This is just one of the places that government could tax and regulate to ensure a better public health, a safer society
Actually, it is up to the individual state governments to allow or disallow prostitution. In certain counties of Nevada for example, prostitution is exactly as you describe: a regulated, taxed, and legal business. Personally, I think that the federal government ought to strike down state laws banning the sale of sex for constitutional reasons. It is acceptable to regulate the practice as long as such regulations are reasonable (i.e. no setting up of shop within prescribed distances of schools, mandatory health screenings for sex workers, etc), but there are few greater affronts to personal liberty than removing the right of self-determination over one's own body.
I don't know, maybe, but complex laws combined with the often ambiguous circumstances of everyday life are also good reasons to NEVER talk to the police or answer their questions. Talking to the police before you talk to your attorney can NEVER do you any good when and if the case goes to trial and if they are going to charge you and arrest you then NOTHING that you can say is going to change their minds about it. Remember the words of Cardinal Richelieu, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
But don't you see? That is precisely the problem. The only sane strategy for any company is deliberate ignorance. The law says that you have a duty IF you know about the patent, but it does not say that you have a duty to search out relevant patents. Ignorance, even though deliberate in this case, is entirely rational and financially sound business because of the perverse incentives created by our backwards patent laws. I think that Steve Ballmer would whole heartedly agree with this policy because it makes good business sense and arranging one's legal, tax, and financial affairs, according to the laws, so as to avoid or minimize losses is a perfectly sound and acceptable strategy which the courts have confirmed on numerous occasions.
As I understand the issue of searching for or viewing patents under the current US laws (IANAL), once one has knowledge of an existing patent then one is charged with an affirmative duty (legal speak for it's your responsibility) to ascertain the scope of the patent and avoid infringement. Now, because it frequently requires the services of a patent attorney to ascertain the full scope of the patent, which is expensive, AND the willful infringement of an existing patent (i.e. you knew about it and infringed anyway) results in much higher damages in the event of a lawsuit there are powerful disincentives, namely the two mentioned above, against searching for any existing patents. In other words, it is better from a legal and financial standpoint to remain willfully ignorant of any existing patents and negotiate a settlement when or if a patent holder shows up. This is closely related to the issue of defensive patents and maintaining a portfolio of patents merely for use as fodder in settlement negotiations.
indeed software or even computer technology is just a tiny fragment of the areas of science.
Yes, but the president already has official science advisers and entire government departments devoted to research, scientific development, and other problems and questions of a general scientific nature (i.e. biology, chemistry, physics, geology, etc). What we are talking about here is a more practical position to be filled by someone (or a group of someones) who can advise the President regarding practical matters in engineering, technology, and other issues of more immediate importance so that he can better understand and make decisions on legislation which concerns technological issues in the near term (the type that will definitely come up in the Obama administration as we look to secure our independence from foreign sources of energy, for example).
He would also have to cut his hair, trim his beard, start wearing ties, and taking showers on a regular basis. Can you imagine RMS in a suit and tie? I just cannot picture that.
yes, but surely you can see how that is SO much better than actually having to type the whole phrase out in vi multiple times when we are going to use it at least five times in this document and many times again in future documents.
Can someone please exlplain how it is that a bunch of irregulars with poorly maintained AK-47 rifles and surplus Katyusha rockets that date back to the cold war can keep us on our toes in Afghanistan when we have all of this high tech and expensive army gear? Heck, the amount that we spend to equip and train one US soldier would probably equip a whole company of Taliban. If the army wants more and better soldiers then how about doing simple things like raising base salaries for our military, improving the quality of our training programs, and taking back control of supply and logistics from Halliburton and KBR who seem to be much more interested in how much they can possibly bill the government and much less interested in actually helping our fighting men and women.
But accepting the need for taxes does not make one a socialist, any more than building freeways makes you a nazi.
Apparently, that depends upon whom you ask.
US taxes are at a historically low level. Returning to a level a bit more like what you had 70 years ago or more will not make you any more of a socialist country than you were back then.
Actually, unless we brought back all of the new deal agencies too it would probably still be less. However, I think that both of you are missing an even more interesting question and that is why should taxes go up? If we are going to give the government more of our national income then I think the burden of explaining why we need to do that belongs with those who advocate higher taxes OR are taxes to be used not merely as an instrument of government funding but also as an instrument of punishment (i.e. the hair shirt position)?
IMHO, the people of the United States need to take a closer look at how much of the national income the government is spending AND what they are spending it on. It is not enough to say that we should raise taxes to pay off existing debts without taking another look at how and why those debts were incurred and what our policies will be going forward to ensure that the taxes we already collect are being well spent AND that our tax policies are not counter-productive.
