Let us not forget that American students have far more choices in higher education than students in, say, China, where engineering degrees seem quite prevalent.
I do not believe that the worth of our society should be measured by the geek ratio. Just because someone does something that you would not like does not mean that they are stupid. Have any of you ever been called names because you liked computers?
I find it instructive that the US has a higher percentage of citizens with Bachelor's Degrees than most of the European countries where education is "free."
On health care, the WHO seems to put more emphasis on equality than quality. Reports they have produced seem to indicate that they care less about whether average individuals are healthy than they do about insuring that everyone is of equal health:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-05-00.html
This is a difficult prospect -- as long as individuals have the liberty to make poor lifestyle choices (poor diet and excercise, smoking, drug use), some will always be less healthy than others.
I believe that the solution in the minds of those in power at the WHO is to take this liberty away from us for our own good. We have witnessed the anti-smoking crusade here in America already, and now Harvard professors are taken seriously when they speak of implementing sin taxes on foods that are high in fat, sugar, sodium, caffeine...for the good of society.
They could just as easily establish themselves as a powerful Internet presence simply by designing a very useful health-related website of their own. They could then "regulate" what other websites will be granted hyperlinks from their own.
This whole notion of an entire top-level domain being regulated by a global government strikes me as yet another grab for power. They wish to control what individuals around the world may see, hear, and think.
Copyright came into being as a creation of royalty; kings and queens who were trying to control the spread of information. Select few individuals or companies would be given the "right to copy", that is, to print books at all.
The ones who wrote the Constituion viewed things like patents and copyrights not as goods in themselves, but as useful evils. If people are allowed to profit personally from their intellectual effort, then they will be able to spend more time involved in intellectual effort, rather than having to work some menial job in order to finance their work (or be already wealthy, as was the case with most scientists of the Renaissance).
They were well aware, as we should be today, that freedom of speech is fundamentally more important than copyright. Where the two conflict, freedom of speech should triumph.
As a side note, it may well be possible to prevent fraud without the use of copyright or patents. If I publish a book with Albert Einstein's name on it that describes physics as being magic provided by demons in terms of fundamentalist religious doctrine, it could be argued that I was committing fraud upon my consumers -- unless, of course, my name really was Albert Einstein...
I once saw a special on CNN dedicated entirely to third parties. This was about four years ago, when the Reform Party as all the rage.
The special covered the Reform party, the Greens, the Natural Law Party, and several mini-parties, some of which were only active in one or two states.
There was no mention of the Libertarians at all, despite the fact that, at the time, they had a greater number of registered members than any other third party.
Contrast this with the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour on PBS (Now "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer"). During the campaign of 1996, they aired several detailed segments (around ten-15 minutes each) covering several of the lesser-known candidates, including Harry Browne.
The US can go on in one of two ways -- with relatively independent states implementing a wide variety of standards, or with the Federal government forcing one standard upon every citizen in every state. For most of its history, the US followed the first method, but power has shifted toward the national level in recent decades.
Would it not be preferable to have some states be liberal, others conservative, others radical? Or should we fight continually at the national level to determine who gets to force their will upon whom?
Which would be better for human happiness?
Eliminating the Electoral College would, I believe, simply reinforce in the minds of people this notion that the US is a single super-state, rather than a collection of smaller, different places. One can already find pundits calling for the elimination of the concept of states altogether in the interest of "unity" or "efficiency".
I believe that those media moguls with socialistic tendencies (like Turner) find the Libertarian Party to be very threatening, as they have all of the Republican's popular causes (low taxes, less regulations) without the religious dogma.
Turner and his ilk are well aware of how many people vote for Democrats out of fear that Republicans will implement a fundamentalist Christian agenda, rather than because of actual agreement with Democratic economic policies.
I do not believe that all of you who are calling for the end of the Electoral College truly understand the nature and benefits of a republic versus a direct democracy.
Ideally, each state would have the same number of votes in determining the president, regardless of population: one.
