Absolute size of the economy is all that matters. If per capita was important, Switzerland
would have a far better space program than India.
At one time the country with the highest PCGNP was was Kuwait... Because of having a lot of high value exports, small population and a very wide gap between rich and poor.
>>You are stealing intellectual property. Something that someone else has labored to produce and deserves to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his/her labor.
"In the US this certainly isn't the case."
What part don't you agree with? That copying intellectual property without permission isn't stealing? That someone else labored to produce the intellectual property? That the person who creates the intellectual property deserves to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his/her labor?
The idea that someone has the "right to enjoy the fruits of his/her works"/"the right to return on investment"/"the right to make a profit" are some commonly held ideas which have no basis what so ever in the US Consitution" How exactly do you interpret "to futher progress of science and the useful arts" to "enjoy fruits of labor"?
"Whilst Hollywood might moan about lots of things they are still making movies."
This is irrelevant to the argument.
Since encouraging future works is the reason behind copyright in the US (and AFAIK California is lawfully part of the US, proving otherwise wouldn't "help" unless you could prove that California was an occupied nation state with an applicable copyright law on it's books anyway.) little else can be more relevent.
"Copyright laws are already completly out of step with their supposed intent. e.g. both copyright as an inherent right of the author and that described in the US constitution cannot logically create something which outlives the author."
You may disagree with the law but that does not give you the right to ignore it. If you don't like the law then work to change it.
IN at least one place the US Constitution does explicitally say that unconstitutional laws should be ignored. It's not impossible that everything ever producted in the US is actually "public domain". Being in the public domain is the default, for things to be otherwise a valid copyright law is needed. If so major copyright holders would want this kept very quiet (and to lobby hard it there was even a chance of the US Supreme court looking at the current statutes) Even if the US Congress were to immediatly pass a copyright law in accordance with the US constitution this cannot affect any preexisting material.
That's all this MPAA and RIAA crying is about plain and simple. Greed.
Remember that greedy US corporations do not care what they might have to do to satisfy their greed. They are literally amoral which makes them very dangerous.
They want more money your hard earned money, for you just to find out after buying the original DVD its a crappy movie. Especially when they charge $25 for a movie that's from the 1980's and can be bought on tape for about $5. That's why they wanted DVD's to become popular just to make idiots go out and buy their movie collection over again on DVD.
Wonder if they already have something planned to replace DVD in about 15 years time...
Then you hit the real problem. With millions of people everyday participating in this activity you are suddenly faced with prosecuting hundreds of thousands of cases to the full extent of the law. We are talking billions of dollars in legal costs, most likely aproaching the trillons quickly.
Remember that a proportion of these people will be citizens of other countries. Whilst the MPAA/RIAA might have deep pockets they are unlikely to be deep enough to take on most of the world... Within a week any extradition request originating from the US would probably be ignored.
They charge $10 per disc and it includes 60-90 mins (lost track of time) of behind the scenes footage of a few movies. I find it hard to believe these guys could be in business if it cost more than $1 per DVD to make.
Wonder how much work is really involved in making these "behind the scenes" type of things anyway. The only obvious special footage is interviews with actors, directors, makeup artist, etc. Assuming this wasn't taken as promotional material at some point or other.
The MPAA would have little problem selling DVD's for $10 each. If that would prove inprofitable (yeah right), then they'd need to tighten their belts a bit. It is not that hard to make quality content. The reason that a DVD costs say $25 on average over the $17 VHS format (I'm pulling numbers out of my head, I bet I'm not that far off) is that the DVD has higher resolution than the VHS counterpart. Therefore, it's worth more money. They make no mention of the discs being far cheaper to make. Yet VHS stuff has gone down in price as of late.
Not only are DVD's cheaper to make compared with VHS tapes they are also cheaper to ship (e.g. more units per container.) The price appears to be more based around what the market will accept (hence region codes to partition up the market) than anything to do with actual production costs.
rust me, the MPAA seriously inflated the price of their content.
Odds on the extra profit dosn't go to the prople who actually created the movie either.
But if you are, I strongly urge you to stop quoting an English dictionary and think that by doing so, you are making an argument of some sort. Obviously, Websters hasn't yet caught up with modern usage of the word "pirate." Big deal. So you have an outdated/inaccurate dictionary.
