There is, for instance, a recognised pattern with (adult) porn that certain types of user will inevitably seek out harder and harder stuff because the less extreme stuff no longer excites to the same degree.
Citation needed.
But a society which champions freedom of expression/thought/speech/action must perhaps still draw some limits or find some coherent basis for existence
No. Completely, totally, and utterly wrong.
If you want to use force to prevent or punish an action, the burden lies entirely on you to show that said action presents a threat to the rights of others. It's not up to me to justify my expressions, thoughts, and speech; it's up to you to justify pointing a gun at me because you don't like them.
Controlling access to these images can then be regarded as analagous to controlling access to addictive drugs.
there is no evidence at all that the Chinese made it to South America before the Europeans.
There is some suggestive evidence: the Fu Sang legends, South American folktales about "people from the sea", old stone anchors found off the Pacific coast, certain artistic motifs found in both Chinese and South American art. Joseph Campbell spends a few pages on this idea in one of the essays in Flight of the Wild Gander, but I'm too lazy to dig up my copy at the moment. I don't mean to suggest that it's a well-established mainstream theory, but IMHO there're enough hints to call it a sensible possibility.
quite able to defend themselves against a few Chinese ships
Just because Columbus and Company got slavery and rapine on their minds the moment they arrived, doesn't mean previous visitors did.
I find it hard to believe that a significant portion of the/. readership is not on friendly terms with a recent college graduate through work or otherwise.
I find it hard to believe that you think that the fact that an article is accessible by someone I know makes it accessible to me.
In the context of the World Wide Web, something is accessible if and only if it shows up in my browser.
And no, I don't know any recent college graduates, at least not on terms where I would comfortablely bug them to go download an article for me.
Once you go with that line of reasoning you have the right to commit murder in the US (you just are responsible for the consequences) and a citizen of Burma has freedom of speech, too.
A citizen of Burma does have the right of free speech. As I said upthread: Dictatorial governments may, of course, not recognize that right; it exists nonetheless. This is the notion of "natural rights" on which our theory of government is based.
If by "right" we mean "right recognized by the government", then the concept is useless - abolitionists in the 1800s couldn't have argued that persons of African decent had a right to be free.
A citizen of Burma - or of the U.K. or U.S. - has a right to free speech, though that right is not fully recognized by the governments in question.
To your other point: speech is unlike murder, in that every act of murder is a violation of someone's rights, whereas few acts of speech or other expression are. And you can't tell generally tell if an expression is a violation of someone's rights until it occurs. If you catch someone about to commit a murder, you can and should stop them by any means necessary; if you catch someone about to commit an act of speech, if you attempt to stop them by force you're committing assault.
Be that as it may: the US has long since decided that the government is involved there.
The fact that the U.S. Government - or any government - has decided that it is involved in something, does not in any way indicate that it has a legitimate authority to be involved in that thing, or that people don't have a right to do it.
However libel and slander laws predate freedom of speech, so the case can certainly be made that the first amendment was never meant to not have these restrictions.
Freedom of speech is a natural right. It predates law - as soon as the first hominid grunted, he had freedom of speech. Amendment I did not create it, only promised to recogize it. (A promise the government broke only seven years later with the Sedition Act.)
These days you even have an FCC with the authority to fine people for using swear words, and there are obscenity laws on the books, too.
Neither of which are ethically - or Constitutionally - justified.
In the United States, many colleges (particularly what are known as "liberal arts colleges") and universities award the BA for all "academic" subjects (whether it be for English or for Chemistry, for example) -- often these colleges and colleges within universities only offer academic (rather than pre-professional) courses. Schools that have professional training ("Police Science", "Finance", "Nursing", and so on) often reserve the BS degree for these subjects. Some schools award the BA for humanities academic courses and the BS for courses in the natural sciences and/or the social sciences. In some cases a student may choose between a BA course of study and a BS course of study in the same subject at the same college (for example, at the University of Chicago); in that case, the BS program is typically the more strenuous of the two. At least two American schools (Caltech, MIT) and the five service academies (United States Military Academy, United States Naval Academy, United States Air Force Academy, United States Merchant Marine Academy and United States Coast Guard Academy) award the BS for all subjects, including, e.g., Literature.
