Reminds me of my uncle's old mac... the one with the SCSI apparatus that was the Mac, plus the Screen, plus one hard drive, another hard drive, another hard drive, a cd-rom drive, another cd-rom drive, a floppy drive, then the printer, and woe to the idiot who forgot to turn them all on in reverse order.
Hey wait, that was just as bad an idea then as now.
It's the G4 Cube all over again. I have to wonder how many joints were smoked during the design process.
In fact I can imagine the design room meeting now:
"Duuuuuude... remember that old trashcan shaped one we made? That so rocked... we should do it again but ROUND. Yeah man that'd be awesome... dudes I totally have the munchies right now..."
The harms begin with the individual injury - someone being discriminated against for non-work-related reasons.
They move towards the society because they aggregate. One person gets away with discriminating against women ("Why should I hire her, she'll just get pregnant") or any other class, and others follow suit. This is commonly used today by employers who discriminate against women in terms of wages, trying to blame the women ("well they took X years off for pregnancy" or "well they didn't push as hard as men for promotion") when in fact as we have seen from evidence such as the Lily Ledbetter case, the reality is systematic discrimination and attempts to hide the evidence.
So you are simply, unequivocally, 100% wrong. The level of harm is both individual and aggregate.
If you being gay made me uncomfortable, I shouldn't have to hire you (unless again, it is public service)
If they were best for the job, why the hell should their personal life matter to you?
And why would you want to work for me anyway?
Looked around the job market lately? Seen people trying to find jobs wherever they can? Open your eyes. People look for jobs they are qualified for and some of them don't have the luxury of saying "I won't work for company XYZ that has discriminatory policies." They're just trying to get employment to put a roof over their heads and food in their mouths.
I don't have a right to be employed by anyone,
As an equal member of society, I have the right to be judged for hiring based on my qualifications for the work and not for physical appearance or for my personal life.
Bullshit: charities are an example of failure in action all too often. They enrich others while only claiming to help.
You are presuming (a) that there will always be enough charitable giving to go around (not the case, (b) that it will be directed efficiently and not embezzled (yet it is, (c) that there will not be a significant free-rider problem with those capable of contributing not doing so (and yet there always is).
"The gun of government tyranny", you rail about. I wonder what happens when you lose your job and need help. I for one do not trust the bible-fuckers of the christian charities to treat me fairly.
I don't know why you equate libertarian with Tea Party.
Down here in Texas, that's how the Tea Partiers are self-identifying. They want to "change the GOP" or "retake the government" but are constantly arguing "libertarian principles."
I hereby absolve you from any need to pay taxes provided you stay off the roads, stay out of public spaces, and don't expect the cops or firefighters or EMT's come running ever.
Look around you. How many defenders of "free association" have popped up? How many talking about "government telling you what to think" as opposed to telling you that you may not ACT to harm another?
Employment nondiscrimination law, service nondiscrimination law, have nothing to do with what people think. They say that people may not ACT to harm another, whatever may be in their heads at the time, under penalty of law.
Think whatever the hell you want, but you cross the line when you ACT> to deny another person the equal rights of citizenship and insist that their legal tender and right to participate in society is not as valid as your legal tender and right to participate in society because of race, gender, or any other reason that may exist in your diseased mind.
What you are saying is that the government has the authority to force, at gunpoint, how you should think...
Seriously, no. You're free to "think" whatever you want.
What you are not allowed to do is harm others by your action.
When you take your "free association" and use it to harm others, to invalidate their right to act as an equal member of society... fuck you. The so called "right" of free association is less important than the right of equal citizenship.
The people changed. That is the reason racism mostly went away.
In Texas, a group of jurors just let a man off for shooting a woman over $150, claiming he was recovering his "property" since he hired an escort and she told him sex wasn't part of the deal.
East Texas still has sundown towns. Mississippi and Alabama are still worse.
Government attempting to fix racial injustice against the black community has resulted in the destruction of the black family unit.
