If someone is attempting to encourage others to commit crimes, such as attacking jewish or muslim temples, then that is what they should be charged with. Charging someone with "hate speech" or some other equally ridiculous nonsense when they are in fact guilty of attempting to incite violence or other criminal acts just doesn't make sense. If someone was guilty of murder or arson, would you charge them with the "crime" of wearing white after labor day?
Only when there is nothing to refute it. You're missing the point, on purpose I might add. When information in controlled and only certain ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints are allowed, then it is VERY easy for those who decide what is allowed to literally determine what people think. This is one of the primary tools of coercive regimes. The reason why freedom of speech is enshrined in the 1st amendment is to help ensure that our society remains a free one.
And please don't try to tell me that you honestly believe that simply hearing something is going to sway anyone's opinion. If I told you the sky was green for the next 20 years would you ever believe it? I would certainly hope not. The point that Goebbels was making is that human beings CAN be convinced that the sky is green if they are prevented from seeing the sky itself. When dissent and opposing viewpoints are suppressed, even the most outlandish lie can eventually be sold to enough of the poeple enough of the time.
The only way that the beliefs of the neo-nazis, or any other insane group, could ever become public opinion, is if they were in a position to effectively suppress opposition to their ideas. In other words we would have to be living in a place like Nazi Germany, and creating laws that abridge the rights of those with unpopular beliefs is a very big step in that direction. A society is only as free as the minds of its citizens are free. That freedom applies to both those we like and agree with as well as those we dislike and disagree with. The moment that a society starts playing favorites is the moment that freedom is lost. When freedom is lost, all is lost.
I think that the ruling sends a very strong message that in Canada freedom of speech is not nearly as important as making sure that no one's feelings get hurt.
Why is protecting the rights of idiot white surpremacists important? Because they are the canary in the coal mine. When the rights of the unpopular are abridged, everyone's rights are in danger.
Univeral freedom of speech helps ensure the health of society. When unpleasant ideas and beliefs are expressed, it acts as a sort of innoculation against them. When these ideas are oppressed and only shared in secret, they tend to grow like a cancer beneath the surface of society, unknown and unchecked.
When universal freedom of speech is attacked and undermined, it sets the stage for further abuses. Just look at China. Is that what the people of Canada want for their children and grandchildren? Which is worse, living in a totalitarian regime, or living in a free society where you are sometimes subjected to ideas you do not agree with and find offensive?
The only effective means of thought control is information control, but don't take my word for it. Here's a quote from someone whose mastery of propaganda and its uses is unquestioned:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State." -- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945
Abridging the rights of the unpopular is the first dangerous step towards the kind of world Goebbels lived in. Not only that but it serves no useful purpose even in the short run. Making neo-nazi's be quiet doesn't make them go away. All it does is ensure that their activities and efforts at recruitment are that much more difficult to detect.
You would think that people would know better, but then 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
Before you start in on what socialism is and isn't, you might actually want to spend some time living under it.
My wife is from the UK, which while not as bad as Sweden or Denmark, is still very socialist compared to the US. Things there are such that you just wouldn't believe it. Before I met her I never would have imagined how bad things are, how broken down and stagnant the country has become, and how dispirited and worn out the british people have become. It isn't as bad as eastern europe, but the difference is only a matter of degree.
Socialism, like communism, is evil. The difference between the two in the end is that while communism will destroy a society very quickly, with socialism the nation's demise is drawn out into a long lingering death ala the UK.
Capitalism works, socialism does not. The best case outcome for socialism is virtually indistinguishable from the worst case outcome of capitalism. Capitalism is based upon freedom. Socialism is based upon constraint of the individual for "their own good" or the supposed good of society. Any time you start interfering with the voluntary associations and economic transactions of individuals, you are taking a very big step towards tyranny.
The biggest reason why socialism is universally doomed to failure is that it is founded upon ideas about mankind that are patently false. It would be like trying to build a rocket ship to go to the moon off of cartoon logic. It just wouldn't work and in fact would most likely explode and kill a whole bunch of people. Socialism is founded upon the notion that human nature is different from what it actually is, AND that human nature can be changed. I'm sorry, but human nature has not changed in at least 6,000 years. You can't "educate" a person to work against their own self interest. Socialism is an idea that people may buy into at first, but only until they realize just how short-changed they are under it. Which is why socialism, and especially communism, inevitably become coercive systems.
The only world that I will agree to live in is one where people are free. Where each individual has rights and freedoms that are protected, and where the ability to protect those rights is in itself a right. I will not live in a society where a nanny-state tries to decide what is best for me, and punishes those who do not comply with its dictates. I will not live in a world where my rights are seen as an indulgence on the part of the state.
