I've been dealing with people who make the unfounded assertion that tough spam laws won't reduce spam. Well, here's strong evidence to the contrary. Australia has passed tough anti-spam laws and now spammers in Australia are running scared and the total amount of spam is down.
I take it, then, that you are satisfied with the present tax structure, given that it was legislated by the majority (or the majority of elected representatives, at least)?
I don't have to be "satisfied" with it. I just accept it as the law of the land and the results of a democratic process. I'm not "satisfied" with the President, but I don't claim that my dissatisfaction means that he has no legal or ethical right to hold the office after being elected (more or less) to it.
If you want my personal opinion, here it is: I do believe that my individual tax burden is reasonable and I make an above-average salary. I feel that too little is spent on social welfare and too much is spent on corporate welfare. Although I believe that the social welfare system is in need of reforms on many of its programs, I do not subscribe to the "throw out the baby with the bath water" approach of many conservatives. Nor do I think that the existence of people who have figured out how to scam the social welfare system is a valid reason to deny benefits to others who have done nothing wrong. I do not label any program which doesn't directly benefit me as "wasteful government spending." I think that there are too many deductions for wealthy individuals and big businesses.
And I'm sure you can settle once and for all the issue of what constitutes a "fair share"...?
We have elected members of Congress who decide what is a fair share on behalf of their constituents. If the constituents feel that the amount is wrong, they can register their dissatisfaction in the voting booth. Do you mean can I come up with a number that everyone will agree on? Of course not, but that's really not necessary since we are a democracy and all that we have to do is come up with a compromise that is supported by the majority.
I want everyone to pay their fair share, not just those with a conscience or sense of decency. Someone who is greedy and self-centered should not be able to just opt-out of their societal obligations.
It's not the place of government to compensate people for a lack of planning.
Who the f*ck "plans" to have their life's savings wiped out with medical bills over and above what the insurance will pay? Who plans to have the family breadwinner be killed in an auto accident at age 37? Who plans to give birth to a severely handicapped child that needs 24/7 care?
It's great that your ready to spend MY taxes dollars for a new "entitlement" for others. Why don't you start your own scholarship fund for some needy student with your own money.
Because I should not have a lower standard of living just so that others can greedily decide to keep all of their money rather than helping the needy.
Remember, it's my fscking money, NOT yours.
It's not "your money" once the government imposes a tax. It's their money and they can do with it as they please, whether it's buying a new bomber for the Pentagon, giving McDonalds money to advertise overseas, or helping to pay for diabetes medication for a destitute person.
Why do you assume that "right wingers" don't want to a "caring society?"
Because I judge people by their actions. I watch them cut funding for valuable programs like Head Start while giving huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the U.S. I see them try to ban gay marriage just to score some cheap political points, never being concerned about the financial and social impact that it would have on gay couples. Bush was "compassionate conservative" until the day he took office. Haven't heard much of that phrase lately, have we?
I just don't think it's government's job to babysit people. You seem to want a nanny-state. Fine. Go to Canada.
You're the one saying that we should abolish programs that our elected representatives put into place and funded. It seems to me that you're the one who doesn't like the United States, so why don't you move?
I donate 10% of my income annually to several charities, so I back up my words with actions.
And how much doesn't go to some religious group?
I wasn't about to list each and every government program deserving of the axe, but that's obviously the type of clarity you wanted.
Quit weaseling. You wroteIf you want to cut something, cut the NON-WORKING social welfare system that's already cost over $1 trillion since the inception of Johnson's Great Society."Something" is singular. Therefore, you were stating that if someone wanted to cut one thing, it should be the "social welfare system."
Unemployment taxes are paid solely by the employer, not by the government. Nice try.
Just what "taxes" are paid by "the government"? Do you think that employers just pluck the money out of the air to pay for unemployment? No, it is reflected in higher costs for goods and services, so how is that different, in an end-result, than taxes levied against you directly? "Social welfare" mean the collection of taxes by the government and the disbursement of those taxes out to help the needy. Don't try to redefine the word.
Social Security just encourages people to rely (mistakenly) on the government instead of themselves and family.
Who gives a damn whether they rely on the government? I don't want some widow starving to death just because she doesn't have a family to rely on. I don't want someone who lost their retirement at Enron to have to beg for food. I don't think that someone whose family can't afford to support them should suffer.
As to the scholarship example, "need-based" is a relative term.
So what's your point? If someone can't afford to go to college without such a scholarship, your arguing about semantics is pointless.
All this avoids my point about fighting "poverty."
Why do you right wingers have to paint everything as "fighting" something? We aren't fighting poverty. We're trying to help individuals who need it -- because we are, with some obvious exceptions, a caring society that doesn't want to see it's members suffer. I've never seen anyone so naive as to believe that the purpose of social welfare is to stamp out poverty.
I also never said that I'd take money away from the poor before shutting down corporate welfare. Nice try at putting words in my mouth.
Yes you did when you wrote:
If you want to cut something, cut the NON-WORKING social welfare system that's already cost over $1 trillion since the inception of Johnson's Great Society.
That was your A-number-1 program to cut. You didn't say "right after shutting down corporate welfare." You said, "if you want to cut something", implying that your offering was the best place to make a cut. Don't try to weasel out of it now.
We've been "fighting" poverty and all sorts of social ills for decades and all we've done is create a dependant class of citizenry who aren't ashamed to suck at the government's teat.
So that's your opinion of a middle-income American who is temporarily accepting unemployment to keep from losing his house? That's what you think of a poor kid from an inner-city neighborhood who accepts a need-based scholarship or a subsidized college loan? That's how you view an elderly widow who accepts a Social Security check?
Our forefathers would be embarrassed at how we've come to rely on our government instead of ourselves.
No. What they would be embarassed by is the selfish 'not-with-my-taxes' types who put attainment of personal wealth above the good of society.
As to corporate welfare, I'm opposed to that as well.