IIRC Webster's is actually an American dictionary. One possible derivation for pirate being related to copyright infringment would be the pirate radio stations of the 1960's operated from ships in the North Sea.
No. Will people stop burning DVDs and stealing software? No. It WILL still happen. The gov't will just force it underground like it did illegal bars and what have you.
Prohibition is a better analogy for the "war on drugs" than it is for DVD "piracy".
So in a sense, everyone does have a vote about what is right and what is wrong. The idea being that the people keep the gov't and laws from getting too out of control.
If all potentially electable candidates feel the same way about an issue (which is a lot more likely with 2 than it is with 20) then electorial votes are somewhat meaningless. The only way to vote against is not to vote, which tends to be ignored, even when the majority do exactly that.
Don't be fooled by commercial EULAs, or "click-thru" licenses. They do not fall under copyright law at all - they fall under contract law, and as such, it is unknown if they are actually valid or enforceable, since you never actually signed them. Of course the software industry will say they are legal, but think about it - that's what they would say.
There is also the obvious question of of if they are valid under current contract laws why are they so eager to get statutes such as UCITA passed?
Actually, the GPL is also a contract, but note that in that case it doesn't matter if you sign it or not, since it adds to the rights you already have (fair use) by giving you certain rights of redistribution. If you disagree with it, you haven't lost anything - you just don't get those additional rights. By contrast most EULAs take away rights you should have - the right to use the software in any way you see fit, on as many computers (that you own) as you wish. So the question of whether you enter the contract or not is important in that case.
You don't have to sign a contract for it to be valid. Copyright law is relevent to the GPL because copyright law creates the consideration you need to actually have a contract.
Perhaps not, but crimes not covered by any laws at all are generally not crimes. Witness to this fact: Pirating DirecTV in Canada is legal, despite the fact that pirating most other satellite services in this country is illegal, simply because there is no law in Canada that covers American signals.
IIRC there is actually a Canadian law which covers this. Which says something to the effect of "piracy only applies to IP actually for sale in Canada".
This is likely why a crime like "Murder" is so broadly defined. If it said "Murder by knife" and there were no other crimes on the books, then shooting someone (the first time) might very well be legal until someone fixed the law.
It's the reason why sensible laws address what is done, rather than how it is done. Stupid laws do things like going into intricate technical details or use specific trademarks for machines...
You are stealing intellectual property. Something that someone else has labored to produce and deserves to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his/her labor.
In the US this certainly isn't the case. Since copyright is intended to encourage further production. Whilst Hollywood might moan about lots of things they are still making movies. Copyright laws are already completly out of step with their supposed intent. e.g. both copyright as an inherent right of the author and that described in the US constitution cannot logically create something which outlives the author. Copyright was taken away from publishers 2-300 years ago for some very good reasons. Since then they have been trying to get it back...
If the videos are not currently available on DVD, where did they get them from? Cameras in theaters?
Not currently available on DVD does not mean that DVD masters, even pressed discs do not yet exist. They could just as easily originate from a stock of DVD in the process of being shipped to retailers.
problem is space junk is getting to be a real issue even now. i can envision an actually profitable business venture in developing and operating a space salvage and disposal system..
So we now need the Earth orbiting equivalent of a garbage truck as well as a tow truck.
Does anyone remember a couple years back when they were launching the Cassini satellite? There was a huge movement [animatedsoftware.com] to stop the launch because the Cassini had radioactive fuel, which in an accident above the earth (either in the initial launch or the "boomerang" across the planet) could potentially threaten millions of earth lives for centuries to come.
An RTG is not a fission reactor. The chemical properties of the fuel and it's daughter istopes are well known, so it can be encapsulated in a way which is very safe. If they want to make a fuss about danger from shuttle launches they'd be better off complaining about the SRBs which produce all manner of nasty chemical byproducts.
I have often wondered if this really is all that dangerous, considering the fact that the hydrazine maneuvering fuel used on many satellites the Shuttle launches is hypergolic, meaning it will ignite on contact with its oxidizer, no spark needed. Hydrogen and oxygen, on the other hand, require an ignition system.
The shuttle has both kinds of fuel on board anyway. The OMS and RCS are hypergolic fuel and the main power system uses hydrogen and oxygen fuel cells (providing drinking water as a byproduct). Quite possibly there is more hydrogen and oxygen onboard the shuttle than there was on board the Apollo service module.