Human beings are either free or we are not. If we are free then we are free do decide for ourselves how we make our money and how we spend it. Socialism is an attempt to control how people make their money and how that money is spent. It is a usurption of the personal soverignty of the citizens upon whom it is inflicted. That so many would, at least at first, choose socialism is a testament to the folly of mankind.
Thank you for having the honesty and integrity to speak truthfully without beating around the bush, watering down your words with euphemisms, or otherwise cow-towing to those who beat the drum of political correctness.
PC is a means by which unpleasant realities are obscured. It does not do anyone any favors because doing the linguistic equivalent of sweeping something under the rug does not make it go away. It is a deeply flawed idea at best, and at worst a far more serious social ill than anything it is nominally supposed to help solve because it is guaranteed to make whatever it is applied to worse.
It would be nice if more people had the courage to tell the PC nazis where to shove their crap instead of allowing themselves to be browbeat. I think America would be a better place. All of the bigotry and prejudice that most people are so careful to tip-toe around would be subject to the light of day. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. When something is openly acknowledged it can be dealt with. When it is hidden away its influence persists wihout ever being addressed. You would think that people would understand this. But then again 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
GM has been accused of bundling engines with transmissions, Pioneer has been accused of bundling speakers with stereo equipment and, Bob's big boy has been accused of bundling plates with silverware.
I agree completely and was a about to make a similar post myself.
Linux is as similar to Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, Tru64, and AIX as each is to any of the others. Now I know that one could make arguments about the pedigree of each having a common ancestor that Linux does not share, but does that really matter? Not only does Linux implement a posix compatible system call interface, but the very structure of the system is Unix. Someone who is a Linux admin will have very little problem mastering Solaris, and will most likely be able to solve many problems the very first time they try go use it.
I've never thought of Linux as anything other than Unix. The same is true of the BSD variants. The definition of Unix is pretty expansive and can even include operating systems like QNX or BeOS. If QNX as a real-time implementation of Posix can be considered Unix-like, why is Linux set apart as a distinct entity from Solaris, HP-UX, etc, etc?
Not including Linux as a version of Unix is like not classifying Fords as automobiles because they're not made by GM. If it has 4 tires, a steering wheel, and is primarily designed to travel on the road, then its a car.
So now you're trying to change the meaning of the word. If you want to play word games, go play with yourself. You knew full well what definition I was using and you wait until now to try and pretend we were talking about something else. Sorry Charlie, but that just doesn't fly.
You're absolutely right, you have given examples of sucessful communes. What you haven't done is addressed my point that there are no examples of successful NATIONS.
As I said before, even if communism works in small communities, it DOES NOT SCALE.
Political and economic freedom DO SCALE. Why choose communism when you can choose freedom? Why choose tyranny when you can choose liberty? Why choose economic oppression and slavery when you can choose economic enfranchisement? Why choose a bullet in the back of the head when you can choose life?
Oh so now capitalism makes people in other places miserable eh? I guess you guys have given up trying to convince all the happy, healthy people with a high standard of living here in America that their freedoms are cause for sorrow. So tell me, which country is being made into a living hell by my being free? Gondwanaland? Pangea? Mercia? Aquitaine? Gondor perhaps?
As for name calling, you're a progressive socially conscious humanist liberal! (And yes, I do kiss my mother with this mouth).
1. Abolition of private property. 2. Heavy progressive income tax. 3. Aboliton to all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. A Central bank. 6. Government control of Communications and Transportation. 7. Government ownership of factories and agriculture. 8. Government control of labor. 9. Corporate farms, regional planning. 10. Free education for all children in govenment contolled schools.
If you don't understand that this adds up to tyranny then I hope it's because you're still in grammar school.
Communism is put forth as a workable system for NATIONS, not communes, not small villages. Even if communism worked at this level, it sure as hell doesn't scale now does it? And I happen to know that it in fact does NOT work even for communes and small villages. I know this because one of my best friends is a recovering leftist who spent much of the early 70's trying to make various communes that he was a part of work. All of them, as he put it, "failed spectacularly."
Freedom, liberty, human rights...these DO SCALE.
The most concise and yet still comprehensive definition of communism I know of is this: PURE FUCKING EVIL.
Yes, please don't conflate gravity with the curvature of space-time caused by mass.
Communism has resulted in tyranny and oppression every single time it has ever been attempted. It doesn't matter if you're talking about the Soviet Union, China, East Germany, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, or any of the other nations that fell victim to it. The result is always the same, hell on earth.