In response to the question "Won't people write obscenities? Draw porn? Offend people?", he said "Of course they will. And that's part of what free speech does."
Exactly. If people don't like free speech or believe that it is their right to go out in public and not be offended by speech on issues and topics that they consider sacred then they should to move to a country which more closely fits with their world view. There are plenty of countries on this earth that limit speech in any number of ways, all one has to do is select the country with the ideology that most closely matches their own. If, on the other hand, you want free speech then you have to put up with being offended by others speaking freely, particularly in public. Personally I think that free speech is a valuable right, perhaps the most valuable of them all, and the possibility of being offended, a remote one indeed for myself since I am too cynical to be offended by much of anything anymore, is a very small price to pay for such a valuable right. So let us keep free speech here in the United States and let those who are offended go wherever else they please. There are, after all, so many other religious regimes despotisms, and pseudo-democracies to choose from.
You tell them that both will be sacrificed for some unneccessary feature creep, and you'll start seeing some managerial decision making instead of simple managerial delegation.
They may make a decision, but that doesn't mean that you will be happy about it. They might decide, for example, that they don't like your estimate or analysis of the situation. They might decide that you are simply a stubborn "techie" who is standing in the way of their grand business strategy and doesn't appreciate the larger business picture. So instead of dropping the feature because the sales people have told them that a competitor already has that feature and no feature = no sales going forward, they find themselves a new "techie" who agrees with them and is willing to be a "yes" man for management. It is the old adage, if you don't like the opinion of the expert then find yourself a new expert (it worked for decades with the tobacco industry, it works with the global warming deniers, and it works for technical projects too). If you oppose management often enough and always end up on the "wrong side" of debates then you may become a tempting target when it is time to cut some people loose for arbitrary reasons (bad quarter, economy is down, a tough competitor is making life difficult, etc). Sad but true.
It was meant to be a joke on the strictness or the theocratic Iranian government and the suppression of free speech and woman's rights that is common in that country. I would not set foot in Iran for any amount of money I don't care how much. The closest that I want to come to Iran is watching the gun camera and bomb sight videos on the news wires from the comfort of my living room.
It depends upon your country of residence. You probably wouldn't want to be caught with porn of any kind in Iran, which takes a rather broad view of the term anyway (i.e. an uncovered female face), for example.
NAFTA signed in 1993 (approximately 15 years ago as of 2008) although technically it wasn't ratified until 1994, so I suppose that was right on the cusp depending upon how one interprets the issue, but clearly Clinton lobbbied for the treaty before he signed it and pressured the Senate to ratify so one could say that he, as the President and de-facto leader of his party at that time (i.e. the President basically sets the party agenda), supported it 15 years ago, give or take a few months (as I recall NAFTA was also an issue in the primaries and the 1992 campaign as evidenced by Ross Perot and his "giant sucking sound" of jobs going across the border).
It wasn't really until the Republican Revolution that Democratic elected officials essentially decided Clinton and the Republicans were right, and themselves took several steps right-ward. The ones that were still in power.
If they took a few steps to the right, stayed there for a couple of years, and then stepped back to the left then wouldn't that be a "shift to the left" relative to their last official (i.e. voted on) position on the issue? It seems like you are defining a "shift" as only when it is in a direction contrary to the stated platform of the party and not relative to how they have actually voted over time.
And I think it's an interesting assertion that more elected Democratic officials oppose NAFTA now than then. I don't know how that conclusion was reached, and I'd like some evidence of it.
I do not know if there has been a specific survey on that, but suppose that we were to track down all of the 1/4 Democratic Senators who were in office at the time NAFTA was ratified AND voted "yes" and ask them if, knowing what they know now, they would still vote the same way again today? The ones who opposed it then probably still oppose it now, but I suppose that you could ask them if they would still oppose it. If there were 25% in favor in 1993 and say 5% in favor now then wouldn't that be the same as saying, "more democratic elected officials oppose NAFTA now than then"?
The Democratic voters, of course, hate it, but that's somewhat my entire point: The Democratic party, along with the Republican party and 'the center', over the last 15 years since Clinton was elected, moved to the right,
If the parties shift then isn't that a "shift"? I thought that we were talking about political parties?
while the people stayed in the same place, or even moved slightly to the left.
