Open source is a good thing, but making me use it just because is idiotic.
Not when it comes to tax dollars. There's also the matter that MS has proven time and again to be an extremely untrustworthy, lawbreaking company - this is public record, and well documented. Without access to the source code the government - using taxpayer money - has little idea what the software is actually doing, what security holes it contains, and what information may be transmitted back to MS (e.g., employee use profiles).
Frankly, I don't care if the government uses Linux or MS, so long as the government has full access to the source code. it's my tax dollars at work here, and I insist that the software purchased be open to complete government review - and that my government be able to alter it to fit its needs without having to contract again with the company it originally purchased the software from.
The government is not a corporation. It should not be required to play by the rules of a corporation. The government is a public trust, running on tax dollars, and should never have to rely on the word of any corporation, without verification, that a thing will do what the corporation says it does.
it is illegal for the US Government to fund projects that directly compete with commercial interests.
It would be illegal for the government to start it's own software company and undercut MS in the market; it isn't illegal for the government to mandate the use of open source in it's own operations. Such mandates do not 'compete' with commercial interests in any way, shape or form.
It's irrelevant if MS were to lose out on a potential 'market' because of this. The government isn't required to provide 'markets' to corporate interest using taxpayer dollars.
but it's still the best music ever created (by most standards)
No, it's the best music by your standards. Which aren't in any way superior to mine, in case you haven't noticed. Claims to the contrary are nothing more than baseless arrogance.
people don't WANT to listen, they just know no better because their options are so limited.
Oh, piss off, you shallow little egotist. You don't have the first damned clue what these people want to listen to, other than the evidence of their buying habits. And lo! It appears that they like pop quite a bit, given the amount of money the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Mandy Moore are raking in.
These folks know what they like, and what they don't. They aren't suddenly going to 'convert' to your listening habits because they hear some piss-ant garage band you happen to enjoy banging away on their electric guitars. So why don't you just get over yourself, admit that pop is popular because alot of people happen to like it, and move on?
Information moves too slowly and is far too easily subverted for a large free market to function
In a modern society information moves far more quickly than any economic change. If anything it isn't the speed of the information that's a problem, it's the amount of information available.
This is why third parties (private or governmental) need to be introduced for large markets to work.
This is nothing more than unsupported personal opinion, not fact. An unregulated free market has never been attempted in anything remotely approaching modern society; even a lightly regulated free market has never been attempted. Without a basis for evaluation, the 'need' for regulation is entirely speculative conjecture.
But a market where sellers control all the information isn't going to function well
No such market exists in the modern world. With each passing day traditional power structures are finding harder to control information as new sources make it difficult to control the dissemination of that information. Traditional power structures rely heavily on information control; communication technology like the internet make this sort of stranglehold impossible to maintain. Why do you think both governments and corporations are so desperate to devalue the internet as a source of information dispersal?
The bad guys might know what to do with the data I send around, law enforcement can't touch it without going to jail themselves.
What a wonderfully naive view of the world. You seem to think that law enforcement officials feel compelled to themselves obey the law in the pursuit of an investigation.
Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you straight out that this often isn't the case. If you have to bend or even break a few laws to get the bad guy, then that's what you do - just make sure that no one figures out what you've done.
How this makes the officials in question any different than a pack of mafia thugs is rather beyond me, but they certainly seem to think that it's okay to say 'fuck the law' if that's what it takes. And nowadays, the next 'bad guy' could be you.
I've ripped all of my cds at 320kb, because I can clearly hear the difference between this and, say, 256k. A song at 128k is fine if all you're doing is sampling the music to see if you want to buy it, but it certainly isn't of the quality I'd want to listen to on a regular basis.
On the other hand, most of the people I know can't tell the difference between an mp3 at 192kb and one at 320kb, so this is probably something specific to my hearing.
The songs are, of course, much larger, but hard drive space is so cheap I don't worry about the file size - yet. Hell, I have *two* copies of every song; I use hard drives on other parts of my network, not CDs or tapes, as backups. Convenience combined with low prices - why not?
In any event, I'd never use the Apple service because the sound quality would suck in comparison to what I'm used to. I've heard AAC and I don't find it any better than an equivalent mp3; I can't imagine paying for a 128kb song which is always going to sound - at least to me - pretty shitty.
