George Carlin is perhaps the closest thing we have to a 20th Century Prophet. He called it all straight and it is indeed a freak show... and the pencil necks are running the circus.
As long as both parties are given their marching orders by corporate interests there will be no sanity, no resolution, and certainly nothing that furthers the health, wealth or happiness of America's middle class. Sanity would have been an "Affordable Health Care Act" based on a single payer system. Get the insurance companies out of the picture altogether, they're a huge part of the problem. But you can almost here them drooling as they as they dream of millions of poor and middle class sheep being fleeced.
The poor Constitution, has been molested, and raped, and beaten so bloody that its barely worth using as a handi-wipe any more. The body of law that virtually nullifies the Bill of Rights is now indeed ponderous."Fair Use" has been whittled down to meaning "an application performed at a state or county fair." And the last, lonely bastion of human freedom, the internet is beset from so many sides by corporate hounds, the baying alone makes it almost impossible to get a decent nights sleep.
I don't know what the answer is anymore. The Farmer and the Pigs are toasting their success and the rest of the animals on the farm are seriously questioning just how equal they are anymore. We could shoot the lawyers, starting with the ones in Washington D.C. It might not solve anything but who knows it might and it would be so simply soul satisfying. We could put all the bankers and the stock market executive and the ivy league economy professors and the CEOs of most of the Fortune 100 companies on a boat. With just enough fuel and food to get them to the middle of the ocean. Then let nature take its course. Televise the event and make it pay per view. Use the money to pay down the National Debt. Again a gesture, but one that would make you all warm fuzzy.
People speak of revolution, perhaps its time for one. Maybe its time for a real third party. One that isn't owned by anyone save the people. One that ignores wedge issues like the plague and only deals with the real and decisive calamities of our day. Thank the Fundies, and Right Wing Fanatics, and the Left Wing Loop-a-doodles, and all the crazed and fringy life-forms for their opinions, and steer this boat straight down the middle for a while, as we get our bearings back from this 30 year long snipe hunt we've been lead on. Perhaps its time to burn down the Federal Reserve, declare insolvency and begin actually cleaning up our national and international debts, while having the Government print real dollars and not those fruity little things that now come on rolls that are squeezably soft (the least you could do if you're going to turn my currency into toilet paper, is start printing Dubyah's face on the twenties so I wipe with a little satisfaction.) Or we could just call it a day and let the bastards burn it all down for the insurance. I don't know anything anymore. Except the men on Wall Street and the men in D.C. are not my friends and they mean to do me serious harm. And I don't appreciate that one little bit.
Please take a quick look at the soon to be available board being proffered at Parallella.org. or you can enjoy their videos. Now you can get the 16+2 core super computer for $99, or the 64+2 core super computer for $199. The board comes with plenty of I/O options and two GPIO bus board expanders. By the way the board is expected to run under 5 watts in use.
It comes with linux installed. I could easily imagine a computer dramatically smaller than an Mac Mini running at lower power with the selection of peripherals that nobody expects. This little machine is going to redefine computers and I hope Intel can hear those tiny feet running up behind them at this very moment.
Things are going to get more interesting by the day.
That's the point, we need to stop legislating our morality on other people's lives. You give people the widest berth for freedom and self expression, then you educate them about the vital need to be responsible for their actions. You can't say never to abortion. A 31 year old woman in Ireland died this last week when she was refused a necessary abortion in the midst of her miscarriage and the Irish hospital refused for 4 dies upon which time she died a terrible death of toxic shock. A completely unnecessary and barbaric death because of a backwards and cruel lack of consideration for the currently living over the potentially born. Personally I don't agree to abortion as a means of contraception, though I do feel its infinitely better than bringing a child into the world who will grow up unloved. unwanted and abused in the government child care system. This is born out by the miserable record these children have for success or even turning out as nonviolent offenders. The sad fact is that over the last 30 years there has been a decline in certain categories of violent or antisocial crime, and that decline tracks very nicely with the introduction of abortion. That or you can go to the churches who promote and end to abortion, and say, okay, you wanted the child born, who among your parishioners with take on raising this child. It seems to hypocritical and grotesquely unfair to force a woman to endure pregnancy and labor, only to have that new life subjected to atrocities.