I think that people probably stayed in the same place. People might refine their positions over time and change their party affiliations as the parties shift around them (I used to be a Republican when I was younger), but in my experience a complete "u-turn" is pretty rare and is usually caused by a noteworthy personal event (i.e. a religious conversion, a brush with death, etc...). Most people don't just casually change their whole world view one day (although they might drift far enough to be on the other side over the course of their lifetimes if they consistently head in one direction) or at least that is probably pretty rare.
Why don't you go ahead and name a position the left didn't hold 15-20 years ago but has moved leftward on
How about NAFTA and free trade? Bill Clinton was a supporter and important backer of NAFTA when the treaty was signed in 1993, a position which he maintained (more or less) throughout his administration which ended in 2001, but now the position of the Democratic party (or the majority sentiment anyway) seems to have turned against NAFTA. Hillary, for example, argued that they treaty should be renegotiated (i.e. gutted) or withdrawn if that proved to be impractical. I think that it is fair to say that the position of most Democrats now against free trade and in favor of protectionism represents a "shift to the left" compared to the position that they held during the Clinton Administration unless you are going to argue that Clinton bucked the party recommendation by supporting NAFTA in the first place (in which case how was the treaty ever ratified by the Senate in the first place?)
It is my own personal belief that the root of the problem lies in our monetary system itself, which by its very nature enables these types of crises despite all attempts to regulate against them (the regulators are always ten steps behind). In my opinion we need to rethink the basis of our monetary system completely to become something other than the triple combination of fiat currency, fractional reserve banking, and the use of debt as the basis for new fractional reserve loans which create new money. Until we get a handle on the present monetary system as described we are doomed to experience more meltdowns in the future that the regulators, despite good intentions and best efforts, will be unable to prevent.
You are looking at it from the wrong standpoint (speed, accuracy, security, etc) with incidental metrics. The real value of LINQ is to improve the design of your code by making generic queries first class objects supported in the language and providing an abstract interface by which any type of data source, including other objects, can be queried without having to know the source at design or compile time. As I have already said there are fringe benefits to the LINQ implementation as well including extension methods, lambda expressions, anonymous data types, and partial methods. The benefits lie in the abstraction of the concept of "query". It sounds like you are looking at the benefits of LINQ at too low of a level to fully appreciate what all of that brings to C# and.NET going forward. Let me ask you this, are you the type of person that hacks together the first thing that comes to mind or do you use Design Patterns and Dependency Injection and carefully consider abstractions in your code? If you are the former rather and not the later then I am not surprised that LINQ didn't have much impact on how you approach software development and programming. Try reading through the LINQ articles on MSDN, Channel9, and maybe pick up a book on LINQ and give it a chance. It is tough to explain the full benefit and power of LINQ to someone who isn't used to thinking abstractly, but have faith in the experience and judgement of other more experienced developers, LINQ has value going forward.
Except that everyone one of them would disagree with you, and your party is, in essence, misrepresenting them all.
The Libertarian philosophy represents, in our opinion, the natural evolution of their lines of reasoning and the contributions of other more modern thinkers over time. Would you say, for example, that some Jews are not Jewish because they do not follow the absolutely strict interpretation of the Talmud as it was originally written thousands of years ago? Certainly not, so why should we Libertarians be expected to adopt completely and without regard to modern times the exact same reasoning of those founding philosophers of centuries past? It is my own opinion that the Libertarians, and the Classical Liberals (as they are still called in Europe, the left having retained the term Socialism there without shame), represent the modern school of thought which is closest to those original thoughts and writings of those aforementioned philosophers.
Granted, the left today includes a strong streak of progressivism in addition to it's liberalism, and it's a valid point to say 'liberalism doesn't include health care'. It really doesn't, that's the progressive camp.
That is precisely the problem though. In the United States (and also in Britain where the Progressive movement really began) the term "Liberal" has become inextricably linked in the public mind with elements of Progressivism (albeit not their full platform either) and even Socialism. So really Liberalism, in the classical sense, and Liberal are separate entities (at least here in the United States). That is why, originally, the Libertarians selected a separate term for themselves, to draw this distinction between Liberalism, as it was understood in the classical sense, and the baggage that it had acquired (at least here in the United States) over they years both unconsciously and as part of conscious efforts by certain groups, mostly on the left, to hijack the term and suggest that Liberalism had always included those progressive and socialist items. At least the Libertarians were honest and selected a new term to avoid muddying the waters any further.
They were pro-freedom, they were not anti-progressive.
