He could do a billion things he is the freking president of the united states the most powerful human on the planet. The US bailed out Mexico by giving them billions of dollars, US gives Israel billions so they can buy fighter jets so they can bomb palestenian villages but when it comes time to help California it's "screw them they didn't vote for me anyways".
" I think legislators should decide whether corporations are more like robots (in which case they shouldn't have rights) or more like people (in which case they shouldn't be owned and manipulated like slaves)."
Almost there my friend.
Corporations should be more like dogs. Dogs can be owned by humans but at the same time they are not like other property because it's illegal to be cruel to them or abuse them (even by the owner). On the other hand the owner is responsible for keeping the dog fenced and well behaved and on a leash. If your dog causes harm to others it can be confiscated and killed by the govt without compensation to you. If the dog repeated bites people you can be tried and jailed for not keeping up your responsibility.
The shareholders are the owners of the dog. It's up to them to keep the dog well fed, well fenced, and well behaved. If the shareholders are not fail in their duties then the corporation should immediately be dissovled and all the assets turned over to the govt. The shareholders should be severly screwed for letting their corporation get out hand and kill people or cause them serious harm.
Let's see
One one had we have evil entity govt. Sure you can vote, lobby, run for office etc but either way it's big, harmful and lets face it you are screwed.
One the other hand we have evil entity number two. Sure you can buy a few shares but you can't influence it in any way and you are screwed.
Why do I have to choose one or the other. Why can't I
a) Fight to limit the powers of both of them.
b) pit them against each other so that their power cancels out.
VOILA!. There's the answer. We encourage the govt to write laws which limit the corpies power, corpies fight back and spend money lobbying it, we vote for campaing reform laws which frustrates the corpies, they buy ads on TV which costs more money. See how it weakens both of them.
Cool.
"Except that a corporation can't buy something (like a politician) that isn't for sale in the first place."
no matter how honorable the politician needs to raise millions of dollars just to stay in office. The system is corrupt there are no two ways about it. If a politician could not be bought then he would be a one term politician.
"You can create new wealth at any time, without taking from somebody else."
Ah "the big lie" I was wondering when somebody was going to bring this up.
You can not create wealth out of thin air. You HAVE to take it from someplace. You wither take it from another person or you convert some natural resource into money. The economy is nothing more then taking natural resources and turning them into cash. Only insofar as some resources are renewable AND they are used in a sustainable manner is the economy infinate. Since no reneable resource is being used in a sustainable manner the economic growth will one day hit a wall.
Productivity depends on people and machines and people have to eat, drink, and breathe clean enough air. Machines need materials, to build and use and energy. NONE of these resources is infinate and NONE of them are being used in a sustainable manner. One day you will run out of clean air, drinkable water, or food safe enough to eat and one day you will run out of energy. It will take a while but that day will come.
"Please tell me the last time Proctor & Gamble (or GM, if you prefer) made you go to war? (I mean directly, not "They bought senators who voted for the war")"
Why does it make a difference how you ket killed. Why would GM make you go to war when it's easier to buy the govt and let them do it. That way nobody gets mad at GM. Corporations are not dumb enough to kill you directly they would much rather do it indirectly so that they have denyibility. Besides it's easier for GM to kill people by building unsafe cars, or poisoning the water and air. It's easer, more profiatble and more fun to kill that way. When the people you are killing complain you can drag their asses into court for a hundred years and torture them too. Trust me wars are no fun compared to playing with suffering human beings.
"The Indian Government owned 51% of the Bhopal plant. What, were they going to sue themselves? "
This is the exact point the writer was making. By diluting the ownership and the decision making process the corporation gets off scott free. If nothing else the corrupting influence of the corporations is made all the more apparent by this buddy system that was arranged. The chances are very good that the corpies knew they were running an unsafe system and wanted to shift the blame to the govt if anything went wrong.
" Second, limited liability only shields shareholders, not officers or employees who can and sometimes do go to jail for their actions."
You know I am trying to think of one instance when ANYBODY was jailed when a corporation knowingly killed people, poisoned wells, caused disease, sold addictive drugs to teenagers, or spilled a billion tons of toxic sludge in somebodies back yard. Not firestone, not exxon, not Union Carbide, no airline, no car manufacturer no cigarette maker ever went to jail for crimes that would have landed you or I in jail. Perhaps you could provide a couple of examples.
" Third, tens of thousands of people are killed in traffic accidents each year in the U.S., yet hardly any one is ever charged with murder because of it."