Seems to me it'd be more cost-efficient to hire an admin who was experienced with MySQL or Postgres. That way you have support on-site from an actual expert; no expensive contracts required, no waiting, no getting screwed when the 'support' is sub-standard or the company that provides the support demands more money.
I'm at a loss here. I use SuSe Linux for my home system, which has to be the most brainless and user-friendly distribution available. With 8.2 it's pretty much 'three clicks and you're good to go', if you don't want to customize installation (which I do, heavily).
However, I often install programs which have no RPM, just tarballs or gzipped tarballs. I don't have any problem doing this at all. If there are dependency conflicts they're usually pretty easy to work around; and if not a test or two will tell me where I'm fucked and then I can fix that by hand (or remove the program that's causing the problem).
Sure, this is a bit beyond the average user but you can mix an RPM-based system and regular tarballs relatively easily with some basic know-how.
The "free market" is an economic model that makes many assumptions. In a "free market" the theoretical consumers make rational decisions all the time, and are perfectly informed.
Not so. This is a simplistic, 19th century model which has been improved upon quite a bit in the last century.
Current economic theory does take into account irrational decisions, but on the whole individual irrational economic decisions do little to affect the economics of the entire population. There will always be some people acting irrationally, but on the whole most will make rational decisions most of the time, the end result of which drives the free market.
Note that a 'rational decision' also requires accurate information. If the population is given incorrect information (either deliberately or otherwise) it will act irrationally because the information available tells it that the irrational is actually rational.
The thing to keep in mind here is that there is no capitalistic model at work in any country in the world (with the possible exception of tiny places like Andorra - couldn't tell you about these mini-nations). Even the 'capitalist' economy of the United States is heavily socialized and government-controlled, although the government control often works opposite to that of fascism (i.e., instead of the government giving orders to corporations, it's usually the other way around). We have no idea - none whatsoever - how a capitalistic free market would work because we don't have any capitalistic free markets to examine. A socialistic, oligarchical corporate state does not a free market make.
So it makes no sense to criticize capitalism or the free market. You do not live in a capitalistic country, and you don't have a free market.
Perhaps, unlike your claim, people actually want to hear the music that's currently popular. I know that doesn't fit your college student model of how the world 'should' work (where everyone listens to indie or rap garbage), but the RIAA isn't the only one in need of a reality check here....
This is the MTV generation downloading. Their attention span is approximately equal to the length of one radio-play song
Which makes them no different at all from their parents, or any generation that's gone before them. Although some folks in those past generations clearly think they're of a superior breed.
If the RIAA up and died tomorrow, artists would still produce CDs through recording companies and sell them to retail outlets, just as they do now. There is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise; the absence of the RIAA won't change this practice one bit. Artists won't be out on the street because the RIAA no longer exists.
in fact, I can see only three things changing:
- price of CDs would decline dramatically (no more price fixing from a corporate oligarchy);
- without a monopoly competition between companies for artists would increase, probably resulting in more profits for artists (Capitalism 101);
- without a monopoly to dictate what gets airplay, a far larger selection of bands and solo acts would be played over the airwaves.
Hmmmm, all of this seems like a good thing to me....
Except that the RIAA has stated, time and time again, that the mere use of these services constittutes a crime, and that there is no legitimate reason whatsoever for file sharing.
The hypocrisy involved in using the very tools they attribute to the minions of 'evil' - the tools they categorically claim are criminal by their very nature - is rather amusing. I'm sure the RIAA fails to see the overreaching hypocrisy of their actions, given the lack of real intelligence they've consistently displayed. I'm also sure they wouldn't give a damn even if they put the clues together, since they also seem to think that they're above the law - or that they can at least shape it to meet their desires whenever they feel like it.
I thought his point was both succinct and dead-on.
Your point, however, was nothing more than a mindless slam against both the poster and/., with no contributive value whatsoever. Had I any mod points I'd mod you down, for unlike you I'm not a spineless pussy.
As Orwell would probably say, the dilution of language that comes from overstatement and misuse is a bigger danger, and I'm not suggesting "tolerating" the little injustices, just keeping them in a proper sense of scale.