So if you are going to outlaw abortion, it should be only for use as contraception, and you better have plenty of alternatives and education made easily and publicly available (and I'm sorry to those Christian who believe that any sex must be in the cause of starting a life, because there is a lot of recreational sex going on out there and they just simply need to get over the abstinence as birth control fantasy... it has never works and its still not working now... a perfect record.) And, you better come up with a sane way to love and raise these babies, so they can grow up to be contributing members of society.
I love your other points and perhaps it time for the "Sanity in Government" party. Let folks know in advance, we don't deal in wedge issues because their designed to divide us not bring us together and in any case, these have been issues for hundreds of years, they'll do fine on the back burner until we manage the more pressing issues of the day. A conscious end to the smoke and mirrors. It should come with its own press corp, so people can begin getting real, unbiases news with about the crappy stuff going on behind closed doors, have auditors checking both the candidates and the reporters. Bring real transparency to government. Of course, the people currently in power would plotz. You'd have some serious authority to buck. It wouldn't go easy.
You want to remember the profound difference between the rate and what actually get's paid. A person with an annual income over $379,150 a year is capable of hiding tremendous amounts of money in hedges and tax free or tax differed investments. Though corporations may be taxed at 35%, please look at the amount of money corporations supply to the total Government Budget. In 1960 corporations accounted for 40%, of the money in the Government Budget. Today they provide only a couple percent. The difference was made up for in payroll taxes... in other words, as corporations have globalized, become unimaginably wealthier and more powerful, they've gutted the health and wealth of the middle class and stiffed their taxes dumping that load on the American middle class. So when CEOs whine about the unfair taxes, spit in their eye, because it is a bald faced lie.
Bill Clinton suggested we institute a flat 15% tax on all business, putting us directly in line with most other countries around the world, with the one caveat, no loopholes, no exceptions, no holy dispensations. The surprising fact is, this single act would so dramatically increase the taxes received by the Federal Government that most if not all of our current fiscal problems would vanish over night. Add ending subsidies to oil companies (who are breaking all profit records) as well as subsidies on big Agro and big Pharma, and our budget would be looking more than a fair site happier. This pandering to the wealthy is at the heart of our social and economic collapse.
Finally, that 35% top rate may seem high to you now, but not compared to the over 99% rates from the late 1940s through 1960s. The interesting part, is that our economy was stronger, middle class healthier, and the wealthy still got wealthier. We had virtually free education even for school in the U.C. system, and we turned out engineers and scientists faster than anyone else on the planet. Please explain to me how taxing the wealthy is bad after looking at 30 years of the full on disaster that supply side economics has been. We stand at the brink of disaster, and the wealthy keep chanting just a little more and it'll all work out and the ignorant mouth breathing public buy it with the contrary evidence staring them in the face... this is the danger of promoting faith based magical thinking. Just as an aside, George H.W. Bush foretold all of this with incredible accuracy during the 1980 Republican Presidential run off where he referred to supply side as "Voodoo Economics."
The two party system is a sham. The differences grow smaller by the day, and in any case, the system is desired to promote corporate whores in either party. So once the smoke and noise abate what you find is that Romney is Obama sans tan. The talking points are the bullshit they sling to suggest there is any real difference, but actions on both side speak infinitely louder than words.
Indeed, Joe Biden is the xxAA hit man, and I think its fair to say he answers to Hollywood before he answers to Obama. The Republican have their corporate base in Fossil Fuel, Banking and Agribusiness. The fact that the two parties are equally whores belies the fact that their clientele differ slightly, but either will take a buck if offered. Until we separate corporation and state, we will continue to get the best government money can buy.