Statements like the one that you made are proof of either ideological lunacy, willfull ignorance, stupidity, or some combination thereof.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
It sounds to me like the people who are pushing for standardization only know that one language they want everyone to standardize on. They're not trying to make things easier for EVERYONE, they're just trying to make things easier for themselves.
Anyone who is limited to a single language is essentially incompetent. If they lack the natural curiosity to seek out and experiment with new development tools and languages, then they're pretty much worthless.
I work as a sysadmin, but even I know how to code in C/C++, Java, Perl, Bourne shell scripts and even visual basic. If someone told me I had to "standardize" on just one of the above, I'd KNOW they were either crazy or stupid.
I think you really need to consider finding employment someone else, hopefully someplace where the idiot quotient wasn't quite so high.
Attitudes like his are very common among the political left. You see, they don't actually believe in democracy.
In any nation there will always be disagreement on public policy, on what the government should or should not do. There will never be complete agreement on what the policy is. The key to democracy is that it provides something that there can be agreement upon, the PROCESS by which the policy will be decided.
The problem with the left is that they don't actually believe in democracy, except of course when it leads to the outcome that they want to see. When that outcome doesn't come, they quickly begin talking about how stupid voters are and how dangerous it is that so many people who obviously don't know what is good for them are allowed to have a say. Sound a little like the response to the 2004 election? All this in spite of the fact that the policies they espouse are demonstrably disastrous and have been every time and in every place they have ever been implemented. Who's stupid now?
The truth is that the American people are almost notoriously good at choosing good candidates and good policies. Our nation has gone from being a backwater British colony to become the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. This is not by accident. Our culture and our political system combine to create a nation where good ideas tend to win out in the end, not always mind you, but a lot more often than not. When we do embrace bad ideas, we're willing to take a step back and try again with something else long before disaster strikes.
There are a lot of people who seem to think that America is in trouble, that we're going down the tubes. Well I don't think so. There are problems to be faced just as there have always been, but our ability to meet those challenges is greater than at any other time in our history. Thanks to the internet the ability of the average voter to obtain many varied points of view on any given issue is at an all-time high. The fact that the Left no longer has a lock on the news media is also a very good thing. Not only that, but the ability of the lefties within the news media to lie and twist the facts is pretty much gone. Had something like the Memo-gate scam been attempted before the internet was ubiquitous it very likely would have succeeded. But because old media's lock on the eyes, ears and mind of the public was gone, the scam was quickly debunked, leading to the fall of Dan Rather and a deep stain upon the reputation of CBS News.
The more information the average voter has, the more quickly good ideas will be embraced and good policies implemented as a result. Not only is our nation in a better shape than it once was thanks to the internet, but imminent and nascent democracies around the world have a much greater chance of succeeding and growing into nations of the free. The fact that cleptocracies like China are working hard to stifle the power of the internet as an instrument of liberation are testaments to its potency. But even these evil men cannot hold back the tide forever. Our world grows more and more free each day. Freedom, which is the birthright of all mankind, will eventually become a reality for all mankind.
I'm not sure why RMS is still considered to be such an opinion leader. The man clearly suffers from an extreme case of Asperger's syndrome. As a result he does not know how to be diplomatic, does not know how and when to choose his battles, and in short does not understand how to relate to the public and effectively influence public opinion.
RMS has a talent for being extremely annoying. He can be 100% right about something, but because his strategy for presenting his case is to be gratingly obnoxious, the end result is opposition from others where there would otherwise be agreement.
The only people who seem to actually relate to his human relations skills are others who are similarly addled with Asperger's, and they make up a VERY small percentage of the overall population.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter whether RMS approves of a particular license or not. He isn't the one who makes the decision about what sort of a license should be used to distribute something under. It is the content creators (whether that content be text, media, or code) that make that decision. RMS's opinion matters about as much as mine does.
Now if you want some examples of people who ARE good at working a crowd, both ESR and Linus Torvalds seem to have a knack for it. Linus can be very forceful, but manages to do so without sounding whiny. ESR manages to be more eloquent than RMS and more sociable. That is not to say that the opinion of either matters more than that of RMS, at least when it comes to the use of licenses by 3rd parties. I'm only pointing them out as examples of opinion leaders within the open source community who manage to make their points without leave a bad taste in the readers mouth. I like RMS, I know he is a very brilliant programmer, but he desperately needs a press agent or other PR person to help him with the area where he is lacking, social skills.
"Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions.
In other words the process of voting will tend to choose the better candidate. The more people you have voting, the more likely this is to happen, regardless of their reasons for voting.
"If a slight shade more 20 year olds had voted in 2000, for example, how would history be different?"
