Sigh. Its difficult to have a mature discussion with you when you accuse me of hating the poor. That type of language doesn't further the debate and only serves to inflame emotions.
Hundreds of years of constitutional review and amendment have created the system we now rely on, which gives the federal government slightly more control than our founding fathers preferred for their day.
"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken."
-Tyler Durden, "Fight Club"
No amount of review can change the fact that most of our government is EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED by the Tenth Amendment. If we violate the Tenth, what keeps the government from violating the First?
"I don't understand how you can cherish the first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights) so much, while discarding all of the amendments which have followed, which, taken together, form the basis of our current system of government."
What gave you this idea? I respect the entire Constitution and all of its amendments. None of those amendments authorize Social Security, Medicare, welfare, the EPA, the Department of Education, or 80% of the other government agencies! I respect all amendments equally, but NONE of them authorize these agencies, and I challenge you to point out the amendment that legitimizes these agencies. You will find no such amendment, because no such amendment exists. These programs are unconstitutional, and no amount of wrangling on your part can change that.
Those powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution belong to the States.
But they wrote a Constitution and we MUST adhere to it to prevent tyranny. They gave us a process to amend it. The federal government is currently far beyond what is permitted by the Constitution. If we wish to keep the current level of government, we need to AMEND the Constitution.
You're wrong about Thomas Jefferson. If he could see the US now, I'm sure he'd want every American to have the freedom to persue her/his dreams. In your America, that would be literally impossible for about a third of our citizens. Jefferson was a kind and excruciatingly moral man, as was Benjamin Franklin and all of our founding fathers.
I think that perhaps you have created in your mind a romanticized idea of what the founding fathers were. Allow me to correct this notion with a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson.
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition."
-February 15,1971
"A wise and frugal government... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
-Inauagural Address, March 4, 1801
and finally,
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
The enumerated powers are listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. If you can find a passage that authorizes the federal government to provide welfare, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, or similar programs, could you please point it out? If it is not listed in Article I, Section 8, it is prohibited by the Tenth Amendment.
We hear your "words of dissent." I'm proud of the fact that in our country, you're free to voice them. But I'm under no obligation to agree with them or speak in a friendly tone. If it were up to you, you would plunge millions of Americans into utter squalor, and kill millions indirectly by cutting them off financially. If people like this ever come to power, there will be civil war, and I'll be the first to enlist.
You will go to war to continue taking my property from me? You remind me of the pirates from years past.
The thing that makes Libertarianism truly insane is that you people don't take the theory to its obvious conclusions. If the government isn't going to be involved in regulating the quality of food, the infrastructure you rely on, and so forth, who is? And will they do it for free? Probably not. You'll wind up paying far more to corporations than you do currently to the government. Do you really want to get separate monthly bills for highway usage, number of minutes spent in the park, pounds of meat analyzed for e. coli, and so forth? Just picture your cell-phone bill and imagine getting one of those for everything you now take for granted.
I'm afraid you chose the worst possible example you could have chosen. My cell phone bill is fine by itself, but then various fees and taxes imposed by my government are tacked on inflating my bill to a much higher number. Check your own bill and I'm sure you'll find the same.
I'm not sure why you think libertarians don't follow their thinking through to conclusions. Most of us do. Without federal agencies looking after these things, there are two possibilities. One is that state agencies (which are far more accountable to individual citizens) will take over. The other is that private companies could do it. In fact, private companies are usually able to do a job that the government does more affordably. The reason is that companies have other companies to worry about. I can't pay my taxes to some other government, but I can certainly choose a different company for my services.
But here's the real stumper: if Libertarians hate government so much, why do they want to get involved with it? It's obvious that you'll never see Libertarians come to power in your lifetime, so why make yourself crazy complaining about taxes and government control? If you hate this government so much, why not take more effective steps to eliminate it? If this Michael Badnarik was actually serious about his ideals, he'd crash a jet airplane into the Pentagon or something. Some guys actually did this already -- Maybe you've read about it.
Most libertarians don't hate government, but only this particular flavor of government. We act because we think we can change government and we do expect to make a difference, but even moreso, we act because we think it is moral and because we have ideals and because we have bigger ideas about government than Republican/Democrat Vietnam/Air National Guard slamfests. We don't attack the Pentagon because we believe that its wrong to deprive an innocent person of life, liberty, or property (unlike you, who would go to war SPECIFICALLY to deprive me of property!).