I promise you that the children and the unborn babies in the womb of the pregnant woman that was killed by indiscriminate missile launches against Palestinian homes had no part in threatening Jews, or support people that did. You don't fix an atrocity by committing a bigger one. The Jews are destroying their credibility in the eyes of the world. They need to take the moral highground not the lowest common denominator.
That's why you need sintered nanograin titania (titanium oxide.) A transparent ceramic, stronger than steel, lighter than aluminum,as flexible as plastic and able to sustain temperatures that would turn most metals into fondu. (A nearly perfect material for building engine blocks:-) Because its formed from powder (or in theory could be 3D printed from a paste) you can make it into any shape including the complex reinforcing structures found in bones (and adding additional lightness.) being transparent, you could create inclusions for optic fiber nerves, or laser light powered mechanical component. You could also pump fluids in and around it to remove waste heat.
I was thinking more of a gleisner robot myself. A nice home for a big fat synthetic brain and a happy home for my consciousness. The idea of being able to jump the length of a football field or 200 ft straight up. To jump off of virtually any height object, knowing that your terminal velocity is lower than the functional threshold of your body. Climbing Everest would be a cake walk. You could even have working wings. The possibilities boggle.
In the Libertarian State you describe, there are a 100,000 little independent fiefdoms. How do you get them to cooperate (and by the insane thrashing going on in this country at the state level I would argue that your system would be many orders of magnitude worse.) How do you create national infrastructure when it crosses hundreds or thousands of distinct municipalities? Would each municipality charge you for their section of road? Would they charge your plane for flying through their airspace? What about geological resources that extend beyond borders? How do you make someone only extract the oil on their side of the line? Or how do you keep their toxic waste on their side of the line. Multiply that time thousands and thousands. Please stop thinking about your personal playground and consider the impact to an operational society. There wouldn't be any. Society would collapse so fast, you'd get a concussion from the vacuum of the missing social system.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with governments in general, and the current US Government in particular, but what you propose would be a busted up mess. You can't talk about how rotten people are inside the context of government, then expect those very same people to begin behaving like angels because there aren't now any government structures to keep them from behaving like assholes.
Actually several folks have been working on a brilliant means of collecting the waste plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean and turning it into floating cities capable of sustaining millions. This would be a perfect place to experiment with social structures to see what can be created. Meritocracies, Zero Sum games, True Democracies based on digital technologies, and a huge selection of real alternatives that exist when you start with a few thousand people and a social order from whole cloth.
You would however have to instill in your young a profound degree of personal responsibility and personal integrity. Anything less would be a flat out disaster in less than a generation.
Yeah, my boss is Filipino. He's been building libraries for schools. Tells you about the kind of guy he is. Anyway, he has a brilliant take on folks who think taxes are evil. Move to the Philippines. Almost no taxes. Also no roads, no infrastructure, nobody to protect you from roving bandits or burning structures, and the schools and hospitals are pitiful. Please enjoy my slice of the Third World.
Land belongs to individuals, or voluntary organizations of individuals. It does not belong to "society" (by which you mean, 'Total State').
Huh, What??? You mean like National Forests, Federal Lands and National Parks and Monuments?
If that was true, then you could eliminate private property rights in land and the means of production by mere stroke of a pen, as opposed to the mass bloodshed that occurred wherever people like you tried it.
Yeah, that would be horrible... what would you call such a terrible thing... I dunno... HOW ABOUT IMMINENT DOMAIN?
And your religion is no less deluded. Human beings are capable of every kind of atrocity. Remove structures for a functional civilization and you have Pillagers and Pillagees. How in Gawd's name is that preferable to a group of people organizing a society to assemble for the common defense, promote fair trade and elevate the rights and freedom of its members. All human institutions are prone to becoming committed more to their own survival and self promotion and The American Corporation is now a far greater threat to humanity than The America Government (though in fact at this point they have become one and the same.)