When I was a young 'un at the University of Maryland, techies got a B.S., arties got a B.A.; there was no B.A. in comp. sci.
Yep, it would be better just to have two dogs and let them have puppies or something.
No. It would be better to just adopt a dog. There is a massive overpopulation problem for dogs and cats, with over three million killed in shelters every year for lack of a home.
Please please please please please please spay or neuter, and don't patronize breeders.
in which jurisdiction do you have the right to do that for X="My neighbour Mr Smith" and Y="a thief/murderer/rapist"? In any country I know of, there are libel and slander laws which pose limits on free speech.
It's a point, but libel and slander laws are civil restrictions, a different sort of beast. They don't place prior restraint on speech, they make me responsible for certain consequences of such speech.
If I walk around with a sign saying "My neighbor Mr Smith is a thief/murderer/rapist", Smith doesn't get to have me arrested. He can sue me; if and only if he proves that the charges are false and caused him harm, he can get compensation. Mere "insult" does not make for slander or libel. (At least in the U.S. I understand that the U.K. has insane libel laws.)
He can't, as the Cult of Scientology did here, send the cops over to take away my sign and bust me.
This leaves open the question of whether libel and slander laws are a violation of free speech. If I own a major newspaper and deliberately publish false information to harm my neighbor,he or she probably doesn't have a major newspaper to respond, so maybe there's justification for placing restrictions on me - or rather, on my ownership.
But if I'm just holding up a sign, my neighbor can put up his own signs saying "My neighbor is delusional; see www.SmithIsNotACrook.com", and we can equally make our cases. I'm not sure there's any need or use for the government to become involved. At least, not at this point - if it progresses to harassment, with me following him or her around, bothering their friends and co-workers by sticking my sign in their faces, then that's a real crime.
Why the heck is this tagged censorship? There's a law against insulting signs.
Because a law against "insulting" signs IS censorship, just as a law against "insulting" books or "insulting" speech would be.
Would this still be tagged censorship if it were the Conservative Party instead of Scientology?
Yes. Of course it would. It saddens me that you have to even ask this.
You have the right to stand on the corner with a sign saying "X is Y!" for any values of X and Y. Any values at all. (Dictatorial governments may, of course, not recognize that right; it exists nonetheless.)
"Scientology is a cult". "The Conservative Party is a cult." "The City of London police are a bunch of mindless jerks." "The Flying Spaghetti Monster is better than Jesus." "Tom Swiss is a dweeb."
Anyone who attempts to forcibly stop you from saying any of these things is engaging in censorship.
Just guessing, but here's how I'd do it: in "landscape" mode, the bottom touchscreen becomes your keyboard, and you have a laptop. In "portrait" mode, you have dual page view, great for reading reference or technical works - view cross-references on the two screens, or keep a diagram in the left screen while you read the text on the right screen.
And in fact, I just went and looked at TFA, and there is a photo of the thing in "landscape" mode with the bottom screen a keyboard.
So, if they do it right, this isn't dumbing down a laptop into an e-book, it's a laptop whose keyboard can go away to give you a second screen. Nice idea, though I'd have to wonder how much it sucks to type on.
Even if not, they'd still likely be using data compression, making it look like noise. I don't expect we'd be able to recognize a standard communication signal.
If we find a signal, it'll either be a deliberate hail like the Arecibo message, or a bit of technological noise, like the DEW and astronomical radar signals we transmit.
In three decades, we have sent only sixteen deliberate hails. If other civilizations are as quiet as us, the odds of hearing a hail are low - I can imagine a galaxy teeming with technological civilizations, each waiting for somebody else to open a conversation.
Recognizing technological noise is hard, as our bias is going to be to assume a natural origin. It's possible that we've got some bit of astrophysics wrong because some phenomenon we assumed was natural and worked into our theories was actual static from ET's Criswell structures. At best we might see something like the Wow! Signal: we see something but we don't know what it is.
I think of the government as a loose collection of individuals employed by me, paid out of my taxes to run my country. They aren't separate from the citizenry, they are a part of it.
