Oh great so another speculative bubble is forming out of those too deluded to leave the first time around.
Obviously not everyone thinks the current price is indicative of a speculative bubble. It could just as easily represent an actual increase in demand; only time will tell. You're welcome to short some bitcoins on the exchanges if you really think we're in a bubble, though. Change has been very gradual over the last several month—ever since the last big correction, really—with none of the runaway exponential price inflation which marked the previous bubble.
I don't see how claiming the market price suffering hyper expansion, collapse and then another expansion merely demonstrates that the "currency" is little more than a ponzi.
Well, I don't either, but obviously you meant the opposite.
The term "ponzi" gets thrown around a lot, but the essence of a Ponzi scheme is the promise of high returns, and there is no such promise (nor even any central figure to make such a promise) with regard to bitcoins. An "economic bubble" is not the same as a Ponzi scheme; to quote Wikipedia, "as with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme, there is no person misrepresenting the intrinsic value" (link). Of course, there is no such thing as "intrinsic value"—all valuation is subjective—but the meaning is clear enough. Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme.
As for tradeable items I never said there wasn't a token market but that's all it is.
Of course it's a "token" market; the system is still young. Did you expect it to replace the established national currencies overnight? Everything has to start somewhere. It's may be a small market now, but it's growing.
It is obviously totally unviable to trade unless prices in BTC are pegged to another currency, more or less demonstrating bitcoin is worthless in its own right.
I'll grant that the prices are more volatile than we'd like. Part of that is due to relatively low volumes (compared to other currencies), part is due to the lack of a significant futures market, part is simply due to the newness of the system and the resulting uncertainty over its long-term prospects. It's not "totally unviable" to list fixed prices in BTC, and some merchants do exactly that. However, for merchants used to setting prices in USD, it's not hard to see why they would prefer to treat BTC as a "foreign currency" and perform the conversion on-the-fly at checkout. The fact that they accept BTC anyway suggests that short-term volatility isn't enough to make bitcoins "worthless".
the whole lot collapsed and really hasn't recovered
You have a very interesting definition of "collapsed", considering that the current market price and trading volume have both increased by a factor of five or more over the past year. Note that the price increased by this much despite the fact that the supply of bitcoins grew by over 40% during the same period. There was a brief speculative bubble which peaked around $30, followed by a sharp correction, but the overall trend remains overwhelmingly positive.
This growth isn't entirely due to speculation, either; the range of products and services you can buy directly with bitcoins is increasing steadily, and includes web hosting, virtual servers, electronics, food, clothing--even real estate. Have a look at the Trade page on the Bitcoin Wiki for a partial, but still extensive, list of participating merchants.
Does the "power to lay and collect taxes" and apply them to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" (Article I, section 8) count?
By inserting "apply them" you have radically changed the meaning of the text to favor your argument. The cause you have misquoted grants the "power to lay and collect taxes". It doesn't grant the power to spend them in any particular way. The specific ways in which that money can be spent are enumerated in the rest of the section. James Madison, the so-called "Father of the Constitution", was quite clear that the so-called "General Welfare" clause was not intended as a blank check:
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated, is copied from the old articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers, and it is a fact that it was preferred in the new instrument for that very reason as less liable than any other to misconstruction.
--James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton (1792-01-21) [emphasis added]
If Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may establish teachers in every State, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public Treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads. In short, every thing, from the highest object of State legislation, down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.
--James Madison, remarks on the House floor, debates on Cod Fishery bill, (February 1792)
1) In the very pramble the national government is esablished to "promote the general Welfare". While that particular phase is very open to interpretaion, it is hard to see that a publically avalible hospital is not in the direction of "the general Welfare".
That's just the purpose statement, indicating what the authors set out to accomplish. It doesn't grant the federal government any powers by itself.
2) Section 8 of the Constitution once again allows specifically for taxation "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States".
They have the power to tax "to... provide for the... General Welfare". That doesn't imply that they have the power to spend said tax money in any way other than the separately enumerated powers listed afterward. The contemporary writings make it clear that the authors never intended for the so-called "General Welfare" clause to be interpreted as a blank check. If it were intended that way, for that matter, the Constitution wouldn't need to be half so long as it is. The scope of the federal government is constrained by specific enumerated powers, and while the phrase "provide for the... General Welfare" does occur, it isn't one of those powers.
One could [argue] that this only means the general welfare of the Unites States as a body and not the individual of it. But that seems contrary to the general spirit of the document, and would have to be decided by the US Supreme Court. Since they have specifically not said so, the overwhelming presumption must be that it is in keeping with the law.
The US Supreme Court is not the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution. That would be an obvious conflict of interest, as their own powers and those of their co-branches of the federal government (to which they cannot be considered impartial) are derived from the Constitution. That they have chosen not to enforce the Constitution limits in this case means nothing more than they prefer to preserve their own power base.
