The "most prized product" -- the goal -- of capitalism is greater wealth for the aristocrats who control the capital."
Who moderated this balderdash as insightful?
The goal of capitalism to make more wealth and spend the fruits of that wealth as we damn well please. Period. That goes for the bricklayer as much as it goes for brick company owner. Capital can be owned, traded, grown, or lost, by anyone. This is why market economies prosper while planned economies do not.
"The true libertarian solution would be to abolish copyright altogether."
Not even close. Copyright is a form of property rights, and Libertarians of all stripes... from Rand's Objectivists to the Austrian School people... place property rights as the most precious of liberties. A Libertarian would no more abolish copyright then he would abolish profit.
The problem with relying on judges is that you're more likely to get a ruling like Kelo than some noble defense of the Constitution. You know, Kelo, the one that declared, yes, governments can seize your private property and transfer it to other private citizens for "the public good".
There's a line in the Bible... "Put not your trust in princes"... that I think could easily apply to judges when it comes to your rights and the Constitution.
"It's not property and you, sir, are not an intellectual."
I have no idea whether he is or not, but you're wrong. The law says it's property, and makes no regard for how easily reproducible it is. You can stomp your feet and exclaim otherwise... you can spout macro-economic theory all day long... but copyrighted matierals, including copies of such matierial, bet it physical or digital, are considered property.
I love the idea of a Mac Mini server for many tasks. If you just need a server for directory, file, and print stuff, this is a damn good idea, especially if you're constrained for space. Even if you're not, most small offices don't have huge IT setups... many just use a business-grade cable or DSL connection with a small router. This is the perfect kind of server for that kind of small office setup. I don't think Apple anticipates anyone running heavy SQL on this or anything. This is also a good way to test the waters to see how much of a market there really is for OSX Server. Bravo to Apple on this one. It's a few more bucks than a PC equivalent (no surprise there), but a typically elegant-while-useful idea that Apple is sometimes famous for.
America is the only 1st World country where filing for bankruptcies for unpaid medical expenses exists.
Canada, they of the Great-White-Northern single payer system, has a substantial medical bankruptcy rate. It's less prevalent in Europe (though it still exists there too) but only because they have an even bigger social welfare state.
The majority of medical bankruptcies come not from lack of insurance, but from long illnesses that result in lack of income.
Second that. People who come from disadvantaged families who want post-highschool education should have the opportunity to get it and not just be told "no, you've got to take and bare some responsibility on your own life".
Please point out how anyone in the US, no matter how poor, has been cut off from post-high school education? What rock have you been hiding under?
Everyone is being pushed to go to college now, whether they're cut out for it or need it. The government is about to essentially nationalize all student loans. The government has very generous grant programs for college and vocational schools. You can be in the middle class and still qualify for them. You don't even neccessarily need good grades to get into college now, just a pulse and a way to pay tuition, whether it comes from Mom and Dad or Uncle Sugar. If you serve in the military, they'll also not only pay generous amounts for tuition (I know, I had the GI Bill from my service), but they'll also pay previous tuition debts, and, if you become a career solider, they'll pay for advanced degrees, no matter where you get into. Harvard? They'll pay it. Stanford? Yep, they've got that too.
There are zero barriers to getting an advanced education in this country. If you want to do it, the opportunities are boundless for even the most poor.
But until the libertarian dream is realized (at least as much wishful thinking as marxist socialism) I'll take public welfare over corporate welfare any day:)
When did the work ethic and plain, simple personal responsibility become libertarian utopianism?
All rights are what the majority decides them to be, and always has been. You act like this is unusual.
If the majority, in sufficient numbers, pressed for a new right or repeal of a right via a constitutional amendment, it would happen. That's how it works.
Don't they always chant population density as to reason why many people are stuck with dial-up?
While there are indeed areas where cable or DSL isn't available, I think you're seriously underestimating the number of people that use dial-up simply because they don't see the need for broadband, nor the point in paying for it. I think you'd be quite surprised at the number of people that would tell you "Look, I don't want cable. I check email and look at the occasional news website.
""Thank god I live in a country where I'm free to lose my home if my wife or kid gets sick, just as our Founding Fathers intended."
You say that in a mocking way, but you're actually right. Freedom includes the risk of losing as well as the possibility of winning.
