So, for those who put great faith in government as the solution to just about anything, I submit to you that government needs to be in check all of the time. It needs to be restricted and it needs to submit to the people of a country, not the other way around. This type of censorship is just the opposite. Life without freedom is no life at all. As they say in the great state of New Hampshire, "Live free or die!"
Are you saying that criminals shouldn't be punished just because it was a long time ago?
I don't know what the poster is saying, but I would say that yes, criminals should be punished for their crimes, even if done a long time ago. What I think is that these are pointless laws that are unfair and unjust. It's highly subjective to say that one company is a monopoly when really, in most intro economics textbooks, a monopoly is strictly defined as only being able to be granted by the controlling force in the land - which is a government in most cases. Microsoft does not control the EU, therefore they do not have a monopoly. People can still install other web browsers on Windows, therefore they do not have a OS or browser monopoly. There is no crime here, only silly lawmakers trying to pander to special interests.
There is no such thing as a monopoly except for a monopoly granted by a government. My case in point is GM. GM could have bought out every last car company in the world back in the 70s and been the only one. They were about as big financially as countries are. Now look at them - they had to be propped up by the U.S. government so as to not go out of business. This is starting to happen to Microsoft now too. They are losing market share by natural market forces. People are waking up that their products are crap and there are alternatives out there that are compatible, and more importantly, better!
Nope, your position is illogical because it is based on beliefs. In other words, economy is a religion for you.
What I describe are just facts. We have already had fully private education and fully private medicine. There is a good reason why 20th century has changed that.
haha, and look what the 20th century got you, Medicare/Medicaid which is anywhere from $50 trillion to $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And don't even get me started about public education...public schools are the biggest disgrace to America and it's not because we don't fund them enough. Your average American private school spends about $8000 per student whereas the average public school spends $25,000 per student. Look at the results! They speak for themselves!
I all for public surveillance only if we, the private citizen also get to have cameras on those who are doing the surveillance. Only then is it completely fair. Public surveillance is inevitable, just like we see in the UK...we might as well get used to it and make sure that the playing field is equal, that the government doesn't have a leg up over its citizens.
You're against seat belt laws? I can probably spew a little bit of 'anti seat belt rhetoric' -
"I should have the right to risk my own life, it doesn't affect anyone else"
"I would wear a seat belt anyway, so why have a law"
Aside from protecting the driver from himself...
If I hit you with my car, and you fly out of your windshield and splatter somewhere- I'll feel pretty bad. Maybe i'll go into therapy for it. If it was my fault, I'd probably feel worse. I really don't need that on my conscience...
I don't want to sound all 'think of the children' but these laws also motivate ignorant/stupid parents to force their children to 'buckle up' for safety (or fear of getting another ticket). I am glad my parents instilled in me the habit of buckling up...
Except for the fact that people continue to not wear seatbelts, no matter what the law says. Laws don't make people do something. If people are dumb enough to drive without a seat belt, then why should the rest of society care? Yeah you might need therapy if you hit someone without a seat belt and they splatter all over the road, but you're going to feel bad anyway even if you hit someone and it wasn't even your fault.
Exactly! People can be pro-stem cell research, but anti-Federal government funding the use of these cells for disease research. That is my position on this issue. When you get the government involved, it forces people to fund something they might not believe is moral. And that makes it doubly immoral for them. Private funding gives the freedom for those who believe in the possibility of the research the chance to fund it, those who do not agree with it will not have to waste their money funding such research. Until people in the US understand this about the government meddling where it does not belong, we'll always have nasty, polarized politics.
Just like there's a separation between church and state, I think it's time to separate the government from a lot of additional things. Government should not, ever, be in the business of making moral decisions for anyone.
Well said, I completely agree with you. I don't hold out much hope for the U.S. though either. People want the government to fix everything these days instead of doing it themselves.