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy...... Their power all the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
--Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277
As for Public Corporations, and "corporate personhood"... feel free to do away with both. It won't make much of a difference. Limited liability (for debts), public and private shares—all the trappings of a modern publicly-traded company—are perfectly workable through private contracts without any special grant from the government. "Corporate personhood" is mostly just a way for the government to simplify its own paperwork for tax purposes, not really much different from allowing married couples to file jointly. I doubt they're really want to go back to tracking everything per individual, with no formal boundaries.
There are a couple of problems with that argument. One, there is quite a bit of overhead in constantly converting between any other commodity or currency (hereafter known as "gold") and dollars. To avoid this overhead you need to actually trade in gold, not just hold it and convert on demand.
Two, you would be charged "capital gains" on the price increase due to inflation, even though the gold is worth the same in terms of purchasing power was it was when you bought it. Since this applies even to barter transactions not involving dollars at any point, it seriously penalizes the use of any currency other than dollars.
Three, inflation causes problems for everyone trying to perform economic calculations denominated in dollars, even if they don't hold any actual currency. Inflation affects different areas of the market at different times and rates, and must remain unpredictable if the central bank intends to use it to influence the market—predictable inflation would simply be factored out. The resulting uncertainty degrades the accuracy of economic calculation, ensuring misallocation of resources. Moreover, real inflation is uneven, and thus has the additional problem that those who spend the new cash first effectively get something for nothing at the expense of everyone else left paying inflated prices, another factor skewing the markets in favor of the central bank and its close partners.
Well I was thinking an anchor with a length of rope
Exactly how big of a balloon are you planning on having, because it will need to lift the weight of thousands of feet of rope.
There's no need to limit yourself to just one balloon, or put all the lift at the top. Use one (15lb lift) balloon for the payload, and attach another balloon for every 15lb of cable. By stringing the balloons along the cable you also help to reduce the stress on the cable, particularly toward the top end.
Only an impartial outsider or the legitimate principals (i.e. the People)
I would say the principals are the State Legislatures...
Sure, if you want to get technical. Ultimately the authority still comes from the People, however; the States are just middlemen. The States have no powers or resources apart from the powers and resources of their citizens.
First Amendment does not alter the copyright clause in any [significant] way. See Eldred v. Ashcroft (SCOTUS case)
The SCOTUS cannot be considered an authoritative reference in cases involving their own parent organization (i.e. the federal government). That would be an obvious conflict of interest. They can act as an internal "watchdog" by ruling the actions of the federal government unconstitutional, but they cannot authoritatively declare any action constitutional in the positive sense. Only an impartial outsider or the legitimate principals (i.e. the People) can make that call. The SCOTUS ruling an action constitutional would amount to the government granting itself power, and that isn't how the system is designed to work.
It's fairly obvious that there is a conflict between the idea of copyright and freedom of speech. In fact, this has been acknowledged before; it's how we ended up with "fair use"—a poor compromise which only addresses the most egregious limitations imposed by copyright on speech, when the actual amendment says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech". Any form of copyright abridges the freedom of speech. The text allows no scope for compromise.
Would you argue that, in such a case, both cases of trespass and vandalism are the same crime?
Yes. By "crime" I specifically mean the criminal action, which is the same in both cases. Since we're discussing the legitimacy of the law itself, it would be circular to refer to the details of the criminal code. The legislature could declare that murder on a Tuesday is a different crime than murder on a Friday, but they remain the same action, and it's the action, not the written law, which defines the range of legitimate responses.
If "the punishment should fit the crime" meant no more than "the punishment should be whatever the criminal code specifies", as you seem to be implying, then the expression would be pointless. The idea is that one's punishment should correspond to what one did. Among other things, that means that punishments should not be disproportionately amplified for the purpose of making a point or sending a message.
At most you need one (symmetric) key bit for every bit in every message you plan to send using that key. That effectively turns it into a one-time pad, which cannot be broken through brute force—there is a valid key for every possible cleartext of that length. (Be sure to pad the message!)
Which cannot be GUARANTEED to be broken within a certain time through brute force, you mean.
No, I meant exactly what I said. If you try to brute-force a one-time pad you end up with all possible cleartexts, and no idea which one of them was the actual message. Basically, a brute-force search is pointless because you have no idea what you're searching for—no way to recognize the correct key.
The simplest way to implement a one-time pad digitally is a basic XOR operation. You have a private key K and a message M, both X bits long, and the ciphertext C = XOR(M, K). Decrypting is symmetric, M = XOR(C, K). Obviously both the sender and receiver need a copy of the private key; arranging for that is the hard part, and the reason one-time pads aren't more common.
The thing is, for any other message M' (also X bits long) there is a key K' where M' = XOR(C, K'). So was the message "THEBODYISUNDERTHECHURCH" or "PRESIDENTNIXONWASFRAMED"? A brute-force search would give you both of these messages, and many others besides. Without prior knowledge of the real key, there's no way to be sure which was sent. In practice the message would be padded with random bits, so you can't even be sure of the length (though you do know it isn't longer than the ciphertext).
