Not that it matters, but I support the "War on Terror" 100% and still consider myself a patriotic American
It's sad that you feel you have to point this out. It is essentially like kissing the toes of a king to reduce the chances of being beheaded when the axe man gets bored.
You know, it is entirely possible and legal under the Constitution to be a patriotic U.S. citizen while also being against the "war on terror". It is unfortunate in light of the First Amendment that so many people will not express such an opinion publicly.
I'd rather blame some of the private sector lobby groups who infleunced some of those provisions in order to 'protect' their position and powers in the marketplace.
The PATRIOT Act really is a transparent power grab by the federal government. Any benefits to the private sector are most likely side-effects.
If somebody made it legal to steal, then, the person that stole would still be a thief.
Nope.
Only a law makes being under 21 "underage" for alcohol. Only a law makes people under 18 victims of "statutory rape." Only a law makes marijuana illegal. Only a law will put you in jail for tax evasion. Only a law will take your money for housing subsidies.
Without a law, your only recourse for something stolen is to take the matter into your own hands.
Of course, some laws are perfectly reasonable and expected while others are politically-motivated garbage. Ignoring the government-supported propoganda ("enforcer mom" is a recent DEA favorite), which laws are reasonable really isn't difficult to determine.
Then, it is all the more important to actively support those who didn't back the PATRIOT act.
"PATRIOT Act" is sufficient doublespeak, where most people support it without knowing why they shouldn't. This alone gets enough votes that dissenters will probably get voted out without even a chance at debate.
People generally don't want a heartless, minimalist government like the Libertarians promise us, and very few people are convinced by the Greens' socialist blather.
Libertarian government isn't heartless; it's just very realistic. Greens are Libertarians but don't know it yet (the two platforms are quite similar...up to the point where they diverge about health care, taxation, and the environment).
It sounds like Dean is a Green who took on a Democrat label to get into the running. If only he could push a little further to be a Libertarian, but his universal health care bit will be the next "War on Drugs" or "War on Terrorism" only with our lives at stake. He's one of the better options, but I would hope for a little more.
Also an oxymoron, as the "left" is usually in favor or more lemming-esque things like federalized health care, housing subsidies, and special considerations in the tax code. Yet they oppose the corruption in the government they created. I wonder how they can stay sane with so much conflict in their lives, but I suppose it is unwise to expect spoiled children to act rationally.
I thought that the government was for the people, by the people?
This ended with the currently entrenched two-party system of politics, where only two viewpoints get represented, anyway. Only a limited government can be for and by the people, but that puts our current leadership into such a conflict-of-interest that practically no change for the better can occur without a wide-scale change of opinion of the voters. Given that most people are content being corralled at Wal-Mart while fist feeding their children junk food, this change is definitely an uphill battle.
The fact that the US isn't as free as it used to be is due to a change of social opinion. Lots of people seem willing to throw away everything for the illusion of security, which seems very much like the beginning of downhill sprial into tyranny.
Basically, I will never vote Republican or Democrat again. It's only one vote, but, at least, it's one that isn't going to the current pack of losers.
yes, if you RTFA instead of just cut'n'paste whoring, it gives examples of a smart washing machine detecting clothes and a smart cabinet detecting medicine.
These ideas are pretty stupid. What happens when you put wool and cotton in at the same time? What happens when an arbitrary expiration date passes for things like rubbing alcohol or similar?
There are too many exceptions for these things to be used. The most likely scenario is that they will go unused and people will decide for themselves. It's just like all other technology, where people will buy something based on bullet-points and then proceed to use exactly 2% of them.
Privacy has a very real value for people in society. It's not just about dirty magazines or illicite affairs. It's about not having to worry what the score is every moment of your life. It about not having to be publicly humiliated at unexpected moments. It's about maintaining person dignity and self-respect.
Add that privacy also staves off power-seeking and re-election-seeking government officials.
For example, now that we have a federal income tax that requires coughing up loads of personal information, we are seeing thousands of politically-motivated policies and laws of truly debatable value. There is more discrimination now than ever before, for example. It seems that for every social step forward this nation takes towards equality, it takes two legal steps back towards genuine inequality. The fact that politicians will mis-manage social and economic problems via the income tax is one fundamental reason that privacy is essential.
And this is even before mentioning that the income tax itself is legalized extortion (what happens when you refuse to pay?).
How about a gun rfid tag in someone's luggage at the airport?
Even funnier would be a tag that reads "105MM Self-propelled Howitzer".
"Sir, you are not allowed to take artillery onto the aircraft."