Of course, ideally, the Federal government would not be so deeply involved in our daily lives in the unconstitutional manner that it currently is. I fear that we are going to lose the concept of independent states entirely -- which would be unfortunate, as one of the strengths of America has always been the competition amongst the states for business and labor. If one did not like the laws where on lived, one could go someplace better -- without having to leave the country entirely.
If a monopoly is dangerous, then how dangerous is it when that same monopoly has the legal right to use violence against its competitors? A government is not fundamentally different than a business, it just sells a different product (the use of force).
Some of Hagelin's responses were intelligently crafted, so I would like to take a moment to discourage anyone who might be thinking of voting for him.
He is a physicist, which means he is intelligent, but do not mistake geek cred for political awareness. Physics, philosophy, and politics are all different diciplines, and knowledge of one does not imply that a person will be good at the others.
Read the Natural Law party platform. The solution to just about every problem involves indoctrinating individuals into Hagelin's religion. Make no mistake -- Transcendental Meditation is not just a form of meditation, but a copyrighted form of dogma.
These corporations that you hate and fear and not nearly so nimble and mobile as you believe. Witness the harassment of Microsoft by the US Federal government (justified or not): if large conglomerates like Microsoft are so much more powerful than governments, then why did Bill Gates not simply move his business to Canada?
It is not that easy.
No corporation in the world is as powerful or dangerous as an evil government. How can a corporation affect you at all -- through lawsuits, or by pushing for anti-freedom legislation? Both of these are fundamentally governmental functions.
Some of you may believe that corporations operate death squads in foreign countries (I won't ask to see your proof). If so, who allows this to happen? Corrupt governments.
Speak to me not of democracy. Democracy is not a panacea. Adolf Hitler was chosen by a sizeable majority in a democratic election. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance -- democracy is nothing in a nation of sheep and slaves.
For those of you who want a big government to protect you from big, evil corporations, remember this: a government is not fundamentally different from a corporataion.
A government is a business, like any other. It's product is violence. When used in the right manner (against criminals or foreign aggressors), it can be a good thing. When used against its own non-violent citizens and businessmen to extort money, it is an evil.
It is conceivable (though unlikely) that a free market could eventually allow a large monopoly to flourish, in which case that corporation or trust will have become the government by default. Only under these circumstances does it make sense to use violence, government or otherwise, to defend yourself.
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
You are mistaken.
I, like you, am in favor of globalization and a one-world government. I think that this could be a fine arbiter for the prevention of war.
The United Nations, however, is not a good model for this. It is a centralized, bureaucratic organization. It has no respect for the differences between peoples and cultures, and would force each and every member nation to bow down to a single lowest-common-denominator standard if it had the power to do so.
I would much rather see a global republic, where each member state was free to have whatever form of government it desired, rather than trying to force the UN's socialism or mercantilism upon us all.
Don't believe me? Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pay close attention to the parts about every person having a "right" to a job at a certain wage. This is much like saying that some business has the "right" to sell you their product at the price that they desire, whether you like it or not.
HJ
It bothers me that the Greens want to increase federal power for any reason. Why not try to enact better safety nets on a local or state level, rather than forcing everyone in the republic to bow to one standard? Why not try to set limits on smog in the city you live in, rather than everywhere?
Their idea of democracy bothers me as well -- they seem to think democracy means that the individual person must bow to the will of the mob in all things, so long as 51 percent agree to oppress the other 49. I do not believe that this is what the Constitution was meant to represent.
Imagine that you live in a small Southern town, and sixty percent of the local folks think that it is immoral to have a tattoo. Perhaps the town votes that you should have your tattoo removed, or face jail time. Though democratic, I would not call it just.
HJ
Economic practicality is a Good Thing (tm); however, I do not believe that your examples above truly call for nationalization. Perhaps it might be necessary for cities, counties, or states to control certain industries (police, fire, highways), for the good of all -- but what place does the Federal level really need to play in these issues?
And, what's more, where is the Constitutional justification for it?