The irony inherent in your statement nearly bowled me over with laughter. After all, completely ignoring the man's Constitutional rights for six weeks can't amount to much more than a 'little injustice', can it? Hey, can I have some freedom fries with that?
Let's see what you think when the government comes and kidnaps *you*, then holds you incommunicado without due process for a month and a half. Bet you change your tune right quick.
but at this point Linux on the desktop needs to just reach the same level.
No it doesn't. Linux has never had the goal of doing what Windows does, only better.
Where the hell do you boys come from, anyway? What - you switched to Linux to prove your 'leetness' to your friends, then became all bitter and angry when you found it wasn't as easy to use as Windows?
If you don't like the way things are done, go back to Windows. Or write your own fucking distribution. But you don't have any business telling myself or any other volunteer programmer what 'should' be done or what Linux 'needs'. The only business you have - the only business you have - is getting off your ass and making the changes yourself.
Otherwise, just do what I suggested and go back to Windows. You and all the rest of your ilk, thanks. I don't work on Linux just to hear you little brats whine about what I 'should' be doing, or why Linux sucks because it ain't like Windows....
Consider: the OS just might not be for you. Especially if you can't figure it out. That isn't a failing of the OS, but rather of your abilities in comparison to your expectations.
No. What we need is a unified standard for double-clickable software installation from third party packages. And people wonder why there's not more commercial development on Linux.
Yet another asshole telling everyone else what Linux needs, complaining like a spoiled brat because it isn't a perfect clone of Windows.
Guess what, boy? 'We' don't need a unified standard; *you* need a unified standard. And you have it: it's called Windows.
So load that puppy up and forget Linux altogether. You'll be much happier with your shiny new OS and so will the rest of us, who won't have to listen to your mindless complaining anymore.
Europe is repressive? Excuse me? Where did you get that? Or let me ask which propaganda did you hear that from?
Any country which a) bans free speech concerning certain subjects because they aren't 'approved', and/or b) denies a citizen the right to arm him or herself for the purposes of self-defense is repressive. You can't have a society based on liberty under either of these conditions.
Ireland has received plenty of aid and has been rebuilt into a dynamic economy.
Ireland rebuilt itself, primarily by installing a fiscally conservative government and implementing massive corporate and individual tax cuts. This is a matter of record, and the primary complaint of the EU - that Ireland's taxes are *too low*.
What the fuck business is it of the EU how Ireland sets up its taxes? It's no wonder Ireland is telling the EU to piss off.
It does not bow down, it compromises
No, it isn't compromising, it's telling the EU that Ireland's government finances and tax structures are nobody's business but Ireland's. That seems sensible enough; however, the EU has saber-rattled by threatening economic sanctions against Ireland because it refuses to budge.
Lo and behold they are individual rights!
Why how about that! And yet those individual rights do not include free speech or freedom of expression when it comes to certain 'taboo' topics, nor do they include the right to use force to defend oneself or one's property from harm.
And why should I care? I don't have an agenda, nor am I interested in pushing one.
I use Linux for just about everything. But I have a Win98 partition for the sole purpose of playing games. Really, I don't give a damn if this upsets some OS advocate and I don't plan on using Wine at all so long as it's easier to play the games on my partition.
Socially Progressive with Freedom most would envy.
I wouldn't have a clue what "socially progressive" means in this context, since you didn't bother to provide any examples to back your claim. And as for freedom...the Canadian equivalent of the Bill of Rights can be revoked by the Canadian government at any time, for any reason. I admit this doesn't mean a whole lot, given that in America the Bill of Rights is supposedly inviolate and yet the government no longer pays attention to it at all, but even so....
The world is NOT dominated by a ProCorporate, ProCompetition, ProSelfishness Worldview that is commonplace in America.
No, it's dominated by a pro-corporate, pro-competition, pro-selfishness worldview that's held by - get this! - most of the world. If you think the Canadian government or corporations are any different in this regard than the American government or American corporations, you're seriously naive. Time for the clue bat.
Not everyone harbours contempt for his neighbour as a potential threat or source of suspicion.
