Despotism is "a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)," the parenthesized portion being the operative part of the metaphor here.
Is that the portion you added yourself? Even if not, whether or not the actions of the government are restricted by a constitution doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the constitution contains a protection from eminent domain.
Having read the opinion, they did an excellent job of determining that the local government had a well established justification with the public good in mind and that the owners were being compensated ergo it was a constitutionally sound action--thus deferring any further judgment to the appropriate state and local bodies. What, precisely, is improper about that?
The so-called "conservatives" were wanting to run rough-shod over the constitution to leap-frog the federal government straight over the state into an issue appropriately handled by local government.
Did you read the dissent by Clarence Thomas? As he pointed out, the Constitution uses the term "public use", not "public good". While I think one can interpret the Constitution differently than he did, I don't think it's fair to say that he wanted to run rough-shod over the constituion.
That quote had nothing to do with real property rights, it had to do with people who CALLED slavery a "property right".
I thought Jefferson owned slaves. In any case, Jefferson specifically referred to land, i.e. real property, in the quote. I'm not sure how you can say I'm taking it out of context, since you obviously haven't seen the context. I do see how you could think Jefferson was referring to slavery, but he clearly wasn't, except in the sense that unlimited private ownership of the land is slavery.
That said, after reading Clarence Thomas' dissent, I think I'd have to agree with the dissenters as far as what the Constitution says. Specifically, he dwells on the fact that the Constitution says "Public Use", and not "Public Purpose".
No, lithium-6 is a fermion, not a boson, so it's called a Fermion condensate. It's been theorized for years but apparently no one has actually succeeded in creating it until now?
That doesn't make it right, though. Basically there is no more ownership for citizens - what we put our lives into means nothing in this system.
There's still ownership, just not of land. I tend to agree with that concept. Land was here before way before humans were areound to create it. "The earth is given as common stock for man to labour and live on."
Also note that you are getting a bit of a slanted story for Slashdot, they supreme court didn't rule that land could be siezed for private use, they ruled the states can decide if land can be siezed for private use.
No, they did even less than that. They said that this land is being seized for public use. Specifically, they said:
The city's proposed disposition of petitioners' property qualifies as a "public use" within the meaning of the Takings Clause.
Now you're arguing whether or not there is a greater benefit to society to have a few homes, or to have a hotel, health club, and offices. It seems to me the revitalized section will be much more useful than the slums that are currently located there. But that's certainly not something which should be decided by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has decided the much broader issue, that land siezed under eminent domain need not be turned into public property for all to enjoy. Just as it is Constitutional for the government to seize land to have a private company build and maintain a railroad, it is likewise Constitutional for the government to seize land to build and maintain a hotel.
It's ironic you should quote Thomas Jefferson here. Here's another quote from Jefferson:
Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed
I think Jefferson would have supported this ruling.
The other is a view held by some republicans, some democrats, and ALL libertarians: The government exists to ensure the existence of private property.
Depends how you define private property. There is a sect of Libertarianism which calls itself Geolibertarianism which believes that government exists to protect private property, but also that land and other natural resources cannot be owned.
Private property is now a fiction in the United States. "Property" is now redefined as something that you temporarily occupy under the consent and sufference of your local political majority.
As others have said, hasn't that always been the case with land?
This signals the beginning of a campaign of legal home invasion, as wealthy and politically-connected people will wield the government to transfer the property of others to themselves. Despotism, by any other name.
I believe the more accurate term is Georgism. Despotism has more to do with who makes the decision, and I don't see the relevance to this topic at all.
I wish more people (especially judges and politiciams) understood the simple statement you just made.....
Me too, but that must not be very related to this case, since the one judge that understands this the most (Clarence Thomas), voted in dissent of this ruling. I'm interested in seeing the dissent.
I'd say they sell hardware and software, and they bundle them together as an anti-competitive practice to maximize profits. But as there are much closer substitute goods in the hardware business (even more so now that Apple will be using the same chip), it's pretty clear that the product which gives the majority of the market power is the software.
How would allowing people to run Mac OS X increase sales of Apple's computers? The opposite is true!
I agree the opposite is true. But that's because most people who buy Macs buy them for the Operating Sytem, not for the hardware.
People wouldn't have to buy Apple's hardware anymore (and as I've already pointed out, that's where Apple makes its money).
I don't see how you can separate the hardware from the software and say that Apple makes its money in one place but not the other. The only way I think this makes sense is if you consider why people are buying the product, and I think that's clearly for the software, not the hardware.
