Only if you make more than $95k. So for the most part this is a bullshit talking point. Also you can renounce citizenship to avoid it entirely.
Talking points? Apparently, the us-vs-them thinking has so permeated your mind that you are incapable of having a civilized, rational discussion. (In addition, you're wrong on the facts.)
Since you so casually recommend moving, why don't you move yourself? Europe has all the progressive politics and high taxation you could possibly want. And it's easy to immigrate because, for some unfathomable reason, most immigrants prefer to come to the US.
Federal grants are the same as any other allocation of tax money.
No, they are federal. That means that money from one region is taken to pay for stuff elsewhere. Local taxes stay local.
You can't reduce your taxes that way; you still pay US federal taxes, which then get funneled to politically powerful groups via "federal grants". Either way, if I don't have a powerful lobby, my money disappears down the drain and is of no benefit to either civilization or me.
2. federal grants often pay for stuff like that.
Federal grants don't "pay" for anything. Federal grants take money out of everybody's pocket and then redistribute it in some nebulous way based on political power.
The things that make up civilization-roads, schools, infrastructure, economic development, etc.-should largely be paid for through local taxes. I have no problem paying local taxes. And if my county or state start wasting too much money, I can always move. But to present federal taxes as if they had anything to do with that is a bald faced lie.
From the article, Auernheimer was using an API with no access restrictions on it; he didn't physically intrude anywhere. He really shouldn't be facing prosecution at all. That's not the same as Swartz, who physically trespassed, among other things.
It is my opinion that the legislative process is currently skewed towards adding more laws than are removed
It is, and that's a huge problem. But the only solution is for people to get more educated and elect better representatives. There is no other workaround.
But don't be too depressed about it either: the reason grand juries seem to rubber stamp and judges have an easy reelection because, by and large, the system actually works pretty well. The doomsayers are people who want to get elected/stay in power by scaring everybody, and both parties are guilty of that, and both gang up on anybody who says that the government should actually get smaller and less intrusive.
The prosecutor says to the judge and jury "here is the range of options you have to convict this guy; I'm going to try to make a good argument for each of them; you decide which ones stick". They are acting as a salesman for various options, and it's the judge and jury's decision which of those options they "buy".
You seem to want an inquisitorial justice system, like Continental Europe has. There, everybody cooperates to find a "reasonable" outcome before the trial. It's not clear that that system produces better outcomes, and it is subject to potentially much worse political abuses like show trials.
I blame the prosecutor. The law says she could hold the executives accountable, and yet she used her discretion with Forest Laboratories to avoid sentencing anyone to any time in prison. Why not with Aaron Swartz?
Because there was no reason to use her discretion. The prosecutor didn't charge him to persecute him, she charged him because she actually had a good chance to get a conviction carrying a lengthy jail sentence. That's why he was suicidal, and that's why you are angry in the first place.
Whether other prosecutors made mistakes in their cases really is not relevant to this case.
Trepidity claimed that the Northern European justice system was "better because the prison populations were smaller". He needs to provide the evidence to support his statement.
Ah, well, everything is apparently "obvious" to you. We should run our entire country based on what a few nerds like you consider "obvious"! And because you are so smart, what is "obvious" to you must be scientifically proven! It would be folly to object to your "obvious" conclusions!
Oh, stop mincing words. Whatever you call it (I just used the term "hacking" because others have), it is certainly sufficient to be indicted on charges that potentially carry a lengthy prison sentence. That's what the prosecutor did, and it was up to a judge and jury to make the decision.
(Steven Levitt: The Effect of Prison Population Size on Crime Rates, Quart. J. Econ., 1996)
"While calculations of the cost of crime are inherently uncertain, it appears that the social benefits associated with crime reduction equal or exceed the social costs of incarceration for the marginal prisoner."
Do you have any evidence that the grand jury is being unfairly manipulated? No. You just don't like the conclusion they reached, so you just assert that they have been manipulated without evidence. It's the same with voting: when people don't vote the way progressives want them to, they assume that they must have been manipulated somehow.
If low incarceration rates were a strong cause of violent crime, then Japan, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Germany would be much more violent than the UK.