Well said! Thank you for bringing mises.org's intelligent and informative article(s) into the discussion here as well. I read mises.org almost every day and I have so much more knowledge of our nation's messed up Federal Reserve and money policy now. I highly recommend everyone on Slashdot start reading mises.org and to gain an education in money and markets from them.
I disagree. Name one city where people are, as a majority, happy with their roads. They all suck, there's little to no innovation being applied. Plenty of universities (Purdue being the leader) are innovating, but no government implements these new things. In this age of ultra high tech materials that are strong, flexible, able to withstand huge temperature swings, why are we still subject to potholes, cracking, loud surface road design? There's only one explanation, where's the incentive to apply these new innovations when the government has a monopoly on implementing roads?
I agree though that if all governments suck implementing roads, Indianapolis's implementation is near the bottom.
I would take it a step further and allow local governments to lay the lines. We have public highways and roads. Why can't we have public fiber? I'm sure they could have some type of usage tax structure where the ISPs rent the public fiber and re-sell it.
Yuck, I don't know about where you live, but I live in Indianapolis and the local government sucks at handling the roads. I do not want this same government to handle my broadband wiring and the maintenance of making sure it's reliable. Companies, even if they have a monopoly granted by the government, are much better at this than a government will ever be.
Yeah, everyone always has a double standard. It's human. I do totally agree with you and I don't think your comment should be labeled as troll, Obama supporters are insecure.
Thank you, I agree with that. One little nit-pick...I always see this word misused. "If the Washington Post prints Obama-loving articles, than you counterbalance that with your own paper which..." "than", should be "then".
I vote for Bob Barr, because science is too important to be dictated by silly politicians. Bob believes this as a philosophy because he believes in the government getting out of American citizen's way and letting them decide...not them.
If you really want to change everything, vote 3rd party this year! I'm voting for Bob Barr since he's the only one espousing personal responsibility, government doing less (not more like Obama!), and more personal freedom instead of paternalism. Even though Bob probably won't win due to the system being so strong, the real influence of Bob will be to overturn the unconstitutional laws that keep 3rd parties out of the main national debates. Could anything be less democratic than that?
I completely agree with you. Although I personally despise the practice and would rather see things opened up, it is Time Warner's network and they should be able to do whatever they want with it. I hate this current generation of people who think they're entitled to something just because they don't think it's "fair". Well, I've got news for you, this is how property rights work. If it's your property, you get to decide what to do with it.
Like the parent post said, there is competition. I get a free DVR with AT&T's U-verse. They used to even give out 4 for free, but that's no longer true. But this is one more free DVR than Time Warner apparently.
At least we have elected voices in one of those groups. Ha! I hardly am pleased with anyone that gets elected these days. At least with a company, I can truly, and without any restriction, *elect* who I want in a company or I can take my money and purchasing power and go to the competition. There's only one government, with a monopolistic 2 main parties that get weaker and weaker, and stand for less every day. You call that freedom?
Amen. Well said. I don't know why people like the post you replied to always assume that the answer to a system that has parts of it that have problems is to chuck the whole system and institute socialized medicine? There's alternatives! Try deregulating the industry, allowing people to by insurance plans cross-state lines, and other things that involve less government instead of more! Government always drives up the cost of things, it is why our medical care has high premium prices. Not until the government started regulating the industry has our system had such high prices. For longer than we've had high premiums, we've had very effective and competitively priced health care.
Here in the UK we've had cameras of some sort looking over traffic for years. Initially they were speed cameras; today there are also red light cameras.
The entire system is set up to make money and it's as clear as day. When a speed camera is placed at the bottom of a steep hill or in the middle of a 2-mile straight, clear stretch of road (with a tree hiding it), it's pretty unrealistic to claim they're purely for safety reasons Why do the citizens of the UK put up with this nanny state, big-brother nonsense? This seems very dodgy to me and I believe they should revolt and reclaim their freedoms. I am very glad that I live in the U.S. when I hear about things like this.
