Not to mention that when something big blows up, the exploding bits can rock your spaceship around, possibly making it rumble. The Tie Fighter "whirr" is right out, though, of course.:)
It's a total catch-22. On one hand you have business owners who (IMO) rightfully want freedom to operate their business how they want to operate it. Obviously, publically traded business needs certain rules to protect investors. I'm not so sure SEC or the government has any (constitutional) right to do more than that.
I disagree. Corporations are not persons, no matter how many times the mantra is repeated. They can be regulated into the ground, if necessary, under our Constitution. If and when the issue -- finally -- comes to the Supreme Court, the SC is going to lay the smack down.
Once a company becomes large enough, there is little difference between that business and a dictatorship-like presence or influence.
Agreed
The only current way to overcome the pressure of that business is (of right now) to start your own business. Not impossible, but damn hard.
Alternatively, have governments that regulate in an appropriate way the system and environment in which businesses exist and do business.
(oh, and I just added one to the list. corporate death penalty. link
If the government made it completely equal by making them conform to some sort of moral standard, then the government is in effect by-passing the free market and it turns into a form of socialism.
No, it's just smart business to have a system of fair rules for everyone to play by, enforced by the people with the guns, under orders of those elected by the populace (that's the theory, anyway...).
If a market creates a monopoly, it is by definition broken because it is no longer a market (i.e., a place where a variety of vendors vie for your money). Such markets must be prevented and fixed by force lest we suffer the consequences of market dictatorship.
I don't think there is anything the government can or should do, personally.
You're free to disagree and I will defend your right to disagree. I will not defend your supposed "right" to sell me water at extortionist prices precisely because it is not a right.
Being a limited liability entity should be a privilege to companies of goodwill, not de facto, IMO.
Corporate death penalty -- courts and legislatures should revoke the corporate charters and liquidate the assets of systematically corrupt corporations. States already have this power -- they just haven't had the balls to enforce it for years.
Liberal: spends public money on the public, people
Conservative: spends public money on private corporations
Indeed, that seems how the usage is going these days. My problem is that the word "conservative" is a poor label for this trend, shoehorned into the role by virtue of historical alliances, not ideological consistency.
Liberal: "spends a lot of public money on stuff" Conservative: "doesn't"
I dunno, sounds pretty accurate to me.;)
Seriously, though, I think the libertarians are the only conservatives left. FDR solidified the United States as a nationalist, statist, leftist institution and nothing has rolled that back. The only thing that has changed are the myriad ways that so-called conservatives and liberals have chosen to manifest the State's power, whether commercially, militarily, socially, etc.
Corporatism, ala Big Business, is just as statist as any other monopolistic power grab.
-l
p.s., I'm not against all statist, nationalist reforms in the U.S. since the 30s and 40s. It simply irritates me that a bunch of liberals think they're conservative just because they spend state money on the rich, elderly, and religious.
You're right that the current situation is endemic to the way the current system is set up. However, it is possible to recouple ethical living into the business world in many places whence it has been decoupled.
Liability and Accountability are good places to start:
Greater democratic accountability to the shareholders from the Board and Management. Don't let the CEO be the Chairman and don't let her handpick her management or Board.
Shareholders should demand that C?O salaries be reduced to non-insane levels. Those ridiculous compensation packages are overhead! They reduce profit and should be reined in.
Greater liability for employees and management who knowingly break the law.
Better domestic law enforcement.
Support for an international criminal court and international police force that can enforce the law and prosecute the crimes of multinational corporate Evil[tm].
Just some ideas I've heard that sounded good. What do you think?
Well, he says he's conservative, anyway. I've never bought the line that you can be hawkish and conservative simultaneously, though. Being hawkish means you're proactive toward war and as we all know, war is expensive. What the hell is conservative about that?
Conservative means you reserve judgement, preserve resources, and abide by the maxim that less is more.
This president buys off the elderly with prescription drug benefits, wages war based on shoddy intelligence to pursue a PNAC-style empire, promises billions for AIDS drugs, all the while calling himself "conservative". Oh right, that's "compassionate conservative".