* The US would be secretly paying yearly tribute to Al-Qaeda in the hope of preventing future attacks. * Al-Qaeda would have launched even more attacks against us, financed by the very tribute we paid to it. * Women in Afghanistan would still be living under the worst sort of misogynistic tyranny imaginable. * Saddam Hussein would still be murdering his own people and working to obtain nukes. * The UN and France would still be helping him do it via the "Food for Oil" program. * Iran's nuclear weapons aspirations would be a far more serious threat without the US Army to the east and west of it, and the US Navy sitting just off the coast. * Kim Il-Sung might actually dare to believe that we wouldn't turn North Korea into a parking lot.
I for one am very glad that so many idealistic 20 year olds voted....for Ralph Nader.
You see 20 year olds voting for those politicians who CLAIM to care really care about the environment and the world's state. In other words those 20 year olds were young enough to be had.
The only thing that a politician cares about is power. A firm pre-requisite for power is staying in office and that means votes. There is a reason why writing your senator or congressman makes a difference, and why they're VERY, VERY interested in whether you're a registered voter when you do. It is why they employ teams of statisticians to crunch the NES data to help them determine how many voters they have to keep happy back home in order to stay in office. Politicians are very principled, and the primary principle they believe in is fooling enough of the people enough of the time to maintain their position.
By the way, who am I supposed to vote for to get a better job, a bigger loan, or more money? The only person who can get those things for you is yourself. Anyone who thinks a politician is going to hand it to them is a bigger fool than the 20 year olds you mentioned.
A poster self identifies as a republican and you launch an ad-hominem attack upon him, accusing him of being a "fundy" when nothing in his post gave any reason to jump to that conclusion.
If I told you that my grandfather was German, would you immediately assume that he was an escaped Nazi war criminal? If I told you he was Russian would you assume he was one of Stalin's NKVD tortue specialists? If I told you he was of italian extraction and used to live in New York city, would you assume he was John Gotti?
It is clear that you don't know the difference between a mainstream Republican and a christian fundamentalist. The two are hardly similar to anyone actually familiar with then. If you can't tell the difference it is only because you are an extremist yourself. Only an extremest is unable discern differences in those they are ideologically opposed to.
I'm an agnostic libertarian who votes Republican, does that make me a "fundy" as well?
Anyone who is truly well educated would not call themselves an athiest. Or if they did call themselves one, they would concede that this belief is as much a matter of religious faith as anything anyone from any other religion believes. The existence of God is not falsifiable. The belief that there is no God is as much a matter of faith as the belief that there is a God.
When someone tells me that they're an athiest the only thing it says to me is that they've got issues. Some were raised by crazy people who used religion to justify their insanity. They therefore associate this religion with the pain that comes from being under the authority of an irrational asshat. From there it doesn't take much for them to associate all religion with this pain. When someone like this claims to be an athiest, what they're really claiming is that they don't believe in religion. The question of whether a particular religion (or any religion) is valid, is not the same as the question of whether god exists.
Other people who make the claim of being an athiest suffer from an inferiority complex. They think that not believing in God makes them smarter than everyone else. These are the ones who tend to advertise the fact that they are athiests in one way or another. They would have you believe that their take on the question of whether there is a God is derived from cautious rationalism. While in truth if they were really as cautious and rational as they claim they would never call themselves an athiest.
The most that anyone can say about whether god exists, at least without delving into the realm of faith, is that they don't know. Agnosticism is the only rational stance at this point because we quite frankly don't know if there is a god and it doesn't look like there is any way that we are going to find out any time soon.
I have a hard time believing you. What you've written (as an AC no less) sounds like a leftist fantasy or caricature of mainstream america. Unless you're going to George Wallace U. then what you've said here is either a lie or an extreme exaggeration.
I would argue that such tirades are even less appropriate within the context of a poly sci class. Those who devote their lives to the study of politics and the political process should know better than to fall victim to brain-dead partisanship. Unfortunately some 95% of poly sci professors self-identify themselves as Democrats. This is a big part of the reason that the humanities in general, and poly-sci in particular, have fallen into decay and disrepute. When an endeavor of the intellect is so thoroughly infected with intellectual dishonesty, failure is the inevitable result.
Slashdot Mirror
If someone is attempting to encourage others to commit crimes, such as attacking jewish or muslim temples, then that is what they should be charged with. Charging someone with "hate speech" or some other equally ridiculous nonsense when they are in fact guilty of attempting to incite violence or other criminal acts just doesn't make sense. If someone was guilty of murder or arson, would you charge them with the "crime" of wearing white after labor day?
Canada cleary has its priorities mixed up.