Tell me how you would manage the sane interaction of 350,000,000 people, while promoting a national infrastructure, common currency for trade, national defense, a system of education ensuring a minimum level to perform effectively in the society and limit the powers of organizations and economic entities to preserve a robust and healthy middle class without a government. I'm sorry, having the entire nation come out and do paper, scissors, stone until all the important national decisions were banged out would preclude all other activities.
You point at precisely the problem... and its a human wide problem. Belief systems. Untested, superstitious, extrapolations based on emotional internal states. Governments are bad. Indeed they are. However, no worse than human beings in general. The presumption that governments are the source of all evil, belies the simple fact that individuals are perfectly capable of perpetrating horrors both in groups and alone, and that it is completely possible to build a government that honors and acknowledges the importance of human rights (the Bill of Rights was a great start.) The failure of government is and has always been when power becomes concentrated. If statesmen fall on a curve as most things, give enough power to a small enough group and you can almost be certain the frailties of average human beings will be amplified to shocking and horrific proportions.
That was the brilliance of checks and balances (and we need to get them back if we expect to see another century of this American experiment) is that by giving each branch of a muiltibranch government the key to the lock on the guy to the right, nobody get's to drive away with the whole government. We need to come up with even better zero sum games to begin the process of fairly distributing power among all people and creating a real flat playing field from which we can all compete, but more important collaborate. Most Libertarians have that compete thing down, its the collaborate thing that eludes them.
I know Ayn Rand had a buggaboo about altruism, but she missed something really important. There is altruism like I'm gonna paint the world in my favorite shade of chartreuse so every else can enjoy it... which isn't altruism at all, its hubris. Then there is the dedicated commitment to serve and honor humanity and deliver one's best to forward that which forwards the human condition, and that is true altruism. A disaster occurs and people need water and food and medicine. Stopping what you're doing and collecting what's needed and delivering it at great risk to yourself to those in need is altruism, and it is a high aspiration for being human. Doctor Without Borders are practitioners of that kind of Altruism. There is nothing wrong with being selfish, because we're primates and we're hard wired to survive. Its better if you're straight about it, so people can manage your behavior in their day to day process. Its even better if you're responsible for your selfishness, so you exercise when you can enjoy your personal pleasure, but also put your behavior on the shelf when it get's in the way of the greater good. This would be case and point the current problem with corporations in general and bankers in particular. These men in many cases are sociopaths, people without a clue about what serves the greater whole, and even if they had a clue would be profoundly disinterested the minute serving the greater good conflicted with their personal self aggrandizement.
There is a sweet spot between Pure Objectivism and Absolute Social Consciousness, and from where I stand the sweet spot is a lot closer to the later than the former. Many Libertarians are perfectly comfortable with the idea of anarchy. We have a number of fine examples of anarchy in history and almost to case, it looked a lot like the guy with the biggest army made the rules. Not a particularly attractive social state.
Is that they think the world would be genuinely better paved over in their morality. Until these clowns get that this is pornography, and this is simply adult entertainment, I can't imagine we will have a sane conversation about the subject. Plain and simple, if you don't like it, don't watch it. If others don't want their children seeing it, then they are perfectly capable of making sure their children are insulated from it. How any of this issue is improved by the inclusion of David Cameron's big fat nose is a complete and total mystery.
I dunno... you may have a threatening birthmark, you can't see!!! I would suggest a close screening with possible surgical removal of the offending body part.
The technology is so close to there. Sad problem is that the Chinese are going to do all the work perfecting and they'll own all the technology. There are safe, clean, small, reactors that could power neighborhoods across the country. The people who drill and mine carbon, won't have it.
Slashdot Mirror
George Carlin is perhaps the closest thing we have to a 20th Century Prophet. He called it all straight and it is indeed a freak show... and the pencil necks are running the circus.