The progressive movement did not begin until well after their deaths so how can you say that they were not anti-progressive? One cannot necessarily infer with 100% certainty the position of someone on a topics if they did not write or speak specifically on that topic. You might interpret their silence on Progressivism (How could they have written about it? It didn't exist yet!) as NOT being anti-progressive while others might say that they are anti-progressive based upon their pro-freedom statements (since progressivism necessarily involves sacrificing some individual freedoms to achieve what progressives regard as greater societal or social justice, a concept which Locke, Smith, and the others almost certainly would have rejected).
It is an entirely different axis, it is not opposed.
I am not so sure, it depends upon where you define the boundaries of Liberalism. It is difficult to see how Liberalism, which is essentially by for and of Liberty, could be considered in harmony with platforms which advocate for the restriction of that Liberty above and beyond what is implied by Natural Laws (as they were understood by Locke and the others) for whatever reason and however noble.
You guys have decided that taxes=lack of freedom, which is fine to decide, but you also pretend those guys you listed would agree with you, and this is 'Classic liberalism', which is just dishonest.
I did not say that Libertarianism is exactly equivalent to Classic Liberalism, but rather that the party was founded by those who considered themselves to be classically liberal (you may disagree with their ideological purity I suppose) and that in the United States at least,
I would suggest to libertarians that they moved to a libertarian country and see for themselves.
As far as I know, no such country presently exists (although some, present day Estonia for example, do come close) and as for your examples of "libertarian" countries need I remind you that just because Libertarians favor small government does not mean that we favor weak government, especially when it comes to enforcing the laws and preventing violence, or no government. In short, Libertarian does NOT equal Anarchist.
That is, frankly, because your libertarian views are stupid.
An advocate who begins a debate by telling the other side that their position is "stupid" does nothing to reinforce the intellectual basis of their own position. This is a lesson that many on the left would do well to learn before opening their mouths in support of their causes. If you cannot add anything constructive to the debate then it is probably better to keep your mouth shut and let the better informed and more respectful advocates on your side speak instead. Does Obama begin the presidential debates by telling McCain that his position is "stupid"? Please.
No, seriously. "Libertarianism' is a scam invented by the rich, who want the government to only do things that benefit them and no one else. (Like run a police force and court system, to keep people from stealing their shit or living on their land for free.)
The term Libertarian was chosen and adopted by those who considered themselves to be Classically Liberal, but who were concerned that the term Liberal, as it had come to be understood in the United States beginning in the 1940s and especially after the 1960s, no longer accurately represented the Classically Liberal positions such as the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitation of government, free markets, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, David Ricardo, Voltaire, Montesquieu and others. To suggest that Libertarianism is a "scam invented by the rich" is disingenuous at best and at worst nothing better than an attempt to avoid real debate by name calling and rabble rousing.
They hide this by making claims about the 'original' purpose of government, which is, in fact, exactly that, to protect the rich, although they won't come out and say that.
Again you misrepresent our platform. The Libertarians have the privilege of deciding for themselves what their position is, just as any other political party or philosophy does. If you disagree with a specific points(s) then say so and explain why, but please do not continue to operate under the illusion that setting up the straw man will somehow invalidate our position(s).
More to the point, they then make the rather absurd claim that they should get this while paying as little taxes as possible.
It is not absurd to suggest that less government should cost less money. We Libertarians take the view that because taxes are not voluntary, and therefore by definition an impingement upon personal liberty, it is desirable for them to be minimized for everyone, to the extent that that is reasonable and possible within the context of a minimal government which we favor.
While a large percentage of Americans haven't figured out the premise of the party
You, apparently, are included among those who haven't figured it out.
and have a sort of grudging respect for it as the underdog
I'd rather like to think that they respect our party for the logical and reasonable nature of our positions, based as they are upon the values which are enshrined in the founding documents of our nation.
under no circumstances do they actually want to implement those policies.
I am not convinced of that. If you ask Americans what they really want, and they are honest with themselves, then I believe that they will say what they want is a fair chance to work hard and succeed without being unduly interfered with by the government or by competitors who benefit from government assistance in unfair competition. They are suspicious of handouts and other socialist promises of the left because those
The APress offering in this category, Pro C# 2008 and the.NET 3.5 Platform, is almost certainly superior in both breadth of topics covered and details presented. I own the Apress book and have found it to be a useful reference on numerous occasions, but read the reviews and look at the scores before deciding what to buy. If you only have funds for one or the other then get the Apress book, you won't be disappointed.
Slashdot Mirror
This is just one of the places that government could tax and regulate to ensure a better public health, a safer society
Actually, it is up to the individual state governments to allow or disallow prostitution. In certain counties of Nevada for example, prostitution is exactly as you describe: a regulated, taxed, and legal business. Personally, I think that the federal government ought to strike down state laws banning the sale of sex for constitutional reasons. It is acceptable to regulate the practice as long as such regulations are reasonable (i.e. no setting up of shop within prescribed distances of schools, mandatory health screenings for sex workers, etc), but there are few greater affronts to personal liberty than removing the right of self-determination over one's own body.