It is difficult, but motivation is already a big part of how our justice system works: manslaughter vs. premediated murder is the good example.
That's not so much a question of motivation as intent. In other words, the difference between manslaughter and murder isn't why you did it (the motivation), but whether you set out to kill someone in the first place.
I think the "hate crime" idea sends a clear message that we as a society think a crime is "worse" (big quotes there) if it is done out hatred of an entire race/orientation/religion of people.
I agree that "hate crime" laws send this message. However, I do not believe that the purpose of the law is to send messages. Moreover, I can't really bring myself to agree that the crime is somehow "better" or "worse" based on the offender's motivation. That seems inherently subjective, whereas the legitimacy of the law rests of its justice being apparent from all rational frames of reference.
As I see it, the punishments prescribed by the law are only legitimate so long as they are proportional to the crime. A punishment which would not be proportional to a crime committed out of selfishness or passion does not suddenly become proportional when the same crime is committed due to prejudice. Attaching disproportionate punishments to crimes with specific motivations makes the law subjective, and undermines its legitimacy.
"Targeting someone for a crime specifically because they are different than you" is a good place to start trying to understand.
That's the easy part. Obviously some crimes are motivated by irrational biases. The "hate crime" label is a bit over the top, and far too emotionally charged to readily permit rational discussion, but few would deny the existence of crimes motivated by prejudice and xenophobia.
What is difficult to understand is why "hate crimes" should be treated any differently than the exact same crimes committed for any other reason. The punishment should fit the crime, not the criminal's motivation.
At most you need one (symmetric) key bit for every bit in every message you plan to send using that key. That effectively turns it into a one-time pad, which cannot be broken through brute force—there is a valid key for every possible cleartext of that length. (Be sure to pad the message!)
You can only send one message using that key. That's what makes it a one-time pad. The moment you have multiple messages encrypted with the same key, it's not provably unbreakable anymore, because you have a vector for attack (comparing multiple cypher-texts).
It's all in the implementation. What I had in mind for the case of multiple messages is a key of (N + M) bits, and messages of (N + M) bits, where you use the first N bits of the key to encode the first message and the next M bits to encode the second message. This is trivially equivalent to two separate one-time pads where each message is encrypted with its own non-overlapping portion of the key. It's also the way one-time pads are traditionally used, since doing the hard part (key exchange) over again for every message doesn't really make sense. Instead, you exchange a very large key once and consume part of it to encode each message.
However, yes, you could run into trouble if you start mixing the key bits and message bits up such that the two keys/ciphertexts aren't really independent.
At most you need one (symmetric) key bit for every bit in every message you plan to send using that key. That effectively turns it into a one-time pad, which cannot be broken through brute force—there is a valid key for every possible cleartext of that length. (Be sure to pad the message!)
This is precisely the problem with C++: it's impossible to say what any given line of code actually does without examining every line the compiler has seen before, including other included files.
That was already true for any statement which contains an identifier (because it could be a macro), which is basically all of them.
Overloaded operators only apply when there are user-defined types involved, so (aside from implicit member-wise assignment to a class/struct) none of the operations which are semantically correct in the absence of overloaded operators have changed their meaning.
If it bothers you that much, you can always put a line in your coding standard requiring operator-overloading functions to be called out explicitly, i.e. "a.operator+(b)" or "operator+(a, b)" rather than "a + b".
Rights and privileges are pretty much the same thing.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Particularly in the case of the USA, it is a founding principle that the rights of the individual are not defined by the government. It has the power to recognize or violate rights, but not to grant them or take them away. Privileges are far more ephemeral—and always at odds with the rights of others.
If you try to interfere with my government-backed *privilege* to live, I expect the government to do something to stop you.
Government aside, if someone tries to kill you they can hardly argue that it would be wrong for you to fight back, all else being equal. The same argument cannot be made when you attempt to respond to something like copyright or patent infringement with threats of fines and imprisonment.
Protectionism is not "wrong" in any moral sense, just "wrong" according to economic theory.
Protectionism is wrong, first and foremost, in the moral sense. It also happens to be a poor choice in the economic sense if your goals involve prosperity, but that is a relatively minor issue.
A protectionist trade policy amounts to coercive interference in voluntary trade between private individuals and organizations on opposite sides of the border, without a shred of defensive justification. Using or threatening coercive force against people who have neither harmed you, nor threatened to do so, is immoral.
But if you consider that transfer "wrong", then your problem is with capitalism, not protectionism.
You must have mistyped a few words there. The problem is definitely with protectionism, not capitalism. You can't possibly blame a transfer of wealth resulting from protectionist policies—interference in the rights of private owners for the purpose of restricting foreign trade—on a system of economics defined by private ownership and unrestricted trade.
