I'm not sure what you mean by "economic aggression". Can you clarify your statement?
In short, libertarianism provides simple solutions, that don't work in the real world, to complex problems that have been better solved through other means.
Funny, I often say the same thing about socialism. Lucky for us, we live in a pluralistic society that requires people to find common ground in their philosophies; history demonstrates that pursuing "pureness of thought", of any stripe, is likely to lead to calamity.
Sorry if this sounds trollish, I swear I'm being as respectful as I can.
You've presented a lot of good information, and I'm inclined to agree that something fishy was going on and that Goodling, and most likely her bosses on up the chain, should be investigated. But this quote:
The issue with the U.S. attorneys wasn't that they were fired, but why they were fired. They serve at the pleasure of the President but there is evidence the attorneys that were fired were fired for improper reasons
makes it hard for me to take anything else you said seriously. If the US attorneys served at the pleasure of the President, there is no such thing as an "improper" firing. Because you choose to phrase it that way, I assume you're a partisan hack, and like I said it makes it difficult for me to take anything else you said seriously.
Now, if you drop the US attorneys issue and focus on the real problem, then maybe I'd be willing to listen. But as long as you're crying wolf on the one thing, I'll continue to assume you're crying wolf about everything else.
You could even keep focusing on the US attorneys firings, but only by saying "There's nothing wrong with it, but it shows a pattern of behavior." Unfortunately, the Democrats chose to make a stink out of something that was perfectly fine, and now when they complain about something that might not be so fine, well, you see the problem, don't you?
This is why you should never let yourself become blinded by hatred. The Republicans let it happen to them with Clinton, so by the time he actually did something illegal (lying under oath), no one cared because they had gone after such piddly shit for years.
As for the commons, the parable only applies to unmanaged land. It does not apply to land that is managed collectively, that still counts as owned land. If you are confused by this concept, I recommend rereading The Tragedy of the Commons, it is pretty specific about that.
I'm pretty sure I mentioned state owned land; that would fall under what you're calling collectively managed land.
Real world examples abound, just look at the timber industry.
Heard of any timber companies going bankrupt recently? No? Maybe that's because they manage their crop just as well as any other farmer.
No system is perfect, and it's a fool's errand to find one. What capitalism provides is the most equitable system available, given the limitations imposed by human nature. To paraphrase Churchill, it's the worst economic system in the world; except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.
I like the way you discount capitalist countries that were at war when their famines happened
My point is that, outside of war, only socialist systems produce famine. War is a special case, and it's not fair to compare it to other circumstances since it involves purposeful destruction of crops and food.
I'm not advocating that society own your clothes, your house, or your things. And I'm not advocating that control over land you are actively working be taken away from you. The things you work for are your own and no one else's, and the land you work directly is legitimately yours to control. But you can't own land and natural resources without infringing on other people's natural rights.
I think you misunderstand how property rights work. First off, since I have the right to own the land under my house, it means you also have the right to own the land under your house. So that's a fair trade.
Second, most states recognize a concept from common law of an easement: basically, as long as you don't steal anything or enter a dwelling, you're free to cross open private land. The owner can ask you to leave, but that's it. Hunters cross ranches all the time. So your right to move freely is not, in fact, being violated.
Third, you don't seem to understand the concept of "the commons". When everyone owns a natural resource, no one owns it. By allowing a given entity to own it (whether that's a person, a corporation or other collective of people, or the state), you introduce a profit motive to husband the resource.
We'll use the example of a grazing field next to a village. Let's say it can support grazing 1000 sheep per year and be able to renew itself. If everyone had full rights to the field, with no real ownership of it, there would be no way to stop someone from grazing 1000 sheep there. If anyone else grazes their sheep, the land won't renew, and all the sheep starve. But, if someone owns the land, they can prevent that misuse of it, and in the long run everyone is better off.
You are ignoring all the famines in the purely capitalist countries of Africa. Oh, those aren't capitalist, their totalitarian? Yeah, then don't go confusing socialism with totalitarianism, either.
You're confusing economic systems with political ones. Totalitarianism is a political system, like democracy, constitutional monarchy, oligarchy, and theocracy. Socialism is an economic system, and one that has consistently failed. The places where it's worked somewhat (like Sweden) use a modified form of it, mixing in capitalism as needed (same thing with Nazi Germany and modern China).