As long as both parties are given their marching orders by corporate interests there will be no sanity, no resolution, and certainly nothing that furthers the health, wealth or happiness of America's middle class. Sanity would have been an "Affordable Health Care Act" based on a single payer system. Get the insurance companies out of the picture altogether, they're a huge part of the problem. But you can almost here them drooling as they as they dream of millions of poor and middle class sheep being fleeced.
The poor Constitution, has been molested, and raped, and beaten so bloody that its barely worth using as a handi-wipe any more. The body of law that virtually nullifies the Bill of Rights is now indeed ponderous."Fair Use" has been whittled down to meaning "an application performed at a state or county fair." And the last, lonely bastion of human freedom, the internet is beset from so many sides by corporate hounds, the baying alone makes it almost impossible to get a decent nights sleep.
I don't know what the answer is anymore. The Farmer and the Pigs are toasting their success and the rest of the animals on the farm are seriously questioning just how equal they are anymore. We could shoot the lawyers, starting with the ones in Washington D.C. It might not solve anything but who knows it might and it would be so simply soul satisfying. We could put all the bankers and the stock market executive and the ivy league economy professors and the CEOs of most of the Fortune 100 companies on a boat. With just enough fuel and food to get them to the middle of the ocean. Then let nature take its course. Televise the event and make it pay per view. Use the money to pay down the National Debt. Again a gesture, but one that would make you all warm fuzzy.
People speak of revolution, perhaps its time for one. Maybe its time for a real third party. One that isn't owned by anyone save the people. One that ignores wedge issues like the plague and only deals with the real and decisive calamities of our day. Thank the Fundies, and Right Wing Fanatics, and the Left Wing Loop-a-doodles, and all the crazed and fringy life-forms for their opinions, and steer this boat straight down the middle for a while, as we get our bearings back from this 30 year long snipe hunt we've been lead on. Perhaps its time to burn down the Federal Reserve, declare insolvency and begin actually cleaning up our national and international debts, while having the Government print real dollars and not those fruity little things that now come on rolls that are squeezably soft (the least you could do if you're going to turn my currency into toilet paper, is start printing Dubyah's face on the twenties so I wipe with a little satisfaction.) Or we could just call it a day and let the bastards burn it all down for the insurance. I don't know anything anymore. Except the men on Wall Street and the men in D.C. are not my friends and they mean to do me serious harm. And I don't appreciate that one little bit.
Please take a quick look at the soon to be available board being proffered at Parallella.org. or you can enjoy their videos. Now you can get the 16+2 core super computer for $99, or the 64+2 core super computer for $199. The board comes with plenty of I/O options and two GPIO bus board expanders. By the way the board is expected to run under 5 watts in use.
It comes with linux installed. I could easily imagine a computer dramatically smaller than an Mac Mini running at lower power with the selection of peripherals that nobody expects. This little machine is going to redefine computers and I hope Intel can hear those tiny feet running up behind them at this very moment.
Things are going to get more interesting by the day.
Yes, but they didn't have drones, hysonics in development (anyplace on the planet in 30 minutes), or tactical nukes.
That's the point, we need to stop legislating our morality on other people's lives. You give people the widest berth for freedom and self expression, then you educate them about the vital need to be responsible for their actions. You can't say never to abortion. A 31 year old woman in Ireland died this last week when she was refused a necessary abortion in the midst of her miscarriage and the Irish hospital refused for 4 dies upon which time she died a terrible death of toxic shock. A completely unnecessary and barbaric death because of a backwards and cruel lack of consideration for the currently living over the potentially born. Personally I don't agree to abortion as a means of contraception, though I do feel its infinitely better than bringing a child into the world who will grow up unloved. unwanted and abused in the government child care system. This is born out by the miserable record these children have for success or even turning out as nonviolent offenders. The sad fact is that over the last 30 years there has been a decline in certain categories of violent or antisocial crime, and that decline tracks very nicely with the introduction of abortion. That or you can go to the churches who promote and end to abortion, and say, okay, you wanted the child born, who among your parishioners with take on raising this child. It seems to hypocritical and grotesquely unfair to force a woman to endure pregnancy and labor, only to have that new life subjected to atrocities.