Government is force. It's a bunch of people who will beat you or shoot you if you do not do as they want. This is as true in a "democracy" as in a dictatorship, and is what distinguishes government from "individuals employed by me". The guy I hire to cut my lawn or paint my house does not claim a right to force me into a cage at gunpoint if he doesn't like my actions. The government does.
The government is indeed separate from the citizenry. If three average citizens shot a unarmed man fifty times, they'd go to jail; three government agents do it, it's business as usual. If a couple of average citizens kidnapped, drown, and beat people, they'd go to jail; government agents do it, it's business as usual.
They do not have power over my mind
They certainly do, as demonstrated by your attitude toward them.
The government also does not have a collective will (or a 'mind').
Of course it does. Any organized group has a collective will. It is entirely appropriate to say "the government wants to blah blah blah."
Also I think a major feature of the Panopticon prison was that every cell could be easily seen into. Without cameras in private places that analogy holds no water.
What, turning public space into a jail isn't bad enough?
I'll ask again, what possible difference can it make to me if I'm caught on CCTV when I'm going to work or if I'm out shopping or whatever? Do you expect any actual bad consequences?
The concern is not merely being "caught on CCTV", but actual active surveillance of citizens. Such surveillance has been used by governments in the past to quash political dissent by directly spying on the opposition, and indirectly by creating a "chilling effect" . The widespread deployment of surveillance equipment makes the choice to engage in surveillance very very cheap.
The mere presence of such cameras turns a city into a Panopticon prison. Bentham, the inventor of the Panopticon, called it "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind". Do you think the "mind" of the government should have power over the minds of the citizens?
You're shitting us right? Replace home with business.
You can't. Homes and business are very different things, legally and ethically.
A person's business is what allows them to make a living.
A hitman's business is what allows him to make a living. So what? If the way you make a living is harmful to the rights, health, or safety of others, you have to find a new way to make a living.
Some are run by the common folk. This is even more true for bars and restaurants, the main businesses effected by these type of laws.
The folks who work there are much more "the common folk," and they deserve a safe work environment.
The last time I checked, "Management reserves the right to refuse business to anyone."
This may not be the _your_ business approach, but if that is how the business owner wants to go about it, that is his RIGHT!
No, it's not. You do not have a natural right to occupy and control land for business purposes.
Now, that's not to say it's not a very useful thing to allow people to occupy and have limited control land for some purposes. But that permission is granted - or should be granted - only in so far as it serves the public interest and the protection of people's rights. That includes the right of workers not to be needlessly endangered by the health hazards of secondhand smoke.
That paragraph and defense of yours is creeping WAY to close to the government controlling what I do inside my house.
Not at all, provided you're doing it with other consenting adults. Your home is your castle; inside of it, smoke all you like. Smoke crack at home, I'll fight for your right to do it.
But until you figure out how to smoke your poison of choice without exhaling, your right to smoke ends where my respiratory tract begins.
What exactly is this "engine" you want to destroy?
The government powers and policies that enable to concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few. Capitalism is not some "ground state" that occurs in the absence of government intervention into the marketplace; it requires a lot of government action to create and enforce synthetic property rights. These actions include (but are not limited to) the things I mentioned: creating of immortal artificial persons by chartering limited liability corporations, issuing land and resource deeds not based on occupation and use, and controlling ideas by creating copyrights and patents. The private control of capital by a minority requires a strong government to back that minority.
To put it another way: like all forces, government is a vector, not just a magnitude. Merely saying "Government should be smaller" is not helpful; the government of North Korea is a fraction of the size, measured by taxation and per-capita government spending, than that of the U.S., but it pushes entirely in the direction of dictatorship.
I prefer a government vector with a smaller magnitude, but also one that points towards individual freedom, including economic freedom. That implies an economic system based on the free exchange of labor rather than on the control of capital by a government-backed minority of owners.
And by chance would you need voluntary participation of all citizens to accomplish your goal?
You implication of some connection to VHEMT is a complete non sequitur.
(Yes, a non-smoking place is in practice a ban for smokers.)
Nonsense. A place that doesn't have a liquor license is not a ban for people who like to drink, even for alcoholics. A place that doesn't allow you to punch people is not a ban for boxers. A restaurant that doesn't permit fucking on the tables is not a ban for people who like sex. A non-pissing-on-people place is not a ban for people who like golden showers.