Oh, please, there are hundreds of variables that influence this. People can reasonably conclude from the data that lower violent crime rates in the US than in the UK are due to higher incarceration rates without seeing a correlation across countries.
Funny, other people make the opposite argument, namely that the UK undercounts and the US overcounts. Rape hardly is a good example; viz statutory rape.
In any case, crime in general is much higher in the UK, France, and Germany than in the US.
The discussion seems to have moved from "the US legal system sucks and its high incarceration rates are awful" to "maybe the lower incarceration rate is not necessary a bad tradeoff"...
Well, the Swartz case is a bad case to make that argument. I, for one, would like trespassing and plugging into someone else's network without authorization to remain illegal.
Intentional homicide rate isn't the same as violent crime. Intentional homicide is lower in the UK than in the US, but the violent crime rate is twice what it is in the US.
Again, where is the data supporting your claim that Germany and France have lower violent crime?
Some mechanism should exist which allows laws to be removed from the books without requiring them to be tested in court.
That exists: it's called Congress and the state legislatures.
Laws which can be demonstrated to be selectively enforced, or which have had no enforcement within a pre-ordained time frame, should be pulled off of the books.
Sounds good to me. Get it through the legislature, and I vote for it.
Until you manage to do that, be happy that the US has safeguards like grand juries, jury nullification, and elected judges and prosecutors. Of course, that rubs various intellectuals the wrong way, since the people frequently want something different from the intellectual elite.
This used to be a major safeguard, but has been ineffective for some decades now. A prosecutor can get an indictment from a grand jury, if he wants one, in just about any case: of the circa 20,000 cases brought to a grand jury per year, fewer than 100 will result in a "no bill" (refusal to indict), for an indictment rate of around 99.5%.
And how does the prosecutor do that according to you? Mind control? Hypnosis? Death threats? Of course not. These are two dozen regular people making a careful decision.
What that statistic actually shows is that overcharging is extremely rare, as judged by regular Americans.
No, sorry, there was no hacking. He plugged in a CAT5 cable because it was faster and the WiFi connection would reset periodically. Done. That's not hacking.
The WiFi connection wouldn't "reset periodically". MIT administrators were banning his MAC address, and he kept changing it. Then he physically trespassed on MIT property, went into a wiring closet, and plugged into the MIT network. That is hacking.
Slashdot Mirror
Talking points? Apparently, the us-vs-them thinking has so permeated your mind that you are incapable of having a civilized, rational discussion. (In addition, you're wrong on the facts.)
Since you so casually recommend moving, why don't you move yourself? Europe has all the progressive politics and high taxation you could possibly want. And it's easy to immigrate because, for some unfathomable reason, most immigrants prefer to come to the US.
No, they are federal. That means that money from one region is taken to pay for stuff elsewhere. Local taxes stay local.
You can't reduce your taxes that way; you still pay US federal taxes, which then get funneled to politically powerful groups via "federal grants". Either way, if I don't have a powerful lobby, my money disappears down the drain and is of no benefit to either civilization or me.
Federal grants don't "pay" for anything. Federal grants take money out of everybody's pocket and then redistribute it in some nebulous way based on political power.
The things that make up civilization-roads, schools, infrastructure, economic development, etc.-should largely be paid for through local taxes. I have no problem paying local taxes. And if my county or state start wasting too much money, I can always move. But to present federal taxes as if they had anything to do with that is a bald faced lie.
From the article, Auernheimer was using an API with no access restrictions on it; he didn't physically intrude anywhere. He really shouldn't be facing prosecution at all. That's not the same as Swartz, who physically trespassed, among other things.
It is, and that's a huge problem. But the only solution is for people to get more educated and elect better representatives. There is no other workaround.
But don't be too depressed about it either: the reason grand juries seem to rubber stamp and judges have an easy reelection because, by and large, the system actually works pretty well. The doomsayers are people who want to get elected/stay in power by scaring everybody, and both parties are guilty of that, and both gang up on anybody who says that the government should actually get smaller and less intrusive.
The prosecutor says to the judge and jury "here is the range of options you have to convict this guy; I'm going to try to make a good argument for each of them; you decide which ones stick". They are acting as a salesman for various options, and it's the judge and jury's decision which of those options they "buy".