If you want to live in America, get used to the idea that most people here don't want anarchy -- excuse me, I mean "Libertarianism." I love this country, and anyone actively trying to dismantle its government is my enemy.
Libertarianism is not anarchism. Under libertarianism, people would still have their life, liberty, and property protected by the federal government. I love this country too, Ben. That's why I want it to adhere to the Constitution that our wise founding fathers wrote.
What of the question of Constitutionality, Ben? The federal government is tasked with the things listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The 10th Amendment forbids the federal government from acting in other areas. Do you favor your wealth redistribution programs and all those other programs whether they're Constitutional or not? If so, when the government takes away your First Amendment rights, what moral authority do you have to speak out against it? How is one usurpation of the Constitution any different than another?
Humans, being social creatures, have historically come together to form societies for protection. They understood (as we do now) that, the greater their numbers, the less vulnerable to the warlord of the day they were. There was a time when strong societies were few and far between, and the world was very much "every man for himself"; these are commonly called the dark ages.
In fact, the dark ages were caused by the Church commandeering control of the government. That which contradicted the church was suppressed. This is about as unlibertarian as government gets.
Essentially, they say this: we, as a society, will protect your property and your belongings. We will not do this for free.
Is this similar to gangsters coming by your business to collect protection money?
They do not realize that in being Americans, or indeed, the citizens of any state, they have entered into a contract with its government; they agree to abide by certain rules. This includes paying taxes, even when the government uses that money for causes they disagree with. Because society is not about individuals -- society is about individuals together for their mutual protection.
Certainly there is a social contract involved, but it must be based on the documents that founded our country. If laws are being passed that violate my Constitutional rights, am I to just sit idly by and adhere to them regardless, and give no complaint, and make no effort to change them, or otherwise leave? I assert my right to stay here, petition my government for a redress of my grievances as is my right.
Now, when decisions are made as a society, that means that your personal viewpoint on how things should be is sometimes overruled by the majority, who thinks differently than you do.
Yes, the tyranny of the majority, as I like to call it. Two wolves and a sheep, voting on what's for dinner.
You disagree, and it bothers you that the government should spend your taxes on something you disagree with. But that money is no longer yours. The government did not steal it; you paid that money, to the government -- and in our country, that would be the people -- for the right to be a part of the society. Just as you when you pay rent, you may disagree with what your landlord uses your rent money for -- but he is not stealing it. If you would rather not live there, don't.
I again assert my right to live in this country and petition my government for a redress of grievances. I furthermore maintain that I have a right to call taxation theft or any other thing I wish to call it. When the government usurps the Constitution and uses my money to do so, I call it corrupt and I call it theft, and it is my freedom to do so. We may all vote on whether we ought to kill Joe and take his property to be divied up amongst us, and even give Joe a chance to vote, but having the majority rule in the affirmative doesn't mean that it is just or right for us to go ahead and kill Joe and take his property.
As they say, America -- love it or leave it. Ironically, it is usually the conservatives that say this. But now, I am saying it to you.
But is such divisive language necessary? Why is it that you would not care to hear my words of dissent? Am I not free to speak them?
AC,
This is an easy one. Open your Constitution to Article I, Section 8. Here you have listed all the things that the federal government is entitled to do. Anything beyond the things listed here is unconstitutional on the federal level, per the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
AC,
If you could only vote for Hitler or Stalin, which would you select and why? Which is a closer match for your vision?
Its a Sophie's Choice no matter how you look at it. There are some questions that just cannot be answered.
Don't be so sure about that.
Aside from veto power, he has the presidential pardon. He could easily set free all non-violent drug offenders and Congress could do little to stop him. He could also close all the foreign military bases and bring home troops from something like 185 countries. "Exit strategy for Iraq?", he quipped, at the Libertarian Convention. "I'm still waiting for the exit strategy for Japan! Germany! Korea!" That veto power is a big one as well. He could veto any budget that included funding for unconstitutional programs. Sure, they could two-thirds him, but they'd be hard-pressed to get that kind of majority. He could also suspend the operations of the IRS and other agencies pending a review of their constitutionality.