I don't know, maybe, but complex laws combined with the often ambiguous circumstances of everyday life are also good reasons to NEVER talk to the police or answer their questions. Talking to the police before you talk to your attorney can NEVER do you any good when and if the case goes to trial and if they are going to charge you and arrest you then NOTHING that you can say is going to change their minds about it. Remember the words of Cardinal Richelieu, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."
But don't you see? That is precisely the problem. The only sane strategy for any company is deliberate ignorance. The law says that you have a duty IF you know about the patent, but it does not say that you have a duty to search out relevant patents. Ignorance, even though deliberate in this case, is entirely rational and financially sound business because of the perverse incentives created by our backwards patent laws. I think that Steve Ballmer would whole heartedly agree with this policy because it makes good business sense and arranging one's legal, tax, and financial affairs, according to the laws, so as to avoid or minimize losses is a perfectly sound and acceptable strategy which the courts have confirmed on numerous occasions.
As I understand the issue of searching for or viewing patents under the current US laws (IANAL), once one has knowledge of an existing patent then one is charged with an affirmative duty (legal speak for it's your responsibility) to ascertain the scope of the patent and avoid infringement. Now, because it frequently requires the services of a patent attorney to ascertain the full scope of the patent, which is expensive, AND the willful infringement of an existing patent (i.e. you knew about it and infringed anyway) results in much higher damages in the event of a lawsuit there are powerful disincentives, namely the two mentioned above, against searching for any existing patents. In other words, it is better from a legal and financial standpoint to remain willfully ignorant of any existing patents and negotiate a settlement when or if a patent holder shows up. This is closely related to the issue of defensive patents and maintaining a portfolio of patents merely for use as fodder in settlement negotiations.
indeed software or even computer technology is just a tiny fragment of the areas of science.
Yes, but the president already has official science advisers and entire government departments devoted to research, scientific development, and other problems and questions of a general scientific nature (i.e. biology, chemistry, physics, geology, etc). What we are talking about here is a more practical position to be filled by someone (or a group of someones) who can advise the President regarding practical matters in engineering, technology, and other issues of more immediate importance so that he can better understand and make decisions on legislation which concerns technological issues in the near term (the type that will definitely come up in the Obama administration as we look to secure our independence from foreign sources of energy, for example).
I don't think RMS would even take it.
He would also have to cut his hair, trim his beard, start wearing ties, and taking showers on a regular basis. Can you imagine RMS in a suit and tie? I just cannot picture that.
yes, but surely you can see how that is SO much better than actually having to type the whole phrase out in vi multiple times when we are going to use it at least five times in this document and many times again in future documents.
Perhaps you could forward your findings to the Software Freedom Law Center?
Can someone please exlplain how it is that a bunch of irregulars with poorly maintained AK-47 rifles and surplus Katyusha rockets that date back to the cold war can keep us on our toes in Afghanistan when we have all of this high tech and expensive army gear? Heck, the amount that we spend to equip and train one US soldier would probably equip a whole company of Taliban. If the army wants more and better soldiers then how about doing simple things like raising base salaries for our military, improving the quality of our training programs, and taking back control of supply and logistics from Halliburton and KBR who seem to be much more interested in how much they can possibly bill the government and much less interested in actually helping our fighting men and women.
But accepting the need for taxes does not make one a socialist, any more than building freeways makes you a nazi.
Apparently, that depends upon whom you ask.
US taxes are at a historically low level. Returning to a level a bit more like what you had 70 years ago or more will not make you any more of a socialist country than you were back then.
Actually, unless we brought back all of the new deal agencies too it would probably still be less. However, I think that both of you are missing an even more interesting question and that is why should taxes go up? If we are going to give the government more of our national income then I think the burden of explaining why we need to do that belongs with those who advocate higher taxes OR are taxes to be used not merely as an instrument of government funding but also as an instrument of punishment (i.e. the hair shirt position)?
IMHO, the people of the United States need to take a closer look at how much of the national income the government is spending AND what they are spending it on. It is not enough to say that we should raise taxes to pay off existing debts without taking another look at how and why those debts were incurred and what our policies will be going forward to ensure that the taxes we already collect are being well spent AND that our tax policies are not counter-productive.
In response to the question "Won't people write obscenities? Draw porn? Offend people?", he said "Of course they will. And that's part of what free speech does."
