Boy! After endorsing something as useful as Butterfingers endorsing a CueCat would certainly be a step down, wouldn't it? Tasty candy vs. blatant marketing tool... Hmmmmmmmmm. Let me think.
Fuck that. The Simpsons sold out a long time ago. I happen to agree with Bill Hicks on this one: Once you've sold out once you've sold out forever, and every word that comes out of your mouth is suspect.
But hey, greed is good, right? That's what Ayn Rand says!
1) Fundamentalist Christians believe the universe was created in 7 days.
2) Science proves it is more like 10 billion years.
3) Therefore, God doesn't exist.
That is overly simplistic, and a straw-man in any case.
Most ahtiests (myself included) deny God's existence because He has steadfastly refused to show himself. We can see the Earth, the moon, the planets, but there is no God to be seen, especially one who does deeds which are so typically attributed to him in holy texts.
Let me tell you a story: During the recent struggles in Bosnia, there were several similar stories told by bereaved mothers. Their stories all had common elements, but there was no hard proof to back them up, alas. It went something like this: Bosnian troops would show up and begin harrassing a family of ethnic Albanians. The soldiers would make funny faces at an infant in its mother's arms, then hold a gun to its face. When it reached for the gun, wanting to play with this interesting toy, they would blow it's head off.
Where's your God, you fuck? And don't say it doesn't happen, because you know that shit like this goes on all the time in the world. If there is one thing that is common throughout history it is humanity's relentless brutality. Whether it's Genghis Khan storing the heads of conquered peoples under the floor of his dining hall, or the Turks nailing victims up to poles by their ears, or American troops in Vietnam raping 11 year olds, or Stalin or Hitler or the Bataan Death March or the Inquisition, it happens, and it happens over and over and over again. And God does nothing. Ever.
Darwinism is just another notch on the bedpost. And you know who's getting fucked? God. Consistently.
IMHO, cheating is when you are carrying on a relationship with someone other than your partner and you are hiding it from them. If both parties are up-front about it and are cool with it then it's swinging, not cheating. If, however, your romance (online or not) is being kept secret, then it's cheating.
Ex: There have been a couple of times (yes, twice) where my wife & I have gotten hammered at a party and engaged in some naughty-naughty with someone at the party. We were both present and definately happy about it. No cheating. If, however, I or my wife had done this without the consent or knowledge of the other, well there woulda been hell to pay.
And, for that matter, who are you to ridicule somebody for their religious beliefs, as your post implies?
Absolutely! There have been more ridiculous dogmas perpetuated by religious institutions than just about anything else. "One man's religion is another man's belly laugh", as the old saw goes. Just because *you* happen to think your religion isn't funny doesn't mean that it isn't (or shouldn't be) to others.
Two words: Ritualistic cannibalism. Now *that's* funny. "Show me you worship me by eating me." Absurd!
But surreptitiously releasing a modified copy of "I Love You", we were able to determine with a high degree of accuracy which of our resources were, in fact, complete and total dipshits. After sending out a company wide email with the subject "WARNING: I Love You! DO NOT OPEN! VIRUS INSIDE!", many, many employees (mostly from legal and marketing) were immediately identified as being dipshits. We cut the fat, as it were, and are now a leaner, smarter organization better able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, sans dipshits.
Problem with that is that I *enjoy* sharing my stuff. Most of the stuff I have is Bill Hicks material that is unavailable via retail outlets, Noam Chomsky speeches, Jello Biafra, things like that. I have no desire to have marketing organisms take *yet another* good idea and pervert it for their own twisted materialistic schemes. But I do want to share the MP3s I have collected to people who are interested in these things. Since they are unavailable from other sources, Napster is the best medium for their distribution. Yes, there are other channels available. But I don't have to approve or encourage it. It's Napster-spam, nothing more.