Re:You know they'll make it illegal
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NYT on RFID
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it will become a crime of the same order as any other identity manipulation
So, what happens when worn-out clothing is made into rags for around the house? Cutting out the metallic rfid tag (not good for a rag used to wax a car) would be illegal? So, what if I put all the cut-out tags into my pocket? How is that possibly criminal?
The fundamental problem is that the tags are attempting to measure things that are not really a part of the thing being measured. Since rfids allow me to be wearing 50 pairs of jeans at one time, already the system has failed.
Re:It's late at night on slashdot and the nightmar
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NYT on RFID
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But you won't be able to remove it anyway, without destroying the tire, as it is purposefully integrated with the "steel belt".
What about driving a nail through the tire at a strategically chosen location? Will tire repair kits also become illegal?
Re:this is already done in Chicago
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NYT on RFID
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And I think in a few other cities.
I've also heard of this happening on a military installation with a road passing through it. People will get speeding tickets at the far end.
I'd rather "throw my vote away" than use it to support the present corruption.
Exactly. A vote is also a voice spoken. A vote for a Libertarian is a clear indication of disapproval for the two mainstream parties. A growing number of those votes eventually gets noticed. Even with less than 5%, Nader was able to get ample national press coverage for the Greens, for example (unfortunate, though, the Greens have too many conflicts in their platform--decentralization and universal health care...they can't have both).
Re:It's late at night on slashdot and the nightmar
on
NYT on RFID
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· Score: 1
Yeah, just like when the politicans passed the PATRIOT Act...
Also, they named that bill knowing fully that the majority of people can't even get past the title. "It says 'patriot,' so it must be good for the country." (remembering that 50% of people are less intelligent than the median, too).
The supposed benefits sound like a Microsoft marketing campaign.
Washing machines, for example, might identify the clothes in a load and automatically select the appropriate cleaning cycle.
Pointless. I don't make much distinction between types of clothing, except for things that are obviously "delicate." Pretty much everything gets warm/cold normal cycle. I'd like to see a washing machine trying to decide what to do when it sees bras, knit shirts, jeans, and a towel in the same load. Will it explode in a fit of confusion?
And a smart medicine cabinet could tract the expiration on drugs.
It won't be long before expiration times become artifically shortened to benefit the pharmaceutical companies' revenue streams. I see a class-action lawsuit brewing, here.
Simply, persistent and unique RFID tags serve only mis-guided optimism for systems like TIA, where there will be way too much innocent victimization by a system with unforeseen loopholes. Someone's example of a dumped couch, where the clean-up fine goes to the original purchaser rather than the person who actually dumped it, is a good one. Will we need home and car-style titles for furniture, now?
I see a whole economy of flea markets and used-goods stores getting trounced as people become afraid of the pedigree of their stuff. What if I sell a knife to someone who goes on to kill a dozen people? What if this gas can is used for arson? What about things that are stolen, borrowed, thrown out, or donated to Good Will?
There are too many off-line aspects of the free market to make persistent RFID practical. So, will flea markets and every EBay vendor be required to become part of the RFID data collection grid? Sounds like a foundation for a tyrannically-controlled economy and yet another step towards a fear-filled "Big Brother" mode of governance.
They not only take up the bottom third of the screen, but most of them have sound that drowns out the sound on the show you're actually watching.
It's also interesting how I rarely watch those channels anymore. I hope Discovery sees it in their ratings...but with TLC doing tabloid "when cops attack" type garbage their ratings are probably through the roof. Truly sad.
Nowhere in this country, or any other, does there exist a right to speak to someone who doesn't want to listen.
This is not a free speech issue at all, but a free market one. I know no one who likes telemarketers in any capacity and buys anything from them. Telemarketers are predators, no different from dishonest salespeople in other industries (car dealerships, for example), and, basically, people are wising up and hanging up. People who admit they are telemarketers publicly are scolded and rightly so. Telemarketing as an industry had its days numbered anyway.
You know, I have yet to sign up for the DNC list, but I barely ever get a telemarketing call. Do you want to know why? Because I'm not an idiot who signs up for sweepstakes or buys from companies with poor privacy policies. Nor do I give out my e-mail address, so I don't get much spam, either (damn worm this week is something else, though...stupid Microsoft).
So let's round up all the homeless people who didn't get their shit together by, say, age 30 and grind them up into super cheap dog food for the millions of pet owners out there. After all, the thousands of lives pale in comparison to the aggregate "savings" of ~50 million dog lovers.
This makes no sense at all.
Regardless, there is no shortage of animal waste from packing plants for our lovable cuddly stinky barking dogs, so the homeless are safe....for now.
If an industry is considered a nuisance by a vast majority of Americans and is limited through grassroots effort this can easily be seen as a democratic action at work.