Or, you can turn your life over to a government with the promises of all your needs being taken care of from cradle to grave. All you have to give them is... everything.
The problem, for admirers of this system such as yourself, anyway, is that Europe itself is starting to question such an arrangement. People are beginning to wonder why they can't have a good medical care system without massive government expenditures. They're starting to wonder just why it's necessary to be paying so much in taxes. They're starting to wonder why starting a business has to be a bureaucratic nightmare. And they're starting to vote appropriately.
"Yeah... no. Suicide bombers aren't cowards, whatever else you want to call them."
But of course they are.
Look, there are no consequences to themselves personally for being suicide bombers. One, they physically die. That means no possibility of being captured, tried, imprisoned, etc.
Two, they think they're going to paradise for what they're doing.
In their own minds, there are zero consequences for what they're doing, only reward. And so while there's some cowardice involved on the part of the bombers themselves, the greater cowardice is actually on the part of those that send them.
Yet somehow Bush managed to get into the office twice and disturb the world order to the extent that the next American president can get a Nobel prize within a year, just for undoing the damage done.
Don't be so smug about the good things that you can't see the bad.
But he hasn't undone anything. Guantanamo? Still open, and will be for a long time. Iraq? Continued the Bush policy almost exactly. Afghanistan? Weighing a troop increase.
All this shows is that the world community is entirely ignorant of how the US Office of the President works.
Understand it pretty well thanks; it works very badly.
What an incredibly stupid thing to say. Other than Switzerland, which has been free since 1291, could you point out a Democratic Republic that has been around longer the US?
Every four years, we have passionate but free and orderly elections that result in the peaceful transfer of power, often between two very different groups of people. Perfect? Nothing is. Better than everything else? I'd say so.
For a system that you think sucks so badly, a lot of countries seemed to have emulated our model from one degree to another.
"In the past it was the Russians or the Communists, or something else. Always a nameless shapeless threat which is used as excuse for committing unspeakable acts. "
I see. So Lenin and Stalin's Empire was not evil, wasn't a threat, we provoked them, etc etc.
Try not to accuse anyone else of being morally vacuous until you look in a mirror.
The international community would seem to disagree with you and agree with GP.
Just what is the International Community? Is there a membership card? Requirements for getting in? Because if you mean "other people across the world", it also includes North Korea, Libya, Cuba, etc.
Besides, this amorphous community didnd't vote on the Nobel. A bunch of guys from Norway did. And they seemed to have done it more to poke George W. Bush in the eye than to actually reward any real accomplishments.
"Einstein didn't even have Power Point, but that's essentially what he did too."
So you're arguing that Al Gore actually conceived the theory of global warming then? Did the science? Worked out the equations? Submitted the research to peer review? That Al Gore?
"Israel deserves more trust than Iran? Are you serious?"
I don't know about him, but I am, absolutely.
"Iran has not, in recent military history, conducted a single war of aggression against its neighbours
No, they've been smart enough to let terrorist proxy groups like Hezbollah do it for them, groups funded, trained, and equipped by Iran. And taking over an embassy is considered an act of war. And I was in the area when they unilaterally tried to cut off traffic in the Persian Gulf, and one of their mines almost sank the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts. No, no aggression against other states there.
For all of its history, most of Israel's neighbors have denied its right to exist, and sworn to push them into the sea. They've attacked them literally since the day the Jewish state was founded. After several failed invasions, Jordan and Egypt now have peace treaties with Israel that recognize her right to exist. There's been no wars with those countries since then. Syria, however, tired of losing to Israel in conventional warfare, conquered Lebanon and made it a vassal state... which it has stayed, from one degree to another ever since... and continues to launch attacks on Israel from that territory, using its terrorist proxies to do the dirty work. Want to keep Israel out of Lebanon? Keep Syria out of Lebanon.
Israel, on the other hand, have no such doctrine, and history demonstrates they have adopted a first strike policy.
Considering that in every major war, Israel was invaded by surrounding states, you honestly think this is bad? Are you going to seriously make the argument that taking out Saddam Hussein's nuclear facilities (which were going to produce weapons-grade material) wasn't a smart thing to do?
Iran has been co-operating with the IAEA - not flawlessly, and there are problems, but they have been co-operating.