Lee
Only when there is nothing to refute it. You're missing the point, on purpose I might add. When information in controlled and only certain ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints are allowed, then it is VERY easy for those who decide what is allowed to literally determine what people think. This is one of the primary tools of coercive regimes. The reason why freedom of speech is enshrined in the 1st amendment is to help ensure that our society remains a free one.
And please don't try to tell me that you honestly believe that simply hearing something is going to sway anyone's opinion. If I told you the sky was green for the next 20 years would you ever believe it? I would certainly hope not. The point that Goebbels was making is that human beings CAN be convinced that the sky is green if they are prevented from seeing the sky itself. When dissent and opposing viewpoints are suppressed, even the most outlandish lie can eventually be sold to enough of the poeple enough of the time.
The only way that the beliefs of the neo-nazis, or any other insane group, could ever become public opinion, is if they were in a position to effectively suppress opposition to their ideas. In other words we would have to be living in a place like Nazi Germany, and creating laws that abridge the rights of those with unpopular beliefs is a very big step in that direction. A society is only as free as the minds of its citizens are free. That freedom applies to both those we like and agree with as well as those we dislike and disagree with. The moment that a society starts playing favorites is the moment that freedom is lost. When freedom is lost, all is lost.
Lee
I think that the ruling sends a very strong message that in Canada freedom of speech is not nearly as important as making sure that no one's feelings get hurt.
Why is protecting the rights of idiot white surpremacists important? Because they are the canary in the coal mine. When the rights of the unpopular are abridged, everyone's rights are in danger.
Univeral freedom of speech helps ensure the health of society. When unpleasant ideas and beliefs are expressed, it acts as a sort of innoculation against them. When these ideas are oppressed and only shared in secret, they tend to grow like a cancer beneath the surface of society, unknown and unchecked.
When universal freedom of speech is attacked and undermined, it sets the stage for further abuses. Just look at China. Is that what the people of Canada want for their children and grandchildren? Which is worse, living in a totalitarian regime, or living in a free society where you are sometimes subjected to ideas you do not agree with and find offensive?
The only effective means of thought control is information control, but don't take my word for it. Here's a quote from someone whose mastery of propaganda and its uses is unquestioned:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945
Abridging the rights of the unpopular is the first dangerous step towards the kind of world Goebbels lived in. Not only that but it serves no useful purpose even in the short run. Making neo-nazi's be quiet doesn't make them go away. All it does is ensure that their activities and efforts at recruitment are that much more difficult to detect.
You would think that people would know better, but then 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
Before you start in on what socialism is and isn't, you might actually want to spend some time living under it.
My wife is from the UK, which while not as bad as Sweden or Denmark, is still very socialist compared to the US. Things there are such that you just wouldn't believe it. Before I met her I never would have imagined how bad things are, how broken down and stagnant the country has become, and how dispirited and worn out the british people have become. It isn't as bad as eastern europe, but the difference is only a matter of degree.
Socialism, like communism, is evil. The difference between the two in the end is that while communism will destroy a society very quickly, with socialism the nation's demise is drawn out into a long lingering death ala the UK.
Capitalism works, socialism does not. The best case outcome for socialism is virtually indistinguishable from the worst case outcome of capitalism. Capitalism is based upon freedom. Socialism is based upon constraint of the individual for "their own good" or the supposed good of society. Any time you start interfering with the voluntary associations and economic transactions of individuals, you are taking a very big step towards tyranny.
The biggest reason why socialism is universally doomed to failure is that it is founded upon ideas about mankind that are patently false. It would be like trying to build a rocket ship to go to the moon off of cartoon logic. It just wouldn't work and in fact would most likely explode and kill a whole bunch of people. Socialism is founded upon the notion that human nature is different from what it actually is, AND that human nature can be changed. I'm sorry, but human nature has not changed in at least 6,000 years. You can't "educate" a person to work against their own self interest. Socialism is an idea that people may buy into at first, but only until they realize just how short-changed they are under it. Which is why socialism, and especially communism, inevitably become coercive systems.
The only world that I will agree to live in is one where people are free. Where each individual has rights and freedoms that are protected, and where the ability to protect those rights is in itself a right. I will not live in a society where a nanny-state tries to decide what is best for me, and punishes those who do not comply with its dictates. I will not live in a world where my rights are seen as an indulgence on the part of the state.
Human beings are either free or we are not. If we are free then we are free do decide for ourselves how we make our money and how we spend it. Socialism is an attempt to control how people make their money and how that money is spent. It is a usurption of the personal soverignty of the citizens upon whom it is inflicted. That so many would, at least at first, choose socialism is a testament to the folly of mankind.