Before all you liberals start loudly complaining (yet again) about the inadequacies of the marketplace, I'd like to remind you that if you don't like what this company is doing you can a) not work for them, and/or b) not buy their goods or services. The market is the best place to vent these frustrations, and whining incessantly about it like some fussy-headed Naderite or Democrat does no one any good whatsoever. Money has its own morality, and when you live in a society such as ours certain sacrifices must be made so that corporations can continue to thrive and grow. Your right to be free from coporate intimidation is something that is certainly desirable, but in certain situations (such as this) it is nevertheless unattainable. We must never forget about the bottom line. As Clinton said and as Bush learned: "It's the economy, stupid." Cross paths with corporations at your own -- and your nations -- peril.
- Rev.
Re:The decision is obvious, different buyers targe
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Is It OK To Sucks?
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Small correction: That was *not* Nelson Mandela. Mandela has a very solid head on his sholders. Rather, it was current South African president Thabo Mbeki. He did indeed get the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS from the web and unscrupulous doctors therein.
So what? Yes, Disney is a plaintiff in the DeCSS case. No, the author of this story is not a party to this suit, except peripherally as an employee of Disney. The editors at Discover obviously thought that this story was worth running, so let's give them credit for that. Subtly implying that because the author is employed by an unscrupulous corporation does not, ergo, make him unscrupulous.
Fix the DMCA: Support McCain - Feingold
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IMHO, the best way to fix the general problem of corporate abuse in the political arena is to take away their ability to grease the palms of politicians and their parties. Please consider not only opposing the DMCA-like bills whenever they come before Congress, but also supporting campaign finance reform. This will take away the biggest weapon that corporations have in influencing legislation more than is just. We are (again IMHO) sliding towards being governed by a de facto plutocracy, something that none of us want to see, no matter how libertarian we might be. So please, purty please, do whatever you think is best to help get campaign finance reform passed so that nefarious legislation such as the DMCA have a much harder time of getting passed in the future.
It is possible to support the free market but not support the market holding the reigns of legislators.
PRISON is for keeping violent people from hurting the rest of society.
Umm, ever heard of blue-collar crimes? If an unscrupulous stockbroker steals $X million dollars from Y l'il ol' ladies, I certainly hope that he would go to prison, whether he is violent or not. Legally there was no violence involved, but there was certainly a heinous crime worthy of punishment.
Now, while I agree with you that in America the "Book em, Danno" mindset towards people who commit crimes is way, way, way overused, I do think there are still circumstances where non-violent offenders should be locked away. This is one of them. Smoking/selling marijuana/LSD/ecstasy, buying/reading/selling porn, and worshipping Satan should not be against the law. But there are no financial losses involved in any of these. (Indeed, in the case of worshipping Satan, great financial gains can be realized. Look how well Torvalds is doing!)
coming from someone a little to the right, I can assure you that bush WILL NOT overturn roe vs. wade and neither will the supreme court.
I can assure that this is unequivocably not true. Rhenquist, Scalia, and Thomas are all very, very pro-life. They feel that not only was Roe v. Wade wrong from a moral perspective, they feel it was a bad decision on Constitutional grounds. They have consistently and persistently let it be known these facts, and they haven't changed these views since their appointments. Stare decisis is not held very highly in the Rhenquist court, so I doubt that would prevent them from overturning it, either.
So what is my spelling sucks, its not a requirement(sp) to get by in this world is it?
No, it's not a requirement. But if you want people to take you seriously (which I assume you do, otherwise you wouldn't post) then it helps to have good writing skills. The only thing that comes out of bad spelling is a loss of respect and credibility.
Marijuana kills brain cells. It is a scientific fact. If you smoke enough of the stuff, your brain is literally going to begin to shrink.
Oh really, fuckface? Got a source for that? I'd LOVE to read it. I've been doing research on cannabinoids and psychedelics for ten years now, and there quite simply have been no studies of this kind. So if you can make one materialize and give me a source (URL, journal entry, I don't care) I'll give you 50 bucks.
What the HELL is this article doing on Slashdot? Serriously.. Has this become some forum like IRC where worthless conversations drown out the one or two good threads a day? Can I please here about something REMOTELY related to "news for nerds"?