You seem to want an inquisitorial justice system, like Continental Europe has. There, everybody cooperates to find a "reasonable" outcome before the trial. It's not clear that that system produces better outcomes, and it is subject to potentially much worse political abuses like show trials.
Because there was no reason to use her discretion. The prosecutor didn't charge him to persecute him, she charged him because she actually had a good chance to get a conviction carrying a lengthy jail sentence. That's why he was suicidal, and that's why you are angry in the first place.
Whether other prosecutors made mistakes in their cases really is not relevant to this case.
I didn't make that kind of argument, but "priceslasher" did.
Trepidity claimed that the Northern European justice system was "better because the prison populations were smaller". He needs to provide the evidence to support his statement.
Ah, well, everything is apparently "obvious" to you. We should run our entire country based on what a few nerds like you consider "obvious"! And because you are so smart, what is "obvious" to you must be scientifically proven! It would be folly to object to your "obvious" conclusions!
Oh, stop mincing words. Whatever you call it (I just used the term "hacking" because others have), it is certainly sufficient to be indicted on charges that potentially carry a lengthy prison sentence. That's what the prosecutor did, and it was up to a judge and jury to make the decision.
Unfortunately, that blog post is merely pointing out some differences, but then goes on to make an equally weak argument for the opposite case.
Here is a reference from the University of Chicago suggesting that increased imprisonment does reduce crime rates:
http://crimelab.uchicago.edu/page/incarceration
(Steven Levitt: The Effect of Prison Population Size on Crime Rates, Quart. J. Econ., 1996)
"While calculations of the cost of crime are inherently uncertain, it appears that the social benefits associated with crime reduction equal or exceed the social costs of incarceration for the marginal prisoner."
Do you have any evidence that the grand jury is being unfairly manipulated? No. You just don't like the conclusion they reached, so you just assert that they have been manipulated without evidence. It's the same with voting: when people don't vote the way progressives want them to, they assume that they must have been manipulated somehow.
Oh, please, there are hundreds of variables that influence this. People can reasonably conclude from the data that lower violent crime rates in the US than in the UK are due to higher incarceration rates without seeing a correlation across countries.
No, the burden of proof is on you. You made the claim:
It's clear you're talking out of your ass. You have no evidence to back up your statement.
The facts are the facts, it doesn't matter who reports them.
If you have different statistics, please share them and your source.
Funny, other people make the opposite argument, namely that the UK undercounts and the US overcounts. Rape hardly is a good example; viz statutory rape.
In any case, crime in general is much higher in the UK, France, and Germany than in the US.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri-crime-total-crimes
The discussion seems to have moved from "the US legal system sucks and its high incarceration rates are awful" to "maybe the lower incarceration rate is not necessary a bad tradeoff"...
Well, the Swartz case is a bad case to make that argument. I, for one, would like trespassing and plugging into someone else's network without authorization to remain illegal.
Intentional homicide rate isn't the same as violent crime. Intentional homicide is lower in the UK than in the US, but the violent crime rate is twice what it is in the US.
Again, where is the data supporting your claim that Germany and France have lower violent crime?
That exists: it's called Congress and the state legislatures.
Sounds good to me. Get it through the legislature, and I vote for it.
Until you manage to do that, be happy that the US has safeguards like grand juries, jury nullification, and elected judges and prosecutors. Of course, that rubs various intellectuals the wrong way, since the people frequently want something different from the intellectual elite.
Citation?
And how does the prosecutor do that according to you? Mind control? Hypnosis? Death threats? Of course not. These are two dozen regular people making a careful decision.
What that statistic actually shows is that overcharging is extremely rare, as judged by regular Americans.
The WiFi connection wouldn't "reset periodically". MIT administrators were banning his MAC address, and he kept changing it. Then he physically trespassed on MIT property, went into a wiring closet, and plugged into the MIT network. That is hacking.
The violent crime rate in the UK is twice what it is in the US, and generally that is attributed to the lower incarceration rate:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-25671/Violent-crime-worse-Britain-US.html
Is that a good tradeoff? I don't think so.
And which legal system do you think works better and is more responsive to citizens?