Good lord, do you listen to yourself? The problems of destruction of the black family unit have been mostly due to the drug war, which uncoincidentally was started by conservative racists.
Remember this famous quote? "Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice."
But don't worry. You say it's "social policies" to help poor families stay together tearing them apart, and not the racist republican drug war goal taking of a majority of their population at young age, sticking them in prisons, giving them no access to education, no access to legal counsel, and then shoveling them back out into the population at age 30 with no job prospects, no trained skills and a big red "don't hire me" stamp on their foreheads in the form of a felony conviction record.
How about the right to build your own business and hire and fire at will?
"hire and fire at will" is a problem, because it inevitably leads to: - firing women for being pregnant. - firing someone for being "gay", or not being a member of the "correct" religion (or any religion), or other stupid excuses. - firing someone because they've been injured or have a disability.
I would much rather have businesses have a sign right in front that states in big bold letters.... "No Niggers, No Spics, No Chinks and No Fags!" How many places could a business like that operate even if you remove all of the laws it violates?
You obviously haven't visited East Texas, Mississippi, or Alabama recently.
It should be pointed out that most of those gatherings were open to anybody willing to listen, and that included nut jobs, communists, professional agitators... liberal wannabes...
You're working really, really hard on your "no true scotsman" level of defining a tea partier there.
The larger problem for the Tea Party is people like you, who want to pretend that your movement doesn't have problems and hasn't attracted these people to show up time and again. But I was downtown when Dale Robertson had his infamous sign on the street, and I can tell you personally from viewing the attendees to that particular event, he was not abnormal compared to the rest of the attendees. While other movement members tried to throw him under the bus later, there's a reason he was the one who had owned teaparty.org, there is a reason he was there, and there is no question that he and those like him were welcomed with open arms and continue to be welcomed with open arms by the Tea Party movement.
Looks more like it was high home prices in California moving people out.
In contrast, just slightly more people with household incomes in the $100,000-$200,000 range left than came to California (103 out per 100 in), and California actually gained a hair more people in the $200,000+ range than it lost (99 out per 100 in). The rich aren’t leaving California, but the poor and the middle class are.
As for the rest of your little screed, most of those supposed "rights you so easily give up for convenience" that you go on about, if you're going to argue what I think you're about to argue (you left it delightfully, koolaid-drinker level vague there), aren't worth half as much to me as the REAL rights of liberty: the right to vote, the right to participate in society as an equal, the right not to have some asshole decide they think I'm gay even if I'm not and fire me with that justification or fire me "just because I can, fuck you it's an at-will employment state."
The dirty secret of libertarianism has always been that it's about protecting the rights of the rich over the rights of the poor.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I've been to tea party rallies, and had my best friend by my side. He got "go back to mexico" and "fucking wetback" shouted at him a number of times, but at least the shouters had the sense to look sheepish and try to look away when we turned back to confront them.
Tea Partiers like this are surprisingly common in the south.
More to the point, "A social safety net helps those who have been temporarily or permanently rendered helpless through economic or other action" through no fault of their own.
Libertarians love to talk the shell-game of trying to put everything through the courts and torts. Legs broken by a drunk driver, or worse injury? Well, his insurance should pay and if he hasn't got insurance, sue him.
Except that just getting the judgement takes YEARS. And in the meantime, the injured party can't work. Has to handle medical bills and struggle to recuperate, may not be physically made truly whole ever again.
And then what of the judgement-proof, those who don't even have assets to sieze? What of those who lose employment because of an employer who sold the company to corporate looters, or because a high ranking employee embezzled money and sent the company into default and liquidation? Or for whatever other reason, lose their job through no fault of their own?
Libertarian philosophy is not half as uncaring as most libertarians these days are. It's amazing how a philosophy that used to just demand solid justification for action has turned into a group of Ebenezer Scrooge, "then they should die and decrease the surplus population" sort of misers.