A dead person can't consent to the sale of their body and once they are dead no one has ownership of their body to negotiate the sale of the dead persons bodily resources.
That's what the concept of an "estate" is for. There is no practical reason why your body can't become part of your estate, just like all your other former possessions.
What about that big bang theory? Doesn't creation of a universe worth of matter/energy violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics in a pretty non-localized way?
Only if there exists a time before the big bang where that matter/energy did not exist. Since time starts with the big bang, there is no previous time, and thus no sudden increase in matter/energy.
At least half of the fallacies regarding the Big Bang Theory seem to be based in some way on the assumption that you can make meaningful comparisons between the states of the universe "before" and "after" the big bang. There is no "before" state; time itself is an artifact of the big bang.
This does rise an interesting question: should TOSes or other unilateral declarations from private individuals or businesses be allowed to undermine the free market?
The ability to enter into binding contracts is an essential part of the free market—as is the ability to choose not to do business with someone, for any reason (or even no reason).
In other words: should we let PayPal decide who can and cannot buy or sell over the Internet, and what?
You give them too much credit. They can't "decide who can and cannot buy or sell over the Internet"; they only have the power to offer their services as an intermediary for payments. Others offer similar services, and there are even decentralized online payment systems like Bitcoin with no controlling authority to dictate which payments you are permitted to send or receive.
If all else fails, there is always the option of snail-mailing a check. That may be (painfully) slow, but it gets the job done.
How can you say that intellectual property never existed in the first place?
What I said was that the ownership never existed, and thus can't be removed. Certainly "IP" exists as a legal concept, but that isn't the same as ownership. Even the law recognizes that there is a difference; for example, rights in actual property ("AP") don't automatically lapse after a predefined time. "IP" is an incentive system, nothing more. Abolishing it is no more "taking property" than abolishing any other kind of subsidy.
Abolishing intellectual property is taking property that belongs to one (e.g., a person, a corporation, etc.) and giving that property to everbody.
No, because (despite the name) "intellectual property" is not property at all. Property is a concept which applies only to scarce resources; initial use of the resource (homesteading) confers the right to continue use it in the same manner without interference from others, a right which can be transferred from person to person via contracts. Property rights are naturally exclusive only insofar as distinct uses are in conflict; anyone can benefit from the property provided their benefit does not interfere with the owner's use of it.
The concept of property rights exists entirely because the resource is scarce; either the resource can't be consumed at all, or someone must be in a position to decide when and how the resource will be consumed to the exclusion of any other conflicting use. Property rights specify who should make that decision; whether you agree with my views on that selection (homesteading & contracts) isn't really relevant. The point is that someone has to do it, because of scarcity.
"IP", on the other hand, has no scarcity, no natural conflict between uses. Creative labor is scarce, certainly, but that isn't "IP", and control over your own labor is already covered by self-ownership. The product of such labor is something which can be used by any number of individuals simultaneously without conflict. The concept of property rights exists to resolve conflict, but "IP" laws create conflict, not only by attempting to make "IP" scarce but also by interfering with the non-aggressive use of actual property.
Doesn't abolishing copyright and patents remove ownership of the copyrighted or patented material?
No, because you can't remove what never existed in the first place. Abolishing copyright and patents merely removes a privilege which attempted to artificially emulate the system of ownership which is natural for scarce resources in a context where scarcity, and thus ownership, do not apply.
... the notion that "items were property since nearly the dawn of civilization" neglects the fact that many things were considered community property.
Which, as the name implies, is still a form of property. Unless a resource is superabundant, you can either consider it property—in which case someone has the right to decide how it's used—or you can experience Tragedy of the Commons.
There's nothing wrong with group ownership, provided the group came by the ownership legitimately. A community can act as a whole to homestead property, or purchase it for public use. The problem with communism is that it doesn't recognize anything but community property. Private claims are always subordinate to the will of the collective, assuming they're permitted at all.
But that problem is basically solved by only subjecting those in the top 0.1% to the tax...
Sure, if you don't mind tossing out the concept of "equality under the law". If you can justify special taxes for some based on their wealth or income, you can equally well justify special taxes on some based on their race, gender, age, or other minority status, or because they're "subversive" or otherwise fail to toe the party line.
Of course, the concept of the progressive income tax is already a form of income discrimination, with higher taxes on those who earn more. Arguably this is unconstitutional—even considering the 16th Amendment, a true tax on income would need to be uniform across all income, regardless of who earned it. Varying the rate based on how much other income the same person earned that year (not to mention deductions) means that you're really taxing the person, not their income—or rather, penalizing them for earning more.
The concept of limited government is meaningless without equally stringent limitations on discriminatory tax codes.
Slashdot Mirror
No, that's wrong. I should really learn to proofread before hitting "Submit".
2+2=1, 4, 7, ... (mod 3). Not 5.
2+2=5 (mod 3)
Oh great so another speculative bubble is forming out of those too deluded to leave the first time around.