I was referring more to the taxation portion. By the way, he has significant evidence that paying taxes is not required by law and that the IRS has been enforcing bogus laws on people. He also says that the reason he can't sign a tax return is that it requires him to waive his 5th amendment protections, which certainly seems like a valid argument to me.
Regarding driver licensing, roads are a difficult issue. One segment of libertarians believe that roads should be privatized, but I'm not quite sure I agree entirely. Its an issue I'm still pondering.
Is Libertarianism really only appropriate for rich, "developed" countries such as the United States?
Absolutely not! A rich developed country like the United States could potentially survive with closed borders (though its still not a good idea) but a country with few natural resources has little choice! Its open borders and free markets, else everybody dies! A country low on natural resources can trade what few resources it does have for resources it desperately needs from other countries, and it can also create a service economy, selling services to its neighbors such as manufacturing finished products from imported raw materials, or answering phones, or numerous other services. If a country with few resources is to survive, it MUST have open borders and free markets!
AC, you're borderline insane. Taxation does not equal socialism, and anyone who disputes this must count nearly every nation in the world, including ours, as socialist
We're more of a mixed economy. Social Security is clearly an indication of socialism, as are numerous other programs.
There's no need for me to house homeless people right now
No? Didn't you just get through telling us about all the people living in abject poverty?
This isn't what the founding fathers had in mind. These were above all moral men, and they founded the country on the ideal that a society could work together while remaining independent. That's the whole fscking idea of United States. Our founding fathers were avid Bible-readers, and the Bible is all about helping the less fortunate.
You're so terribly misinformed that I don't know where to start. There were no welfare programs in their day because they didn't believe in them. They wrote a Constitution which did not allow for welfare programs to be passed. Indeed, the 10th Amendment strictly prohibits federal welfare programs. It is only a usurping of the Constitution which has allowed these to come into existence. Furthermore, most of our founding fathers were Deists, not Christians.
But may I suggest that if you hate paying taxes so much, why not found your own republic? Our founding fathers did, and they were in their mid-twenties. There seem to be enough far-right-wing-nutjobs like you lurking on slashdot to put together a minor revolution.
Libertarians are not right wing. Right wing persons favor economic freedom and government control over social issues. Libertarians favor economic freedom and social freedom.
Look at it this way, Ben. If I make 12 dollars an hour and you impose a tax on me of 15 percent, I have to labor for 312 hours in slavery to pay off that tax. Then you take that money stolen from me and you give it to a person who hasn't earned it, and you call this justice. This is many things, but justice it is not. Look, if I get mugged in the streets by a criminal, do I really care who the mugger gives my money to, good cause or not? Of course not! He mugged me and stole my money! Why would I feel any differently if its my government doing the mugging?
As we all know, liberals favor freedom in social issues and control over economic issues while conservatives favor freedom in economic issues and control over social issues. However, increasingly it seems that both liberals and conservatives are tilting toward authoritarianism. Bush has signed into law various entitlement programs, as well as trade tariffs, and Democrats rarely criticize the War on Drugs any longer.
Do you think this shift toward authoritarianism by both major parties will result in a paradigm shift in the country where we no longer discuss liberalism vs. conservatism but rather, authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, and if so, would this allow the Libertarian Party to finally get the recognition it has worked hard for over the past few decades, or are we stuck with this conservatism vs. liberalism battle for ages to come?
Er, not exactly. Comcast was already providing service to many customers and bought ATT's broadband division to expand their coverage and customer base.
If you can't read Dutch, don't pretend that you can. Frackers.com has added an update today to straighten out the people who pretend to speak Dutch.