Nope, just most people. Do remember that most European countries are even more repressive than the U.S. when it comes to individual rights. Of course these countries claim that these measures are necessary for 'the greater good', but anyone with half a brain knows this is just a battle cry for the masses, much along the lines of 'for the chiiiiiilllllddddreeennn!!!"
And Europe isn't at all averse to threatening other countries with action if they don't bow down before the Union and submit. Just ask the Irish if you want some recent proof of that. The only difference between America and Europe is that America is willing to take the extra step and use war for its own gain.
Europe is *not* a shining example of socialist freedom. Neither is Canada. I'd argue that most countries in Europe are worse, and that Canada prior to Bush wasn't that great either. Now Canada looks like an attractive alternative, but only because the U.S. government (and society) has gotten so much more repressive in three short years.
The Right of "keeping what is yours" is NOT a basis on which to found a Community.
Fuck the community. There is no 'greater good'. That's just an excuse to pass laws telling other people that they can't do thing x because it doesn't agree with your personal view of how things 'should' be.
The only rights that count are individual rights, and ones that are pretty fucking obvious to any rational human. Like the right not to be murdered, to right to free speech, the right to defend oneself or one's neighbor or one's property, and so forth. If you defend individual rights you automatically defend the society which is composed of those individuals. You cannot defend a society without fighting for individual rights - that should be painfully apparent, since all societies are composed of individuals. Any argument to the contrary is ludicrous on its face, a tool used to *remove* rights from individuals you personally don't approve of.
Let's not forget that the CIA has also interfered with the elections in First World nations as well, such as Autralia, Italy, and Germany. All of these activities are well-documented. The U.S. has no qualms at all when it comes to covertly and illegally attempting to derail a government it doesn't like, even if that government was democratically elected and is supposedly an ally.
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Open source is a good thing, but making me use it just because is idiotic.
Not when it comes to tax dollars. There's also the matter that MS has proven time and again to be an extremely untrustworthy, lawbreaking company - this is public record, and well documented. Without access to the source code the government - using taxpayer money - has little idea what the software is actually doing, what security holes it contains, and what information may be transmitted back to MS (e.g., employee use profiles).
Frankly, I don't care if the government uses Linux or MS, so long as the government has full access to the source code. it's my tax dollars at work here, and I insist that the software purchased be open to complete government review - and that my government be able to alter it to fit its needs without having to contract again with the company it originally purchased the software from.
The government is not a corporation. It should not be required to play by the rules of a corporation. The government is a public trust, running on tax dollars, and should never have to rely on the word of any corporation, without verification, that a thing will do what the corporation says it does.
It's as simple as that.
Max
it is illegal for the US Government to fund projects that directly compete with commercial interests.
It would be illegal for the government to start it's own software company and undercut MS in the market; it isn't illegal for the government to mandate the use of open source in it's own operations. Such mandates do not 'compete' with commercial interests in any way, shape or form.
It's irrelevant if MS were to lose out on a potential 'market' because of this. The government isn't required to provide 'markets' to corporate interest using taxpayer dollars.
Max
but it's still the best music ever created (by most standards)
No, it's the best music by your standards. Which aren't in any way superior to mine, in case you haven't noticed. Claims to the contrary are nothing more than baseless arrogance.
people don't WANT to listen, they just know no better because their options are so limited.
Oh, piss off, you shallow little egotist. You don't have the first damned clue what these people want to listen to, other than the evidence of their buying habits. And lo! It appears that they like pop quite a bit, given the amount of money the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Mandy Moore are raking in.
These folks know what they like, and what they don't. They aren't suddenly going to 'convert' to your listening habits because they hear some piss-ant garage band you happen to enjoy banging away on their electric guitars. So why don't you just get over yourself, admit that pop is popular because alot of people happen to like it, and move on?
Max
Information moves too slowly and is far too easily subverted for a large free market to function
In a modern society information moves far more quickly than any economic change. If anything it isn't the speed of the information that's a problem, it's the amount of information available.
This is why third parties (private or governmental) need to be introduced for large markets to work.
This is nothing more than unsupported personal opinion, not fact. An unregulated free market has never been attempted in anything remotely approaching modern society; even a lightly regulated free market has never been attempted. Without a basis for evaluation, the 'need' for regulation is entirely speculative conjecture.