Obviously not everyone thinks the current price is indicative of a speculative bubble. It could just as easily represent an actual increase in demand; only time will tell. You're welcome to short some bitcoins on the exchanges if you really think we're in a bubble, though. Change has been very gradual over the last several month—ever since the last big correction, really—with none of the runaway exponential price inflation which marked the previous bubble.
I don't see how claiming the market price suffering hyper expansion, collapse and then another expansion merely demonstrates that the "currency" is little more than a ponzi.
Well, I don't either, but obviously you meant the opposite.
The term "ponzi" gets thrown around a lot, but the essence of a Ponzi scheme is the promise of high returns, and there is no such promise (nor even any central figure to make such a promise) with regard to bitcoins. An "economic bubble" is not the same as a Ponzi scheme; to quote Wikipedia, "as with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme, there is no person misrepresenting the intrinsic value" (link). Of course, there is no such thing as "intrinsic value"—all valuation is subjective—but the meaning is clear enough. Bitcoin is not a Ponzi scheme.
As for tradeable items I never said there wasn't a token market but that's all it is.
Of course it's a "token" market; the system is still young. Did you expect it to replace the established national currencies overnight? Everything has to start somewhere. It's may be a small market now, but it's growing.
It is obviously totally unviable to trade unless prices in BTC are pegged to another currency, more or less demonstrating bitcoin is worthless in its own right.
I'll grant that the prices are more volatile than we'd like. Part of that is due to relatively low volumes (compared to other currencies), part is due to the lack of a significant futures market, part is simply due to the newness of the system and the resulting uncertainty over its long-term prospects. It's not "totally unviable" to list fixed prices in BTC, and some merchants do exactly that. However, for merchants used to setting prices in USD, it's not hard to see why they would prefer to treat BTC as a "foreign currency" and perform the conversion on-the-fly at checkout. The fact that they accept BTC anyway suggests that short-term volatility isn't enough to make bitcoins "worthless".
the whole lot collapsed and really hasn't recovered
You have a very interesting definition of "collapsed", considering that the current market price and trading volume have both increased by a factor of five or more over the past year. Note that the price increased by this much despite the fact that the supply of bitcoins grew by over 40% during the same period. There was a brief speculative bubble which peaked around $30, followed by a sharp correction, but the overall trend remains overwhelmingly positive.
This growth isn't entirely due to speculation, either; the range of products and services you can buy directly with bitcoins is increasing steadily, and includes web hosting, virtual servers, electronics, food, clothing--even real estate. Have a look at the Trade page on the Bitcoin Wiki for a partial, but still extensive, list of participating merchants.
Does the "power to lay and collect taxes" and apply them to "provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States" (Article I, section 8) count?
By inserting "apply them" you have radically changed the meaning of the text to favor your argument. The cause you have misquoted grants the "power to lay and collect taxes". It doesn't grant the power to spend them in any particular way. The specific ways in which that money can be spent are enumerated in the rest of the section. James Madison, the so-called "Father of the Constitution", was quite clear that the so-called "General Welfare" clause was not intended as a blank check:
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions. It is to be remarked that the phrase out of which this doctrine is elaborated, is copied from the old articles of Confederation, where it was always understood as nothing more than a general caption to the specified powers, and it is a fact that it was preferred in the new instrument for that very reason as less liable than any other to misconstruction.
--James Madison, Letter to Edmund Pendleton (1792-01-21) [emphasis added]
If Congress can apply money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may establish teachers in every State, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public Treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads. In short, every thing, from the highest object of State legislation, down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare.
--James Madison, remarks on the House floor, debates on Cod Fishery bill, (February 1792)
1) In the very pramble the national government is esablished to "promote the general Welfare". While that particular phase is very open to interpretaion, it is hard to see that a publically avalible hospital is not in the direction of "the general Welfare".
That's just the purpose statement, indicating what the authors set out to accomplish. It doesn't grant the federal government any powers by itself.
2) Section 8 of the Constitution once again allows specifically for taxation "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States".
They have the power to tax "to ... provide for the ... General Welfare". That doesn't imply that they have the power to spend said tax money in any way other than the separately enumerated powers listed afterward. The contemporary writings make it clear that the authors never intended for the so-called "General Welfare" clause to be interpreted as a blank check. If it were intended that way, for that matter, the Constitution wouldn't need to be half so long as it is. The scope of the federal government is constrained by specific enumerated powers, and while the phrase "provide for the ... General Welfare" does occur, it isn't one of those powers.
One could [argue] that this only means the general welfare of the Unites States as a body and not the individual of it. But that seems contrary to the general spirit of the document, and would have to be decided by the US Supreme Court. Since they have specifically not said so, the overwhelming presumption must be that it is in keeping with the law.