That's because everybody (except the liberterians apparently) knows that when you kill someone in a car accident it's not murder it vehicular homocide, manslaughter, or at a minimum reckless driving. If the court finds that you were at any degree at fault (say you were drinking or speeding excessively) then you could end up in jail in a hearbeat. It's not murder but it's a jailable offence nevertheless.
The people inside the corporations are never held liable no matter how much they did to cause death, injury or disease. NEVER. The corporation gets fined (maybe) or sued but the damages are always less then the profits caused by the reckless behaviour in the first place.
"The problem with retards like you is you dont understand the real reason as to why you get the shit beat out of you. "
First of all after a few years of studying Gracie Juie Jitsu I don't ever get the shit beat out of me. Being around rednecks like you makes self defense a priority. There is nothing more satisfying then putting a hillbilly in a chokehold in under 45 seconds and watching the expression on his face as the person he expected to wipe to floor with starts to cut off his air supply. It's priceless. Of course being a believer in on-violence I don't actually kill the bastard of even make him pass out. It's enough to scare him enough so that the next time he wants to kick some ass he'll think twice.
Of course a chokehold is no good if the redneck is packing (most of them do these days) and is looking to actually commit murder today (most of them will not actually do it even if they really want to).
Anyways I have toured oregon and there is nothing to see there. Cetainly I would never suggest that any liberal actually spend his dollars in a state that hates homosexuals, hates environmentalists, hates liberals enough to WANT TO kick the shit out of them. If you are a liberal it makes no sense to spend your money where people hate you. Go spend your money where people like you and welcome you.
Why not walk on over to the neighbor and kill him? He is weak from hunger and can't put up much of a fight. Once he dies there is no more danger to you. As a bonus there is more fish for you. If you are truly selfish the best thing to do would be to eliminate all competition for your food supply so there is no danger of running out.
"How would you feel about me if I told you your mother was a crack-smoking whore?"
I hope to hell oregon is not your mother. You can talk all the shit about where I'm from It don;t bother me none. It's just another country.
"I have a right to want to bitch slap the living shit out you because you are a loud, annoying, clueless, fuck."
Check again. In the united states you do not have the right to bitch slap the living shit out of anybody. Maybe in your redneck town this is accepted practise but as a general rule anywhere where the judges and the cops are not rednecks this is called assault. One again you do not have the right to kill, you do not have the right to destroy property, you do not have the right to physically assault people just because they say things that annoy you. These kinds of things generally happen in small towns where everybody thinks the same. Kill a hippie in Klamath falls and the cops will probably help you bury the tree hugging, commie, pinko fag. Kill a hippie in portland and it's murder.
I am going to say it again in case you still don't get it. You do not have the right to kill, hit, slap or therwise assault anybody. You also do not have the right to destroy other peoples property. No matter what they say, what they look like, what they smell like, what's on their bumper sticker, what they eat, what they drink, who they vote for, or where they are from. Got it?
Re:Been thinking about morality lately
on
Congress@Work
·
· Score: 2
Capitalism relies on the worst traits of humans (greed, gluttony, avarice, pride, you know the seven deadly sins) while communism relies on the best aspects (unselfishness, sacrifice, sharing, helping others you know all the things you mom told you you should do).
Simply put more people are greedy then generous. As Sigmund Freud once said. Communism will never work because people are not good.
"Damn, just reading your slashdot posts I want to load my rifle up and give a good "Yeehaw" -- not because your viewpoints, because of your blatant I'm"
Thanks for making my point. You want to murder me not because I hurt you or your familiy, not because I dragged a black man behind my pickup truck, not because I blew up a federal building, not because I killed a doctor but because I had the nerve to speak my mind and voice my opinion. You did not like what you heard and I did not pass some attitude test. No judge, no jury just cold blooded murder for thinking different then you and daring to speak.
I have not done a study of the murders in oregon but I'd venture to say that percentage wise it's probably about the same as new york. Mostly though the bumper sticker is likely to get you assaulted or vandalized more then anything else. I guess that's restraint for you.
On a side note. Yea Ashland is a fairly liberal because it's a collage town just like eugene. Medford is far from liberal as a simple perusing fo the OP-ED and the letters to the editor will make clear. Its been a while since I was in Medford so I don't know what the name of the mall is but if it's that place where the movie theater and the 24 hour gym is I think it's something plaza. Not much of a mall either for what it's worth not that I spend much time in malls anyway. When I was there I had to go to ashland to eat just about every day because nobody could think of a decent restaurant in medford. The I had crappy service in one deli and crappy food in the place witht he big fish on the wall just as you get off the highway.