Then why the FTC action and not a proper national referendum at the next election?
Would Ron Paul "defender of the Constitution" let coal burning plants pollute your neighborhood because an overisght comission via the EPA is more "big bad government?"
I don't know him, and can't answer for him. There are probably areas where the EPA is genuinely overbearing and could be cut back. The government really should put their foot down only in the worst cases and let the market figure out the rest. While it is arguable that this already occurs, I have to wonder why the only automakers anymore are a few global megacorporations and a few niche players (the barriers to entry are so high that no new auto companies will exist for a very very long time, and that's definitely bad).
Does Ron Paul want to live in country where we're citizens of corporations because of an irrational fear of "big bad government?" Probably.
Probably not. There no such thing regarding citizenship for a corporation, and, if anything, the government should enforce a person's freedom to find new employment whenever needed (employed at will).
It is the case that corporations need whole legal and accounting departments whose only function is to comply with government regulation. And then people complain about corporations not being able to survive in the USA. This is pretty sick, IMO.
All the neolib economists, starting with old man Milton, would just love to tear down the state and the protections it provides and let us become modern day serfs.
No one is arguing to tear down the state. Enforcing the basic rights put down in the Constitution is what the US government is for and all the excesses we see today (social security, welfare, income taxes, etc. etc. etc. etc.) are insults to freedom from tryanny, whether it be from from corporations or government.
Being Libertarian does not imply being an anarchist.
Telemarketing will die because the telemarkers finally managed to make themselves obsolete by increasing their most annoying habits (pre-recorded autodialers, calling during dinner every night) that people had finally just had enough. This will be bad for the economy in the short term in some places where this business thrives, but it's not as devastating as some would have you believe.
This legislation is specific enough that it doesn't make much difference. Telemarketing would have gone away with or without it. The more annoying advertisements are already occuring (e.g., those commercials between commerials, where an animation destroys the show by taking up the bottom third of the screen to advertise other shows, which are a clear indication of what tripe the Discovery and TLC channels are as they were among the worst offenders).
Slashdot Mirror
Not that it matters, but I support the "War on Terror" 100% and still consider myself a patriotic American
It's sad that you feel you have to point this out. It is essentially like kissing the toes of a king to reduce the chances of being beheaded when the axe man gets bored.
You know, it is entirely possible and legal under the Constitution to be a patriotic U.S. citizen while also being against the "war on terror". It is unfortunate in light of the First Amendment that so many people will not express such an opinion publicly.
I'd rather blame some of the private sector lobby groups who infleunced some of those provisions in order to 'protect' their position and powers in the marketplace.
The PATRIOT Act really is a transparent power grab by the federal government. Any benefits to the private sector are most likely side-effects.
If somebody made it legal to steal, then, the person that stole would still be a thief.
Nope.
Only a law makes being under 21 "underage" for alcohol. Only a law makes people under 18 victims of "statutory rape." Only a law makes marijuana illegal. Only a law will put you in jail for tax evasion. Only a law will take your money for housing subsidies.
Without a law, your only recourse for something stolen is to take the matter into your own hands.
Of course, some laws are perfectly reasonable and expected while others are politically-motivated garbage. Ignoring the government-supported propoganda ("enforcer mom" is a recent DEA favorite), which laws are reasonable really isn't difficult to determine.
Then, it is all the more important to actively support those who didn't back the PATRIOT act.
"PATRIOT Act" is sufficient doublespeak, where most people support it without knowing why they shouldn't. This alone gets enough votes that dissenters will probably get voted out without even a chance at debate.
People generally don't want a heartless, minimalist government like the Libertarians promise us, and very few people are convinced by the Greens' socialist blather.
Libertarian government isn't heartless; it's just very realistic. Greens are Libertarians but don't know it yet (the two platforms are quite similar...up to the point where they diverge about health care, taxation, and the environment).
It sounds like Dean is a Green who took on a Democrat label to get into the running. If only he could push a little further to be a Libertarian, but his universal health care bit will be the next "War on Drugs" or "War on Terrorism" only with our lives at stake. He's one of the better options, but I would hope for a little more.
Who ya gonna vote for next!?
Someone with libertarian principles.
'leftist' anarchist
Also an oxymoron, as the "left" is usually in favor or more lemming-esque things like federalized health care, housing subsidies, and special considerations in the tax code. Yet they oppose the corruption in the government they created. I wonder how they can stay sane with so much conflict in their lives, but I suppose it is unwise to expect spoiled children to act rationally.
I thought that the government was for the people, by the people?