Then why did you focus on "social welfare" when corporate welfare costs 2-3 times as much? If you are looking for money for NASA, why would you first take it away from the poor while letting huge, multi-national corporations continue to "suck at the government's teat"? If you are so opposed to corporate welfare, too, then why didn't you just say "welfare" in your initial post?
But since you're so smart you already knew that when you set up your straw-man argument.
You're the one who made the distinction between welfare in general and social welfare, not me.
If you want to cut something, cut the NON-WORKING social welfare system that's already cost over $1 trillion since the inception of Johnson's Great Society.
In what way is it not working? Many elderly people get the medical care they need through Medicare. Middle class people collect unemployment and keep from slipping into bankruptcy, losing their homes, cars, etc. People who find themselves without marketable job skills are able to get federally funded training. Children in low-income families are able to get subsidized college loans and need-based scholarships. Older Americans who may have lacked the education, skills, or foresight to save for their retirement are able to count on Social Security checks.
I find it interesting that you qualify welfare with "social." I gather that you don't mind corporate welfare, which costs the American taxpayer two to three times as much as social welfare. You don't mind giving Haliburton no-bid contracts for millions of dollars. You don't mind $5 billion per year subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. You don't mind public lands being handed over to corporate farms for livestock grazing. You don't mind that federal farm price support programs cost U.S. consumers and taxpayers some $370 billion between 1985 and 2002 -- enough money to purchase all the farmland in 41 states. Nope. You're too upset about poor people getting money.
I wrote: In Virginia, exceeding the speed limit by 20 or more mph is "Reckless Driving." Would you say that someone who has gone 75mph in a 55mph zone is being a hypocrite if he voices an objection to someone driving 137mph in a 25mph school zone?
To which you replied: Typically, you miss the point. Law is law. You break, you break. Broken law = government intervention.
I didn't miss that point at all. Nor did I say that there would/should be no punishment for either Sveasoft or those downloading MP3s -- just that they were ethically and legally not equivalent for the purposes of an analogy.
My point had nothing to do with the level of intervention but the mere fact of intervention. You lose on this count.
How does your inability to express your point clearly mean that I "lose"?
I wrote: No, my argument is not that either copyright violation is legal, just that they are different, ethically and legally, and that, therefore, your analogy is flawed.
To which you replied: So far you have no non-flawed analogy.
I believe that the reckless driving analogy that I made was not flawed.
So it is no different than any slashdot article writeup regarding the MPAA/RIAA/(unpopular)AA.
You don't understand the concept of ad hominem attacks. Stating that the claims against Sveasoft are any less serious or valid because you believe that many of the claimants have violated copyright law is ad hominem. The actions of the claimants have no bearing on the truth of their claims or the seriousness of Sveasoft's actions. Being mean does not constitute an ad hominem attack. I can call someone a dick-head and that's not an ad hominem attack. If I were to say that someone's posts should be ignored because he is a known pedophile, that is an ad hominem attack -- even if he is a known pedophile.
So far I feel secure in my attitude.
Smug and ignorant -- what a lovely combination.
Completely irrelavent, it's still against the law.
In Virginia, exceeding the speed limit by 20 or more mph is "Reckless Driving." Would you say that someone who has gone 75mph in a 55mph zone is being a hypocrite if he voices an objection to someone driving 137mph in a 25mph school zone?
Your argument there is like "I'll rape prison inmates" versus "I'll rape girl scouts". It's still rape, no matter the intent or whom you are raping.
No, my argument is not that either copyright violation is legal, just that they are different, ethically and legally, and that, therefore, your analogy is flawed. And before you go off on the aspect of it being legally different, judges consider motives and circumstances before imposing a sentence. Someone stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family is probably not going to get the same sentence as someone stealing car stereos to get cigarette money.
Are many of you in violation for downloading MP3s? I can't hear you! IP laws work both ways, bitches! Of course, this will get modded down by hypocrites, but then again this is Slashdot.
Several points:
1. This an ad-hominem attack. Whether someone on Slashdot has downloaded an MP3 in violation of copyright is unrelated to what Sveasoft is doing. 2. People downloading MP3s are not doing so for profit. They aren't selling the MP3s to others (by and large). 3. Stealing (technically violating copyright) from the GPL community is more like stealing from the Toys For Tots bin than it is like downloading MP3s. The RIAA is in this for bucks. They aren't donating their time and effort for the betterment of the world.
Perhaps, but how does a moral obligation translate into a legal requirement?
When our elected representatives pass a law requiring it. For instance, you have a moral obligation to not kill people and there is a corresponding legal obligation.
Aren't you people always whining that we shouldn't "force our morality" on you?
Who are "you people" and why do you portray the expression of opposing viewpoints as "whining"?
It seems you have no problem forcing your morality on others.
Our whole legal code is based on morality. We've decided it is immoral to steal, murder, rape, etc. and have passed laws against those things. What many people oppose is the codification of religious beliefs and writing laws limiting individual freedoms.
Wrong.
Use as much boldface text as you want, but you are the one who is wrong. If the current system of welfare was unconstitutional, don't you think that it would have been struck down by now?
You don't seriously expect us to believe that when the Founding Fathers wrote that part of the Constitution, that they had welfare queens living off of the public's forced generosity in mind, do you?
You don't seriously expect us to believe that your thinly veiled racist comment about "welfare queens" is a fair characterization of the entire welfare system, do you? You just want to conjure up stereotypical images of overweight, uncouth, ignorant black women surrounded by children when the reality is that the welfare system benefits everyone from low-income college students to out-of-work middle class Americans.
Your side would have us believe that the Founding Fathers, whose idea of a gun was a muzzle-loading musket, wrote the Second Amendment with the intention of allowing deranged wackos living in the woods to own fully automatic weapons, so please don't even go there about stretching the interpretation of the Constitution.
With the exception of defense, none of those functions are authorized by the Constitution.
So you are advocating that we do away with the NHTSA, FDA, Department of Agriculture, and every other non-defense related government function? Wow! That's out there.
You might be able to read a justification for the CIA into "providing for the common defense" (the military needs good intel if it's to be effective), but the "general welfare" clause and the commerce clause have for decades been abused to bloat the government beyond all reasonable limits.