Also, none of the capitalist countries in Africa suffered famines. The famines listed on Wikipedia for Africa in the 20th century include Ethiopia (socialist policies and war), Ruawandi-Burundi (war), Sudan (socialist policies and war), and Zimbabwe (socialist policies). If you have another source, please share it.
Socialism doesn't lead to deaths, authoritarianism does. Now, we can argue over which system gives authoritarians more leeway, socialism or the free market, but looking at history, and the present day, it's pretty obvious that capitalism is an unregulated playground for sociopaths.
Has capitalism directly led to the deaths of tens of millions of people? If so, cite your sources. Because there are countless reports on the effects of socialism killing indiscriminately (or in your words, giving authoritarians more power/leeway).
Besides which, trying to separate socialism from authoritarianism is a moot point. While not all socialist governments are authoritarian, all authoritarian governments use socialist policies to control the populace. There's no such thing as "capitalist authoritarian", the two concepts are completely antithetical to one another.
Start with McCarthyism, he was a Republican you know.
He was also probably insane (paranoid). I don't think it's accurate to say he "hated" anymore, more that he feared them (and yes, there is a difference). Oh, and he was just as willing to go after fellow Republicans as he was Democrats. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#McCarthy_and_Eisenhower:
'By the end of 1953, McCarthy had altered the "twenty years of treason" catch-phrase he had coined for the preceding Democratic administrations and began referring to "twenty-one years of treason" to include Eisenhower's first year in office.[52]'
Move to Nixon and his dirty tricks.
"shenanigans" != "hate". If they did, then you'd have to go back a few steps to when Kennedy stole the election by cheating in Illinois. Similarly, trying to win an election isn't being "partisan" in the pejorative sense of the word, otherwise everyone who ever ran for office would be guilty of it.
Jump ahead to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly
Rush isn't a politician, he's an entertainer. And O'Reilly is hardly a Republican, he's a populist (and also an entertainer).
Then look at the Republican stunt trying to impeach Bill Clinton when they knew it wasn't justified
How do you know what they knew? You disagree that is was justified, fine. I think it was. Does that mean I hate you? Of course not. Does it mean I hated Clinton? Of course not.
Clinton's judgment was bad, but people do that when sex is involved.
They tend to do it when lawsuits are involved, too. Which was the point, not the sex (though you wouldn't know it from some of the idiot Republican politicians who individually should've STFU).
What the Republicans did was incomparably worse and damaged the country irreparably.
How was the country damaged "irreparably"? You're suggesting we tear up the Constitution and let states go their own ways, end over 200 years of history as a nation, because Clinton was impeached? That's absurd and you know it.
This is in spite of the fact Bush actually deserves it for violating the Constitution and the law.
As someone else pointed out, Bush would only be impeached if he were defying some other branch of government. He isn't, so he won't be. You can disagree with his policies all day long, but as Congress keeps voting with him, they will never impeach him. They'd just be impeaching themselves, if they did.
Wait, I'm seriously confused and maybe I missed something. I thought the controversy was over the fact that Bush fired US Attorneys, or only wanted to hire ones that agreed with him politically; but Clinton fired almost all of the US Attorneys when he took office. Now you're saying that US Attorneys can't be fired, and yet I'm pretty sure that Clinton did just that.
Can you clarify for me which civil servants can/cannot be hired and fired accordingly to political groupings? And if the US Attorneys are included in the protected group, why was it OK when Clinton fired so many at once? How is that substantially different from what Bush did? Maybe it is, I'm probably just missing something, like I said.
It's perfectly okay to use coercion to enforce your unilateral ideas about property and take away MY rights to go wherever my legs will take me.
If your legs wanted to go to Pyongyang and walk into Kim's kitchen to get a sandwich, do you think you'd encounter any problems along the way? Guess socialism doesn't fix that problem, either, then.
That's okay, but using 'coercion' to ensure that everyone has enough to eat before allowing anyone to profit outrageously from the hard work of other people is communism.
You're missing the point: yes, it's wrong to steal from someone. But more importantly, when you remove the profit motive from food production, people starve to death because no one grows any food (and certainly not any excess food). Almost all of the famines in the last 100 years that have happened outside of war zones have all been in socialist countries: the Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Khmer Rouge. The list goes on.
Classical liberalism has led to some deaths, mostly in revolutions. Socialism has led to tens of millions of deaths. And yet you still want to keep trying it. How many more people have to die thanks to your failed philosophy before you finally realize how completely broken it is?