I have yet to see one person who can sensibly claim Imperial measurements ('English' measurments to our US bretherin) are useful for technical specs and calculations.
Also remember that the American "English" scales of measurement are not the same as Imperial measures. Especially when it comes to volumes, such as "pints", "gallons", etc. As for technical measures in the 1940's both the Imperial and the English inch were redefined to be exactly 25.4 mm. Because the differences were causing problems in the manufacture of precision parts for weapons systems.
This is the US government here. Hammers generally run about $50,000 each, a couch runs several hundred thousand dollars, etc. You have to convert to government dollars. Last I checked, the going conversion rate is something like ((N/I) * Pi^8) where N is the normal price, and I is the importance of the item (scale of 1 to 10, duct tape being a 1, nuclear weapon being a 10).
Where do you put the cost of black projetcs into the equation?
One is stored in the player itself, but the other is stored on the disk, in a special area inaccessible to DVD burners. (In fact, blank media comes with this key area zeroed out, so it can't be recorded on.)
Which also has the effect of preventing someone using CSS to protect their copyrighted material...
I'm fairly sure that typos are *not* covered by false advertising laws. Most catalogs have typo disclaimers just to keep their ass totally clean.
Disclaimers never overrule statutes. Just because marked prices are not legally binding on the seller in one part of the world does not mean there are no places where they are. Even when the marked price is simply an "invitation to treat" once the buyer and seller have completed negotiations and the seller has accepted the buyer's offer then a contract of sale has been created between the two parties.
This reminds me of some computer company which quoted a price of $200 for a notebook by mistake. Some customers wanted to buy it and were pissed when the company said that it was a mistake (obviously). Were they really expecting a laptop for $200 ?
If they have made an offer to buy it at that price and the seller has accepted that offer then there is a binding contract in existance. In some parts of the world, e.g. Germany, simply putting a price on something for sale is binding on the seller.
The point is, that Mandrake DIDN'T EXPECT THIS MOVE FROM SUN! they clearly thought that Sun would give Star Office 6 for free like version 5.2..
Mandrake's customers are not a party to Mandrake's dealings with their suppliers (including Sun Microsystems). The correct thing would have been either to drop supplying Star Office, cover any price differences themselves or renegotiate with the supplier.
So they have 2 choices: a) giving it for those who paid $5 a month and loose on every copy downloaded or b) change the rules.
False dicotomy, they had at least 3 other choices.
Now, when it was free, there was a great reason to migrate: you could reduce your licensing costs tremendously since you had not per-seat restrictions.
Actually it's quite possible to sell a proper site licence. Problem is that quite a lot of places are so used to per-seat and pusdo-site licencing...
. I know of a company that very nearly switched. The reason they didn't switch was not that StarOffice was free; they didn't switch because StarOffice 5.2 kind of sucked.
It would probably help Sun a lot if they could make StarOffice suck less than MS Office. First thing to be dealt with is not throwing a questionnaire the end user. Especially one where most of the information is known to the computer anyway.
The introduction is irrelevant. Its the text of the bill itself that is important. For example the CFR intro makes strident claims not to inhibit 1st amendment rights, yet it does precisely that(i.e., prohibit political speech).
Also consider that if someone goes out their way to say that X won't do Y then it's highly likely that X does do Y.
Ok, fine words but what happens when they do it anyway?
Either this means that the US Congress must carefully consider every possible way in which a law they pass could possibly be used (which is a very tall order) or it means that it is impossible to use an law passed by the US Congress in such a way. Which appears to make rather more sense. Remember that the US constitution was intended to be a document in "plain English", understandable by any literate person. Rather than "lawyerspeak" only understandable by lawyers. Problem is that language has changed somewhat over the last 200 years.
Well that was what the 2nd Amendment was on about. The Ballot box rests firmly on the cartridge box. So at what point do we decide it is our duty to water the liberty tree?
Hopefully before it completly dies of dehydration (probably dragging the rest of the planet down too.)
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Absolute size of the economy is all that matters. If per capita was important, Switzerland would have a far better space program than India.
At one time the country with the highest PCGNP was was Kuwait... Because of having a lot of high value exports, small population and a very wide gap between rich and poor.