I guess I just don't understand what it means to say that "Apple makes their money selling hardware". Are you saying that Apple makes much money from selling hardware alone, without bundling any software with it?
But seriously, if you can't use the word "free" for this, what can you use it for?
Well, maybe you can't, really. I mean... free sunshine, that sort of thing.
Did you ever consider that maybe you're misunderstanding the meaning of the word "free"? Maybe, just maybe, you're the one who is wrong, and not the rest of the world? But enough about semantics.
Don't get me wrong: there are things that government (state, local, federal) are absolutely the best providers for (emergency services, police, defense, roads, that sort of thing). But this isn't one of them
I'd put this about on the same level as roads, though it's in the early stages, like when roads first started being built. That said, I think that we should charge for the use of public wifi just like we charge for the use of roads (and postal services, for that matter). With roads it's somewhat difficult to keep accurate tabs, so we go with the approximate solution of taxing gasoline, but with wifi it's much simpler. Of course by charging for wifi you lose anonymity, but hey, that's what encryption is for.
I doubt Apple would care too much. They make money selling hardware.
The reverse though, running Mac OS X on PCs, now there's a subject they probably worry about a lot:-D
If that's true, then they don't just make money selling hardware. They make money selling software which comes bundled with hardware.
I think there's room for both arguments, and the truth is they make money on both. But if Mac really was just a hardware company, like people say it is, they wouldn't have to worry about protecting their OS. In fact, they could just open source their OS and let anyone download it for free and install it anywhere they want. This would only increase their hardware sales, if indeed Apple is only a hardware company.
Isn't it unlikely they'd be keen to make it work, given that if the hardware's was any good and priced competitively, people would buy them and run Windows?
Why would they care about that? As long as the customer pays for a Mac with OSX, why does Apple care if the customer then uninstalls it and runs Windows? I guess there is a slight advantage in exposure or whatever, but that's really minor compared to the main reason Apple is selling computers - to get paid money.
why is everyone clamoring for the Government to start running an ISP? You don't think that'll lead to censorship???
Depends how they do it. If they force everyone to use their ISP, then yeah, it'll lead to more censorship. OTOH, if they just compete in the market with all the other ISPs, then it'll lead to less censorship.
That would give us $12.59 per person per month. It's not really too bad of a rate. Far better than most ISPs certainly.
Yeah, and if you expanded it to city-wide, I think the cost per person would go down a lot. Of course, if the poster who commented that it was no faster than a 2400 bps modem was giving an accurate description, then it's pretty much worthless.
The way I understand it, the system uses GPS and "cell ID" technologies to determine the position. In theory this would give much better location information, if done correctly. But I have no idea how well this is working in practice.
Here's a story about this "Assisted GPS. Apparently one of the main advantages isn't actually accuracy, but reducing the "time-to-first-fix", which would be on the order of 20-60 seconds from startup to the time the first GPS reading is available assuming an unobstructed view of the sky.
After reading this article it becomes much more clear to me why the GPS receiver in my phone can't be used as a standalone. I thought it was that it was intentionally crippled so that the phone company could control when it is used. But it's apparently more an issue of power consumption than anything else, as well as I suppose the cost savings of not having all the calculation circuitry built in. It'd still be nice if I could somehow access the raw data, though.
Wireless internet isn't the same as cell phones in the sense that wireless access to the internet is nice, but doesn't drive communications as does telephony.
With wireless internet, and a wifi phone, you have a cell phone. So it's hard to see how wireless internet isn't at least as useful as a cell phone.
On the other hand, in a perfect world, a cell phone can do anything that a wireless internet connection can do. But most cell phones at least here in the US are crippled by the cell phone providers so they aren't as useful.
But city officials said that only about 27 people a day took advantage of the program -- not enough to justify the $1,800 the city paid every month for the service. The service may come back, city officials said, if they can find a way to expand the service beyond a few downtown blocks, and if they can find a company to foot the expense.
$67/month per person isn't that bad, if the service were available city-wide. For $25 month more one could add vonage. Cancel the cell phone, land line, and DSL, and you'll probably wind up breaking even, and without all the restrictions put in place by the phone company.
I dunno, I think it could work fine as a non-profit pay service/coop.
Slashdot Mirror
Despotism is "a form of government in which the ruler is an absolute dictator (not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition etc.)," the parenthesized portion being the operative part of the metaphor here.