So if you are going to outlaw abortion, it should be only for use as contraception, and you better have plenty of alternatives and education made easily and publicly available (and I'm sorry to those Christian who believe that any sex must be in the cause of starting a life, because there is a lot of recreational sex going on out there and they just simply need to get over the abstinence as birth control fantasy... it has never works and its still not working now... a perfect record.) And, you better come up with a sane way to love and raise these babies, so they can grow up to be contributing members of society.
I love your other points and perhaps it time for the "Sanity in Government" party. Let folks know in advance, we don't deal in wedge issues because their designed to divide us not bring us together and in any case, these have been issues for hundreds of years, they'll do fine on the back burner until we manage the more pressing issues of the day. A conscious end to the smoke and mirrors. It should come with its own press corp, so people can begin getting real, unbiases news with about the crappy stuff going on behind closed doors, have auditors checking both the candidates and the reporters. Bring real transparency to government. Of course, the people currently in power would plotz. You'd have some serious authority to buck. It wouldn't go easy.
You want to remember the profound difference between the rate and what actually get's paid. A person with an annual income over $379,150 a year is capable of hiding tremendous amounts of money in hedges and tax free or tax differed investments. Though corporations may be taxed at 35%, please look at the amount of money corporations supply to the total Government Budget. In 1960 corporations accounted for 40%, of the money in the Government Budget. Today they provide only a couple percent. The difference was made up for in payroll taxes... in other words, as corporations have globalized, become unimaginably wealthier and more powerful, they've gutted the health and wealth of the middle class and stiffed their taxes dumping that load on the American middle class. So when CEOs whine about the unfair taxes, spit in their eye, because it is a bald faced lie.
Bill Clinton suggested we institute a flat 15% tax on all business, putting us directly in line with most other countries around the world, with the one caveat, no loopholes, no exceptions, no holy dispensations. The surprising fact is, this single act would so dramatically increase the taxes received by the Federal Government that most if not all of our current fiscal problems would vanish over night. Add ending subsidies to oil companies (who are breaking all profit records) as well as subsidies on big Agro and big Pharma, and our budget would be looking more than a fair site happier. This pandering to the wealthy is at the heart of our social and economic collapse.
Finally, that 35% top rate may seem high to you now, but not compared to the over 99% rates from the late 1940s through 1960s. The interesting part, is that our economy was stronger, middle class healthier, and the wealthy still got wealthier. We had virtually free education even for school in the U.C. system, and we turned out engineers and scientists faster than anyone else on the planet. Please explain to me how taxing the wealthy is bad after looking at 30 years of the full on disaster that supply side economics has been. We stand at the brink of disaster, and the wealthy keep chanting just a little more and it'll all work out and the ignorant mouth breathing public buy it with the contrary evidence staring them in the face... this is the danger of promoting faith based magical thinking. Just as an aside, George H.W. Bush foretold all of this with incredible accuracy during the 1980 Republican Presidential run off where he referred to supply side as "Voodoo Economics."
The two party system is a sham. The differences grow smaller by the day, and in any case, the system is desired to promote corporate whores in either party. So once the smoke and noise abate what you find is that Romney is Obama sans tan. The talking points are the bullshit they sling to suggest there is any real difference, but actions on both side speak infinitely louder than words.
Indeed, Joe Biden is the xxAA hit man, and I think its fair to say he answers to Hollywood before he answers to Obama. The Republican have their corporate base in Fossil Fuel, Banking and Agribusiness. The fact that the two parties are equally whores belies the fact that their clientele differ slightly, but either will take a buck if offered. Until we separate corporation and state, we will continue to get the best government money can buy.
I promise you that the children and the unborn babies in the womb of the pregnant woman that was killed by indiscriminate missile launches against Palestinian homes had no part in threatening Jews, or support people that did. You don't fix an atrocity by committing a bigger one. The Jews are destroying their credibility in the eyes of the world. They need to take the moral highground not the lowest common denominator.