Thank you for having the honesty and integrity to speak truthfully without beating around the bush, watering down your words with euphemisms, or otherwise cow-towing to those who beat the drum of political correctness.
PC is a means by which unpleasant realities are obscured. It does not do anyone any favors because doing the linguistic equivalent of sweeping something under the rug does not make it go away. It is a deeply flawed idea at best, and at worst a far more serious social ill than anything it is nominally supposed to help solve because it is guaranteed to make whatever it is applied to worse.
It would be nice if more people had the courage to tell the PC nazis where to shove their crap instead of allowing themselves to be browbeat. I think America would be a better place. All of the bigotry and prejudice that most people are so careful to tip-toe around would be subject to the light of day. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. When something is openly acknowledged it can be dealt with. When it is hidden away its influence persists wihout ever being addressed. You would think that people would understand this. But then again 50% of the population is of below average intelligence.
GM has been accused of bundling engines with transmissions, Pioneer has been accused of bundling speakers with stereo equipment and, Bob's big boy has been accused of bundling plates with silverware.
I agree completely and was a about to make a similar post myself.
Linux is as similar to Solaris, Irix, HP-UX, Tru64, and AIX as each is to any of the others. Now I know that one could make arguments about the pedigree of each having a common ancestor that Linux does not share, but does that really matter? Not only does Linux implement a posix compatible system call interface, but the very structure of the system is Unix. Someone who is a Linux admin will have very little problem mastering Solaris, and will most likely be able to solve many problems the very first time they try go use it.
I've never thought of Linux as anything other than Unix. The same is true of the BSD variants. The definition of Unix is pretty expansive and can even include operating systems like QNX or BeOS. If QNX as a real-time implementation of Posix can be considered Unix-like, why is Linux set apart as a distinct entity from Solaris, HP-UX, etc, etc?
Not including Linux as a version of Unix is like not classifying Fords as automobiles because they're not made by GM. If it has 4 tires, a steering wheel, and is primarily designed to travel on the road, then its a car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
So now you're trying to change the meaning of the word. If you want to play word games, go play with yourself. You knew full well what definition I was using and you wait until now to try and pretend we were talking about something else. Sorry Charlie, but that just doesn't fly.
You're absolutely right, you have given examples of sucessful communes. What you haven't done is addressed my point that there are no examples of successful NATIONS.
As I said before, even if communism works in small communities, it DOES NOT SCALE.
Political and economic freedom DO SCALE. Why choose communism when you can choose freedom? Why choose tyranny when you can choose liberty? Why choose economic oppression and slavery when you can choose economic enfranchisement? Why choose a bullet in the back of the head when you can choose life?
Oh so now capitalism makes people in other places miserable eh? I guess you guys have given up trying to convince all the happy, healthy people with a high standard of living here in America that their freedoms are cause for sorrow. So tell me, which country is being made into a living hell by my being free? Gondwanaland? Pangea? Mercia? Aquitaine? Gondor perhaps?
As for name calling, you're a progressive socially conscious humanist liberal! (And yes, I do kiss my mother with this mouth).
Here is a summary of the communist manifesto:
1. Abolition of private property.
2. Heavy progressive income tax.
3. Aboliton to all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. A Central bank.
6. Government control of Communications and Transportation.
7. Government ownership of factories and agriculture.
8. Government control of labor.
9. Corporate farms, regional planning.
10. Free education for all children in govenment contolled schools.
If you don't understand that this adds up to tyranny then I hope it's because you're still in grammar school.
Communism is put forth as a workable system for NATIONS, not communes, not small villages. Even if communism worked at this level, it sure as hell doesn't scale now does it? And I happen to know that it in fact does NOT work even for communes and small villages. I know this because one of my best friends is a recovering leftist who spent much of the early 70's trying to make various communes that he was a part of work. All of them, as he put it, "failed spectacularly."
Freedom, liberty, human rights...these DO SCALE.
The most concise and yet still comprehensive definition of communism I know of is this: PURE FUCKING EVIL.
Yes, please don't conflate gravity with the curvature of space-time caused by mass.
Communism has resulted in tyranny and oppression every single time it has ever been attempted. It doesn't matter if you're talking about the Soviet Union, China, East Germany, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, or any of the other nations that fell victim to it. The result is always the same, hell on earth.
Statements like the one that you made are proof of either ideological lunacy, willfull ignorance, stupidity, or some combination thereof.
Lee
When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
It sounds to me like the people who are pushing for standardization only know that one language they want everyone to standardize on. They're not trying to make things easier for EVERYONE, they're just trying to make things easier for themselves.
Anyone who is limited to a single language is essentially incompetent. If they lack the natural curiosity to seek out and experiment with new development tools and languages, then they're pretty much worthless.