UPDATE, January 27 Some information for English speaking visitors to this blog that got here through the Slashdot-article: just to get the story straight, the boxes in the picture on my site are similar to the ones that were featured in this week's PC World. There's nothing secret about these devices: they connect your tv to your home network. As I understand, they were seen all over this year's CES. What I wrote below in the original (Dutch) posting was that the Strangeberry guys drove to Fry's one day to buy the components to build these kind of devices. And that they managed to do so pretty quickly; meaning that these are smart guys and also that there's not much of a barrier to entry in this market - providing there is a market. I never meant to imply or infer that these were the kind of machines Strangeberry was actually developing as their core business, just that they are working on technology for this space. As the official Tivo statement says: 'Strangeberry has created technology (...) designed to enable the development of new broadband-based content delivery services.' And as you can judge by the resumes of the Strangeberry guys, they are software specialists, not hardware guys. Just to be clear: I am not associated with Strangeberry in any way. I am just a friend of Arthur's, as I wrote on my personal blog about the acquisition of Smartberry by Tivo. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Makes me think of doing this media & technology blog in English... nah, too much work, and this was supposed to be a hobby;-) http://www.frackers.com/2003/11/10/000035.html
I think you also forget that the US is the only country in the western world where providing a decent level of healthcare for everyone is treated with contempt. Last time I checked, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, etc were all in the "real world".
No one is entitled to live off the labor of another without his consent. Universal healthcare funded by taxes taken at the point of a gun is exactly that.
Except that Walmart ISN'T a monopoly, not even close. Everything found in Walmart is sold in thousands of other stores. A strong business is not necessarily a monopoly.
This is a technique commonly referred to as "sarcasm". The parent commenter is not satisfied with either Quicktime OR Real formats, and would prefer a format that was less shittay.
"Seriously, it seems like people in the US pretty much always vote what they always voted, simply because that's the camp they feel they belong to... Nothing's ever going to change that way."
If that were true there would be little difference in the way the vote turns out and landslides would be non-existant. Sure, there's always a certain number of people that will always vote Democrat, Republican, or in my case, Libertarian, but there's a large portion of swing voters that aren't loyal to either party. Both of the major parties cater to this swing vote. This catering is what brought about the so-called "compassionate conservatism".
Slashdot Mirror
Sigh. Its difficult to have a mature discussion with you when you accuse me of hating the poor. That type of language doesn't further the debate and only serves to inflame emotions.
Hundreds of years of constitutional review and amendment have created the system we now rely on, which gives the federal government slightly more control than our founding fathers preferred for their day.
"Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken."
-Tyler Durden, "Fight Club"
No amount of review can change the fact that most of our government is EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED by the Tenth Amendment. If we violate the Tenth, what keeps the government from violating the First?
"I don't understand how you can cherish the first 10 amendments (the Bill of Rights) so much, while discarding all of the amendments which have followed, which, taken together, form the basis of our current system of government."
What gave you this idea? I respect the entire Constitution and all of its amendments. None of those amendments authorize Social Security, Medicare, welfare, the EPA, the Department of Education, or 80% of the other government agencies! I respect all amendments equally, but NONE of them authorize these agencies, and I challenge you to point out the amendment that legitimizes these agencies. You will find no such amendment, because no such amendment exists. These programs are unconstitutional, and no amount of wrangling on your part can change that.
Those powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution belong to the States.
But they wrote a Constitution and we MUST adhere to it to prevent tyranny. They gave us a process to amend it. The federal government is currently far beyond what is permitted by the Constitution. If we wish to keep the current level of government, we need to AMEND the Constitution.
You're wrong about Thomas Jefferson. If he could see the US now, I'm sure he'd want every American to have the freedom to persue her/his dreams. In your America, that would be literally impossible for about a third of our citizens. Jefferson was a kind and excruciatingly moral man, as was Benjamin Franklin and all of our founding fathers.
... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
I think that perhaps you have created in your mind a romanticized idea of what the founding fathers were. Allow me to correct this notion with a few quotes from Thomas Jefferson.
"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power not longer susceptible of any definition."
-February 15,1971
"A wise and frugal government
-Inauagural Address, March 4, 1801
and finally,
"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
The enumerated powers are listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. If you can find a passage that authorizes the federal government to provide welfare, unemployment insurance, Social Security, Medicare, or similar programs, could you please point it out? If it is not listed in Article I, Section 8, it is prohibited by the Tenth Amendment.
We hear your "words of dissent." I'm proud of the fact that in our country, you're free to voice them. But I'm under no obligation to agree with them or speak in a friendly tone. If it were up to you, you would plunge millions of Americans into utter squalor, and kill millions indirectly by cutting them off financially. If people like this ever come to power, there will be civil war, and I'll be the first to enlist.