The middle class is an illusion. There are three classes in the US. The destitute who don't have jobs, the people who have to work, and the people who don't ever have to work if they want to.
PJ is the top 5% tier which does not have to work. For him it's amusement to make fun of the poor slobs who have to go to work every day and fend for themselves. Kind of like when people go to the dump to shoot rats.
"The business world i live in has ordered, civil, "real-world" conversations regarding our software and development platform - and the tactics you espouse only damage the cause of GNU/Linux and OSS."
The business world is far from civilized. It's full of duplicity, lies and cheating. I know because I have run businesses and of course worked in them from being a serf to being in management. To paraphrase George Carlin. You know business people are assholes because if you ever put two across the table from each other they will both be convinced the other guy is out to screw them.
For some reason it does not bother your boss when Mr. Allchin calls us communists, it does not bother him when the top MS staff talks of "knifing the baby" and "cutting off the air supply", or when MS executives lie under oath or tamper with evidence during a federal trial. It certainly does not bother your boss when Mr. Ballmer tells lies in public. He is after all a PHB.
His eyes are glassed over by the shiny ads he sees in businessweek. All we can do is point out that these people are liars and have no moral or ethical compass, we can point out they routinely screw their partners over and hope that it will reach one or two CIOs. It won't effect most of them but honestly we can't afford to fly them out and feed them at fancy restaurants so it's all we can do.
Being a software maker these days is a dismal business plan for anybody. If by some chance you can make a product that catches on becomes popular you can be guaranteed that either.
1) Somebody will sue you into oblivion.
2) An open source project will try to duplicate your product and give it away for free.
3) MS will duplicate your product and give it away for free.
4) All of the above.
Unless you are already established you have better chance of making money by buying lottery tickets.
Slashdot Mirror
He could do a billion things he is the freking president of the united states the most powerful human on the planet. The US bailed out Mexico by giving them billions of dollars, US gives Israel billions so they can buy fighter jets so they can bomb palestenian villages but when it comes time to help California it's "screw them they didn't vote for me anyways".
Why does it matter what ford Reccomended. Firestone knew it was making a bad tire and did it anyway.
Besides the point is that despite hundreds of people being killed nobody will go to jail, Nobody from Firestone, Nobody from ford.
" I think legislators should decide whether corporations are more like robots (in which case they shouldn't have rights) or more like people (in which case they shouldn't be owned and manipulated like slaves)."
Almost there my friend.
Corporations should be more like dogs. Dogs can be owned by humans but at the same time they are not like other property because it's illegal to be cruel to them or abuse them (even by the owner). On the other hand the owner is responsible for keeping the dog fenced and well behaved and on a leash. If your dog causes harm to others it can be confiscated and killed by the govt without compensation to you. If the dog repeated bites people you can be tried and jailed for not keeping up your responsibility.
The shareholders are the owners of the dog. It's up to them to keep the dog well fed, well fenced, and well behaved. If the shareholders are not fail in their duties then the corporation should immediately be dissovled and all the assets turned over to the govt. The shareholders should be severly screwed for letting their corporation get out hand and kill people or cause them serious harm.
Let's see
One one had we have evil entity govt. Sure you can vote, lobby, run for office etc but either way it's big, harmful and lets face it you are screwed.
One the other hand we have evil entity number two. Sure you can buy a few shares but you can't influence it in any way and you are screwed.
Why do I have to choose one or the other. Why can't I
a) Fight to limit the powers of both of them.
b) pit them against each other so that their power cancels out.
VOILA!. There's the answer. We encourage the govt to write laws which limit the corpies power, corpies fight back and spend money lobbying it, we vote for campaing reform laws which frustrates the corpies, they buy ads on TV which costs more money. See how it weakens both of them.
Cool.
"Except that a corporation can't buy something (like a politician) that isn't for sale in the first place."
no matter how honorable the politician needs to raise millions of dollars just to stay in office. The system is corrupt there are no two ways about it. If a politician could not be bought then he would be a one term politician.
"You can create new wealth at any time, without taking from somebody else."
Ah "the big lie" I was wondering when somebody was going to bring this up.
You can not create wealth out of thin air. You HAVE to take it from someplace. You wither take it from another person or you convert some natural resource into money. The economy is nothing more then taking natural resources and turning them into cash. Only insofar as some resources are renewable AND they are used in a sustainable manner is the economy infinate. Since no reneable resource is being used in a sustainable manner the economic growth will one day hit a wall.