Say that you were a member of a minority group in the USA today that still isn't fully protected. For example, if you were gay/lesbian. In many states you could be fired just for being who you are, with no recourse, if your boss found out. You could be denied healthcare coverage, you could be denied the right to visit your significant other in the hospital. You could very easily be challenged at the hospital even if you were carrying the identifying documents making you Power-Of-Attorney.
So-called "christian businesses" whose function had nothing to do with religion could nevertheless refuse to serve you, refuse to admit you, kick you out if they realized who you were after the fact. And have done so.
NOW: what is the proper role of government in this? I submit that it OUGHT to be to promote the greatest aggregate of liberty and the right of ALL members of the society to be treated as equals. The "right of association" of the business owner is LESS important than the RIGHT of all citizens to be treated as, and participate in, society as EQUAL CITIZENS.
That is what government's purpose is. When two people claim a differing "right" of "liberty", government's job is to determine which right holds sway to protect and support the GREATEST exercise of liberty, not the least.
And if that means treading on the "right of association" of a thousand bigots, I'm perfectly ok with that, because there are more important rights at stake.
They got two trigger groups known to farm for modpoints: $cientologists and Ron Paul koolaid-drinkers with that one. I'd be unsurprised to see the comment buried fast anytime it reaches a 1. Looks like it's been modded 10 times already, a sure sign that the two groups are fighting to keep it buried.
Slashdot Mirror
Libertarian utopia - especially for the men running the LP these days, like the Kochs - is this form of slavery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
Reminds me of my uncle's old mac... the one with the SCSI apparatus that was the Mac, plus the Screen, plus one hard drive, another hard drive, another hard drive, a cd-rom drive, another cd-rom drive, a floppy drive, then the printer, and woe to the idiot who forgot to turn them all on in reverse order.
Hey wait, that was just as bad an idea then as now.
It's the G4 Cube all over again. I have to wonder how many joints were smoked during the design process.
In fact I can imagine the design room meeting now:
"Duuuuuude... remember that old trashcan shaped one we made? That so rocked... we should do it again but ROUND. Yeah man that'd be awesome... dudes I totally have the munchies right now..."
You're wrong. Simply wrong.
The harms begin with the individual injury - someone being discriminated against for non-work-related reasons.
They move towards the society because they aggregate. One person gets away with discriminating against women ("Why should I hire her, she'll just get pregnant") or any other class, and others follow suit. This is commonly used today by employers who discriminate against women in terms of wages, trying to blame the women ("well they took X years off for pregnancy" or "well they didn't push as hard as men for promotion") when in fact as we have seen from evidence such as the Lily Ledbetter case, the reality is systematic discrimination and attempts to hide the evidence.
So you are simply, unequivocally, 100% wrong. The level of harm is both individual and aggregate.
Choosing not to hire someone is non-action, not action.
Choosing from among candidates is action, no matter which way you slice it.
Choosing to discriminate based on irrelevancies is intentionally harming another person.
You can tell yourself otherwise all you like, but all you're doing is lying to yourself.
You mean 1861? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenue_Act_of_1861
I hear the libertarian utopia of Somalia's nice this time of year.
If you being gay made me uncomfortable, I shouldn't have to hire you (unless again, it is public service)
If they were best for the job, why the hell should their personal life matter to you?
And why would you want to work for me anyway?
Looked around the job market lately? Seen people trying to find jobs wherever they can? Open your eyes. People look for jobs they are qualified for and some of them don't have the luxury of saying "I won't work for company XYZ that has discriminatory policies." They're just trying to get employment to put a roof over their heads and food in their mouths.
I don't have a right to be employed by anyone,
As an equal member of society, I have the right to be judged for hiring based on my qualifications for the work and not for physical appearance or for my personal life.
Bullshit: charities are an example of failure in action all too often. They enrich others while only claiming to help.
You are presuming (a) that there will always be enough charitable giving to go around (not the case, (b) that it will be directed efficiently and not embezzled (yet it is, (c) that there will not be a significant free-rider problem with those capable of contributing not doing so (and yet there always is).