I guess that means the definition of "compassionate conservative" is "hawkish liberal". Eisenhower and LBJ are great models in this vein.
I'm neither an isolationist nor a "let's gut the defense department" kinda person. I'm saying that current policy will lead to a world wide arms race, not deter it. I believe we should be an active partner in the world, not a dominating empire like the Project for a New American Century and its Whitehouse lackeys want it to be.
They aren't KNOWN to possess nuclear weapons. North Korea started its nuke research again b/c the US was sluggish on building the light water nuclear reactors we promised to build there ages ago. I.e., we weren't keeping our end of the treaty so they decided to make the point, and not keep their end either. (NK miscalculated here, though, not expecting Bush to pick up his toys and go home).
Iran is merely suspected to have an enriched uranium program. This can be converted to a weapons program, but there is no evidence whatsoever that they have actual weapons. This is why the IAEA wants to go out there... to double check.
You can't expect the US to be the world's policeman
I don't. I oppose us being the policeman completely.
we put a stop to the Bosnian conflict while Europe was sitting on their asses
Having actually read the account of Gen. Wesley Clark, an American and then the SAC, on the subject, I can tell you this is utterly false. Europe was far more involved than we were -- we put up the tiniest troop and weaponry presence we could get away with. Europe, OTOH, knew that WW1 started in this tiny patch of land and were quite aware its instability.
No, NATO brokered the peace, not the U.S. (the U.N. failed, too, except when they turned it over to NATO).
Bzzt, false. Their goal is to kill Americans and their allies until they give in to their political ideologies. Here's a direct quote from the Febuary 23, 1998 fatwa. link
First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have formerly debated the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it.
The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, still they are helpless. Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, in excess of 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So now they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there.
The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
It's interesting that their assessment of the Israeli-American alliance lines up so well with the Project for a New American Century's goals.
Since the Department of Defense and its Bush administration supporters seek to fund new tactical nukes, that demonstrates pretty definitively that the U.S. does not practice what it preaches WRT the NPT.
link
And what rules would those be? I don't think any rational country is asking the US to give up our nuclear weapons- especially now that the threat of nuclear weapons spreading to unstable areas is greater now than ever before.
You're putting the cart before the horse. The reason other nations are starting development of nuclear weapons is a direct consequence of the U.S.'s belligerent actions. If we do not act now to reduce U.S. WMD, an arms race will ensue increasing the amount of weaponry available to terrorists, not reducing it.
Wait- so are you actually saying that you think Iran should have nuclear weapons?
Straw man. I said I don't blame them. If you were an Iranian cleric facing an 800lbs gorilla like the U.S., you'd keep your options open, too.
I fail to see how the US has demonstrated that. Treaties are taken very seriously in this country- they must be ratified by a full congress and they become a strict law
You mean like unilaterally pulling out of the ABM treaty? Let's see, pulling out of a treaty that restricts anti-ballistic missiles -- yeah, I'd say that sends the world a pretty positive message of peace and goodwill. "Nothing to see here, folks. Move along."
But, it is not irrational. Terrorism is always politically motivated. Glossing over terrorists' motivations as "hating freedom" is not only false, it's also stupid. It means that we cannot deal with their motivations and thus cannot stop their memes from spreading.
If anything, September 11 should have taught us that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately, this administration has not stepped up to admit the U.S.'s mistakes of the past, nor has it worked sufficiently to prevent the memes -- the political, ideological motivations -- from spreading. Instead, it relentlessly pursues the vision of the Project for a New American Century under the guise of "fighting terrorism". Of course, the program will do nothing to prevent terrorism since it doesn't even acknowledge the real problems spurring on the terrorists in the first place.
They may be evil, but they're not stupid and neither should we be.
Both North Korea and Iran have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. With that, they gave up their "right" to develop nuclear weapons.
So did we. Have we stopped developing nukes? Nope. In fact, we just increased spending on a new tactical nuke designed to eliminate underground bunkers.