If you're so addicted to your coffin nails that you can't spend any time in a place where smoking is not permitted, you need professional help pronto.
Hire smokers, problem solved.
I suppose that's your answer to factory safety, too? "Hire people who don't mind getting their limbs chopped off by unsafe machinery. problem solved."
Tell me again please why I, as a business owner, should not be allowed to choose who I want to do business with and who I do not.
Because occupying land for business use is a privilege, not a right.
You want the cops to come and remove someone from your establishment who you don't want there, you want the government to enforce your control over that little patch of real estate? Part of the deal is that the government gets to set some restrictions on your business.
You want to work here, you either are a smoker or you tolerate smoke. Why cannot I require that?
For the same reason you can't tell a factory worker, "you want to work here, you tolerate the risk of getting your arm ripped off by our unsafe machinery."
What's next, requiring a chimney sweep to hire and keep an employee with vertigo because he has to accept it? You don't smoke, you're not qualified to work as my waiter. Why can't I say that?
Chimney sweeps climb to significant heights. It is the nature of their jobs, if they can't tolerate heights they can't do the job, and there's no reasonable accommodation that could change that.
A waiter delivers food. There is nothing in the nature of a waiter's job that requires him or her to smoke. It's no more permissible to say "only smokers can be waiters here" than "only atheists can be waiters here" or "only members of the Green Party can be waiters here" or "only people who let me have sex with them can be waiters here".
now the owner of the building can't even decide for himself if he wants to cater to smokers,WTF?
The owner of a building could never decide that he wanted to cater to people who want to spray urine on passers-by, because we recognize that the synthetic property right of using real estate for business doesn't trump the natural right to not be assaulted. More and more, people understand that breathing foul-smelling and toxic smoke on someone
If you want to give or receive golden showers, or breath poisonous smoke (whether tobacco, cannabis, or crack) or have poisonous smoke breathed upon you, in the privacy of your own home, I'll go to the mat to support your right to do so. That doesn't mean the guy sitting next to me at the bar gets to piss on me or fumigate me with his cigarette.
If I want to have a cigarette or some fatty wants a donut,how about,oh,I don't know,leaving them the f*ck alone!
No one is stopping you from smoking (in your own home) or the fatty from eating a donut. But we have the right to comment about it.
It is also worthy of note that Rutherford B. Hayes was put in as president over the winner of the popular vote Samuel J. Tilden.
Yes. This was a critically important moment in American history, because the back-room dealing that decided the election in the House ended Reconstruction and enabled decades of Jim Crow and segregation, the legacy of which continues to this day.
I'd say the government is the problem in your assessment then, wouldn't you?
Sure. I want a smaller government. Let's start by eliminating all government-issued corporate charters, government-issued land and resource deeds not based on occupation and use, and eliminating most government-issued copyrights and patents.
I don't want to remove the regulators from the engine of state capitalism and let it run wild, as "libertarian capitalists" (an inherent contradiction!) would have. I want to destroy the engine that concentrates wealth and its power into the hands of a few.
The reason that workers get skimmed is because they don't want think, they just want to be told what to do.
Not at all. Workers get skimmed because, under capitalism, they need the capitalists; and the capitalists demand their cut.
Say I work in a widget plant. I am a skilled widget maker, and the value (fair market value) of the widgets I make is $5.00. Say the parts and materials have a value (again, market determined) of $4.00, and the cost of heat and light and supplies and wear and tear on the tools and all the services of support workers (the clerical staff, management, on down to the janitors), works out to 50 cents per widget.
So with my skills and $4.50 worth of input, I create something worth $5.00. Do I get paid 50 cents per widget? Nope. Because the holders of capital, who did not a bit of work here, have to get their cut. The bond holders get their interest, the stockholders get their dividend, the landlord gets his rent, all skimmed off of the 50 cents of value that I created.
It has nothing to do with how smart I am or how much I think, it's a consequence of the system.
It hit critical mass, IMO, after the Depression and FDR's New Deal.
Nah, critical mass of fear was already there during the first Red Scare, when they passed the Sedition Act of 1918, locked up Eugene Debs, deported hundreds without due process, and destroyed the American left.
