This is not a Democrat vs. Republican thing, it's a people who believe in basic research and exploration vs. people who are interested in short term financial issues.
At the risk of accusing W of having a sense of morality, what it should be is a people who believe in taking other people's money without their consent as long as those who take the money can agree on how to spend it vs. people who'll fund Pluto missions if they damn well please, and not a moment before, issue.
I'd hate to be those people who don't look up at the milky way and wonder how all our creations, from Shakespeare to the stock market, could arise from the dust of stellar explosions.
I'd hate to be a person who doesn't eat, but I haven't yet lost faith in supermarkets.
Talk about ingrained propaganda... communism has nothing on NASA.
I think that Congress probably has that power. There's nothing in the consitution that prohibits it, is there?
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
(The two most often ignored Amendments, as you can imagine.)
When a government threatens (or engages in) legal action over allowing Nazi material to be sold, and the company in question decides to stop allowing it, government influence is present. That is censorship. To deny it is to say that shooting someone and taking their money is robbery, but *threatening* to shoot them until they hand it over is a business transaction. A choice made under coercion is not a choice at all.
The argument "this is not a violation of consumers' rights" has been raised. True. It isn't, at least not directly. It's a violation of *producers'* rights.
...
[E]very DVD that you buy puts money in the pockets of the MPAA to argue that source code is not protected by the First Amendment... it's being re-released, on VHS... I'm going to get this for a friend of mine...
Because, of course, the MPAA doesn't get any money from VHS sales.
I would think that anyone who had true convictions about DMCA et al. would be more confident in buying DVDs while being fully prepared to break laws that violate rights. If Congress started regulating consumption of Oreos, I wouldn't cower in the candy aisle if I wanted some damn cookies.
Robert Hutchinson
"Well, no, Mr. Attorney, we can't afford you any longer... Slashdot drained our legal budget dry."
I stopped reading halfway through the first chapter--right after the author explained that eliminating technology is a good solution to the corruption of power. Of course, he justified it by bringing up nuclear weaponry. Always a good idea to debate through incitement.
I thoroughly loathe the concept of IP, but on "this is not property" grounds, not through "property or not, let's be rid of it for it is eeevil" societal engineering.
Slashdot Mirror
Talk about ingrained propaganda ... communism has nothing on NASA.
Robert Hutchinson
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
(The two most often ignored Amendments, as you can imagine.)
Robert Hutchinson
When a government threatens (or engages in) legal action over allowing Nazi material to be sold, and the company in question decides to stop allowing it, government influence is present. That is censorship. To deny it is to say that shooting someone and taking their money is robbery, but *threatening* to shoot them until they hand it over is a business transaction. A choice made under coercion is not a choice at all.
The argument "this is not a violation of consumers' rights" has been raised. True. It isn't, at least not directly. It's a violation of *producers'* rights.
Robert Hutchinson
I would think that anyone who had true convictions about DMCA et al. would be more confident in buying DVDs while being fully prepared to break laws that violate rights. If Congress started regulating consumption of Oreos, I wouldn't cower in the candy aisle if I wanted some damn cookies.
Robert Hutchinson
"Well, no, Mr. Attorney, we can't afford you any longer
I stopped reading halfway through the first chapter--right after the author explained that eliminating technology is a good solution to the corruption of power. Of course, he justified it by bringing up nuclear weaponry. Always a good idea to debate through incitement.
I thoroughly loathe the concept of IP, but on "this is not property" grounds, not through "property or not, let's be rid of it for it is eeevil" societal engineering.
Robert Hutchinson