Conclusion: US policymakers are unwilling to live by the same rules they make everyone else follow and throw a fit when others follow their wonderful example.
You see, the thing is, they have been saying that all along, but they have been lying.
1. There's no proof that Iran's civil program is a weapons program. There's just suspicion. Frankly, I don't blame them. Having an enriched civil program leaves a weapons program a possibility when and if that becomes necessary.
2. Of course, it matters not whether they've been lying -- it only matters if they have actual weapons programs. Since the US has demonstrated that treaties and the UN are meaningless and since the US is supposed to be the world leader, it makes perfect sense that the US's enemies would do likewise.
And do you realize what would happen if the US just decided to "put down" their weapons? Haven't you studied history? There will ALWAYS be people that are not willing to live peacefully.
It's mighty convenient that the US doesn't obey the rule of law. It's just like the absolute monarchies all over again, ruling by divine right instead of by and under the rule of law. Also note that in none of those conflicts except WW2 have we used nukes. Plainly we don't need them to win. Why do we still keep them around?
Oh I know the answer: "just in case". You know what? That's what N. Korea, Iran, and everyone else is thinking, too. Since the US has no divine right to ignore treaties while holding everyone else accountable to them, plainly the treaty is now invalid and it's, again, a nuclear free-for-all.
The point of researching these things is to not get caught with your pants down when someone else invents it.
This is the North Korean and Iranian logic as well: "Let us research nuclear technology so we do not get caught with our pants down, lest the Americans invade." Indeed, having nuclear technology could prevent an American invasion.
This is just one tack. If North Korea, Iran, etc. just wanted to embarrass the crap out of the U.S., they could stop (or never start... whatever) their programs and retort: "We have put down our weapons. Now put down yours."
And of course no one in the major media would pick it up and Americans will continue to wage their "humanitarian wars."
CO2 is not the only bad emission from car exhaust. You've heard of smog, right? Ozone? Ever rolled down your windows in traffic and drawn in the fresh city air?:)
Unnecessary ground level pollution is a pet peeve of mine! -l
When environmentalists finally get smart enough to hire a marketing department, people will finally "get" air pollution. Everyday people don't care about global warming. You have to do a "won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!" commercial for anyone to pay any attention... something with a baby huffing soot from a tailpipe would probably do the trick.
$0.02USD, -l
Re:You have no chance to survive make your time!
on
Take Back Your Time!
·
· Score: 1
Because we all know a Simpson's quote is far more valuable...
You can leave school without an RFID. Easily. So, even if they did start to track you in every classroom, you could still get away with it as long as you showed up in the morning, no? I know I rarely skipped all of school -- I usually just skipped lame classes like Health. That's what I meant in my post.:)
Slashdot Mirror
"Excuse me, would you like to taste my smoked meat log?"
God, that gets me every time!
-l
Not to mention that when something big blows up, the exploding bits can rock your spaceship around, possibly making it rumble. The Tie Fighter "whirr" is right out, though, of course. :)
-l
For the record, I don't mind a little licentiousness myself, now and then. ;)
-l
I disagree. Corporations are not persons, no matter how many times the mantra is repeated. They can be regulated into the ground, if necessary, under our Constitution. If and when the issue -- finally -- comes to the Supreme Court, the SC is going to lay the smack down.
Agreed
Alternatively, have governments that regulate in an appropriate way the system and environment in which businesses exist and do business.
(oh, and I just added one to the list. corporate death penalty. link
No, it's just smart business to have a system of fair rules for everyone to play by, enforced by the people with the guns, under orders of those elected by the populace (that's the theory, anyway...).
If a market creates a monopoly, it is by definition broken because it is no longer a market (i.e., a place where a variety of vendors vie for your money). Such markets must be prevented and fixed by force lest we suffer the consequences of market dictatorship.
You're free to disagree and I will defend your right to disagree. I will not defend your supposed "right" to sell me water at extortionist prices precisely because it is not a right.