The US Supreme Court is not the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution. That would be an obvious conflict of interest, as their own powers and those of their co-branches of the federal government (to which they cannot be considered impartial) are derived from the Constitution. That they have chosen not to enforce the Constitution limits in this case means nothing more than they prefer to preserve their own power base.
"To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. ..... Their power all the more dangerous as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all the departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
--Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:277
As for Public Corporations, and "corporate personhood"... feel free to do away with both. It won't make much of a difference. Limited liability (for debts), public and private shares—all the trappings of a modern publicly-traded company—are perfectly workable through private contracts without any special grant from the government. "Corporate personhood" is mostly just a way for the government to simplify its own paperwork for tax purposes, not really much different from allowing married couples to file jointly. I doubt they're really want to go back to tracking everything per individual, with no formal boundaries.
There are a couple of problems with that argument. One, there is quite a bit of overhead in constantly converting between any other commodity or currency (hereafter known as "gold") and dollars. To avoid this overhead you need to actually trade in gold, not just hold it and convert on demand.
Two, you would be charged "capital gains" on the price increase due to inflation, even though the gold is worth the same in terms of purchasing power was it was when you bought it. Since this applies even to barter transactions not involving dollars at any point, it seriously penalizes the use of any currency other than dollars.
Three, inflation causes problems for everyone trying to perform economic calculations denominated in dollars, even if they don't hold any actual currency. Inflation affects different areas of the market at different times and rates, and must remain unpredictable if the central bank intends to use it to influence the market—predictable inflation would simply be factored out. The resulting uncertainty degrades the accuracy of economic calculation, ensuring misallocation of resources. Moreover, real inflation is uneven, and thus has the additional problem that those who spend the new cash first effectively get something for nothing at the expense of everyone else left paying inflated prices, another factor skewing the markets in favor of the central bank and its close partners.
Well I was thinking an anchor with a length of rope
Exactly how big of a balloon are you planning on having, because it will need to lift the weight of thousands of feet of rope.
There's no need to limit yourself to just one balloon, or put all the lift at the top. Use one (15lb lift) balloon for the payload, and attach another balloon for every 15lb of cable. By stringing the balloons along the cable you also help to reduce the stress on the cable, particularly toward the top end.
Only an impartial outsider or the legitimate principals (i.e. the People)
I would say the principals are the State Legislatures...
Sure, if you want to get technical. Ultimately the authority still comes from the People, however; the States are just middlemen. The States have no powers or resources apart from the powers and resources of their citizens.
First Amendment does not alter the copyright clause in any [significant] way. See Eldred v. Ashcroft (SCOTUS case)
The SCOTUS cannot be considered an authoritative reference in cases involving their own parent organization (i.e. the federal government). That would be an obvious conflict of interest. They can act as an internal "watchdog" by ruling the actions of the federal government unconstitutional, but they cannot authoritatively declare any action constitutional in the positive sense. Only an impartial outsider or the legitimate principals (i.e. the People) can make that call. The SCOTUS ruling an action constitutional would amount to the government granting itself power, and that isn't how the system is designed to work.
It's fairly obvious that there is a conflict between the idea of copyright and freedom of speech. In fact, this has been acknowledged before; it's how we ended up with "fair use"—a poor compromise which only addresses the most egregious limitations imposed by copyright on speech, when the actual amendment says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech". Any form of copyright abridges the freedom of speech. The text allows no scope for compromise.
Would you argue that, in such a case, both cases of trespass and vandalism are the same crime?
Yes. By "crime" I specifically mean the criminal action, which is the same in both cases. Since we're discussing the legitimacy of the law itself, it would be circular to refer to the details of the criminal code. The legislature could declare that murder on a Tuesday is a different crime than murder on a Friday, but they remain the same action, and it's the action, not the written law, which defines the range of legitimate responses.
If "the punishment should fit the crime" meant no more than "the punishment should be whatever the criminal code specifies", as you seem to be implying, then the expression would be pointless. The idea is that one's punishment should correspond to what one did. Among other things, that means that punishments should not be disproportionately amplified for the purpose of making a point or sending a message.
At most you need one (symmetric) key bit for every bit in every message you plan to send using that key. That effectively turns it into a one-time pad, which cannot be broken through brute force—there is a valid key for every possible cleartext of that length. (Be sure to pad the message!)
Which cannot be GUARANTEED to be broken within a certain time through brute force, you mean.
No, I meant exactly what I said. If you try to brute-force a one-time pad you end up with all possible cleartexts, and no idea which one of them was the actual message. Basically, a brute-force search is pointless because you have no idea what you're searching for—no way to recognize the correct key.
The simplest way to implement a one-time pad digitally is a basic XOR operation. You have a private key K and a message M, both X bits long, and the ciphertext C = XOR(M, K). Decrypting is symmetric, M = XOR(C, K). Obviously both the sender and receiver need a copy of the private key; arranging for that is the hard part, and the reason one-time pads aren't more common.