I work as a sysadmin, but even I know how to code in C/C++, Java, Perl, Bourne shell scripts and even visual basic. If someone told me I had to "standardize" on just one of the above, I'd KNOW they were either crazy or stupid.
I think you really need to consider finding employment someone else, hopefully someplace where the idiot quotient wasn't quite so high.
Lee
Attitudes like his are very common among the political left. You see, they don't actually believe in democracy.
In any nation there will always be disagreement on public policy, on what the government should or should not do. There will never be complete agreement on what the policy is. The key to democracy is that it provides something that there can be agreement upon, the PROCESS by which the policy will be decided.
The problem with the left is that they don't actually believe in democracy, except of course when it leads to the outcome that they want to see. When that outcome doesn't come, they quickly begin talking about how stupid voters are and how dangerous it is that so many people who obviously don't know what is good for them are allowed to have a say. Sound a little like the response to the 2004 election? All this in spite of the fact that the policies they espouse are demonstrably disastrous and have been every time and in every place they have ever been implemented. Who's stupid now?
The truth is that the American people are almost notoriously good at choosing good candidates and good policies. Our nation has gone from being a backwater British colony to become the most powerful nation the world has ever seen. This is not by accident. Our culture and our political system combine to create a nation where good ideas tend to win out in the end, not always mind you, but a lot more often than not. When we do embrace bad ideas, we're willing to take a step back and try again with something else long before disaster strikes.
There are a lot of people who seem to think that America is in trouble, that we're going down the tubes. Well I don't think so. There are problems to be faced just as there have always been, but our ability to meet those challenges is greater than at any other time in our history. Thanks to the internet the ability of the average voter to obtain many varied points of view on any given issue is at an all-time high. The fact that the Left no longer has a lock on the news media is also a very good thing. Not only that, but the ability of the lefties within the news media to lie and twist the facts is pretty much gone. Had something like the Memo-gate scam been attempted before the internet was ubiquitous it very likely would have succeeded. But because old media's lock on the eyes, ears and mind of the public was gone, the scam was quickly debunked, leading to the fall of Dan Rather and a deep stain upon the reputation of CBS News.
The more information the average voter has, the more quickly good ideas will be embraced and good policies implemented as a result. Not only is our nation in a better shape than it once was thanks to the internet, but imminent and nascent democracies around the world have a much greater chance of succeeding and growing into nations of the free. The fact that cleptocracies like China are working hard to stifle the power of the internet as an instrument of liberation are testaments to its potency. But even these evil men cannot hold back the tide forever. Our world grows more and more free each day. Freedom, which is the birthright of all mankind, will eventually become a reality for all mankind.
Lee
I'm not sure why RMS is still considered to be such an opinion leader. The man clearly suffers from an extreme case of Asperger's syndrome. As a result he does not know how to be diplomatic, does not know how and when to choose his battles, and in short does not understand how to relate to the public and effectively influence public opinion.
RMS has a talent for being extremely annoying. He can be 100% right about something, but because his strategy for presenting his case is to be gratingly obnoxious, the end result is opposition from others where there would otherwise be agreement.
The only people who seem to actually relate to his human relations skills are others who are similarly addled with Asperger's, and they make up a VERY small percentage of the overall population.
At the end of the day it doesn't matter whether RMS approves of a particular license or not. He isn't the one who makes the decision about what sort of a license should be used to distribute something under. It is the content creators (whether that content be text, media, or code) that make that decision. RMS's opinion matters about as much as mine does.
Now if you want some examples of people who ARE good at working a crowd, both ESR and Linus Torvalds seem to have a knack for it. Linus can be very forceful, but manages to do so without sounding whiny. ESR manages to be more eloquent than RMS and more sociable. That is not to say that the opinion of either matters more than that of RMS, at least when it comes to the use of licenses by 3rd parties. I'm only pointing them out as examples of opinion leaders within the open source community who manage to make their points without leave a bad taste in the readers mouth. I like RMS, I know he is a very brilliant programmer, but he desperately needs a press agent or other PR person to help him with the area where he is lacking, social skills.
Lee
Large voter turnouts lead to "the rule of the dumbest"
- 05.mp3e _wisdom_of_g_1.html
3 33566-8455228?v=glance&n=283155
NO, it leads to the rule of the AVERAGE.
You have heard of bell curve distribution right?
Also the larger the group, the smarter the outcome:
http://webcast-law.uchicago.edu/levmore-cbi-09-29
http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2005/11/th
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385503865/002-7
"Wise crowds" need (1) diversity of opinion; (2) independence of members from one another; (3) decentralization; and (4) a good method for aggregating opinions.