Most of these "secular" nations have religious populations, and religious traditions within government operations. Isreal was a country founded as a homeland for a religion. America's founding document, the Declaration of Independence, thanks God. Many preambles of constitutions in these western nations do the same thing. God is on American money, our courthouses, and many other places. Religious populations (and governments supporting those religious traditions) does not equal a threat to others. Even Saudi Arabia, the most deeply-Muslim state in the middle east, doesn't go around invading it's neighbors.
Religion-hostile atheist governments, however... the U.S.S.R., the People's Republic of China, North Korea... have had a history of aggression against neighbors and rivals.
It seems that the magic formula for good, stable government is a certain kind of mix; governments that respect and protect, and even to a certain extent, promote faith, without strictly governing by religious rules. Religion suffuses the laws and cultures of these states... our laws are, after all, heavily influenced by religious sources... the ten commandments, etc. But we don't strictly govern by them. The best, most free, most stable,most prosperous states in history have all been ones with religious-friendly governments, yet ones that limited the government's power. After WWII, many of the recovering European states were governed by or included strong "Christian Democratic" parties. When Europe was grounded in endless wars prior to the twentieth century, it was far more about non-democratic governments jockeying for wealth and power than about religion.
You want stability? Switzerland has been around (and remained free and productive, save for one invasion by France) since 1291. Their Constitutions... including the last revisions in 1997... have always started off with "In the name of Almighty God!"
The notion of "take religion away and everything is fine" says more about your prejudices than about reality.
Slashdot Mirror
See, if all libertarians were as reasonable as you I wouldn't diss on you guys so much. :)
In your case, "reasonable" seems to mean "as long as you agree with me".
"Do not confuse capitalism with the free market.
The "most prized product" -- the goal -- of capitalism is greater wealth for the aristocrats who control the capital."
Who moderated this balderdash as insightful?
The goal of capitalism to make more wealth and spend the fruits of that wealth as we damn well please. Period. That goes for the bricklayer as much as it goes for brick company owner. Capital can be owned, traded, grown, or lost, by anyone. This is why market economies prosper while planned economies do not.
"The true libertarian solution would be to abolish copyright altogether."
Not even close. Copyright is a form of property rights, and Libertarians of all stripes... from Rand's Objectivists to the Austrian School people... place property rights as the most precious of liberties. A Libertarian would no more abolish copyright then he would abolish profit.
Did you seriously just cite the Bible to support your claim in a slashdot thread?
And? It's a good quote. Would you care to argue its validity, or do you simply want to bitch like a second rate Richard Dawkins?
"Put not your trust in princes" is a pretty good piece of advice no matter where it comes from.
Judges? Based on .. the law?
The problem with relying on judges is that you're more likely to get a ruling like Kelo than some noble defense of the Constitution. You know, Kelo, the one that declared, yes, governments can seize your private property and transfer it to other private citizens for "the public good".
There's a line in the Bible... "Put not your trust in princes"... that I think could easily apply to judges when it comes to your rights and the Constitution.
"It's not property and you, sir, are not an intellectual."
I have no idea whether he is or not, but you're wrong. The law says it's property, and makes no regard for how easily reproducible it is. You can stomp your feet and exclaim otherwise... you can spout macro-economic theory all day long... but copyrighted matierals, including copies of such matierial, bet it physical or digital, are considered property.
I love the idea of a Mac Mini server for many tasks. If you just need a server for directory, file, and print stuff, this is a damn good idea, especially if you're constrained for space. Even if you're not, most small offices don't have huge IT setups... many just use a business-grade cable or DSL connection with a small router. This is the perfect kind of server for that kind of small office setup. I don't think Apple anticipates anyone running heavy SQL on this or anything. This is also a good way to test the waters to see how much of a market there really is for OSX Server. Bravo to Apple on this one. It's a few more bucks than a PC equivalent (no surprise there), but a typically elegant-while-useful idea that Apple is sometimes famous for.
How much of this is about nudging Linus... pushing him, really... into applying GPL 3 to the Linux kernel?
"Maybe a the ultra successful should provide a safety net for the ones who lose."
Welfare? Food Stamps? Medicaid? Public housing?
The poor get all of those. We have a safety net. So are you arguing for a safety net, or are you arguing that government should give people a living?
America is the only 1st World country where filing for bankruptcies for unpaid medical expenses exists.