Because, man, Roblimo, CmdrTaco, and the whole crew smoke pot like fiends. Here's a fact: everyone who is cool smokes pot. Malda is cool, therefore he smokes pot. CmdrTaco is cool, therefore he smokes pot. C'mon, everybody's doin it. Join in. We'd love to have you.
First off, here is the first paragraph from Chapter 20 of "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts" by Lynn Zimmer, Ph. D, and John P. Morgan, M.D.:
Today's adolescents have been bombarded with anti-marijuana messages. They were born during the early 1980's, just as President Ronald Reagan was focusing the drug war on marijuana, and just as Nancy Reagan was introducing her "just say no" slogan to American culture. Today's teenagers have had more drug education than any cohort of young people in American history. Aboutl half have received DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program... Despite this onslaught of anti-drug messages, the number of teenagers trying marijuana began rising in 1992, and has risen every year since... Mass campagins against drugs can even be counterproductive. The primary consequence of public warnings about glue sniffing in the 1960s seems to have been to introduce glue-sniffing to young people who otherwise might not have heard of it.
Here are some of the sources used in this chapter:
Baum, D., Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, Boston: Little Brown and Company (1996)
National Institute on Justice, "The DARE Program: A Review of Prevalence, User Satisfaction, and Effectiveness," National Institute of Justice Update, Washington, D.C.
Rosenbaum, D.P. et al., "Cops in the Classroom: A Longitudinal Evaluation of DARE," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 31:3-31 (1994)
Every study that has examined the effectiveness of DARE has failed to show a correlation linking the program with a decrease in adolescent or adult drug use. If the purpose of the program is to get people to not use drugs, it has been a total failure. Total. TOTAL. It does not work.
DRCNet has a section dealing with DARE that is very enlightening. The Detroit News has an archived version of an anti-DARE article available here, and the American Psychological Association has a study showing DARE's lack of effectiveness here. And the Austin Chronicle has an article about how that city's police department dropped DARE due to its costliness and ineffectiveness.
Pot is a crime because it's obnoxious. Like I said, it's an airborn intoxicant. You can't keep it to yourself, and you might just want to share it more freely if it were legal. It's outlawed for the same reasons concealed firearms, special nuclear materials and unliscenced explosives are outlawed (think principle, not scale here). People who mess around with these things can inadvertantly harm others.
I would just like to highlight the above quote as proof that you are either a) a complete idiot, or b) an erudite troll. I suspect b).
So, Herr Troll, if someone partakes of weed in their homes, wherein lies the problem? And if you are so concerned about Big Tobacco selling marijuana, why not decriminalize it instead? I.e.: prohibit the sale, but do not persecute possession. If I grow the plant in my house, smoke it in my house, and thereafter doze off in my house, where is the crime?
I will not try to convince you of this here, but there has been widespread abuse by cops in their zealous enforcement of the Drug War. Please investigate this further on you own, as I am sure you will find that there have been many, many more questionable "raids" by cops than is commonly realized. I, too, felt the way that you did at one point, but have come to the conclusion that the combination of SWAT-like tactics and asset forfeiture has lead to a dangerous combination. In fact, Congress has hearings just one or two years ago about this very issue. Check Thomas for archives of the hearing.
I seriously, seriously doubt that any legislation that is worded so that it outlaws Bugtraq (et al) will pass constitutional muster. The Court has repeatedly and persistently held that for prior restraints on free speech to be Constitutional there must be a threat to national security involved, or other similar extreme cases. Yes, the cynics out there will point out FCC v. Pacifica, but cases such as these are rare. Generally speaking the Court sides on the favor of the First Amendment (see Reno v. ACLU for a recent example.)
IMHO, should a treaty get signed that is a blatant 1st Amendment violation, I would love to see the Court's take on it, both as a matter of international and constitutional law.