Slashdot Mirror
This is definitely change we can all believe in. :p
So, for those who put great faith in government as the solution to just about anything, I submit to you that government needs to be in check all of the time. It needs to be restricted and it needs to submit to the people of a country, not the other way around. This type of censorship is just the opposite. Life without freedom is no life at all. As they say in the great state of New Hampshire, "Live free or die!"
Are you saying that criminals shouldn't be punished just because it was a long time ago?
I don't know what the poster is saying, but I would say that yes, criminals should be punished for their crimes, even if done a long time ago. What I think is that these are pointless laws that are unfair and unjust. It's highly subjective to say that one company is a monopoly when really, in most intro economics textbooks, a monopoly is strictly defined as only being able to be granted by the controlling force in the land - which is a government in most cases. Microsoft does not control the EU, therefore they do not have a monopoly. People can still install other web browsers on Windows, therefore they do not have a OS or browser monopoly. There is no crime here, only silly lawmakers trying to pander to special interests.
There is no such thing as a monopoly except for a monopoly granted by a government. My case in point is GM. GM could have bought out every last car company in the world back in the 70s and been the only one. They were about as big financially as countries are. Now look at them - they had to be propped up by the U.S. government so as to not go out of business. This is starting to happen to Microsoft now too. They are losing market share by natural market forces. People are waking up that their products are crap and there are alternatives out there that are compatible, and more importantly, better!
Anti-trust legislation = fail.
Nope, your position is illogical because it is based on beliefs. In other words, economy is a religion for you.
What I describe are just facts. We have already had fully private education and fully private medicine. There is a good reason why 20th century has changed that.
haha, and look what the 20th century got you, Medicare/Medicaid which is anywhere from $50 trillion to $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. And don't even get me started about public education...public schools are the biggest disgrace to America and it's not because we don't fund them enough. Your average American private school spends about $8000 per student whereas the average public school spends $25,000 per student. Look at the results! They speak for themselves!
When I first saw this I thought: "Great! A bunch of people are getting together to put the kibosh on this insane Big Brother scheme."
How wrong I was.
Instead we have a group of volunteers with dubious accountability and no public access to the video feeds.
I thought exactly the same thing, the wording was weird at first read.
I all for public surveillance only if we, the private citizen also get to have cameras on those who are doing the surveillance. Only then is it completely fair. Public surveillance is inevitable, just like we see in the UK...we might as well get used to it and make sure that the playing field is equal, that the government doesn't have a leg up over its citizens.
You're against seat belt laws? I can probably spew a little bit of 'anti seat belt rhetoric' -
"I should have the right to risk my own life, it doesn't affect anyone else"
"I would wear a seat belt anyway, so why have a law"
Aside from protecting the driver from himself...
If I hit you with my car, and you fly out of your windshield and splatter somewhere- I'll feel pretty bad. Maybe i'll go into therapy for it. If it was my fault, I'd probably feel worse. I really don't need that on my conscience...
I don't want to sound all 'think of the children' but these laws also motivate ignorant/stupid parents to force their children to 'buckle up' for safety (or fear of getting another ticket). I am glad my parents instilled in me the habit of buckling up...
Except for the fact that people continue to not wear seatbelts, no matter what the law says. Laws don't make people do something. If people are dumb enough to drive without a seat belt, then why should the rest of society care? Yeah you might need therapy if you hit someone without a seat belt and they splatter all over the road, but you're going to feel bad anyway even if you hit someone and it wasn't even your fault.
Great! So when can we zero out the Pentagon's budget?
I'm all for it, let's zero it out!
Exactly! People can be pro-stem cell research, but anti-Federal government funding the use of these cells for disease research. That is my position on this issue. When you get the government involved, it forces people to fund something they might not believe is moral. And that makes it doubly immoral for them. Private funding gives the freedom for those who believe in the possibility of the research the chance to fund it, those who do not agree with it will not have to waste their money funding such research. Until people in the US understand this about the government meddling where it does not belong, we'll always have nasty, polarized politics.