The "general welfare" clause is what has allowed us to function as a society and become the greatest nation in the world -- all the while paying about the lowest tax rate of any first-world country.
WTFSoF is it to you what anybody does with his money?
I don't want to have to shoulder a greater and greater percentage of the cost of helping the needy as you and your fellow wallet-worshipping peers opt out of helping the needy.
When you start earning it, you can decide what to do with it. Until then, get bent.
In case you haven't noticed, my side won decades ago. You're taxed and if you don't pay, you go to jail. Once the government gets the taxes, they can allocate it however they want. They can use it to increase welfare benefits to individuals. They can spend it on corporate welfare (like giving McDonalds millions of dollars to promote their products overseas.) They can spend it to promote eco-tourism in Alaska, plant trees on public lands, or fund studies about the effects of Nutra-Sweet on lab rats. And the only thing you can do is vote. If enough people agree with you, then you'll win. But don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
It is a societal obligation -- as in something that you are morally obligated to do as a member of society.
Could you point out what part of the Constitution authorizes the government to take money from one group of people (by force if necessary) and give it to another group of people?
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;..."
The OP is correct...
No, he, like you, is incorrect.
perhaps instead of being generous with other people's money, you might try being generous with your own money (or time) instead.
No, I prefer the system as it stands -- the one put in place by our elected representatives. I'd rather have laws to help ensure that everyone pays their fair share rather than having only the generous and decent people shoulder all of the financial burden of helping the less fortunate. I don't want you to be able to opt-out of helping the needy. I don't want you to be able to use the money you withold from from the needy to fund your next BMW purchase.
Now answer the remaining questions that I asked in the parent post rather than trying to come up with snappy sound bites:
I don't have a choice as to whether my money buys a new bomber for the Pentagon, do I? If you think that solely voluntary donation is such a good system, why not run all aspects of government like that? Why not have the FBI rely on donations? How about letting people decide whether to donate to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration? What about letting people decide whether they would rather spend their money supporting the CIA, funding the Department of Agriculture, or buying themselves a new Lexus?
I don't want you to be able to choose to help no one but yourself. I don't want there to be a monetary reward for selfishness. I don't want you to be able to afford a better lifestyle than your neighbor simply because you choose to spend all of your money on yourself while he steps up to bat to help the needy.
To shoot the final hole in that tired old argument, if you eliminate the current system for a voluntary one, then money would go to popular causes rather than where it's needed. There would be plenty of money for cherub-faced children in densely populated areas. But there wouldn't be a lot of money for drug and alcohol rehab programs on American Indian reservations.
Then pick a cause or two and donate your time and money. Please don't take away my choice to do so.
You do have that choice. You can donate time and money to any cause that you want. You just can't completely opt out of your societal obligation to help the needy. That's all that the current system prevents. It just sets the lower limit.
I don't have a choice as to whether my money buys a new bomber for the Pentagon, do I? If you think that solely voluntary donation is such a good system, why not run all aspects of government like that? Why not have the FBI rely on donations? How about letting people decide whether to donate to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration? What about letting people decide whether they would rather spend their money supporting the CIA, funding the Department of Agriculture, or buying themselves a new Lexus?
I don't want you to be able to choose to help no one but yourself. I don't want there to be a monetary reward for selfishness. I don't want you to be able to afford a better lifestyle than your neighbor simply because you choose to spend all of your money on yourself while he steps up to bat to help the needy.
To shoot the final hole in that tired old argument, if you eliminate the current system for a voluntary one, then money would go to popular causes rather than where it's needed. There would be plenty of money for cherub-faced children in densely populated areas. But there wouldn't be a lot of money for drug and alcohol rehab programs on American Indian reservations.
It seems America is moving closer and closer to being a socialist society. We just had Medicare say that obesity was a sickness so now we will have more tax dollars go to people who can't stay away from McDonald's and get some exercise.
The reason that Medicare did that was that obesity-related illnesses cost them far more that addressing the problem of obesity. If they can pay for weight loss drugs along with diet and exercise counseling now, it's a lot cheaper than paying to treat diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer later.
As to your concerns about a "socialist society," what is a society if not a group of people joining together and helping one another? Perhaps you would prefer to live like a pack animal, abandoning those who are sick or injured to die, but I would not. I'd rather that some of my money go to help the less fortunate. I'd rather have government/taxpayer aid help keep an unemployed person from losing their house and ending up destitute. I'd rather see someone born into poverty get government grants and subsidized loans for education. Keeping poor people uneducated and poor, and allowing the unemployed to slide into poverty, costs society far more than giving them aid.
Try quitting the Communist Party. That should improve your viewpoint.
Right. Everyone who dislikes Bush and the Republicans is a Communist. At least that's what the Young Republicans on Slashdot would have us believe.
But how do you explain why the so-called "Communist" to whom you replied was working for a.com that was seeking out venture capital and selling accounting products? That doesn't sound very Communist to me.
I'm so glad that Slashdot finally made the switch from Windows 98 to Windows98 Second Edition. I expect that this will make thing run much more smoothly.
Yes those voluteers would be taking your dad's job, BUT THE MONEY WOULD STILL EXIST TO PAY YOUR DAD TO DO SOMETHING ELSE.
But what would the hypothetical dad do? He's not trained or experienced as a physicist, plumber, professional basketball player, electrician, defense analyst, software engineer, etc.
That's the problem with these job-counting arguments. They ignore the cost of retraining. They don't acknowledge the loss of income when one moves from a field where they have experience and seniority into one where they are starting out at the bottom rung. John Kerry summed it up well when he pointed out that the jobs being created pay an average of $9,000 less than those being lost.
If I invent a machine that can create deck chairs out of thin air, yes I've just put a few people out of work, TEMPORARILY, but the net effect is positive. I've just added to the country's GDP. In any sort of sane economy, that's a GOOD thing. I means we all (collectively) have more money, and the money that was going to be spent on deck chairs will now be spent on something else, (which gives the deck-chair workers new jobs producing whatever that is).