Being a limited liability entity should be a privilege to companies of goodwill, not de facto, IMO.
-l
-l
Indeed, that seems how the usage is going these days. My problem is that the word "conservative" is a poor label for this trend, shoehorned into the role by virtue of historical alliances, not ideological consistency.
-l
In keeping with your handle, how about a hawkish Green party? :)
Cheers,
-l
Liberal: "spends a lot of public money on stuff"
;)
Conservative: "doesn't"
I dunno, sounds pretty accurate to me.
Seriously, though, I think the libertarians are the only conservatives left. FDR solidified the United States as a nationalist, statist, leftist institution and nothing has rolled that back. The only thing that has changed are the myriad ways that so-called conservatives and liberals have chosen to manifest the State's power, whether commercially, militarily, socially, etc.
Corporatism, ala Big Business, is just as statist as any other monopolistic power grab.
-l
p.s., I'm not against all statist, nationalist reforms in the U.S. since the 30s and 40s. It simply irritates me that a bunch of liberals think they're conservative just because they spend state money on the rich, elderly, and religious.
Liability and Accountability are good places to start:
Just some ideas I've heard that sounded good. What do you think?
-l
Well, he says he's conservative, anyway. I've never bought the line that you can be hawkish and conservative simultaneously, though. Being hawkish means you're proactive toward war and as we all know, war is expensive. What the hell is conservative about that?
Conservative means you reserve judgement, preserve resources, and abide by the maxim that less is more.
This president buys off the elderly with prescription drug benefits, wages war based on shoddy intelligence to pursue a PNAC-style empire, promises billions for AIDS drugs, all the while calling himself "conservative". Oh right, that's "compassionate conservative".
I guess that means the definition of "compassionate conservative" is "hawkish liberal". Eisenhower and LBJ are great models in this vein.
-l
Boxers
PC
Apache
-l
They aren't KNOWN to possess nuclear weapons. North Korea started its nuke research again b/c the US was sluggish on building the light water nuclear reactors we promised to build there ages ago. I.e., we weren't keeping our end of the treaty so they decided to make the point, and not keep their end either. (NK miscalculated here, though, not expecting Bush to pick up his toys and go home).
Iran is merely suspected to have an enriched uranium program. This can be converted to a weapons program, but there is no evidence whatsoever that they have actual weapons. This is why the IAEA wants to go out there... to double check.
-l
You can't expect the US to be the world's policeman
I don't. I oppose us being the policeman completely.
we put a stop to the Bosnian conflict while Europe was sitting on their asses
Having actually read the account of Gen. Wesley Clark, an American and then the SAC, on the subject, I can tell you this is utterly false. Europe was far more involved than we were -- we put up the tiniest troop and weaponry presence we could get away with. Europe, OTOH, knew that WW1 started in this tiny patch of land and were quite aware its instability.
No, NATO brokered the peace, not the U.S. (the U.N. failed, too, except when they turned it over to NATO).
-l
Bzzt, false. Their goal is to kill Americans and their allies until they give in to their political ideologies. Here's a direct quote from the Febuary 23, 1998 fatwa. link
It's interesting that their assessment of the Israeli-American alliance lines up so well with the Project for a New American Century's goals.
-l
And what rules would those be? I don't think any rational country is asking the US to give up our nuclear weapons- especially now that the threat of nuclear weapons spreading to unstable areas is greater now than ever before.
You're putting the cart before the horse. The reason other nations are starting development of nuclear weapons is a direct consequence of the U.S.'s belligerent actions. If we do not act now to reduce U.S. WMD, an arms race will ensue increasing the amount of weaponry available to terrorists, not reducing it.
Wait- so are you actually saying that you think Iran should have nuclear weapons?
Straw man. I said I don't blame them. If you were an Iranian cleric facing an 800lbs gorilla like the U.S., you'd keep your options open, too.