It probably goes back to the Great Upheaval of 1877. You know those big old National Guard armories they have in a lot of cities? They weren't built in case of invasion. They were built in case the workers got uppity again.
one of the world's richest men can take the billions he has personally earned as the Former CEO of one of the most successfull software companies in the world and give it away to save lives and fight HIV/AIDS and a host of other diseases that kill millions of children each year...and be called "evil".
Robber barons often turn to charity once they've robbed, cheated, and basely schemed their way into riches. Maybe out of guilt, maybe out of egoism.
If a hitman makes contributions to charity with the money he earns, does that change the evil nature of his murders?
Now I do believe in redemption, that a person can change. That hitman could become a good person, could forswear ever killing again and work for good. Fine. But keeping up the misdeeds while giving to charity does not indicate that a person has repented and changed their ways.
Of course Gate's crimes are not like those of the hitman. He's inconvenienced millions and ruined thousands, but not - to my knowledge - directly killed anyone. But that doesn't charge the argument about crime and charity.
The kid had to take responsibility and no one else.
KIDS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE. That's the whole thing that separates children from adults.
Jeez. It's very, very sad to see how many mentally and emotionally defective people there out there, whose response to the deliberate psychological abuse of a child, is to hold the child at fault for acting like a child.
Lots of problems (overflowing prisons, too much criminality, illegal immigration) solved in one absolutely constitutional plan that totally respects human rights.
The problem with cheap prison labor - even when it's not abusive to the prisoners, as it often is - is that it's unfair competition. If I'm a free laborer who paints houses, builds sheds, or plows fields, I can't compete with prisoners working at $5/hour.
It's a tremendous incentive for the ruling class to lock more people up. "Ladies and gentlemen, labor costs are getting too high and endangering our profits. Fortunately, we have a solution: traffic violations now carry a sentence of six months on the labor teams. Of course, enforcement won't be targeted at us." Sort of a The Jigsaw Man situation.
He is a moocher. The real Capitalist is the people at Yahoo because they know they can (and do) make a better products than Microsoft.
Real capitalists are moochers, not makers. Workers make; capitalists provide them access to the capital (the capital that the government has put into their hands) and skim off the top.
Slashdot Mirror
Citation needed.
No. Completely, totally, and utterly wrong.
If you want to use force to prevent or punish an action, the burden lies entirely on you to show that said action presents a threat to the rights of others. It's not up to me to justify my expressions, thoughts, and speech; it's up to you to justify pointing a gun at me because you don't like them.
And that's certainly worked so very, very well.
There is some suggestive evidence: the Fu Sang legends, South American folktales about "people from the sea", old stone anchors found off the Pacific coast, certain artistic motifs found in both Chinese and South American art. Joseph Campbell spends a few pages on this idea in one of the essays in Flight of the Wild Gander, but I'm too lazy to dig up my copy at the moment. I don't mean to suggest that it's a well-established mainstream theory, but IMHO there're enough hints to call it a sensible possibility.
Just because Columbus and Company got slavery and rapine on their minds the moment they arrived, doesn't mean previous visitors did.
I find it hard to believe that you think that the fact that an article is accessible by someone I know makes it accessible to me.
In the context of the World Wide Web, something is accessible if and only if it shows up in my browser.
And no, I don't know any recent college graduates, at least not on terms where I would comfortablely bug them to go download an article for me.
A citizen of Burma does have the right of free speech. As I said upthread: Dictatorial governments may, of course, not recognize that right; it exists nonetheless. This is the notion of "natural rights" on which our theory of government is based.
If by "right" we mean "right recognized by the government", then the concept is useless - abolitionists in the 1800s couldn't have argued that persons of African decent had a right to be free.
A citizen of Burma - or of the U.K. or U.S. - has a right to free speech, though that right is not fully recognized by the governments in question.
To your other point: speech is unlike murder, in that every act of murder is a violation of someone's rights, whereas few acts of speech or other expression are. And you can't tell generally tell if an expression is a violation of someone's rights until it occurs. If you catch someone about to commit a murder, you can and should stop them by any means necessary; if you catch someone about to commit an act of speech, if you attempt to stop them by force you're committing assault.