The thing is, for any other message M' (also X bits long) there is a key K' where M' = XOR(C, K'). So was the message "THEBODYISUNDERTHECHURCH" or "PRESIDENTNIXONWASFRAMED"? A brute-force search would give you both of these messages, and many others besides. Without prior knowledge of the real key, there's no way to be sure which was sent. In practice the message would be padded with random bits, so you can't even be sure of the length (though you do know it isn't longer than the ciphertext).
It is difficult, but motivation is already a big part of how our justice system works: manslaughter vs. premediated murder is the good example.
That's not so much a question of motivation as intent. In other words, the difference between manslaughter and murder isn't why you did it (the motivation), but whether you set out to kill someone in the first place.
I think the "hate crime" idea sends a clear message that we as a society think a crime is "worse" (big quotes there) if it is done out hatred of an entire race/orientation/religion of people.
I agree that "hate crime" laws send this message. However, I do not believe that the purpose of the law is to send messages. Moreover, I can't really bring myself to agree that the crime is somehow "better" or "worse" based on the offender's motivation. That seems inherently subjective, whereas the legitimacy of the law rests of its justice being apparent from all rational frames of reference.
As I see it, the punishments prescribed by the law are only legitimate so long as they are proportional to the crime. A punishment which would not be proportional to a crime committed out of selfishness or passion does not suddenly become proportional when the same crime is committed due to prejudice. Attaching disproportionate punishments to crimes with specific motivations makes the law subjective, and undermines its legitimacy.
"Targeting someone for a crime specifically because they are different than you" is a good place to start trying to understand.
That's the easy part. Obviously some crimes are motivated by irrational biases. The "hate crime" label is a bit over the top, and far too emotionally charged to readily permit rational discussion, but few would deny the existence of crimes motivated by prejudice and xenophobia.
What is difficult to understand is why "hate crimes" should be treated any differently than the exact same crimes committed for any other reason. The punishment should fit the crime, not the criminal's motivation.
At most you need one (symmetric) key bit for every bit in every message you plan to send using that key. That effectively turns it into a one-time pad, which cannot be broken through brute force—there is a valid key for every possible cleartext of that length. (Be sure to pad the message!)
You can only send one message using that key. That's what makes it a one-time pad. The moment you have multiple messages encrypted with the same key, it's not provably unbreakable anymore, because you have a vector for attack (comparing multiple cypher-texts).
It's all in the implementation. What I had in mind for the case of multiple messages is a key of (N + M) bits, and messages of (N + M) bits, where you use the first N bits of the key to encode the first message and the next M bits to encode the second message. This is trivially equivalent to two separate one-time pads where each message is encrypted with its own non-overlapping portion of the key. It's also the way one-time pads are traditionally used, since doing the hard part (key exchange) over again for every message doesn't really make sense. Instead, you exchange a very large key once and consume part of it to encode each message.
However, yes, you could run into trouble if you start mixing the key bits and message bits up such that the two keys/ciphertexts aren't really independent.
At most you need one (symmetric) key bit for every bit in every message you plan to send using that key. That effectively turns it into a one-time pad, which cannot be broken through brute force—there is a valid key for every possible cleartext of that length. (Be sure to pad the message!)
This is precisely the problem with C++: it's impossible to say what any given line of code actually does without examining every line the compiler has seen before, including other included files.
That was already true for any statement which contains an identifier (because it could be a macro), which is basically all of them.
Overloaded operators only apply when there are user-defined types involved, so (aside from implicit member-wise assignment to a class/struct) none of the operations which are semantically correct in the absence of overloaded operators have changed their meaning.
If it bothers you that much, you can always put a line in your coding standard requiring operator-overloading functions to be called out explicitly, i.e. "a.operator+(b)" or "operator+(a, b)" rather than "a + b".
Rights and privileges are pretty much the same thing.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Particularly in the case of the USA, it is a founding principle that the rights of the individual are not defined by the government. It has the power to recognize or violate rights, but not to grant them or take them away. Privileges are far more ephemeral—and always at odds with the rights of others.
If you try to interfere with my government-backed *privilege* to live, I expect the government to do something to stop you.
Government aside, if someone tries to kill you they can hardly argue that it would be wrong for you to fight back, all else being equal. The same argument cannot be made when you attempt to respond to something like copyright or patent infringement with threats of fines and imprisonment.
Protectionism is not "wrong" in any moral sense, just "wrong" according to economic theory.
Protectionism is wrong, first and foremost, in the moral sense. It also happens to be a poor choice in the economic sense if your goals involve prosperity, but that is a relatively minor issue.
A protectionist trade policy amounts to coercive interference in voluntary trade between private individuals and organizations on opposite sides of the border, without a shred of defensive justification. Using or threatening coercive force against people who have neither harmed you, nor threatened to do so, is immoral.
But if you consider that transfer "wrong", then your problem is with capitalism, not protectionism.