States should only handle those things which are absolutely impractical for individuals to handle (police, fire, highways), and the Fed should handle only those things which are absolutely impractical for states to handle (foreign policy, common defense). Beyond this, certain states may choose to have differences in various issues, from economics to drug policy.
In this way, we could have the choice to vote with our feet if we do not like the state we live in, rather than having a country where everyone is forced to the lowest common denominator at the national level.
HJ
I'm not sure that you understand the concept of a Republic. The national government is not supposed to be a democracy -- it is supposed to be a network of smaller, independent democratic states. The electoral college is meant to allow each member state to have an equal say in who leads the republic.
This is flawed, however, but the existence of the House of Representatives. We are not a true republic, and are slowly sliding down into national (and eventually global) majoritarianism.
So much for diversity.
HJ
Have you actually read the Green Party platform? Add in some racism, take out some technophobia, and you basically have a good copy of the Nazi party platform. Nazi was short for "National Socialism," after all, which is pretty much what the Greens are all about.
Why nationalize anything? What is wrong with the idea of each individual state being a different animal -- some liberal, some conservative, and some radical? Where does this impulse to force everyone into the lowest common denominator come from?
Based on his past rhetoric, I believe that Ralph Nader thinks, like Bush and Gore, that ordinary citizens are not wise enough to make decisions for ourselves. He thinks that we are sheep, and need to be managed as such. He will receive not vote from me. I'm thinking I'll cast a little protest vote for Harry Browne.
Voting is not where the individual citizen can do the most good, in any case. Try putting your money where your mouth is -- give to the ACLU, the Institute for Justice, the EFF, or your favorite think tank. These individuals do far more good than any legislator or executive, because they must answer to those who provide their funding -- they cannot just gloss over past failures in the knowledge that the average viewer has a short attention span.
Slashdot Mirror
Let us not forget that American students have far more choices in higher education than students in, say, China, where engineering degrees seem quite prevalent.
I do not believe that the worth of our society should be measured by the geek ratio. Just because someone does something that you would not like does not mean that they are stupid. Have any of you ever been called names because you liked computers?
I find it instructive that the US has a higher percentage of citizens with Bachelor's Degrees than most of the European countries where education is "free."
HJ
On health care, the WHO seems to put more emphasis on equality than quality. Reports they have produced seem to indicate that they care less about whether average individuals are healthy than they do about insuring that everyone is of equal health:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/07-05-00.html
This is a difficult prospect -- as long as individuals have the liberty to make poor lifestyle choices (poor diet and excercise, smoking, drug use), some will always be less healthy than others.
I believe that the solution in the minds of those in power at the WHO is to take this liberty away from us for our own good. We have witnessed the anti-smoking crusade here in America already, and now Harvard professors are taken seriously when they speak of implementing sin taxes on foods that are high in fat, sugar, sodium, caffeine...for the good of society.
On any issue, not just health:
$a = liberty
$b = responsibility
!($a && $b) == (!$a && !$b)
HJ
They could just as easily establish themselves as a powerful Internet presence simply by designing a very useful health-related website of their own. They could then "regulate" what other websites will be granted hyperlinks from their own.
This whole notion of an entire top-level domain being regulated by a global government strikes me as yet another grab for power. They wish to control what individuals around the world may see, hear, and think.
HJ
Copyright came into being as a creation of royalty; kings and queens who were trying to control the spread of information. Select few individuals or companies would be given the "right to copy", that is, to print books at all.
The ones who wrote the Constituion viewed things like patents and copyrights not as goods in themselves, but as useful evils. If people are allowed to profit personally from their intellectual effort, then they will be able to spend more time involved in intellectual effort, rather than having to work some menial job in order to finance their work (or be already wealthy, as was the case with most scientists of the Renaissance).
They were well aware, as we should be today, that freedom of speech is fundamentally more important than copyright. Where the two conflict, freedom of speech should triumph.