Just like there's a separation between church and state, I think it's time to separate the government from a lot of additional things. Government should not, ever, be in the business of making moral decisions for anyone.
Well said, I completely agree with you. I don't hold out much hope for the U.S. though either. People want the government to fix everything these days instead of doing it themselves.
Well said! Thank you for bringing mises.org's intelligent and informative article(s) into the discussion here as well. I read mises.org almost every day and I have so much more knowledge of our nation's messed up Federal Reserve and money policy now. I highly recommend everyone on Slashdot start reading mises.org and to gain an education in money and markets from them.
I disagree. Name one city where people are, as a majority, happy with their roads. They all suck, there's little to no innovation being applied. Plenty of universities (Purdue being the leader) are innovating, but no government implements these new things. In this age of ultra high tech materials that are strong, flexible, able to withstand huge temperature swings, why are we still subject to potholes, cracking, loud surface road design? There's only one explanation, where's the incentive to apply these new innovations when the government has a monopoly on implementing roads?
I agree though that if all governments suck implementing roads, Indianapolis's implementation is near the bottom.
I would take it a step further and allow local governments to lay the lines. We have public highways and roads. Why can't we have public fiber? I'm sure they could have some type of usage tax structure where the ISPs rent the public fiber and re-sell it.
Yuck, I don't know about where you live, but I live in Indianapolis and the local government sucks at handling the roads. I do not want this same government to handle my broadband wiring and the maintenance of making sure it's reliable. Companies, even if they have a monopoly granted by the government, are much better at this than a government will ever be.
Yeah, everyone always has a double standard. It's human. I do totally agree with you and I don't think your comment should be labeled as troll, Obama supporters are insecure.
Thank you, I agree with that. One little nit-pick...I always see this word misused. "If the Washington Post prints Obama-loving articles, than you counterbalance that with your own paper which..." "than", should be "then".
I vote for Bob Barr, because science is too important to be dictated by silly politicians. Bob believes this as a philosophy because he believes in the government getting out of American citizen's way and letting them decide...not them.
Nice, I like that! :) Alliterations are fun!
1. Jumping Joey
2. Jaded Jackal
3. Justice Jaguar
If you really want to change everything, vote 3rd party this year! I'm voting for Bob Barr since he's the only one espousing personal responsibility, government doing less (not more like Obama!), and more personal freedom instead of paternalism. Even though Bob probably won't win due to the system being so strong, the real influence of Bob will be to overturn the unconstitutional laws that keep 3rd parties out of the main national debates. Could anything be less democratic than that?
I completely agree with you. Although I personally despise the practice and would rather see things opened up, it is Time Warner's network and they should be able to do whatever they want with it. I hate this current generation of people who think they're entitled to something just because they don't think it's "fair". Well, I've got news for you, this is how property rights work. If it's your property, you get to decide what to do with it.
Like the parent post said, there is competition. I get a free DVR with AT&T's U-verse. They used to even give out 4 for free, but that's no longer true. But this is one more free DVR than Time Warner apparently.
I couldn't agree more. Thanks for your comment!
Amen. Well said. I don't know why people like the post you replied to always assume that the answer to a system that has parts of it that have problems is to chuck the whole system and institute socialized medicine? There's alternatives! Try deregulating the industry, allowing people to by insurance plans cross-state lines, and other things that involve less government instead of more! Government always drives up the cost of things, it is why our medical care has high premium prices. Not until the government started regulating the industry has our system had such high prices. For longer than we've had high premiums, we've had very effective and competitively priced health care.
The entire system is set up to make money and it's as clear as day. When a speed camera is placed at the bottom of a steep hill or in the middle of a 2-mile straight, clear stretch of road (with a tree hiding it), it's pretty unrealistic to claim they're purely for safety reasons Why do the citizens of the UK put up with this nanny state, big-brother nonsense? This seems very dodgy to me and I believe they should revolt and reclaim their freedoms. I am very glad that I live in the U.S. when I hear about things like this.