The fact that the U.S. Government - or any government - has decided that it is involved in something, does not in any way indicate that it has a legitimate authority to be involved in that thing, or that people don't have a right to do it.
Freedom of speech is a natural right. It predates law - as soon as the first hominid grunted, he had freedom of speech. Amendment I did not create it, only promised to recogize it. (A promise the government broke only seven years later with the Sedition Act.)
Neither of which are ethically - or Constitutionally - justified.
Depends entirely on your school. Sayeth the wik:
When I was a young 'un at the University of Maryland, techies got a B.S., arties got a B.A.; there was no B.A. in comp. sci.
No. It would be better to just adopt a dog. There is a massive overpopulation problem for dogs and cats, with over three million killed in shelters every year for lack of a home.
Please please please please please please spay or neuter, and don't patronize breeders.
It's a point, but libel and slander laws are civil restrictions, a different sort of beast. They don't place prior restraint on speech, they make me responsible for certain consequences of such speech.
If I walk around with a sign saying "My neighbor Mr Smith is a thief/murderer/rapist", Smith doesn't get to have me arrested. He can sue me; if and only if he proves that the charges are false and caused him harm, he can get compensation. Mere "insult" does not make for slander or libel. (At least in the U.S. I understand that the U.K. has insane libel laws.)
He can't, as the Cult of Scientology did here, send the cops over to take away my sign and bust me.
This leaves open the question of whether libel and slander laws are a violation of free speech. If I own a major newspaper and deliberately publish false information to harm my neighbor,he or she probably doesn't have a major newspaper to respond, so maybe there's justification for placing restrictions on me - or rather, on my ownership.
But if I'm just holding up a sign, my neighbor can put up his own signs saying "My neighbor is delusional; see www.SmithIsNotACrook.com", and we can equally make our cases. I'm not sure there's any need or use for the government to become involved. At least, not at this point - if it progresses to harassment, with me following him or her around, bothering their friends and co-workers by sticking my sign in their faces, then that's a real crime.
Because a law against "insulting" signs IS censorship, just as a law against "insulting" books or "insulting" speech would be.
Yes. Of course it would. It saddens me that you have to even ask this.
You have the right to stand on the corner with a sign saying "X is Y!" for any values of X and Y. Any values at all. (Dictatorial governments may, of course, not recognize that right; it exists nonetheless.)
"Scientology is a cult". "The Conservative Party is a cult." "The City of London police are a bunch of mindless jerks." "The Flying Spaghetti Monster is better than Jesus." "Tom Swiss is a dweeb."
Anyone who attempts to forcibly stop you from saying any of these things is engaging in censorship.
Just guessing, but here's how I'd do it: in "landscape" mode, the bottom touchscreen becomes your keyboard, and you have a laptop. In "portrait" mode, you have dual page view, great for reading reference or technical works - view cross-references on the two screens, or keep a diagram in the left screen while you read the text on the right screen.
And in fact, I just went and looked at TFA, and there is a photo of the thing in "landscape" mode with the bottom screen a keyboard.
So, if they do it right, this isn't dumbing down a laptop into an e-book, it's a laptop whose keyboard can go away to give you a second screen. Nice idea, though I'd have to wonder how much it sucks to type on.
Even if not, they'd still likely be using data compression, making it look like noise. I don't expect we'd be able to recognize a standard communication signal.
If we find a signal, it'll either be a deliberate hail like the Arecibo message, or a bit of technological noise, like the DEW and astronomical radar signals we transmit.
In three decades, we have sent only sixteen deliberate hails. If other civilizations are as quiet as us, the odds of hearing a hail are low - I can imagine a galaxy teeming with technological civilizations, each waiting for somebody else to open a conversation.
Recognizing technological noise is hard, as our bias is going to be to assume a natural origin. It's possible that we've got some bit of astrophysics wrong because some phenomenon we assumed was natural and worked into our theories was actual static from ET's Criswell structures. At best we might see something like the Wow! Signal: we see something but we don't know what it is.
Government is force. It's a bunch of people who will beat you or shoot you if you do not do as they want. This is as true in a "democracy" as in a dictatorship, and is what distinguishes government from "individuals employed by me". The guy I hire to cut my lawn or paint my house does not claim a right to force me into a cage at gunpoint if he doesn't like my actions. The government does.