But a market where sellers control all the information isn't going to function well
No such market exists in the modern world. With each passing day traditional power structures are finding harder to control information as new sources make it difficult to control the dissemination of that information. Traditional power structures rely heavily on information control; communication technology like the internet make this sort of stranglehold impossible to maintain. Why do you think both governments and corporations are so desperate to devalue the internet as a source of information dispersal?
Max
The bad guys might know what to do with the data I send around, law enforcement can't touch it without going to jail themselves.
What a wonderfully naive view of the world. You seem to think that law enforcement officials feel compelled to themselves obey the law in the pursuit of an investigation.
Speaking from personal experience, I can tell you straight out that this often isn't the case. If you have to bend or even break a few laws to get the bad guy, then that's what you do - just make sure that no one figures out what you've done.
How this makes the officials in question any different than a pack of mafia thugs is rather beyond me, but they certainly seem to think that it's okay to say 'fuck the law' if that's what it takes. And nowadays, the next 'bad guy' could be you.
Max
I've ripped all of my cds at 320kb, because I can clearly hear the difference between this and, say, 256k. A song at 128k is fine if all you're doing is sampling the music to see if you want to buy it, but it certainly isn't of the quality I'd want to listen to on a regular basis.
On the other hand, most of the people I know can't tell the difference between an mp3 at 192kb and one at 320kb, so this is probably something specific to my hearing.
The songs are, of course, much larger, but hard drive space is so cheap I don't worry about the file size - yet. Hell, I have *two* copies of every song; I use hard drives on other parts of my network, not CDs or tapes, as backups. Convenience combined with low prices - why not?
In any event, I'd never use the Apple service because the sound quality would suck in comparison to what I'm used to. I've heard AAC and I don't find it any better than an equivalent mp3; I can't imagine paying for a 128kb song which is always going to sound - at least to me - pretty shitty.
Max
Seems to me it'd be more cost-efficient to hire an admin who was experienced with MySQL or Postgres. That way you have support on-site from an actual expert; no expensive contracts required, no waiting, no getting screwed when the 'support' is sub-standard or the company that provides the support demands more money.
Max
I'm at a loss here. I use SuSe Linux for my home system, which has to be the most brainless and user-friendly distribution available. With 8.2 it's pretty much 'three clicks and you're good to go', if you don't want to customize installation (which I do, heavily).
However, I often install programs which have no RPM, just tarballs or gzipped tarballs. I don't have any problem doing this at all. If there are dependency conflicts they're usually pretty easy to work around; and if not a test or two will tell me where I'm fucked and then I can fix that by hand (or remove the program that's causing the problem).
Sure, this is a bit beyond the average user but you can mix an RPM-based system and regular tarballs relatively easily with some basic know-how.
Max
this should make frantic arm waving to get their attention a thing of the past.
Sure it will. Unless you look black, or hispanic, or middle-eastern....
Max
The "free market" is an economic model that makes many assumptions. In a "free market" the theoretical consumers make rational decisions all the time, and are perfectly informed.
Not so. This is a simplistic, 19th century model which has been improved upon quite a bit in the last century.
Current economic theory does take into account irrational decisions, but on the whole individual irrational economic decisions do little to affect the economics of the entire population. There will always be some people acting irrationally, but on the whole most will make rational decisions most of the time, the end result of which drives the free market.
Note that a 'rational decision' also requires accurate information. If the population is given incorrect information (either deliberately or otherwise) it will act irrationally because the information available tells it that the irrational is actually rational.
The thing to keep in mind here is that there is no capitalistic model at work in any country in the world (with the possible exception of tiny places like Andorra - couldn't tell you about these mini-nations). Even the 'capitalist' economy of the United States is heavily socialized and government-controlled, although the government control often works opposite to that of fascism (i.e., instead of the government giving orders to corporations, it's usually the other way around). We have no idea - none whatsoever - how a capitalistic free market would work because we don't have any capitalistic free markets to examine. A socialistic, oligarchical corporate state does not a free market make.
So it makes no sense to criticize capitalism or the free market. You do not live in a capitalistic country, and you don't have a free market.