>>You are stealing intellectual property. Something that someone else has labored to produce and deserves to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his/her labor. "In the US this certainly isn't the case." What part don't you agree with? That copying intellectual property without permission isn't stealing? That someone else labored to produce the intellectual property? That the person who creates the intellectual property deserves to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his/her labor?
The idea that someone has the "right to enjoy the fruits of his/her works"/"the right to return on investment"/"the right to make a profit" are some commonly held ideas which have no basis what so ever in the US Consitution" How exactly do you interpret "to futher progress of science and the useful arts" to "enjoy fruits of labor"?
"Whilst Hollywood might moan about lots of things they are still making movies." This is irrelevant to the argument.
Since encouraging future works is the reason behind copyright in the US (and AFAIK California is lawfully part of the US, proving otherwise wouldn't "help" unless you could prove that California was an occupied nation state with an applicable copyright law on it's books anyway.) little else can be more relevent.
"Copyright laws are already completly out of step with their supposed intent. e.g. both copyright as an inherent right of the author and that described in the US constitution cannot logically create something which outlives the author." You may disagree with the law but that does not give you the right to ignore it. If you don't like the law then work to change it.
IN at least one place the US Constitution does explicitally say that unconstitutional laws should be ignored. It's not impossible that everything ever producted in the US is actually "public domain". Being in the public domain is the default, for things to be otherwise a valid copyright law is needed. If so major copyright holders would want this kept very quiet (and to lobby hard it there was even a chance of the US Supreme court looking at the current statutes) Even if the US Congress were to immediatly pass a copyright law in accordance with the US constitution this cannot affect any preexisting material.
That's all this MPAA and RIAA crying is about plain and simple. Greed.
Remember that greedy US corporations do not care what they might have to do to satisfy their greed. They are literally amoral which makes them very dangerous.
They want more money your hard earned money, for you just to find out after buying the original DVD its a crappy movie. Especially when they charge $25 for a movie that's from the 1980's and can be bought on tape for about $5. That's why they wanted DVD's to become popular just to make idiots go out and buy their movie collection over again on DVD.
Wonder if they already have something planned to replace DVD in about 15 years time...
Then you hit the real problem. With millions of people everyday participating in this activity you are suddenly faced with prosecuting hundreds of thousands of cases to the full extent of the law. We are talking billions of dollars in legal costs, most likely aproaching the trillons quickly.
Remember that a proportion of these people will be citizens of other countries. Whilst the MPAA/RIAA might have deep pockets they are unlikely to be deep enough to take on most of the world... Within a week any extradition request originating from the US would probably be ignored.
They charge $10 per disc and it includes 60-90 mins (lost track of time) of behind the scenes footage of a few movies. I find it hard to believe these guys could be in business if it cost more than $1 per DVD to make.
Wonder how much work is really involved in making these "behind the scenes" type of things anyway. The only obvious special footage is interviews with actors, directors, makeup artist, etc. Assuming this wasn't taken as promotional material at some point or other.
The MPAA would have little problem selling DVD's for $10 each. If that would prove inprofitable (yeah right), then they'd need to tighten their belts a bit. It is not that hard to make quality content. The reason that a DVD costs say $25 on average over the $17 VHS format (I'm pulling numbers out of my head, I bet I'm not that far off) is that the DVD has higher resolution than the VHS counterpart. Therefore, it's worth more money. They make no mention of the discs being far cheaper to make. Yet VHS stuff has gone down in price as of late.
Not only are DVD's cheaper to make compared with VHS tapes they are also cheaper to ship (e.g. more units per container.) The price appears to be more based around what the market will accept (hence region codes to partition up the market) than anything to do with actual production costs.
rust me, the MPAA seriously inflated the price of their content.
Odds on the extra profit dosn't go to the prople who actually created the movie either.
But if you are, I strongly urge you to stop quoting an English dictionary and think that by doing so, you are making an argument of some sort. Obviously, Websters hasn't yet caught up with modern usage of the word "pirate." Big deal. So you have an outdated/inaccurate dictionary.
IIRC Webster's is actually an American dictionary. One possible derivation for pirate being related to copyright infringment would be the pirate radio stations of the 1960's operated from ships in the North Sea.
Did people stop drinking during prohibition?
IIRC people actually drunk more
No. Will people stop burning DVDs and stealing software? No. It WILL still happen. The gov't will just force it underground like it did illegal bars and what have you.
Prohibition is a better analogy for the "war on drugs" than it is for DVD "piracy".