As a side note, it may well be possible to prevent fraud without the use of copyright or patents. If I publish a book with Albert Einstein's name on it that describes physics as being magic provided by demons in terms of fundamentalist religious doctrine, it could be argued that I was committing fraud upon my consumers -- unless, of course, my name really was Albert Einstein...
HJ
I once saw a special on CNN dedicated entirely to third parties. This was about four years ago, when the Reform Party as all the rage.
The special covered the Reform party, the Greens, the Natural Law Party, and several mini-parties, some of which were only active in one or two states.
There was no mention of the Libertarians at all, despite the fact that, at the time, they had a greater number of registered members than any other third party.
Contrast this with the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour on PBS (Now "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer"). During the campaign of 1996, they aired several detailed segments (around ten-15 minutes each) covering several of the lesser-known candidates, including Harry Browne.
HJ
I do believe you missed my point.
The US can go on in one of two ways -- with relatively independent states implementing a wide variety of standards, or with the Federal government forcing one standard upon every citizen in every state. For most of its history, the US followed the first method, but power has shifted toward the national level in recent decades.
Would it not be preferable to have some states be liberal, others conservative, others radical? Or should we fight continually at the national level to determine who gets to force their will upon whom?
Which would be better for human happiness?
Eliminating the Electoral College would, I believe, simply reinforce in the minds of people this notion that the US is a single super-state, rather than a collection of smaller, different places. One can already find pundits calling for the elimination of the concept of states altogether in the interest of "unity" or "efficiency".
HJ
I believe that those media moguls with socialistic tendencies (like Turner) find the Libertarian Party to be very threatening, as they have all of the Republican's popular causes (low taxes, less regulations) without the religious dogma.
Turner and his ilk are well aware of how many people vote for Democrats out of fear that Republicans will implement a fundamentalist Christian agenda, rather than because of actual agreement with Democratic economic policies.
HJ
I do not believe that all of you who are calling for the end of the Electoral College truly understand the nature and benefits of a republic versus a direct democracy.
Ideally, each state would have the same number of votes in determining the president, regardless of population: one.
Of course, ideally, the Federal government would not be so deeply involved in our daily lives in the unconstitutional manner that it currently is. I fear that we are going to lose the concept of independent states entirely -- which would be unfortunate, as one of the strengths of America has always been the competition amongst the states for business and labor. If one did not like the laws where on lived, one could go someplace better -- without having to leave the country entirely.
If a monopoly is dangerous, then how dangerous is it when that same monopoly has the legal right to use violence against its competitors? A government is not fundamentally different than a business, it just sells a different product (the use of force).
HJ
Some of Hagelin's responses were intelligently crafted, so I would like to take a moment to discourage anyone who might be thinking of voting for him.
He is a physicist, which means he is intelligent, but do not mistake geek cred for political awareness. Physics, philosophy, and politics are all different diciplines, and knowledge of one does not imply that a person will be good at the others.
Read the Natural Law party platform. The solution to just about every problem involves indoctrinating individuals into Hagelin's religion. Make no mistake -- Transcendental Meditation is not just a form of meditation, but a copyrighted form of dogma.
HJ
These corporations that you hate and fear and not nearly so nimble and mobile as you believe. Witness the harassment of Microsoft by the US Federal government (justified or not): if large conglomerates like Microsoft are so much more powerful than governments, then why did Bill Gates not simply move his business to Canada?
It is not that easy.
No corporation in the world is as powerful or dangerous as an evil government. How can a corporation affect you at all -- through lawsuits, or by pushing for anti-freedom legislation? Both of these are fundamentally governmental functions.
Some of you may believe that corporations operate death squads in foreign countries (I won't ask to see your proof). If so, who allows this to happen? Corrupt governments.
Speak to me not of democracy. Democracy is not a panacea. Adolf Hitler was chosen by a sizeable majority in a democratic election. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance -- democracy is nothing in a nation of sheep and slaves.
HJ
As if Culture is some sort of static ideal that does not change with time and place.
Try not to consider your personal aesthetics to be moral imperatives. Too many liberals and conservatives make this error.