When the cost of living goes down, so do wages. When you have a glut of workers (e.g., unemployed deck chair workers), wages go down. When the average worker has less experience (e.g., ex-deck-chair worker who takes a job as an apprentice electrician), wages go down.
Most employers are looking for a way to take a bigger slice of the pie while giving less to their workers. How often do you hear about some piece of automation doubling efficiency and all of the workers getting a huge raise? It's more likely that there will be layoffs, workers' wages will stagnate, and senior management will all get new company cars. Seldom do corporations share riches with employees.
this is one of the most stupid arguments that gates is saying[sic].
In what way is it "stupid"? Are you saying that he is wrong?
this is like saying "volunteer work is causing unemployment for people who wish to do the same work for pay"
So how would that be incorrect?
Suppose your father had worked for GM assembling cars and earning a decent wage for a decent day's work. What would have happened if a bunch of talented automotive hobbyists volunteered to assemble GM's cars for free? Wouldn't that have been likely to put your father out of work?
Oh... Wait... No, I guess not. Because auto workers are smarter than software engineers in that they have a union which would have prevented GM from ever using volunteer labor.
Hopefully they'd have other jobs, but failing that you're right and the same is true of everyone failing to be employed in other jobs that aren't needed.
So because you can, through violation of copyright law, obtain a pirated copy of a movie, you believe that theatre employees "aren't needed"?
Think of all those people not being employed to dig holes and then fill them in again for no purpose. Sad.
People selling tickets, running projectors, selling concessions, and cleaning a movie theatres aren't doing make-work. They are doing useful work and you'd deny them a living because you've found a way to steal the movie you want to see. What's truly "sad" is your lack of empathy and ethics.
MM: "While I am sympathetic to underpaid movie theater employees, I would remind the MPAA that those who download and watch my movie at home are not in any way served by those employees.
If you aren't served by those employees, you aren't helping to pay their salary, are you? Sort of the whole point, isn't it? If everyone decided to download and not be "served by those employees," then those employees wouldn't have jobs, would they?
I would further suggest that if the MPAA is so concerned with the well-being of theater employees that the industry pay them a better wage than the current national median of $6.78 per hour."
Great plan! Pay them $65K/year with full benefits. You won't mind paying $35 for a movie ticket, will you? I guess it never occurred to you that theatres couldn't stay in business if they paid high wages to people in low-skill jobs, did it?
You're wasting your time. This guy doesn't understand what an opinion is. My advice: quit while you're ahead, at least he stayed kinda polite so far.
You know, this is getting kind of creepy. Thousands of posts go up on Slashdot each day and you seem to be anonymously cyber-stalking me in an effort to stir up a fight when none is brewing. Perhaps you should heed your own advice.
It is not your responsibility to provide me with confidential anything, i was merely responding to your claim that the government of Macedonia turns a blind eye to massive credit card fraud - a claim for which you have no evidence.
That online merchants and credit card processing banks would rather turn away Macedonian business than deal with the fraud looks like good evidence to me.
i am urging people (in this case you) to maybe look beyond a blacklist before deciding that they are all a bunch of crooks.
I don't think that they are "all a bunch of crooks." I think that there is probably a small percentage of Macedonian citizens who are crooks but that they are responsible for the massive credit card fraud. I also believe that, were the government to crack down on them, Macedonia would soon find its citizens welcomed by many online merchants.
Basically: don't blindly believe everything that authority figures tell you.
I don't -- whether the authority figure is George W. Bush or Jack Valenti. But, in this case, there are just too many sources who all warn against fraud from Macedonia for me to write it all off as bunk. There is also a strong economic incentive to want to do business with an entire country, even a small one. Thus I have to believe that it's been tried by many merchants and has resulted in a lot of fraud. Otherwise, major merchants would welcome the business as would the credit card companies.
I also weighed this against the possible motives. It's not like there is a horrible history in the U.S. of prejudice against Macedonians, so that seems unlikely as a motivation. I don't think that this is some kind of vast conspiracy to cause Macedonia to collapse economically. Who would that benefit? I'm out of motives at this point.
I wonder what percentage of that were people that actually decided not to go see it and dl it instead.. I doubt its actually that many.
You probably are right. I just don't think that a girl is going to be impressed by a date that consists of watching a grainy, downloaded movie on a 17" computer monitor.
Well, i did that google search and i found that, indeed, Macedonia is blacklisted as a major source of online fraud. That wasn't terribly interesting, since we are discussing the fact that Macedonia is blacklisted as a major source of online fraud.
But what is interesting is that it's listed by so many different web sites and organizations. It's not just one or two rogue organizations.
You claim that "For-profit businesses are not going to refuse to do business with an entire country solely based on unsubstantiated rumor." but, unless i'm very mistaken, that's exactly what's happening (remember, rumor is sometimes right) - otherwise where is the substantiation?
Locked up in actuarial tables kept by the credit card companies and stored in private records at major retailers. Your lack of access to the data doesn't mean that there is a lack of data.
As for your comment equating people not complaining to the government because they can't order a book from amazon with black people "wasting their time" protesting for their civil rights - well, frankly that's just offensive. I would hope that most people can see the difference between the two.
Please get off of your high horse with your feigned indignation. You argued that people should not complain because it won't get them instant gratification. I showed the fallacy of that logic when applied to a more important matter. If they listen to you, they will still be blacklisted in ten years. If they listen to me, they may not be.
Finally, as to your question about "How much fraud had to be taking place with an online population of only 90,000 in order for a tiny country like Macedonia to appear on a blacklist?" - well, that's exactly what i'm asking: how much fraud is taking place in Macedonia?
How did it become my responsibility to provide you with confidential business records kept by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Amazon.com, Paypal, etc.? If you want to know, do your own research. I'm not going to dig through tens of thousands of links and call corporations to try to get them to divulge the information.