So in a sense, everyone does have a vote about what is right and what is wrong. The idea being that the people keep the gov't and laws from getting too out of control.
If all potentially electable candidates feel the same way about an issue (which is a lot more likely with 2 than it is with 20) then electorial votes are somewhat meaningless. The only way to vote against is not to vote, which tends to be ignored, even when the majority do exactly that.
Don't be fooled by commercial EULAs, or "click-thru" licenses. They do not fall under copyright law at all - they fall under contract law, and as such, it is unknown if they are actually valid or enforceable, since you never actually signed them. Of course the software industry will say they are legal, but think about it - that's what they would say.
There is also the obvious question of of if they are valid under current contract laws why are they so eager to get statutes such as UCITA passed?
Actually, the GPL is also a contract, but note that in that case it doesn't matter if you sign it or not, since it adds to the rights you already have (fair use) by giving you certain rights of redistribution. If you disagree with it, you haven't lost anything - you just don't get those additional rights. By contrast most EULAs take away rights you should have - the right to use the software in any way you see fit, on as many computers (that you own) as you wish. So the question of whether you enter the contract or not is important in that case.
You don't have to sign a contract for it to be valid. Copyright law is relevent to the GPL because copyright law creates the consideration you need to actually have a contract.
Perhaps not, but crimes not covered by any laws at all are generally not crimes. Witness to this fact: Pirating DirecTV in Canada is legal, despite the fact that pirating most other satellite services in this country is illegal, simply because there is no law in Canada that covers American signals.
IIRC there is actually a Canadian law which covers this. Which says something to the effect of "piracy only applies to IP actually for sale in Canada".
This is likely why a crime like "Murder" is so broadly defined. If it said "Murder by knife" and there were no other crimes on the books, then shooting someone (the first time) might very well be legal until someone fixed the law.
It's the reason why sensible laws address what is done, rather than how it is done. Stupid laws do things like going into intricate technical details or use specific trademarks for machines...
You are stealing intellectual property. Something that someone else has labored to produce and deserves to be allowed to enjoy the fruits of his/her labor.
In the US this certainly isn't the case. Since copyright is intended to encourage further production. Whilst Hollywood might moan about lots of things they are still making movies.
Copyright laws are already completly out of step with their supposed intent. e.g. both copyright as an inherent right of the author and that described in the US constitution cannot logically create something which outlives the author.
Copyright was taken away from publishers 2-300 years ago for some very good reasons. Since then they have been trying to get it back...
If the videos are not currently available on DVD, where did they get them from? Cameras in theaters?
Not currently available on DVD does not mean that DVD masters, even pressed discs do not yet exist. They could just as easily originate from a stock of DVD in the process of being shipped to retailers.
problem is space junk is getting to be a real issue even now. i can envision an actually profitable business venture in developing and operating a space salvage and disposal system..
So we now need the Earth orbiting equivalent of a garbage truck as well as a tow truck.
Does anyone remember a couple years back when they were launching the Cassini satellite? There was a huge movement [animatedsoftware.com] to stop the launch because the Cassini had radioactive fuel, which in an accident above the earth (either in the initial launch or the "boomerang" across the planet) could potentially threaten millions of earth lives for centuries to come.
An RTG is not a fission reactor. The chemical properties of the fuel and it's daughter istopes are well known, so it can be encapsulated in a way which is very safe.
If they want to make a fuss about danger from shuttle launches they'd be better off complaining about the SRBs which produce all manner of nasty chemical byproducts.
Well yeah, would you want to fly a glowing hot shuttle through the atmosphere with a cargo bay loaded with a leaking fuel cell?
The cargo bay is actually air tight. The problem would come later in the descent when the preasure release vents are opened.
I have often wondered if this really is all that dangerous, considering the fact that the hydrazine maneuvering fuel used on many satellites the Shuttle launches is hypergolic, meaning it will ignite on contact with its oxidizer, no spark needed. Hydrogen and oxygen, on the other hand, require an ignition system.
The shuttle has both kinds of fuel on board anyway. The OMS and RCS are hypergolic fuel and the main power system uses hydrogen and oxygen fuel cells (providing drinking water as a byproduct). Quite possibly there is more hydrogen and oxygen onboard the shuttle than there was on board the Apollo service module.