Max
Perhaps, unlike your claim, people actually want to hear the music that's currently popular. I know that doesn't fit your college student model of how the world 'should' work (where everyone listens to indie or rap garbage), but the RIAA isn't the only one in need of a reality check here....
Max
This is the MTV generation downloading. Their attention span is approximately equal to the length of one radio-play song
Which makes them no different at all from their parents, or any generation that's gone before them. Although some folks in those past generations clearly think they're of a superior breed.
Max
If the RIAA up and died tomorrow, artists would still produce CDs through recording companies and sell them to retail outlets, just as they do now. There is absolutely no reason to believe otherwise; the absence of the RIAA won't change this practice one bit. Artists won't be out on the street because the RIAA no longer exists.
in fact, I can see only three things changing:
- price of CDs would decline dramatically (no more price fixing from a corporate oligarchy);
- without a monopoly competition between companies for artists would increase, probably resulting in more profits for artists (Capitalism 101);
- without a monopoly to dictate what gets airplay, a far larger selection of bands and solo acts would be played over the airwaves.
Hmmmm, all of this seems like a good thing to me....
Max
Except that the RIAA has stated, time and time again, that the mere use of these services constittutes a crime, and that there is no legitimate reason whatsoever for file sharing.
The hypocrisy involved in using the very tools they attribute to the minions of 'evil' - the tools they categorically claim are criminal by their very nature - is rather amusing. I'm sure the RIAA fails to see the overreaching hypocrisy of their actions, given the lack of real intelligence they've consistently displayed. I'm also sure they wouldn't give a damn even if they put the clues together, since they also seem to think that they're above the law - or that they can at least shape it to meet their desires whenever they feel like it.
Max
I thought his point was both succinct and dead-on.
/., with no contributive value whatsoever. Had I any mod points I'd mod you down, for unlike you I'm not a spineless pussy.
Your point, however, was nothing more than a mindless slam against both the poster and
Max
As Orwell would probably say, the dilution of language that comes from overstatement and misuse is a bigger danger, and I'm not suggesting "tolerating" the little injustices, just keeping them in a proper sense of scale.
The irony inherent in your statement nearly bowled me over with laughter. After all, completely ignoring the man's Constitutional rights for six weeks can't amount to much more than a 'little injustice', can it? Hey, can I have some freedom fries with that?
Let's see what you think when the government comes and kidnaps *you*, then holds you incommunicado without due process for a month and a half. Bet you change your tune right quick.
Max
but at this point Linux on the desktop needs to just reach the same level.
No it doesn't. Linux has never had the goal of doing what Windows does, only better.
Where the hell do you boys come from, anyway? What - you switched to Linux to prove your 'leetness' to your friends, then became all bitter and angry when you found it wasn't as easy to use as Windows?
If you don't like the way things are done, go back to Windows. Or write your own fucking distribution. But you don't have any business telling myself or any other volunteer programmer what 'should' be done or what Linux 'needs'. The only business you have - the only business you have - is getting off your ass and making the changes yourself.
Otherwise, just do what I suggested and go back to Windows. You and all the rest of your ilk, thanks. I don't work on Linux just to hear you little brats whine about what I 'should' be doing, or why Linux sucks because it ain't like Windows....
Consider: the OS just might not be for you. Especially if you can't figure it out. That isn't a failing of the OS, but rather of your abilities in comparison to your expectations.
Max
No. What we need is a unified standard for double-clickable software installation from third party packages. And people wonder why there's not more commercial development on Linux.
Yet another asshole telling everyone else what Linux needs, complaining like a spoiled brat because it isn't a perfect clone of Windows.
Guess what, boy? 'We' don't need a unified standard; *you* need a unified standard. And you have it: it's called Windows.
So load that puppy up and forget Linux altogether. You'll be much happier with your shiny new OS and so will the rest of us, who won't have to listen to your mindless complaining anymore.
Max
"depending on the game you want to play, of course"
And therein lies the rub.
Max
Europe is repressive? Excuse me? Where did you get that? Or let me ask which propaganda did you hear that from?
Any country which a) bans free speech concerning certain subjects because they aren't 'approved', and/or b) denies a citizen the right to arm him or herself for the purposes of self-defense is repressive. You can't have a society based on liberty under either of these conditions.