Use some logic: How did a tiny nation like that get the attention of companies that track online fraud? Answer: By having the vast majority of their online orders be fraudulent. You don't have to know exact numbers, rates, percentages, dollar amounts, etc. "Vast majority" is just fine to a merchant who wants to protect his business.
If you believe that all of of these organizations are wronging the fine people of Macedonia, you open up an online store for Macedonians and tell us what you find. You've got 90,000 people that can't buy from Amazon.com, so that's a heck of an audience. But I'd bet dollars to pesos that the majority of your orders from Macedonia are fraudulent.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been dealing with people who make the unfounded assertion that tough spam laws won't reduce spam. Well, here's strong evidence to the contrary. Australia has passed tough anti-spam laws and now spammers in Australia are running scared and the total amount of spam is down.
I take it, then, that you are satisfied with the present tax structure, given that it was legislated by the majority (or the majority of elected representatives, at least)?
I don't have to be "satisfied" with it. I just accept it as the law of the land and the results of a democratic process. I'm not "satisfied" with the President, but I don't claim that my dissatisfaction means that he has no legal or ethical right to hold the office after being elected (more or less) to it.
If you want my personal opinion, here it is: I do believe that my individual tax burden is reasonable and I make an above-average salary. I feel that too little is spent on social welfare and too much is spent on corporate welfare. Although I believe that the social welfare system is in need of reforms on many of its programs, I do not subscribe to the "throw out the baby with the bath water" approach of many conservatives. Nor do I think that the existence of people who have figured out how to scam the social welfare system is a valid reason to deny benefits to others who have done nothing wrong. I do not label any program which doesn't directly benefit me as "wasteful government spending." I think that there are too many deductions for wealthy individuals and big businesses.
I hope that answers your questions.
And I'm sure you can settle once and for all the issue of what constitutes a "fair share"...?
We have elected members of Congress who decide what is a fair share on behalf of their constituents. If the constituents feel that the amount is wrong, they can register their dissatisfaction in the voting booth. Do you mean can I come up with a number that everyone will agree on? Of course not, but that's really not necessary since we are a democracy and all that we have to do is come up with a compromise that is supported by the majority.
Great. Then contribute to charity.
I want everyone to pay their fair share, not just those with a conscience or sense of decency. Someone who is greedy and self-centered should not be able to just opt-out of their societal obligations.
It's not the place of government to compensate people for a lack of planning.
Who the f*ck "plans" to have their life's savings wiped out with medical bills over and above what the insurance will pay? Who plans to have the family breadwinner be killed in an auto accident at age 37? Who plans to give birth to a severely handicapped child that needs 24/7 care?
It's great that your ready to spend MY taxes dollars for a new "entitlement" for others. Why don't you start your own scholarship fund for some needy student with your own money.
Because I should not have a lower standard of living just so that others can greedily decide to keep all of their money rather than helping the needy.
Remember, it's my fscking money, NOT yours.
It's not "your money" once the government imposes a tax. It's their money and they can do with it as they please, whether it's buying a new bomber for the Pentagon, giving McDonalds money to advertise overseas, or helping to pay for diabetes medication for a destitute person.
Why do you assume that "right wingers" don't want to a "caring society?"
Because I judge people by their actions. I watch them cut funding for valuable programs like Head Start while giving huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in the U.S. I see them try to ban gay marriage just to score some cheap political points, never being concerned about the financial and social impact that it would have on gay couples. Bush was "compassionate conservative" until the day he took office. Haven't heard much of that phrase lately, have we?
I just don't think it's government's job to babysit people. You seem to want a nanny-state. Fine. Go to Canada.
You're the one saying that we should abolish programs that our elected representatives put into place and funded. It seems to me that you're the one who doesn't like the United States, so why don't you move?
I donate 10% of my income annually to several charities, so I back up my words with actions.
And how much doesn't go to some religious group?
I wasn't about to list each and every government program deserving of the axe, but that's obviously the type of clarity you wanted.
Quit weaseling. You wroteIf you want to cut something, cut the NON-WORKING social welfare system that's already cost over $1 trillion since the inception of Johnson's Great Society."Something" is singular. Therefore, you were stating that if someone wanted to cut one thing, it should be the "social welfare system."
Just what "taxes" are paid by "the government"? Do you think that employers just pluck the money out of the air to pay for unemployment? No, it is reflected in higher costs for goods and services, so how is that different, in an end-result, than taxes levied against you directly? "Social welfare" mean the collection of taxes by the government and the disbursement of those taxes out to help the needy. Don't try to redefine the word.
Social Security just encourages people to rely (mistakenly) on the government instead of themselves and family.
Who gives a damn whether they rely on the government? I don't want some widow starving to death just because she doesn't have a family to rely on. I don't want someone who lost their retirement at Enron to have to beg for food. I don't think that someone whose family can't afford to support them should suffer.
As to the scholarship example, "need-based" is a relative term.
So what's your point? If someone can't afford to go to college without such a scholarship, your arguing about semantics is pointless.
All this avoids my point about fighting "poverty."
Why do you right wingers have to paint everything as "fighting" something? We aren't fighting poverty. We're trying to help individuals who need it -- because we are, with some obvious exceptions, a caring society that doesn't want to see it's members suffer. I've never seen anyone so naive as to believe that the purpose of social welfare is to stamp out poverty.
I also never said that I'd take money away from the poor before shutting down corporate welfare. Nice try at putting words in my mouth.
Yes you did when you wrote: That was your A-number-1 program to cut. You didn't say "right after shutting down corporate welfare." You said, "if you want to cut something", implying that your offering was the best place to make a cut. Don't try to weasel out of it now.
We've been "fighting" poverty and all sorts of social ills for decades and all we've done is create a dependant class of citizenry who aren't ashamed to suck at the government's teat.
So that's your opinion of a middle-income American who is temporarily accepting unemployment to keep from losing his house? That's what you think of a poor kid from an inner-city neighborhood who accepts a need-based scholarship or a subsidized college loan? That's how you view an elderly widow who accepts a Social Security check?
Our forefathers would be embarrassed at how we've come to rely on our government instead of ourselves.