"The gun of government tyranny", you rail about. I wonder what happens when you lose your job and need help. I for one do not trust the bible-fuckers of the christian charities to treat me fairly.
I don't know why you equate libertarian with Tea Party.
Down here in Texas, that's how the Tea Partiers are self-identifying. They want to "change the GOP" or "retake the government" but are constantly arguing "libertarian principles."
I hereby absolve you from any need to pay taxes provided you stay off the roads, stay out of public spaces, and don't expect the cops or firefighters or EMT's come running ever.
Look around you. How many defenders of "free association" have popped up? How many talking about "government telling you what to think" as opposed to telling you that you may not ACT to harm another?
Employment nondiscrimination law, service nondiscrimination law, have nothing to do with what people think. They say that people may not ACT to harm another, whatever may be in their heads at the time, under penalty of law.
Think whatever the hell you want, but you cross the line when you ACT> to deny another person the equal rights of citizenship and insist that their legal tender and right to participate in society is not as valid as your legal tender and right to participate in society because of race, gender, or any other reason that may exist in your diseased mind.
What you are saying is that the government has the authority to force, at gunpoint, how you should think...
Seriously, no. You're free to "think" whatever you want.
What you are not allowed to do is harm others by your action.
When you take your "free association" and use it to harm others, to invalidate their right to act as an equal member of society... fuck you. The so called "right" of free association is less important than the right of equal citizenship.
Wrong.
"Too Many places" from across the USA.
The people changed. That is the reason racism mostly went away.
In Texas, a group of jurors just let a man off for shooting a woman over $150, claiming he was recovering his "property" since he hired an escort and she told him sex wasn't part of the deal.
East Texas still has sundown towns. Mississippi and Alabama are still worse.
Government attempting to fix racial injustice against the black community has resulted in the destruction of the black family unit.
Good lord, do you listen to yourself? The problems of destruction of the black family unit have been mostly due to the drug war, which uncoincidentally was started by conservative racists.
Remember this famous quote?
"Marihuana influences Negroes to look at white people in the eye, step on white men’s shadows and look at a white woman twice."
But don't worry. You say it's "social policies" to help poor families stay together tearing them apart, and not the racist republican drug war goal taking of a majority of their population at young age, sticking them in prisons, giving them no access to education, no access to legal counsel, and then shoveling them back out into the population at age 30 with no job prospects, no trained skills and a big red "don't hire me" stamp on their foreheads in the form of a felony conviction record.
I wish Slashdot would give us a time-graph showing the upmod/downmod timings on posts like this. It'd be frighteningly fascinating to observe.
Also, point of order for people like you who can't seem to get a clue:
We can't even get these cousin-humping inbred white supremacists out of the dark ages in regards to marriage equality of a heterosexual kind if they're not the same race!.
How about the right to build your own business and hire and fire at will?
"hire and fire at will" is a problem, because it inevitably leads to:
- firing women for being pregnant.
- firing someone for being "gay", or not being a member of the "correct" religion (or any religion), or other stupid excuses.
- firing someone because they've been injured or have a disability.
I would much rather have businesses have a sign right in front that states in big bold letters ....
"No Niggers, No Spics, No Chinks and No Fags!"
How many places could a business like that operate even if you remove all of the laws it violates?
You obviously haven't visited East Texas, Mississippi, or Alabama recently.
It should be pointed out that most of those gatherings were open to anybody willing to listen, and that included nut jobs, communists, professional agitators ... liberal wannabes ...
You're working really, really hard on your "no true scotsman" level of defining a tea partier there.
This is not an uncommon thing at tea party rallies or in the tea party generally. Far from it, the movement - whatever it claims its stated goals to be - has attracted some of the worst of the worst of society, and they have inevitably had an outsized influence on the tenor, tone, and at times direct verbage that comes from the movement.