Is that the portion you added yourself? Even if not, whether or not the actions of the government are restricted by a constitution doesn't have anything to do with whether or not the constitution contains a protection from eminent domain.
Having read the opinion, they did an excellent job of determining that the local government had a well established justification with the public good in mind and that the owners were being compensated ergo it was a constitutionally sound action--thus deferring any further judgment to the appropriate state and local bodies. What, precisely, is improper about that?
The so-called "conservatives" were wanting to run rough-shod over the constitution to leap-frog the federal government straight over the state into an issue appropriately handled by local government.
Did you read the dissent by Clarence Thomas? As he pointed out, the Constitution uses the term "public use", not "public good". While I think one can interpret the Constitution differently than he did, I don't think it's fair to say that he wanted to run rough-shod over the constituion.
That quote had nothing to do with real property rights, it had to do with people who CALLED slavery a "property right".
I thought Jefferson owned slaves. In any case, Jefferson specifically referred to land, i.e. real property, in the quote. I'm not sure how you can say I'm taking it out of context, since you obviously haven't seen the context. I do see how you could think Jefferson was referring to slavery, but he clearly wasn't, except in the sense that unlimited private ownership of the land is slavery.
That said, after reading Clarence Thomas' dissent, I think I'd have to agree with the dissenters as far as what the Constitution says. Specifically, he dwells on the fact that the Constitution says "Public Use", and not "Public Purpose".
The tangible products of one's labor; tangible personal property; chattels.
I thought gasesous superfluids (Bose-Einstein Condensate) had already been created in 1995
lithium-6 is a fermion, not a boson.
No, lithium-6 is a fermion, not a boson, so it's called a Fermion condensate. It's been theorized for years but apparently no one has actually succeeded in creating it until now?
That doesn't make it right, though. Basically there is no more ownership for citizens - what we put our lives into means nothing in this system.
There's still ownership, just not of land. I tend to agree with that concept. Land was here before way before humans were areound to create it. "The earth is given as common stock for man to labour and live on."
Also note that you are getting a bit of a slanted story for Slashdot, they supreme court didn't rule that land could be siezed for private use, they ruled the states can decide if land can be siezed for private use.
No, they did even less than that. They said that this land is being seized for public use. Specifically, they said:
Now you're arguing whether or not there is a greater benefit to society to have a few homes, or to have a hotel, health club, and offices. It seems to me the revitalized section will be much more useful than the slums that are currently located there. But that's certainly not something which should be decided by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has decided the much broader issue, that land siezed under eminent domain need not be turned into public property for all to enjoy. Just as it is Constitutional for the government to seize land to have a private company build and maintain a railroad, it is likewise Constitutional for the government to seize land to build and maintain a hotel.
Hey.... So you've got nowhere to live, but your library cards are SAFE!
These people were given over a million dollars in exchange for their property. I'm sure they can find somewhere to live.
The other is a view held by some republicans, some democrats, and ALL libertarians: The government exists to ensure the existence of private property.
Depends how you define private property. There is a sect of Libertarianism which calls itself Geolibertarianism which believes that government exists to protect private property, but also that land and other natural resources cannot be owned.
Private property is now a fiction in the United States. "Property" is now redefined as something that you temporarily occupy under the consent and sufference of your local political majority.
As others have said, hasn't that always been the case with land?
This signals the beginning of a campaign of legal home invasion, as wealthy and politically-connected people will wield the government to transfer the property of others to themselves. Despotism, by any other name.
I believe the more accurate term is Georgism. Despotism has more to do with who makes the decision, and I don't see the relevance to this topic at all.
I wish more people (especially judges and politiciams) understood the simple statement you just made.....
Me too, but that must not be very related to this case, since the one judge that understands this the most (Clarence Thomas), voted in dissent of this ruling. I'm interested in seeing the dissent.
Huh? Private property was not taken for public use without just compensation. Why is there a need to change the Constitution?
I'd say it's like this
I'd say they sell hardware and software, and they bundle them together as an anti-competitive practice to maximize profits. But as there are much closer substitute goods in the hardware business (even more so now that Apple will be using the same chip), it's pretty clear that the product which gives the majority of the market power is the software.
How would allowing people to run Mac OS X increase sales of Apple's computers? The opposite is true!
I agree the opposite is true. But that's because most people who buy Macs buy them for the Operating Sytem, not for the hardware.
People wouldn't have to buy Apple's hardware anymore (and as I've already pointed out, that's where Apple makes its money).