I fail to see how the US has demonstrated that. Treaties are taken very seriously in this country- they must be ratified by a full congress and they become a strict law
You mean like unilaterally pulling out of the ABM treaty? Let's see, pulling out of a treaty that restricts anti-ballistic missiles -- yeah, I'd say that sends the world a pretty positive message of peace and goodwill. "Nothing to see here, folks. Move along."
<obvious troll section deleted>
-l
Evil is real.
But, it is not irrational. Terrorism is always politically motivated. Glossing over terrorists' motivations as "hating freedom" is not only false, it's also stupid. It means that we cannot deal with their motivations and thus cannot stop their memes from spreading.
If anything, September 11 should have taught us that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Unfortunately, this administration has not stepped up to admit the U.S.'s mistakes of the past, nor has it worked sufficiently to prevent the memes -- the political, ideological motivations -- from spreading. Instead, it relentlessly pursues the vision of the Project for a New American Century under the guise of "fighting terrorism". Of course, the program will do nothing to prevent terrorism since it doesn't even acknowledge the real problems spurring on the terrorists in the first place.
They may be evil, but they're not stupid and neither should we be.
-l
Both North Korea and Iran have signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. With that, they gave up their "right" to develop nuclear weapons.
So did we. Have we stopped developing nukes? Nope. In fact, we just increased spending on a new tactical nuke designed to eliminate underground bunkers.
Conclusion: US policymakers are unwilling to live by the same rules they make everyone else follow and throw a fit when others follow their wonderful example.
You see, the thing is, they have been saying that all along, but they have been lying.
1. There's no proof that Iran's civil program is a weapons program. There's just suspicion. Frankly, I don't blame them. Having an enriched civil program leaves a weapons program a possibility when and if that becomes necessary.
2. Of course, it matters not whether they've been lying -- it only matters if they have actual weapons programs. Since the US has demonstrated that treaties and the UN are meaningless and since the US is supposed to be the world leader, it makes perfect sense that the US's enemies would do likewise.
And do you realize what would happen if the US just decided to "put down" their weapons? Haven't you studied history? There will ALWAYS be people that are not willing to live peacefully.
It's mighty convenient that the US doesn't obey the rule of law. It's just like the absolute monarchies all over again, ruling by divine right instead of by and under the rule of law. Also note that in none of those conflicts except WW2 have we used nukes. Plainly we don't need them to win. Why do we still keep them around?
Oh I know the answer: "just in case". You know what? That's what N. Korea, Iran, and everyone else is thinking, too. Since the US has no divine right to ignore treaties while holding everyone else accountable to them, plainly the treaty is now invalid and it's, again, a nuclear free-for-all.
Good job, US.
-l
That's pretty funny. Thanks for the humor. :)
-l
This is the North Korean and Iranian logic as well: "Let us research nuclear technology so we do not get caught with our pants down, lest the Americans invade." Indeed, having nuclear technology could prevent an American invasion.
This is just one tack. If North Korea, Iran, etc. just wanted to embarrass the crap out of the U.S., they could stop (or never start... whatever) their programs and retort: "We have put down our weapons. Now put down yours."
And of course no one in the major media would pick it up and Americans will continue to wage their "humanitarian wars."
cynical today,
-l
CO2 is not the only bad emission from car exhaust. You've heard of smog, right? Ozone? Ever rolled down your windows in traffic and drawn in the fresh city air? :)
Unnecessary ground level pollution is a pet peeve of mine!
-l
When environmentalists finally get smart enough to hire a marketing department, people will finally "get" air pollution. Everyday people don't care about global warming. You have to do a "won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?!" commercial for anyone to pay any attention... something with a baby huffing soot from a tailpipe would probably do the trick.
$0.02USD,
-l
Because we all know a Simpson's quote is far more valuable...
3 02 804
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=83487&cid=7
-l
Isn't that just a sphere? What makes it a torus?
-l
You can leave school without an RFID. Easily. So, even if they did start to track you in every classroom, you could still get away with it as long as you showed up in the morning, no? I know I rarely skipped all of school -- I usually just skipped lame classes like Health. That's what I meant in my post. :)
-l