Perhaps I was too subtle for you I think you were too subtle for yourself. You seemed to miss your whole "boy, these African monkeys remind me a lot of African Americans" insight.
I'm not going to argue that Iran isn't less free, but your argument isn't very good. Lord knows all our candidates are filtered by the elite in the USA. Yes, it's every bit as true here as there.
I'm no fan at all of the Iranian government, but I'm a very, very big fan of the truth.
Well I'd be careful about calling Iran's government democratically elected. There's no question they had an election, but that doesn't mean the people were free to choose their government. Many a dictatorship has been known to hold phony elections for political reasons. This is true, but it's a fact that there are real contests in elections and that the republican government runs things for the most part.
Also, the president isn't the head of Iran's government, the Supreme Leader is Also true, but it's a bit like a constitutional monarchy. It's becoming increasingly questionable whether the Ayatollah really has the political authority to e.g. dismiss parliament anymore.
Freedom House rates Iran as being not free and a 6 of 7 (7 being the worst) in political and civil liberties. Freedom House is US propaganda, pure and simple. Always has been, always will be.
also, "it's" is a contraction meaning "it is." Apostrophe-S is used after a noun to imply ownership by that noun. The word "its" should be spelled "it's" but it's not for the sake of clarity, I guess (though without any logical justification).
Bring back Dark Sun and Planescape you sons of bitches and then your game won't suck anymore. Heck, they even watered down Forgotten Realms for the 3rd edition. Once they stop being pussies and stop whining about their RPGs being too hard they will get the hard core gamers to come back. Does being "hard core" consist of calling people bitches and pussies?
Assuming you aren't trolling... I was referring to recent conversations with people who wanted "Photoshop" and wouldn't give a second thought to the comparable "Graphical Image Manipulation Program" that doesn't have the $500 price tag.
If somebody can't afford "Photoshop", the option they choose shouldn't be to run an unlicensed copy of it by using a cracked version that they downloaded through BitTorrent. The option they choose should be "run something they can afford". Well, we both know that the GIMP is far less capable when it comes to advanced features. Pirating Photoshop when it would never be bought instead of running the GIMP in no way harms Adobe (or whoever owns it now). Some of us have moral systems based on "do no harm" rather than "respect the concept of private property" and other easy but empty morals.
I have found it increasingly annoying dealing with people who run pirated software because "they couldn't afford to pay for it". This "don't give it a second thought" mentality is, IMHO, something that should be reversed. Just because technology enables somebody to do something... it doesn't mean they should. What about those people who say "they couldn't afford to pay for it" because they couldn't afford to pay for it?
The oil is owned by the state. That's the way it is. So, do you want the state to not sell it, or do you want them to sell it? They sell it, one barrel at a time. That's not socialism. That's capitalism. Socialism is giving it away for the benefit of all. That's capitalism indeed. The "socialism", to a libertarian, is that it's owned by the state in the first place. Don't ask me to defend that point of view, because it's not my own.:-P
Even a libertarian can support this as a move in the right direction, since most of the money comes from selling off a resource "owned in common by the citizens of the state". Wow, you disproved your statement in the same sentence. I'm impressed.;) Sure, you said "move in the right direction" but I think they'd prefer taxes over "socialism". ("Wealth to the people? SCREAM!!")
FunWithKnives:
I also find it hard to believe that you are a communist if you "don't buy the state-capitalism cop-out." You find it hard to believe? Strange, since the state capitalist theory guys have always been a small minority outside of Maoist circles, a guy you probably don't like either.
To choose the easiest point: there was no market system in the Soviet Union (though it was, as you probably know, slowly reintroduced by the end). There was no capital in the Soviet Union. Socialism may be economic democracy in principal, a point I myself often make, but there was no counter-revolution - only a privileged bureaucracy. Even Trotsky said this. And don't forget the vital role the Soviet Union made in supporting revolutions around the world.
suv4x4:
A modern country would usually have a mixed bag of capitalism and communism (such as health care and social care), since none of the systems works in all contexts. As long as we're all about correcting you here, I might as well let you know that welfare and state-owned companies doth not socialism make. There's no "mix" of systems there, just capitalism with institutions in place to keep the workers at least minimally complacent. Note that a state-owned company is still a company - it operates in the market and almost certainly steals surplus value from it's workers like any other company. Recall our good friend FunWithKnives's words: socialism is economic democracy. Capitalism has as much to do with democracy as "privately owned" governments do.
Slashdot Mirror
This is a strangely titled article... By the same logic, he's banned from BeOS and DOS too. ;)
Australia needs some culture, fast.
Let's hope this means the ESRB will go the way of the National Legion of Decency. That is, maybe people will just stop paying attention.
Or, does the video game industry have enough power (read: money) yet to get government to change the rules?
I'm not going to argue that Iran isn't less free, but your argument isn't very good. Lord knows all our candidates are filtered by the elite in the USA. Yes, it's every bit as true here as there.
I'm no fan at all of the Iranian government, but I'm a very, very big fan of the truth.
Many, it would seem. It's okay, you can take your frustration out on me. 3
How about no fingers for no, one or more fingers for yes?
Wow, are there really people with so little joy in their lives that they get their kicks silencing people for carrying on side discussion?
Well, yes. I think that's what I said. I just also said it's "without any logical justification".
Dude, my mod points apparently JUST expired! But, yeah... Here's an honorary *+1 Funny* or maybe *+1 Insightful* for ya.
If somebody can't afford "Photoshop", the option they choose shouldn't be to run an unlicensed copy of it by using a cracked version that they downloaded through BitTorrent. The option they choose should be "run something they can afford". Well, we both know that the GIMP is far less capable when it comes to advanced features. Pirating Photoshop when it would never be bought instead of running the GIMP in no way harms Adobe (or whoever owns it now). Some of us have moral systems based on "do no harm" rather than "respect the concept of private property" and other easy but empty morals.
To all those that tagged this article as warcraftinspace: the correct tag is orcsinspace. Learn your history.
To choose the easiest point: there was no market system in the Soviet Union (though it was, as you probably know, slowly reintroduced by the end). There was no capital in the Soviet Union. Socialism may be economic democracy in principal, a point I myself often make, but there was no counter-revolution - only a privileged bureaucracy. Even Trotsky said this. And don't forget the vital role the Soviet Union made in supporting revolutions around the world.
suv4x4: A modern country would usually have a mixed bag of capitalism and communism (such as health care and social care), since none of the systems works in all contexts. As long as we're all about correcting you here, I might as well let you know that welfare and state-owned companies doth not socialism make. There's no "mix" of systems there, just capitalism with institutions in place to keep the workers at least minimally complacent. Note that a state-owned company is still a company - it operates in the market and almost certainly steals surplus value from it's workers like any other company. Recall our good friend FunWithKnives's words: socialism is economic democracy. Capitalism has as much to do with democracy as "privately owned" governments do.