The larger problem for the Tea Party is people like you, who want to pretend that your movement doesn't have problems and hasn't attracted these people to show up time and again. But I was downtown when Dale Robertson had his infamous sign on the street, and I can tell you personally from viewing the attendees to that particular event, he was not abnormal compared to the rest of the attendees. While other movement members tried to throw him under the bus later, there's a reason he was the one who had owned teaparty.org, there is a reason he was there, and there is no question that he and those like him were welcomed with open arms and continue to be welcomed with open arms by the Tea Party movement.
Looks more like it was high home prices in California moving people out.
In contrast, just slightly more people with household incomes in the $100,000-$200,000 range left than came to California (103 out per 100 in), and California actually gained a hair more people in the $200,000+ range than it lost (99 out per 100 in). The rich aren’t leaving California, but the poor and the middle class are.
As for the rest of your little screed, most of those supposed "rights you so easily give up for convenience" that you go on about, if you're going to argue what I think you're about to argue (you left it delightfully, koolaid-drinker level vague there), aren't worth half as much to me as the REAL rights of liberty: the right to vote, the right to participate in society as an equal, the right not to have some asshole decide they think I'm gay even if I'm not and fire me with that justification or fire me "just because I can, fuck you it's an at-will employment state."
The dirty secret of libertarianism has always been that it's about protecting the rights of the rich over the rights of the poor.
"without using violence"??? ... ahh, the old libertarian "taxation is theft at gunpoint" canard. That one never gets old.
Hate to burst your bubble, but I've been to tea party rallies, and had my best friend by my side. He got "go back to mexico" and "fucking wetback" shouted at him a number of times, but at least the shouters had the sense to look sheepish and try to look away when we turned back to confront them.
Tea Partiers like this are surprisingly common in the south.
More to the point, "A social safety net helps those who have been temporarily or permanently rendered helpless through economic or other action" through no fault of their own.
Libertarians love to talk the shell-game of trying to put everything through the courts and torts. Legs broken by a drunk driver, or worse injury? Well, his insurance should pay and if he hasn't got insurance, sue him.
Except that just getting the judgement takes YEARS. And in the meantime, the injured party can't work. Has to handle medical bills and struggle to recuperate, may not be physically made truly whole ever again.
And then what of the judgement-proof, those who don't even have assets to sieze? What of those who lose employment because of an employer who sold the company to corporate looters, or because a high ranking employee embezzled money and sent the company into default and liquidation? Or for whatever other reason, lose their job through no fault of their own?
Libertarian philosophy is not half as uncaring as most libertarians these days are. It's amazing how a philosophy that used to just demand solid justification for action has turned into a group of Ebenezer Scrooge, "then they should die and decrease the surplus population" sort of misers.
Questions:
Say that you were a member of a minority group in the USA today that still isn't fully protected. For example, if you were gay/lesbian. In many states you could be fired just for being who you are, with no recourse, if your boss found out. You could be denied healthcare coverage, you could be denied the right to visit your significant other in the hospital. You could very easily be challenged at the hospital even if you were carrying the identifying documents making you Power-Of-Attorney .
So-called "christian businesses" whose function had nothing to do with religion could nevertheless refuse to serve you, refuse to admit you, kick you out if they realized who you were after the fact. And have done so.
NOW: what is the proper role of government in this? I submit that it OUGHT to be to promote the greatest aggregate of liberty and the right of ALL members of the society to be treated as equals. The "right of association" of the business owner is LESS important than the RIGHT of all citizens to be treated as, and participate in, society as EQUAL CITIZENS.
That is what government's purpose is. When two people claim a differing "right" of "liberty", government's job is to determine which right holds sway to protect and support the GREATEST exercise of liberty, not the least.
And if that means treading on the "right of association" of a thousand bigots, I'm perfectly ok with that, because there are more important rights at stake.
They got two trigger groups known to farm for modpoints: $cientologists and Ron Paul koolaid-drinkers with that one. I'd be unsurprised to see the comment buried fast anytime it reaches a 1. Looks like it's been modded 10 times already, a sure sign that the two groups are fighting to keep it buried.