Not to mention the fact that it will be unenforcable. Txt philez will still propogate. In fact, I believe that such a treaty would only serve to increase the dissemination of quote-unquote hacking information, based on the forbidden fruit factor.
The only time you really have no choice is if one company has a monopoly for an essential product or service (sound like government to you?)
Whatever, man. What if every single producer of widgets that is out there decides that the best (i.e. cheapest) way of producing their product is to belch poison into the atmosphere? I have yet to see an answer from the libertarians to the Tragedy of the Commons problem that is worth a shit. Yeah, I can start up my own company that uses non-toxic measures, but the average mall-robot doesn't give a flying fuck about means of production, they just want cheap goods. 'Slave labor used by Nike? Fuck it, they make me look cool.' It's necessary for governments to step in whenever corporations collectively fail to address environmental concerns. Do you think that auto manufacturers would put in catalytic converters, or indeed have switched to unleaded gas, without governmental pressure? I don't fucking think so.
Which reminds me: What about Jim Crow Laws? If we stuck to the libertarian philosophy, those uppity niggers would still be sitting at the back of the bus and pissing in seperate stalls. 'But Jim Crow was backed by the government! Without government blacks would have been able to shop where they wanted to!' Bullshit. Instead of cops keeping blacks out of shoe stores it would have been the store owners and lynch mobs. The people of the Deep South fucking hated blacks. It took federal legislation, judicial oversight, and the fucking National Guard to get those asses to see the error of their ways. You wanna try and tell me that justice would have prevailed using free market principles alone?
Libertarianism damn near requires omniscience from consumers about the supply chain of the products or services they're buying. Governmental oversight is both necessary and just plain intelligent, even if it ups the price. Its a good philosophy to start from , but in the real world it rarely works.
Here's the deal: Government is a player in the economy. Since there have been goverments, they have been players in the economy. Governments will ALWAYS be players in the economy. This is a fact. It would serve well to keep it in mind.
Slashdot Mirror
Boy! After endorsing something as useful as Butterfingers endorsing a CueCat would certainly be a step down, wouldn't it? Tasty candy vs. blatant marketing tool... Hmmmmmmmmm. Let me think.
Fuck that. The Simpsons sold out a long time ago. I happen to agree with Bill Hicks on this one: Once you've sold out once you've sold out forever, and every word that comes out of your mouth is suspect.
But hey, greed is good, right? That's what Ayn Rand says!
- Rev.
1) Fundamentalist Christians believe the universe was created in 7 days.
2) Science proves it is more like 10 billion years.
3) Therefore, God doesn't exist.
That is overly simplistic, and a straw-man in any case.
Most ahtiests (myself included) deny God's existence because He has steadfastly refused to show himself. We can see the Earth, the moon, the planets, but there is no God to be seen, especially one who does deeds which are so typically attributed to him in holy texts.
Let me tell you a story: During the recent struggles in Bosnia, there were several similar stories told by bereaved mothers. Their stories all had common elements, but there was no hard proof to back them up, alas. It went something like this: Bosnian troops would show up and begin harrassing a family of ethnic Albanians. The soldiers would make funny faces at an infant in its mother's arms, then hold a gun to its face. When it reached for the gun, wanting to play with this interesting toy, they would blow it's head off.
Where's your God, you fuck? And don't say it doesn't happen, because you know that shit like this goes on all the time in the world. If there is one thing that is common throughout history it is humanity's relentless brutality. Whether it's Genghis Khan storing the heads of conquered peoples under the floor of his dining hall, or the Turks nailing victims up to poles by their ears, or American troops in Vietnam raping 11 year olds, or Stalin or Hitler or the Bataan Death March or the Inquisition, it happens, and it happens over and over and over again. And God does nothing. Ever.
Darwinism is just another notch on the bedpost. And you know who's getting fucked? God. Consistently.
- Rev.Yes, but we have more orgasms than most.
- Rev.
Off topic, but what's the name of that song you got those lyrics from? I gotta get me that.
On topic: I kinda disagree. Yes, masturbation is usually involved. But masturbation with another person is still cheating, imho.