You will go to war to continue taking my property from me? You remind me of the pirates from years past.
The thing that makes Libertarianism truly insane is that you people don't take the theory to its obvious conclusions. If the government isn't going to be involved in regulating the quality of food, the infrastructure you rely on, and so forth, who is? And will they do it for free? Probably not. You'll wind up paying far more to corporations than you do currently to the government. Do you really want to get separate monthly bills for highway usage, number of minutes spent in the park, pounds of meat analyzed for e. coli, and so forth? Just picture your cell-phone bill and imagine getting one of those for everything you now take for granted.
I'm afraid you chose the worst possible example you could have chosen. My cell phone bill is fine by itself, but then various fees and taxes imposed by my government are tacked on inflating my bill to a much higher number. Check your own bill and I'm sure you'll find the same.
I'm not sure why you think libertarians don't follow their thinking through to conclusions. Most of us do. Without federal agencies looking after these things, there are two possibilities. One is that state agencies (which are far more accountable to individual citizens) will take over. The other is that private companies could do it. In fact, private companies are usually able to do a job that the government does more affordably. The reason is that companies have other companies to worry about. I can't pay my taxes to some other government, but I can certainly choose a different company for my services.
But here's the real stumper: if Libertarians hate government so much, why do they want to get involved with it? It's obvious that you'll never see Libertarians come to power in your lifetime, so why make yourself crazy complaining about taxes and government control? If you hate this government so much, why not take more effective steps to eliminate it? If this Michael Badnarik was actually serious about his ideals, he'd crash a jet airplane into the Pentagon or something. Some guys actually did this already -- Maybe you've read about it.
Most libertarians don't hate government, but only this particular flavor of government. We act because we think we can change government and we do expect to make a difference, but even moreso, we act because we think it is moral and because we have ideals and because we have bigger ideas about government than Republican/Democrat Vietnam/Air National Guard slamfests. We don't attack the Pentagon because we believe that its wrong to deprive an innocent person of life, liberty, or property (unlike you, who would go to war SPECIFICALLY to deprive me of property!).
If you want to live in America, get used to the idea that most people here don't want anarchy -- excuse me, I mean "Libertarianism." I love this country, and anyone actively trying to dismantle its government is my enemy.
Libertarianism is not anarchism. Under libertarianism, people would still have their life, liberty, and property protected by the federal government. I love this country too, Ben. That's why I want it to adhere to the Constitution that our wise founding fathers wrote.
What of the question of Constitutionality, Ben? The federal government is tasked with the things listed in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. The 10th Amendment forbids the federal government from acting in other areas. Do you favor your wealth redistribution programs and all those other programs whether they're Constitutional or not? If so, when the government takes away your First Amendment rights, what moral authority do you have to speak out against it? How is one usurpation of the Constitution any different than another?
Humans, being social creatures, have historically come together to form societies for protection. They understood (as we do now) that, the greater their numbers, the less vulnerable to the warlord of the day they were. There was a time when strong societies were few and far between, and the world was very much "every man for himself"; these are commonly called the dark ages.
In fact, the dark ages were caused by the Church commandeering control of the government. That which contradicted the church was suppressed. This is about as unlibertarian as government gets.
Essentially, they say this: we, as a society, will protect your property and your belongings. We will not do this for free.
Is this similar to gangsters coming by your business to collect protection money?
They do not realize that in being Americans, or indeed, the citizens of any state, they have entered into a contract with its government; they agree to abide by certain rules. This includes paying taxes, even when the government uses that money for causes they disagree with. Because society is not about individuals -- society is about individuals together for their mutual protection.
Certainly there is a social contract involved, but it must be based on the documents that founded our country. If laws are being passed that violate my Constitutional rights, am I to just sit idly by and adhere to them regardless, and give no complaint, and make no effort to change them, or otherwise leave? I assert my right to stay here, petition my government for a redress of my grievances as is my right.
Now, when decisions are made as a society, that means that your personal viewpoint on how things should be is sometimes overruled by the majority, who thinks differently than you do.
Yes, the tyranny of the majority, as I like to call it. Two wolves and a sheep, voting on what's for dinner.