This ended with the currently entrenched two-party system of politics, where only two viewpoints get represented, anyway. Only a limited government can be for and by the people, but that puts our current leadership into such a conflict-of-interest that practically no change for the better can occur without a wide-scale change of opinion of the voters. Given that most people are content being corralled at Wal-Mart while fist feeding their children junk food, this change is definitely an uphill battle.
The fact that the US isn't as free as it used to be is due to a change of social opinion. Lots of people seem willing to throw away everything for the illusion of security, which seems very much like the beginning of downhill sprial into tyranny.
Basically, I will never vote Republican or Democrat again. It's only one vote, but, at least, it's one that isn't going to the current pack of losers.
yes, if you RTFA instead of just cut'n'paste whoring, it gives examples of a smart washing machine detecting clothes and a smart cabinet detecting medicine.
These ideas are pretty stupid. What happens when you put wool and cotton in at the same time? What happens when an arbitrary expiration date passes for things like rubbing alcohol or similar?
There are too many exceptions for these things to be used. The most likely scenario is that they will go unused and people will decide for themselves. It's just like all other technology, where people will buy something based on bullet-points and then proceed to use exactly 2% of them.
Privacy has a very real value for people in society. It's not just about dirty magazines or illicite affairs. It's about not having to worry what the score is every moment of your life. It about not having to be publicly humiliated at unexpected moments. It's about maintaining person dignity and self-respect.
Add that privacy also staves off power-seeking and re-election-seeking government officials.
For example, now that we have a federal income tax that requires coughing up loads of personal information, we are seeing thousands of politically-motivated policies and laws of truly debatable value. There is more discrimination now than ever before, for example. It seems that for every social step forward this nation takes towards equality, it takes two legal steps back towards genuine inequality. The fact that politicians will mis-manage social and economic problems via the income tax is one fundamental reason that privacy is essential.
And this is even before mentioning that the income tax itself is legalized extortion (what happens when you refuse to pay?).
How about a gun rfid tag in someone's luggage at the airport?
Even funnier would be a tag that reads "105MM Self-propelled Howitzer".
"Sir, you are not allowed to take artillery onto the aircraft."
it will become a crime of the same order as any other identity manipulation
So, what happens when worn-out clothing is made into rags for around the house? Cutting out the metallic rfid tag (not good for a rag used to wax a car) would be illegal? So, what if I put all the cut-out tags into my pocket? How is that possibly criminal?
The fundamental problem is that the tags are attempting to measure things that are not really a part of the thing being measured. Since rfids allow me to be wearing 50 pairs of jeans at one time, already the system has failed.
But you won't be able to remove it anyway, without destroying the tire, as it is purposefully integrated with the "steel belt".
What about driving a nail through the tire at a strategically chosen location? Will tire repair kits also become illegal?
And I think in a few other cities.
I've also heard of this happening on a military installation with a road passing through it. People will get speeding tickets at the far end.
I'd rather "throw my vote away" than use it to support the present corruption.
Exactly. A vote is also a voice spoken. A vote for a Libertarian is a clear indication of disapproval for the two mainstream parties. A growing number of those votes eventually gets noticed. Even with less than 5%, Nader was able to get ample national press coverage for the Greens, for example (unfortunate, though, the Greens have too many conflicts in their platform--decentralization and universal health care...they can't have both).
Yeah, just like when the politicans passed the PATRIOT Act...
Also, they named that bill knowing fully that the majority of people can't even get past the title. "It says 'patriot,' so it must be good for the country." (remembering that 50% of people are less intelligent than the median, too).
Bullshit. All it takes is one or two lives saved to justify the potential loss of freedom for millions of people?!?
Tell that to the people who died in the revolutionary wars throughout history.
The supposed benefits sound like a Microsoft marketing campaign.
Washing machines, for example, might identify the clothes in a load and automatically select the appropriate cleaning cycle.
Pointless. I don't make much distinction between types of clothing, except for things that are obviously "delicate." Pretty much everything gets warm/cold normal cycle. I'd like to see a washing machine trying to decide what to do when it sees bras, knit shirts, jeans, and a towel in the same load. Will it explode in a fit of confusion?
And a smart medicine cabinet could tract the expiration on drugs.
It won't be long before expiration times become artifically shortened to benefit the pharmaceutical companies' revenue streams. I see a class-action lawsuit brewing, here.
Simply, persistent and unique RFID tags serve only mis-guided optimism for systems like TIA, where there will be way too much innocent victimization by a system with unforeseen loopholes. Someone's example of a dumped couch, where the clean-up fine goes to the original purchaser rather than the person who actually dumped it, is a good one. Will we need home and car-style titles for furniture, now?