That's why you need sintered nanograin titania (titanium oxide.) A transparent ceramic, stronger than steel, lighter than aluminum,as flexible as plastic and able to sustain temperatures that would turn most metals into fondu. (A nearly perfect material for building engine blocks :-) Because its formed from powder (or in theory could be 3D printed from a paste) you can make it into any shape including the complex reinforcing structures found in bones (and adding additional lightness.) being transparent, you could create inclusions for optic fiber nerves, or laser light powered mechanical component. You could also pump fluids in and around it to remove waste heat.
I was thinking more of a gleisner robot myself. A nice home for a big fat synthetic brain and a happy home for my consciousness. The idea of being able to jump the length of a football field or 200 ft straight up. To jump off of virtually any height object, knowing that your terminal velocity is lower than the functional threshold of your body. Climbing Everest would be a cake walk. You could even have working wings. The possibilities boggle.
HERE, HERE... a sane voice.... minimize the evil, limit the damage, promote the very best you can, and be responsible for the dangly bits!!!
WHERE do you get money from?
In the Libertarian State you describe, there are a 100,000 little independent fiefdoms. How do you get them to cooperate (and by the insane thrashing going on in this country at the state level I would argue that your system would be many orders of magnitude worse.) How do you create national infrastructure when it crosses hundreds or thousands of distinct municipalities? Would each municipality charge you for their section of road? Would they charge your plane for flying through their airspace? What about geological resources that extend beyond borders? How do you make someone only extract the oil on their side of the line? Or how do you keep their toxic waste on their side of the line. Multiply that time thousands and thousands. Please stop thinking about your personal playground and consider the impact to an operational society. There wouldn't be any. Society would collapse so fast, you'd get a concussion from the vacuum of the missing social system.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy with governments in general, and the current US Government in particular, but what you propose would be a busted up mess. You can't talk about how rotten people are inside the context of government, then expect those very same people to begin behaving like angels because there aren't now any government structures to keep them from behaving like assholes.
Actually several folks have been working on a brilliant means of collecting the waste plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean and turning it into floating cities capable of sustaining millions. This would be a perfect place to experiment with social structures to see what can be created. Meritocracies, Zero Sum games, True Democracies based on digital technologies, and a huge selection of real alternatives that exist when you start with a few thousand people and a social order from whole cloth.
You would however have to instill in your young a profound degree of personal responsibility and personal integrity. Anything less would be a flat out disaster in less than a generation.
Yeah, my boss is Filipino. He's been building libraries for schools. Tells you about the kind of guy he is. Anyway, he has a brilliant take on folks who think taxes are evil. Move to the Philippines. Almost no taxes. Also no roads, no infrastructure, nobody to protect you from roving bandits or burning structures, and the schools and hospitals are pitiful. Please enjoy my slice of the Third World.
Land belongs to individuals, or voluntary organizations of individuals. It does not belong to "society" (by which you mean, 'Total State').
Huh, What??? You mean like National Forests, Federal Lands and National Parks and Monuments?
If that was true, then you could eliminate private property rights in land and the means of production by mere stroke of a pen, as opposed to the mass bloodshed that occurred wherever people like you tried it.
Yeah, that would be horrible... what would you call such a terrible thing... I dunno... HOW ABOUT IMMINENT DOMAIN?
What country do you live in?
And your religion is no less deluded. Human beings are capable of every kind of atrocity. Remove structures for a functional civilization and you have Pillagers and Pillagees. How in Gawd's name is that preferable to a group of people organizing a society to assemble for the common defense, promote fair trade and elevate the rights and freedom of its members. All human institutions are prone to becoming committed more to their own survival and self promotion and The American Corporation is now a far greater threat to humanity than The America Government (though in fact at this point they have become one and the same.)