I have yet to see one person who can sensibly claim Imperial measurements ('English' measurments to our US bretherin) are useful for technical specs and calculations.
Also remember that the American "English" scales of measurement are not the same as Imperial measures. Especially when it comes to volumes, such as "pints", "gallons", etc.
As for technical measures in the 1940's both the Imperial and the English inch were redefined to be exactly 25.4 mm. Because the differences were causing problems in the manufacture of precision parts for weapons systems.
This is the US government here. Hammers generally run about $50,000 each, a couch runs several hundred thousand dollars, etc. You have to convert to government dollars. Last I checked, the going conversion rate is something like ((N/I) * Pi^8) where N is the normal price, and I is the importance of the item (scale of 1 to 10, duct tape being a 1, nuclear weapon being a 10).
Where do you put the cost of black projetcs into the equation?
One is stored in the player itself, but the other is stored on the disk, in a special area inaccessible to DVD burners. (In fact, blank media comes with this key area zeroed out, so it can't be recorded on.)
Which also has the effect of preventing someone using CSS to protect their copyrighted material...
But lets say Star Office 6.0 would cost $100
How much of that is actual product cost, how much is something else, such as "support", how much is simply markup?
Do you really expect Sun to say "Hey Mandrake, you're a popular distribution - we'll sell it for you for $5"?
If they were to sell it without any "support" and this is more than it actually costs Sun to make it then they are still making money on it.
I'm fairly sure that typos are *not* covered by false advertising laws. Most catalogs have typo disclaimers just to keep their ass totally clean.
Disclaimers never overrule statutes. Just because marked prices are not legally binding on the seller in one part of the world does not mean there are no places where they are.
Even when the marked price is simply an "invitation to treat" once the buyer and seller have completed negotiations and the seller has accepted the buyer's offer then a contract of sale has been created between the two parties.
This reminds me of some computer company which quoted a price of $200 for a notebook by mistake. Some customers wanted to buy it and were pissed when the company said that it was a mistake (obviously). Were they really expecting a laptop for $200 ?
If they have made an offer to buy it at that price and the seller has accepted that offer then there is a binding contract in existance. In some parts of the world, e.g. Germany, simply putting a price on something for sale is binding on the seller.
The point is, that Mandrake DIDN'T EXPECT THIS MOVE FROM SUN! they clearly thought that Sun would give Star Office 6 for free like version 5.2..
Mandrake's customers are not a party to Mandrake's dealings with their suppliers (including Sun Microsystems). The correct thing would have been either to drop supplying Star Office, cover any price differences themselves or renegotiate with the supplier.
So they have 2 choices: a) giving it for those who paid $5 a month and loose on every copy downloaded or b) change the rules.
False dicotomy, they had at least 3 other choices.
Now, when it was free, there was a great reason to migrate: you could reduce your licensing costs tremendously since you had not per-seat restrictions.
Actually it's quite possible to sell a proper site licence. Problem is that quite a lot of places are so used to per-seat and pusdo-site licencing...
. I know of a company that very nearly switched. The reason they didn't switch was not that StarOffice was free; they didn't switch because StarOffice 5.2 kind of sucked.
It would probably help Sun a lot if they could make StarOffice suck less than MS Office.
First thing to be dealt with is not throwing a questionnaire the end user. Especially one where most of the information is known to the computer anyway.
The introduction is irrelevant. Its the text of the bill itself that is important. For example the CFR intro makes strident claims not to inhibit 1st amendment rights, yet it does precisely that(i.e., prohibit political speech).
Also consider that if someone goes out their way to say that X won't do Y then it's highly likely that X does do Y.
CONGRESS SHALL PASS NO LAW.....
Ok, fine words but what happens when they do it anyway?
Either this means that the US Congress must carefully consider every possible way in which a law they pass could possibly be used (which is a very tall order) or it means that it is impossible to use an law passed by the US Congress in such a way. Which appears to make rather more sense.
Remember that the US constitution was intended to be a document in "plain English", understandable by any literate person. Rather than "lawyerspeak" only understandable by lawyers. Problem is that language has changed somewhat over the last 200 years.
Well that was what the 2nd Amendment was on about. The Ballot box rests firmly on the cartridge box. So at what point do we decide it is our duty to water the liberty tree?
Hopefully before it completly dies of dehydration (probably dragging the rest of the planet down too.)