Productivity depends on people and machines and people have to eat, drink, and breathe clean enough air. Machines need materials, to build and use and energy. NONE of these resources is infinate and NONE of them are being used in a sustainable manner. One day you will run out of clean air, drinkable water, or food safe enough to eat and one day you will run out of energy. It will take a while but that day will come.
"Please tell me the last time Proctor & Gamble (or GM, if you prefer) made you go to war? (I mean directly, not "They bought senators who voted for the war")"
Why does it make a difference how you ket killed. Why would GM make you go to war when it's easier to buy the govt and let them do it. That way nobody gets mad at GM. Corporations are not dumb enough to kill you directly they would much rather do it indirectly so that they have denyibility. Besides it's easier for GM to kill people by building unsafe cars, or poisoning the water and air. It's easer, more profiatble and more fun to kill that way. When the people you are killing complain you can drag their asses into court for a hundred years and torture them too. Trust me wars are no fun compared to playing with suffering human beings.
"The Indian Government owned 51% of the Bhopal plant. What, were they going to sue themselves? "
This is the exact point the writer was making. By diluting the ownership and the decision making process the corporation gets off scott free. If nothing else the corrupting influence of the corporations is made all the more apparent by this buddy system that was arranged. The chances are very good that the corpies knew they were running an unsafe system and wanted to shift the blame to the govt if anything went wrong.
" Second, limited liability only shields shareholders, not officers or employees who can and sometimes do go to jail for their actions."
You know I am trying to think of one instance when ANYBODY was jailed when a corporation
knowingly killed people, poisoned wells, caused disease, sold addictive drugs to teenagers, or spilled a billion tons of toxic sludge in somebodies back yard. Not firestone, not exxon, not Union Carbide, no airline, no car manufacturer no cigarette maker ever went to jail for crimes that would have landed you or I in jail. Perhaps you could provide a couple of examples.
" Third, tens of thousands of people are killed in traffic accidents each year in the U.S., yet hardly any one is ever charged with murder because of it."
That's because everybody (except the liberterians apparently) knows that when you kill someone in a car accident it's not murder it vehicular homocide, manslaughter, or at a minimum reckless driving. If the court finds that you were at any degree at fault (say you were drinking or speeding excessively) then you could end up in jail in a hearbeat. It's not murder but it's a jailable offence nevertheless.
The people inside the corporations are never held liable no matter how much they did to cause death, injury or disease. NEVER. The corporation gets fined (maybe) or sued but the damages are always less then the profits caused by the reckless behaviour in the first place.
"The problem with retards like you is you dont understand the real reason as to why you get the shit beat out of you. "
First of all after a few years of studying Gracie Juie Jitsu I don't ever get the shit beat out of me. Being around rednecks like you makes self defense a priority. There is nothing more satisfying then putting a hillbilly in a chokehold in under 45 seconds and watching the expression on his face as the person he expected to wipe to floor with starts to cut off his air supply. It's priceless. Of course being a believer in on-violence I don't actually kill the bastard of even make him pass out. It's enough to scare him enough so that the next time he wants to kick some ass he'll think twice.
Of course a chokehold is no good if the redneck is packing (most of them do these days) and is looking to actually commit murder today (most of them will not actually do it even if they really want to).
Anyways I have toured oregon and there is nothing to see there. Cetainly I would never suggest that any liberal actually spend his dollars in a state that hates homosexuals, hates environmentalists, hates liberals enough to WANT TO kick the shit out of them. If you are a liberal it makes no sense to spend your money where people hate you. Go spend your money where people like you and welcome you.
And god knows he needs more money fromt he likes of us.
As long as you keep buying DVDs I really don't think they care what you say or do.
If the nose pickers wanted to get married would you deny them that right? How about if they wanted to join the army?
Here is a clue. They don't give a flying fuck about you admiring them they just want the same rights as you do. It's called equality look into it.
Why not walk on over to the neighbor and kill him? He is weak from hunger and can't put up much of a fight. Once he dies there is no more danger to you. As a bonus there is more fish for you. If you are truly selfish the best thing to do would be to eliminate all competition for your food supply so there is no danger of running out.
Great quote a towering intellect like Ronald Reagan to make your point. LOL.
"How would you feel about me if I told you your mother was a crack-smoking whore?"
I hope to hell oregon is not your mother. You can talk all the shit about where I'm from It don;t bother me none. It's just another country.