Canada, they of the Great-White-Northern single payer system, has a substantial medical bankruptcy rate. It's less prevalent in Europe (though it still exists there too) but only because they have an even bigger social welfare state.
The majority of medical bankruptcies come not from lack of insurance, but from long illnesses that result in lack of income.
It's been pretty amazing over the last few months watching Americans demand that the government NOT guarantee them affordable health care.
Why should it be? The whole idea of limited government is that the government is limited.
Lets hope you stay living in the US of A then.
Second that. People who come from disadvantaged families who want post-highschool education should have the opportunity to get it and not just be told "no, you've got to take and bare some responsibility on your own life".
Please point out how anyone in the US, no matter how poor, has been cut off from post-high school education? What rock have you been hiding under?
Everyone is being pushed to go to college now, whether they're cut out for it or need it. The government is about to essentially nationalize all student loans. The government has very generous grant programs for college and vocational schools. You can be in the middle class and still qualify for them. You don't even neccessarily need good grades to get into college now, just a pulse and a way to pay tuition, whether it comes from Mom and Dad or Uncle Sugar. If you serve in the military, they'll also not only pay generous amounts for tuition (I know, I had the GI Bill from my service), but they'll also pay previous tuition debts, and, if you become a career solider, they'll pay for advanced degrees, no matter where you get into. Harvard? They'll pay it. Stanford? Yep, they've got that too.
There are zero barriers to getting an advanced education in this country. If you want to do it, the opportunities are boundless for even the most poor.
But until the libertarian dream is realized (at least as much wishful thinking as marxist socialism) I'll take public welfare over corporate welfare any day :)
When did the work ethic and plain, simple personal responsibility become libertarian utopianism?
We call them "gays".
All rights are what the majority decides them to be, and always has been. You act like this is unusual.
If the majority, in sufficient numbers, pressed for a new right or repeal of a right via a constitutional amendment, it would happen. That's how it works.
Don't they always chant population density as to reason why many people are stuck with dial-up?
While there are indeed areas where cable or DSL isn't available, I think you're seriously underestimating the number of people that use dial-up simply because they don't see the need for broadband, nor the point in paying for it. I think you'd be quite surprised at the number of people that would tell you "Look, I don't want cable. I check email and look at the occasional news website.
""Thank god I live in a country where I'm free to lose my home if my wife or kid gets sick, just as our Founding Fathers intended."
You say that in a mocking way, but you're actually right. Freedom includes the risk of losing as well as the possibility of winning.
Or, you can turn your life over to a government with the promises of all your needs being taken care of from cradle to grave. All you have to give them is... everything.
The problem, for admirers of this system such as yourself, anyway, is that Europe itself is starting to question such an arrangement. People are beginning to wonder why they can't have a good medical care system without massive government expenditures. They're starting to wonder just why it's necessary to be paying so much in taxes. They're starting to wonder why starting a business has to be a bureaucratic nightmare. And they're starting to vote appropriately.
So, yes sir, I agree with you. God Bless America.
"Yeah... no. Suicide bombers aren't cowards, whatever else you want to call them."
But of course they are.
Look, there are no consequences to themselves personally for being suicide bombers. One, they physically die. That means no possibility of being captured, tried, imprisoned, etc.
Two, they think they're going to paradise for what they're doing.
In their own minds, there are zero consequences for what they're doing, only reward. And so while there's some cowardice involved on the part of the bombers themselves, the greater cowardice is actually on the part of those that send them.
Yet somehow Bush managed to get into the office twice and disturb the world order to the extent that the next American president can get a Nobel prize within a year, just for undoing the damage done.
Don't be so smug about the good things that you can't see the bad.
But he hasn't undone anything. Guantanamo? Still open, and will be for a long time. Iraq? Continued the Bush policy almost exactly. Afghanistan? Weighing a troop increase.
This was a popularity contest, not a peace prize.
All this shows is that the world community is entirely ignorant of how the US Office of the President works.
Understand it pretty well thanks; it works very badly.
What an incredibly stupid thing to say. Other than Switzerland, which has been free since 1291, could you point out a Democratic Republic that has been around longer the US?
Every four years, we have passionate but free and orderly elections that result in the peaceful transfer of power, often between two very different groups of people. Perfect? Nothing is. Better than everything else? I'd say so.