Tell me how you would manage the sane interaction of 350,000,000 people, while promoting a national infrastructure, common currency for trade, national defense, a system of education ensuring a minimum level to perform effectively in the society and limit the powers of organizations and economic entities to preserve a robust and healthy middle class without a government. I'm sorry, having the entire nation come out and do paper, scissors, stone until all the important national decisions were banged out would preclude all other activities.
You point at precisely the problem... and its a human wide problem. Belief systems. Untested, superstitious, extrapolations based on emotional internal states. Governments are bad. Indeed they are. However, no worse than human beings in general. The presumption that governments are the source of all evil, belies the simple fact that individuals are perfectly capable of perpetrating horrors both in groups and alone, and that it is completely possible to build a government that honors and acknowledges the importance of human rights (the Bill of Rights was a great start.) The failure of government is and has always been when power becomes concentrated. If statesmen fall on a curve as most things, give enough power to a small enough group and you can almost be certain the frailties of average human beings will be amplified to shocking and horrific proportions.
That was the brilliance of checks and balances (and we need to get them back if we expect to see another century of this American experiment) is that by giving each branch of a muiltibranch government the key to the lock on the guy to the right, nobody get's to drive away with the whole government. We need to come up with even better zero sum games to begin the process of fairly distributing power among all people and creating a real flat playing field from which we can all compete, but more important collaborate. Most Libertarians have that compete thing down, its the collaborate thing that eludes them.
I know Ayn Rand had a buggaboo about altruism, but she missed something really important. There is altruism like I'm gonna paint the world in my favorite shade of chartreuse so every else can enjoy it... which isn't altruism at all, its hubris. Then there is the dedicated commitment to serve and honor humanity and deliver one's best to forward that which forwards the human condition, and that is true altruism. A disaster occurs and people need water and food and medicine. Stopping what you're doing and collecting what's needed and delivering it at great risk to yourself to those in need is altruism, and it is a high aspiration for being human. Doctor Without Borders are practitioners of that kind of Altruism. There is nothing wrong with being selfish, because we're primates and we're hard wired to survive. Its better if you're straight about it, so people can manage your behavior in their day to day process. Its even better if you're responsible for your selfishness, so you exercise when you can enjoy your personal pleasure, but also put your behavior on the shelf when it get's in the way of the greater good. This would be case and point the current problem with corporations in general and bankers in particular. These men in many cases are sociopaths, people without a clue about what serves the greater whole, and even if they had a clue would be profoundly disinterested the minute serving the greater good conflicted with their personal self aggrandizement.
There is a sweet spot between Pure Objectivism and Absolute Social Consciousness, and from where I stand the sweet spot is a lot closer to the later than the former. Many Libertarians are perfectly comfortable with the idea of anarchy. We have a number of fine examples of anarchy in history and almost to case, it looked a lot like the guy with the biggest army made the rules. Not a particularly attractive social state.
You forgot the year the kid kept that damned thing in a jar of rubbing alcohol before he'd put it near his face.
They ran out of room for the Retina Display...
Is that they think the world would be genuinely better paved over in their morality. Until these clowns get that this is pornography, and this is simply adult entertainment, I can't imagine we will have a sane conversation about the subject. Plain and simple, if you don't like it, don't watch it. If others don't want their children seeing it, then they are perfectly capable of making sure their children are insulated from it. How any of this issue is improved by the inclusion of David Cameron's big fat nose is a complete and total mystery.
Closing Guantanamo and opening Montana is not a move in the proper direction.
I dunno... you may have a threatening birthmark, you can't see!!! I would suggest a close screening with possible surgical removal of the offending body part.
Actually I think it was this watch.
I'll have you know that I hand painted this "'F' the TSA!" t-shirt. Please handle it with all due respect.
The technology is so close to there. Sad problem is that the Chinese are going to do all the work perfecting and they'll own all the technology. There are safe, clean, small, reactors that could power neighborhoods across the country. The people who drill and mine carbon, won't have it.