In other words the process of voting will tend to choose the better candidate. The more people you have voting, the more likely this is to happen, regardless of their reasons for voting.
"If a slight shade more 20 year olds had voted in 2000, for example, how would history be different?"
* The US would be secretly paying yearly tribute to Al-Qaeda in the hope of preventing future attacks.
* Al-Qaeda would have launched even more attacks against us, financed by the very tribute we paid to it.
* Women in Afghanistan would still be living under the worst sort of misogynistic tyranny imaginable.
* Saddam Hussein would still be murdering his own people and working to obtain nukes.
* The UN and France would still be helping him do it via the "Food for Oil" program.
* Iran's nuclear weapons aspirations would be a far more serious threat without the US Army to the east and west of it, and the US Navy sitting just off the coast.
* Kim Il-Sung might actually dare to believe that we wouldn't turn North Korea into a parking lot.
I for one am very glad that so many idealistic 20 year olds voted....for Ralph Nader.
You see 20 year olds voting for those politicians who CLAIM to care really care about the environment and the world's state. In other words those 20 year olds were young enough to be had.
The only thing that a politician cares about is power. A firm pre-requisite for power is staying in office and that means votes. There is a reason why writing your senator or congressman makes a difference, and why they're VERY, VERY interested in whether you're a registered voter when you do. It is why they employ teams of statisticians to crunch the NES data to help them determine how many voters they have to keep happy back home in order to stay in office. Politicians are very principled, and the primary principle they believe in is fooling enough of the people enough of the time to maintain their position.
By the way, who am I supposed to vote for to get a better job, a bigger loan, or more money? The only person who can get those things for you is yourself. Anyone who thinks a politician is going to hand it to them is a bigger fool than the 20 year olds you mentioned.
A poster self identifies as a republican and you launch an ad-hominem attack upon him, accusing him of being a "fundy" when nothing in his post gave any reason to jump to that conclusion.
If I told you that my grandfather was German, would you immediately assume that he was an escaped Nazi war criminal? If I told you he was Russian would you assume he was one of Stalin's NKVD tortue specialists? If I told you he was of italian extraction and used to live in New York city, would you assume he was John Gotti?
It is clear that you don't know the difference between a mainstream Republican and a christian fundamentalist. The two are hardly similar to anyone actually familiar with then. If you can't tell the difference it is only because you are an extremist yourself. Only an extremest is unable discern differences in those they are ideologically opposed to.
I'm an agnostic libertarian who votes Republican, does that make me a "fundy" as well?
Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
"left-wing radicalism" + "political correctness" = an equally deadly combination.
"well educated athiests"
Am I the only one who sees the irony here?
Anyone who is truly well educated would not call themselves an athiest. Or if they did call themselves one, they would concede that this belief is as much a matter of religious faith as anything anyone from any other religion believes. The existence of God is not falsifiable. The belief that there is no God is as much a matter of faith as the belief that there is a God.
When someone tells me that they're an athiest the only thing it says to me is that they've got issues. Some were raised by crazy people who used religion to justify their insanity. They therefore associate this religion with the pain that comes from being under the authority of an irrational asshat. From there it doesn't take much for them to associate all religion with this pain. When someone like this claims to be an athiest, what they're really claiming is that they don't believe in religion. The question of whether a particular religion (or any religion) is valid, is not the same as the question of whether god exists.
Other people who make the claim of being an athiest suffer from an inferiority complex. They think that not believing in God makes them smarter than everyone else. These are the ones who tend to advertise the fact that they are athiests in one way or another. They would have you believe that their take on the question of whether there is a God is derived from cautious rationalism. While in truth if they were really as cautious and rational as they claim they would never call themselves an athiest.
The most that anyone can say about whether god exists, at least without delving into the realm of faith, is that they don't know. Agnosticism is the only rational stance at this point because we quite frankly don't know if there is a god and it doesn't look like there is any way that we are going to find out any time soon.
I have a hard time believing you. What you've written (as an AC no less) sounds like a leftist fantasy or caricature of mainstream america. Unless you're going to George Wallace U. then what you've said here is either a lie or an extreme exaggeration.
I would argue that such tirades are even less appropriate within the context of a poly sci class. Those who devote their lives to the study of politics and the political process should know better than to fall victim to brain-dead partisanship. Unfortunately some 95% of poly sci professors self-identify themselves as Democrats. This is a big part of the reason that the humanities in general, and poly-sci in particular, have fallen into decay and disrepute. When an endeavor of the intellect is so thoroughly infected with intellectual dishonesty, failure is the inevitable result.