You disagree, and it bothers you that the government should spend your taxes on something you disagree with. But that money is no longer yours. The government did not steal it; you paid that money, to the government -- and in our country, that would be the people -- for the right to be a part of the society. Just as you when you pay rent, you may disagree with what your landlord uses your rent money for -- but he is not stealing it. If you would rather not live there, don't.
I again assert my right to live in this country and petition my government for a redress of grievances. I furthermore maintain that I have a right to call taxation theft or any other thing I wish to call it. When the government usurps the Constitution and uses my money to do so, I call it corrupt and I call it theft, and it is my freedom to do so. We may all vote on whether we ought to kill Joe and take his property to be divied up amongst us, and even give Joe a chance to vote, but having the majority rule in the affirmative doesn't mean that it is just or right for us to go ahead and kill Joe and take his property.
As they say, America -- love it or leave it. Ironically, it is usually the conservatives that say this. But now, I am saying it to you.
But is such divisive language necessary? Why is it that you would not care to hear my words of dissent? Am I not free to speak them?
AC, This is an easy one. Open your Constitution to Article I, Section 8. Here you have listed all the things that the federal government is entitled to do. Anything beyond the things listed here is unconstitutional on the federal level, per the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
AC, If you could only vote for Hitler or Stalin, which would you select and why? Which is a closer match for your vision? Its a Sophie's Choice no matter how you look at it. There are some questions that just cannot be answered.
Don't be so sure about that. Aside from veto power, he has the presidential pardon. He could easily set free all non-violent drug offenders and Congress could do little to stop him. He could also close all the foreign military bases and bring home troops from something like 185 countries. "Exit strategy for Iraq?", he quipped, at the Libertarian Convention. "I'm still waiting for the exit strategy for Japan! Germany! Korea!" That veto power is a big one as well. He could veto any budget that included funding for unconstitutional programs. Sure, they could two-thirds him, but they'd be hard-pressed to get that kind of majority. He could also suspend the operations of the IRS and other agencies pending a review of their constitutionality.
I was referring more to the taxation portion. By the way, he has significant evidence that paying taxes is not required by law and that the IRS has been enforcing bogus laws on people. He also says that the reason he can't sign a tax return is that it requires him to waive his 5th amendment protections, which certainly seems like a valid argument to me. Regarding driver licensing, roads are a difficult issue. One segment of libertarians believe that roads should be privatized, but I'm not quite sure I agree entirely. Its an issue I'm still pondering.
Is Libertarianism really only appropriate for rich, "developed" countries such as the United States?
Absolutely not! A rich developed country like the United States could potentially survive with closed borders (though its still not a good idea) but a country with few natural resources has little choice! Its open borders and free markets, else everybody dies! A country low on natural resources can trade what few resources it does have for resources it desperately needs from other countries, and it can also create a service economy, selling services to its neighbors such as manufacturing finished products from imported raw materials, or answering phones, or numerous other services. If a country with few resources is to survive, it MUST have open borders and free markets!
AC, you're borderline insane. Taxation does not equal socialism, and anyone who disputes this must count nearly every nation in the world, including ours, as socialist
We're more of a mixed economy. Social Security is clearly an indication of socialism, as are numerous other programs.
There's no need for me to house homeless people right now
No? Didn't you just get through telling us about all the people living in abject poverty?
This isn't what the founding fathers had in mind. These were above all moral men, and they founded the country on the ideal that a society could work together while remaining independent. That's the whole fscking idea of United States. Our founding fathers were avid Bible-readers, and the Bible is all about helping the less fortunate.
You're so terribly misinformed that I don't know where to start. There were no welfare programs in their day because they didn't believe in them. They wrote a Constitution which did not allow for welfare programs to be passed. Indeed, the 10th Amendment strictly prohibits federal welfare programs. It is only a usurping of the Constitution which has allowed these to come into existence. Furthermore, most of our founding fathers were Deists, not Christians.
But may I suggest that if you hate paying taxes so much, why not found your own republic? Our founding fathers did, and they were in their mid-twenties. There seem to be enough far-right-wing-nutjobs like you lurking on slashdot to put together a minor revolution.
Libertarians are not right wing. Right wing persons favor economic freedom and government control over social issues. Libertarians favor economic freedom and social freedom.