Exactly. If people don't like free speech or believe that it is their right to go out in public and not be offended by speech on issues and topics that they consider sacred then they should to move to a country which more closely fits with their world view. There are plenty of countries on this earth that limit speech in any number of ways, all one has to do is select the country with the ideology that most closely matches their own. If, on the other hand, you want free speech then you have to put up with being offended by others speaking freely, particularly in public. Personally I think that free speech is a valuable right, perhaps the most valuable of them all, and the possibility of being offended, a remote one indeed for myself since I am too cynical to be offended by much of anything anymore, is a very small price to pay for such a valuable right. So let us keep free speech here in the United States and let those who are offended go wherever else they please. There are, after all, so many other religious regimes despotisms, and pseudo-democracies to choose from.
They care about deadlines and money.
Those two words do usually get their attention.
You tell them that both will be sacrificed for some unneccessary feature creep, and you'll start seeing some managerial decision making instead of simple managerial delegation.
They may make a decision, but that doesn't mean that you will be happy about it. They might decide, for example, that they don't like your estimate or analysis of the situation. They might decide that you are simply a stubborn "techie" who is standing in the way of their grand business strategy and doesn't appreciate the larger business picture. So instead of dropping the feature because the sales people have told them that a competitor already has that feature and no feature = no sales going forward, they find themselves a new "techie" who agrees with them and is willing to be a "yes" man for management. It is the old adage, if you don't like the opinion of the expert then find yourself a new expert (it worked for decades with the tobacco industry, it works with the global warming deniers, and it works for technical projects too). If you oppose management often enough and always end up on the "wrong side" of debates then you may become a tempting target when it is time to cut some people loose for arbitrary reasons (bad quarter, economy is down, a tough competitor is making life difficult, etc). Sad but true.
It was meant to be a joke on the strictness or the theocratic Iranian government and the suppression of free speech and woman's rights that is common in that country. I would not set foot in Iran for any amount of money I don't care how much. The closest that I want to come to Iran is watching the gun camera and bomb sight videos on the news wires from the comfort of my living room.
Ok, bad example, their eyes would light up like Christmas trees. :)
One gets the impression reading Slashdot that a geek questioned about the GPL would have a similar response.
It depends upon your country of residence. You probably wouldn't want to be caught with porn of any kind in Iran, which takes a rather broad view of the term anyway (i.e. an uncovered female face), for example.
That's why I specified 15-20 years
NAFTA signed in 1993 (approximately 15 years ago as of 2008) although technically it wasn't ratified until 1994, so I suppose that was right on the cusp depending upon how one interprets the issue, but clearly Clinton lobbbied for the treaty before he signed it and pressured the Senate to ratify so one could say that he, as the President and de-facto leader of his party at that time (i.e. the President basically sets the party agenda), supported it 15 years ago, give or take a few months (as I recall NAFTA was also an issue in the primaries and the 1992 campaign as evidenced by Ross Perot and his "giant sucking sound" of jobs going across the border).
It wasn't really until the Republican Revolution that Democratic elected officials essentially decided Clinton and the Republicans were right, and themselves took several steps right-ward. The ones that were still in power.
If they took a few steps to the right, stayed there for a couple of years, and then stepped back to the left then wouldn't that be a "shift to the left" relative to their last official (i.e. voted on) position on the issue? It seems like you are defining a "shift" as only when it is in a direction contrary to the stated platform of the party and not relative to how they have actually voted over time.
And I think it's an interesting assertion that more elected Democratic officials oppose NAFTA now than then. I don't know how that conclusion was reached, and I'd like some evidence of it.
I do not know if there has been a specific survey on that, but suppose that we were to track down all of the 1/4 Democratic Senators who were in office at the time NAFTA was ratified AND voted "yes" and ask them if, knowing what they know now, they would still vote the same way again today? The ones who opposed it then probably still oppose it now, but I suppose that you could ask them if they would still oppose it. If there were 25% in favor in 1993 and say 5% in favor now then wouldn't that be the same as saying, "more democratic elected officials oppose NAFTA now than then"?
The Democratic voters, of course, hate it, but that's somewhat my entire point: The Democratic party, along with the Republican party and 'the center', over the last 15 years since Clinton was elected, moved to the right,
If the parties shift then isn't that a "shift"? I thought that we were talking about political parties?
while the people stayed in the same place, or even moved slightly to the left.