The government is indeed separate from the citizenry. If three average citizens shot a unarmed man fifty times, they'd go to jail; three government agents do it, it's business as usual. If a couple of average citizens kidnapped, drown, and beat people, they'd go to jail; government agents do it, it's business as usual.
They certainly do, as demonstrated by your attitude toward them.
Of course it does. Any organized group has a collective will. It is entirely appropriate to say "the government wants to blah blah blah."
What, turning public space into a jail isn't bad enough?
The concern is not merely being "caught on CCTV", but actual active surveillance of citizens. Such surveillance has been used by governments in the past to quash political dissent by directly spying on the opposition, and indirectly by creating a "chilling effect" . The widespread deployment of surveillance equipment makes the choice to engage in surveillance very very cheap.
The mere presence of such cameras turns a city into a Panopticon prison. Bentham, the inventor of the Panopticon, called it "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind". Do you think the "mind" of the government should have power over the minds of the citizens?
You can't. Homes and business are very different things, legally and ethically.
A hitman's business is what allows him to make a living. So what? If the way you make a living is harmful to the rights, health, or safety of others, you have to find a new way to make a living.
The folks who work there are much more "the common folk," and they deserve a safe work environment.
The last time I checked, putting up a sign doesn't change anything. Management's right to refuse service is strictly limited by civil rights laws and the A.D.A.
No, it's not. You do not have a natural right to occupy and control land for business purposes.
Now, that's not to say it's not a very useful thing to allow people to occupy and have limited control land for some purposes. But that permission is granted - or should be granted - only in so far as it serves the public interest and the protection of people's rights. That includes the right of workers not to be needlessly endangered by the health hazards of secondhand smoke.
Not at all, provided you're doing it with other consenting adults. Your home is your castle; inside of it, smoke all you like. Smoke crack at home, I'll fight for your right to do it.
But until you figure out how to smoke your poison of choice without exhaling, your right to smoke ends where my respiratory tract begins.
The government powers and policies that enable to concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few. Capitalism is not some "ground state" that occurs in the absence of government intervention into the marketplace; it requires a lot of government action to create and enforce synthetic property rights. These actions include (but are not limited to) the things I mentioned: creating of immortal artificial persons by chartering limited liability corporations, issuing land and resource deeds not based on occupation and use, and controlling ideas by creating copyrights and patents. The private control of capital by a minority requires a strong government to back that minority.
To put it another way: like all forces, government is a vector, not just a magnitude. Merely saying "Government should be smaller" is not helpful; the government of North Korea is a fraction of the size, measured by taxation and per-capita government spending, than that of the U.S., but it pushes entirely in the direction of dictatorship.
I prefer a government vector with a smaller magnitude, but also one that points towards individual freedom, including economic freedom. That implies an economic system based on the free exchange of labor rather than on the control of capital by a government-backed minority of owners.
You implication of some connection to VHEMT is a complete non sequitur.
Nonsense. A place that doesn't have a liquor license is not a ban for people who like to drink, even for alcoholics. A place that doesn't allow you to punch people is not a ban for boxers. A restaurant that doesn't permit fucking on the tables is not a ban for people who like sex. A non-pissing-on-people place is not a ban for people who like golden showers.
If you're so addicted to your coffin nails that you can't spend any time in a place where smoking is not permitted, you need professional help pronto.
I suppose that's your answer to factory safety, too? "Hire people who don't mind getting their limbs chopped off by unsafe machinery. problem solved."
Because occupying land for business use is a privilege, not a right.
You want the cops to come and remove someone from your establishment who you don't want there, you want the government to enforce your control over that little patch of real estate? Part of the deal is that the government gets to set some restrictions on your business.
For the same reason you can't tell a factory worker, "you want to work here, you tolerate the risk of getting your arm ripped off by our unsafe machinery."
Chimney sweeps climb to significant heights. It is the nature of their jobs, if they can't tolerate heights they can't do the job, and there's no reasonable accommodation that could change that.
A waiter delivers food. There is nothing in the nature of a waiter's job that requires him or her to smoke. It's no more permissible to say "only smokers can be waiters here" than "only atheists can be waiters here" or "only members of the Green Party can be waiters here" or "only people who let me have sex with them can be waiters here".