- Rev.
IMHO, cheating is when you are carrying on a relationship with someone other than your partner and you are hiding it from them. If both parties are up-front about it and are cool with it then it's swinging, not cheating. If, however, your romance (online or not) is being kept secret, then it's cheating.
Ex: There have been a couple of times (yes, twice) where my wife & I have gotten hammered at a party and engaged in some naughty-naughty with someone at the party. We were both present and definately happy about it. No cheating. If, however, I or my wife had done this without the consent or knowledge of the other, well there woulda been hell to pay.
YMMV.
- Rev.
And, for that matter, who are you to ridicule somebody for their religious beliefs, as your post implies?
Absolutely! There have been more ridiculous dogmas perpetuated by religious institutions than just about anything else. "One man's religion is another man's belly laugh", as the old saw goes. Just because *you* happen to think your religion isn't funny doesn't mean that it isn't (or shouldn't be) to others.
Two words: Ritualistic cannibalism. Now *that's* funny. "Show me you worship me by eating me." Absurd!
- Rev.But surreptitiously releasing a modified copy of "I Love You", we were able to determine with a high degree of accuracy which of our resources were, in fact, complete and total dipshits. After sending out a company wide email with the subject "WARNING: I Love You! DO NOT OPEN! VIRUS INSIDE!", many, many employees (mostly from legal and marketing) were immediately identified as being dipshits. We cut the fat, as it were, and are now a leaner, smarter organization better able to meet the challenges of the 21st century, sans dipshits.
Problem with that is that I *enjoy* sharing my stuff. Most of the stuff I have is Bill Hicks material that is unavailable via retail outlets, Noam Chomsky speeches, Jello Biafra, things like that. I have no desire to have marketing organisms take *yet another* good idea and pervert it for their own twisted materialistic schemes. But I do want to share the MP3s I have collected to people who are interested in these things. Since they are unavailable from other sources, Napster is the best medium for their distribution. Yes, there are other channels available. But I don't have to approve or encourage it. It's Napster-spam, nothing more.
Before all you liberals start loudly complaining (yet again) about the inadequacies of the marketplace, I'd like to remind you that if you don't like what this company is doing you can a) not work for them, and/or b) not buy their goods or services. The market is the best place to vent these frustrations, and whining incessantly about it like some fussy-headed Naderite or Democrat does no one any good whatsoever. Money has its own morality, and when you live in a society such as ours certain sacrifices must be made so that corporations can continue to thrive and grow. Your right to be free from coporate intimidation is something that is certainly desirable, but in certain situations (such as this) it is nevertheless unattainable. We must never forget about the bottom line. As Clinton said and as Bush learned: "It's the economy, stupid." Cross paths with corporations at your own -- and your nations -- peril.
- Rev.
Small correction: That was *not* Nelson Mandela. Mandela has a very solid head on his sholders. Rather, it was current South African president Thabo Mbeki. He did indeed get the idea that HIV does not cause AIDS from the web and unscrupulous doctors therein.
- Rev.
So what? Yes, Disney is a plaintiff in the DeCSS case. No, the author of this story is not a party to this suit, except peripherally as an employee of Disney. The editors at Discover obviously thought that this story was worth running, so let's give them credit for that. Subtly implying that because the author is employed by an unscrupulous corporation does not, ergo, make him unscrupulous.
IMHO, the best way to fix the general problem of corporate abuse in the political arena is to take away their ability to grease the palms of politicians and their parties. Please consider not only opposing the DMCA-like bills whenever they come before Congress, but also supporting campaign finance reform. This will take away the biggest weapon that corporations have in influencing legislation more than is just. We are (again IMHO) sliding towards being governed by a de facto plutocracy, something that none of us want to see, no matter how libertarian we might be. So please, purty please, do whatever you think is best to help get campaign finance reform passed so that nefarious legislation such as the DMCA have a much harder time of getting passed in the future.
It is possible to support the free market but not support the market holding the reigns of legislators.