I think that people probably stayed in the same place. People might refine their positions over time and change their party affiliations as the parties shift around them (I used to be a Republican when I was younger), but in my experience a complete "u-turn" is pretty rare and is usually caused by a noteworthy personal event (i.e. a religious conversion, a brush with death, etc...). Most people don't just casually change their whole world view one day (although they might drift far enough to be on the other side over the course of their lifetimes if they consistently head in one direction) or at least that is probably pretty rare.
Where can I go to get a cheap rain forest diesel fill up, my SUV is thirsty!
Why don't you go ahead and name a position the left didn't hold 15-20 years ago but has moved leftward on
How about NAFTA and free trade? Bill Clinton was a supporter and important backer of NAFTA when the treaty was signed in 1993, a position which he maintained (more or less) throughout his administration which ended in 2001, but now the position of the Democratic party (or the majority sentiment anyway) seems to have turned against NAFTA. Hillary, for example, argued that they treaty should be renegotiated (i.e. gutted) or withdrawn if that proved to be impractical. I think that it is fair to say that the position of most Democrats now against free trade and in favor of protectionism represents a "shift to the left" compared to the position that they held during the Clinton Administration unless you are going to argue that Clinton bucked the party recommendation by supporting NAFTA in the first place (in which case how was the treaty ever ratified by the Senate in the first place?)
It is my own personal belief that the root of the problem lies in our monetary system itself, which by its very nature enables these types of crises despite all attempts to regulate against them (the regulators are always ten steps behind). In my opinion we need to rethink the basis of our monetary system completely to become something other than the triple combination of fiat currency, fractional reserve banking, and the use of debt as the basis for new fractional reserve loans which create new money. Until we get a handle on the present monetary system as described we are doomed to experience more meltdowns in the future that the regulators, despite good intentions and best efforts, will be unable to prevent.
You are looking at it from the wrong standpoint (speed, accuracy, security, etc) with incidental metrics. The real value of LINQ is to improve the design of your code by making generic queries first class objects supported in the language and providing an abstract interface by which any type of data source, including other objects, can be queried without having to know the source at design or compile time. As I have already said there are fringe benefits to the LINQ implementation as well including extension methods, lambda expressions, anonymous data types, and partial methods. The benefits lie in the abstraction of the concept of "query". It sounds like you are looking at the benefits of LINQ at too low of a level to fully appreciate what all of that brings to C# and .NET going forward. Let me ask you this, are you the type of person that hacks together the first thing that comes to mind or do you use Design Patterns and Dependency Injection and carefully consider abstractions in your code? If you are the former rather and not the later then I am not surprised that LINQ didn't have much impact on how you approach software development and programming. Try reading through the LINQ articles on MSDN, Channel9, and maybe pick up a book on LINQ and give it a chance. It is tough to explain the full benefit and power of LINQ to someone who isn't used to thinking abstractly, but have faith in the experience and judgement of other more experienced developers, LINQ has value going forward.
Except that everyone one of them would disagree with you, and your party is, in essence, misrepresenting them all.
The Libertarian philosophy represents, in our opinion, the natural evolution of their lines of reasoning and the contributions of other more modern thinkers over time. Would you say, for example, that some Jews are not Jewish because they do not follow the absolutely strict interpretation of the Talmud as it was originally written thousands of years ago? Certainly not, so why should we Libertarians be expected to adopt completely and without regard to modern times the exact same reasoning of those founding philosophers of centuries past? It is my own opinion that the Libertarians, and the Classical Liberals (as they are still called in Europe, the left having retained the term Socialism there without shame), represent the modern school of thought which is closest to those original thoughts and writings of those aforementioned philosophers.
Granted, the left today includes a strong streak of progressivism in addition to it's liberalism, and it's a valid point to say 'liberalism doesn't include health care'. It really doesn't, that's the progressive camp.
That is precisely the problem though. In the United States (and also in Britain where the Progressive movement really began) the term "Liberal" has become inextricably linked in the public mind with elements of Progressivism (albeit not their full platform either) and even Socialism. So really Liberalism, in the classical sense, and Liberal are separate entities (at least here in the United States). That is why, originally, the Libertarians selected a separate term for themselves, to draw this distinction between Liberalism, as it was understood in the classical sense, and the baggage that it had acquired (at least here in the United States) over they years both unconsciously and as part of conscious efforts by certain groups, mostly on the left, to hijack the term and suggest that Liberalism had always included those progressive and socialist items. At least the Libertarians were honest and selected a new term to avoid muddying the waters any further.
They were pro-freedom, they were not anti-progressive.