Look at it this way, Ben. If I make 12 dollars an hour and you impose a tax on me of 15 percent, I have to labor for 312 hours in slavery to pay off that tax. Then you take that money stolen from me and you give it to a person who hasn't earned it, and you call this justice. This is many things, but justice it is not. Look, if I get mugged in the streets by a criminal, do I really care who the mugger gives my money to, good cause or not? Of course not! He mugged me and stole my money! Why would I feel any differently if its my government doing the mugging?
When law is corrupt, isn't a lawbreaker the opposite of corrupt? Or should the Jews have cheerfully boarded the trains to the camps?
As we all know, liberals favor freedom in social issues and control over economic issues while conservatives favor freedom in economic issues and control over social issues. However, increasingly it seems that both liberals and conservatives are tilting toward authoritarianism. Bush has signed into law various entitlement programs, as well as trade tariffs, and Democrats rarely criticize the War on Drugs any longer.
Do you think this shift toward authoritarianism by both major parties will result in a paradigm shift in the country where we no longer discuss liberalism vs. conservatism but rather, authoritarianism vs. libertarianism, and if so, would this allow the Libertarian Party to finally get the recognition it has worked hard for over the past few decades, or are we stuck with this conservatism vs. liberalism battle for ages to come?
They used to be AT&T until mid 2003
Er, not exactly. Comcast was already providing service to many customers and bought ATT's broadband division to expand their coverage and customer base.
I'm glad you grasp my point and I'm equally glad that you have discovered another application of it.
If you can't read Dutch, don't pretend that you can. Frackers.com has added an update today to straighten out the people who pretend to speak Dutch.
;-)
UPDATE, January 27
Some information for English speaking visitors to this blog that got here through the Slashdot-article: just to get the story straight, the boxes in the picture on my site are similar to the ones that were featured in this week's PC World. There's nothing secret about these devices: they connect your tv to your home network. As I understand, they were seen all over this year's CES. What I wrote below in the original (Dutch) posting was that the Strangeberry guys drove to Fry's one day to buy the components to build these kind of devices. And that they managed to do so pretty quickly; meaning that these are smart guys and also that there's not much of a barrier to entry in this market - providing there is a market. I never meant to imply or infer that these were the kind of machines Strangeberry was actually developing as their core business, just that they are working on technology for this space. As the official Tivo statement says: 'Strangeberry has created technology (...) designed to enable the development of new broadband-based content delivery services.' And as you can judge by the resumes of the Strangeberry guys, they are software specialists, not hardware guys. Just to be clear: I am not associated with Strangeberry in any way. I am just a friend of Arthur's, as I wrote on my personal blog about the acquisition of Smartberry by Tivo. Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Makes me think of doing this media & technology blog in English... nah, too much work, and this was supposed to be a hobby
http://www.frackers.com/2003/11/10/000035.html
I think you also forget that the US is the only country in the western world where providing a decent level of healthcare for everyone is treated with contempt. Last time I checked, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, etc were all in the "real world".
No one is entitled to live off the labor of another without his consent. Universal healthcare funded by taxes taken at the point of a gun is exactly that.
Except that Walmart ISN'T a monopoly, not even close. Everything found in Walmart is sold in thousands of other stores. A strong business is not necessarily a monopoly.
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache:DvnGUlUZgusJ: www.hpl.hp.com/shl/papers/social/social.pdf+orkut+ invite&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Google has street cred now? WTF?
No wonder that guy keeps bitching about "Where are the jobs?"
"might as well put the vids in RealVideo format"
This is a technique commonly referred to as "sarcasm". The parent commenter is not satisfied with either Quicktime OR Real formats, and would prefer a format that was less shittay.
Sometimes progress is just so cliche.
"Seriously, it seems like people in the US pretty much always vote what they always voted, simply because that's the camp they feel they belong to... Nothing's ever going to change that way."
If that were true there would be little difference in the way the vote turns out and landslides would be non-existant. Sure, there's always a certain number of people that will always vote Democrat, Republican, or in my case, Libertarian, but there's a large portion of swing voters that aren't loyal to either party. Both of the major parties cater to this swing vote. This catering is what brought about the so-called "compassionate conservatism".
Did you just choose submitting an article to /. over working?