The owner of a building could never decide that he wanted to cater to people who want to spray urine on passers-by, because we recognize that the synthetic property right of using real estate for business doesn't trump the natural right to not be assaulted. More and more, people understand that breathing foul-smelling and toxic smoke on someone
If you want to give or receive golden showers, or breath poisonous smoke (whether tobacco, cannabis, or crack) or have poisonous smoke breathed upon you, in the privacy of your own home, I'll go to the mat to support your right to do so. That doesn't mean the guy sitting next to me at the bar gets to piss on me or fumigate me with his cigarette.
No one is stopping you from smoking (in your own home) or the fatty from eating a donut. But we have the right to comment about it.
Yes. This was a critically important moment in American history, because the back-room dealing that decided the election in the House ended Reconstruction and enabled decades of Jim Crow and segregation, the legacy of which continues to this day.
Sure. I want a smaller government. Let's start by eliminating all government-issued corporate charters, government-issued land and resource deeds not based on occupation and use, and eliminating most government-issued copyrights and patents.
I don't want to remove the regulators from the engine of state capitalism and let it run wild, as "libertarian capitalists" (an inherent contradiction!) would have. I want to destroy the engine that concentrates wealth and its power into the hands of a few.
Not at all. Workers get skimmed because, under capitalism, they need the capitalists; and the capitalists demand their cut.
Say I work in a widget plant. I am a skilled widget maker, and the value (fair market value) of the widgets I make is $5.00. Say the parts and materials have a value (again, market determined) of $4.00, and the cost of heat and light and supplies and wear and tear on the tools and all the services of support workers (the clerical staff, management, on down to the janitors), works out to 50 cents per widget.
So with my skills and $4.50 worth of input, I create something worth $5.00. Do I get paid 50 cents per widget? Nope. Because the holders of capital, who did not a bit of work here, have to get their cut. The bond holders get their interest, the stockholders get their dividend, the landlord gets his rent, all skimmed off of the 50 cents of value that I created.
It has nothing to do with how smart I am or how much I think, it's a consequence of the system.
Nah, critical mass of fear was already there during the first Red Scare, when they passed the Sedition Act of 1918, locked up Eugene Debs, deported hundreds without due process, and destroyed the American left.
It probably goes back to the Great Upheaval of 1877. You know those big old National Guard armories they have in a lot of cities? They weren't built in case of invasion. They were built in case the workers got uppity again.
It is already the case that images, rather than abuse, are the target. (See also here.) This apparently would just add "as a federal crime!" and "on the Internet!" to the business model of locking people in cages for having unclean thoughts.
Robber barons often turn to charity once they've robbed, cheated, and basely schemed their way into riches. Maybe out of guilt, maybe out of egoism.
If a hitman makes contributions to charity with the money he earns, does that change the evil nature of his murders?
Now I do believe in redemption, that a person can change. That hitman could become a good person, could forswear ever killing again and work for good. Fine. But keeping up the misdeeds while giving to charity does not indicate that a person has repented and changed their ways.
Of course Gate's crimes are not like those of the hitman. He's inconvenienced millions and ruined thousands, but not - to my knowledge - directly killed anyone. But that doesn't charge the argument about crime and charity.
KIDS ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE. That's the whole thing that separates children from adults.
Jeez. It's very, very sad to see how many mentally and emotionally defective people there out there, whose response to the deliberate psychological abuse of a child, is to hold the child at fault for acting like a child.
The problem with cheap prison labor - even when it's not abusive to the prisoners, as it often is - is that it's unfair competition. If I'm a free laborer who paints houses, builds sheds, or plows fields, I can't compete with prisoners working at $5/hour.
It's a tremendous incentive for the ruling class to lock more people up. "Ladies and gentlemen, labor costs are getting too high and endangering our profits. Fortunately, we have a solution: traffic violations now carry a sentence of six months on the labor teams. Of course, enforcement won't be targeted at us." Sort of a The Jigsaw Man situation.
Real capitalists are moochers, not makers. Workers make; capitalists provide them access to the capital (the capital that the government has put into their hands) and skim off the top.