I don't see how you can separate the hardware from the software and say that Apple makes its money in one place but not the other. The only way I think this makes sense is if you consider why people are buying the product, and I think that's clearly for the software, not the hardware.
I guess I just don't understand what it means to say that "Apple makes their money selling hardware". Are you saying that Apple makes much money from selling hardware alone, without bundling any software with it?
But seriously, if you can't use the word "free" for this, what can you use it for?
Well, maybe you can't, really. I mean... free sunshine, that sort of thing.
Did you ever consider that maybe you're misunderstanding the meaning of the word "free"? Maybe, just maybe, you're the one who is wrong, and not the rest of the world? But enough about semantics.
Don't get me wrong: there are things that government (state, local, federal) are absolutely the best providers for (emergency services, police, defense, roads, that sort of thing). But this isn't one of them
I'd put this about on the same level as roads, though it's in the early stages, like when roads first started being built. That said, I think that we should charge for the use of public wifi just like we charge for the use of roads (and postal services, for that matter). With roads it's somewhat difficult to keep accurate tabs, so we go with the approximate solution of taxing gasoline, but with wifi it's much simpler. Of course by charging for wifi you lose anonymity, but hey, that's what encryption is for.
I doubt Apple would care too much. They make money selling hardware.
The reverse though, running Mac OS X on PCs, now there's a subject they probably worry about a lot :-D
If that's true, then they don't just make money selling hardware. They make money selling software which comes bundled with hardware.
I think there's room for both arguments, and the truth is they make money on both. But if Mac really was just a hardware company, like people say it is, they wouldn't have to worry about protecting their OS. In fact, they could just open source their OS and let anyone download it for free and install it anywhere they want. This would only increase their hardware sales, if indeed Apple is only a hardware company.
Isn't it unlikely they'd be keen to make it work, given that if the hardware's was any good and priced competitively, people would buy them and run Windows?
Why would they care about that? As long as the customer pays for a Mac with OSX, why does Apple care if the customer then uninstalls it and runs Windows? I guess there is a slight advantage in exposure or whatever, but that's really minor compared to the main reason Apple is selling computers - to get paid money.
Maybe they meant free as in freedom, not free as in "without charge".
But seriously, if you can't use the word "free" for this, what can you use it for?
why is everyone clamoring for the Government to start running an ISP? You don't think that'll lead to censorship???
Depends how they do it. If they force everyone to use their ISP, then yeah, it'll lead to more censorship. OTOH, if they just compete in the market with all the other ISPs, then it'll lead to less censorship.
That would give us $12.59 per person per month. It's not really too bad of a rate. Far better than most ISPs certainly.
Yeah, and if you expanded it to city-wide, I think the cost per person would go down a lot. Of course, if the poster who commented that it was no faster than a 2400 bps modem was giving an accurate description, then it's pretty much worthless.
The way I understand it, the system uses GPS and "cell ID" technologies to determine the position. In theory this would give much better location information, if done correctly. But I have no idea how well this is working in practice.
Here's a story about this "Assisted GPS. Apparently one of the main advantages isn't actually accuracy, but reducing the "time-to-first-fix", which would be on the order of 20-60 seconds from startup to the time the first GPS reading is available assuming an unobstructed view of the sky.
After reading this article it becomes much more clear to me why the GPS receiver in my phone can't be used as a standalone. I thought it was that it was intentionally crippled so that the phone company could control when it is used. But it's apparently more an issue of power consumption than anything else, as well as I suppose the cost savings of not having all the calculation circuitry built in. It'd still be nice if I could somehow access the raw data, though.
Wireless internet isn't the same as cell phones in the sense that wireless access to the internet is nice, but doesn't drive communications as does telephony.
With wireless internet, and a wifi phone, you have a cell phone. So it's hard to see how wireless internet isn't at least as useful as a cell phone.
On the other hand, in a perfect world, a cell phone can do anything that a wireless internet connection can do. But most cell phones at least here in the US are crippled by the cell phone providers so they aren't as useful.
But city officials said that only about 27 people a day took advantage of the program -- not enough to justify the $1,800 the city paid every month for the service. The service may come back, city officials said, if they can find a way to expand the service beyond a few downtown blocks, and if they can find a company to foot the expense.
$67/month per person isn't that bad, if the service were available city-wide. For $25 month more one could add vonage. Cancel the cell phone, land line, and DSL, and you'll probably wind up breaking even, and without all the restrictions put in place by the phone company.
I dunno, I think it could work fine as a non-profit pay service/coop.