I see a whole economy of flea markets and used-goods stores getting trounced as people become afraid of the pedigree of their stuff. What if I sell a knife to someone who goes on to kill a dozen people? What if this gas can is used for arson? What about things that are stolen, borrowed, thrown out, or donated to Good Will?
There are too many off-line aspects of the free market to make persistent RFID practical. So, will flea markets and every EBay vendor be required to become part of the RFID data collection grid? Sounds like a foundation for a tyrannically-controlled economy and yet another step towards a fear-filled "Big Brother" mode of governance.
I don't have to wait as lon in the checkout line with five screaming kids and a trolley full of sofas
The stores can properly implement single-queue multiple-cash-register systems to avoid the screaming-kids-full-trolly bottle neck.
Grocery stores are the worst designed stores ever concieved (a dozen registers allowing only short lines of frustrated customers).
Spamming is not a free-speech issue, it's a property rights issue.
Good point. Telemarketing is, too. Too bad a rifle doesn't seem so threatening over a phone line.
It seems that telemarketing and SPAM are begging for a technological solution, equivilent to a no-trespassing sign, rather than a legal solution.
They not only take up the bottom third of the screen, but most of them have sound that drowns out the sound on the show you're actually watching.
It's also interesting how I rarely watch those channels anymore. I hope Discovery sees it in their ratings...but with TLC doing tabloid "when cops attack" type garbage their ratings are probably through the roof. Truly sad.
Nowhere in this country, or any other, does there exist a right to speak to someone who doesn't want to listen.
This is not a free speech issue at all, but a free market one. I know no one who likes telemarketers in any capacity and buys anything from them. Telemarketers are predators, no different from dishonest salespeople in other industries (car dealerships, for example), and, basically, people are wising up and hanging up. People who admit they are telemarketers publicly are scolded and rightly so. Telemarketing as an industry had its days numbered anyway.
You know, I have yet to sign up for the DNC list, but I barely ever get a telemarketing call. Do you want to know why? Because I'm not an idiot who signs up for sweepstakes or buys from companies with poor privacy policies. Nor do I give out my e-mail address, so I don't get much spam, either (damn worm this week is something else, though...stupid Microsoft).
So let's round up all the homeless people who didn't get their shit together by, say, age 30 and grind them up into super cheap dog food for the millions of pet owners out there. After all, the thousands of lives pale in comparison to the aggregate "savings" of ~50 million dog lovers.
This makes no sense at all.
Regardless, there is no shortage of animal waste from packing plants for our lovable cuddly stinky barking dogs, so the homeless are safe....for now.
If an industry is considered a nuisance by a vast majority of Americans and is limited through grassroots effort this can easily be seen as a democratic action at work.
Then why the FTC action and not a proper national referendum at the next election?
Would Ron Paul "defender of the Constitution" let coal burning plants pollute your neighborhood because an overisght comission via the EPA is more "big bad government?"
I don't know him, and can't answer for him. There are probably areas where the EPA is genuinely overbearing and could be cut back. The government really should put their foot down only in the worst cases and let the market figure out the rest. While it is arguable that this already occurs, I have to wonder why the only automakers anymore are a few global megacorporations and a few niche players (the barriers to entry are so high that no new auto companies will exist for a very very long time, and that's definitely bad).
Does Ron Paul want to live in country where we're citizens of corporations because of an irrational fear of "big bad government?" Probably.
Probably not. There no such thing regarding citizenship for a corporation, and, if anything, the government should enforce a person's freedom to find new employment whenever needed (employed at will).
It is the case that corporations need whole legal and accounting departments whose only function is to comply with government regulation. And then people complain about corporations not being able to survive in the USA. This is pretty sick, IMO.
All the neolib economists, starting with old man Milton, would just love to tear down the state and the protections it provides and let us become modern day serfs.
No one is arguing to tear down the state. Enforcing the basic rights put down in the Constitution is what the US government is for and all the excesses we see today (social security, welfare, income taxes, etc. etc. etc. etc.) are insults to freedom from tryanny, whether it be from from corporations or government.
Being Libertarian does not imply being an anarchist.
Telemarketing will die because the telemarkers finally managed to make themselves obsolete by increasing their most annoying habits (pre-recorded autodialers, calling during dinner every night) that people had finally just had enough. This will be bad for the economy in the short term in some places where this business thrives, but it's not as devastating as some would have you believe.
This legislation is specific enough that it doesn't make much difference. Telemarketing would have gone away with or without it. The more annoying advertisements are already occuring (e.g., those commercials between commerials, where an animation destroys the show by taking up the bottom third of the screen to advertise other shows, which are a clear indication of what tripe the Discovery and TLC channels are as they were among the worst offenders).