No. What they would be embarassed by is the selfish 'not-with-my-taxes' types who put attainment of personal wealth above the good of society.
As to corporate welfare, I'm opposed to that as well.
Then why did you focus on "social welfare" when corporate welfare costs 2-3 times as much? If you are looking for money for NASA, why would you first take it away from the poor while letting huge, multi-national corporations continue to "suck at the government's teat"? If you are so opposed to corporate welfare, too, then why didn't you just say "welfare" in your initial post?
But since you're so smart you already knew that when you set up your straw-man argument.
You're the one who made the distinction between welfare in general and social welfare, not me.
If you want to cut something, cut the NON-WORKING social welfare system that's already cost over $1 trillion since the inception of Johnson's Great Society.
In what way is it not working? Many elderly people get the medical care they need through Medicare. Middle class people collect unemployment and keep from slipping into bankruptcy, losing their homes, cars, etc. People who find themselves without marketable job skills are able to get federally funded training. Children in low-income families are able to get subsidized college loans and need-based scholarships. Older Americans who may have lacked the education, skills, or foresight to save for their retirement are able to count on Social Security checks.
I find it interesting that you qualify welfare with "social." I gather that you don't mind corporate welfare, which costs the American taxpayer two to three times as much as social welfare. You don't mind giving Haliburton no-bid contracts for millions of dollars. You don't mind $5 billion per year subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. You don't mind public lands being handed over to corporate farms for livestock grazing. You don't mind that federal farm price support programs cost U.S. consumers and taxpayers some $370 billion between 1985 and 2002 -- enough money to purchase all the farmland in 41 states. Nope. You're too upset about poor people getting money.
I wrote:
In Virginia, exceeding the speed limit by 20 or more mph is "Reckless Driving." Would you say that someone who has gone 75mph in a 55mph zone is being a hypocrite if he voices an objection to someone driving 137mph in a 25mph school zone?
To which you replied:
Typically, you miss the point. Law is law. You break, you break. Broken law = government intervention.
I didn't miss that point at all. Nor did I say that there would/should be no punishment for either Sveasoft or those downloading MP3s -- just that they were ethically and legally not equivalent for the purposes of an analogy.
My point had nothing to do with the level of intervention but the mere fact of intervention. You lose on this count.
How does your inability to express your point clearly mean that I "lose"?
I wrote:
No, my argument is not that either copyright violation is legal, just that they are different, ethically and legally, and that, therefore, your analogy is flawed.
To which you replied:
So far you have no non-flawed analogy.
I believe that the reckless driving analogy that I made was not flawed.
So it is no different than any slashdot article writeup regarding the MPAA/RIAA/(unpopular)AA.
You don't understand the concept of ad hominem attacks. Stating that the claims against Sveasoft are any less serious or valid because you believe that many of the claimants have violated copyright law is ad hominem. The actions of the claimants have no bearing on the truth of their claims or the seriousness of Sveasoft's actions. Being mean does not constitute an ad hominem attack. I can call someone a dick-head and that's not an ad hominem attack. If I were to say that someone's posts should be ignored because he is a known pedophile, that is an ad hominem attack -- even if he is a known pedophile.
So far I feel secure in my attitude.
Smug and ignorant -- what a lovely combination.
Completely irrelavent, it's still against the law.
In Virginia, exceeding the speed limit by 20 or more mph is "Reckless Driving." Would you say that someone who has gone 75mph in a 55mph zone is being a hypocrite if he voices an objection to someone driving 137mph in a 25mph school zone?
Your argument there is like "I'll rape prison inmates" versus "I'll rape girl scouts". It's still rape, no matter the intent or whom you are raping.
No, my argument is not that either copyright violation is legal, just that they are different, ethically and legally, and that, therefore, your analogy is flawed. And before you go off on the aspect of it being legally different, judges consider motives and circumstances before imposing a sentence. Someone stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family is probably not going to get the same sentence as someone stealing car stereos to get cigarette money.
Are many of you in violation for downloading MP3s?
I can't hear you! IP laws work both ways, bitches! Of course, this will get modded down by hypocrites, but then again this is Slashdot.
Several points:
1. This an ad-hominem attack. Whether someone on Slashdot has downloaded an MP3 in violation of copyright is unrelated to what Sveasoft is doing.
2. People downloading MP3s are not doing so for profit. They aren't selling the MP3s to others (by and large).
3. Stealing (technically violating copyright) from the GPL community is more like stealing from the Toys For Tots bin than it is like downloading MP3s. The RIAA is in this for bucks. They aren't donating their time and effort for the betterment of the world.
Perhaps, but how does a moral obligation translate into a legal requirement?
When our elected representatives pass a law requiring it. For instance, you have a moral obligation to not kill people and there is a corresponding legal obligation.
Aren't you people always whining that we shouldn't "force our morality" on you?
Who are "you people" and why do you portray the expression of opposing viewpoints as "whining"?
It seems you have no problem forcing your morality on others.
Our whole legal code is based on morality. We've decided it is immoral to steal, murder, rape, etc. and have passed laws against those things. What many people oppose is the codification of religious beliefs and writing laws limiting individual freedoms.
Wrong.
Use as much boldface text as you want, but you are the one who is wrong. If the current system of welfare was unconstitutional, don't you think that it would have been struck down by now?
You don't seriously expect us to believe that when the Founding Fathers wrote that part of the Constitution, that they had welfare queens living off of the public's forced generosity in mind, do you?
You don't seriously expect us to believe that your thinly veiled racist comment about "welfare queens" is a fair characterization of the entire welfare system, do you? You just want to conjure up stereotypical images of overweight, uncouth, ignorant black women surrounded by children when the reality is that the welfare system benefits everyone from low-income college students to out-of-work middle class Americans.
Your side would have us believe that the Founding Fathers, whose idea of a gun was a muzzle-loading musket, wrote the Second Amendment with the intention of allowing deranged wackos living in the woods to own fully automatic weapons, so please don't even go there about stretching the interpretation of the Constitution.