HJ
For those of you who want a big government to protect you from big, evil corporations, remember this: a government is not fundamentally different from a corporataion.
... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
A government is a business, like any other. It's product is violence. When used in the right manner (against criminals or foreign aggressors), it can be a good thing. When used against its own non-violent citizens and businessmen to extort money, it is an evil.
It is conceivable (though unlikely) that a free market could eventually allow a large monopoly to flourish, in which case that corporation or trust will have become the government by default. Only under these circumstances does it make sense to use violence, government or otherwise, to defend yourself.
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins
-- Thomas Paine
HJ
You are mistaken. I, like you, am in favor of globalization and a one-world government. I think that this could be a fine arbiter for the prevention of war. The United Nations, however, is not a good model for this. It is a centralized, bureaucratic organization. It has no respect for the differences between peoples and cultures, and would force each and every member nation to bow down to a single lowest-common-denominator standard if it had the power to do so. I would much rather see a global republic, where each member state was free to have whatever form of government it desired, rather than trying to force the UN's socialism or mercantilism upon us all. Don't believe me? Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pay close attention to the parts about every person having a "right" to a job at a certain wage. This is much like saying that some business has the "right" to sell you their product at the price that they desire, whether you like it or not. HJ
It bothers me that the Greens want to increase federal power for any reason. Why not try to enact better safety nets on a local or state level, rather than forcing everyone in the republic to bow to one standard? Why not try to set limits on smog in the city you live in, rather than everywhere? Their idea of democracy bothers me as well -- they seem to think democracy means that the individual person must bow to the will of the mob in all things, so long as 51 percent agree to oppress the other 49. I do not believe that this is what the Constitution was meant to represent. Imagine that you live in a small Southern town, and sixty percent of the local folks think that it is immoral to have a tattoo. Perhaps the town votes that you should have your tattoo removed, or face jail time. Though democratic, I would not call it just. HJ
Economic practicality is a Good Thing (tm); however, I do not believe that your examples above truly call for nationalization. Perhaps it might be necessary for cities, counties, or states to control certain industries (police, fire, highways), for the good of all -- but what place does the Federal level really need to play in these issues? And, what's more, where is the Constitutional justification for it? States should only handle those things which are absolutely impractical for individuals to handle (police, fire, highways), and the Fed should handle only those things which are absolutely impractical for states to handle (foreign policy, common defense). Beyond this, certain states may choose to have differences in various issues, from economics to drug policy. In this way, we could have the choice to vote with our feet if we do not like the state we live in, rather than having a country where everyone is forced to the lowest common denominator at the national level. HJ
I'm not sure that you understand the concept of a Republic. The national government is not supposed to be a democracy -- it is supposed to be a network of smaller, independent democratic states. The electoral college is meant to allow each member state to have an equal say in who leads the republic. This is flawed, however, but the existence of the House of Representatives. We are not a true republic, and are slowly sliding down into national (and eventually global) majoritarianism. So much for diversity. HJ
Have you actually read the Green Party platform? Add in some racism, take out some technophobia, and you basically have a good copy of the Nazi party platform. Nazi was short for "National Socialism," after all, which is pretty much what the Greens are all about.
Why nationalize anything? What is wrong with the idea of each individual state being a different animal -- some liberal, some conservative, and some radical? Where does this impulse to force everyone into the lowest common denominator come from?
Based on his past rhetoric, I believe that Ralph Nader thinks, like Bush and Gore, that ordinary citizens are not wise enough to make decisions for ourselves. He thinks that we are sheep, and need to be managed as such. He will receive not vote from me. I'm thinking I'll cast a little protest vote for Harry Browne.
Voting is not where the individual citizen can do the most good, in any case. Try putting your money where your mouth is -- give to the ACLU, the Institute for Justice, the EFF, or your favorite think tank. These individuals do far more good than any legislator or executive, because they must answer to those who provide their funding -- they cannot just gloss over past failures in the knowledge that the average viewer has a short attention span.
HJ