- Rev.PRISON is for keeping violent people from hurting the rest of society.
Umm, ever heard of blue-collar crimes? If an unscrupulous stockbroker steals $X million dollars from Y l'il ol' ladies, I certainly hope that he would go to prison, whether he is violent or not. Legally there was no violence involved, but there was certainly a heinous crime worthy of punishment.
Now, while I agree with you that in America the "Book em, Danno" mindset towards people who commit crimes is way, way, way overused, I do think there are still circumstances where non-violent offenders should be locked away. This is one of them. Smoking/selling marijuana/LSD/ecstasy, buying/reading/selling porn, and worshipping Satan should not be against the law. But there are no financial losses involved in any of these. (Indeed, in the case of worshipping Satan, great financial gains can be realized. Look how well Torvalds is doing!)
That's a load. This is great news for the Linux shrink-wrap software movement.
Y'know, whenever politicians do this, I believe it's called "spin".
- Rev.coming from someone a little to the right, I can assure you that bush WILL NOT overturn roe vs. wade and neither will the supreme court.
I can assure that this is unequivocably not true. Rhenquist, Scalia, and Thomas are all very, very pro-life. They feel that not only was Roe v. Wade wrong from a moral perspective, they feel it was a bad decision on Constitutional grounds. They have consistently and persistently let it be known these facts, and they haven't changed these views since their appointments. Stare decisis is not held very highly in the Rhenquist court, so I doubt that would prevent them from overturning it, either.
- Rev.I think YOU need to run for office. I'd sure as shit vote for you. - Rev.
So what is my spelling sucks, its not a requirement(sp) to get by in this world is it?
No, it's not a requirement. But if you want people to take you seriously (which I assume you do, otherwise you wouldn't post) then it helps to have good writing skills. The only thing that comes out of bad spelling is a loss of respect and credibility.
- Rev.Marijuana kills brain cells. It is a scientific fact. If you smoke enough of the stuff, your brain is literally going to begin to shrink.
Oh really, fuckface? Got a source for that? I'd LOVE to read it. I've been doing research on cannabinoids and psychedelics for ten years now, and there quite simply have been no studies of this kind. So if you can make one materialize and give me a source (URL, journal entry, I don't care) I'll give you 50 bucks.
- Rev.Dude, it makes you stupid. That's why they call it dope. It messes with your head directly and lasts much longer than boozing.
Proportionally, there are more people who are straight and stupid than are stoners and stupid. This has been my personal experience, anyway.
What the HELL is this article doing on Slashdot? Serriously.. Has this become some forum like IRC where worthless conversations drown out the one or two good threads a day? Can I please here about something REMOTELY related to "news for nerds"?
Because, man, Roblimo, CmdrTaco, and the whole crew smoke pot like fiends. Here's a fact: everyone who is cool smokes pot. Malda is cool, therefore he smokes pot. CmdrTaco is cool, therefore he smokes pot. C'mon, everybody's doin it. Join in. We'd love to have you.
- Rev.First off, here is the first paragraph from Chapter 20 of "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts" by Lynn Zimmer, Ph. D, and John P. Morgan, M.D.:
Here are some of the sources used in this chapter:
Baum, D., Smoke and Mirrors: The War on Drugs and the Politics of Failure, Boston: Little Brown and Company (1996)
National Institute on Justice, "The DARE Program: A Review of Prevalence, User Satisfaction, and Effectiveness," National Institute of Justice Update, Washington, D.C.
Rosenbaum, D.P. et al., "Cops in the Classroom: A Longitudinal Evaluation of DARE," Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 31:3-31 (1994)
Every study that has examined the effectiveness of DARE has failed to show a correlation linking the program with a decrease in adolescent or adult drug use. If the purpose of the program is to get people to not use drugs, it has been a total failure. Total. TOTAL. It does not work.
DRCNet has a section dealing with DARE that is very enlightening. The Detroit News has an archived version of an anti-DARE article available here, and the American Psychological Association has a study showing DARE's lack of effectiveness here. And the Austin Chronicle has an article about how that city's police department dropped DARE due to its costliness and ineffectiveness.