Ireland has received plenty of aid and has been rebuilt into a dynamic economy.
Ireland rebuilt itself, primarily by installing a fiscally conservative government and implementing massive corporate and individual tax cuts. This is a matter of record, and the primary complaint of the EU - that Ireland's taxes are *too low*.
What the fuck business is it of the EU how Ireland sets up its taxes? It's no wonder Ireland is telling the EU to piss off.
It does not bow down, it compromises
No, it isn't compromising, it's telling the EU that Ireland's government finances and tax structures are nobody's business but Ireland's. That seems sensible enough; however, the EU has saber-rattled by threatening economic sanctions against Ireland because it refuses to budge.
Lo and behold they are individual rights!
Why how about that! And yet those individual rights do not include free speech or freedom of expression when it comes to certain 'taboo' topics, nor do they include the right to use force to defend oneself or one's property from harm.
Without this, your rights mean very little.
Max
you make the technological changes to the medium to prevent it's abuse by the common rabble of the world.
You're still posting, so I guess we have a ways to go before we manage to get a handle on "the common rabble of the world".
Max
And why should I care? I don't have an agenda, nor am I interested in pushing one.
I use Linux for just about everything. But I have a Win98 partition for the sole purpose of playing games. Really, I don't give a damn if this upsets some OS advocate and I don't plan on using Wine at all so long as it's easier to play the games on my partition.
Which it currently is.
Max
Socially Progressive with Freedom most would envy.
I wouldn't have a clue what "socially progressive" means in this context, since you didn't bother to provide any examples to back your claim. And as for freedom...the Canadian equivalent of the Bill of Rights can be revoked by the Canadian government at any time, for any reason. I admit this doesn't mean a whole lot, given that in America the Bill of Rights is supposedly inviolate and yet the government no longer pays attention to it at all, but even so....
The world is NOT dominated by a ProCorporate, ProCompetition, ProSelfishness Worldview that is commonplace in America.
No, it's dominated by a pro-corporate, pro-competition, pro-selfishness worldview that's held by - get this! - most of the world. If you think the Canadian government or corporations are any different in this regard than the American government or American corporations, you're seriously naive. Time for the clue bat.
Not everyone harbours contempt for his neighbour as a potential threat or source of suspicion.
Nope, just most people. Do remember that most European countries are even more repressive than the U.S. when it comes to individual rights. Of course these countries claim that these measures are necessary for 'the greater good', but anyone with half a brain knows this is just a battle cry for the masses, much along the lines of 'for the chiiiiiilllllddddreeennn!!!"
And Europe isn't at all averse to threatening other countries with action if they don't bow down before the Union and submit. Just ask the Irish if you want some recent proof of that. The only difference between America and Europe is that America is willing to take the extra step and use war for its own gain.
Europe is *not* a shining example of socialist freedom. Neither is Canada. I'd argue that most countries in Europe are worse, and that Canada prior to Bush wasn't that great either. Now Canada looks like an attractive alternative, but only because the U.S. government (and society) has gotten so much more repressive in three short years.
The Right of "keeping what is yours" is NOT a basis on which to found a Community.
Fuck the community. There is no 'greater good'. That's just an excuse to pass laws telling other people that they can't do thing x because it doesn't agree with your personal view of how things 'should' be.
The only rights that count are individual rights, and ones that are pretty fucking obvious to any rational human. Like the right not to be murdered, to right to free speech, the right to defend oneself or one's neighbor or one's property, and so forth. If you defend individual rights you automatically defend the society which is composed of those individuals. You cannot defend a society without fighting for individual rights - that should be painfully apparent, since all societies are composed of individuals. Any argument to the contrary is ludicrous on its face, a tool used to *remove* rights from individuals you personally don't approve of.
Max
So your only acceptable world is one wherein an elite group of individuals get to determine the rights of everyone else? I'll pass, thanks.
Max
Let's not forget that the CIA has also interfered with the elections in First World nations as well, such as Autralia, Italy, and Germany. All of these activities are well-documented. The U.S. has no qualms at all when it comes to covertly and illegally attempting to derail a government it doesn't like, even if that government was democratically elected and is supposedly an ally.
Max