With the exception of defense, none of those functions are authorized by the Constitution.
So you are advocating that we do away with the NHTSA, FDA, Department of Agriculture, and every other non-defense related government function? Wow! That's out there.
You might be able to read a justification for the CIA into "providing for the common defense" (the military needs good intel if it's to be effective), but the "general welfare" clause and the commerce clause have for decades been abused to bloat the government beyond all reasonable limits.
The "general welfare" clause is what has allowed us to function as a society and become the greatest nation in the world -- all the while paying about the lowest tax rate of any first-world country.
WTFSoF is it to you what anybody does with his money?
I don't want to have to shoulder a greater and greater percentage of the cost of helping the needy as you and your fellow wallet-worshipping peers opt out of helping the needy.
When you start earning it, you can decide what to do with it. Until then, get bent.
In case you haven't noticed, my side won decades ago. You're taxed and if you don't pay, you go to jail. Once the government gets the taxes, they can allocate it however they want. They can use it to increase welfare benefits to individuals. They can spend it on corporate welfare (like giving McDonalds millions of dollars to promote their products overseas.) They can spend it to promote eco-tourism in Alaska, plant trees on public lands, or fund studies about the effects of Nutra-Sweet on lab rats. And the only thing you can do is vote. If enough people agree with you, then you'll win. But don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
It is a societal obligation -- as in something that you are morally obligated to do as a member of society.
Could you point out what part of the Constitution authorizes the government to take money from one group of people (by force if necessary) and give it to another group of people?
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;..."
The OP is correct...
No, he, like you, is incorrect.
perhaps instead of being generous with other people's money, you might try being generous with your own money (or time) instead.
No, I prefer the system as it stands -- the one put in place by our elected representatives. I'd rather have laws to help ensure that everyone pays their fair share rather than having only the generous and decent people shoulder all of the financial burden of helping the less fortunate. I don't want you to be able to opt-out of helping the needy. I don't want you to be able to use the money you withold from from the needy to fund your next BMW purchase.
Now answer the remaining questions that I asked in the parent post rather than trying to come up with snappy sound bites:
Then pick a cause or two and donate your time and money. Please don't take away my choice to do so.
You do have that choice. You can donate time and money to any cause that you want. You just can't completely opt out of your societal obligation to help the needy. That's all that the current system prevents. It just sets the lower limit.
I don't have a choice as to whether my money buys a new bomber for the Pentagon, do I? If you think that solely voluntary donation is such a good system, why not run all aspects of government like that? Why not have the FBI rely on donations? How about letting people decide whether to donate to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration? What about letting people decide whether they would rather spend their money supporting the CIA, funding the Department of Agriculture, or buying themselves a new Lexus?
I don't want you to be able to choose to help no one but yourself. I don't want there to be a monetary reward for selfishness. I don't want you to be able to afford a better lifestyle than your neighbor simply because you choose to spend all of your money on yourself while he steps up to bat to help the needy.
To shoot the final hole in that tired old argument, if you eliminate the current system for a voluntary one, then money would go to popular causes rather than where it's needed. There would be plenty of money for cherub-faced children in densely populated areas. But there wouldn't be a lot of money for drug and alcohol rehab programs on American Indian reservations.
It seems America is moving closer and closer to being a socialist society. We just had Medicare say that obesity was a sickness so now we will have more tax dollars go to people who can't stay away from McDonald's and get some exercise.
The reason that Medicare did that was that obesity-related illnesses cost them far more that addressing the problem of obesity. If they can pay for weight loss drugs along with diet and exercise counseling now, it's a lot cheaper than paying to treat diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer later.
As to your concerns about a "socialist society," what is a society if not a group of people joining together and helping one another? Perhaps you would prefer to live like a pack animal, abandoning those who are sick or injured to die, but I would not. I'd rather that some of my money go to help the less fortunate. I'd rather have government/taxpayer aid help keep an unemployed person from losing their house and ending up destitute. I'd rather see someone born into poverty get government grants and subsidized loans for education. Keeping poor people uneducated and poor, and allowing the unemployed to slide into poverty, costs society far more than giving them aid.
Try quitting the Communist Party. That should improve your viewpoint.
.com that was seeking out venture capital and selling accounting products? That doesn't sound very Communist to me.
Right. Everyone who dislikes Bush and the Republicans is a Communist. At least that's what the Young Republicans on Slashdot would have us believe.
But how do you explain why the so-called "Communist" to whom you replied was working for a
I'm so glad that Slashdot finally made the switch from Windows 98 to Windows98 Second Edition. I expect that this will make thing run much more smoothly.
Yes those voluteers would be taking your dad's job, BUT THE MONEY WOULD STILL EXIST TO PAY YOUR DAD TO DO SOMETHING ELSE.
But what would the hypothetical dad do? He's not trained or experienced as a physicist, plumber, professional basketball player, electrician, defense analyst, software engineer, etc.
That's the problem with these job-counting arguments. They ignore the cost of retraining. They don't acknowledge the loss of income when one moves from a field where they have experience and seniority into one where they are starting out at the bottom rung. John Kerry summed it up well when he pointed out that the jobs being created pay an average of $9,000 less than those being lost.
If I invent a machine that can create deck chairs out of thin air, yes I've just put a few people out of work, TEMPORARILY, but the net effect is positive. I've just added to the country's GDP. In any sort of sane economy, that's a GOOD thing. I means we all (collectively) have more money, and the money that was going to be spent on deck chairs will now be spent on something else, (which gives the deck-chair workers new jobs producing whatever that is).
When the cost of living goes down, so do wages. When you have a glut of workers (e.g., unemployed deck chair workers), wages go down. When the average worker has less experience (e.g., ex-deck-chair worker who takes a job as an apprentice electrician), wages go down.
Most employers are looking for a way to take a bigger slice of the pie while giving less to their workers. How often do you hear about some piece of automation doubling efficiency and all of the workers getting a huge raise? It's more likely that there will be layoffs, workers' wages will stagnate, and senior management will all get new company cars. Seldom do corporations share riches with employees.
this is one of the most stupid arguments that gates is saying[sic].