- Rev.Pot is a crime because it's obnoxious. Like I said, it's an airborn intoxicant. You can't keep it to yourself, and you might just want to share it more freely if it were legal. It's outlawed for the same reasons concealed firearms, special nuclear materials and unliscenced explosives are outlawed (think principle, not scale here). People who mess around with these things can inadvertantly harm others.
I would just like to highlight the above quote as proof that you are either a) a complete idiot, or b) an erudite troll. I suspect b).
So, Herr Troll, if someone partakes of weed in their homes, wherein lies the problem? And if you are so concerned about Big Tobacco selling marijuana, why not decriminalize it instead? I.e.: prohibit the sale, but do not persecute possession. If I grow the plant in my house, smoke it in my house, and thereafter doze off in my house, where is the crime?
Take a hike, banal scum.
- Rev.I will not try to convince you of this here, but there has been widespread abuse by cops in their zealous enforcement of the Drug War. Please investigate this further on you own, as I am sure you will find that there have been many, many more questionable "raids" by cops than is commonly realized. I, too, felt the way that you did at one point, but have come to the conclusion that the combination of SWAT-like tactics and asset forfeiture has lead to a dangerous combination. In fact, Congress has hearings just one or two years ago about this very issue. Check Thomas for archives of the hearing.
- Rev.I seriously, seriously doubt that any legislation that is worded so that it outlaws Bugtraq (et al) will pass constitutional muster. The Court has repeatedly and persistently held that for prior restraints on free speech to be Constitutional there must be a threat to national security involved, or other similar extreme cases. Yes, the cynics out there will point out FCC v. Pacifica, but cases such as these are rare. Generally speaking the Court sides on the favor of the First Amendment (see Reno v. ACLU for a recent example.)
IMHO, should a treaty get signed that is a blatant 1st Amendment violation, I would love to see the Court's take on it, both as a matter of international and constitutional law.
Not to mention the fact that it will be unenforcable. Txt philez will still propogate. In fact, I believe that such a treaty would only serve to increase the dissemination of quote-unquote hacking information, based on the forbidden fruit factor.
The only time you really have no choice is if one company has a monopoly for an essential product or service (sound like government to you?)
Whatever, man. What if every single producer of widgets that is out there decides that the best (i.e. cheapest) way of producing their product is to belch poison into the atmosphere? I have yet to see an answer from the libertarians to the Tragedy of the Commons problem that is worth a shit. Yeah, I can start up my own company that uses non-toxic measures, but the average mall-robot doesn't give a flying fuck about means of production, they just want cheap goods. 'Slave labor used by Nike? Fuck it, they make me look cool.' It's necessary for governments to step in whenever corporations collectively fail to address environmental concerns. Do you think that auto manufacturers would put in catalytic converters, or indeed have switched to unleaded gas, without governmental pressure? I don't fucking think so.
Which reminds me: What about Jim Crow Laws? If we stuck to the libertarian philosophy, those uppity niggers would still be sitting at the back of the bus and pissing in seperate stalls. 'But Jim Crow was backed by the government! Without government blacks would have been able to shop where they wanted to!' Bullshit. Instead of cops keeping blacks out of shoe stores it would have been the store owners and lynch mobs. The people of the Deep South fucking hated blacks. It took federal legislation, judicial oversight, and the fucking National Guard to get those asses to see the error of their ways. You wanna try and tell me that justice would have prevailed using free market principles alone?
Libertarianism damn near requires omniscience from consumers about the supply chain of the products or services they're buying. Governmental oversight is both necessary and just plain intelligent, even if it ups the price. Its a good philosophy to start from , but in the real world it rarely works.
Here's the deal: Government is a player in the economy. Since there have been goverments, they have been players in the economy. Governments will ALWAYS be players in the economy. This is a fact. It would serve well to keep it in mind.
- Rev.