The progressive movement did not begin until well after their deaths so how can you say that they were not anti-progressive? One cannot necessarily infer with 100% certainty the position of someone on a topics if they did not write or speak specifically on that topic. You might interpret their silence on Progressivism (How could they have written about it? It didn't exist yet!) as NOT being anti-progressive while others might say that they are anti-progressive based upon their pro-freedom statements (since progressivism necessarily involves sacrificing some individual freedoms to achieve what progressives regard as greater societal or social justice, a concept which Locke, Smith, and the others almost certainly would have rejected).
It is an entirely different axis, it is not opposed.
I am not so sure, it depends upon where you define the boundaries of Liberalism. It is difficult to see how Liberalism, which is essentially by for and of Liberty, could be considered in harmony with platforms which advocate for the restriction of that Liberty above and beyond what is implied by Natural Laws (as they were understood by Locke and the others) for whatever reason and however noble.
You guys have decided that taxes=lack of freedom, which is fine to decide, but you also pretend those guys you listed would agree with you, and this is 'Classic liberalism', which is just dishonest.
I did not say that Libertarianism is exactly equivalent to Classic Liberalism, but rather that the party was founded by those who considered themselves to be classically liberal (you may disagree with their ideological purity I suppose) and that in the United States at least,
and Palin makes me think of an evil mix between Bush, Rove, and Martha Stewart
Now that was funny. Thank you.
I would suggest to libertarians that they moved to a libertarian country and see for themselves.
As far as I know, no such country presently exists (although some, present day Estonia for example, do come close) and as for your examples of "libertarian" countries need I remind you that just because Libertarians favor small government does not mean that we favor weak government, especially when it comes to enforcing the laws and preventing violence, or no government. In short, Libertarian does NOT equal Anarchist.
That is, frankly, because your libertarian views are stupid.
An advocate who begins a debate by telling the other side that their position is "stupid" does nothing to reinforce the intellectual basis of their own position. This is a lesson that many on the left would do well to learn before opening their mouths in support of their causes. If you cannot add anything constructive to the debate then it is probably better to keep your mouth shut and let the better informed and more respectful advocates on your side speak instead. Does Obama begin the presidential debates by telling McCain that his position is "stupid"? Please.
No, seriously. "Libertarianism' is a scam invented by the rich, who want the government to only do things that benefit them and no one else. (Like run a police force and court system, to keep people from stealing their shit or living on their land for free.)
The term Libertarian was chosen and adopted by those who considered themselves to be Classically Liberal, but who were concerned that the term Liberal, as it had come to be understood in the United States beginning in the 1940s and especially after the 1960s, no longer accurately represented the Classically Liberal positions such as the importance of human rationality, individual property rights, natural rights, the protection of civil liberties, constitutional limitation of government, free markets, and individual freedom from restraint as exemplified in the writings of John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, David Ricardo, Voltaire, Montesquieu and others. To suggest that Libertarianism is a "scam invented by the rich" is disingenuous at best and at worst nothing better than an attempt to avoid real debate by name calling and rabble rousing.
They hide this by making claims about the 'original' purpose of government, which is, in fact, exactly that, to protect the rich, although they won't come out and say that.
Again you misrepresent our platform. The Libertarians have the privilege of deciding for themselves what their position is, just as any other political party or philosophy does. If you disagree with a specific points(s) then say so and explain why, but please do not continue to operate under the illusion that setting up the straw man will somehow invalidate our position(s).
More to the point, they then make the rather absurd claim that they should get this while paying as little taxes as possible.
It is not absurd to suggest that less government should cost less money. We Libertarians take the view that because taxes are not voluntary, and therefore by definition an impingement upon personal liberty, it is desirable for them to be minimized for everyone, to the extent that that is reasonable and possible within the context of a minimal government which we favor.
While a large percentage of Americans haven't figured out the premise of the party
You, apparently, are included among those who haven't figured it out.
and have a sort of grudging respect for it as the underdog
I'd rather like to think that they respect our party for the logical and reasonable nature of our positions, based as they are upon the values which are enshrined in the founding documents of our nation.
under no circumstances do they actually want to implement those policies.
I am not convinced of that. If you ask Americans what they really want, and they are honest with themselves, then I believe that they will say what they want is a fair chance to work hard and succeed without being unduly interfered with by the government or by competitors who benefit from government assistance in unfair competition. They are suspicious of handouts and other socialist promises of the left because those
The APress offering in this category, Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform, is almost certainly superior in both breadth of topics covered and details presented. I own the Apress book and have found it to be a useful reference on numerous occasions, but read the reviews and look at the scores before deciding what to buy. If you only have funds for one or the other then get the Apress book, you won't be disappointed.