In what way is it "stupid"? Are you saying that he is wrong?
this is like saying "volunteer work is causing unemployment for people who wish to do the same work for pay"
So how would that be incorrect?
Suppose your father had worked for GM assembling cars and earning a decent wage for a decent day's work. What would have happened if a bunch of talented automotive hobbyists volunteered to assemble GM's cars for free? Wouldn't that have been likely to put your father out of work?
Oh... Wait... No, I guess not. Because auto workers are smarter than software engineers in that they have a union which would have prevented GM from ever using volunteer labor.
Hopefully they'd have other jobs, but failing that you're right and the same is true of everyone failing to be employed in other jobs that aren't needed.
So because you can, through violation of copyright law, obtain a pirated copy of a movie, you believe that theatre employees "aren't needed"?
Think of all those people not being employed to dig holes and then fill them in again for no purpose. Sad.
People selling tickets, running projectors, selling concessions, and cleaning a movie theatres aren't doing make-work. They are doing useful work and you'd deny them a living because you've found a way to steal the movie you want to see. What's truly "sad" is your lack of empathy and ethics.
MM: "While I am sympathetic to underpaid movie theater employees, I would remind the MPAA that those who download and watch my movie at home are not in any way served by those employees.
If you aren't served by those employees, you aren't helping to pay their salary, are you? Sort of the whole point, isn't it? If everyone decided to download and not be "served by those employees," then those employees wouldn't have jobs, would they?
I would further suggest that if the MPAA is so concerned with the well-being of theater employees that the industry pay them a better wage than the current national median of $6.78 per hour."
Great plan! Pay them $65K/year with full benefits. You won't mind paying $35 for a movie ticket, will you? I guess it never occurred to you that theatres couldn't stay in business if they paid high wages to people in low-skill jobs, did it?
No, it isn't the 17" monitor that will impress her, it is the 12" something else!
;-)
Your 3.5" floppy sure won't impress her.
You're wasting your time. This guy doesn't understand what an opinion is. My advice: quit while you're ahead, at least he stayed kinda polite so far.
You know, this is getting kind of creepy. Thousands of posts go up on Slashdot each day and you seem to be anonymously cyber-stalking me in an effort to stir up a fight when none is brewing. Perhaps you should heed your own advice.
It is not your responsibility to provide me with confidential anything, i was merely responding to your claim that the government of Macedonia turns a blind eye to massive credit card fraud - a claim for which you have no evidence.
That online merchants and credit card processing banks would rather turn away Macedonian business than deal with the fraud looks like good evidence to me.
i am urging people (in this case you) to maybe look beyond a blacklist before deciding that they are all a bunch of crooks.
I don't think that they are "all a bunch of crooks." I think that there is probably a small percentage of Macedonian citizens who are crooks but that they are responsible for the massive credit card fraud. I also believe that, were the government to crack down on them, Macedonia would soon find its citizens welcomed by many online merchants.
Basically: don't blindly believe everything that authority figures tell you.
I don't -- whether the authority figure is George W. Bush or Jack Valenti. But, in this case, there are just too many sources who all warn against fraud from Macedonia for me to write it all off as bunk. There is also a strong economic incentive to want to do business with an entire country, even a small one. Thus I have to believe that it's been tried by many merchants and has resulted in a lot of fraud. Otherwise, major merchants would welcome the business as would the credit card companies.
I also weighed this against the possible motives. It's not like there is a horrible history in the U.S. of prejudice against Macedonians, so that seems unlikely as a motivation. I don't think that this is some kind of vast conspiracy to cause Macedonia to collapse economically. Who would that benefit? I'm out of motives at this point.
I wonder what percentage of that were people that actually decided not to go see it and dl it instead.. I doubt its actually that many.
You probably are right. I just don't think that a girl is going to be impressed by a date that consists of watching a grainy, downloaded movie on a 17" computer monitor.
Well, i did that google search and i found that, indeed, Macedonia is blacklisted as a major source of online fraud. That wasn't terribly interesting, since we are discussing the fact that Macedonia is blacklisted as a major source of online fraud.
But what is interesting is that it's listed by so many different web sites and organizations. It's not just one or two rogue organizations.
You claim that "For-profit businesses are not going to refuse to do business with an entire country solely based on unsubstantiated rumor." but, unless i'm very mistaken, that's exactly what's happening (remember, rumor is sometimes right) - otherwise where is the substantiation?
Locked up in actuarial tables kept by the credit card companies and stored in private records at major retailers. Your lack of access to the data doesn't mean that there is a lack of data.
As for your comment equating people not complaining to the government because they can't order a book from amazon with black people "wasting their time" protesting for their civil rights - well, frankly that's just offensive. I would hope that most people can see the difference between the two.
Please get off of your high horse with your feigned indignation. You argued that people should not complain because it won't get them instant gratification. I showed the fallacy of that logic when applied to a more important matter. If they listen to you, they will still be blacklisted in ten years. If they listen to me, they may not be.
Finally, as to your question about "How much fraud had to be taking place with an online population of only 90,000 in order for a tiny country like Macedonia to appear on a blacklist?" - well, that's exactly what i'm asking: how much fraud is taking place in Macedonia?
How did it become my responsibility to provide you with confidential business records kept by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, Amazon.com, Paypal, etc.? If you want to know, do your own research. I'm not going to dig through tens of thousands of links and call corporations to try to get them to divulge the information.
Use some logic: How did a tiny nation like that get the attention of companies that track online fraud? Answer: By having the vast majority of their online orders be fraudulent. You don't have to know exact numbers, rates, percentages, dollar amounts, etc. "Vast majority" is just fine to a merchant who wants to protect his business.
If you believe that all of of these organizations are wronging the fine people of Macedonia, you open up an online store for Macedonians and tell us what you find. You've got 90,000 people that can't buy from Amazon.com, so that's a heck of an audience. But I'd bet dollars to pesos that the majority of your orders from Macedonia are fraudulent.