"I have a right to want to bitch slap the living shit out you because you are a loud, annoying, clueless, fuck."
Check again. In the united states you do not have the right to bitch slap the living shit out of anybody. Maybe in your redneck town this is accepted practise but as a general rule anywhere where the judges and the cops are not rednecks this is called assault. One again you do not have the right to kill, you do not have the right to destroy property, you do not have the right to physically assault people just because they say things that annoy you. These kinds of things generally happen in small towns where everybody thinks the same. Kill a hippie in Klamath falls and the cops will probably help you bury the tree hugging, commie, pinko fag. Kill a hippie in portland and it's murder.
I am going to say it again in case you still don't get it. You do not have the right to kill, hit, slap or therwise assault anybody. You also do not have the right to destroy other peoples property. No matter what they say, what they look like, what they smell like, what's on their bumper sticker, what they eat, what they drink, who they vote for, or where they are from. Got it?
Ask her how she feel about homosexuals.
Capitalism relies on the worst traits of humans (greed, gluttony, avarice, pride, you know the seven deadly sins) while communism relies on the best aspects (unselfishness, sacrifice, sharing, helping others you know all the things you mom told you you should do).
Simply put more people are greedy then generous. As Sigmund Freud once said. Communism will never work because people are not good.
He is not even a nazi skinhead.
And they call it a free country.
Is degrading to fruits or vegetables.
"Damn, just reading your slashdot posts I want to load my rifle up and give a good "Yeehaw" -- not because your viewpoints, because of your blatant I'm"
Thanks for making my point. You want to murder me not because I hurt you or your familiy, not because I dragged a black man behind my pickup truck, not because I blew up a federal building, not because I killed a doctor but because I had the nerve to speak my mind and voice my opinion. You did not like what you heard and I did not pass some attitude test. No judge, no jury just cold blooded murder for thinking different then you and daring to speak.
I have not done a study of the murders in oregon but I'd venture to say that percentage wise it's probably about the same as new york. Mostly though the bumper sticker is likely to get you assaulted or vandalized more then anything else. I guess that's restraint for you.
On a side note. Yea Ashland is a fairly liberal because it's a collage town just like eugene. Medford is far from liberal as a simple perusing fo the OP-ED and the letters to the editor will make clear. Its been a while since I was in Medford so I don't know what the name of the mall is but if it's that place where the movie theater and the 24 hour gym is I think it's something plaza. Not much of a mall either for what it's worth not that I spend much time in malls anyway. When I was there I had to go to ashland to eat just about every day because nobody could think of a decent restaurant in medford. The I had crappy service in one deli and crappy food in the place witht he big fish on the wall just as you get off the highway.
The middle class is an illusion. There are three classes in the US. The destitute who don't have jobs, the people who have to work, and the people who don't ever have to work if they want to.
PJ is the top 5% tier which does not have to work. For him it's amusement to make fun of the poor slobs who have to go to work every day and fend for themselves. Kind of like when people go to the dump to shoot rats.
"The business world i live in has ordered, civil, "real-world" conversations regarding our software and development platform - and the tactics you espouse only damage the cause of GNU/Linux and OSS."
The business world is far from civilized. It's full of duplicity, lies and cheating. I know because I have run businesses and of course worked in them from being a serf to being in management. To paraphrase George Carlin. You know business people are assholes because if you ever put two across the table from each other they will both be convinced the other guy is out to screw them.
For some reason it does not bother your boss when Mr. Allchin calls us communists, it does not bother him when the top MS staff talks of "knifing the baby" and "cutting off the air supply", or when MS executives lie under oath or tamper with evidence during a federal trial. It certainly does not bother your boss when Mr. Ballmer tells lies in public. He is after all a PHB.
His eyes are glassed over by the shiny ads he sees in businessweek. All we can do is point out that these people are liars and have no moral or ethical compass, we can point out they routinely screw their partners over and hope that it will reach one or two CIOs. It won't effect most of them but honestly we can't afford to fly them out and feed them at fancy restaurants so it's all we can do.
Being a software maker these days is a dismal business plan for anybody. If by some chance you can make a product that catches on becomes popular you can be guaranteed that either.
1) Somebody will sue you into oblivion.
2) An open source project will try to duplicate your product and give it away for free.
3) MS will duplicate your product and give it away for free.
4) All of the above.
Unless you are already established you have better chance of making money by buying lottery tickets.
Because we are pack animals like brown bears or wolves.