For a system that you think sucks so badly, a lot of countries seemed to have emulated our model from one degree to another.
You voted bush out, remember?
Uh, no, we didn't. He was re-elected to a second term, and served a full 8 years.
"In the past it was the Russians or the Communists, or something else. Always a nameless shapeless threat which is used as excuse for committing unspeakable acts. "
I see. So Lenin and Stalin's Empire was not evil, wasn't a threat, we provoked them, etc etc.
Try not to accuse anyone else of being morally vacuous until you look in a mirror.
The international community would seem to disagree with you and agree with GP.
Just what is the International Community? Is there a membership card? Requirements for getting in? Because if you mean "other people across the world", it also includes North Korea, Libya, Cuba, etc.
Besides, this amorphous community didnd't vote on the Nobel. A bunch of guys from Norway did. And they seemed to have done it more to poke George W. Bush in the eye than to actually reward any real accomplishments.
"Einstein didn't even have Power Point, but that's essentially what he did too."
So you're arguing that Al Gore actually conceived the theory of global warming then? Did the science? Worked out the equations? Submitted the research to peer review? That Al Gore?
I guess he really did invent the Internet then.
"Israel deserves more trust than Iran? Are you serious?"
I don't know about him, but I am, absolutely.
"Iran has not, in recent military history, conducted a single war of aggression against its neighbours
No, they've been smart enough to let terrorist proxy groups like Hezbollah do it for them, groups funded, trained, and equipped by Iran. And taking over an embassy is considered an act of war. And I was in the area when they unilaterally tried to cut off traffic in the Persian Gulf, and one of their mines almost sank the U.S.S. Samuel B. Roberts. No, no aggression against other states there.
For all of its history, most of Israel's neighbors have denied its right to exist, and sworn to push them into the sea. They've attacked them literally since the day the Jewish state was founded. After several failed invasions, Jordan and Egypt now have peace treaties with Israel that recognize her right to exist. There's been no wars with those countries since then. Syria, however, tired of losing to Israel in conventional warfare, conquered Lebanon and made it a vassal state... which it has stayed, from one degree to another ever since... and continues to launch attacks on Israel from that territory, using its terrorist proxies to do the dirty work. Want to keep Israel out of Lebanon? Keep Syria out of Lebanon.
Israel, on the other hand, have no such doctrine, and history demonstrates they have adopted a first strike policy.
Considering that in every major war, Israel was invaded by surrounding states, you honestly think this is bad? Are you going to seriously make the argument that taking out Saddam Hussein's nuclear facilities (which were going to produce weapons-grade material) wasn't a smart thing to do?
Iran has been co-operating with the IAEA - not flawlessly, and there are problems, but they have been co-operating.
Yeah, they've been cooperating so closely that they built a second uranium enrichment facility that stayed secret until now.
Iran does not deny the holocaust took place
Wow
Most of these "secular" nations have religious populations, and religious traditions within government operations. Isreal was a country founded as a homeland for a religion. America's founding document, the Declaration of Independence, thanks God. Many preambles of constitutions in these western nations do the same thing. God is on American money, our courthouses, and many other places. Religious populations (and governments supporting those religious traditions) does not equal a threat to others. Even Saudi Arabia, the most deeply-Muslim state in the middle east, doesn't go around invading it's neighbors.
Religion-hostile atheist governments, however... the U.S.S.R., the People's Republic of China, North Korea... have had a history of aggression against neighbors and rivals.
It seems that the magic formula for good, stable government is a certain kind of mix; governments that respect and protect, and even to a certain extent, promote faith, without strictly governing by religious rules. Religion suffuses the laws and cultures of these states... our laws are, after all, heavily influenced by religious sources... the ten commandments, etc. But we don't strictly govern by them. The best, most free, most stable,most prosperous states in history have all been ones with religious-friendly governments, yet ones that limited the government's power. After WWII, many of the recovering European states were governed by or included strong "Christian Democratic" parties. When Europe was grounded in endless wars prior to the twentieth century, it was far more about non-democratic governments jockeying for wealth and power than about religion.
You want stability? Switzerland has been around (and remained free and productive, save for one invasion by France) since 1291. Their Constitutions... including the last revisions in 1997... have always started off with "In the name of Almighty God!"
The notion of "take religion away and everything is fine" says more about your prejudices than about reality.