You must have mistyped a few words there. The problem is definitely with protectionism, not capitalism. You can't possibly blame a transfer of wealth resulting from protectionist policies—interference in the rights of private owners for the purpose of restricting foreign trade—on a system of economics defined by private ownership and unrestricted trade.
A dead person can't consent to the sale of their body and once they are dead no one has ownership of their body to negotiate the sale of the dead persons bodily resources.
That's what the concept of an "estate" is for. There is no practical reason why your body can't become part of your estate, just like all your other former possessions.
What about that big bang theory? Doesn't creation of a universe worth of matter/energy violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics in a pretty non-localized way?
Only if there exists a time before the big bang where that matter/energy did not exist. Since time starts with the big bang, there is no previous time, and thus no sudden increase in matter/energy.
At least half of the fallacies regarding the Big Bang Theory seem to be based in some way on the assumption that you can make meaningful comparisons between the states of the universe "before" and "after" the big bang. There is no "before" state; time itself is an artifact of the big bang.
This does rise an interesting question: should TOSes or other unilateral declarations from private individuals or businesses be allowed to undermine the free market?
The ability to enter into binding contracts is an essential part of the free market—as is the ability to choose not to do business with someone, for any reason (or even no reason).
In other words: should we let PayPal decide who can and cannot buy or sell over the Internet, and what?
You give them too much credit. They can't "decide who can and cannot buy or sell over the Internet"; they only have the power to offer their services as an intermediary for payments. Others offer similar services, and there are even decentralized online payment systems like Bitcoin with no controlling authority to dictate which payments you are permitted to send or receive.
If all else fails, there is always the option of snail-mailing a check. That may be (painfully) slow, but it gets the job done.
How can you say that intellectual property never existed in the first place?
What I said was that the ownership never existed, and thus can't be removed. Certainly "IP" exists as a legal concept, but that isn't the same as ownership. Even the law recognizes that there is a difference; for example, rights in actual property ("AP") don't automatically lapse after a predefined time. "IP" is an incentive system, nothing more. Abolishing it is no more "taking property" than abolishing any other kind of subsidy.
Abolishing intellectual property is taking property that belongs to one (e.g., a person, a corporation, etc.) and giving that property to everbody.
No, because (despite the name) "intellectual property" is not property at all. Property is a concept which applies only to scarce resources; initial use of the resource (homesteading) confers the right to continue use it in the same manner without interference from others, a right which can be transferred from person to person via contracts. Property rights are naturally exclusive only insofar as distinct uses are in conflict; anyone can benefit from the property provided their benefit does not interfere with the owner's use of it.
The concept of property rights exists entirely because the resource is scarce; either the resource can't be consumed at all, or someone must be in a position to decide when and how the resource will be consumed to the exclusion of any other conflicting use. Property rights specify who should make that decision; whether you agree with my views on that selection (homesteading & contracts) isn't really relevant. The point is that someone has to do it, because of scarcity.
"IP", on the other hand, has no scarcity, no natural conflict between uses. Creative labor is scarce, certainly, but that isn't "IP", and control over your own labor is already covered by self-ownership. The product of such labor is something which can be used by any number of individuals simultaneously without conflict. The concept of property rights exists to resolve conflict, but "IP" laws create conflict, not only by attempting to make "IP" scarce but also by interfering with the non-aggressive use of actual property.
Doesn't abolishing copyright and patents remove ownership of the copyrighted or patented material?
No, because you can't remove what never existed in the first place. Abolishing copyright and patents merely removes a privilege which attempted to artificially emulate the system of ownership which is natural for scarce resources in a context where scarcity, and thus ownership, do not apply.
... the notion that "items were property since nearly the dawn of civilization" neglects the fact that many things were considered community property.
Which, as the name implies, is still a form of property. Unless a resource is superabundant, you can either consider it property—in which case someone has the right to decide how it's used—or you can experience Tragedy of the Commons.
There's nothing wrong with group ownership, provided the group came by the ownership legitimately. A community can act as a whole to homestead property, or purchase it for public use. The problem with communism is that it doesn't recognize anything but community property. Private claims are always subordinate to the will of the collective, assuming they're permitted at all.
But that problem is basically solved by only subjecting those in the top 0.1% to the tax...
Sure, if you don't mind tossing out the concept of "equality under the law". If you can justify special taxes for some based on their wealth or income, you can equally well justify special taxes on some based on their race, gender, age, or other minority status, or because they're "subversive" or otherwise fail to toe the party line.
Of course, the concept of the progressive income tax is already a form of income discrimination, with higher taxes on those who earn more. Arguably this is unconstitutional—even considering the 16th Amendment, a true tax on income would need to be uniform across all income, regardless of who earned it. Varying the rate based on how much other income the same person earned that year (not to mention deductions) means that you're really taxing the person, not their income—or rather, penalizing them for earning more.
The concept of limited government is meaningless without equally stringent limitations on discriminatory tax codes.